Last (x) movies you saw (II)

How did Sleuth go?

Saint Frances (Thompson, 2019) - Consistently surprisingly clever; brilliantly cast and only occasionally mawkish.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/movies/saint-frances-review.html

American Factory (Reichart, 2019) - A painful reminder that even post COVID, we are economically fucked. Did an excellent job of showing Americans the way that Chinese businessmen see us.
https://www.netflix.com/title/81090071

Human Nature (Bolt, 2019) - Great doc primer to gene therapy and CRISPR, provided some scant hope that we may yet outthink this fucking pandemic yet.
https://wondercollaborative.org/human-nature-documentary-film/

Last Breath (2019, Da Costa, Parkinson) - Over-attenuated doc on a terrifying story; an hour long cut would've been twice as good. As it is, the YOU ARE THERE security video goes a long way toward capturing the moment well enough to justify the investment.
https://www.netflix.com/title/80215139

War on Everyone (2016, McDonagh) - I loved Calvary and very much liked The Guard but wtf is this self-satisfied, hyperinflated Mark Millar wannabe horseshit? Every now and again, it finds a pulse and a clever turn of phrase, but way way way too dumb-smart for it's own good, no matter how many references McDonagh throws into the mix.

Buffaloed (2019, Wexler) - Really wanted this to be as smart as it wanted to be but unfortunately it is not. Hacky and predictable; bad acting and writing. I tapped out at 33 minutes.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B084SW7MTK/ref=atv_dl_rdr

Onward (2020, Pixar) - Definitely a nadir for the studio; I lasted about fifteen minutes.

War on everyone is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen, ban all mcdonaghs

They won't watch Sleuth! That's what I'm saying, 90% of my picks are ace, but one boring "Murder on the Orient Express" makes them not just distrustful of the genre but distrustful of me!

They won't watch Sleuth!

Boooooo :(

end of feb through to the quarantine era

Meshes of the Afternoon (Deren, Hammid, 1943) 10/10
The Delmarva Chicken of Tomorrow (Zimmerman, 2002) 4/10
Beach Fragments (Woodman, 1978) 8/10
Sodom (Sodom, Price) 1989
Woman is the Future of Man (Hong, 2004) 5/10
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette, 1974) 10/10
First Name: Carmen (Godard, 1983) 10/10
One Hour With You (Lubitsch, 1932) 7/10
Stromboli (Rossellini, 1950) 9/10
Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch, 1932) 10/10
Olivia (Audry, 1951) 5/10
Detective (Godard, 1985) 7/10
Titan (Lutz, 2009) 5/10
Arabia (Lutz, 1991) 4/10
Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (Lubitsch, 1938) 10/10
*Magnificent Obsession (Sirk, 1954) 8/10
Depuis le Jour (Jarman, 1987) 4/10
The Garden (Jarman, 1990) 6/10
Winter Light (Bergman, 1963) 7/10
Colossal Youth (Costa, 2006) 10/10
2046 (Wong, 2004) 4/10
Oh, Woe is Me (Godard, 1993) 10/10
When You’re Lost in the Rain (Hopinka, 2019) 5/10
Lore (Hopinka, 2019) 7/10
Hoarders Without Boarders (Mack, 2018) 8/10
Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki, 1997) 7/10
L’Ami de Mon Amie (Rohmer, 1987) 8/10
*Kiki’s Delivery Service (Miyazaki, 10/10)
Press (FIRE) to Start (Woods, 2018) 3/10
Quelques fleurs pour un chant d’amour (Marti, 2006) 4/10
K (desert) (Devaux 2006) 6/10
Dellamorte Dellamorte Dellamore (Matarasso, 2004) 4/10
Unititled 1 (Godovannaya, 2005) 3/10
Dobrodošlica (Marc, 2018) 7/10
I Remember Sunderland (2017) 5/10
Hymen (Arcega, 2002) 7/10
Wasteland no. 1: Ardent Verdant (Mack, 2017) 7/10
Wasteland no. 2: Hardy, Hearty (Mack, 2019) 9/10
4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (Rohmer, 1987) 6/10
The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (Story, 2016) 8/10
Journey to Italy (Rossellini, 1954) 10/10
Sherlock Jr. (Keaton, 1924) 9/10

Sodom (Sodom, Price) 1989 this is 9/10. v nsfw, v recommended.

I remember back in about 1975, when I was about 7, my parents were out to dinner and my babysitter put on Sleuth (which was on TV obv). It scared the living shit out of me. Something about the sadism of it was totally unnerving.

