Last (x) movies you saw (II)

was #1 on my 2018 film poll ballot iirc

yea I saw it it was great

Finally got round to Full Metal Jacket, I'd seen bits before. It has an undeniable accumulative power in the first 3rd but that's almost entirely down to R Lee Ermey's incredible performance. After that it just seems like a bunch of (quotable/memorable) set-pieces in search of a film. Probably my least favourite Kubrick I've seen

love Leave No Trace. Go see Winter's Bone if you haven't already.

Already saw (and really liked) Winter's Bone. I somehow missed LNT until word got out that Kendra Smith had a new song on the closing credits.

Frownland: Admirably, unflinchingly gruesome. 70s/80s low budget urban decay cinema aesthetic applied to a character study without much in the way of leavening agents. Was surprised and not surprised that this guy co-wrote the last two Safdie movies. It’s kinda brilliant. Also probably don’t want to ever watch it again.

Last Tango in Paris: It was on HBO. Utterly embarrassing. Even discounting ~problematic~ as much as you can, it’s such an insufferably pompous cartoon of the dick swinging macho “Artist”. Smart people rated it at the time, maybe had to be there, but fuck if it hasn’t aged terribly on nearly every level.

frownland was interesting as insight into where the safdie bros came from, bronstein had a lot to do with them getting their start iirc. a crude version of their trademark abrasive synth soundtrack was present in it

I think it’s more than just a footnote. It’s crude but it all seemed very intentional. It was like a Troma movie shedding the thrills and leaving the rotten core. The lead actor was genuinely impressive. Made me feel some new things.

Leave No Trace is coming to Netflix UK on Thursday.

Many xp... thanks ulysses. I'll need to keep looking out for it here in the UK.

Foxy Brown (Hill, 1974)
*The Straight Story (Lynch, 1999)
The Nun (Rivette, 1966)
The Whole Town's Talking (Ford, 1935)
Extraction (Hargrave, 2020)
Betty Tells Her Story (short - Brandon, 1972)
Guerillère Talks (short - Dick, 1978)
My Lucky Stars (Hung, 1985)
The Fits (Holmer, 2015)
Dis-moi (Akerman, 1980)
The Human Factor (Preminger, 1979)
Cowboy (Daves, 1958)

Quay Brothers shorts:
--- The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer (1984)
--- This Unnameable Little Broom (1985)
--- Stille Nacht I: Dramolet (1988)
--- Stille Nacht III: Tales from Vienna Woods (1992)
--- Stille Nacht IV: Can't Go Wrong Without You (1993)

The Pawnbroker (Lumet, 1964)
The Canterbury Tales (Pasolini, 1972)
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Gilliam, 1988)
*The Limey (Soderbergh, 1999 -- with director + screenwriter commentary)
À nos amours (Pialat, 1983)
Kuroneko (Shindo, 1968)

I really liked the depiction of Brooklyn teenagers in both of Eliza Hittman’s previous films, It Felt Like Love and Beach Rats. I thought they realistically and empathetically showed the elements of danger and chance and naïveté involved in teenage sexual experiences

I haven’t seen it yet but I take it that Never Rarely Sometimes Always is somewhat different, and it seems like it has been a step up in prestige for her as a filmmaker, so I’m glad

man it is a TREMENDOUS bummer for the first half hour, just relentless bleak and abusive. I quit and am not sure when or if I wanna go back.

Doctor Sleep.
Quite enjoyed it. I had thought it avoided referencing the Kubrick film before I saw it but seems to be pretty full of visual references . Wondered if there was one actual clip from the film.

Passed the time anyway.
Was going to watch Motherless Brooklyn but tv wouldn't play the file.

man it is a TREMENDOUS bummer for the first half hour, just relentless bleak and abusive. I quit and am not sure when or if I wanna go back.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Monday, May 25

re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always, I avoid reading too much about new films I’m looking forward to seeing, but I wasn’t expecting to hear this, since her other two films were ultimately very kind toward the characters I thought

my first though when reading a headline summary of the plot was that there was a similarity to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

even the title reminds me of it to some extent

Oh yeah I love NRSA... Such a stunning performance by Sidney Flanigan. It's bleak but very real and very common, it has a light touch and I'm a fan of her films in general. She's really good at showing people deciding to act on desires/needs that may be dangerous, always related to love gone wrong or misunderstood.

it is thorough and, on its face, "blank" like The Assistant, though not as austere as that one (also excellent)

