Last (x) movies you saw (II)

I prefer Malle's soft generosity to Truffaut's suffocating sentimentalism

― flappy bird, Monday, August 17, 2020

That's why Au Revoir, Mes Enfants is my least favorite of his major films -- it played like A Walk Through Truffautland. Otherwise, yeah, Elevator to the Galoows, The Fire Within, Murmur of the Heart, Lacombe, Lucien, Atlantic City, Vanya on 42nd Street -- what a filmography.

Agreed, tho I'd chuck Murmur as well for similar reasons. and I haven't seen Vanya!

J-U-N-K (1920)
Sissy-Boy Slap-Party (Maddin, 2004)
One Man Law (Hillyer, 1932)
Twin Husbands (Strayer, 1933)
Whose Baby Are You? (Horne, 1925)
The Affairs of Anatol (De Mille, 1921)
The Curse of Frankenstein (Fisher, 1957)
The Simp (Davis & Roche, 1920)
*The Waiters' Ball (Arbuckle, 1916)

Live Flesh (Almodovar, 1997)
Dragon Inn (Hu, 1967)
A Touch of Zen (Hu, 1971)
Awaara (Raj Kapoor, 1951)
The Portuguese Woman (Gomes, 2018)
Something in the Air (Assayas, 2012)
Gumnaam (Nawathe, 1965)
The Invicibles (Graf, 1994)
Girlhood (Sciamma, 2014)

A Touch of Zen is unclassifiable, sorta begins very Antonioni-like but it goes places I've never seen before.

Worth watching Something in the Air as a follow-up to Carlos...probably his finest period. And Girlhood is the one Sciamma I hadn't seen, just classics all round.

"Avalon", Mamoru Oshii's Polish-language Japanese science fiction film from 2001 was interesting I thought. The entire film was shot in various shades of sepia, the sets were extremely Eastern-European gothic, and the story had a quaint early 20th Century online datedness (like a more primitive Southland Tales) that was appealing

IN Like Flint
James Coburn as the titular hero in a spoof james Bond film from 1967. He looks good for the most part apart from being a major stan for the patriarchy. BUT yeah that does slightly massively seem to be a problem with this film about women trying to take over the world and having to face this playboy type and a male heirarchy that seem sto have very few women in.
Assume that must be a major turn off for a lot of people, ruins the lighthearted fun. probably true.
I know i saw this a few decades ago as well as the first one. So watched this when i found it while channel surfing. Not sure how well dean martin's Matt Helm stands up at the moment assume it must suffer from the same thing. Probably wasn't as 'cool' to start off with anyway.

was trying to remember what the other film I saw thsi week was, now see why.

Pirates of Th e carribean Dead Mans Tails

The last of the series so far i think. Will Turner's son is one of the 2 protagonists as well as a female lead who doesn't know who her parents were,.
Doesn't seem to be quite embodied i the way that earlier films were. Possibly starting with the pointless band heist though possibly there's something even earlier.
A little naff possibly. BUt I thought I might as well watch it through while i was doing other things. think I ate at the same time and stuff. So I guess I only half watcheda lot of it.
BUt do hope they don't add another sequel.
Also I don't see any chemistry between the 2 protagonists which i think was supposed to be a running thread through the film. NOt enough just to say she blushed throughout. Cos what ain't there ain't there.
Still bet there is another one along with them as the starring couple.

I enjoyed most of the Malle movies I've seen, but thought that for instance Goodbye, Children was better than Murmurs of the Heart probably because the former stayed close to historical events as he reportedly witnessed them, while Murmur went from his own experiences to the son and his mama actually doin' it, which he's said was the made-up part, and not in the original plan for the movie, which wasn't really ready for something that deep, however brief---just seemed like the mechanism of the movie trundling along 'til it hit a big bump, then got back on course. Which goes with my take on xpost Ascension as promising themes falling into plotty detachment, when Moreau wasn't on screen, anyway. Ditto for Zasie in the Metro, which looked great right off, but couldn't even finish that one. Maybe I'll give these another shot eventually.
(That's the main prob I have with movies, when I have one: that distracting sense of the machinery, contivance involved, and scenes timed with a stopwatch---not that big a ratio of these to the good ones in Malle's filmography, but it can be frustrating when it happens.)