I think people wouls see the big twist fairly soon these days

still Olivier and Caine are very funny in it

and now it wd be v nice if you clowns took all these whodunits to another thread :)

OK, I convinced my older one to watch "Die Hard" with the provision that she could pull the plug after 20 minutes, but she was absolutely hooked and loved it so all is right in the world again.

hell yeah how can you not? I think the first time I saw it I was 9 or 10. Loved it. first two sequels were good, too

It helped that it starred Snape.

Somehow, by some strange dark magic, I convinced my entire family to see "Gosford Park" tonight. My younger daughter didn't really have the patience for it, my wife (who remembered liking it back when, hence her acquiescence) half watched it and half napped, but my older daughter really seemed to enjoy it.

Movie night tonight was "Moon," which my wife and older one liked (I'd seen it before). Kind of went over my younger daughter's head, but she might just be tired.

Peterloo (2018, Leigh) 8/10
Shadow (2018, Zhang) 8/10
Honeyland (2019, Stefanov, Kotevska) 7/10
Just Pals (1920, Ford) 6/10
Smarty (1934, Florey) 6/10
Pilgrimage (1933, Ford) 7/10
Four Sons (1928, Ford) 7/10
*Paths of Glory (1957, Kubrick) 10/10
Pardners (1956, Taurog) 6/10
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946, Milestone) 8/10

Moon is def slow by young person standards, especially before the hook becomes apparent.

TV and MUBI:

Maradona (Kapadia, 2019)
Bacarau (Medonca Filho, 2019)
Chaotic Anna (Medem, 2009)
The Rite (Bergman, 1969)

xpost Though in defense of my younger person (12), she was never bored!

The Lion King (2019) 1/10
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Hitchcock, 1941) 3/10
The Invisible Man (Whannell, 2020) 8/10
Upgrade (Whannell, 2018) 8/10
Brewster's Millions (1985) 6/10
The Lighthouse (Eggers, 2019) 7/10

Movie night tonight (for three out of four of us) was "Grand Budapest Hotel," which is really well made but maybe not quite as good as I remembered it. Daughter liked it, wife respected but didn't like it. Younger daughter blew us off for a different screen.

what aspect ratio

Things getting me through the lockdown - old horror movies, Berlin Alexanderplatz, Tiger King, Kojak repeats

March:
Mandy (Cosmatos, 2018) 7/10
Who Saw Her Die? (Lado, 1972) 7/10
Son of Dracula (Siodmak, 1943) 6/10
Oh, Woe is Me (Godard, 1993) 7/10
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Neill, 1943) 6/10
The Ghost of Frankenstein (Kenton, 1942) 6/10
A Quiet Place (Krasinski, 2018) 5/10
The Scarlet Claw (Neill, 1944) 6/10
Demons (Bava, 1985) 8/10
Freaks (Browning, 1932) 7/10
White Zombie (Halperin, 1932) 6/10
The Mask of Fu Manchu (Brabin, Vidor) 7/10
House of Whipcord (Walker, 1974) 8/10
The Mummy (Freund, 1932) 7/10
Mystery of the Wax Museum (Curtiz, 1933) 7/10
Island of Lost Souls (Kenton, 1932) 9/10
Doctor X (Curtiz, 1932) 7/10
The Invisible Man (Whale, 1933) 8/10
Mark of the Vampiire (Browning, 1935) 5/10
The Abominable Dr Phibes (Fuest, 1971) 6/10
The House in Nightmare Park (Sykes, 1973) 7/10

So far in lockdown:

The Lord of the Rings trilogy (Expanded Editions) (Jackson, 2001-2003) (5/10)
High and Low (Kurosawa, 1963) (8/10)
Ran (Kurosawa, 1985) (8/10)
The King's Speech (Hooper, 2010) (6/10)
Excalibur (Boorman, 1981) (5/10) - who knew blue eye shadow, crimped hair and leotards were so big in the dark ages? I didn't spot Gabriel Byrne or Liam Neeson until the end credits told me they were in it, did spot Patrick Stewart and Robert Addie, aka Guy of Gisburn from TV's Robin of Sherwood.

