Last (x) movies you saw (II)

er, The Fly is 1958.

Hereditary 2.5/5
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) 3.5/5
* The Wicker Man (1973) 4/5
* Suspiria (1977) 4/5
* Cure (1997) 4/5
Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) 3/5
Spotlight (2015) 3.5/5
Venom 2/5

I Am Not a Witch(Nyoni, 2018), 7/10
Sorry to Bother You (Riley, 2018) 7/10
Cold War (Pawlikowski, 2018) 5/10
Mandy(Cosmatos, 2018)
Wildlife (Dano, 2018) 7/10
A Star is Born (Cooper, 2018) 5/10
The Guardians (Beauvois, 20218) 7/10
Burning(Lee, 2018) 8/10
Leave No Trace (Granik, 2018) 7/10
Museo (Ruizpalacios, 2018) 7/10
Support the Girls (Bujalski, 2018) 6/10
Love Songs (Honoré, 2007) 7/10
La Vie de Bohème (Kaurismaki, 1992) 8/10
High School (Wiseman, 1969) 8/10
* Richard III (Olivier, 1956) 7/10
* The Little Foxes (Wyler, 1941) 5/10
* Stage Door (La Cava, 1937) 9/10

film fest

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (Gilliam)
The Raft (Lindeen)
Fortuna (Roaux)
The Waldheim Waltz (Beckermann)
Jean-François and the Meaning of Life (Portabella)
Mug (Szumowska)
You Go To My Head (de Clerq)
Studio Bankside (Jarman)
Journey to Avebury (Jarman)
Tarot (Jarman)
Sulphur (Jarman)
Sloane Square (Jarman)
Sebastian Wrap (Jarman)
Waiting for Waiting for Godot (Jarman)
Electric Fairy (Jarman)
Departure (Wüst)
The Blot (Weber)
The Chaotic Life of Nada Kadić (Hernaiz Pidal)
*The Ornithologist (Rodrigues)
The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (von Trotta)
Shoplifters (Kore-ada)
Birds of Passage (Guerra & Gallego)
Marquis de Wavrin: From the Manor to the Jungle (Winter & Plantier)
A Woman Captured (Tuza-Ritter)
Roobha (Sivam)
Burning (Lee)
Isabelle (Heydon)
Touch Me Not (Pintilie)
*Le Mepris (Godard)
Happy as Lazzaro (Rohrwacher)
The Silence of Others (Carracedo & Bahar)
Is That You? (Riverón Sánchez)
Trees Down Here (Rivers)
Snow (Jones)
A Year Along the Abandoned Road (Skallerud)
3 Days in Quiberon (Atef)
Eastern Memories (Kullström & Kaartinen)
The Skier (Najafi)
The Image Book (Godard)
The Image You Missed (Foreman)
Monsters and Men (Green)
Roma (Cuarón)

How is Birds of Passage? Been offered an interview with one of the directors, still wondering if I want to work on it.

Thoughts on Mug? I liked it quite a lot. Quite surprised by it.

and Gilliam's Quixote? it of the 25-year wait?

Birds of passage was cool tho I think I preferred guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent - this may have been the film I was most tired during* so I think I was a little impatient with some of the more inevitable genre story turns. There are certainly enough things that make it atypical, and it’s well done.

Mug was a highlight for sure, loved the grim humour, the stylistic gimmick, the way they shot the construction site

The Gilliam - well bearing in mind I’ve been assuming for years that this would be a shitshow if it ever got made, I ended up surprised at how successfully they pulled it off. Obv not worth 25 years, or 2.5 hours for that matter. It’s definitely better than the Johnny Depp version would have been, not just because of driver vs depp - I didn’t know this going in but they’ve made a couple of major changes to the original premise that not only make it less awful and misconceived but bring it closer to the spirit of Cervantes’s novel. So props I guess for credibly updating Quixote, which is kinda miraculous in itself, there’s just the slight problem that the film is nothing special

Oh yeah the asterisk: I was just proud to get through a festival without once nodding off tbh

Btw I should say Gilliam was a surprise guest at the screening and seemed quite aware of the film’s flaws (in particular its length) and was imploring people not to watch it as a 25-years-in-the-making culmination of a life’s work, but just as another movie

