Last (x) movies you saw (II)

Picking up from under the long white beard of this thread. We should be able to get a few years out of this one before it gets unwieldy.

Kicking off, here's my July 15th to 31st:

* The Thomas Crown Affair (Jewison, 1968) 📽️
* Bullitt (first three or four reels until the second projector broke: one had already died during Thomas Crown) (Yates, 1968) 📽️
Blade II (del Toro, 2002)
Ibiza (Richanbach, 2018) 📺
Hands Across The Table (Leisen, 1935) 📽️
* Bullitt (went back to see the latter reels) (Yates, 1968) 📽️
Leave No Trace (Granik, 2018)
Adult Beginners (Katz, 2014) 📺
The Apple (Golan, 1980)
* My Man Godfrey (La Cava,1936) 📽️
Blindspotting (Lopez Estrada, 2018)
Eighth Grade (Burnham,2018)
* Ronin (Frankenheimer, 1998) 📽️
To Live & Die In LA (Friedkin, 1985) 📽️
Across The Universe (Taymor, 2007)

The film ones were all on 35mm. The TV (streaming) ones were both bad.

what did you think of Eighth Grade & Blindspotting?

Deadpool 2 (4/10)
Comanche Station (7/10)
L'Amore Molesto (8/10)

The Counselor (Ridley Scott/Cormac McCarthy, 2013). I saw this in a theater and didn't like it much, but recently learned that the Blu-Ray included a director's cut that was 20 minutes longer. I bought it on eBay for $5 and miraculously, the long version is a really good movie! Recommended.

Eighth Grade I've said a little about in EIGHTH GRADE (2018, written & directed by Bo Burnham, starring Elsie Fisher) , but its most remarkable achievement is the way the audience get situated right with Kayla, both through Elsie Fisher's heart-open performance and the script. Everything feels as traumatic and monumental as stresses and anxieties do at that age, there's absolutely no adult tone present framing it as "one day she'll realise how minor all this was" or "oof, remember how that used to feel"." We're totally present in the milieu, despite so many elements deliberately excluding adult perspectives.

Blindspotting has a little first-film-iness to the script, but is totally carried by the onscreen charisma and chemistry of the writers. If civilisation lasts another ten years, it'll be interesting to see how much the tech-bro-gentrification themes feel like a period piece vs a valuable snapshot of a tipping point. Right now I imagine it'd be largely baffling to non-city-dwelling audiences.

xp wait, WHAT?

Yeah wow, I actually have that blu ray, maybe I’ll watch it tonight

Secret of the Blue Room (Neumann, 1933)
*Lost Horizon (Capra, 1937)
#A Kiss in the Dark (surviving reels) (Tuttle, 1925)
#Too Many Kisses (Sloane, 1925) (personal festival highlight)
#Your Technocracy and Mine (Benchley, 1933)
#The Mad Game (Cummings, 1933)
#We Faw Down (McCarey, 1928)
#The House That Shadows Built (unidentified Paramount drudges, 1931)
#On the Brink (Porter & Weber, 1911)
#Romola (King, 1924)
*#The Cocoanuts (Florey & Santley, 1929)
#Mamba (Rogell, 1930)
#The Circus of Life (Julian, 1917)
#The Stolen Ranch (Wyler, 1926)
#Princess Lady Bug (Barker, 1930)
#The Storm (Wyler, 1930)
*#Brats (Parrott, 1930)
#Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (Del Ruth, 1934)
#A Daughter of the Law (Cunard, 1921)
#The Night of Love (Fitzmaurice, 1927)
#Television Highlights (Schwarzwald, 1936)
#School for Swing (Schwarzwald, 1937)
#It's Great To Be Alive (Werker, 1932)
*#The Coming of Sunbeam (Guy, 1913)
#Twenty Dollars a Week (Weight, 1924)
#Ed Sullivan's Headliners (Schwarzwald, 1934)
#Her First Mate (Wyler, 1933)
#Call of the Cumberlands (Lloyd, 1916)
#The Rescue (Brenon, 1929)

#Capitolfest 16, or J.Lu Yet Again Is Reminded that Not All Silent and Pre-Code Films Are Classics.

celebrating the new thread with some all timers (uk folks nuts in may is back on the iplayer!)

Late Autumn (Ozu, 1960) 9/10
Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson, 1951) 10/10
Pickpocket (Bresson, 1959) 9/10
* Nuts in May (Leigh, 1976) 8/10
* Love and Friendship (Stillman, 2016) 7/10
Hereditary (Aster, 2018) 5/10
Ordet (Dreyer, 1955) 10/10

I don't log short films like j.lu does, but I saw about 8 Sadie Benning videos (made in Pixelvision) that I last watched about 25 years ago; most of those would be 8-10/10.

Three Faces West (1940, Vorhaus) 6/10
*My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, Frears) 8/10
Flat Is Beautiful (1998, S Benning) (50min) 5/10
Swallow (1995, Subrin) (28min) 7/10
The Lovers of Montparnasse (1958, Becker) 9/10
The Young Savages (1961, Frankenheimer) 5/10
Another Girl, Another Planet (1992, Almereyda) (56min) 6/10
Wake of the Red Witch (1948, Ludwig) 7/10
A Girl’s Folly (1917, M Tourneur) 7/10
Gavagai (2016, Tregenza) 4/10
Les Amis (1971, Blain) 5/10

I'd suggest you watch more Davies as prep than Frears, but don't want to prescribe any other TV while yr still not moving forward on Twin Peaks

Davies? this guy?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard_Davies

Russell T. Davies, the writer of A Very British Scandal. Roughly every second of his works deals with different facets of men-attracted-to-men negotiating a homosociality within heteronormative culture - Very British Scandal is the first that is a period piece, rather than directly contemporary.

