Last (x) movies you saw (II)

American Animals - a heist movie about four idiot college students who decide to steal some extremely rare books from a Kentucky university. The fictional version is interspersed with interviews with the real thieves in a very interesting way.

bummed I miss that one when it was in town

Death on the Nile (Guillermin, 1978) 5/10
Milford Graves Full Mantis (Meginsky & Young, 2018) 8/10
Cold War (Pawlikowski, 2018) 7/10
BlacKKKlansman (Lee, 2018) 8/10
The Magician aka The Face (Bergman, 1958) 8/10
American Animals (Layton, 2018) 6/10
Monsieur Verdoux (Chaplin, 1947) 7/10
Nostalgia for the Light (Guzman, 2010) 6/10
Man Hunt (Lang, 1941) 8/10
Worlds of Ursula K Le Guin (Curry, 2018) 6/10
Faces Places (Varda & JR, 2017) 5/10
Raw Deal (Irvin, 1986) 6/10
The Trial (Welles, 1962) 8/10
Hell up in Harlem (Cohen, 1973) 6/10

Damn missed that Milford Graves doc!!

I think it had a little mini-tour of UK arthouses - one (packed) screening in Glasgow w/ Meginsky doing a Q&A after (couldn't stay for that). Hope you get to see it xyzzzz, think you will dig it - no stupid talking heads or extravagant art/historical claims, great footage and just the pleasure of Graves himself, definitely full mantis.

That's a relief on the content, ward! Yeah there were a couple of showings at the ICA, def try and pick up a screening or the DVD soon.

Faces Places (Varda & JR, 2017) - this was sweet (in the sense that I like Varda as a companion, as a voice and presence) but I couldn't stomach JR and their project was only interesting because of what (the little) Varda laid on it. JLG was right not to meet them! (and surely Varda played it up?)
Climax (Noe, 2017) - I like that this 50 year old guy just wants to be around young dancers. Why not? (and as for the interview scenes I didn't know La Mama et La Putain had been issued on VHS, nice touch)

The Emigrants (Troell, 1971) - 10/10
He Got Game (Lee, 1998) - 9/10
Perfect Blue (Kon, 1997) - 9/10
Love in the Afternoon (Wilder, 1957) - 9/10
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941) - 10/10
La Strada (Fellini, 1954) - 7/10
The New Land (Troell, 1972) - 10/10
Under Capricorn (Hitchcock, 1949) - 4/10
Sweet Charity (Fosse, 1969) - 8/10

I watched The Emigrants and The New Land a week apart and couldn't believe at first that Troell shot & edited The Emigrants, too. The New Land is so much riskier & more stylized than The Emigrants, which is harrowing but played relatively straight. Both fantastic obviously... I think it does show something fundamental about America and the people that came here.

I'm currently reading philosopher David Benatar's Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence, which argues that being born at all is always a serious harm, procreation is always wrong, it is wrong not to abort fetuses at the earlier stages of gestation, and it would be better if humanity became extinct. He's really relentless about presenting his case, and as a result I'm finding lines like "In the coming chapter, I show that (with the exception of real pessimists, who may have an accurate view of how bad their lives are) people's lives are much worse than they think" surprisingly funny in context.

Anyway, I say that to say this: Destination Wedding, a movie starring Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder as two horrible people invited to the titular occasion (he's the groom's half-brother, she's the groom's ex-fiancée), made me laugh really, really hard. At one point, Reeves and Ryder's characters have a long discussion that covers all the major themes of the book: there's no such thing as love, existence is pointless and they both would have been better off having never been born, and on and on. I really started to wonder if it was a remake of a French movie at one point. Anyway, if that sounds like your idea of fun, it's free on Amazon Prime.