Body Double (De Palma, 1984) 7/10
La Ronde (Ophüls, 1950) 8/10
The Long Voyage Home (Ford, 1940) 7/10
The Card (Neame, 1952) 7/10
I, the Jury (Heffron, 1982) 5/10
I Wake Up Screaming (Humberstone, 1941) 8/10
Jumpin' Jack Flash (Marshall, 1986) 4/10
Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (Tarantino, 2019) 9/10
Crime Wave (De Toth, 1954) 6/10
Where Danger Lives (Farrow, 1950) 7/10

xpost Aspect ratio of Grand Budapest changed around (by design, correct?). Three different ratios, from academy to anamorphic.

yes, I was making gesturing vaguely in the direction of a joke about your daughter switching to yet another ratio, watching portrait-style tiktoks on the ipad or w/e

Contagion (Sodes & Burns 2011)

― Fantastic. Great move. Well done (sic), Monday, March 2, 2020 5:20 PM (four weeks ago)

remember the before times?


Homecoming (Dante, Hamm, Bailey 2005)
Trouble In Mind (Rudolph 1986)
The Invisible Man (Whannell 2020) [DCP, last new film seen in a cinema]
Harry In Your Pocket (Geller, Buchanan, Austin 1973)
* An American Werewolf In London (Landis 1981)
Suitable For Framing (Averback, Gillis 1971)
* Working Girl (Nichols, Wade 1988)
* Wild At Heart (Lynch, Gifford 1990) [DCP, last film seen in a cinema]
* Muriel's Wedding (Hogan 1995)
* On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Hunt, Maibaum, Fleming, Raven 1969)
Booksmart (Olivia Wilde, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, Katie Silberman 2019)
Big Time Adolescence (Orley 2020)
* The Fugitive (Davis, Twohy, Stuart, after Huggins 1993)
One Cut Of The Dead (Ueda 2019)
Deep Murder (Mane, Beswick, Margolin, Smolen, von Keller 2019)
Alita: Battle Angel (Robert Rodriguez, James Cameron, Laeta Kalogridis, after Yukito Kishiro 2019)
The Hot Rock (Yates, Goldman, after Westlake 1972)
Vaya luna de miel (Wow, What A Honeymoon) (Franco after Poe 1979)
Shin Gōjira (シン・ゴジラ) (Anno, Higuchi 2016)
Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Portrait Of A Lady Of No Particular Age On Fire) (Céline Sciamma 2019)
Absurd Encounter With Fear (Lynch 1967, short)
* Premonitions Following An Evil Deed (Lynch 1995, short)
What Did Jack Do? (Lynch 2020, short)
The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg 2019)

Mackenna's Gold (Thompson, 1969)
Would You Look at Her (short - Stolevski, 2018)
Counterfeit Kunkoo (short - Sengupta, 2018)
The Golem (Boese, Wegener, 1920)
Invention for Destruction (aka The Fabulous World of Jules Verne — Zeman, 1958)
*The Virgin Spring (Bergman, 1960)
*The Magician (Bergman, 1958)
Young Sherlock Holmes (Levinson, 1985)
Orlando (Potter, 1992)
The Green Fog (Maddin, Johnson, Johnson, 2015)
Revanche (Speilmann, 2008)
Brother John (Goldstone, 1971)
Local Hero (Forsyth, 1983)
Sweet Smell of Success (Mackendrick, 1957)
Light Sleeper (Schrader, 1992)
The Connection (Clarke, 1961)
The Day of the Locust (Schlesinger, 1975)
*The Train (Frankenheimer, 1964)
Absurd Encounter with Fear (short - Lynch, 1967)
Long Day's Journey Into Night (Bi Gan, 2018)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Sciamma, 2019)
Irma Vep (Assayas, 1996)
Eighth Continent (short - Zois, 2017)

Local Hero
Sweet Smell of Success

Great back-to-back of first-time viewings.

both made by Scots w/ American dough (and featuring Burt L, obviously)

I wish I'd watched more of the Burt package before it left CC on Tuesday. He's still kind of an enigma to me, though I've seen — *checks imdb* — 17 of his movies.

MIdnight Special on BBC2 last night. Southern people meet unearthly boy.
Kind of enjoyed it until the end credits had Mnucin's name prominently featured as producer.
So is there a whole swathe of films dirtied by his presence?