Cucumber, his previous main project (eight episodes, twinned with another series called Banana, and a docoseries called Tofu, all named for the hardness of erections), was the best thing he's done ime.

Laundrette's focus on gay stuff is at most 33%.

I just figured Frears was on yr slate because you'd said you were planning to watch Brit Scandal; to me he's a director who is efficient in service of a script's tone and agenda, rather than having an authorial throughline or preoccupations that can be tracked through his work.

if you watch the Laundrette Criterion supplements, he denies being an auteur while his producer insists that he is. Frears does say he considers his string from The Hit thru The Grifters to be a reaction to Thatcherism.

I'm not actually likely to watch that scandal show anytime soon... always drowning in things to watch.

Frears otm! The Grifters as the end of Thatcher reactions, vs the good first step into a bad period of Americana, is interesting, would be curious to rewatch with that in mind.

("gay stuff" is only 7% of AVBS at most, except for how the closet is the driver for every bad action across the fifteen years or so it covers. fascinatingly handled, re. it being a period piece, is how no "character" in it identifies as gay, it's not even an option to consider: those who come out to each other instead compare to what point their bedroom preference is for which gender, how much marriage is a thing they genuinely value vs are having to take on for optics, etc.)

Mississippi (2015), streaming on Netflix - 36/42

*Mississippi Grind

xp I’m not sure what I think of A Very English Scandal. It had a breezy quality, but it was in a very different key than I was expecting.

I loved how lizard-like Hugh Grant was, though. Was he wearing contacts? because there was something very creepy about his black irises

OK, I had no idea Frears directed A Very English Scandal (u have to spell things out, sic) -- because why would I? I haven't seen anything of his since Dirty Pretty Things in 2002. Then he started doing all that Peter Morgan royal shite.

Dream Tower (7.0)
Our Nixon (7.5)
20th Century Women (9.0)
Eighth Grade (6.5)
Demon Seed (5.5)
Quadrophenia (7.5)
McQueen (6.0)
Ocean’s Eight (4.0)
BlacKkKlansman (7.0)
A Stranger Among Us (6.5)

The last one is a late Lumet I saw at the time and completely forgot about. Relatively low key for him. Explicitly quotes from Hud when Melanie Griffith says "I already put in time with one cold-hearted bastard, I'm not looking to find another one." Good one for that last-line-should-have-been-the-title thread: Ask Your Rabbi.

Mission Impossible (Christopher McQuarrie, 2018) - yup, that's how badly my year is going.

It was fun etc.

I forgot to note earlier how amused I was that it was j.lu who pitched for an Electric Boogaloo subtitle on the new thread.

/The Counselor/ (Ridley Scott/Cormac McCarthy, 2013). I saw this in a theater and didn't like it much, but recently learned that the Blu-Ray included a director's cut that was 20 minutes longer. I bought it on eBay for $5 and miraculously, the long version is a really good movie! Recommended.

last batch for a while

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch, 1992) - 10/10
Heat (Michael Mann, 1995) - 9/10
Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (Jacques Tati, 1953) - 8/10
This Happy Breed (David Lean, 1944) - 8/10
Ordinary People (Robert Redford, 1980) - 7/10
Fantastic Planet (René Laloux, 1973) - 3/10

China Gate (Fuller)
The Search (Zinnemann)
From Here to Eternity (Zinnemann)
A Man for All Seasons (Zinnemann)
The Longest Day (Annakin, Marton & Wicki)
The Army of Crime (Guédiguian)
La Vie en Rose (Dahan)
Grace of Monaco (Dahan)
Cop (A. Refn)
Once a Cop... (A. Refn)
R (Noer & Lindholm)
Key House Mirror (Noer)*
A Hijacking (Lindholm)*
A War (Lindholm)*
A Second Chance (Bier)
Summer With Monika (Bergman)
Sawdust and Tinsel (Bergman)
Smiles of a Summer Night (Bergman)
The Virgin Spring (Bergman)
Morvern Callar (Ramsay)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (Ramsay)
Katalin Varga (Strickland)
For Those in Peril (Wright)*
Hyena (Johnson)
Ex Machina (Garland)
Beast (Pearce)
Under the Skin (Glazer)
Her (Jonze)
Lucy (Besson)
Ghost in the Shell (Sanders)

All 3.5/5:
True Stories (1986)
Blackkklansman
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
The Lost City of Z

Mission Impossible Fallout (McQuarrie, 2018) 8/10
the Happy Prince (Everett, 2018) 7/10
Yellow Submarine ( Dunning, 1968) 8/10
Unseeworld U.S.A (Fuller, 1960) 7/10
The Last Emperor (Bertolucci, 1987) 6/10
Paddington 2 (King, 2017) 9/10
Hostiles (Cooper, 2017) 7/10

Um, Underworld U.S.A. that should be.

Gone With the Wind (1939) 7.5/10
Iron Man (2008) 7/10
Tangerine (2015) 8/10

bunch of airplane streaming on the way to and from berlin, the only one i'd seen before is philadelphia story:

all about eve (mankiewicz, 1951) 10/10
paddington 2 (king, 2017) 8/10
rocky (avildsen, 1976) 8/10
the philadelphia story (cukor, 1940) 9/10
happy death day (landon, 2017) 6/10
inside out (docter, 2015) 8/10

honestly happy death day was surprisingly enjoyable for what it was

the gospel of the bear film has reached the troposphere

lol

The Raid: Redemption (Evans, 2011) 6
Mission: Impossible Fallout (McQuarrie, 2018) 7
Disney Christopher Robin (Marc Forster, 2018) 4
Marwencol (Jeff Malmberg, 2010) 8
Icarus (Bryan Fogel, 2017) 8

read that marwencol has been adapted & now will have steve carell in it

https://www.meta-sphere.com/wp-content/uploads/welcome-to-marwen_tete-600x220.jpg

yeah I watched it because i saw the trailer for the zemeckis movie. The trailer makes it out to be an "inspirational" true story but it's not really, not exactly.

