Last (x) movies you saw (II)

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

i miss fred b tbh

I just as much miss my bleeding haemorrhoids and early morning headaches.

am looking forward to seeing Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland which was the Golden Lion winner, I really liked her film The Rider

that film wasn't trying to prove anything and it dealt with established film conventions, but it was somehow very powerful and memorable to me

nomadland is the film i've been most looking forward to in 2020 and i've been watching for it closely; premiered at TIFF yesterday. somewhat less enthusiastic about her marvel film but still VERY curious.

Mother and Son (McCarthy, 1931)
Exposure (Houston, 1932)
The Office Scandal (1930)
The Beauties (Davis, 1930)
Tarnished Lady (Cukor, 1931)
Night of the Lepus (Claxton, 1972)
Jus’ Passin’ Through (Chase, 1923
Innocent Husbands (McCarey, 1925)

just fortifying myself before watching the adaptation of The Painted Bird tonight, the mood I'm in there is a good chance I won't make it to the end.

I'm reading the cheerful, romping The Painted Bird for the first in anticipation of the film.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 11 January 2020 15:48 (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't know what the book is like but all I'm saying is never watch this movie in its current form, folks...never. The shame is it could have been good without the gratuitous sexual violence and the other stuff, because there was some beguiling imagery and very good actors involved and it could have been much better than this. But as it is the movie needs either some serious cuts or just completely deleting.

lol, that bad huh? i suppose if i want to be brutalized, i can always finally try Come and See

say what you like about Come and See, at least there wasn't no bestiality in it!

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/14/the-painted-birds-horror-haneke-von-trier-arthouse

"Marhoul has even given a small part in The Painted Bird to Aleksei Kravchenko, who as a teenager played the shell-shocked lead in Klimov’s picture. Back then, Kravchenko’s face grew more twisted and anguished with each scene, the carnage his character witnessed reflected in the deepening, tear-salted grooves of his rapidly ageing face."

Gilbey is right here that Come and See is rightfully regarded as a classic and this ugly shock-merchant trash should soon be forgotten.

Opera (Argento)
Tenebrae (Argento)
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Argento)
Deep Red (Argento)
Slumber Party Massacre (Jones)

saw all four of those Argento films recently, thought they were all among his better ones, and of them I most liked Deep Red. my favorite Argento film is still Suspiria, and I think Guadagnino's remake of it is a film unto itself and is maybe even better

*The Man Who Knew Too Much (Hitchcock, 1934)
Circus of Books (Mason, 2019)
*Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950)
The Half of It (Wu, 2020)
And Then We Danced (Akin, 2019)
Driveways (Ahn, 2019)
Millennium Actress (Kon, 2001)
Danger Signal (Florey, 1945)
Onward (Scanlon, 2020)
The Conversation (Coppola, 1974)

Finally saw The Rain People last night on TCM< during a night of road trip movies. This was a true road trip movie, made via 18 states, three or more months (Caan quoted as saying five), incl improv and cool stuff they encountered, like maybe that parade. Yet the story developed pretty coherently, with dynamics and momentum, no overselling. Prob an orig plot point that seemed most questionable: would the college really turn/cut the football player loose like that, give him a plate in his head and an envelope of cash and let him or tell him to walk away, like step to the road and stick out his thumb---? Caan and Shirley Knight and Duvall and everybody else, incl. chickens, rabbits, the horse, do fine.

The following feature, Harry and Tonto, was more of the quirky, cute-to-poignant. anecdotal 70s-type road movie I expected, pretty watchable though, with several surprises, such as Larry Hagman effectively portraying this big stiff middle-age-crisis Donny Osmond in a Swingin' Singles apartment complex he can't afford, wanting Dad to split the rent. (This be Harry's chronologically isolated, adrift middle child, I'm guessing, since he looks-acts older, tho not more grown-up, than wryly durable-seeming, much-married Ellen Burstyn.)
Mazursky usually incl. at least one scene that makes me nauseous, but not here, although the one where Harry dances with Geraldine Fitzgerald ("She may not remember you") comes closest, could have been to less sappy movie music at least. But even that scene is good before the dance, and the whole sequence is the right length.
Like the rest of that cast, Carney's good, though I'm a little startled to find that he beat Al Pacino in Godfather II, Hoffman in Lenny, and Finney in Murder On The Orient Express, and especially Nicholson in Chinatown, but, though that one and II were better movies (Hoffman's impression of Lenny unwisely begged comparison w LB books and records, never saw Orient), whatever, who remembers these things for long. The cat was real good too (TCM says back-up cats weren't needed, and Carney said first good cat he'd come across).