Star Trek: Generations (1994) 2.5/5
Star Trek: First Contact (1996) 2/5
The Sisters Brothers (2018) 3/5
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) 3.5/5
* No Country for Old Men 5/5
* The Age of Innocence 4.5/5
Boxing Gym (2010) 4/5
The Breaking Point (1950) 4/5
Uncle Yanco (1967) 3.5/5
Taipei Story (1985) 4/5

*The Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Waititi, 2016) - 8/10
Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, 1939) - 10/10
Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky, 1966) - 10/10
Game Night (Daley & Goldstein, 2018) - 4/10
500 Days of Summer (Webb, 2009) - 3/10
Tully (Reitman, 2018) - 5/10
20th Century Women (Mills, 2016) - 6/10
*American Graffiti (Lucas, 1973) - 5/10
A Wrinkle in Time (DuVernay, 2018) - 1/10
The Stranger (Welles, 1946) - 8/10

The Magic Christian (1969, McGrath) 4/10
Hotel by the River (2018, Hong) 7/10
*The Odd Couple (1968, Saks) 8/10
Diamantino (2018, Abrantes, Schmidt) 7/10
High Life (2018, Denis) 5/10
Ash Is Purest White (2018, Jia) 8/10
Sorry Angel (2018, Honore) 7/10
Her Smell (2018, Perry) 4/10
The Other Side of the Wind (2018, Welles) 6/10
*F for Fake (1973, Welles) 7/10
BlacKkKlansman (2018, Lee) 5/10
*Smithereens (1982, Seidelman) 7/10

Tell me more about Hotel by the River.

no soju until the last 10 minutes

more concerned with death and family than sex

Speaking of sex, you thought the Denis just okay too.

xp I see that it stars Kim Min-hee. I'm in!

at least 3 actors are onscreen more than she; it's an ensemble piece

Jeff, Who Lives At Home. A whole movie about Susan Sarandon's character would have been better than following her two asshole sons around all day.

Madam Satan (de Mille, 1930)
Maniac (Esper, (1934)
Swing You Sinners (Fleischer, 1930)
The Seven Castles of the Devil (Zecca, 1904)
The Great Toe Mystery (Avery, 1914)
The Haunted House (Disney, 1929)
Adam's Apple (Whelan, 1928)
Bacon Grabbers (Foster, 1929)
The Spider (MacKenna & Menzies, 1931)
Enchanted Glasses (de Chomon, 1907)
The Haunted House (Keaton & Cline, 1921)

Did I ever mention 1987: When The Day Comes? It's really good.

you thought the Denis just okay too.

I wouldn't go that far. Maybe "disappointing" and "nuts."

Festival haul:

Florianopolis Dream (Katz)
The Rider (Zhao)
Diamantinos (Abrantes & Schmidt)
Sympathy for the Devil (Godard)
Girl (Dhont)
Madeline’s Madeline (Decker)
And Breathe Normally (Uggadóttir)
Holiday (Eklöf)
Dear Son (Ben Attia)
Those Who Work (Russbach)
Blind Spot (Novotny)
I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians (Jude)
Grass (Hong)
Our Time (Reygadas)
Lifeboat (Kirkeskov)
The Image Book (Godard)
Zama (Martel)
Too Late to Die Young (Sotomayor)
Puzzle (Turtletaub)
Amateurs (Pichler)
Asako I & II (Hamaguchi)
One Day (Szilagyi)
In My Room (Köhler)
Mirai (Hosada)
Boys Cry (D’Innocenzo & D’Innocenzo)
Ash is the Purest White (Jia)
When the Trees Fall (Nikitiuk)
Long Days Journey Into Night (Bi)
Donbass (Loznitsa)
Rojo (Naishtat)
Nervous Translation (Seno)
First Reformed (Schrader)
Ruben Brandt, Collector (Krstic)
Ága (Lazarov)
Khook (Haghighi)*
We the Animals (Zagar)

Keep an eye out for Nervous Translation and When the Trees Fall, those were the two biggest surprises. Many others are predictably great. Some slight disappointments.

update before lff starts, seeing asako I & II this evening!

Assault on Precinct 13 (Carpenter, 1976) 7/10
The Lady Vanishes (Hitchcock, 1938) 6/10
39 Steps (Hitchcock, 1935) 7/10
The Mask of Dimitros (Negulesco, 1944) 8/10
Faces Places (Varda, JR, 2017) 7/10
The Saddest Music in the World (Maddin, 2004) 7/10
My Man Godfrey (La Cava, 1936) 8/10
Faust (Murnau, 1926) 9/10
Maison du Bonheur (Bohdanowicz, 2017) 6/10
Where is the Friends Home? (Kiarostami, 1987) 8/10
The Stranger (Welles, 1946) 8/10
His Girl Friday (Hawks, 1940) 9/10
Sunrise: a Song of Two Humans (Murnau, 1927) 10/10
Othello (Welles, 1951) 7/10
A City of Sadness (Hou, 1989) 9/10
The Mission (To, 1999) 7/10
The Small World of Sammy Lee (Hughes, 1963) 8/10
Late Spring (Ozu, 1949) 10/10

i think there maaay be a few more 10s in that list

you might be right, i'm fairly certain a laptop screen is not the best way to experience Faust.

curious what you thought of the Bi Gan, Frederik?

