Last (x) movies you saw (II)

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.

this is most consistent "greatest movie of all time" movie

I thought it had been overtaken in this by Vertigo (which I have never seen). I saw Kane about 35 years ago and did not exactly have a Saul-of-Tarsus experience with it. "That was...fine, I guess" probably sums it up.

Vertigo is definitely its closest competitor, but I bet Kane still ends up on top more frequently.

I think that status probably makes it more forbidding and less interesting to many people, in the same way that Moby-Dick is generally recognized as one of the greatest English language novels & frequently cited yet hardly widely read. I don't think it's far off to say that cinema, and a totem like Kane, is in a similar place--I can't imagine anyone being compelled, unless otherwise inclined, by the Sight & Sound poll.

But you also can't overstate the lack of interest in black and white movies, "old" movies.

I don't really think there's a 'greatest film of all time' anymore. It might have been CK at one time, but we're now into a hundred years of film, and it's all over the place and I don't know if we can reach a universal consensus like that anymore.

Remember: Indian films have an average of 9 musical number per film, and CK has none.

-- I thought it had been overtaken in this by Vertigo

-- Vertigo is definitely its closest competitor, but I bet Kane still ends up on top more frequently.

S&S aside, I'd say Kane is still the de facto collective #1, as reflected in the TSPDT rankings.

That being said, anyone with a pony in that race should submit a ballot here (ignore the title, the deadline is now TBD):

ILX All-Time Film and Morbsies Poll: Voting And Campaigning Thread (Ballots Due Like I Dunno Maybe March 1, 2021?)

Books, though, take effort. Movies take, more or less, two hours, and for most those those two hours can be spent largely sitting on your couch, eating snacks and playing with on your phone, with occasional pauses. It's never been easy to read "Moby Dick." It's never been easier to watch "Citizen Kane." Whether or not someone enjoys it is a different matter entirely, but it's not like it's a particularly big ask, beyond "black and white and old."

* Midnight Run (Brest, Gallo 1988) ⚰️ 10/10 unimproveable, possible career-best Joey Pants perf
* Beverly Hills Cop (Brest, Petrie Jr., Bach 1984) ACAB/10, plenty of fun but for a movie where class clash is the premise, it really has almost no idea of what to do with that beyond sneakers vs suits, whiteppldrivelikeTHIS.gif
A New Leaf (Elaine May after Jack Ritchie 1971) 9/10 #releasethematthaumurderscut BUT Matthau is so wonderfully repellent, and such a shit directly to May through the middle, that idk if I could take an extra 90 minutes of him being worse, before his 1mm of character growth in the end parts.
The Owl And The Pussycat (Ross, Henry, Manhoff 1970) ⚰️ 1/10, I continue to not understand the appeal of B. Streisand as an artist or personality in any form
Mind Over Mayhem (Kjellin, Specht, Bochco, Hargrove, Kibbee 1974) ⚰️ 2/10, maybe dock one point for Robby The Robot
Seven Stages to Achieve Eternal Bliss (Caldinelli, Hewitson, Jones, Hewitson 2020) 6/10, maybe one extra point for Rhea Seehorn
* Rushmore (Anderson, Wilson 1998) 9/10, have always held this in my top Wes-es but I think it might be getting better with time. rly appreciate how it has similar detail in costuming and set dressing to his later work but puts the camera at angles and moves it normally, instead of framing things like a diorama - one tiny transitional visual step between Bottle Rocket and the rest of his career
The Puffy Chair (Duplasses 2005) 2/10 - then again all respect to the Dupbros for building an empire out of a home movie and creating thousands of jobs, but imagine how much better this would be if, like Anderson, it had been made with actors and more script and some lights and a tripod. arch setups, awkward interactions, the clash of uptight and entirely deceptive personalities - it's Rushmore in a van.
* Shampoo (Ashby, Towne, Beatty 1975) 8/10. lots of Nixonfilm hits differently post-2016, but: the complete disengagement of most of the characters (nobody even mentions bothering to vote iirc?); the way the Republican party (lower-case) is only concerned with networking and talking money, not their imminent political agenda; and the sequence of Nixon's victory speech on TV contrasted w/ imminent wealth-based violence on the final morning, all rang a little sweeter than previous. really fantastic job of creating an extremely specific period piece of just 5-6 years earlier, too.
Relic (Natalie Erika James, Christian White 2020) 7/10 what if a Babadook but dementia?
* Mars Attacks (Burton, Gems &al. 1996) was idly brainstorming a list of films about the US response to 9/11, but made before 9/11. checked this to confirm it fits, 10/10 masterpiece
Juliet, Naked (Jesse Peretz, Tamara Jenkins, Jim Taylor, Evgenia Peretz after Nick Hornby 2018) 2/10 perfectly serviceable romcom that deliberately acts as a corrective to some earlier Hornby work
That's The Way Of The World (Shore, Lipsyte 1975) 3/10, some discussion here