New "Phineas and Ferb" movie is 10 times better than the new "Bill and Ted" movie, which is inexcusably ten times worse than the new "Phineas and Ferb" movie.

Night Life in Reno (Cannon, 1931)
We! We! Marie! (A. Ray, 1930)
Manhattan Tower (Strayer, 1932)
Lawful Larceny (Sherman, 1930)
The Golem: How He Came into the World (Wegener und Boese, 1920)
St. Louis Blues (Murphy, 1929)
The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (Carreras, 1964)
The Flame of Love (Summers & Eichberg, 1930)

Three weeks where I went heavy on quirky indie docs and got what I deserved:

Great Movies:
Martha: A Picture Story (2020, Miles)

Consistently Pretty Good to Very Very Good:
Lucky Grandma (2020, Sealy)
Korla (2015, Turner and Christensen)

Almost Okay to Occasionally Pretty Good:
She Dies Tomorrow (2020, Seimetz)
Tu Me Manques (2020, Bellot)
Tiny Tim: King for a Day (2020, von Sydow)
Class Action Park (2020, Porges and Scott III)

Deeply Flawed to Barely Watchable:
Boys State (2020, Moss and McBaine)
Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren and Stimpy Story (2020, Cicero and Easterwood)
Pretending I’m Superman: The Tony Hawk Game Story (2020, Gür)
Feels Good Man (2020, Jones)
Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020, Parisot)

*Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (Altman, 1976) - 8/10
Hi Diddle Diddle (Stone, 1943) - 8/10
Blue Denim (Dunne, 1959) - 10/10
Black Widow (Johnson, 1954) - 7/10
*Spree (Kotlyarenko, 2020) - 9/10
The Crimson Kimono (Fuller, 1959) - 9/10
*Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (Fassbinder, 1970) - 7/10
Tobacco Road (Ford, 1941) - 8/10
In Bruges (McDonagh, 2008) - 8/10
*The Image Book (Godard, 2018) - 10/10
*World on a Wire (Fassbinder, 1973) - 9/10
20,000 Years in Sing Sing (Curtiz, 1933) - 8/10
Me and You and Everyone We Know (July, 2005) - 8/10
Bunny Lake is Missing (Preminger, 1965) - 8/10
High Sierra (Walsh, 1941) - 7/10
Dragonwyck (Mankiewicz, 1946) - 8/10
Grand Hotel (Goulding, 1932) - 7/10
*The Merchant of Four Seasons (Fassbinder, 1971) - 10/10
The Panic in the Needle Park (Schatzberg, 1971) - 7/10
The Princess Comes Across (Howard, 1936) - 7/10
Seven Psychopaths (McDonagh, 2012) - 6/10
The True Story of Jesse James (Ray, 1957) - 7/10
Night and the City (Dassin, 1950) - 9/10
*Vivre sa Vie (Godard, 1962) - 10/10
The Last Hurrah (Ford, 1958) - 8/10

August:

The Kid (Chaplin, 1921) 7/10
The Boston Strangler (Fleischer, 1968) 5/10
The Lost Continent (Carreras, 1968) 7/10
The Scarlet Blade (Gilling, 1963) 6/10
The Bad Seed (LeRoy, 1956) 5/10
Two Thousand Maniacs! (Lewis, 1964) 7/10
The Pleasure Garden (Hitchcock, 1925) 4/10
Thriller: A Cruel Picture (Vibenius, 1973) 7/10
Tenderness of the Wolves (Lommel, 1973) 8/10
Angst (Kargl, 1983) 9/10
Watch it, Sailor! (Rilla, 1961) 3/10
The Killers (Siodmak, 1946) 8/10
Force of Evil (Polonsky, 1948) 8/10
El Topo (Jodorowsky, 1970) 8/10
Deadhead Miles (Zimmerman, 1972) 8/10
Slave Girls (Carreras, 1967) 4/10
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Meyer, 1965) 8/10
A Star is Born (Cukor, 1954) 8/10

*The Birds (Hitchcock, 1963)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Sciama, 2019)
Uncut Gems (Safdie & Safdie, 2019)
Little Women (Gerwig, 2019)
To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (Fimognari, 2020)
*Marnie (Hitchcock, 1964)
My Beautiful Laundrette (Frears, 1985)
Atlantics (Diop, 2019)
*The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1920)
The Day of the Dolphin (Nichols, 1973)

I doubt I will ever see the new Janelle Monae movie, but I find it kind of amusing/amazing that it co-stars Jena Malone, whose name is practically an anagram for Janelle Monae.