Rosa Luxemburg (1986, von Trotta) 6/10
Wildlife (2018, Dano) 7/10
*After Hours (1985, Scorsese) 8/10
Kuroneko (1968, Shindo) 9/10
The Dam Busters (1955, Anderson) 7/10
*Prime Cut (1972, Ritchie) 7/10
I, Jane Doe (1948, Auer) 5/10
The Oblong Box (1969, Hessler) 6/10
Exit Smiling (1926, Taylor) 7/10
*Silent Movie (1976, Brooks) 6/10

*The Ornithologist
*Le Mepris

-imo the last films in that list you should be nodding off to!

that's not what the asterisks mean, i don't think

i've always intensely disliked Le Mepris; had contempt for it, you could say.

really? I haven't seen every Godard film, but so far it's my favorite

hetero lovers fighting constantly -- blechhh

Yeah I guess but I was just turned off by the casual, romantic depiction of crime in Breathless and overall thought Contempt was a much better film

Godard is the ultimate *straight* director though

second rental from the brand new video store (!!!):

Pierrot le Fou
La Captive
Beau Travail
Hush.... Hush, Sweet Charlotte

got the Godard because Akerman said that seeing it as a child made her want to be a filmmaker. very excited for La Captive, most recent non-doc Akerman I've tracked down. only Denis I've seen are White Material (eh) and Let the Sunshine In (fantastic). consensus is Beau Travail is her best, yes? and the Aldrich I've wanted to see for a while and seen referenced often (most recently in a book about Nashville session musicians).

The Captive is the best Proust adaptation I've seen after Ruiz's.

Beau Travail not in my top 5 Denis

The Curse of the Cat People (von Fritsch & Wise, 1944)
The Haunted Castle (Smith, 1897)
Mr. W's Little Game (Shores, 1934)
Bimbo's Initiation (Fleischer & Natwick, 1931)
*Under a Spell (Smith, 1925)
Her Defiance (King & Madison, 1916)
The Cardboard Lover (Leonard, 1928)
*The Navigator (Crisp & Keaton, 1924)
Beauty's Worth (Vignola, 1922)
*Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Reisner & Keaton, 1928)
L'Inferno (de Liguoro & Bertolini, 1911)
*Safety Last (Newmeyer & Taylor, 1923)
*Show People (Vidor, 1928)
When Knighthood Was in Flower (Vignola, 1922)

xp morbs what are your top 5 Denis

lady gaga bradley cooper movie - it was ok..? i can already barely remember it. i guess on second thought, it sucked
basic instinct (verhoeven) - this was maybe the most enjoyment i've had watching a movie in a year
deep red (argento) - good, yet often boring when not slashy. sickchops prog soundtrack
andrei rublev (tarkovsky) - v good, didn't actually feel long at 3h perhaps because every terrible hollywood action movie is 2.5h?

flappy, w/out rewatching or thinking too hard

35 Rhums
Chocolat
Let the Sunshine In
Nenette et Boni
Friday Night

well, bless your heart, we finally agree *reaches for smoothie*

thou dost exaggerate, honeybunch

The Bench (Fly)*
The Inheritance (Fly)*
Manslaughter (Fly)*
Forestillinger (Fly)
The Woman Who Dreamt of a Man (Fly)
Monica Z (Fly)
Aftermath (Steen)
That Time of Year (Steen)
Art History (Swanberg)
Drinking Buddies (Swanberg)
Thou Wast Mild and Lovely (Decker)*
The White Reindeer (Blomberg)
The Harvest Month (Kassila)
Inspector Palmu’s Error (Kassila)
1. April 2000 (Liebeneiner)
Flamenco (Neville)
Main Street (Bardem)
Pickpocket (Jia)
Still Life (Jia)
Kaili Blues (Bi)
Wolf Children (Hosada)*
The Boy and the Beast (Hosada)*
A Page of Madness (Kinugasa)
Blue (Jarman)
El Movimiento (Naishtat)
The Dead Nation (Jude)
Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
Le Plaisir (Ophüls)
Christopher Robin (Forster)