baby driver (2017 edgar wright) 6.5/10
mollys game (2017 sorkin) 2/10
suburbicon (2017 clooney) 2/10
the killing of a sacred deer (2017 lanthimos) 6/10
angelo my love (1983 duvall) 3/10
eighth grade (2018 burnham) 8/10
thoroughbreds (2018 cory finley) 4/10

thoroughbreds (2018 cory finley) 4/10

I don't do the out of 10 thing but I'd give this at least a 6. It made me laugh a lot.

lil too try hard idk

*The Naked Spur : 7/10
Vampire's Kiss : 6/10
Dying Of the Light (Paul Schrader Edit): 7/10 -- only 7/10 because Nic Cage is in full on weirdo mode and Schrader's noodling around on Final Cut. The doctor accent is...wow...almost as great as the accent in "Vampire's Kiss"
*The Young One: 7/10 - minor Buñuel for me but still great

Crazy Rich Asians – kind of a riff on Philadelphia Story, but with better-looking people. Lots of film history embedded in it.

What Price Jazz (Baerwitz, 1934)
Felix Gets Broadcasted (Messmer, 1923)
High Flyers (Cline, 1937)
Inflation (Myers, 1933)
Felix in Fairyland (Messmer, 1923)
*Roast-Beef and Movies (Baerwitz, 1934)
*Big City Fantasy (Henabery, 1934)
The Magician (Bergman, 1958)
BlacKkKlansman (Lee, 2018)
Smiles of a Summer Night (Bergman, 1955)

Re-watching Whit Stillman's Barcelona tonight.

I was hoping for good things from Crazy Rich Asians, but found it fairly bland. I may have had the wrong expectations for a mainstream PG rom-com, but I felt like it needed sharper jokes.

kind of a riff on Philadelphia Story, but with better-looking people

!!! I'm sure this cast looks fine, but you are aware that Cary Grant and Kate Hepburn were considered pretty attractive, right?

in theaters July 26 - August 22

Killer’s Kiss (Stanley Kubrick, 1955) - 6/10
Summer Interlude (Ingmar Bergman, 1951) - 9/10
Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, 2018) - 8/10
Three Identical Strangers (Tim Wardle, 2018) - 6/10
Blindspotting (Carlos López Estrada, 2018) - 7/10
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (Peter Rida Michail, Aaron Horvath, 2018) - 3/10
BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018) - 9/10

ebony & ivory: 5 bags
phantasm II / III / IV unsure which was which i have covid again all seemed very S3 twin peaks to me, maybe 3 bags?
dumb & dumber: 4 bags
metalocalypse: army of the doomstar: 4 bags
love birds: 1 bag for brave sally, no bags for the rest of them
maudie: 4 bags full of tears
if i had my way (1940): 2 bags. el brendel is a delight, though.
just imagine (1930): el brendel again - he is excellent in this dumb shit of a sci-fi musical comedy: 3 bags
kuso: 4 bags (full of poop)
steak 2007: 4 bags
divinity: 1 bag for the hilarious claymation climax, 0 bags for anything else
toxic avenger 2023: 5 bags

Cinema:
It Was Just an Accident (Panahi, 2025) 6/8
The Mastermind (Reichardt, 2025) 5/8
Die, My Love (Ramsay, 2025) 4/8
Bugonia (Lanthimos, 2025) 4/8

Elsewhere:
Invasion (Santiago, 1969) 8/8 - Co-scripted by Borges!
The Housemaid (Kim Ki-young, 1960) 8/8
Days and Nights in the Forest (Satyajit Ray, 1970) 7/8
The Lady from Shanghai (Welles, 1948) 7/8
Red Sorghum (Zhang Yimou, 1987) 6/8
Divorce Iranian Style (Longinotto / Mir-Hosseini, 1998) 6/8 - enraging documentary on Iranian divorce courts
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (Cassavetes, 1976) 6/8 - saw the longer version with all the terrible vaudeville numbers intact, oops
Hell is a City (Guest, 1960) 6/8 - UK noir-style thriller, great now-vanished Manchester locations
When Father Was Away on Business (Kusturica, 1985) 6/8
Marihuana, the Weed with Roots in Hell! (Esper, 1936) 6/8
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Capra, 1936) 6/8
The Dark Backward (Rifkin, 1991) 6/8 - has Neil Hamburger seen this?
Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (Hong Sang-soo, 2000) 6/8
Riot in Cell Block 11 (Siegel, 1954) 6/8
The Shooting (Hellman, 1966) 6/8
The Hellstrom Chronicle (Green, 1971) 6/8
Miss Oyu (Mizoguchi, 1951) 6/8 - was Mizoguchi a better filmmaker than Ozu? Maybe
Capturing the Friedmans (Jarecki, 2003) 6/8
The Firm (Clarke, 1988) 5/8
Outrage (Lupino, 1950) 5/8
To Live (Zhang Yimou, 1994) 5/8
Rubin and Ed (Harris, 1992) 5/8 - "there's an asswipe up there"
War of the Colossal Beast (Gordon, 1958) 5/8
The Quiet Duel (Kurosawa, 1949) 5/8
Screaming Mimi (Oswald, 1958) 5/8
The Grissom Gang (Aldrich, 1971) 5/8
Broken Blossoms (Griffith, 1919) 5/8
Summer Snow (Hui, 1995) 5/8 - nice Otomo Yoshihide soundtrack
Hot Rod Rumble (Martinson, 1957) 5/8 - better-than-average JD flick improved no end by the excellent (and non-stop) jazz score by Alexander "Star Trek" Courage. Band includes Barney Kessel, Shelly Manne, Maynard Ferguson and a bunch more stalwarts. Available on LP!
Schizopolis (Soderbergh, 1996) 5/8
Chappaqua (Rooks, 1966) 4/8 - spoiled rich-kid junkie cleans their veins out in pricey Parisian clinic, needed more Moondog and Burroughs
Smithereens (Seidelman, 1982) 4/8
The Cocaine Fiends (O'Connor, 1936) 4/8
Cat Women of the Moon (Hilton, 1954) 4/8 - doesn't live up to the title (do they ever?) but bonus points for characters smoking ON THE FUCKING MOON

gotta check out Hot rod rumbke" thx for the heads up.
as always, amazed at differing perspectives, "schizopolus" to my mind absolute perfect A+ 5 bags