The Golfers (Sennett, 1929)
English as She is Not Spoken (1928)
The Woman in Black (Marston, 1914)
Working Girls (Arzner, 1931)
Movie-Town (Sennett, 1931)
Borrowed Wives (Strayer, 1930)
Red Heels (Curtiz, 1925)
The Blob (Yeaworth, 1958)
Short Orders (Roach & Pembroke, 1923)
His Busy Day (Roach, 1918)
*From Hand to Mouth (Roach & Goulding, 1919)
Tillie & Gus (Martin, 1933)

A list from some of your summer lists---minus the ratings, because I haven't seen any of them recently enough, though I believe, I know, that they're all distinctively good) (some others prob as good, possibly better, aren't on this list because don't remember them as well as these):
Ghost World (Zwigoff, 2001)
North by Northwest (Hitchcock, 1959)
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (Altman, 1976)
Bunny Lake is Missing (Preminger, 1965)
High Sierra (Walsh, 1941)
Grand Hotel (Goulding, 1932)
The Panic in Needle Park (Schatzberg, 1971)(corrected to only one “The”)
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Meyer, 1965)
A Star is Born (Cukor, 1954)
The Birds (Hitchcock, 1963)

someone pick me a movie for tonight!

(please)

not like shoah or anything though

I'm Thinking of Ending Things? Haven't seen it yet and want opinions.

peep the charlie kaufman thread

Ash Is Purest White. I think that has stuck with me more than most new movies i've seen in the last few years and it looks so good.

amazing movie

ok done, otherwise i would have watched that kaufman film but i wasn't very keen on the idea

don't worry about missing out on opinions, I have really bad opinions!

we all do, that's why we're here.

I like my bad opinions like I like my bad onions, erm.. incarcerated in butter with garlic!

multi-layered and likely to make me cry

they stay almost the same forever just getting gradually worse

* Big Time (1988) 3/5
* The Who: The Kids Are Alright (1979) 4/5
* Body Double (1984) 3.5/5
Rancho Notorious (1952) 3/5
Bill & Ted Face the Music 3/5
* Europa (1991) 4/5
A Kid from Coney Island (2020; Stephon Marbury doc on Netflix) 3/5
Trances (1981) 3.5/5
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020) 2.5/5
Bacurau (2019) 3.5/5
* Indiana and the Last Crusade (1989) 3.5/5

I saw this great B war movie from the late 50s calkled Hell Squad last week .
THought it must be an early work by somebody it seemed to transcend its limited budget quite well.
A bunch of US soldiers lost in the desert running into various Germans etc.

Saw Waterloo with Rod Steiger last week too, may have been what was on before the above.
NOt sure if I've watched it through before thoroughly or certainly not while I've concentrated on it.
Quite good I guess.
Should have stayed up and watched A Fistful Of Dynamite a couple of days ago with Steiger again but couldn't do it.

Seed The Untold Story
a documentary on the iomportance of seed saving etc which I think is current and is going to be the subject of some talks online by ecological groups tomorrow. I thought it was pretty interesting.

I don't * movies here because sometimes I can't remember if I've seen a film before, or have seen it so long ago I have zero memory of it, or have only seen bits and pieces of it over the years on TV etc. So I admire the iron memory and confidence of all you *ers!

sometimes I forget what I had for my tea these days or my brain just blanks out on movies I've probably seen at least 3 times. I won't start worrying about it until I wake up getting arrested for having a number twosie in the B+Q bathroom suite section!

what didn't you like about Bloody Nose?

