Last (x) movies you saw (II)

"Stalker" and "Meek's Cutoff" have both been on my watch list for years (in the case of the former, years and years and years). I had a vague inkling of each, but I knew enough to know I'd love them, so stayed clear of details. I just watched them more or less back to back, complete coincidence, and boy were the similarities eerie.

I really loved Meek's Cutoff

didn't really relate to Stalker. Andrei Rublev, The Mirror, and The Sacrifice are my favorite Tarkovsky films

Another coincidence - or is it? - is that Meek's and Stalker (and, for that matter, the also vaguely similar Aguirre) were all shot in 1:33.

new Todd Haynes is bad. it's superficially similar to The Report which is better in every way and stars Adam driver

it's not bad

Anne Hathaway is an atrocious actor

everyone else is phoning it in or going off key- the Ruffalo performance feels like a Spotlight 2.0 misfire, but Bill Pullman as a ridiculous "well I do declare" Southern lawyer was pretty funny.

script is so cliched and the whole thing is bloated and really poorly executed in every respect. did you see The Report? it's not special, but it's pretty much the same setup (principled bureaucrat discovers cruelty & corruption, works for over a decade in filing cabinets with little climax), and I thought The Report succeeded in making something so dramatically inert and boring into a compelling movie. and well executed in every area DW flags. maybe it's just that I saw The Report just a few weeks ago, and had high hopes since it's a new Haynes film despite knowing it was work for hire, but I was surprised by how pedestrian the execution was. the cast was fine-EXCEPT Hathaway-but there were a lot of clunkers in the script I'm shocked Haynes didn't chuck immediately.

Maybe he had to finish out contract or setup financing for something else. Because even as work for hire it blows. I guess unlike Soderbergh he's not used to it.

And it's an important subject about an outrageous scandal that, as the film tells us at the end, effects everyone. It was so boring and indistinct, it's as if Dupont was a primary backer.

it looked great (per Ed Lachman's standard) and worked as a mainstream riff on Safe. See Haynes thread.

I agree Hathaway's role was the most formulaic and her tongue-lashing scenes were dull, but that's as far as I'll go. She did what she could.

It looked fine, again The Report managed to make ugly office buildings look better, but I didn't think of Safe once. I'll look at the thread...

I'd take an Angel Has Fallen or an MCU movie under two hours over Dark Waters

"Marriage Story" -- I never once felt these two people had actually loved each other and had a kid together. Actors acting.

I thought the performances were the only thing worth keeping. Awful writing, awful direction, conspicuous details and setups that don't payoff, but above all, an absolutely disgusting exercise in cleansing the soul of a man who cheated on his pregnant wife and had the gall to make a movie about his divorce and make the dude's affair with a stagehand brief. Come. On.

Fuck Noah Baumbach

my man
that is my take going into it but i guess i'm obliged to see if i'm right

flappy is making a big leap that it's "about his divorce"

I don't care anymore than what happened to the Sonic Youth marriage (cept I have no interest in their solo shit)

anyway I saw The Report today at MoMA (Burns and Driver q&a) and it's fine, really, for a muckraking film that almost ends by lionizing John McCain

a lot of the details correspond, and obviously he's drawing from it, as an artist. but you're right, it's not auto fictional, it isn't really about his divorce. but I can't take whatever he has to say about divorce seriously, normally I wouldn't care but I think it's cowardly and not interesting to REALLY make the movie of what happened. I think Marriage Story wants to be a semi-autobiographical exculpation of behavior far more contemptible than shown in the film.

Otherwise, what's there to talk about? Baumbach annoys me.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Brilliant_Career_(film)

flappy bird otm for the most part, but I didn't dislike the film, but, man, does Edward Lachman save it.

above all, an absolutely disgusting exercise in cleansing the soul of a man who cheated on his pregnant wife and had the gall to make a movie about his divorce and make the dude's affair with a stagehand brief. Come. On.

but why do you care?

Knives Out (Johnson, 2019) 7/10
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Sciamma, 2019) 8/10
Waves (Shults, 2019) 5/10
Dark Waters (Haynes, 2019) 5/10
Clemency (Chukwu, 2019) 7/10
Parasite (Bong, 2019) 7/10
Uncut Gems (Safdie, 2019) 7/10
Marriage Story (Baumbach, 2019) 7/10
Duel in the Sun (Vidor, 1946) 5/10

I care to the extent that the pedestrian liberal humanism of the film is so at odds with its much more interesting and perverse circumstances of the artist's inspiration. I know this isn't his first movie about divorce (or a wedding), and I'm not a fan, but the 'confessional' tone of the movie is just as prefab and cliche as its conclusions. Saved by its performances, and it's a decent chunk of the movie. Taken on its own, a mediocrity. I don't think he's ever made a particularly good or interesting movie except Greenberg, his only masterpiece. Already being biased going in, of course I hated it.

