Last (x) movies you saw (II)

director's first film! lovely and sweet talkback where he discussed the ending which i won't spoil here but it was pretty harrowing how he got it.

one more for anyone interested (And you should be):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR4aCknomCc

I liked Midnight Family. Definitely worth seeing if you can.

Greener Grass is fitfully funny yet so intentionally weird and annoying and off-putting (a la Tim & Eric) that I can barely take it.

It's just so stale, I can't believe we're still living through awful Tom Goes to the Mayor ripoffs and the UCB mindset.

I eventually paused it, saw that I was only at the 25 minute mark, and then said "no way." I possibly said it out loud, to the cat.

imagine the joy of being in a theater at that moment, a few rows away from the director

lmao

*The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Buñuel, 1972) - 8/10
She’s the Man (Fickman, 2006) - 7/10
Matewan (Sayles, 1987) - 9/10
*Vanilla Sky (Crowe, 2001) - 8/10
*Personal Shopper (Assayas, 2016) - 10/10
The Twist (Chabrol, 1976) - 5/10
Songwriter (Rudolph, 1984) - 7/10
Love Before Breakfast (Lang, 1936) - 6/10
The Phantom of Liberty (Buñuel, 1974) - 8/10
Edge of Tomorrow (Liman, 2014) - 7/10
La Haine (Kassovitz, 1995) - 7/10
The Bridesmaid (Chabrol, 2004) - 8/10
*Le Havre (Kaurismäki, 2011)
Death Wish (Winner, 1974) - 8/10
Cobra (Cosmatos, 1986) - 7/10
Idle Hands (Flender, 1999) - 7/10
La Vie de Jésus (Dumont, 1997) - 9/10
*My Darling Clementine (Ford, 1946) - 10/10
*The Apartment (Wilder, 1960) - 10/10

Le Havre = 9/10

rewatched Honeyland in theaters; that's definitely a top ten of 2019 in my book.

Tried 'Chained For Life' and, while the intentions appear to be good and Adam Pearson is an arresting presence, the script is overbearing and the acting is painfully bad. Tapped out after 45 minute.

on deck for the next few days: Aquarela in theaters (first time on the big screen, am expecting to be awed) and a pick 'em from the following for (all first time) home viewing: The Lighthouse, Phantom Thread, Hala, I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History a Barbarians, Songs My Brothers Taught Me

Further January big screen watches will include Three Christs (nice cast including Dinklage, Goggins, Bradley Whitford, Julianne Marguiles and the of-late blackballed Richard Gere), Weathering With You (mega-emo looking anime from Makoto Shinkai of "Your Name" fame), and Nicolas Cage tackling HP Lovecraft's Color Out of Space by AWOL horror auteur Richard Stanley

and, as long as I'm offloading, here's my current list of to-be-released films I'm psyched to see in 2020:

After Yang (Kogonada)
Annette (Leo Carax)
Antlers (April 2020)
The Assistant (Jan 2020)
Black Widow (May 2020)
Dune (December 2020)
Eternals (Zhao, November 2020)
First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, September 2020)
Invisible Man (Feb 2020)
Last Night in Soho (September 2020)
Memoria (Weeraseethakul, 2020)
Nomadland (Zhao, 2020)
Personal History of David Copperfield (Ianucci)
Saint Maude (March 2020)
Soul (Pixar, June 2020)
The Truth (Kore-eda, March 2020)
Underwater (Jan 2020)

*National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (w: Hughes, 1989) 4/10
*The Thin Man (MGM, Van Dyke, 1934) 6/10
*Meet Me in St. Louis (MGM, Minelli, 1944) 7/10
Remember the Night (w: Sturges, 1940) 6/10
Trading Places (Landis, 1983) 4/10
The Silent Partner (Duke, w: Hanson, 1978) 8/10
Murders in the Rue Morgue (Hessler, 1971) 7/10
Five Elements Ninjas (SB, Chang Cheh, 1982) 7/10 that wood ninja got taken down hardcore dammmmmmm
*Watchmen (Snyder, 2009) 7/10 a refresher before watching the tv series

MUBI:

Two-lane backdrop (Hellman, 1971)
Three Colours: White (Kieslowski, 1994)
Three Colours: Blue (Kieslowski, 1993)
A Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami, 1997)

Cinema:

Cria Cuervos (Saura, 1976)
So Long, My Son (Xiaoshuai, 2019)
Little Women (Gerwig, 2019)

The High School Hoofer (Mack, 1931)
I'll Fix It (Neill, 1934)
April Fool (Ceder, 1924)
Whispering Whoopee (Horne, 1930)
Tale of the Vienna Woods (Harman & Ising, 1934)
The Report (Kiarostami, 1977)
Solution No. 1 (Kiarostami, 1978)
Orderly or Disorderly (Kiarostami, 1981)
The Chorus (Kiarostami, 1982)
Toothache (Kiarostami, 1983)
Nurse-Mates (Fleischer, 1940)
Body and Soul (Micheaux, 1925)

The Westerner (Wyler, 1940)
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai, 2006)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (Keighly, 1942)
Rare Exports (Helander, 2010)
Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (Epstein, Friedman, 2019)
For Me and My Gal (Berkeley, 1942)
Little Women (Gerwig, 2019)
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Yates, 1973)
*All You Need Is Cash (Weis, Idle, 1978)
Little Dieter Needs to Fly (Herzog, 1997)
Transit (Petzold, 2018)
Westworld (Crichton, 1973)
Demon Seed (Cammell, 1977)
*Logan's Run (Anderson, 1976)
The Souvenir (Hogg, 2019)
*Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955)
Jamaica Inn (Hitchcock, 1939)
Adam Resurrected (Schrader, 2008)
*Midsommar (Aster, 2019)
Take Aim at the Police Van (Suzuki, 1960)
Shivers (Cronenberg, 1975)
Young Mr. Lincoln (Ford, 1939)
Domino (De Palma, 2019)
That Obscure Object of Desire (Buñuel, 1977)

I watched Domino because it was only 88 minutes and I was like, wait, De Palma still makes movies? Boy was that some dire shit.

Amazing Grace (Pollack, 2019) 7/10
High Life (Denis, 2018) 5/10
Gloria Bell (Lelio, 2019) 6/10
The Gunfighter (King, 1950) 7/10
Howl (Friedman and Epstein, 2010) 5/10
Fast Color (Hart, 2018) 7/10
Before Stonewall (Scagliotti and Schiller, 1984) 8/10
Magnificent Obsession (Sirk, 1954) 7/10
*All of Me (Reiner, 1984) 8/10
Gambling House (Tetzlaff, 1950) 6/10

Women In Love (Russell, 1969)

I liked it a lot. It is one of those period films that seems in retrospect purposely reflective of its own moment.

One Child Nation is fucking horrifying and depressing as hell, but worth it.

*I Only Want You to Love Me (Fassbinder, 1976) - 8/10
Sex is Comedy (Breillat, 2002) - 9/10
Eastern Promises (Cronenberg, 2007) - 9/10
A Rainy Day in New York (Allen, 2018) - 5/10
Vincent & Theo (Altman, 1990) - 6/10
36 Fillette (Breillat, 1988) - 8/10
Three Brothers (Rosi, 1981) - 9/10
Death Wish II (Winner, 1982) - 7/10
A Real Young Girl (Breillat, 1976) - 10/10
Nocturnal Uproar (Breillat, 1979) - 8/10
Germany in Autumn (various, 1978) - 9/10
Twentynine Palms (Dumont, 2003) - 9/10
*Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Tarantino, 2019) - 10/10
Full Moon in Paris (Rohmer, 1984) - 8/10
This Man Must Die (Chabrol, 1969) - 7/10
Anatomy of Hell (Breillat, 2004) - 8/10
*Sawdust and Tinsel (Bergman, 1953) - 9/10
*What’s Up, Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972) - 9/10
Romance (Breillat, 1999) - 9/10
*Shadows in Paradise (Kaurismäki, 1986) - 9/10
Flamingo Road (Curtiz, 1949) - 8/10
*Every Man for Himself (Godard, 1980) - 10/10
Le Joli Mai (Marker & Lhomme, 1963) - 9/10
Fat Girl (Breillat, 2001) - 10/10