Tale of Cinema (Hong, 2005) 8/10
Cat People (Tourneur, 1942) 7/10
In The Mood for Love (Wong, 2000) 9/10
The Childhood of a Leader (Corbet 2015) 7/10
*A Brighter Summer Day (Yang, 1991) 10/10
The Other Side of the Wind (Welles, 2018) 6/10 - the unrestored version the great minds at netflix put up on the first day
The Spirit of the Beehive (Erice, 1973) 9/10
Love's Crucible (Sjöström, 1922) 9/10
Freaks (Browning, 1932) 6/10
Robocop (Verhoeven, 1987) 7/10
Winchester 73' (Mann, 1950) 8/10
The Woman in the Window (Lang, 1944) 7/10
Mandy (Cosmatos, 2018) 5/10
Emitai (Sembene, 1971) 8/10
*The Other Side of the Wind (Welles, 2018) 8/10
The Power of Kangwon Province (Hong, 1998) 9/10
Hotel by the River (Hong, 2018) 7/10

Fred what did you think of Drinking Buddies? I saw that at a fest 5+ years ago and it remains one of the worst movies I've seen this decade.

dev thank you for the Spirit of the Beehive reminder, I haven't watched that in 10 years and just found my copy buried in my basement last night.

oh yeah - has anyone seen the new Suspiria? I'm not a fan of the original, but I'm intrigued by the new one being described as more of a "cover version" than a remake - I'm getting heavy Blade Runner 2049 vibes from everything I've heard.

Drinking Buddies is... kinda okay? Utterly uninteresting and a really boring way for Swanberg to develop. But what did you so dislike about it?

his loose/improv dialogue style didn't work at all with those actors. I don't like mumblecore in the first place and that one felt like a gigantic waste of time and money - it felt like watching an awkward rehearsal.

The Curse of Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles with the West (Wong, 1917)
Mabel's Blunder (Normand, 1914)
Caught in a Cabaret (Normand, 1914)
Cendrillon (Melies, 1899)
The Ancient Law (Dupont, 1923)
*Seven Chances (Keaton, 1925)
*Mare Nostrum (Ingram, 1926)
*Corporal Kate (Sloane, 1926)
Barbed Wire (Lee, 1927)
Lilac Time (Fitzmaurice, 1928)

I thought "Neon Demon" was a fantastic "Suspiria" cover version.

Good point - and I liked Neon Demon a lot and don't like Suspiria at all.

The Thing (Carpenter, 1982) - 9/10
Veronika Voss (Fassbinder, 1982) - 8/10
Lola (Fassbinder, 1981) - 8/10
Ten (Kiarostami, 2002) - 10/10
Wings (Shepitko, 1966) - 5/10
10 on Ten (Kiarostami, 2004) - 10/10
The Fortune Cookie (Wilder, 1966) - 7/10
Dekalog V (Kieslowski, 1988) - 8/10
Fellini Satyricon (Fellini, 1969) - 7/10
Dekalog VI (Kieslowski, 1988) - 9/10
Man is Not a Bird (Makavejev, 1965) - 8/10
Pierrot le Fou (Godard, 1965) - 6/10
Dekalog VII (Kieslowski, 1988) - 10/10
Dick (Fleming, 1999) - 6/10
Topsy-Turvy (Leigh, 1999) - 9/10

* The Devils (censored version; 1971)
Burning (2018) 3.5/5
Vampire’s Kiss (1988) 3/5
* I Waked with a Zombie (1943) 4/5
* Mikey and Nicky (1976) 4/5
Cluny Brown (1946) 4/5
* Theatre of Blood (1973) 3.5/5
Derek (2008) 3/5
Belfast, Maine (1999) 4.5/5

on track to get 31 scary films into a, let's say, six-week Halloween period

made it to 30 in six weeks. here's October 19th to November 10th:

* Nightmare On Elm Street (Craven 1984) 📺
Entertainment (Alverson, Turkington, Heidecker 2015) 🏋️
Life After Beth (Baena 2014) 📺
I Am Road Comic (Brady 2014) 📺
The Happy House (Young 2013) 📺
The Cat And The Canary (Reni, Cohn, Anthony, Hill, after Willard 1927) [Photoplay restoration projected with live organist. Organ also recently restored. Organist original.]
Slice (Vesely 2018) 📺
The Nightmare Before Christmas (Selick, Elfman, Thompson, McDowell & Burton 1993) 4DX 😞
Summer Of '84 (Simard, Whissell, Whissell, Leslie, Smith 2018) 📺
Hearts Beat Loud (Haley, Basch, DeWitt 2018) 📺
Society (Yuzna, Keith, Fry 1989) 📽️ 35mm
Piranha (Dante, Sayles, Robinson 1978) 📺
The Stranger (Welles, Trivas, Veiller, Huston, Dunning 1946) 📺
Yabu no Naka no Kuroneko (Shindo 1968) 📽️ 35mm

I guess you could count Entertainment as a horror film tbh. 31!

