Last (x) movies you saw (II)

Always enjoy your listings here telephone thing - the nice Shameless blu I have of Mrs Wadh now bumped to the top of my viewing pile.

Thanks! Also just want to pop in here and dump in the last couple films I watched (late last night and this morning) right away because hoooly shit:

Alice Sweet Alice (insanely grim even by the standards of, say, Black Christmas- I'm using podcast episodes to kind of motivate me through my backlog of classics, which is why these two are clustered together- but also has some really fascinating intertextual stuff; Psycho is thuddingly obvious- the score quotes Herrmann in places, there's a visible poster at a train station, who gives a shit- but Don't Look Now is *all over* this grubby New Jersey-set film and it's fucking wild)

Deadly Sweet (my first Tinto Brass; went into it misled into expecting a giallo, but it's far closer to early Godard, with Guido Crepax storyboards that really shine through in the finished film. And it predates Argento really permanently marrying the ideas of perception in the earliest gialli like Bava's Girl Who Knew too Much with the complementary aspects of Blow Up- the Blow Up homage is right on the surface, including Trintignant reading a direct quote from Antonioni on the soundtrack.)

The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (Huillet, Straub, 1968) 4/10
Othon (Huillet, Straub, 1970) 7/10
The Bridegroom the Actress and the Pimp (Huillet, Straub, 1968) 4/10
News From Home (Akerman, 1977) 10/10
If Beale Street Could Talk (Jenkins, 2018) 6/10
The Virgin Spring (Bergman, 1960) 6/10
The Lusty Men (Ray, 1952) 9/10
The Raid (Evans, 2011) 5/10
The Raid 2 (Evans, 2014) 3/10
Tokyo-Ga (Wenders, 1985) 6/10
Too Early/Too Late (Huillet, Straub, 1982) 7/10
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell, Pressburger, 1943) 8/10
The Hitch-Hiker (Lupino, 1953) 7/10
Babylon (Rosso, 1980) 8/10

Oof. Thanks for taking that Huillet/Straub bullet for the rest of us. Like they say in the current vernacular: "I can't even..."

The Virgin Spring (Bergman, 1960) 6/10

I have seen literally nothing else among your recent watches, so I have no way of gauging how this film coincides (or doesn't) with your tastes, but I am curious about this rating.

same rating on The Bridegroom the Actress and the Pimp for me, but 7/10 for Anna Magdalena

loved News From Home, 10/10 for me too, but of the Eclipse Series 19 Hotel Monterey made even more of an impression

the virgin spring is top five imo

will definitely try anna magdalena again at some point but my complete ignorance of bach/classical music made it one of the most alienating and tedious cinema experiences i've had. (the applause at the end confirmed that the proms crowd had turned out)

re the virgin spring, will concede 6 is a little harsh but this is a way off from his best; being shame and smiles of a summer night.

loved News From Home, 10/10 for me too, but of the Eclipse Series 19 Hotel Monterey made even more of an impression

will seek it out! fyi other london folks, there's a barbican showing of je tu il elle in june

1) It's amazing how many threads there are apparently on Men In Black 3.

2) Rewatching the first one, I think it may be a perfect script, which helps it hold up. Though honestly the casting and direction and even FX are pretty good, too. I remember reading at the time that it cost $90 mil, so at 90 minutes runs an impressive $1 million a minute.

Streamers (Altman, 1983) - 7/10
Querelle (Fassbinder, 1982) - 6/10
Cruising (Friedkin, 1980) - 7/10
*ODDSAC (Perez, 2010) - 6/10
*Zabriskie Point (Antonioni, 1970) - 10/10
Fort Apache (Ford, 1948) - 9/10
All These Women (Bergman, 1964) - 4/10
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (Ford, 1949) - 8/10
Tomorrow We Move (Akerman, 2004) - 6/10
A Married Woman (Godard, 1965) - 7/10
Compulsion (Fleischer, 1959) - 9/10
Despair (Fassbinder, 1978) - 4/10
Volver (Almodóvar, 2006) - 7/10
*Notorious (Hitchcock, 1946) - 9/10
Shirin (Kiarostami, 2008) - 4/10
Diabolique (Clouzot, 1955) - 10/10
Seconds (Frankenheimer, 1966) - 7/10