The Treasure (Porumboiu, 2015)

Another really good film by him. I liked its found object obsession. Thought the ending was great

his films all seem to be subtle comedies about bureaucracy

xp I liked Eastern Promises, especially Viggo Mortensen in it

Sawdust and Tinsel is one of the Bergman films I haven't seen

If I Had a Million (Lubitsch et al, 1932)
Goldman v Silverman (Safdie & Safdie, 2020)
The King Murder (Thorpe, 1932)
Tribute to the Teachers (Kiarostami, 1977)
First Case, Second Case (Kiarostami, 1979)
The Old Dark House (Castle, 1963)

Felt like re-watching Wolfen for some reason. Not as good as I remembered it being when I was 11.

Little Women (2019, Gerwig) 9/10
*International House (1933, Sutherland) 7/10
*Totally F***ed Up (1993, Araki) 7/10
The Squaw Man (1914, DeMille) 6/10
Don’t Change Your Husband (1919, DeMille) 8/10
The Cheat (1915, DeMille) 7/10
The Signal Tower (1924, Brown) 7/10
Merrily We Go to Hell (1932, Arzner) 7/10
Escale (1935, Valray) 6/10
So’s Your Old Man (1926, La Cava) 8/10
The Loves of Carmen (1927, Walsh) 5/10
The Queen of Spades (1949, Dickinson) 8/10
I Lost My Body (2019, Clapin) 7/10

i also liked that 1949 queen of spades a lot... crazy direction!

MUBI:

Holy Motors (Carax, 2012)
The Wandering Soap Opera (Ruiz/Sarmiento, 2017)

Cinema:

Long Day's Journey into Night (Gan, 2019)
Waves (Shults, 2019)

well ulysses, it's a period Chekhov piece shot kinda like a noir

The Last Black Man in San Francisco 4/5
I Am Cuba (1964) 4/5
Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez (2020) 2.5/5
Scarface (1932) 4/5
Atlantique (2019) 3.5/5
* Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) 4/5
* Memories of Murder (2003) 4.5/5
Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. (1992) 3/5
* The Last Detail (1974) 4.5/5
Knives Out 4/5

Shorts/Other:
John's Gone (Safdies, 2010) 3/5
What Did Jack Do? (Lynch, 2017) 3/5
John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch (2019) 3/5
Dottie Gets Spanked (Todd Haynes, 1993) 3.5/5

morbs: yes! but with added moments of surrealism.

pushkin, not chekhov

mea culpa! need to read more Russians

Weak But Willing (Watson, 1929)
Melancholy Dame (Gillstrom, 1929)
Faro Nell (Watson, 1929)
The Iron Mule (Arbuckle & Jones, 1925)
She Done Him Wrong (Sherman, 1933)
The Song of Fame (Henabery, 1934)
Berserk! (O'Connolly, 1967)
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Abrams, 2019)

SAG screeners + Independent Spirit Awards + winter + sick = long diary.

The House on the Square (Baker, 1951)
The Helen Morgan Story (Curtiz, 1957)
Farewell, My Lovely (Richards, 1975)
You Were Never Really Here (Ramsey, 2017)
D.O.A. (Maté, 1949)
The Vanishing (Sluizer,1988)
Good Time (Safdies, 2017)
King of New York (Ferrera, 1990)
The Pope of Greenwich Village (Rosenberg, 1984)
*Irma Vep (Assayas, 1996)
The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019)
A Night to Remember (Baker, 1958)
Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell (Wolf, 2008)
Ramen Shop (Khoo, 2018)
Hot Summer Nights (Bynum, 2017)
Arabesque for Kenneth Anger (Menken, 1961)
Thunder Road (Cummings, 2018)
Good Boys (Stupnitsky, 2019)
The Irishman (Scorsese, 2019)
Judy (Goold, 2019)
Honeyland (Kotevska, Stefanov, 2019)
Apollo 11 (Miller, 2019)
Uncut Gems (Safdies, 2019)
Goldman v Silverman (Safdies, 2020)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Black, 2005)
Dans Paris (Honoré, 2006)
Marriage Story (Baumbach, 2019)
Unmade Beds (Dos Santos, 2009)
What Did Jack Do? (Lynch, 2017)
London (Keiller, 1994)

