Last (x) movies you saw (II)

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

! at low rating for Three Identical Strangers

I knew nothing about the backstory before seeing it at SIFF but on a str8 narrative level it’s my favourite doco of the year

it is an incredible story. a documentary that makes itself, really. what bothered me was how much they reused the same footage from the same Donahue, NBC, + other TV appearances. the same lines. it kinda falls apart at the end, and felt padded even at ~95 minutes. that has nothing to do with the actual story being unresolved, i just thought with so much material to go through (and so many years passed over) the reuse of footage was bizarre.

and fwiw I knew not only the backstory but most of the twists before I saw it. I would've rated it higher if I had gone in completely cold, I wish I could've.

yeah fair enough! the repeated lines are very few & read in SUPER different context the second times around, but if you’re not seeing it / that footage cold, those won’t have the same kick

In-flight entertainment, yesterday/today:
American Fiction (3/5, seemed like two scripts smooshed together with only partial success)
Barbie (2/5, honestly I am not the target market)

Lined up for the return journey in a couple of weeks if the Aer Lingus menu hasn't changed:
Oppenheimer & Killers of the Flower Moon, well that is going to be one serious and important movie session, hopefully the passenger in front won't lean their seat back too far.

Repo Man (4.0)
Krush Groove (6.0)
Make Me Famous (6.0)
Prime Cut (5.0)
The Old Oak (7.5)
Wayne’s World (6.0)
Mr. Robot (S1 - 7.5)
Vanishing Point (5.5)
Hickey & Boggs (5.5)
Belly (5.0)

Seven of these I watched in connection to two books I'm reading: Charles Taylor's Opening Wednesday at a Theater Or Drive-In Near You: The Shadow Cinema of the American '70s and Nate Patrin's The Needle and the Lens.

I know people love Repo Man, so I made sure not to post on the relevant thread. I was a so-so on it when it came out; other than the occasional clever line (still remembered "ordinary fucking people"), got nothing 40 years later. Just in general, I don't think I like cult films...not sure if I've ever liked one, in the classic sense of the term. Which may or may not even have meaning anymore: originally, as in Hoberman and Rosenbaum's book, I think it was tied in with the idea of late-night rep screenings.

in cinemas, April:
* The Thin Man (1934 Van Dyke, Hackett, Goodrich, Hammett) 📽️
Lady Snowblood [修羅雪姫] (1973 Fujita, Osada, Koike, Kamimura)
Rashōmon [羅生門] (1950 Kurosawa, Hashimoto, Akutagawa) 📽️
Green Plums And A Bamboo Horse [青梅竹馬 / Taipei Story] (1985 Yang, Chu, Hou)
Riddle Of Fire (2024 / 2023 Razooli) 📽️
Hundreds Of Beavers (2024 / 2022 Cheslik, Tews)
Late Night With The Devil (2024 / 2023 Cairnes & Cairnes)
Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World (2024 / 2023 Jude)
The Homicide Incident Of The Youth On Guling Street [牯嶺街少年殺人事件 / A Brighter Summer Day] (1991 Yang, Hung, Lai, Yang, Yan)
Tampopo [タンポポ] (1985 Itami)
Mahjong [麻將] (1996 Yang)
Civil War (2024 Garland)
A Confucian Confusion [獨立時代] (1994 Yang, Hung)
* Airplane! (1980 Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker, Proft, Jorgensen, Hailey, Bartlett, Champion)
Gas Food Lodging (1992 Anders, Peck)
* Civil War (2024 Garland )
* Spider-Man 2 (2004 Raimi, Sargent, Chabon, Gough, Millar, Koepp, Ditko)
The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024 Ritchie, Tamasy, Johnson, Amel, Lewis) 3/10
Sasquatch Sunset (2024 Zellner)
Inception (2010 Nolan)
Abigail (2024 Radio Silence, Shields)
The People's Joker (2024 Drew, LeRose)

home viewing:
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999 McTiernan, Dixon, Wimmer, Trustman) 📺
It's Not Just You, Murray! (1964 Scorsese, Martin) 📺 16 min
Batman & Robin (1997 Schumacher, Goldsman) 📺
Basic (2003 McTiernan, Vanderbilt) 📺

king fu rascals (1992) - 4 out of 5

Mars Express (2024) - French animation sci fi detective thriller that expertly mixes up elements from every human vs machine flick we've seen into a compelling, surprisingly original package. The entire thing was just great fun to watch and beautifully conceived.