The Ramen Girl (5.5)
Mississippi Burning (6.0)
Snow Angels (6.5)
Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable (7.5)
Malcolm X (10.0)
Jungle Fever (9.0)
American Beauty (8.5)
Welfare (10.0)
The Last Picture Show (7.0)
Us (6.0)
Down the Shore (5.5)
The September Issue (6.5)

Rampling is really incredible in Hannah imo, and I found the film overall impressive. Maybe it’s because it has barely any dialogue tho but the sound mix was kinda lol, it reminded me of the on the hour skit of the radio play that won an award for best sound design and it’s like “more tea?” *INSANELY LOUD FOLEY OF WATER POURING*

ftr I am entirely pro this

Also: dead whales kinda becoming an arthouse cliché at this point

Yeah, Hannah is absolutely incredible. The extreme closeups of the food, and all the weird daily details. It's an almost documentary film, and then there's just one of the best actors in the world creating an incredible character.

As soon as we went from the acting class (iirc) to that first scene with her husband at dinner I was like “oh boy, we’re in for something here”. An uncompromising 95 minutes

Street Angel (1928, Borzage) 8/10
Sollers Point (2017, Porterfield) 6/10
An Elephant Sitting Still (2018, Hu) 4/10
*I Walked with a Zombie (1943, Tourneur) 8/10
*Bedazzled (1967, Donen) 9/10
Apollo 11 (2019, Miller) 8/10
Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967, Hill) 5/10
Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970, Hickox) 6/10
Winter Kept Us Warm (1965, Secter) 7/10
Zoo in Budapest (1933, Lee) 6/10
The Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1913, Griffith) 6/10
The Massacre (1912, Griffith) 7/10

Winter Kept Us Warm (1965, Secter) 7/10

Famous Canadian film--might even have been the first Canadian feature of any consequence. I saw it at the University of Toronto about 15 years ago, along with one of Cronenberg's early ones (Stereo or Crimes of the Future, can't remember which). Thought it was almost impossible to see...so of course it's on YouTube.

That's where I saw it, tho a NYC rep house recently showed a 16mm print.

Hypocrites (Weber, 1915)
Brief Encounter (Lean, 1945)
On With the Show (Crosland, 1929)
Bum Voyage (Grinde, 1934)
*The Wedding March (von Stroheim, 1928)
Blind Husbands (von Stroheim, 1919)
The Paneless Window Washer (Fleischer, 1937)
While the City Sleeps (Conway, 1928)

Just to correct myself a couple of posts above, Don Owens' Nobody Waved Goodbye predates Winter Kept Us Warm by a year.

American Beauty (8.5)

This film seems to have taken a fairly big hit in reputation, tho i disliked it in '99, and Alan Ball's subsequent shtick seemed milked from the same cow. What do you like about it?

Great cinematography, iirc.

well yeah, Conrad Hall. but kind of unnecessary for a windblown plastic bag.

In terms of its point of view, it strongly resembles a film from the '70s New Hollywood, is my guess?

I don't usually do this, but rather than just repeat myself, here's some stuff I wrote about it about 10 years ago. I'm basically in the same place today. (Scroll down to #32.)

http://phildellio.tripod.com/movies1.html

I think I understand some of the main reasons people hate it, above and beyond standard backlash against films that win a lot of awards.

1) It's a couple of British guys commenting on American life.
2) It's written by and stars two guys who could be interpreted as being self-hating gay men--I think that's a complaint, I'm not sure.
3) It's the nine-millionth film to say there's this dark side to suburbia, and the makers seem to think they're the first people to hit upon this.

And there are no doubt other things people hate about it. I'm not oblivious to the counter-arguments.

In addition to what I wrote then, Eric's right, I probably do get the mood of a mid-'70s film.

After this last rewatch, I went back and read some of the original reviews in Salon, Slate, the Times, Slant, and a few others. Most were really positive; one or two weren't. Also looked at some ILX reaction, and found two or three people who said they liked/loved it initially, then hated it second time around. It was already doomed to vanish--in a way, Spacey's troubles may be the one thing that keeps it around.

I shouldn't let this fall under the umbrella of "other things":

4) In its treatment of Thora Birch and Mena Suvari, it's male-gazey or creepy or worse. I get that too.