What does the weight lifter emoji mean?

watched it in chunks at the YMCA while climbing non-existent hills

Anything Goes (1936, Milestone) 6/10
Artists & Models (1937, Walsh) 5/10
Burning (2018, Lee) 7/10
They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (2018, Neville) 7/10
Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951, Lupino) 6/10
Monrovia, Indiana (2018, Wiseman) 8/10
*Ossessione (1943, Visconti) 9/10
*Orson Welles: The One-Man Band (1995, Silovic) 6/10
Sisters, or The Balance of Happiness (1979, von Trotta) 7/10
*Family Plot (1976, Hitchcock) 7/10

The Blob (1958)

Completely classic monster-from-space movie, with the perfectly odd titular blob oozing around killing people, and a nice setup for the killings at the beginning. It feels like a template for various other viral outbreak horror stories that followed in its wake, and it's a very swift 82 minutes slowed only by a couple of conversation scenes in the first act. It's fairly suspenseful in place, though obviously not grisly. However, the unstated fact that the blob has turned red because it's been consuming and dissolving humans is a nice touch.

McQueen is great, he doesn't look anymore like a teenager than he did when he played the Cooler King or Frank Bullitt but he's fully committed to the role and he delivers some great ridiculous dialogue as if it means something.

Best throwaway line (spoken by one police officer about another who's tired of these troublemaking teens): "Just because some kid smacks into your wife on the turnpike doesn't make it a crime to be 17 years old!"

I like how dark the backgrounds of the outside scenes are, like it was made for drive-ins.

is there a "Good books about movies" thread? not fiction, not biographies, I'm looking for anything on the beginning of cinema, early cinema, history of cinema as a sociological phenomenon, & the history of movie theaters. Grazi

The Blob has a great theme song too

...composed by Burt Bacharach

The Great Beauty - (Sorrentino, 2013) - 7/10 - empty
Anomalisa - (Kaufman/Johnson, 2016) - 5/10 - annoying
Sherlock Jr - (Keaton, 1924) - 10/10 - lol
Mandy - (Cosmatos, 2018) - 9/10 - swirly
Moonlight - (Jenkins, 2017) - 6/10 - oscar-bait

Linda (Davenport, 1929)
Bridal Bail (Stevens, 1934)
The Last Laugh (Murnau, 1924)
Carmen (Lubitsch, 1918)
*Flesh and the Devil (Brown 1926)
*The General (Keaton and Bruckman, 1926)
Salt Water Daffy (McCarey, 1933)
*A Woman of the World (St. Clair, 1925)
Heart to Heart (Beaudine, 1928)

Moi, un Noir (1958) 3/5
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) 2.5/5
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs 2/5
Paris Was a Woman (1996) 2.5/5
I Called Him Morgan (2016) 3.5/5
They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (2018) 3/5
Mad Love (1935) 4/5
A Page of Madness (1926) 3.5/5

I just saw Upgrade. It was pretty good! Clever b-movie premise, great execution for what must have been a low budget. Reminded me a bit of the original Terminator, or maybe Robocop, if it was directed by David Cronenberg.

the best film of the year only better on rewatch

Burning (Lee, 2018) 7/10
The Curse of the Cat People (von Fritsch, Wise, 1944) 7/10
Terminator (Cameron, 1984) 6/10
Terminator 2 (Cameron, 1991) 4/10
They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (Neville, 2018) 4/10
Bigger than Life (Ray, 1956) 8/10
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Coen, Coen, 2018) 6/10
*Claire's Camera (Hong, 2017) 9/10
My Night at Maud's (Rohmer, 1969) 10/10

Klute is free on Amazon Prime, so I watched that last night. The extremely giallo-esque score in the Jane Fonda-is-stalked-by-the-killer scenes was what stuck out to me the most. That, and the scenes between Fonda and Roy Scheider.