This was really good! Exploring Blade Runner type themes but I much preferred this to the Blade Runner sequel. It did pack a lot in just under 90 minutes. It couldve done with another 10 minutes imo (I dont say that very often)

I agree it could have gone on longer. I was invested.

vampire's kiss, 1989
american psycho and also maybe vampire? bad script from the writer of after hours. saved by nic cage's insane performance.

Bought a 2008(?) Blu-Ray of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes on eBay; it showed up today. I own the original five movies on DVD, but the Blu-Ray of Conquest has the original ending, where Caesar leads the apes in violent revolution and they murder the humans. I was really struck, watching it tonight, just how violent it was; there are scenes of apes piling up the bodies of dead cops that are astonishing. And the original ending is dark as fuck. Had they released this version in the first place it would easily be regarded as the second-best movie in the series, after the original.

May:

To Die For (Van Sant, Henry after Maynard 1995)
Kiki's Delivery Service [Witch's Express Home Delivery / 魔女の宅急便] (Miyazaki after Kadono 1989)
The Marriage Circle (Lubitsch, Bern & Vance after Schmidt 1924)
Monkey Man (Patel, Angunawela, Collee 2024)
Tim Travers and the Time Traveler's Paradox (Snead 2024)
The Fall Guy (Leitch, Pearce 2024)
Wings Of Desire [4K resto / 5.1 remix] (Wenders, Handke, Reitinger 1987)
Poolman (Pine, Gotler 2024) 2/10
The Lavender Hill Mob [4K resto] (Crichton, Clarke 1951)
Making Of (Kahn, Burdino, Doux 2024)
Aggro Dr1ft (Korine 2024)
Dìdi [弟弟] (Wang 2024)
The New Boy (Thornton 2023)
Dragon Superman [神龍飛俠] (Kobayashi, Lo-hui, Hsiao-tao 1968)
Paprika [パプリカ] (Kon, Minakami after TsuTsui
2006)
Uncut Gems (Safdie, Bronstein, Safdie 2019)
Furiosa (Miller, Lathouris 2024)
Babes (Adlon, Glazer, Rabinowitz 2024)
Evil Does Not Exist [悪は存在しない] (Hamaguchi 2024)


Going In Style (Brest 1979) 📀
Millennium Actress [千年女優] (Kon, Murai, Hirasawa 2001) 📺
Beverly Hills Cop (Brest, Petrie 1984) 📺

March, April, May

The Disappearance of Shere Hite (Nicole Newnham, 2023)
The Landlord (Hal Ashby, 1970)
The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, 2023)
*MC5: A True Testimonial (David C. Thomas, 2002)
Central Station (Walter Salles, 1998)
Maestro (Bradley Cooper, 2023)
A City of Sadness (Hsiao-Hsien Hou, 1989)
Underground (Emir Kusturica, 1995)
Why Man Creates (Saul Bass, 1968)
Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997)
Le petit soldat (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment (Peter Wintonick, 1999)
The Glass Web (Jack Arnold, 1953)
Confess, Fletch (Greg Mottola, 2022)
Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023)
Welcome to L.A. (Alan Rudolph, 1976)
20 Days in Mariupol (Mstyslav Chernov, 2023)
El sol del membrillo (Víctor Erice, 1992)
Code 46 (Michael Winterbottom, 2003)
The Possibilities Are Endless (James Hall, Edward Lovelace, 2014)
Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese, 2023)
The Senator Was Indiscreet (George S. Kaufman, 1947)
Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer (Thomas von Steinaecker, 2022)
So Close (Corey Yuen, 2002)
City Of Fear (Irving Lerner, 1959)
The American Sector (Courtney Stephens, Pacho Velez, 2020)
Le rayon vert (Éric Rohmer, 1986)
Joan Baez I Am a Noise (Miri Navasky, Maeve O'Boyle, Karen O'Connor, 2023)
Carmen (Valerie Buhagiar, 2022)
Bedwin Hacker (Nadia El Fani, 2003)
Fremont (Babak Jalali, 2023)
Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
The White Bus (Lindsay Anderson, 1967)
Chloe (Atom Egoyan, 2009)
Led Zeppelin Played Here (Jeff Krulik, 2014)
Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2021)
The Beekeeper (David Ayer, 2024)
On the Run (Alfred Cheung, 1988)
Taking Off (Milos Forman, 1971)
Athena (Romain Gavras, 2022)
Illustrious Corpses (Francesco Rosi, 1976)
Shadowman (Georges Franju, 1974)
Epidemic (Lars von Trier, 1987)
Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (Marcel Ophüls, 1988)
Befrielsesbilleder (Lars von Trier, 1982)
Vivre sa vie (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
Kuroi doresu no onna (Yôichi Sai, 1987)

