Last (x) movies you saw (II)

Thought "Judas and the Black Messiah" was pretty average, which I guess makes it a missed opportunity, given the quality of the actors and the importance of the story. Nitpick: we kept watching thinking, huh, for a period piece set in Chicago, with classic cars and perfect period fashions, it's awfully strange that there's not been a single shot identifying this *as* Chicago. And indeed, it was filmed in Cleveland.

* The Lady Eve (1941) 4.5/5
Killing Them Softly (2012) 2/5. The Studio 60 of mob movies
The Hole (1998) 4/5
The Seventh Curse (1986) 4/5. the logic of this movie is insane. Like they let a 9-year-old boy with a gory imagination plot an Indiana Jones movie.
* Brief Encounter (1945) 5/5
Blonde Venus (1932) 3/5

*Numbered Men (LeRoy, 1930)
The Trumpet Blows (Roberts, 1934)
Behind the Mask (Dillon, 1932)
So This Is Marriage (Barker, 1929)
High Hats and Low Brows (Sweet, 1932)
The New Gentlemen (Feyder, 1929)
*The Mystery of the Wax Museum (Curtiz, 1933)
Carmen, Jr. (Goulding, 1923)
He Wouldn't Stay Down (Chase, 1915)
The House of Flickers (Stoloff, 1925)

A little overwhelmed by research right now so...just gonna dump my Letterboxd

https://letterboxd.com/ryanhupp/films/diary/

what made Halloween 6 get half a star better on the rewatch?

The producer's cut, which is marginally less crap? It's missing the charming goofiness of the big room full of evil fetuses and Michael being full of Nickelodeon Gak, but the cult angle is better developed, there's more Pleasance, and a more traditional Howarth score instead of the HEY KIDS! GUITARS! dogshit in the theatrical cut. It's a pretty substantial difference- 38 minutes of alternate takes & footage, iirc.

I've been going through them (slowly, as fewer are available to stream without a rental than F13) for Matt Gourley and Paul Rust's podcast, which has been a decent impetus to sit down and watch something instead of just staring at the ceiling this year.

RELEASE THE MYERS CUT

Bamako (Sissako, 2006) - 8/10
La truite (Losey, 1982) - 7/10
*Let the Sunshine In (Denis, 2017) - 9/10
Gwendoline (Jaeckin, 1984) - 7/10
Deaf (Wiseman, 1986) - 10/10
*Hardcore (Schrader, 1979) - 10/10
Nationtime (Greaves, 1972) - 8/10
The Set-Up (Wise, 1949) - 8/10
*Rebels of the Neon God (Tsai, 1992) - 9/10
Billy Bathgate (Benton, 1991) - 5/10
*Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (Akerman, 1978) - 10/10
Epicentro (Sauper, 2020) - 8/10
Blind (Wiseman, 1987) - 9/10
Medea (Pasolini, 1969) - 7/10
*Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami, 1997) - 10/10
The Mother and the Whore (Eustache, 1973) - 10/10
The Wayward Cloud (Tsai, 2005) - 10/10
The Eye of Vichy (Chabrol, 1993) - 8/10
*Certified Copy (Kiarostami, 2010) - 9/10
Private Parts (Bartel, 1972) - 7/10
*They All Laughed (Bogdanovich, 1981) - 10/10
Jasper Mall (Whitcomb, Thomason; 2020) - 7/10
Absolute Power (Eastwood, 1997) - 8/10
The Addiction (Ferrara, 1994) - 8/10
The Suspect (Siodmak, 1944) - 8/10
*Baal (Schlöndorff, 1970) - 8/10
*Wet Hot American Summer (Wain, 2001) - 10/10
Purple Noon (Clément, 1960) - 9/10
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (Van Peebles, 1972) - 6/10
I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai, 2007) - 10/10

Morbs didn't

i have learned to love living and sleeping and alone

The Infernal Cauldron, The Pillar of Fire, The Diabolic Tenant, Inventor Crazybrains and his wonderful airship, Whimsical Illusions (Méliès)
Lovers Rock (McQueen 2020) 6/10
Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (Hajime Sato 1968) 4/10
The Kid (not Disney's, 1921) 7/10
Class Action Park (2020) 6/10
Pokemon Detective Pikachu (the shark tale director, 2019) 5/10
Doctor Sleep (Flanagan 2019) 3/10 oddly terrible as a horror movie, basically alcoholic vs. vampires with a half hour of fanservice at the end
First Cow (Reichardt 2019) 8/10 i usually don't like slow-paced movies but i was rapt during this one
Son of Paleface (Tashlin 1952) 7/10 rip morbs
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (Tashlin 1957) 9/10
Scoob! (WB, made in 2018, released 2020) 2/10 the first 12 minutes are fine
Spies in Disguise (2019) 5/10 i like that the kid really is weird
The Three Caballeros (some Disney guy, 1944) 5/10 donald duck sure is horny in this one
Uptight (Dassin 1968) 9/10 i watched this scene five times
The Verdict (Lumet, written by Mamet, 1982) 6/10 totally watchable despite newman's overacting and the unrealistic courtroom scenes

i watched this scene five times

tyvm

forgot to log in February:

Coming To America (Landis, Murphy, Blaustein, Sheffield 1988) 7/10

March:

* Cop Land (Mangold 1997) Gentleman's 6, ACAB
Coming 2 America (Brewer, Blaustein, Sheffield, Kanew, Barris 2020/21) maybe 3/10 on actually being good, and fucks up its own intent by making the plot about the journey of a previously unknown-to-anyone-in-the-fiction son of Eddie Murphy, when the plot motivator is the sexist tradition of the fictional kingdom. just make it about the eldest daughter, and Akeem changing the laws out of actual growth and love - the whole point of the first movie is that he broke the rules and could be changed by respect for women! BUT this followed on from Barb & Star (and to a degree, Kid Detective) in new releases that rubbed in how fucked over comedies are by the pandemic. the movie is mostly fanservice, but it is funny, and would have been great to sit in a roomful of people laughing and enjoying being serviced. Barb & Star though... I'd've gone back three times to catch missed jokes and enjoy people laughing if it had run a few weeks.
The Ratings Game (DeVito, Mulholland, Barrie 1984) - accidentally prescient now that TV ratings are literally fake. Gentleman's 6.
Teeth (Lichtenstein 2007) - accidentally great pick (made by the TV) for International Women's Day viewing: vagina dentata teen horror movie.
* How To Murder Your Wife (Quine, Axelrod 1965) - 7/10, best movie about the life of a comics artist ever. looked up Jack Lemmon's brownstone while watching and the decor was way more sterile last time it was sold, 48 years after filming
Judas And The Black Messiah (King, Lucas, Lucas, Berson 2021) - 2/10 some dece digital cinematography but really has nothing substantially distinct to say about Hampton or Hoover or the moment. would have been fun to spend more time with the fake FBI hustler version of Lakeith first, have him on his uppers and celebrate his rascality for a while, and then appreciate his altererd circs as a stooge and better see the Panthers through his eyes.
* What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (Seaton, Pirosh, McHugh 1968) - 8/10 second-best pandemic movie ever, best animal actor in a movie ever
Supercop (Weinsteined version of Police Story III) (Tong, Tang, Ma, Yee 1992/96) - the setpieces kinda just follow each other without ever selling the emotional repositioning of Jackie's character, but it's fine that Tong isn't concerned with this and 10/10 for the climactic car/scooter/helicopter/foot/train chase anyway
* My Blue Heaven (Herbert Ross, Nora Ephron 1990) - deliberately watched after last month's Goodfellas revisit to see how it plays as a sequel: pretty great tbh! Steve Martin's cartoon Mobtalian plays better in this sequence than Schwarzenegger would have, and the rest of the cast are likeable enough and universally annoyed by him that the clowning doesn't go too OTT. Gentleman's 6.
Looney Tunes: Back In Action (Dante, Doyle, Goldberg 2003) - speaking of Steve Martin going OTT with clowning. the goofery in this is good enough that if Dante had actually been in charge instead of fighting with Warner suits for 18 months it'd probably be 10/10, and on a big screen it probably plays as a 9 as is.
Sing Street (Carney, Clark &al. 2016) - 8/10 best movie about teenagers in the 1980s forming a band ever. Carney's other musicals looked cloying from ads/reviews, but came across this on TV (accidental St Patrick's Day viewing) and it's some kind of masterpiece. the songs and the hair/makeup/costuming might be a bigger part of this than the script.
The Heartbreak Kid (Elaine May, Neil Simon, after Bruce Jay Friedman 1972) - speaking of movies that would be better in a clean print in a room full of laughing people

NON-FICTION
Robert Zemeckis on Smoking, Drinking and Drugging in the 20th Century: In Pursuit of Happiness (Zemeckis 1999) - if Bobby had gotten more commissions for dementedly hyper-edited collage documentaries it might have saved us mocap superhero movies. curse you Showtime
For Madmen Only: The Stories of Del Close (Heather Ross 2020/21) - see comics thread

SHORTS
Kenzo World (Jonze 2017)
I Want To Get Into The Movies (Wright 1991)

There are a lot of gritty French crime movies on Netflix. This week I watched Burn Out, about a wannabe motorcycle racer who gets strong-armed into running packages for a drug dealer. Lots of excellent high-speed motorcycle footage, naturally, so worth watching if that's your thing.