*rumble

I went into Schizopolis cold and it wasn't what I was expecting at all, probably I'm not the first person to say that. It's not a style of wackiness I'm too fond of but 3.5/5 bags for not doing the obvious. I spent the duration thinking "Woody Harrelson sure looks weird in this film" then realised it was actually Soderbergh, lol.

Invasion is a film I would highly recommend, Alphaville scripted by Borges is the best comparison I can make.

* schizopolis you know already. addled w fever typing like a horse

Heretic (2025) 7/10

Magic Farm (2025) 4/10
A satire on edgy Vice style documentarians who travel to an Argentinian smalltown in search of wacky content. Feels 10 years out of date and its also not funny and pretty toothless as a satire. It's a shame as I really liked Ulman's "La Planeta" a lot

*Written On The Wind (1956) 8/10
Loved this, would be 5 stars but Bacall's role is a bit underdeveloped and her only purpose seems to be bounced around between Stark and Hudson. I love it when Robert Stark speaks especially when he's shouting for a BOTTLE OF CORN

*Belle De Jour (1967) 8/10
What a weird kinky movie

Jay Kelly (2025) 6/10
This didn't really convince me at all and not even a charm powerhouse like Clooney can help the movie burst out of its Oscarbait straitjacket

Boiling Point (1990) 7/10
Odd tonal shifts in this movie that don't work well but enough great stuff in it to make it worthwhile

*Midnight in Paris (2011) 8/10
Total fluff but very entertaining fluff! Probably the only good Woody Allen movie of the last 25 years

Sorry Baby (2025) 6/10

Toxic (2025) 6/10

The Mastermind (2025) 7/10

Tiger On The Beat (1988) 6/10
This movie is awful and borderline evil but the last 20 mins of action are INCREDIBLE

Quintet (Altman 1979)
Touchez pas au grisbi (Becker 1954)
The Swordsman (King Hu, Tsui Hark 1990)
Cloud (Kurosawa 2024)
The Adventure of Iron Pussy (Weerasethakul, Shaowanasai 2003)
Nouvelle Vague (Linklater 2025)
Brewster McCloud (Altman 1970)
God's Angry Man (Herzog 1981)
Les Carabiniers (Godard 1963)
*My Winnipeg (Maddin 2007)
Guilty Bystander (Lerner 1950)
Scarface (Hawks 1932)
Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival (Misumi 1970)
*The Piano Teacher (Haneke 2001)
*A History of Violence (Cronenberg 2005)
Me and You and Everyone We Know (July 2005)
Hell's Angels (Hughes, Whale 1930)
Ballerina (Wiseman 2025)
Wake Up Dead Man (Johnson 2025)
The Mastermind (Reichardt 2025)
Train Dreams (Bentley 2015)
Misericordia (Guiraudie 2024)
It Was Just an Accident (Panahi 2025)

La Commune (Paris 1871) (1871/2000) 4.5/5
The Beast to Die (1980) 4/5
Krakatit (1948) 4/5. Very interesting find by Deaf Crocodile. Sort of a cross visually and thematically between early and late Fritz Lang, with some foreshadowing of Guy Maddin.
The Mastermind (2025) 4/5
Wake Up Dead Man (2025) 2.5/5. latest in this series of newsy, parent/child holiday conversation pieces.
Lost in New York (1989) 3.5/5
Elegant Beast (1962) 4/5. Proto-Parasite
Maps to the Stars (2014) 4/5.
The Annihilation of Fish (1999) 4.5/5
Sentimental Value (2025) 4/5
Downey Wrote That (2025) 3/5
* Industrial Symphony No. 1 (1990) 3.5/5
* Dead Man (1995) 4/5
Hotel (2004) 2.5/5

Elegant Beast and Krakatit sound interesting, I'll add to the ever-expanding list of films I may never get around to seeing

I just watched Krakatit, though maybe i should have waited for the reissue rather than renting an old DVD-R. Still looks wonderful and seems to be operating on dream logic half the time. It’s also on Tubi!

Elegant Beast set in a single japanese high density 'danchi' apartment, with no two shots the same. reminded me of Tati, somehow.

(the recent Radiance release came with a 15 min featurette on the architecture)

kinds of kindness 4 bags
everything everywhere all at once 5 bags
leningrad cowboys meet moses 4 bags
united trash (schlingensief 1996) 1 bag german edgelord shit
ein grosser verhau unter sternen (the big mess - alexander kluge 1971) hippies mess about in bedsits and expect you to believe they are in space. 4 bags
black bag 4 bags

finally watcvhong some 2025 movies on streaming

superman 8
mi final reckoning 8
house of dynamite 7
new yorker at 100 6
elio 6
wake up dead man 9
freakier friday 6
fantastic 4 baby steps 5
cap america brave new world dnf

Sentimental Value (6.0)
Fargo (S1 – 7.0)
Sunday (6.5)
Jay Kelly (5.0)
Fargo (S3 – 7.0)
The New Yorker at 100 (6.5)
Wonderland (7.0)
Nobody (3.0)
Daydream Nation (4.0)
Breakdown: 1975 (6.0)

Saw quite a lot at the cinema last year, most of it via Mubi Go.