May

In The Land of Saints and Sinners (Lorenz, 2023) 4/10
Priscilla (Coppola, 2023) 7/10
Madeline's Madeline (Decker, 2018) 7/10
Pale Rider (Eastwood, 1985) 6/10
Love Lies Bleeding (Glass, 2024) 5/10
*Nomadland (Zhao, 2020) 8/10
Mars Express (Perin, 2023) 7/10
*Perdita Durango (De La Iglesia, 1997) 6/10
Speed Racer (Wachowski, 2008) 5/10
*The French Connection (Friedkin, 1974) 8/10
House of Tolerance (Bonello, 2011) 8/10
Yankee Doodle Dandy (Curtiz, 1942) 6/10
Pom Poko (Takahata, 1994) 8/10
The Delinquents (Moreno, 2023) 7/10
*The Player (Altman, 1992) 9/10
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Miller, 2024) 8/10
*Pennies From Heaven (Ross, 1981) 7/10

xp forgot to 'sterisk Die For, Desire, Lavender, Paprika, Gems and Cop

Hit Man (2024) 3/5
* The Music Room (1958) 4.5/5
I Saw the TV Glow 4/5
Furiosa 3/5
* Inherent Vice (2014) 4.5/5
Through the Olive Trees (1994) 4.5/5
Lumiere d'ete (1943) 3.5/5
* Heat (1995) 4.5/5
Life, and Nothing More... (1992) 4/5
Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (2023) 4/5
Trenque Lauquen (2022) 5/5

Throw Momma From the Train (DeVito) 4/10 so i started watching always sunny, wanted to watch one of the movies devito directed. i picked a bad one.
The Children's Hour (Wyler) 4/10 audrey had some bad performances
Girl, Interrupted (Mangold) 6/10
The Girl Can't Help It (Tashlin) 7/10 how can they look so bored during that Little Richard performance
*Topsy Turvy (Leigh) 10/10
Blue Collar (Schrader) 9/10 the only good richard pryor movie?

Ratings according to the Maltin System, i.e. **** for classic all the way down to BOMB for irredeemable shite

Black Girl (Sembene, 1966) ***1/2
Perfect Days (Wenders, 2023) ***
The Zone of Interest (Glazer, 2023) ***1/2
Poor Things (Lanthimos, 2023) ***
Love Lies Bleeding (Glass, 2024) ***
Mars Express (Périn, 2023) ***
I Saw the TV Glow (Schoenbrun, 2024) **1/2
Evil Does Not Exist (Hamaguchi, 2023) ***
Saltburn (Fennell, 2023) **1/2
Oppenheimer (Nolan, 2023) BOMB (ironically)

I was wondering if Leonard Maltin gave Oppenheimer four stars, so I looked it up and it turns out he was surprisingly cool on the film

I bomb ironically
Einstein’s discoveries and hypotheses can’t define how I be dropping these

xp good on Grandpa Malty

June

The Boxers Omen (Chih-Hung, 1983) 7/10
Godzilla Minus One (Yamazaki, 2023) 8/10
The Beast (Bonello, 2023) 7/10
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Jude, 2023) 9/10
In a Year with 13 Moons (Fassbinder, 1978) 8/10
Triangle of Sadness (Ostlund, 2022) 6/10
Blue Jay (Lehmann, 2016) 8/10

June in cinemas:
Hit Man (Linklater, Powell 2024)
* Furiosa (Miller, Lathouris, Bandopadhayay, Chakravarti, Collee, Maeda, Sixel Miller, Norris pere, Norris fils 2024)
Challengers (Gudagnino, Kuritzkes 2024)
† Purple Rain (Magnoli, Nelson, Blinn, Albert Magnoli 1984)
† In The Cut (Campion & Campion after Moore 2003)
Cruising (Friedkin after Walker 1980)
Crash (Cronenberg after Ballard 1996)
† Body Double (DePalma, Avrech 1984)
I Saw The TV Glow (Schoenbrun 2024)
† Bound (The Wachowskis 1996)
L'Inconnu du lac [Stranger By The Lake] (Alain Guiradie et autres, 2013)
† The Matrix (The Wachowskis 1999) 📽️
† The Hunger (Scott, Davis, Thomas after Streiber 1983)
† Train To Busan [부산행] (Yeon, Park 2016)
† Body Heat (Kasdan 1981) 📽️
Female Trouble (Waters 1974)
* Furiosa (Miller, Lathouris et al. 2024)