Today I saw most (?) of Going Home (Herbert B. Leonard, 1971) with Robert Mitchum's tough, character-*trying*-to-be-offhanded-and-terse, nuanced performance the best of his 1970s work, far as I know (better check The Friends of Eddy Coyle again). Dad killed Mom, comes home after a sentence not so long for those days and his class status (circumstanced delved into very late in this story). Brenda Vaccaro, somehow set to marry him, also seems tough, charming, in over her head.
The notorious Jan-Michael Vincent is equally believable as traumatized, shadowy son (who was very small when it happened, and maybe asleep; I didn't see enough to make that clear, or maybe it wasn't). TCM sez it was hated by studio head, the notorious James T. Aubrey, ----dubbed "The Smiling Cobra" during, I think, his time at CBS---who ordered cuts and dumped it in four (?!) theaters. Hope this was the uncut (TCM usually shows such when they can), anyway it worked.

"circumstances," that is.

Oh, and re "mitigating factor" (also "status," but in this connection gender, not class): a dark irony can be inferred while imagining what will happen to these characters later, how they will handle incidents leading to the movie's end.

Bad Company (Garnett, 1931)
Four Parts (Chase & Dunn, 1934)
Apples to You! (Jason, 1934)
The Bargain of the Century (Chase, 1933)
His Silent Racket (Chase, 1933)
Fallen Arches (Meins, 1933)
*Too Many Women (McGowan & French, 1932)
Girl Shock (Horne, 1930)
Air-Tight (Stevens, 1931)
Call a Cop! (Stevens, 1931)
You're Telling Me (McGowan & French, 1932)
Paris Bound (Griffith, 1929)
Tenet (Nolan, 2020)
Dr. Cyclops (Schoedsack, 1940)
70,000 Witnesses (Murphy, 1932)
Yes, Yes, Nanette (Laurel & Hennecke, 1925)
Bunny's Dilemma (North, 1913)
The Boat (Keaton & Cline, 1921)

Interstellar - dumb but watchable
Birds of Prey/Harley Quinn - dumb and unwatchable
Lying and Stealing - store-brand Paul Walker and Emily Ratajkowski do crimes

*The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford, 1962) - 10/10
Beyond Therapy (Altman, 1987) - 6/10
Lust in the Dust (Bartel, 1984) - 7/10
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (Potter, 1948) - 6/10
Ruby Gentry (Vidor, 1952) - 8/10
Melvin and Howard (Demme, 1980) - 7/10
The War Game (Watkins, 1965) - 8/10
Boom! (Losey, 1968) - 8/10
Culloden (Watkins, 1964) - 9/10
*Eureka (Roeg, 1983) - 8/10
Head (Rafelson, 1968) - 9/10
*Ugetsu (Mizoguchi, 1953) - 9/10
The Comancheros (Curtiz, 1961) - 7/10
Life with Father (Curtiz, 1947) - 8/10
Velvet Smooth (Fink, 1976) - 5/10
*Blonde Venus (von Sternberg, 1932) - 9/10
*American Psycho (Harron, 2000) - 9/10
Fleshpot on 42nd St. (Milligan, 1973) - 6/10
Alphabet City (Poe, 1984) - 6/10
Alias the Doctor (Curtiz, 1932) - 8/10
*Grosse Point Blank (Armitage, 1997) - 6/10
The Ox-Bow Incident (Wellman, 1943) - 8/10
*Le Boucher (Chabrol, 1970) - 9/10
The Trial (Welles, 1962) - 10/10 <------ this is one of the best movies I've ever seen
*Stagecoach (Ford, 1939) - 9/10

I haven’t seen The Trial, will try

special spinal surgery edition

Lured (1947, Sirk) 6/10
The Violent Men (1955, Maté) 7/10
Closely Watched Trains (1966, Menzel) 7/10
*Duck Soup (1933, McCarey) 10/10
The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920, Wegener, Boese) 7/10
*The Squid and the Whale (2005, Baumbach) 8/10
Tennessee’s Partner (1955, Dwan) 7/10
*The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Wiene) 9/10
The Manxman (1929, Hitchcock) 7/10
Blood on the Moon (1948, Wise) 7/10

good lineup!

I am currently going through Bondarchuk's "War And Peace" and I am in awe, people. In awe.