Teen Titans Go To The Movies

turned up on a torrent site yesterday. I used to watch the tv series about 10 years ago.
I think this wanted to be a Lego Movie type deal not quite taht good but some of it was quite amusing.

^ the series started five years ago and is still running

curious what you thought of the Bi Gan, Frederik?

― devvvine, 10. oktober 2018 17:44 (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's... definitely a trip, that final hour is pretty incredible. But I don't get why Bi Gan all of a sudden wanted to make such a noir-pastiche, and what the point of that is supposed to be. I watched Kaili Blues as preparation, and it's a much more humble film, but it honestly gave me much more to think about.

Sic could you possibly go and get a fixation on somebody else ?

TV series I was watching started in 2003.
So as i said I was watching it about 10 years ago

The Killing of Sister George (Aldrich, 1968) 7/10
The Post (Spielberg, 2017) 6/10
BlacKkKlansman (Lee, 2018) 8/10
Deadpool 2 (Leitch, 2018) 5/10
Somewhere in the Night (Mankiewicz, 1946) 7/10
*Inside Llewyn Davis (Coen Brothers, 2013) 10/10
The Golden Coach (Renoir, 1952) 8/10
Cry-Baby (Waters, 1990) 9/10
How to Talk to Girls at Parties (Cameron-Mitchell, 2017) 3/10
Avengers Infinity War (Russo Brothers, 2018) 4/10
Enter the Void (Noe, 2009) 5/10
General della Rovere (Rosellini, 1959) 9/10
Hysteria (Wexler, 2011) 7/10

Inside Llewyn Davis is the best Coen Bros. film, change my mind

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
The Hidden Fortress
Lucy

the strange depiction of american communists in Hail Caesar soured me on those moments in ILD.

The Sisters Brothers (Audiard, 2018)
Menace (Murphy, 1934)
The Infernal Cauldron (Melies, 1903)
Felix the Cat Switches Witches (Messmer, 1927)
Felix the Ghost Breaker (Messmer, 1923)
The Non-Stop Fright (Messmer, 1927)
Mandy (Cosmatos, 2018)
Sculls and Skulls (Messmer, 1930)
Legend of a Ghost (de Chomon, 1908)
The Atomic Soldiers (Knibbe, 2018)
The Atomic Cafe (Rafferty, Loader, & Rafferty, 1982)

Searching (Aneesh Chaganty, 2018) 6
Chopping Mall (Wynorski, 1986) 6
Demolition Man (Brambilla, 1993) 5; good jokes, boring action. the character with 90s nostalgia has a Red Hot Chili Peppers poster lol.

watching too much TV to watch movies

Frederik, was the hour-long shot of Long Day's Journey in 3D when you saw it? If so, what was that like?

if this Bi Gan is anything like Kaili Blues then I think I will love it. The blurring of boundaries between past, present and future in that film was incredible, as was the concept of a 40 minute take that included the protagonist traveling on the back of the motorbike. The only director whose sensibility comes close to his I think is Weerasethakul Apitchatpong

or rather Apitchatpong Weerasethakul

Y’all we need to talk about Venom. Despite a generic plot and some truly abysmal CGI, I...kinda loved it? Tom Hardy almost singlehandedly pulls the movie out of mediocrity and makes it a blast to watch. He’s channeling some vintage Nic Cage gonzo energy and it rules so hard. It’s like he’s beamed in from another universe while everyone else is acting as if they’re in a regular comic book movie. And bizarrely, it works for the character. I did not expect this outcome at all!