5) bag headed straight for the ocean

I tried my best to shield that poor plastic bag from further vilification, but was not to be.

who is British besides Sam Mendes?

I blame Alan Ball (from Atlanta) first.

You're right--a British guy, not guys. That's a common thing, though: Zabriskie Point, Lost in Translation, etc. The tourist charge.

But it's clearly Ball's -- and I hate to use the word -- vision.

Maybe that reason doesn't apply then. I'm trying to understand why people loathe the film--not just a poor pick for Best Picture but possibly the worst pick ever--and maybe it's as simple as glib and facile most of the time, occasionally (plastic-bag monologue) wildly pretentious. I go back to it every few years, and I've just never felt that way.

If it hadn't won, by the way, I'm guessing The Sixth Sense would have (which I never watched a second time); people here would have gone for The Insider (which I find very slow).

Loathing toward American Beauty is probably the potent combo of treacly, precious, dumber than it thinks it is, and arrogant. It goes beyond pretension, there's something mean and dumb in that movie. Nothing to do with Spacey, I think his performance is the best thing in it.

Sorry to Bother You (man WHAT; I have some problems with the big twist, and much as I admire its politics, for some reason even magical realism didn't help with my suspension of disbelief re: the world being breathlessly attentive to a strike at a call center;loved it nonetheless)

*L'Important c'est d'aimer (loved it more on this latest rewatch where I'd previously found it somewhat cold; Fabio Testi is ok I guess but Romy Schneider deserves all the accolades, and Kinski is spellbinding, pulling off the greatest acting challenge of his career in portraying a fundamentally decent human being [fuck him for real though] and a sympathetic gay character in a movie that unfortunately leans on homophobia for some cheap shock value)

Death Laid an Egg (started with the drastically shortened original "giallo cut," will return to the Touch of Evil-esque restoration on the blu-ray in a few days; absolutely fucking bughouse, reminds me of a more flamboyant Elio Petri, with a score by composer Bruno Maderna that bounces between Stockhausen-esque electroacoustics, melancholy guitar that reminds me of Lech Jankowski's work for the Quay brothers, and manic scat-heavy nonsense)

Please Kill Mr. Kinski (still on my mind a few days later)

*The Case of the Scorpion's Tail (rewatched with Ernesto Gastaldi's commentary; as ever, the man misses no opportunity to shit-talk Argento or any thriller where the villain's motivation is pathological, which is an entertaining listen at the very least- especially since my introduction to the giallo, as with so many other non-Italians, is very much one that started with psychos and supernatural horror thanks to Argento, Fulci, etc)

L'Assassino (first film in as exhaustive a Petri rewatch as I can manage with what's available on disc in the US & UK)

The Killer Is On the Phone (middling 1972 giallo with Telly Savalas as the heavy; decent Stelvio Cipriani soundtrack heavy on the fuzz guitar; unusual Bruges setting; very little else to recommend it beyond those three factors- Luigi Bazzoni's Footprints on the Moon does the amnesia plot a thousand times better, plus gorgeous Vittorio Storaro cinematography and an actual sense of dread, minus this film's gratuitous homophobia)

I say Petri "rewatch," all I've seen until now is Investigation... and read some of his writing, so this is mostly uncharted territory for me.

Enemy (2014) - 6/10
Mojave (2016) - 7/10

CPH:DOX festival haul. Last festival in six months, thank God. No grades, but ama.

A Cherry Tale (Mulvad)
Winter’s Yearning (Larsen & Pilskog)
Chinese Portrait (Wang Xiaoshuai)
The Reformist (Skovgaard)
Los Reyes (Perut & Osnovikoff)
La Flor (Llinás)
The Border Fence (Geyrhalter)
Your Face (Tsai Ming-liang)
A Moon for My Father (Akbari & White)
The Rest (Ai Weiwei)
I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead (Gibson)
The Grand Bizarre (Mack)
Graves Without a Name (Panh)
Dark Suns (Elie)
House of Furies (Matzen & Rebekka)
The Dream of Lady Hamilton (Cheval)
You See the Moon (Nunes)
Nakorn-Sawan (Aksornsawang)
Faust (Bussman)
The Edge of Democracy (Costa)
The Last Male on Earth (van der Meulen)
The Disapearance of My Mother (Barrese)
Ceremony (Collins)
Everybody in the Place (Deller)
Searching Eva (Hellenthal)
Kabul, City in the Wind (Amini)
Inland (Palacios)
American Dharma (Morris)
Evelyn (von Einsiedel)
Divine Love (Mascaro)