June at home:
Ricky Stanicky (Farrelly, Occhino, Decker, Bushnell, Oedekerk, Jarvis, Freeman, Jones, Cerrone 2024) 1/10 for Cena's commitment
Hot Dogs For Gaugin (Brest 1972) short
Ohayo [Good Morning] (Kon 2008) short
Hot Tomorrows (Brest 1977)
Succumb To The Crumb (Glazer 2010) short
* Midnight Run (Brest, Gallo 1988)

Man on the Roof (1976) 4/5. Kind of a Swedish French Connection. Really involving but has a strange ending.
Stripper (1985) 3.5/5. Heavily staged but interesting pseudo-documentary. An absolute explosion of 80s tackiness.
Challengers 3/5. I was watching this when the Trump assassination attempt happened, so I was a little distracted.
* The Mother and the Whore (1973) 5/5
Black God, White Devil (1964) 4.5/5
* Equinox Flower (1958) 4/5
* Messiah of Evil (1973) 4/5
Delta Space Mission (1984) Trippy Romanian cartoon. Would be wild to catch on TV at like 2 AM.
What a Way to Go! (1964) 3/5
Madame Web (2024) 1/5. Watched this on a plane. The villain in this is so comically bad and the French actor appears to have been totally re-dubbed by a guy who sounds like Lee Van Cleef.
Thrilling Bloody Sword (1981) 3/5
France (2021) 3.5/5
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) 4/5
Wild Side (1995) 2.5/5. Director's cut. Christopher Walken at his most unhinged, and I don't say that lightly. Way too much of Steven Bauer playing a rapist cop for this to be much fun.

sic, what does the dagger in front of your titles mean? I hope it’s not “this movie is dead to me.”

rewatch but first time on a big screen. the dagger came out more prominent than intended!

That’s a category of film viewership I’ve really been leaning into recently. Before all the cinemas close down, which seems inevitable, I want to see as many of my favorite films on a big screen as possible.

Challengers (5.5)
Drive (5.0)
Evil Does Not Exist (7.5)
Mr. Robot (S2-4 – 6.5)
Teenage Superstars (6.5)
Players (5.0)
Borg vs. McEnroe (6.0)
Battle of the Sexes (7.0)
Hit Man (6.0)
Kinds of Kindness (6.5)
Longlegs (6.0)

Took me since May 3 to accumulate nine films and two TV shows. I just don't watch movies anymore.

Watched the latest MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movie on Amazon Prime but it just wasn't *fun* the way the fourth and fifth ones were. It's grim and dour and *dumb*. I mean, the villain is an AI, and in 2024 we all know that AIs are just racist, lying chatbots. Also it's 2 hours 45 and ends on a cliffhanger. (But does it count as one if I genuinely didn't care if they ever actually accomplished their goal?)

July big, projected:
Maxxxine (West 2024)
Audition [オーディション] (Miike, Tengan, Murakami 1999)
Kinds Of Kindness (Lanthimos, Filippou 2024)
M. Hulot's Holiday [Les Vacances de M. Hulot] (Tati, Marquet 1953/1962/1978)
The Hardest Line: The Story of Midnight Oil (Clarke 2024)
Koyaanisqatsi (Ron Fricke, Reggio, Hoenig, Walpole, Glass 1982)


small, LCD:
Scent Of A Woman (Brest, Goldman 1993) rental expired after 48 hours 2/3 of the way in, as a blessed relief
Knox Goes Away (Keaton, Poirier 2024)
WILL THERE BE ANYTHING ELSE ? (David Lynch 2024) 4min
Wicked Little Letters (Sharrock, Sweet 2024)

hoo h

hoo a

The Mikado (1939) 7/10
Sorcerer (Friedkin 1977) 9/10
Where the Sidewalk Ends (Preminger, 1950) 5/10
Born to be Bad (Ray, 1950) 6/10
*Don't Look Now (Roeg, 1973) 6/10
*Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Kaufman, 1978) 8/10
The Daytrippers (Mottola, 1996) 5/10
A Canterbury Tale (Archers, 1944) 7/10
Blue Steel (Bigelow, 1990) 4/10
*Before Sunset (Linklater, 2004) 6/10 hawk's book sounds awful
Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe (Rice and Calleros, 2022) 8/10

