Last (x) movies you saw (II)

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

a documentary that makes itself, really.

this undermines the work they do in visuals and research and in editing the story though — I felt v impressed by how manipulative it was without cheats in the first half-hour, and how well the makers shift to mostly-archival telling thereafter.

i've seen much worse evaluations of 3IS

Apostasy (Dan Kokotajlo, 2017) - fairly ho hum drama around Jehovah's witnesses.
The Heiresses (Marcelo Martinessi, 2017) - this is going to be top 2/3 for the year. Loved the use of (de-)focus to mirror the main character's state of mind (which could've been too on the nose), the script really nails the intricacies of class mobility across a more Latin American milieu, and then the final encounter between Chela and the much younger Angy -- all that hidden passion and desire across age and class -- really was a terrific driver for the last 1/3 of the film.

Missed a trick by not taglining this thread "Oh yes... There will be blood"

https://resizing.flixster.com/2vtSOfiWCmXUQ8Brs-b4y5qFYIY=/206x305/v1.bTsxMTE3NzU3OTtqOzE3ODU5OzEyMDA7ODAwOzEyMDA

Electric Bloodaloo

Kagemusha (1980)
RoboCop (2014)
The Endless (2017)
Deadpool 2 (2018)
*The Social Network (2010)
Super Troopers 2 (2018)
A Ciambra (2017)
Frenzy (1972)
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
*The Cabin In The Woods (2012)
A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018)
*Nightcrawler (2014)
First Reformed (2017)
*Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
Super 8 (2011)
30 Days of Night (2007)
One Sings, The Other Doesnt (1977)

Re-watched Miami Vice tonight (the director’s cut). It’s kind of maddening how 90% of the shots are fantastically beautiful, and then the other 10% look like they were shot on somebody’s flip phone.

I've gotta get on that, watched Heat a few weeks ago for the first time and loved it. Haven't seen Collateral since it opened in 2004 but remember loving it, too.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall, good movie

The Heiresses (Marcelo Martinessi, 2017) - this is going to be top 2/3 for the year. Loved the use of (de-)focus to mirror the main character's state of mind (which could've been too on the nose), the script really nails the intricacies of class mobility across a more Latin American milieu, and then the final encounter between Chela and the much younger Angy -- all that hidden passion and desire across age and class -- really was a terrific driver for the last 1/3 of the film.

― xyzzzz__, 23. august 2018 15:15 (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, for one reason or another Latin American cinema works a lot with de-focus these days, I find. Sergio Armstrong, most famous for shooting most films of Pablo Larrain, is masterful at it. Apart from Larrains films he does it greatly in From Afar and The Desert Bride. It's one of the most innovative little things happening in World Cinema at the moment, but I'll admit I have no idea what to make of it.

August 1st to 16th:

* The Brothers Bloom (Johnson 2008) 📺
Teen Titans GO! To The Movies (Michail, Horvath, Jelenic 2018)
True Confession (Ruggles, Binyon 1937) 📽️
* Sneakers (Robinson 1992) 📺
The Spy Who Dumped Me (Fogel, Iverson 2018)
Nothing Sacred [Kino restoration] (Wellman, Hecht, Schulberg, Lardner Jr., Parker, Howard, Hart, Kaufman, Carson 1937)
BlacKkKLansman (Lee, Wachtel, Rabinowitz, Willmott 2018)
Madonna: Truth Or Dare (Keshishian 1991)
To Be Or Not To Be (Lubitsch, Mayer 1942) 📽️

Re-watched Miami Vice tonight (the director’s cut). It’s kind of maddening how 90% of the shots are fantastically beautiful, and then the other 10% look like they were shot on somebody’s flip phone.

― grawlix (unperson), Friday, August 24, 2018 8:01 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've gotta get on that, watched Heat a few weeks ago for the first time and loved it. Haven't seen Collateral since it opened in 2004 but remember loving it, too.

― flappy bird, Friday, August 24, 2018 8:26 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

MV is the purest distillation of the Mann aesthetic. I actually recommend the theatrical cut over the director’s cut, though I’m not sure if one is easier to track down over the other. If you’re onboard with his “thing” it’s one of the greatest action films in recent years.

You can rent the theatrical cut on Amazon but the director's cut is the only one available on DVD/Blu-Ray.