The Beach Bum (Korine 2019)
Too Funny To Fail (Greenbaum 2017)
Man Up (Ben Palmer, Tess Morris 2015)
* Mission: Impossible - Fallout (McQuarrie 2018)
Revenge (Hitchcock, Blas, Cockrell 1955)
Uncut Gems (Safdie, Safdie, Bronstein 2019) [DCP]
* Knives Out (Johnson 2019) [DCP]
Unstoppable (Scott, Bomback 2010)
Goldman v Silverman (Safdie, Safdie 2020)
1917 (Sam Mendes, Krysty Wilson-Cairns 2019) [DCP]
* Something Wild (Demme, Frye 1986)
Fast Colour (Julia Hart, Jordan Horowitz 2019)
Lost In London (Harrelson 2017)
Most Likely To Murder (Gregor, Mand 2018)
Bad Boys For Lif3 (Adil and Bilall and Craig and Carnahan and Bremner 2020)
The Parallax View (Pakula, Giler, Semple Jr., Towne, Singer 1974)
* Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (Kubrick, George, Southern 1964) [DCP]
Colour Out Of Space (Richard Stanley, Scarlett Amaris, after H. P. Lovecraft 2020) [DCP]
* Alien (2003 alternate cut) (Scott, O'Bannon, Shusett, Giler, Hill 1979)
I Heard You Paint Houses (Scorsese, Zaillian, Brandt 2019) 🏋️
Cold Pursuit (Moland, Aakeson, Baldwin 2019)
Limbo (Liu, Spielman 2015)
Negative Reaction (Kjellin, Fischer 1974)
* Colossal (Vigalondo 2017)

really liked The Last Black Man in San Francisco, it was very dreamlike and its storyline kept going in directions I didn't expect

Yes! I keep hard pitching that film at everyone I meet. It's on Amazon Prime btw!

January:

House of Frankenstein (Kenton, 1944) 7/10
The Blood Spattered Bride (Arandi, 1972) 7/10
Taking Off (Forman, 1971) 8/10
Little Women (Cukor, 1933) 8/10
House of Dracula (Kenton, 1945) 6/10
Rio Conchos (Douglas, 1964) 8/10 (that's Gordon, not Kirk)
Little Women (Gerwig, 2019) 8/10
Short Night of Glass Dolls (Lado, 1971) 6/10
Heller in Pink Tights (Cukor, 1960) 7/10
The Missouri Breaks (Penn, 1976) 8/10
The Gore Gore Girls (Lewis, 1972) 6/10
The Big Racket (Castellari, 1976) 8/10
Ghost Story (Weeks, 1974) 6/10
Major Dundee (Peckinpah, 1965) 8/10
Woman is the Future of Man (Hong, 2004) 8/10
Isle of the Dead (Robson, 1945) 7/10
The Church (Soavi, 1989) 7/10
A Hidden Life (Malick, 2019) 8/10
The Personal History of David Copperfield (Iannucci, 2019) 6/10
On the Buses (Booth, 1971) 3/10
Mutiny on the Buses (Booth, 1972) 4/10
Holiday on the Buses (Izzard, 1973) 5/10

Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970, Furie) 5/10
L.A. Plays Itself (1972, Halsted) (51m) 6/10
The Sex Garage (1972, Halsted) (35m) 5/10
The Lighthouse (2019, Eggers) 6/10
Guns of the Trees (1961, Mekas) 8/10
The Strange One (1957, Garfein) 7/10
Bless Their Little Hearts (1983, Woodberry) 8/10
The Old Fashioned Way (1934, Beaudine) 7/10
Nationtime—Gary (1972, Greaves) 6/10
You’re Telling Me! (1934, Kenton) 7/10
*The Masque of the Red Death (1964, Corman) 9/10
*It’s a Gift (1934, McLeod) 10/10