Les Mistons (Truffaut, 1957) minor
The Last Jedi (Disney; Johnson, 2017) 3/10 finished it this time. i bailed at the casino planet last time. tonally the movie's a mess, but there's a few good ideas in there.
Won't You Be My Neighbor? (Neville, 2018) 8/10
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Heller, 2019) 7/10
Knives Out (Johnson, 2019) 7/10
The Irishman (Netflix; Scorsese, 2019) 6/10

xmas fest
A Christmas Carol (Marin, 1938) 4/10
The Bishop's Wife (Koster, 1947) 5/10
Scrooge (Hurst, 1951) 6/10
The Holly and the Ivy (O'Ferrall, 1952) 5/10
The Junky's Christmas (1993)

The Nightingale.
Pretty brutal. Intentionally dark and it seemed the aspect ratio was odd. In the cinema I was in the screen was kept square which I think is odd these days. Is that true everywhere.
Tasmanian revenge western that spends a lot of time in people's original languages. Here irish and aborigine.
Did wonder how western invented some of the guide's rituals were.
Pretty brutal yeah. Shows how utterly nasty colonisers could be. Does seem to get a bit amateur in places also seems to drift off at the end. But quite enjoyed it.
God those guys are wankers though.

The Nightingale is in "Academy ratio" of 1.375 to 1 (as were Cold War and First Reformed last year); also in current release now, The Lighthouse is in a silent-era ratio of 1.19 to 1, even closer to square.

the Academy Ratio trend is cool because hopefully more audiences will think about aspect ratios

The Lighthouse is in a silent-era ratio of 1.19 to 1, even closer to square.

It actually dates from early sound-on-film processes.</film pedantry>

Mommy (Dolin, 2014) was shot in 1:1 ratio, apparently to heighten the sense of claustrophobia. I'm just wondering what happens when the average viewer puts the DVD in their player and the image is automatically stretched to fill a modern widescreen TV.

ty jlu

xpost it's cool in a theatre with a projectionist, I saw First Reformed and Lighthouse in a multiplex that left grey on both sides in the latter, and grey on all four sides in the former, plus the house lights on

oh whoa! No no no no! yeah that sucks, I've noticed the less that people are in projection booths, the more botched projections and curtains that don't get moved

Wonder if that was why it was in the luxury screen in the cinema complex. They keep to cut price in the early afternoon anyway.
Couple in front of me walked out after the scene in the hut. May have been too much for them. Was yet another brutal scene so don't blame them.
But I think most of the audience stayed.
Just thinking I'm not sure at what point before it turns up on the screen pre film you get to see the age certificate thing.
Maybe it's not something that has attention brought to it that much. But this probably did earn the 18 cert it had. For some scenes at least & there are a few.

Hausner's Little Joe finally opened here. Reviews are meh. Should I bother?

When I saw the lighthouse in a big chain multiplex, the center of the image was a sepia brown and the edges were black & white, and it took me about halfway through the film to realize that it it wasnt a bold choice on Eggers' part and there was just something wrong with the shitty lens.

I'm just wondering what happens when the average viewer puts the DVD in their player and the image is automatically stretched to fill a modern widescreen TV.

Amazing to me how often I encounter people who claim not to notice or care abt aspect ratios on their home TV. Whenever I watch something with my dad at his house, if it starts and its stretched out in a weird way I'll pause it and take a sec to set the aspect ratio to whatever makes it look normal, which my dad finds so annoying and sees as comically pointy-headed pedantry on my part: "jeez, cant you just watch a movie, how do you notice this weird stuff?" I'll be like, you really didnt notice that everyone looks 4 feet tall and has football-shaped heads?

My point being, we're a real delightful couple of goofs to be around, yall should come over and watch a DVD sometime.

Just had the sybil shepherd / elliot gould lady vanishes on TV earlier this week and found it looked really weird.
Realised that aspect must be off so changed it. Early 70s must have been going for a square frame too. Or is that more like 1978.
Did leave me wondering if that was how they normally broadcast films with that aspect. Think I must only be catching more recent films or something. Though don't remember Top Hat doing the same.

prob watching little joe in the next day or two, will report back

I'll always watch a Hausner

xxxpost I once saw a Ghostbusters trailer projected so badly Sigourney Weaver looked like Roseanne Barr. How does that not look wrong to anyone?

A Letter to Elia (2010, Scorsese, Jones) 9/10
Margot at the Wedding (2007, Baumbach) 5/10
The Report (2019, Burns) 7/10
Santa Claus (1959, Cardona) 3/10
*The Last Emperor (1987, Bertolucci) 7/10
*Port of Shadows (1938, Carné) 9/10
Bodied (2017, Kahn) 6/10
*Local Hero (1983, Forsyth) 10/10
Parasite (2019, Bong) 7/10
*Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949, Hamer) 9/10
*Way Out West (1937, Horne) 9/10
Darling Lili (1970, Edwards) 5/10
*The Cloud-Capped Star (1960, Ghatak) 9/10
Atlantics (2019, Diop) 7/10

I'll always watch a Hausner

― Frederik B, Friday, December 13, 2019

...is how I feel now too

looking forward to Atlantics

it's a bit overrated (top ten lists etc; the horror and the social critique don't dovetail very gracefully)

you refer to Little Joe, Morbs?

to Atlantics

The new Michael Bay thing, 6 Underground, is bad even by Michael Bay standards (and I'm a guy who owns Pain & Gain on DVD and understands why The Rock and Armageddon are in the Criterion Collection). Ryan Reynolds is the biggest name he could rope in; the rest of the cast are no-names. In the opening car chase, the protagonists' car gets scraped by a passing truck in ultra slow motion, and its side-view mirror is torn off, flying through the air in a shower of sparks. In the very next shot, two seconds later, the mirror is back on the car and remains there for the rest of the scene. That's some weapons-grade contempt for the viewer.