The Lego Movie (executive producer) 2014
Winter's Tale (executive producer) 2014
Blended (executive producer) 2014
Edge of Tomorrow (executive producer) 2014
This Is Where I Leave You (executive producer) 2014
Annabelle (executive producer) 2014
Inherent Vice (executive producer) 2014
American Sniper (executive producer) 2014
Run All Night (executive producer) 2015
Get Hard (executive producer) 2015
Mad Max: Fury Road (executive producer) 2015
Entourage (executive producer) 2015
Vacation (executive producer) 2015
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (executive producer) 2015
Black Mass (executive producer) 2015
Our Brand Is Crisis (executive producer) 2015
Intern (executive producer) 2015
Pan (executive producer) 2015
In the Heart of the Sea (executive producer) 2015
How to Be Single (executive producer) 2016
Midnight Special (executive producer) 2016
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (executive producer) 2016
Keanu (executive producer) 2016
The Conjuring 2 (executive producer) 2016
Lights Out (executive producer) 2016
Central Intelligence (executive producer) 2016
The Legend of Tarzan (executive producer) 2016
Suicide Squad (executive producer) 2016
Sully (executive producer) 2016
Storks (executive producer) 2016
The Midnight Man (executive producer) 2016
The Accountant (executive producer) 2016
Rules Don't Apply (producer) 2016
Collateral Beauty (executive producer) 2016
The Lego Batman Movie (executive producer) 2017
Fist Fight (executive producer) 2017
CHIPS (executive producer) 2017
Going in Style (executive producer) 2017
Unforgettable (executive producer) 2017
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (executive producer) 2017
Wonder Woman (executive producer) 2017
The House (executive producer) 2017

"Extra Ordinary" was charming and dumb in equal measure, but not necessarily in a bad way. Will Forte is his usual self in an ott if droll villain role, and the two leads are really sweet; it was especially refreshing that they were both essentially, well, ordinary and more or less middle aged. Kind of like "Ghostbusters" if directed by ... Bill Forsyth?

War For The Planet of the Apes
didn't catch it at the cinema when it was out, not sure why.

Is that the third one? I had skipped it because iirc I walked out of the second one, totally bored. Or at least I can't remember if I made it to the end. I really liked the first of the reboots, but the second one ... I think it struck me that if you have photorealistic monkeys acting like people, talking like people, and running around firing machine guns like people, then ultimately it was no different than any other movie with people running around firing machine guns at people. Which is fine, but that first one was more than people firing machine guns at people, and I think I figured any movie called "War for the Planet of the Apes" would be mostly more machine guns.

Festival-haul:

Love Child (Mulvad)
The Fight for Greenland (Sorento)
A Colombian Family (Sørensen)
I Love You I Miss You I Hope I See You Before I Die (Rødbro)*
Songs of Repression (Wagner & Hougen-Moraga)
Show Dancer (Flensted-Jensen)
Being Eriko (Splidsboel)
Long Live Love (Skibsholt)
Meanwhile on Earth (Olsson)
Ecstasy (Passoni)
Los Conductos (Restrepo)
No Kings (Mello)
Ouvertures (The Living and the Dead Ensemble)
The Kingmaker (Greenfield)
I Walk on Water (Allah)
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (Ross & Ross)
We Hold the Line (Wiese)
Collective (Nanau)
Cemetery (Casas)
Andrey Tarkovsky: A Cinema Prayer (Tarkovsky (jr))
Mon Amour (Teboul)
Family Romance LLC (Herzog)
Caught in the Net (Klusak & Chalupova)
Krabi, 2562 (Suwichakornpong & Rivers)
Bitter Love (Sladkowski)
Ocean of Love (Niermann & Karolinski)
Welcome Palermo (Masbedo)
The Republics (Wahl)
Oeconomia (Losmann)
Bring Down the Walls (Collins)
Days of Canibalism (Edkins)
Let’s Talk (Khoury)
The Tree House (Truong)
The Earth is Blue as an Orange (Tsilyk)
The Viewing Booth (Alexandrowicz)
A Shape of Things to Come (Malloy & Sniadecki)
Detour (Valero)
Mother’s Toungue (Lam & Wu)
South (Quaintance)
Heimat ist ein Raum aus Zeit (Heise)*

I'd be really interested in hearing what you all think of I Walk on Water when you get to see it. I gave it six stars, and think it's impossible to ignore, but at 3+ hours it is a lot, and Khalik Allah is such a large presence, and clearly quite megalomaniacal throughout a lot of it, that it's easy to just tune out.

Songs of Repression is a freaking masterpiece in the mold of The Act of Killing / The Look of Silence (same production company, Joshua Oppenheimer co-producing). The Brit contingent should love The Republics, black and white invocation of pre-Thatcher Britain. New Herzog is shite. Sigh.