Also saw Bad Times at the Tarantino Inn or whatever it’s called. It was pretty good, though maybe a smidge too long and it kinda stumbles a bit in the last act. Slickly directed, though. Worth seeing!

Re-watching my Japanese Blu-Ray of Charley Varrick tonight (the only way to see it in its original aspect ratio on a US machine; the domestic DVD is 1.33:1 for some goddamn reason). One of the best movies of the Seventies. Walter Matthau's whole mini-career as an action hero was so weird and awesome.

Rodin
'R Xmas
Police Judiciare
Between Worlds
Mom And Dad
Faust (Sokurov)
Blue Collar
Le Concierge

I Vitelloni (Fellini, 1953) - 8/10
Mon Oncle (Tati, 1958) - 9/10
Reality Bites (Stiller, 1994) - 5/10
Zodiac (Fincher, 2007) - 8/10
Collateral (Mann, 2004) - 9/10
Goodfellas (Scorsese, 1990) - 7/10
La Dolce Vita (Fellini, 1960) - 9/10
The Love Parade (Lubitsch, 1929) - 8/10
Boyhood (Linklater, 2014) - 9/10
The Departed (Scorsese, 2006) - 8/10
Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky, 1966) - 8/10
Road Trip (Philips, 2000) - 2/10
8½ (Fellini, 1963) - 10/10

Frederik, was the hour-long shot of Long Day's Journey in 3D when you saw it? If so, what was that like?

if this Bi Gan is anything like Kaili Blues then I think I will love it. The blurring of boundaries between past, present and future in that film was incredible, as was the concept of a 40 minute take that included the protagonist traveling on the back of the motorbike. The only director whose sensibility comes close to his I think is Weerasethakul Apitchatpong

― Dan S, 15. oktober 2018 01:40 (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, it was in 3D and it was used very well. I don't think anything was coming out of the screen, it's just used to make this dark, dreamy world appear even more different. I'm very happy to have seen that part.

Solo: A Star Wars Story 1.5/5
Leave No Trace (2018) 4/5
Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010) 1/5
Game Night 3/5
* Gun Crazy (1950) 4/5
Italianamerican (1974) 3.5/5

in theaters September & October so far:

Puzzle (Turtletaub, 2018) - 4/10
California Split (Altman, 1974 / 35mm) - 10/10
A Simple Favor (Feig, 2018) - 5/10
Life Itself (Fogelman, 2018) - 0/10 <----- this is a bizarre and unintentionally hilarious/horrifying failure, honestly worth checking out
Love, Gilda (Dapolito, 2018) - 6/10
Sawdust and Tinsel (Bergman, 1953) - 9/10
Blaze (Hawke, 2018) - 2/10
Lolita (Kubrick, 1962 / 35mm) - 7/10
A Star is Born (Cooper, 2018) - 5/10
First Man (Chazelle, 2018) - 6/10
22 July (Greengrass, 2018) - 1/10
Chinatown (Polanski, 1974) - 10/10

I watched California Split over the weekend (2nd time seeing it). Probably my fave Altman. The tinge of desperation despite all the camaraderie and hi-jinks. 10/10 for sure

a single shot makes the whole movie: after they've won at the end, and elliott gould is collecting the money all excited, and then it cuts to that wide shot of the empty bar slowly zooming into george segal sitting in the other room, morning light pouring in, completely dejected.

22 July (Greengrass, 2018) - 1/10

i feel like this is the exact type of film i hate to see, just basically a faithful recreation of the mass murders of a bunch of kids. I liked Bloody Sunday and Paul G's Bourne flicks but I ain't gonna see this one.

I was relieved that, while the attack is dramatized in full, it's only the first 25 minutes of the movie. most of it is about the aftermath & trial. still, exploitative and horrible, yes. it's also 143 minutes (!!)

Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me (2014, Keach) 6/10
*Hard Times (1975, Hill) 8/10
The Stork Club (1945, Walker) 5/10
Transit (2018, Petzold) 4/10
*O Fantasma (2000, Rodrigues) 8/10
Golden Exits (2017, Perry) 6/10
The Image Book (2018, Godard) 8/10
Sharky’s Machine (1981, Reynolds) 6/10
Your Face (2018, Tsai) 7/10
Come Back Little Shiksa (1953, Lewis) (39m) 6/10