Presence
Hard Truths
Bring Them Down
The Brutalist
I'm Still Here
Queens
The Last Showgirl
On Falling
Mickey 17
Flow
The End
Four Mothers
One to One: John & Yoko
Sinners
Parthenope
North by Northwest
Motel Destino
Magic Farm
The Big Lebowski
When the Light Breaks
The Phoenician Scheme
The Encampments
Tornado
The Last Journey
Caché
28 Years Later
Hot Milk
F1
Barry Lyndon
Harvest
Friendship
Savages
Bring Her Back
Materialists
Sorry, Baby
The Life of Chuck
Tomboy
Caught Stealing
Deaf
Steve
Steve
One Battle After Another
Urchin
The Smashing Machine
Souleymane's Story
The Mastermind
Frankenstein
Die My Love
Bugonia
The Ice Tower
Pillion
One Battle After Another
It Was Just an Accident
One Battle After Another
It's a Wonderful Life
Sentimental Value
Marty Supreme

My stand out new films were One Battle After Another, Steve, Flow, and I'm Still Here.

Last half of 2025

Sicario: Day of the Soldado (Stefano Sollima, 2018)
Snowpiercer (Bong Joon Ho, 2013)
Grand Canyon (James Algar, 1958)
The Empty Man (David Prior, 2020)
The Beach Boys (Frank Marshall, Thom Zimny, 2024)
Furies (Veronica Ngo, 2022)
Coup de Torchon (Bertrand Tavernier, 1981)
Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt, 2013)
Ali and Nino (Asif Kapadia, 2016)
*In Jackson Heights (Frederick Wiseman, 2015)
Supermarket Woman (Jûzô Itami, 1996)
Black Storm (Pengfei Qin, 2024)
Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, 2010)
Ohio Confidential (Alex Gibney, 2025)
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974)
L'Argent (Robert Bresson, 1983)
Prince of Broadway (Sean Baker, 2008)
*Reversal of Fortune (Barbet Schroeder, 1990)
Devo (Chris Smith, 2024)
Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, 2024)
Slumlord Millionaire (Steph Ching, Ellen Martinez, 2024)
*McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
Train to Busan (Yeon Sang-ho, 2016)
Peninsula (Yeon Sang-ho, 2020)
Virus (Kinji Fukasaku, 1980)
Army Of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969)
All The Colors Of The Dark (Sergio Martino, 1972)
You Hurt My Feelings (Nicole Holofcener, 2023)
Mars Express (Jérémie Périn, 2023)
Time Out of Mind (Robert Siodmak, 1947)
*The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971)
Mr. Pu (Kon Ichikawa, 1953)
Nomads (John McTiernan, 1986)
Wealth of the Wicked (Alex Gibney, 2025)
Music and Apocalypse (Max Linz, 2019)
Theaters of War (Roger Stahl, 2022)
Leaving Las Vegas (Mike Figgis, 1995)
Neun Leben hat die Katze (Ula Stöckl, 1968)
A House of Dynamite (Kathryn Bigelow, 2025)
First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, 2019)
Cloud (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2024)
How Radio Isn't Done (Ryan Worsley, 2017)
Workplace (Gary Hustwit, 2016)
CERN (Nikolaus Geyrhalter, 2013)
Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)
Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) (Questlove, 2025)
One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025)
Ivy (Tolga Karaçelik, 2015)
Aniara (Pella Kagerman, Hugo Lilja, 2018)
Salesman (Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin, 1969)
Wonder Seven (Siu-Tung Ching, 1994)
Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008)
Little Joe (Jessica Hausner, 2019)
La raison d'État (André Cayatte, 1978)
Being Charlie (Rob Reiner, 2015)
The Stones and Brian Jones (Nick Broomfield, 2023)
Swan Song (Todd Stephens, 2021)
Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
Carol & Joy (Nathan Silver, 2025)
*Harry and Tonto (Paul Mazursky, 1974)
Caught Stealing (Darren Aronofsky, 2025)

ichi the killer (miike 2001) 1 bag for boredoms soundtrack, puerile rapey gangster shit
what's up doc? (bogdanovich 1972) 4½ bags
i love you, man (hamburg 2009) 1 bag for paul rudd. otherwise irredeemable garbage
carry on screaming (1966 thomas) 2 bags. top clowning
the ladykillers (coens 2004) 4 bags. hanks as jemaine clement v confusing
bugonia (2025 lanthimos) 4 bags
high-rise (2015 wheatley) 1 for vibe. garbage, bailed.
mountainhead (2025 armstrong) 3 bags. kinda shooting fish in a barrel.
prevenge (2016 lowe) 3½ bags.
but mainly i've been trying to sleep off yet another respiratory ailment while watching S3 of LEXX, which is still pure genius

Fargo (S4 – 7.0)
Monrovia, Indiana (7.0)
Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy (7.0)
Cover-Up (6.5)
Meshes of the Afternoon (influential)
Two-Lane Blacktop (6.0)
Fargo (S5 – 7.0)
The Boston Strangler (2023 – 5.0)
CFNY: The Spirit of Radio (5.0)
Coffy (5.0)
Foxy Brown (5.0)
Marty Supreme (6.0)

I watched the two Pam Grier films in advance of a chapter in Charles Taylor's drive-in book (haven't read the chapter yet). There's a dedicated Pam Grier thread that I won't dredge up. She is, of course, great in Jackie Brown, and she gives the most credible performances in those two films too. I understand and respect their historical importance. But they really are bad, and often demeaning to all involved.