O saisons, ô châteaux (Varda, 1958)
La Chambre (Akerman, 1972)
Sailor’s Holiday (Newmeyer, 1929)
On the Loose (Roach, 1931)
The Speckled Band (Raymond, 1931)
You'd Be Surprised (Rosson, 1926)
Ménilmontant (Kirsanoff, 1926)
A Few Moments with Eddie Cantor (De Forest, 1923)
The Man from Yesterday (Viertel, 1932)
Son of Dracula (Siodmak, 1943)
Be Reasonable (Del Ruth, 1921)
Remember When? (Edwards, 1925)

Stuck on You (Farrelly & Farrelly, 2003) - the surgeon who separates them is, for some reason, Ben Carson

wow

Watched Source Code as a family last night, turned out to be a pretty solid pick!

Good movie!

The Violent Men (1955) 3/5
Storefront Hitchcock (1998) 3.5/5
* Exotica (1994) 4/5
A Touch of Zen (1971) 3/5. Some knockout stuff here but they're fairly tedious to get to.
Merrily We Go to Hell (1932) 3/5
The Booksellers (2019) 2.5/5 assembled with all the passion of some tv show about flipping houses or something.
Smokey and the Bandit (1977) 3.5/5
Freddy Got Fingered (2001) 2.5/5. I put this off for 19 years; RBG's death was announced while I was watching it.
* All That Jazz (1979) 4/5

(Grammar in Touch of Zen blurb there due to switching "scenes" for "stuff").

Ashes and Diamonds (Wajda, 1958)
Bamboozled (Lee, 2000)
Invocation of My Demon Brother (Anger, 1969)
Next of Kin (Egoyan, 1984)
The Squid & the Whale *Baumbach, 2005)
Imagine the Sound (Mann, 1981)
a bunch of Bill Plympton shorts
The Widow Couderc (Graniere-Deferre, 1971)
*The Grand Budapest Hotel (Anderson, 2014)
Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, 1939)
Phantom Lady (Siodmak, 1949)
Sissy-Boy Slap-Party (Maddin, 2004)
Rabbits (Lynch, 2002)
Criss Cross (Siodmak, 1949)
Certain Women (Reichardt, 2016)
The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later (Varda, 2002)
Plaisir d'amour en Iran (Varda, 1975)
7 p., cuis, s. de b. (à saisir) (Varda, 1975)
Réponse de femmes (Varda, 1975)
The Violent Men (Maté, 1955)
Devil's Doorway (Mann, 1950)
Thank You and Good Night (Oxenberg, 1991)
Home Movie (Oxenberg, 1973)
Man with the Gun (Wilson, 1955)
Ulysse (Varda, 1983)
Doodlebug (Nolan, 1997)

Freddy Got Fingered (2001) 2.5/5. I put this off for 19 years; RBG's death was announced while I was watching it.

surely just a coincidence though

can’t watch a movie with that title

Ronald Got Rimmed has less depth but is more enjoyable

lol

Dieter Got Diddled was the superior film

man i didn't watch much of anything in September, mostly teevee

Consistently Pretty Good to Very Very Good:
Watermelon Juice (2020, Moray, short)
Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037 (2007, Niles)

Almost Okay to Occasionally Pretty Good:
Biography: I Want My MTV (2020, Waldrop and Meason)
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020, Ross, Ross IV)
All In: The Fight for Democracy (2020, Cores and Garbus)
The Fandom (2020, Kries)
Salvage (2019, Elliott)
The Donut King (2020, Gu)

No:
My Octopus Teacher (2020, Ehrlich and Reed)
I’ve Got Issues (2020, Collins)

September:

The Big Clock (Farrow, 1948) 8/10
Lady in the Lake (Montgomery, 1946) 6/10
Border Incident (Mann, 1949) 7/10 - the John Alton cinematography is the real star here
Birds, Orphans and Fools (Jakubisko, 1969) 7/10
What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (Dallamano, 1974) 7/10
Almost Human (Lenzi, 1974) 8/10 - Tomas Milian!
The Mad Dog Killer (Grieco, Milloni, 1977) 7/10 - Helmut Berger!
Nothing but the Night (Sasdy, 1973) 5/10
Corridors of Blood (Day, 1958) 7/10
I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Kaufman, 2020) 7/10
House of Usher (Corman, 1960) 8/10
The Lady Vanishes (Page, 1979) 5/10
Doomwatch (Sasdy, 1972) 6/10
India Song (Duras, 1975) 8/10
The Most Dangerous Game (Schoedsack, Pichel, 1932) 7/10 - Leslie Banks!
Terror Train (Spottiswoode, 1980 7/10 - cinematography by John Alcott, fresh from shooting The Shining for Kubrick
Hysteria (Francis, 1965) - 5/10
Five Dolls for an August Moon (Bava, 1970) 7/10