Five Minutes, Mr Welles (D’Onofrio, Conroy 2005) 31 min
The Making Of Luxor (Scott Morris 1993) 27 min
In The Air Tonight (Andrew Norman Wilson 2020) 11 min

Somehow convinced my daughter to watch Yi-Yi. She made no promises of commitment, so I was both surprised and proud that she was enraptured from the start.

xp

What do the coffins mean?

The only thing I remember about The Owl and the Pussycat is gay icon Barbra Streisand calling George Segal a “faggot,” which surprised me a bit when I saw it.

prompted to watch by a cast member dying (Kotto, Segal, Walter)

it also posits Segal as an uptight square who can scarcely countenance impish spirit of freedom Streisand asking him to share a tiny j in the bath

Spring is a cross between Before Sunrise and An American Werewolf in London or maybe The Fly (Cronenberg version). American dumbass travels to Italy, meets hot girl who's ...not like other girls. Complications ensue. It's on Hulu.

That’s Benson and Moorhead, all their films are worth seeing

Exterminate All the Brutes on HBO looked like tough but necessary stuff, and indeed episode one was both of those things. Feels pretty major.

Belly (1998) 2.5/5
Dusty and Sweets McGee (1971) 4/5
Winter Kills (1979) 2/5
The 4th Man (1983) 3/5
Party Girl (1995) 2.5/5
Sons of the Desert (1933) 3/5
The Last Boy Scout (1991) 3.5/5
Godzilla vs. Kong 2.5/5
* The Godfather Part II 5/5
Bad Trip (2021) 3.5/5

I assume I should read that as "Belly" got a double 5/5 rating, right?

Me as well

You can read it as only the first 5 minutes gets 5 out of 5.

I waited years to see Winter Kills--very hard to get a hold of for a time. Pretty over the top is all I remember; they clearly were trying for a '70s Dr. Strangelove.

It’s an odd movie but I found it strangely dull. Like if a Pynchon novel had all the life and creativity sucked out of it.

The director's cut of Winter Kills was posted to Vimeo by the director for free download a few years ago (he'll also sell you a DVD directly)

Shiva Baby is great, very much of a sort with Tiny Furniture and Appropriate Behavior as a "the young women of nyc are not alright" film of the moment.

The Adventures of Dr. Dolittle: The Trip to Africa (Reiniger, 1928)
Harlequin (Reiniger, 1932)
The Stolen Heart (Reiniger, 1934)
Papageno (Reiniger, 1935)
Love in High Gear (Strayer, 1932)
Dégustation Maison (Tatischeff, 1978)
The Love of Sunya (Parker, 1929)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (Arnold, 1957)
She Wrote a Play and Played It (Curtis, 1916)
Madame Babylas Loves Animals (Machin, 1911)
Saïda has Kidnapped Manneken Pis (Machin, 1913)
*Clubs Are Trumps (Walker, 1917)

Silver Lode, Dwan, 1954, 3/10 -- recommended by elliott kalan
Doctor Strange, some disney hack, 2016, 4/10 -- the rare mcu movie where the third act is the best act
Spider-Man: Homecoming, Watts, 2017, 5/10
*The Dead Zone, Cronenberg, 1983, 8/10
The House with a Clock in Its Walls, Roth, 2018, 4/10
Q: Into the Storm, Hoback, 2021, 5/10 -- i find the people behind q far less interesting than the followers
Two Distant Strangers, Roe & Free, 2020, 4/10

A crappy two weeks. Think I'll resubscribe to Criterion Channel.

Loved "Shiva Baby," which is up there with "Uncut Gems" and "A Serious Man" as Most Jewish Movie of the Last Ten or So Years.

"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" was really good, even if long stretches of it were perhaps predictably very filmed-play, packed with Acting and scenes calibrated for the stage. But Boseman, man, he's transcendent. Makes me want to finally watch "Da 5 Bloods," which I've avoided due to being burned by Spike something like 90% of the time.