Last night I tried to watch Spectral, which was a blatant Aliens ripoff (squad of soldiers enters isolated zone, gets attacked by Creatures) but with ghosts instead of aliens. There's even a precocious little kid who shows them the territory, teaches them about the ghosts' strengths and weaknesses, etc. It wasn't awful — James Badge Dale is the lead, and he's always good — but I gave up about an hour in.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Ruttmann, 1927)
The Belle of Broadway (Hoyt, 1926)
Love on a Ladder (White, 1934)
The Whispering Shadow (Herman & Clark, 1933)
No Blood Relation (Naruse, 1932)
Sinister Hands (Schaefer, 1932)
The Shadow of the Cat (Gilling, 1961)
*An Eye for Figures (1920)
*Fadeaway (Fleischer, 1926)
Queen of Aces (Watson, 1925)

Bombay Mail (Marin, 1934)
Flunky, Work Hard! (Naruse, 1931)
High Gear (Jason, 1933)
Wayward (Sloman, 1932)
Men in Her Life (Beaudine, 1931)
Dancing Mothers (Brenon, 1926)
Minari (Chung, 2020)
The Beast Must Die (Annett, 1974)
Three Tough Onions (Jules White, 1928)
A Millionaire for a Minute (Curtis, 1915)
Looking for Sally (McCarey, 1925)

Shin Godzilla (Anno, 2016) 7/10 amazing how much like evangelion this is
Murder by Natural Causes (1979) 7/10 standalone tv movie made by the columbo team
The Addams Family (2019) 2/10 incredibly ugly. martha stewart comes to see um
Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) 3/10 same rating as the theatrical cut

* Thief (1981) 4.5/5
The Twentieth Century (2019) 3/5. Feature debut of new Canadian Guy Maddin imitator.
Barbarella (1968) 2.5/5
Ishtar (1987) 3.5/5
Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock n Roll (2014) 3.5/5
* A New Leaf (1971) 4/5
* The Sword of Doom (1966) 4.5/5

*The Night Porter (Cavani, 1974) - 9/10
Clash by Night (Lang, 1952) - 9/10
*Ici et Ailleurs (Godard, Miéville, Gorin; 1976) - 10/10
*La Grande Bouffe (Ferreri, 1973) - 10/10
Beanpole (Balagov, 2019) - 7/10
*Despair (Fassbinder, 1978) - 5/10
*One Day Since Yesterday (Teck, 2014) - 8/10
The Front (Ritt, 1976) - 7/10
The Informer (Ford, 1935) - 8/10
Lola (Demy, 1961) - 7/10
*Rolling Thunder (Flynn, 1977) - 9/10
*The Piano Teacher (Haneke, 2001) - 10/10
The Draughtsman’s Contract (Greenaway, 1982) - 8/10
The Tin Star (Mann, 1957) - 8/10
*The Image Book (Godard, 2018) - 10/10
The Docks of New York (von Sternberg, 1928) - 9/10
The Lovers on the Bridge (Carax, 1991) - 9/10
The Man with the Golden Arm (Preminger, 1955) - 7/10
The Ballad of Narayama (Imamura, 1983) - 7/10
The Women (Cukor, 1939) - 9/10
*Role Models (Wain, 2008) - 8/10
Ladybug Ladybug (Perry, 1963) - 9/10
She’s Funny That Way (Bogdanovich, 2014) - 7/10
Cat Ballou (Silverstein, 1965) - 8/10
Alice (Allen, 1990) - 6/10
Céline and Julie Go Boating (Rivette, 1974) - 10/10
Mr. Majestyck (Fleischer, 1974) - 6/10
The Eagle and the Hawk (Walker, Leisen; 1933) - 8/10
Advise & Consent (Preminger, 1962) - 8/10
Round Midnight (Tavernier, 1986) - 8/10

MLK/FBI
not sure what distribution this documentary has yet since this tied in with an interview with the director Sam pollard.
It was streamed on a service from the US that allowed me to watch it in Ireland which was good
Pretty good I think, focusing on the FBI surveillance/harassment of the great human rights leader as the title suggests.