I did think Meshes of the Afternoon was impressive, I just don't want to give it a dispassionate 7.0 or whatever. (Why has it taken me forever to watch it? Obviously, the serious time committment of 14 minutes was the major stumbling block.) It's influence is obvious, especially on Lynch; the whole Black Lodge notion of Cooper chasing himself seems lifted right from Meshes, also the faceless imagery that turns up in Twin Peaks more than once. I'm sure this has been noted and analyzed to death by now.

https://i.postimg.cc/mkbgnFFq/meshes.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/xTp1s8j5/laura.jpg

The Blue Angel (von Sternberg, 1930) 4.5/5
Alexander Nevsky (Eisenstein, 1938) 4/5 - unbelievable cinematography, music (Prokoviev!), design and choreography, all in the service of a cornball flagfucker script that only a psychopath like Stalin could have loved
The Hands of Orlac (Wiene, 1924) 4/5
Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (Ozu, 1941) 4/5
Charade (Donen, 1963) 4/5 - basically a Hitchcock film without the annoying Hitchisms
Gloria (Cassavetes, 1980) 4/5
The Moving Finger (Moyer, 1963) 4/5 - oddball beatnik cheapie, look out for Moondog for about 10 seconds
Winter Soldier (Winterfilm Collective, 1972) 4/5 - documentary footage of an unofficial series of hearings into US war crimes in Vietnam. One of the participants is no less than John Kerry!
S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (Panh, 2003) 4/5
The Big Gundown (Sollima, 1966) 4/5
Danger: Diabolik (Bava, 1967) 4/5
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Ruttmann, 1927) 4/5
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Richardson, 1962) 4/5
Intolerance (Griffith, 1916) 4/5 - what's with all the arm-waving?
The Blue Light (Riefenstahl, yes that one, 1932) 4/5
Whistle Down the Wind (Forbes, 1961) 4/5 - unexpectedly moving, Alan Bates is excellent
The Intruder (Corman, 1962) 4/5 - William Shatner as a firebrand racist stirring up shit in a small Texas town. Watch out for Leo Gordon in a supporting role, great as always
Baby Face Nelson (Siegel, 1957) 4/5 - didn't realise Mickey Rooney did hard man roles, Leo Gordon's in this one too
Night Tide (Harrington, 1961) 4/5 - fantasy-horror starring a young Dennis Hopper and directed by Kenneth Anger collaborator Curtis Harrington
Ninotchka (Lubitsch, 1939) 4/5
Massacre at Central High (Daalder, 1976) 4/5 - better than the title suggests
A Diary of Chuji's Travels (Ito, 1927) 3.5/5 - very early jidaigeki, largely incoherent due to being a fix-up of surviving footage but who cares
Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? (Bae Yong-Kyun, 1989) 3.5/5 - I'd need to study Buddhism deeper to find out
Earth vs. the Spider (Gordon, 1958) 3.5/5 - I won't spoil the surprise as to who wins
Burst City (Ishii, 1982) 3.5/5
Gaslight (Dickinson, 1940) 3.5/5
The Thing with Two Heads (Frost, 1972) 3.5/5 - first half is an entertaining comedy, second half completely runs out of ideas and turns into a smash-up car chase flick
Downfall (Hirschbiegel, 2004) 3/5 - in depicting the upper echelons of the Nazi hierarchy as human like anyone else the filmmakers are forced to skim over the reality of the lurid death cult they were running, thus proving that both-sides-ism is a dead end
The Lost One (Lorre, 1951) 3/5
Warlords of the 21st Century aka Battletruck (Cokeliss, 1982) 3/5 - boom operation by a young Lee Tamahori! Boom mic is visible in several scenes btw
Genevieve (Cornelius, 1953) 3/5
Tokyo Sonata (Kurosawa, 2008) 2.5/5 - meh
Island of Terror (Fisher, 1966) 2.5/5 - even Cushing can't save this one

quality notes

Catching up on 2025 stuff, plus some others

Blue Moon (Linklater, 2025) 3.5/5
Nouvelle Vague (Linklater, 2025) 3/5
Marty Supreme (Safdie, 2025) 3.5/5
No Other Choice (Park, 2025) 4/5
Roofman (Cianfrance, 2025) 3.5/5
Sorry, Baby (Victor, 2025) 3.5/5
28YL: The Bone Temple (Dacosta, 2025) 3/5
Girl With Hyacinths (Ekman, 1950) 3.5/5
Resurrection (Gan, 2025) 4/5
The Shrounds (Cronenberg, 2025) 3/5
Neighboring Sounds (Filho, 2012) 4/5

Marty Supreme (Safdie, 2025)
Die My Love (Ramsay, 2025)
Lurker (Russell, 2025)
No Other Choice (Park, 2025)
Roofman (Cianfrance, 2025)
The Secret Agent (Filho, 2025)
Sinners (Coogler, 2025) (rewatch)
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Jude, 2023)
Hedda (DaCosta, 2025)
The Plot Against Harry (Roemer, 1969)
The Testament of Ann Lee (Fastvold, 2025)

Catching up on mostly '25 releases this month

It Ends (Ullom, 2025) 7/10
Marty Supreme (Safdie, 2025) 8/10
Sentimental Value (Trier, 2025) 7/10
Fists in the Pocket (Bellocchio, 1965) 6/10
Companion (Hancock, 2025) 6/10
A Face in the Crowd (Kazan, 1957) 8/10
It Was Just an Accident (Panahi, 2025) 8/10
The Life of Chuck (Flanagan, 2024) 6/10
The Piano Accident (Dupieux, 2025) 7/10
*Thief (Mann, 1981) 8/10
What's Up, Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972) 6/10
Funeral Parade of Roses (Matsumoto, 1969) 8/10
Rust and Bone (Audiard, 2013) 6/10
Rebuilding (Walker-Silverman, 2025) 6/10
To Catch A Thief (Hitchcock, 1955) 7/10
*Grosse Pointe Blank (Armitage, 1997) 7/10
Winter Kills (Richert, 1979) 8/10
Freaky (Landon, 2020) 6/10

Funeral Parade of Roses (Matsumoto, 1969) 8/10

So wild. I didn't know much about it and didn't put it together until about 3/4 of the way what story it was telling.