Yeah War is the 3rd one and it is all about shooting and blowing people up and revenging dead primates. and stuff.
Was quite enjoyable on the tv last night anyway

*ladybird (2017 gerwig) 8.5/10
the scheme (2020 pat kondelis) 8/10
after the wedding (2019 freundlich) 5/10
the truth about charlie (2002 demme) 2/10
the new girlfriend (2014 ozon) 5/10
*the apartment (1960 wilder) 10/10
knives out (2019 johnson) 9/10
multiple maniacs (1970 waters) 7.5/10
the dead don't die (2019 jarmusch) 0/10
bombshell (2019 roach) 1/10
honeyland 2019 kotevska/stefanov) 6/10
horse girl (2020 baena) 5.5/10

Watched the original "Night of the Living Dead" with my older daughter last night. She liked it OK, and was astute enough to recognize a lot of its cultural context (like having a black lead in the time of civil rights unrest, violence and turmoil). On a more basic level, having not seen it for years myself I had a flashback to the "fast zombie" debate, and come on, the first zombie we see in this movie is a fast zombie. It even chases after a car! Granted, it gets kinda worn out after a while and reverts to staggering, but it's still pretty fast. The debate should have been between slow zombies, medium zombies and super fast zombies (a la Dawn remake, 28 Days Later and I guess shlock like I Am Legend and World War Z?) where they are in perpetual sprint mode.

Hoop Dreams (James, 1994) - 10/10
What Price Glory (Ford, 1952) - 6/10
Soylent Green (Fleischer, 1973) - 7/10
Woman is the Future of Man (Hong, 2004) - 8/10
Demonlover (Assayas, 2002) - 7/10
The Fugitive Kind (Lumet, 1964) - 8/10
Crime of Passion (Oswald, 1956) - 6/10
Secret Sunshine (Lee, 2007) - 10/10
*I’m Not There (Haynes, 2007) - 8/10
The Craft (Fleming, 1996) - 8/10
*Family (Steinel, 2018) - 9/10
Equinox Flower (Ozu, 1958) - 9/10
A Married Couple (King, 1969) - 7/10
Tale of Cinema (Hong, 2005) - 8/10
*The Long Goodbye (Altman, 1973) - 9/10
*Bad Timing (Roeg, 1980) - 10/10
Ramrod (De Toth, 1947) - 7/10
Merrily We Live (McLeod, 1938) - 8/10
Merrily We Go to Hell (Arzner, 1932) - 8/10
Death Wish: The Face of Death (Goldstein, 1994) - 8/10
*Drop Dead Gorgeous (Jann, 1999) - 7/10
*The Conversation (Coppola, 1974) - 10/10
Sneakers (Robinson, 1992) - 5/10
The Day He Arrives (Hong, 2011) - 8/10
*Heathers (Lehmann, 1989) - 10/10
*Gods of the Plague (Fassbinder, 1970) - 8/10
Leave Her to Heaven (Stahl, 1945) - 8/10
Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges, 1955) - 9/10
*2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (Godard, 1967) - 9/10
The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins (Blank, 1969) - 8/10
Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (Hong, 2000) - 9/10

Nice run

Since she saw "Night of the Living Dead" I decided to show my daughter "28 Days Later," just to show how influential the former was and how, decades later, people are still riffing on (and rifling through) its ideas. She liked it, and I think I noticed for the first time that the blurry digital video image shifts (maybe?) to something sharper toward the very end.

This afternoon we watched "Brazil," which I hadn't seen in maybe 15 years. Holds up really well. She thought it was weird but liked it and made it to the end. Today I learned this is one of those "classic" films that Roger Ebert just didn't dig.

xp thanks yeah this is right when I turned the corner adjusting to quarantine and the implications of current events

today might be the day for An Elephant Sitting Still

Finally saw "The Lobster" (I run on a major lag). Thought it was great .

think his films are peculiar but very interesting

still contemplating An Elephant Sitting Still

Yoyo (1965, Etaix) 8/10
The Whole Town’s Talking (1935, Ford) 6/10
*La Ricotta (1963, Pasolini) (35m) 8/10
The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins (1969, Blank) (31m) 9/10
Bacurau (2019, Mendonca, Dornelles) 7/10
*Transit (2018, Petzold) 8/10
3 Faces (2018, Panahi) 8/10
Diane (2018, Jones) 7/10
The Wild Pear Tree (2018, Ceylan) 8/10
Black Mother (2018, Allah) 7/10
Pain and Glory (2019, Almodovar) 7/10
Sorry, Wrong Number (1948, Litvak) 6/10
Synonyms (2019, Lapid) 7/10

Daughter loved "Yojimbo" for today's movie, as well she should.

just watched Girlhood, I’ve see all of the Céline Sciamma films now. A Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Tomboy are my favorites but they are all good

The Wild Pear Tree, Synonyms, Transit and Pain and Glory were alll on my ballot for the film poll