Ready or Not (Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett, 2019)
Lured (Sirk, 1947)
The Crimson Kimono (Fuller, 1959)
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Abrams, 2019)
The Out-of-Towners (Hiller, 1970)
The Canterbury Tales (Pasolini, 1972)
Meek's Cutoff (Reichardt, 2010)
*House by the River (Lang, 1950)
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Hitchcock, 1941)
Coming Home (Ashby, 1978)

(since I'm not doing ratings anymore, I'll just say that the Sirk, Fuller, Lang and Ashby (!!) were the ones I liked the best)

Based on the extreme goodwill I'd seen in multiple reviews for Barantini's 2020 film Villain, I was hoping it would be something above and beyond the typical UK gangster flick. It's not.

It is provisionally not bad "rough and tumble proper geezer" stuff but the direction is disjointedly confusing (dream sequences and flashbacks are filmed in the same way), vaguely grindhouse in its visuals but lofty in its goals. It's filmed well enough and the lumpen ultraviolent protagonist Fairbrass, who I've never seen before, is convincingly sympathetic and makes the most of an underwritten part. Unfortunately the script needs about fifteen minutes worth of cuts and some heavy reworking to join various untied ends... and oh lord do they ever botch the ending terribly. Likely worth skipping unless you're a genre aficionado.

Motherless Brooklyn
enjoyed this , foun dit quit emoving i places.
MIght be a bit gimmicky to some.
& i think I heard taht the main plot points have changed a lot from the book which I have somewhere and still mean to read.
Saw a good documentary on the guy the Alec Baldwin character is based on and the woman opposin him.
Did mean to see this at the cinema and then missed it so glad I've seen it now.

(since I'm not doing ratings anymore, I'll just say that the Sirk, Fuller, Lang and Ashby (!!) were the ones I liked the best)

I've fallen out of updating this thread, but I watched The Out-Of-Towners at some point during lockdown, and very nearly gave up fifteen minutes from the end after being stoney-faced up until that point. Nothing improved.

I thought the most recent "Emma" was quite enjoyable, and always looked great. Given that it and "Invisible Man" were more or less the last two mainstream movies released in theatres this year, I say Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress (and I suppose the rest of the awards) are a toss-up between the pair. "Emma" is probably a lock for Best Costume Design, though, because I couldn't even tell what the Invisible Man was wearing.

Anyway, I look forward to more from Autumn de Wilde, and of course Anya Taylor-Joy.

Emma was the last film I saw in a theater this year, I enjoyed it

Mad to Be Normal the film with David Tennant as RD Laing. It seems to have way too much stuff happening at the same time ie coinciding. I assume that was narrative structure rather than documentary level accuracy. But may be a bit contrived.
Quite enjoyed it though.
Just got turned onto it by somebody sharing an image of a shirt Laing wears to a chat list elsewhere,

Cactus Flower (1969, Saks) 4/10
You Were Never Lovelier (1942, Seiter, 6/10)
Anna Christie (1930, Brown) 7/10
True History of the Kelly Gang (2019, Kurzel) 5/10
I Will Buy You (1956, Kobayashi) 6/10
A Married Couple (1969, King) 7/10
Heimat Is a Space in Time (2019, Heise)
*The Saddest Music in the World (2003, Maddin) 9/10
At 3:25 aka Paris qui dort (1924, Clair) (59m) 6/10
*Horse Feathers (1932, McLeod) 9/10

A Quiet Place
Didn't see this til now. Pretty well done. Interesting concept so may need to see the sequel now..

Followed on my memory stick by, so next thing I watched.
Coonskin
Ralph Bakshi blacplotation from 1974 1/2 live action 1/2 cartoon.
Very non PC features a lot of stereotypes in the animation. But really cool.
Think this has been sitting on the memory stick since before Xmas with me meaning to get to it. Glad I have now.
Think I listened to a podcast on animations based on Tolkien last year and heard about this through that since he did one.

Blaxploitation getting autocorrected there.

for anyone interested I've started a screening series for group viewings anyone can schedule/program. details in this ILF thread

Quarantine cinema club

Good idea!

In the meantime, we watched (as a family) the first "Paradise Lost" doc, and it had just the effect I hoped it would have on the kids. "Wait a minute, how could they be convinced with no evidence!?!?" Etc. I hope they'll be into and sit still for the sequel(s).

oh god paradise lost

Very nice!