Was on a good run of new movies until I got to the first one.

F1 (2025) 2/5. Not familiar with the company Expensify? You sure will be after this.
The Shrouds (2024) 4/5
The Testament of Ann Lee (2025) 4/5
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025) 4/5
Fassbinder's Women (2000) 3.5/5
School on Fire (1988) 4/5
Depeche Mode: M (2025) 3.5/5
Marty Supreme 4/5
Cover-Up (2025) 4/5
Far From Heaven (2002) 3.5/5
* El (1953) 4/5. Had no memory of having seen this before, but letterboxd says I did.
Eephus (2024) 4/5. Was worried this would be like one of Linklater's movies where everyone is an asshole but, refreshingly, it wasn't.

Xpost Feels crazy that it even got made. Going in blind is probably the best. I got the dvd so looking forward to watching it with the commentary at some point. Also...is that Les Rallizes Denudes playing over the freakout party at the flat?

Just watched Winter Kills two days ago and posted about it here; didn't like it as much as you but appreciated how suprisingly low-key it was (instead of the over-the-top satire I expected).

Winter Kills

I really loved how it balanced the tones. John Huston great at playing wealthy monsters.

The Paper (S1 – 6.5)
Ulzana’s Raid (6.0)
Dead Man’s Wire (6.5)
Aloha, Bobby and Rose (7.0)
American Hot Wax (8.0)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (8.0)
Euphoria (S1 – 5.0)
Hard Times (7.0)
Winter Kills (6.0)
The Eyes of Laura Mars (5.0)

december and january:

all the presidents men 8.5/10
hamnet 6.5/10
the new yorker at 100 👍
orwell 2+2=5 👎
the secret agent 8.5/10
nouvelle vague 6/10
materialists 3/10
wake up dead man 6/10
the mastermind 8/10
marty supreme 8.5/10
it was just an accident 7.5/10
on becoming a guinea fowl 8/10
oh. what. fun. 2/10
a pickleball christmas 0.5/10
anniversary 5/10
*casablanca 10/10
train dreams 8/10
frownland 8/10
people we meet on vacation 4/10
if I had legs I’d kick you 8/10
highest 2 lowest 6.5/10
the rip 4/10
left-handed girl 7/10
*meshes of the afternoon 10/10
daddy longlegs 8.5/10
cover-up 👍
misericordia 8.5/10
*blue moon 9/10

January:

What's New Pussycat (1965) 5/10
Marty Supreme (2025) 7/10
Sentimental Value (2025) 6/10
I'm Going Home (2001) 8/10
Dead End Drive-In (1986) 7/10
Behind the Mask (1932) 6/10
In Praise of Love (2001) 8/10
Frankenstein (2025) 5/10
Flowers of Shanghai (1998) 9/10
The Rip (2026) 6/10
No Other Choice (2025) 7/10

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (5.5)
Rachel Getting Married (6.5)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (6.0)
Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere (7.0)
The Paper (1994 movie, not the TV show--5.5)
DJ Ahmet (7.0)
Dior and I (7.0)
Die My Love (6.0)
Mindhunter (S1/2 – 8.5)
Who Killed the Montreal Expos? (6.0)

I thought "Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie" was one of the funniest things I've seen in a while. Had a blast.

Watched Sentimental Value last night which was fine, I guess. Some nice interiors. BUT it has raised a question for me - what are the best movies about aging Boomer parents who are simultaneously career-focused and have a certain joie de vivre and think their kids just need to relax? and who have evolved a sophisticated set of emotional release valves that make it difficult for them to actually connect to others?

Asking uh, for a friend.

Mom only, but 20th Century Women? The Kids Are All Right? (Saw that just once many years ago.)

Watched Sentimental Value last night which was fine, I guess. Some nice interiors.

Wrong.

Excellent interiors.

Recently watched Ashes and Diamonds (Wajda, 1958) and We Are The Best! (Moodysson, 2013) - completely different, but both excellent.

Watched Sentimental Value last night which was fine, I guess. Some nice interiors. BUT it has raised a question for me - what are the best movies about aging Boomer parents who are simultaneously career-focused and have a certain joie de vivre and think their kids just need to relax? and who have evolved a sophisticated set of emotional release valves that make it difficult for them to actually connect to others?

I haven't watched Toni Erdmann yet but from what others have written, maybe that?

February

Magnificent Obsession (Sirk, 1954) 6/10
Code Unknown (Haneke, 2000) 7/10
Saboteur (Hitchcock, 1942) 6/10
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (Bronstein, 2025) 7/10
Pictures of Ghosts (Filho, 2023) 7/10
Neighbouring Sounds (Filho, 2012) 7/10
Taxi (Panahi, 2015) 7/10

Nirvanna The Band the Show the Movie (2025) 4.5/5
* The Thief of Baghdad (1940) 3/5
Little Caesar (1931) 3/5
Sun Ra: Do the Impossible (2025) 3/5
Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014) 3.5/5
La Tête d'un homme (1933) 4/5
Five Star Final (1931) 3.5/5
Hotel by the River (2018) 3.5/5
Blue Moon (2025) 3.5/5
* Best in Show (2000) 4/5
The Daytrippers (1996) 3/5
* Waiting for Guffman (1996) 4/5
The Snow Woman (1968) 3.5/5
Shanghai Blues (1984) 4/5
Deadline at Dawn (1946) 4/5

Sun Ra: Do the Impossible (2025) 3/5

Was this a disappointment? A Joyful Noise (1980 Ra film) is my all-time favourite music doc.

Orgy of the Dead (1965)

couple get tied up in a graveyard by Criswell and forced to watch about 20 horror-themed topless dances. that's pretty much the entire plot, if it counts as a plot.