Thirst (1917)
Madcap Ambrose (Hibbard, 1916)
The Affairs of Cellini (la Cava, 1934)
*The Countess of Monte Cristo (Freund, 1934)
Eleanor's Catch (Madison, 1916)
The Hole in the Wall (Florey, 1929)

* Hudson Hawk (Lehmann, Waters, DeSouza, Willis, Kraft 1991)
* The Player (Altman, Tolkin 1992)
Todos lo saben [Everybody Knows] (Farhadi 2018) [DCP]
Climax (Noé 2018) [DCP]
Izzy Gets The Fuck Across Town (Papierniak 2018)
* Mission: Impossible (DePalma, Towne, Koepp, Zaillan, Pollack, Cruise, Wagner, Huyck and Katz 1996)
Us (Peele 2019) [DCP]
Dottie Gets Spanked (Haynes 1994)
Fear And Desire (Kubrick, Sackler 1953)

Finally caught LET THE SUNSHINE IN and the end credits placement was the highlight.

March:

The Heartbreak Kid (May, 1972) 8/10
The Sect (Soavi, 1991) 7/10
Black God, White Devil (Rocha, 1964) 7/10
Caught (Ophuls, 1949) 7/10
The Snorkel (Green, 1958) 6/10
Jeremiah Johnson (Pollack, 1972) 8/10
It Happened One Night (Capra, 1934) 8/10
Stromboli (Rossellini, 1950) 9/10
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Fassbinder, 1979) 9/10
Captain Marvel (Fleck & Boden, 2019) 6/10
Night of the Big Heat (Fisher, 1967) 5/10
The Swimmer (Perry, 1968) 8/10
The Roaring Twenties (Walsh, 1938) 8/10
Cape Fear (Thompson, 1962) 8/10
The Fall of the Roman Empire (Mann, 1964) 7/10
Arsenic and Old Lace (Capra, 1944) 7/10
Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau, 1946) 7/10
City of the Living Dead (Fulci, 1980) 7/10
Real Life (Brooks, 1979) 9/10
No Blade of Grass (Wilde, 1970) 7/10
The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (Martino, 1971) 8/10
The Mephisto Waltz (Wendkos, 1971) 7/10

The Right Stuff (1983) 4/5
The Beaches of Agnes (2008) 5/5
Trouble Every Day (2001) 3/5
9 to 5 (1980) more like 3/5
Us (2019) 3.5/5
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019) 3/5
Shampoo (1975) 3/5
Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018) 3/5
Full Contact (1992) 3.5/5
The Loved One (1965) 2/5
The Magician (1958) 3.5/5
* Inherent Vice (2014) 4/5
Let the Sunshine In (2017) 3/5

Diane is highly, highly recommended; found it really honest and deeply moving. Place deserves an Oscar nomination.
Saw it in preview, followed by an hourlong conversation with the director and Scorcese about movies in general and was reminded that New Yorkers will literally walk out on ANYTHING

xxxxpost wait WHAT Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz were involved in Mission Impossible???

March:

Leaving Neverland (2019) 6/10
Mike and Dave need Wedding Dates (2016) 5/10
Danger: Diabolik (1968) 8/10
Filmworker (2017) 6/10
Shoplifters (2018) 7/10
The Gospel according to Matthew (1964) 7/10
*Darkman (1990) 5/10
Dragged Across Concrete (2019) 8/10
The Dirt (2019) 4/10
The Intern (2016) 6/10
The Double Life of Veronique (1991) 6/10
Umberto D (1952) 8/10
Poitin (1978) 7/10
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) 7/10
The Other Side of The Underneath (1972) 6/10
My Scientology Movie (2015) 5/10

probably the least involved in anything that made it to screen. DePalma basically ended up inventing the way McQuarrie makes them now: “I have three setpieces in different global locations figured out, Tom just had a new idea for one scene, nobody likes any of the scripts but I know Robert Towne’s phone number and we have a release date so let’s start shooting”