Did not care for the staginess of it; thought it was going to be more of a verite thing when I first heard about it. Might have been more interesting to me if a Herzog-ian eccentric was behind it. Also, frankly, one of the barflies reminded me of some idiot I know and can't stand.

interesting. people either love it or hate it, seems like! I wanna see for myself.

Ash Is Purest White. I think that has stuck with me more than most new movies i've seen in the last few years and it looks so good.

― calzino, Thursday, 10 September 2020 19:23 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

This was absolutely amazing, and completely new and revelatory for me as I have never seen any films by this director. Me and my boyfriend loved it, and particularly the performance by Zhao Tao, felt like seeing Isabelle Huppert for the first time, the sense that she had the film in her jaws. But yeah so many things to look at, the cities and the mountains, the ferry on the muddy rivers, ballroom dancers. It felt very close to the largeness of classic american cinema: family epics (giant, the magnificent ambersons) (the first film I've seen set entirely within the 21st that shows characters growing older and living out a generation), or frontier pictures about the goldrush. I felt very energised after watching it and fell asleep reading about the director on my phone in bed and had a really bad day today not doing any of the things i was supposed to do properly. This is why phones are banned in bed.

kindof terrified to watch another one too soon in case its not as good

i loved A Touch of Sin and Still Life so you're in good hands imo

Platform (about a propaganda theatre troupe) and Mountains May Depart are classic as well. Your enthusiasm is making me want to rewatch them all again!

There is no way A Touch Of Sin will dissapoint, plax!

in case you didn't know, Zhangke's new documentary film, Swimming Out Until the Sea Turns Blue, is available in America for a $15 rental from October 1 to October 6.
https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/swimming-out-till-the-sea-turns-blue/

There are two other Jia films on the Criterion Channel that I really need to catch before they're gone.

Will have to dive into those.
Saw most of Born To Kill on tcm and omg---tcm bio of El Tierney ditto: apparently he delighted and freaked out his colleagues for something like another 40 years, incl. on The Simpsons and Seinfeld, where in both (and other) cases he coulda been a regular, but rock on.

Ash Is Purest White is my favorite of his, and one of my favorite films ever, but I also really loved A Touch of Sin.

Platform, Unknown Pleasures, Still Life were also amazing, Platform in particular, being the first film of his that was widely distributed. It was kind of inscrutable with its mid-distance shots and hermetic characters

*Vivre sa Vie (Godard, 1962) - 10/10
The Last Hurrah (Ford, 1958) - 8/10
The Left Hand of God (Dmytryk, 1955) - 7/10
The Wild Goose Lake (Yi’nan, 2019) - 9/10
American Buffalo (Corrente, 1996) - 5/10
*Life is Sweet (Leigh, 1990) - 10/10
Monos (Landes, 2019) - 9/10
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Mazursky, 1969) - 3/10
Play Dirty (De Toth, 1969) - 7/10
The Seduction of Mimi (Wertmüller, 1972) - 8/10
Four Weddings and a Funeral (Newell, 1994) - 2/10
The Naked City (Dassin, 1948) - 9/10
Teenage (Wolf, 2013) - 10/10
The Quiet Earth (Murphy, 1985) - 7/10
Rancho Notorious (Lang, 1952) - 8/10
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Kaufman, 2020) - 6/10
Angel (Lubitsch, 1937) - 8/10
*Lonesome (Fejos, 1928) - 10/10
*Wanda (Loden, 1970) - 10/10
Lawman (Winner, 1971) - 7/10
The Boston Strangler (Fleischer, 1968) - 9/10
Straight Shooting (Ford, 1917) - 8/10
*Morocco (von Sternberg, 1930) - 10/10
*Twentieth Century (Hawks, 1934) - 9/10
*News from Home (Akerman, 1977) - 10/10

and I saw a movie in a movie theater for the first time in nearly 6 months:

Tenet (Nolan, 2020) - 5/10

lol

https://variety.com/2020/film/reviews/wife-of-a-spy-review-1234763317/

the latest Kiyoshi Kurosawa movie sounds compelling and is getting a few rave reviews.

it just won Best Director award at Venice