Afire
The Producers
Woman At War
Nights Of Cabiria
The Fabelmans
Abashiri Prison I, II, III
The Case of Marchel Duchamp

woman at war was icelandic film about an eco warrior attacking pylons.

nights of cabiria was fellini.

fabelmans is the lightly fictionalised life of s spielberg, including michelle williams as his mum, which tied in nicely with he role in dawson's creek given that dawson was spielberg obsessed.

abashiri prison didn't have a lot of prison after the first. hard to see the appeal (and nothing like teruo ishii's later career)

Marcel Duchamp thing was interesting in that it was a documentary about him, but presented by sherlock holmes and his clunky home computer...

Cinema:
Resurrection (Bi Gan, 2025) 3.5/5 - less than meets the eye
No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook, 2025) 3.5/5 - didn't land the satirical targets as it might have
The Secret Agent (Mendonça Filho, 2025) 3.5/5 - flash-forward scenes should have been excised
Magellan (Diaz, 2025) 4/5 - Lav Diaz selling out to the mainstream at only 2.5 hours
Sinners (Coogler, 2025) 1.5/5 - ineptly plotted CGI hellscape with the absolute worst 'bravura' scene I've ever witnessed onscreen
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000) 4.5/5 - more like it
Cure (Kurosawa, 1997) 4.5/5 - ditto
Strongroom (Sewell, 1962) 4/5 - taut and tight Brit b-flick, maybe there are more like this?
Ganja & Hess (Gunn, 1973) 3.5/5 - top marks for originality if not coherence

Other:
The Ox-Bow Incident (Wellman, 1943) 4/5 - crowd psychology-themed western, Dana Andrews great as always
Heavy Metal in Baghdad (Moretti/Alvi, 2007) 4/5 - Vice documentary that goes to show metal dudes are exactly the same the world over
The Terminal Man (Hodges, 1974) 4/5 - paranoid '70s SF from Get Carter/Flash Gordon director
Flesh and the Fiends (Gilling, 1960) 4/5 - Burke & Hare story with Donald Pleasence consuming the scenery as a graverobber/murderer, look out for Melvyn "Gloria" Hayes too
Brute Force (Dassin, 1947) 4/5 - broke new ground for the depiction of onscreen violence apparently, I can believe it, the first we see of "hero" Burt Lancaster he's ordering a prison fink to be forced into a steam press with blowtorches
Kansas City Confidential (Karlson, 1952) 4/5 - Neville Brand AND Lee Van Cleef as double bad guys, I felt personally menaced watching this
20 Million Miles to Earth (Juran, 1957) 3.5/5 - generic Quatermass ripoff enlivened by Harryhausen effects work
Green for Danger (Gilliat, 1946) 3.5/5 - turns into run-of-the-mill whodunnit after a promising start, Alastair Sim truly was a comedy genius though
You Can't Take it with You (Capra, 1938) 3.5/5 - wherein the Capra folksiness descends into mawkish contrivance, some would say it was always that
Singin' in the Rain (Donen/Kelly, 1952) 4/5 - not the 11th greatest film of all time, sorry
The Jazz Singer (Crosland, 1927) 3.5/5 - can we ignore the blackface? I think we can't
The Naked Gun (Schaffer, 2025) 4/5 - I'm calling it: better than the original
Unearthly Stranger (Krish, 1963) 4/5 - decent enough SF from the director of legendary railway-themed warning film The Finishing Line
Weapons (Cregger, 2025) 3/5 - I'd heard this was great, it wasn't
Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser (Zwerin, 1988) 4/5 - filmed in 1967
Osama (Barmak, 2003) 4/5 - depressing-as-hell depiction of life under the Taliban
Santo Versus the Vampire Women (Blake, 1962) 4/5 - lunatic horror/wrestling mash-up, better than Suburban Commando among wrestler flicks
Step Across the Border (Humbert/Penzel, 1990) 4/5 - 'improv documentary' about Fred Frith, very good
Macbeth (Welles, 1948) 4/5 - filmed on leftover Western sets apparently, castle interiors appear to be set in a cave
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (Green, 1963) 4/5 - only a dullard would fail to be entertained by this
P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang (Apted, 1982) 4/5 - for fans of Gregory's Girl
The L-Shaped Room (Forbes, 1963) 4/5 - social message film that thankfully doesn't linger on the message
Seance on a Wet Afternoon (Forbes, 1964) 4.5/5 - kidnap drama focusing on the psychology of the kidnappers
Planet of the Vampires (Bava, 1965) 3.5/5 - 4.5/5 for the costumes/design, 2/5 for the story = the final score
The Cry Baby Killer (Addis, 1958) 3/5 - incoherent early Jack Nicholson JD vehicle, the print available on YT is so murky the action appears to be taking place during a solar eclipse
Ace in the Hole 5/5 (Wilder, 1951) 5/5 - Kirk Douglas as washed-up newspaperman Chuck Tatum, this might be the biggest asshole in cinema history
Blind Shaft (Li Yang, 2003) 4/5 - psychopathic goings-on in the illegal Chinese mining industry

Strongroom is a fun watch. Darren Nesbitt's eyebrows make him look like a Thunderbirds puppet come to life.

yeah Strongroom is a great B picture

Singin' in the Rain (Donen/Kelly, 1952) 4/5 - not the 11th greatest film of all time, sorry

was this your first time? it really does rip on a big screen

Cregger’s debut Barbarian was much better than Weapons imo (but is totally an audience flick)

Yeah somehow I'd never seen Singin' in the Rain before, I watched it on an in-flight entertainment system though which is about as far as you can get from a big screen. As far as musicals go it was a lot better than the last one I watched which was Grease.

https://i.ibb.co/Wpg2nqKK/IMG-6513.gif