Harriet (Lemmons, 2019) 4/10
* Mistress America (Baumbach, 2015) 7/10
The Sacrifice (Tarkovsky, 1985) 5/10
* Under Fire (Spottiswoode, 1983) 8/10
* Chinese Roulette (Fassbinder, 1976) 7/10
Kes (Loach, 1969) 8/10
Westfront 1918 (Pabst, 1929) 9/10

For January:

Great:
Spirited Away (2001, Rewatch in theater)
The Wind Rises (2013, Rewatch in theater)
Honeyland (2018, Rewatch in theater)

Very Good to Very Very Good:
Jay Himself (2019)
Muxes (2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlzhXBjmaUw
Midnight Family (2019 in theater)
Porco Rosso (1992, in theater)
What Did Jack Do? (David Lynch 2020)

Okay to Very Good:
Color Out of Space (2020, in theater)
John Berger and the Art of Looking (2016)

Aborted:
Jacob, Mimmi and the Talking Dogs (2019)
Chained for Life (2019)

Immediately in Progress:
I Am Thor (2015)
Uncut Gems (2019)

Vertige (1969, Beaudin)
Logan Lucky (2017, Soderbergh)
The Wonderland Experience (2002, Hardyment)
Ford v Ferrari (2019, Mangold)
Anna (2019, Besson)
This Is Not A Test (1962, Gadette)
Beware Of Mr. Baker (2012, Bulger)
The 10th Victim (1965, Petri)
The Call of Cthulhu (2005, Leman)
Lost Landscapes of Los Angeles (2019, Prelinger)
Color Out of Space (2019, Stanley)
Black Tight Killers (1966, Hasebe)

The Ghost Walks (Strayer, 1934)
One Hour Late (Murphy, 1934)
Snow Birds (White, 1932)
Secret of the Chateau (Thorpe, 1934)
The Ghost & Mr. Chicken (Rafkin, 1966)
Daughter (Kashcheeva, 2019)
Hair Love (Smith et al, 2019)
Kitbull (Sullivan, 2019)
Memorable (Collet, 2019)
Sister (Song, 2019)
Brotherhood (Joobeur, 2018)
Nefta Football Club (Piat, 2018)
The Neighbors' Window (Curry, 2019)
Saria (Buckley, 2019)

Nights of Cabiria

I loved this. The final scenes are just devastating. Giulietta Masina is incredible in this. She has this mix of sassiness and naivety.

The Asphalt Jungle

I wanted to see this for years but it was disappointing. Its a bit stiff and I like my noirs to be a bit more feverish and crazed. The Killing is much better than this.

The Killing is much better than this.

Orson Welles said so too.

The Return (Zvyagintsev)*
The Banishment (Zvyagintsev)*
Elena (Zvyagintsev)*
Leviathan (Zvyagintsev)*
Loveless (Zvyagintsev)
Crossing the Line (Marcello)
The Mouth of the Wolf (Marcello)
The Silence of Pelesjan (Marcello)
No Fear, No Die (Denis)
I Can’t Sleep (Denis)
US Go Home (Denis)
Nenette and Boni (Denis)
Atlantics (Diop)*
Les Miserables (Ly)
Bad Company (Eustache)
Santa Claus has Blue Eyes (Eustache)
Frozen II (Lee & Buck)
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Abrams)
1917 (Mendes)
Knives Out (Johnson)
Blade Runner (Scott)
Matchstick Men (Scott)
Logan (Mangold)
Ford v Ferrari (Mangold)
Jojo Rabbit (Waititi)
The Tiniest Place (Huezo)
Tempestad (Huezo)
Anima Mundi (Reggio)
Rome Wants Another Caesar (Jancso)
A Toute Allure (Kramer)
Muukalainen (Valkeapäa)
My God, How Low I’ve Fallen (Comencini)
Kagi (Ichikawa)
Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (Hara)
Daddy Longlegs (Safdie & Safdie)
Heaven Knows What (Safdie & Safdie)
Good Time (Safdie & Safdie)*
Uncut Gems (Safdie & Safdie)

If you get a chance, check out those Huezo films. They were on the list of 25 best Latin American films of the last decade we discussed a while back, and they are pretty incredible documentaries.