May:

Lisa and the Devil (Bava, 1973) 7/10
Frightmare (Walker, 1974) 7/10
The Nude Vampire (Rollin, 1970) 7/10
The Black Cat (Fulci, 1981) 7/10
Blood for Dracula (Morrissey, 1974) 7/10
Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey, 1937) 8/10
House of Mortal Sin (Walker, 1976) 6/10
Mad Love (Freund, 1935) 7/10
Werewolf of London (Walker, 1935) 6/10
Opus 5 (Williams, 1961) 8/10
The House of Fear (Neill 1945) 7/10
Cat Girl (Shaughnessy, 1957) 5/10
The Last Sunset (Aldrich, 1961) 7/10
Hello Down There (Arnold, 1969) 4/10
Eye of the Devil (Thompson, 1967) 7/10
The Mummy's Tomb (Young, 1942) 4/10
The Whip and the Body (Bava, 1963) 8/10
Lips of Blood (Rollin, 1975) 7/10
Village of the Damned (Rilla, 1960) 8/10
A Special Cop in Action (Girolami, 1976) 7/10
Planet of the Vampires (Bava, 1965) 8/10
Bob le Flambeur (Melville, 1956) 8/10
Dream Work (Tscherkassky, 2001) 10/10
Motion Picture (‘La sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière à Lyon’) (Tscherkassky, 1984) 6/10
Two Way Stretch (Day, 1960) 8/10
Demons of the Mind (Sykes, 1972) 6/10
Wagon Master (Ford, 1950) 8/10
The Cynic, The Rat & The Fist (Lenzi, 1977) 6/10
The Camp on Blood Island (Guest, 1958) 7/10
Colt 38 Special Squad (Dallamano, 1976) 6/10
Tower of Evil (O'Connolly, 1972) 6/10
Cry of the Banshee (Hessler, 1970) 6/10
The Legend of Hell House (Hough, 1973) 6/10
Antigone (Straub-Huillet, 1992) 8/10
The Undying Monster (Brahm, 1942) 6/10
Allures (Belson, 1961) 9/10

Missing Link
Animation about egocentric explorer and monster hunter finding the sasquatch and subsequent adventures.
All star cast etc.
Quite fun. Missed it at the flicks so just catching up now.

Heavy Traffic
Ralph Bakshi animwtion/live film about a would be underground artist and the people he meets.
Gross humour which I assume was considered underground. Not sure how sympathetic any of the characters are. Listened to a black podcast about Coonskin earlier and see a lot of the same problems they identified there as present here.they pointed out negativity of black portrayal in that here it extends to gays.

Wizards
Watched this before Heavy Traffic. Another later Bakshi from 4 years later. He's incorporating the rotoscope techniques he uses notably on Lord Of The Rings.
This is about a war a milennium after a nuclear war wipes out civilisation and magic has reemerged. The wizards of the title are 2 enemy brothers.
This was quite enjoyable though really not sure about portrayal of Eleanor the would be fairy companion of the good wizard Avatar. Verges on the misogynist.
Soundtrack had some good fusion which nearly verged on the krautrock.

Was Wizards the big fantasy thing before Star Wars. Mark Hamilton even gets a cameo.
Just thinking is this what fantasy fans would be creaming their jeans over massively at the time.
Can see some cult appeal.

God Respects Us When We Work, But Loves Us When We Dance (Blank, 1968) - 7/10
*Le Beau Serge (Chabrol, 1958) - 8/10
A Well-Spent Life (Blank, 1971) - 8/10
Cisco Pike (Norton, 1972) - 9/10
Smithereens (Seidelman, 1982) - 8/10
*Chinese Roulette (Fassbinder, 1976) - 9/10
Orphée (Cocteau, 1950) - 8/10
Fracture (Hoblit, 2007) - 4/10
The Paradine Case (Hitchcock, 1947) - 5/10
The Clinton Chronicles (Matrisciana, 1994) - 9/10
Dry Wood (Blank, 1973) - 6/10
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Hittman, 2020) - 9/10
The Hustler (Rossen, 1961) - 7/10
*The Third Generation (Fassbinder, 1979) - 10/10
The Cremator (Herz, 1969) - 9/10
Foxy Brown (Hill, 1974) - 7/10
*Pioneers in Ingolstadt (Fassbinder, 1971) - 8/10
*The Bakery Girl of Monceau (Rohmer, 1963) - 6/10
*Suzanne’s Career (Rohmer, 1963) - 8/10
Humpday (Shelton, 2009) - 3/10
Guest Wife (Wood, 1945) - 4/10
Ornamental Hairpin (Shimizu, 1941) - 8/10
*California Split (Altman, 1974) - 10/10
This Gun for Hire (Tuttle, 1942) - 6/10
*Les Cousins (Chabrol, 1959) - 9/10
Spaceship Earth (Wolf, 2020) - 9/10
*The Master (Anderson, 2012) - 10/10
*High Noon (Zinnemann, 1952) - 5/10
Destry Rides Again (Marshall, 1939) - 8/10
*La Chinoise (Godard, 1967) - 9/10
The Petrified Forest (Mayo, 1936) - 8/10
Rounders (Dahl, 1998) - 6/10
Daisy Kenyon (Preminger, 1947) - 7/10
MacGruber (Taccone, 2010) - 5/10
*Fox and His Friends (Fassbinder, 1975) - 9/10
Unrelated (Hogg, 2007) - 5/10
*Blow Out (DePalma, 1981) - 10/10
*Good Morning (Ozu, 1959) - 9/10