March:

Whisky Galore! (Mackendrick, 1949) 8/10 DVD
Witchcraft (Sharp, 1964) 6/10 YOUTUBE
Night Tide (Harrington, 1961) 8/10 MUBI
The Woman Who Ran (Hong, 2020) 8/10 MUBI
*The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 1966) 9/10 BLU-RAY
Murder, My Sweet (Dmytryk, 1944) 7/10 DVD
The Shiver of the Vampires (Rollin, 1971) 8/10 BLU-RAY
The Child (Voskanian, 1977) 7/10 BLU-RAY
The Woman in Black (Wise, 1989) 8/10 BLU-RAY (screenplay by Nigel Kneale; disc includes an entertaining commentary by Gatiss, Newman and Nyman)
Four Sided Triangle (Fisher, 1953) 7/10 BLU-RAY (extra on the Region B Curse of Frankenstein Blu-Ray/DVD set)
Casino Royale (Huston, Parrish et al, 1967) 4/10 DVD
Modesty Blaise (Losey, 1966) 5/10 DVD
The Green Man (Day, 1956) 6/10 TALKING PICTURES TV
*The Brood (Cronenberg, 1979) 9/10 DVD
The Hands of Orlac (Weine, 1924) 7/10 MUBI
The Blue Angel (von Sternberg, 1930) 9/10 DVD
Visiting Hours (Lord, 1982) 6/10
The House on Sorority Row (Rosman, 1982) 6/10

DVD
BLU-RAY

First time back in theaters tonight!

The Assistant was brutal: a horror movie where patriarchy is the monster and even your parents are implicit in your eventual acceptance of the trauma you'll need to accept.

Oh I saw the assistant last night as well! Not in a theatre tho. Just the first 10 minutes of menial office work was anxiety inducing. Offering someone a Kleenex as a dehumanising act. Leaning on the back of a chair becomes a punch in the gut.

oh yeah, i had a bunch of anxiety freakout throughout, especially the HR scene tho

my friend pointed out that almost every scene has her cramped into the frame, everything feels claustrophobic and squeezed

even the sound design is claustrophobic, a bunch of bullshit office conversations pushing everything else out of the way.

HR scene was too real

big hug mug

the xerox machine's deafening grumble as images of women are spit out and erased over and over again

So I should really check out that Ackerman movie that everyone is comparing this to, right?

Promising Young Woman? I am extremely wary of it at best.

Promising Young Ackerwoman

pls do not associate akerman and promising young woman in any way

Watched most of the four-hour Tom Petty documentary over the last couple of nights. It was good, but Dan Zanes' book was actually more informative.

okay clearly not PYW, what Ackerman film is the comparison?

Minera (7.0)
My Salinger Year (6.0)
L.A. Confidential (7.0)
First Cow (6.5)
Color of Night (1.0)
Playing God (4.0)
Chloe (6.0)
Eye for an Eye (5.5)
Audrey (6.5)
A Simple Plan (7.0)

Jeanne Dielman is the Ackerman that everyone seems to be comparing to The Assistant.

Seinfeld seasons 6 through 9 iirc

Cenere (Mari, 1917)
Pretty Ladies (Bell, 1925)
The Last Frontier (Bennet & Storey (1932)
The Kid From Spain (McCarey, 1932)
The Long Good Friday (Mackenzie, 1980)
The Undead (Corman, 1957)
The Flying Coffer (Reiniger, 1921)
The Secret of the Marquise (Reiniger, 1922)
The Adventures of Dr. Dolittle: The Lion’s Den (Reininger, 1928)
The Luck o’ the Foolish (Edwards, 1924)
The Tramp (Chaplin, 1915)

Minera (7.0)

Should read Minari...

MInari was ... good, but felt like it was missing something. It's a good story, but felt like needed or deserved a slightly longer running time.

That said, I think there are a lot things this movie does differently and better than expected.

Mank was not good, all flourish and no dive. My partner, who had not seen Kane and had no frame of reference for any of the story, found it mystifyingly boring.

^watched it in the theater and was surprised at how murky and dark it was, even in sunlight. Maybe i had a shitty projectionist?

My partner, who had not seen Kane

!

(just surprised, not personally outraged or anything)

she's not really a "movie person," and hasn't really seen any welles at all.

it's an interesting thought exercise to try to imagine watching Mank and having no frame of reference for what the fuck is going on; all you get is people telling Oldman what a fuckin' genius he is and tons of snappy dialogue

My partner, who had not seen Kane

I find this kind of thing both sort of understandable (there are a lot of movies, and more and more old movies every day), but also fascinating, because this is most consistent "greatest movie of all time" movie and, being that there is just one of those, you'd think that alone would compel a viewing. Then again, I'm always mystified when I read the sales numbers of lots of great albums, like stuff from the VU, or Big Star, or even something like the Sex Pistols, who essentially have just one album, one of the most written and talked about albums of all time, and still, in 2021, have only sold something like 1.3 million copies of that album. Which is a lot, but I would have thought more people than that would have bought it out of curiosity, or even accidentally, over the course of 45 years.

But (xpost) per that, I know my wife and one of her friends saw "The Disaster Artist," having never seen or even heard of "The Room." I know they enjoyed it, and it is enjoyable, but I still kind of wondered how it ended up on their radar and why that one was, like, the one movie they chose to see in a theatre that year.

Finally saw The Sounds of Metal.. great film, and not what I was expecting at all. It's not really about metal.