June & July

Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang, 1945)
Queen of Speed (Barbie MacLaurin, 2021)
Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill (Andy Brown & Brian Lindstrom, 2022)
La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)
*The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (Chad Freidrichs, 2011)
*Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
Europa (Lars Von Trier, 1991)
Civil War (Alex Garland, 2024)
*Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
Une affaire de femmes (Claude Chabrol, 1988)
The Assassination & Mrs. Paine (Max Good, 2022)
The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin, 1925)
Torakku yarô: tenka gomen (Norifumi Suzuki, 1976)
Knife in the Water (Roman Polanski, 1962)
Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Seidelman, 1985)
Century of the Dragon (Clarence Fok, 1999)
*Empire of the Sun (Steven Spielberg, 1987)
The 27th Day (William Asher, 1957)
The Mystery of Aris San (Dani Dotan, Dalia Mevorach, 2007)
The World Is Yours (Romain Gavras, 2018)
The Last Detail (Hal Ashby, 1973)
*The Beguiled (Don Siegel, 1971)
The Blue Dahlia (George Marshall, 1946)
The Walking Hills (John Sturges, 1949)
Concrete Utopia (Tae-hwa Eom, 2023)
La Cérémonie (Claude Chabrol, 1995)
Faye (Laurent Bouzereau, 2024)

More re-runs than usual - Ms. T and I got systematic about our checking off titles on the"classic movies that one has seen but the other hasn't" lists. I'm the person who only just now saw Desperately Seeking Susan. What a great movie! The 27th Day is a total outlier among 50s saucer movies - worth tracking down. The World Is Yours and Concrete Utopia both kinda meh for different reasons that are glaringly obvious when I look at the trailers for them now.

July

Aggro Drift (Korine, 2023) 4/10
*The Discreet Charm of The Bourgeoisie (Bunuel, 1972) 8/10
The Small Back Room (Powell & Pressburger, 1949) 7/10
*Two Lane Blacktop (Hellman, 1971) 8/10
Longlegs (Perkins, 2024) 6/10
Nineteen Eighty Four (Radford, 1984) 7/10
Chameleon Street (Harris Jr, 1989) 8/10
Hackers (Softley, 1985) 6/10
Anything Else (Allen, 2023) 4/10
Challengers (Guadagnino, 2024) 8/10
I Saw The TV Glow (Schoenbrun, 2024) 7/10
Sabotage (Hitchcock, 1936) 7/10
Coma (Bonello, 2022) 6/10
A Visitor to A Museum (Lopushansky, 1989) 7/10
Koyaanisqatsi (Reggio, 1982) 8/10
Cleo from 5 to 7 (Varda, 1962) 6/10

Desperately Seeking Susan is a very fun movie. I rewatched it recently, I hadnt seen it since I was a kid.

Maxxxine - All surface. Kevin Bacon is fun until he isn’t anymore. 4/10

Out Of Time - Carl Franklin’s “Devil In A Blue Dress” is a favorite. I had no clue he’s made a second film with Denzel. This was good fun. Solid B-crime thriller for a sticky Summer night. 7/10

Starve Acre - If “Geogaddi” was a movie. Properly wacko retro folk horror. Beautifully done. 8/10

*Cleo from 5 to 7 (Varda 1962)
The World's Greatest Sinner (Carey 1962. Shouldn't count...I didn't make it to the end...)
Once Upon a Time in America (Leone 1984)
Furiosa (Miller 2024)
Godzilla Minus One (Yamazaki 2023)
Hit Man (Linklater 2024)
The Great Train Robbery (Porter 1903)
From Here to Eternity (Zinnemann 1953)
Dizzy Gillespie (Blank 1965)
32 Sounds (Green 2022)
Victims of Sin (Fernández 1951)
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Herzog 2009)
Cairo Station (Chahine 1958)

Cairo Station probably my favourite discovery at Noir City this year.