Has the director's cut of Blackhat ever been released anywhere? I never saw the first version but the re-edit is supposed to be a substantially better movie, so I'm intrigued.

Apparently MV (theatrical cut, probably) will be free via Amazon Prime starting September 1.

*Out West (Arbuckle, 1918)
Charley on the Farm (Sullivan, 1919)
The Dippy Dentist (Goulding, 1920)
Standing Pat (Montgomery, 1928)
Campus Romeos (Pratt, 1927)
A Broadway Romeo (Blumenstock, 1931)
All the King's Horses (Tuttle, 1935)
*The Black Cat (Ulmer, 1934)
Re-Animator (Gordon, 1985)
Good References (Neill, 1920)

Primary (6.5)
A Bronx Tale (7.0)
Promised Land (7.5)
Shock and Awe (5.5)
Nico, 1988 (6.0)
Nico Icon (7.0)
Singer Presents...Elvis (6.5)
Twister (6.5)
Class Action (7.5)
Sorry to Bother You (6.0)

I was going to leave Sorry to Bother You unrated because a) I drifted a bit early on, and b) as it got weirder and weirder, I just didn't know what to make of it. So take the rating as more of a question mark than any kind of comment on how good it is.

lots of Hong Sang-soo, just hook it to my veins

The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928) 9/10
Minnie and Moskowitz (Cassavetes, 1971) 7/10
Happy Hour (Hamaguchi, 2015) 9/10
La Collectionneuse (Rohmer, 1967) 6/10
Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong, 2015) 8/10
Three Colours: Blue (Kieślowski, 1993) 7/10
Three Colours: White (Kieślowski, 1994) 7/10
Three Colours: Red (Kieślowski, 1994) 7/10
In Another Country (Hong, 2012) 8/10
On The Beach at Night Alone (Hong, 2017) 8/10
Blackkklansman (Lee, 2018) 7/10
The Aviators Wife (Rohmer, 1981) 9/10
Woman on the Beach (Hong, 2006) 9/10
The Day After (Hong, 2017) 7/10

Crazy Rich Asians: 7.5

*Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971, Van Peebles) 8/10
The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928, Dulac) (41m) 8/10
La folie des vaillants (1926, Dulac) (46m) 6/10
La Belle dame sans merci (1920, Dulac) 7/10
Princesse Mandane (1928, Dulac) 6/10
Freaky Friday (1976, Nelson) 7/10
Surrender (1950, Dwan) 5/10
Dutchman (1967, Harvey) (55m) 7/10
Rendezvous in July (1949, Becker) 6/10
Nico, 1988 (2017, Nicchiarelli) 5/10
*The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961, Guest) 8/10

On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954) - 10/10
A Colt is My Passport (Takashi Nomura, 1967) - 5/10
Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) - 10/10
Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven, 1997) - 10/10
Auto Focus (Paul Schrader, 2002) - 7/10
Bamboozled (Spike Lee, 2000) - 10/10
Le Amiche (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1955) - 6/10
Monte Carlo (Ernst Lubitsch, 1930) - 7/10

A Ciambra, a story about a Romani family of low-level criminals in Italy, and a young boy's coming-of-age/becoming-a-scumbag.

Alex Strangelove (Johnson, 2018) 6/10
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Milestone, 1946) 8/10
Vision Quest (Becker, 1985) 5/10
*Mean Girls (Waters, 2004) 6/10
*Heathers (Lehmann, 1989) 9/10
A Man There Was (Sjöström, 1917) 7/10
Heartaches (Shebib, 1981) 6/10
The Story of Temple Drake (Roberts, 1933) 7/10

Nearest and Dearest (Robins, 1972) 4/10
Smiles of a Summer Night (Bergman, 1955) 8/10
The Boys From Fengkuei (Hou, 1983) 8/10
Cabaret (Fosse, 1972) 7/10
The Big Combo (Lewis, 1955) 7/10
The Final Programme (Fuest, 1973) 6/10
The Devil's Rain (Fuest, 1975) 7/10
Rawhide (Hathaway, 1951) 8/10
Further up the Creek (Guest, 1958) 6/10
The Women (Cukor, 1939) 8/10
Ant-Man and the Wasp (Reed, 2018) 6/10

The Finsl Programme is one of the rare movies that I watched, thoroughly entertained the whole way through, with absolutely no clue as to what was happening.

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)