The Magic Horse (Reiniger, 1953)
The Caliph Stork (Reiniger, 1954)
Aladdin and the Magic Lamp (Reiniger, 1954)
The Vice Squad (Cromwell, 1931)
Walking Back (Julian, 1928)
Parisian Love (Gasnier, 1925)
French Exit (Jacobs, 2020)
The Crawling Eye (Lawrence, 1958)
Hot Luck (Lamont, 1928)
*My Wife's Relations (Keaton & Cline, 1922)

The Man Called Back (Florey, 1932)
The Leather Pushers: Round Two (Laemmle, 1922)
The Leather Pushers: Round Three "Payment Through the Nose" (1922)
Skinner's Dress Suit (Seiter, 1926)
The Great Gabbo (Cruze & von Stroheim, 1929)
The Rat's Knuckles (McCarey, 1925)
Baseball Film (Kovacs, 1951)
*Coney Island (Arbuckle, 1917)

The Trial of the Chicago 7, Sorkin, 2020, 4/10
Sound of Metal, 2019, 5/10
Mank, Fincher, 2020, abandoned less than an hour in
Nomadland, Zhao, 2020, 6/10
Mangrove, McQueen, 2020, 6/10
The Painter and the Thief, 2020, around 4/10 (abandoned after an hour then skipped to the ending)
Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary, 2019, 6/10

Joan of Arc, Melies, 1900
The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Melies, 1902 -- one of his weaker movies, focusing on the least interesting parts of the story. the drawn backgrounds that were interactive reminded me of adventure games like monkey island 2.
The Kingdom of Fairies, Melies, 1903
*Fun and Fancy Free, 1947, 5/10
Melody Time, 1948, 5/10
The Amputee, Lynch, 1974, both versions
Fist of Fury, 1972, 5/10 - the one where bruce lee makes his noises while fighting. astonishingly xenophobic.

April:
Don't Go in the House (Ellison, 1979) 7/10 DVD
The Wrong Arm of the Law (Owen, 1963) 7/10 YOUTUBE
King of Kings (Ray, 1961) 7/10 BBC IPLAYER
Eden and After (Robbe-Grillet, 1970) 7/10 BLU-RAY
Doctor in the House (Thomas, 1954) 6/10 YOUTUBE
Bloody Birthday (Hunt, 1981) 6/10 BLU-RAY
*Scream (Craven, 1996) 7/10 DVD
The Suspicious Death of a Minor (Martino, 1975) 6/10 BLU-RAY
*The Savage Innocents (Ray, 1960) DVD-R - a very hard film to 'score' - the sexual and racial and animal politics are beyond redemption, and obliterate any of the good things (mainly) on the visual side
The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (Miraglia, 1972) 7/10 BLU-RAY
My Dear Killer (Valeri, 1972) 6/10 DVD
The True Story of Jesse James (Ray, 1957) 7/10 YOUTUBE - this film is undone by the central casting of Robert Wagner as Jesse - just as Jeffrey Hunter is a terrible Jesus in King of Kings (Hunter is also in this, and is fine)
Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye (Margheriti, 1973) 5/10 BLU-RAY - if you've ever wanted to see Serge Gainsbourg playing a (dubbed) Scottish police detective, then this is the gothic-giallo for you
Run (Chaganty, 2020) 5/10 NETFLIX
*Trouble in Store (Carstairs, 1953) 7/10 DVD - Norman Wisdom's first starring role
One Good Turn (Carstairs, 1955) 5/10 DVD - Norman and a group of adorable orphans
Manhattan Baby (Fulci, 1982) 5/10 DVD

Rosemary’s Baby (remake, 3.0)
The Handmaid’s Tale (S1-S3, 6.5)
The Adjustment Bureau (6.5)
Town Bloody Hall (7.5)
Sound of Metal (6.5)
Mad Men (S1-S7, 10.0)
Puberty Blues (6.5)
Old Boyfriends (7.0)
The Last Blockbuster (5.5)
The Boys from Brazil (6.5)

I had never seen The French Connection all the way through, but it's streaming free on Amazon Prime now, so I finally checked it out. It's pretty amazing how sketchy it is in terms of character definition, compared with modern movies — there's no big long speech explaining Doyle's past and his issues, just a couple of lines of dialogue about how nobody trusts him because he got another cop killed once, and then everybody moves on. The big car chase is everything people say it is.