The Eagle Shooting Heroes (1993) 3.5/5
* Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) 4.5/5
Beijing Watermelon (1989) 4/5
* Seven Samurai (1954) 5/5
Danton (1983) 4/5
Lumumba (2000) 4/5
House of Tolerance (2011) 4/5
Kamikaze Hearts (1986) 4/5
Longlegs (2024) 1/5. Hated pretty much everything about this.
* Blood and Wine (1996) 3/5
My Own Private Idaho (1991) 4/5

some really great camera blocking in Longlegs tbf.

The First Omen (2024) 2.5/5. First overrated horror movie of the season!
* The Leopard (1963) 4/5
Touch (1997) 2/5
My America... or Honk If You Love Buddha (1997) 3/5
Suspicion (1941) 3.5/5
High School (1968) 5/5
Royal Warriors (1986) 4/5
Victims of Sin (1951) 3.5/5
Mr. Klein (1976) 5/5

August in large rooms with high ceilings:
The Zodiac Killer (Hanson, Cantrell, Cardoza 1971)
Cannibal! The Musical (Parker 1993)
* Donnie Darko (Kelly 2001) [theatrical cut, 4K resto]
Stand By For Failure: A Documentary About Negativland (Worsley 2022)
The Love Nest (Cline, Keaton 1923)
† Sherlock, Jr. (Keaton, Bruckman, Havez, Mitchell 1924)
† Wet Hot American Summer (Wain, Showalter 2001)
She Freak (Mabe, Friedman 1967) [new restoration]
Blood Feast (Lewis, Downe, Friedman 1963)
Indecent Desires (Wishman 1968) [2K restoration from 35mm negative]
Crossing (Akin 2024)
Longlegs (Perkins 2024)
Cuckoo (Singer 2024)
Road House (Herrington, Henry, Henkin 1989)
* Coraline (Selick after Gaiman 2009) [remastered 3D]
* Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Peebles 1971)
I Married A Witch (Clair, Pirosh, Connelly, Trumbo, after Smith completed by Matson 1942)
Between The Temples (Silver, Wells 2024)
She Mob (Wuest, Paschal 1968)
A Woman Under The Influence (Cassavetes 1974)
Chopping Mall (Wynorski, Mitchell 1986)
Trap (Shyamalan 2024)


low ceilings:
* Shiva Baby (Seligman 2020)
On Your Mark (Miyazaki 1995) 6min
Jackpot! (Feig, Yescombe 2024) 1/10, paused 45 minutes in to check bcz I couldn't believe the writer of Spy did this
Fury Has An Anthem (Newman 2023) 7min

spy was easily the best feig/mccarthy movie. take that bridesmaids.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Coens, 2018)
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Mazursky, 1969)
Twisters (Chung, 2024)
On the Waterfront (Kazan, 1954)
The Beast (Bonello, 2023)
Trap (Shyamalan, 2024)
The Last of Sheila (Ross, 1973)
The Village (Shyamalan, 2004)
La Chimera (Rohrwacher, 2023)
Snake Eyes (De Palma, 1998)
Dead Ringers (Cronenberg, 1988)
WarGames (Badham, 1983)

August:

West Side Story (Spielberg, 2021) 5/10
The Wild Geese (McLagen, 1978) 4/10
Yannick (Dupieux, 2023) 5/10
Kneecap (Peppiatt, 2023) 7/10 (at the cinema)
La Chimera (Rohrwacher, 2023) 7/10
Perfect Days (Wenders, 2023) 8/10
*The Godfather (Coppola, 1972) 8/10
*Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954) 8/10
Alien Romulus (Alvarez, 2024) 4/10
*The Founder (Hancock, 2016) 7/10
*Lost in Translation (Coppola, 2003) 7/10
The Hypnosis (De Geer, 2023) 7/10
The Five Devils (Mysius, 2022) 7/10
Frankenhooker (Henenlotter, 1990) 8/10
Major Dundee (Peckinpah, 1965) 7/10
Oddity (McCarthy, 2024) 7/10 (at the cinema)

Inferno - 1953 6/10
*The Last of Sheila - 8/10
Desert Fury - 1947 6/10
Eyes of Laura Mars - 1978 6/10
Hit Man - Linklater, 2023 7/10

Didi (7.0)
Closer (6.5)
The Americans (8.5)
Night of the Living Dead (8.0)
Only the River Flows (6.0)
Reagan (4.0)
Twisters (6.0)
Paris, Texas (7.5)
Amadeus (6.0)
Breaking Bad (8.5)