MUBI:

Stavisky (Resnais, 1974)
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet (Resnais, 2011)
Antichrist (Von Trier, 2009)
The Wind Will Carry Us (Kiarostami, 1999)
Prison (Bergman, 1949)
The Palm Beach Story (Sturges, 1942)

Christmas Eve (Frenguelli, 1915)
I Am a Thief (Florey, 1934)
L'X Noir (Perret, 1915)
The Race for the Sausage (Guy, 1915)
Onesime Loves Animals (Durand, 1913)
Petit Chantecler (Cohl, 1910)
Something Different (Chytilová, 1963)
You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’! (Ising, 1931)
Blast of Silence (Baron, 1961)

* Holy Motors (2012) 3.5/5
Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) 3.5/5
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) 4.5/5
* The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987) 4.5/5
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) 3.5/5
The Blob (1958) 3/5
The Inland Sea (1991) 4/5
The Fanatic (2019) 1/5
Apocalypse: a Bill Callahan Tour Film (2012) 3/5
Farewell, My Lovely (1975) 3/5
The Arbor (2010) 3.5/5
* Blow Out (1981) 4.5/5
Near Dark (1987) 3/5

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Kramer, 1967) - 8/10
Just Before Nightfall (Chabrol, 1971) - 9/10
A Prairie Home Companion (Altman, 2006) - 7/10
Daguerréotypes (Varda, 1976) - 8/10
The Dirty Dozen (Aldrich, 1967) - 10/10
Death in Venice (Visconti, 1971) - 10/10
Abigail’s Party (Leigh, 1977) - 10/10
Who’s That Knocking at My Door (Scorsese, 1967) - 8/10
Seven Beauties (Wertmüller, 1975) - 7/10
The Leopard (Visconti, 1963) - 9/10
Á double tour [Chabrol, 1959) - 6/10

The Story of Temple Drake (Roberts, 1933) - 7/10
Holy Motors (Carax, 2012) - 9/10
Lili Marleen (Fassbinder, 1981) - 6/10
Pleasure Party (Chabrol, 1975) - 10/10
There’s Always Vanilla (Romero, 1971) - 6/10
*The Godfather (Coppola, 1972) - 10/10
The Color of Lies (Chabrol, 1999) - 8/10
Rolling Thunder (Flynn, 1977) - 9/10
*The Godfather: Part II (Coppola, 1974) - 10/10
Now, Voyager (Rapper, 1942) - 9/10
*Alphaville (Godard, 1965) - 10/10

Aquarela and Monos are both late additions to my favorite films of the year.

Run Silent, Run Deep 6/10
Alan Partridge 8/10
Wild Tales 7/10
Army of Shadows 9/10
Planes, Trains and Automobiles 8/10
The Two Jakes 5/10
The Irishman 7/10
The Dirty Dozen 7/10
Design for Living 9/10
Variety Lights 7/10
Krampus 7/10
Black Christmas 5/10
Home Alone 2 3/10
Mon Oncle Antoine 10/10
Christmas in Connecticut 8/10
Rare Exports 5/10
Bad Santa (extended cut) 8/10

recently watched Patricio Guzman’s Nostalgia for the Light (2010) and The Pearl Button (2015), and really liked them both. Looking forward to seeing the third part of the trilogy The Cordillera of Dreams which was released this year (but won’t be out in US until Feb 2020)

*Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller 2015)
*Marathon Man (Schlesinger 1976)
Greenaway shorts: Intervals (1973), Windows (1974), H is for House (1976), Water Wrackets (1978)
*Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone 1968)
The Irishman (Scorsese 2019)
The Inland Sea (Corra 1991)
Meet Me in St. Louis (Minnelli 1944)
Border (Abbas 2018)
Knives Out (Johnson 2019)
*Cemetery of Splendour (Weerasethakul 2015)
The Lives of Others (von Donnersmarck 2006)
Parasite (Bong 2019)
The Lighthouse (Eggers 2019)
Scarlet Street (Lang 1945)
Marriage Story (Baumbach 2019)
30/30 Vision: Three Decades of Strand Releasing (various, 2019)
The Petrified Forest (Mayo 1936)
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Sturges 1944)
Mauvais sang (Carax 1986)
Tokyo Godfathers (Kon 2003)
Aves (short - Keene 1998)

Anybody's Woman (Arzner, 1930)
A Christmas Story (Clark, 1983)
*Hogfather (Jean, 2006)
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (Chechik, 1989)