two weeks:

Great 2020 Movies:
The Painter and The Thief (Ree, 2020)

Great (non-2020):
Safety Last (1932, Newmeyer/Taylor)

Consistently Pretty Good to Very Very Good:
Fourteen (2020, Sallitt)

Consistently Pretty Good to Very Very Good (non-2020):
Moon (2009, Jones)
A Kid From Coney Island (Ozah, 2019)

Almost Okay to Occasionally Pretty Good:
Hannah Gadsby - Douglas (2020)
Patton Oswalt: I Love Everything (2020)

Deeply Flawed to Barely Watchable:
Hellraiser (Barker, 1987)
Genius Party (Multiple Directors, 2007)
Buzzard (Potrykus, 2014)
DC Showcase: Adam Strange (Lukic, 2020)
Hala (Baig, 2019)
Villain (Barantini, 2020)

No:
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020, Hittman)
The Last Right (2019,Crehan)
Your Name (2016, Shinkai)

American Pop.
Bakshi from 1981 telling the story of American popular music over the course of the 20th century from Russian Jewish immigrants fleeing rotoscoped pogroms to a punk era band that turns out to be Bob Seger.
Gets a bit confusing over timelines especially the beatnik hobo guy who turns into a songwriter.
Was thinking this might just be the most coherent of his films I'd seen so far. But even there it isn't 100%.
There's a torrent of all of his films around so I'm working through them.
Listened to the How Did This Get Made? Podcast on Cool World a few weeks ago so may watch that soon.

I like Bakshi, but Cool World definitely ain't good.

Watched "The Social Network" with my older one today. It's remarkable how young people so quickly turned their back on something as seemingly pervasive as Facebook. She barely knows anything about the site, let alone Zuckerberg.

Safety Last cx = 1923

I really enjoyed "The Vast of Night." Refreshingly simple and sometimes ingenious, it plays like a great Ray Bradbury story or, more high concept, like a student film prequel to "Close Encounters." And it's got a tracking shot for the ages.

OK, just looked it up and sure, there was some cheating with the tracking shot, but I loved all the rest of the long, mostly still, mostly unbroken shots in the movie. I've seen some criticism that the movie itself is too slow, but it totally held my teen's attention, which is saying something!

Looking forward to new Hong Sang-Soo and Abel Ferrara movies out this week in "virtual cinemas."

I saw Yourself and Yours tonight, which was my first exposure to Sang-Soo. Remarkably clever and muted piece of work; I might need to rewatch it to get some of the greater nuances. Worth the time for sure.

Terminator Dark Fate - not good folks not good

*Son of Paleface (1952, Tashlin) 9/10
The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018, Cousins) 6/10
As Long as You’ve Got Your Health (1966, Etaix) 7/10
Death in the Garden (1956, Bunuel) 6/10
The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender (1997, Rappaport) 5/10
Six of a Kind (1934, McCarey) 7/10
River of Grass (1994, Reichardt) 7/10
The Canterbury Tales (1972, Pasolini) 6/10
The Decameron (1971, Pasolini) 7/10
The Italian Job (1969, Collinson) 6/10
The Forest for the Trees (2003, Ade) 7/10

not sure about its greatness, but I felt a lot of empathy for the main character in Maren Ade's The Forest for the Trees and thought the story was surprising. It was memorable and is one of my favorite first films

River of Grass was also an amazing first film and Kelly Reichardt has become one of my favorite directors