Last (x) movies you saw (II)

Peking Opera Blues (1986) 4/5
Gypsy 83 (2001) 1/5
A Week's Vacation (1980) 3.5/5
The Celluloid Closet (1995) 3/5
Kelly's Heroes (1970) 3/5
La Piscine (1969) 4/5. First repertory screening in a theater since late 2019.
* The Blade (1995) 5/5
The Great McGinty (1940) 3.5/5
When Pigs Fly (1993) 3/5 - Robby Müller winter photography is the draw here.
Destry Rides Again (1939) 4/5
Nobody (2021) 2.5/5. Bob Odenkirk doing Death Wish is intriguing to me. Bob being a John Wick clone from the beginning of the movie is a bridge too far.

Some shorts:
A Day in Barbagia (1958) 4/5
The Dick Tracy Special (2009) - Warren Beatty cobbled together Leonard Maltin and some 2000s-era improv performers as a flimsy excuse to retain his rights to the character (while trying to appear self-effacing).
The Human Voice (2020) 2.5/5 - Tilda is not very good here.

The Devil Is Driving (Stoloff, 1932)
Henry the Ache (McCarey, 1934)
The Reformers (Griffith, 1913)
On the Front Page (1926)
Heads We Go (Banks, 1933)
The Way of Lost Souls (Czinner, 1929)
How to Make a Monster (Strock, 1958)
Alibi (West, 1929)

Flight (Robert Zemeckis, 2012)
Predators (Nimród Antal, 2010)
The Limey (Steven Soderbergh, 1999)

Murder at the Vanities (Leisen 1934)
The Fall (Glazer 2019)
A Story Well Spun (Guy 1906)
Mabel's Strange Predicament (Normand 1914)
Miss Dundee and Her Performing Dogs (Guy 1902)
Cowards Bend the Knee (Maddin 2003)
Day of Freedom (Riefenstahl 1935)
Teorema (Pasolini 1968)
Christmas in July (Sturges 1940)
A Loft (Jacobs 2010)
Dementia (Parker 1953)
Ballet Mécanique (Léger 1923-1924)
The Palm Beach Story (Sturges 1942)
Unfaithfully Yours (Sturges 1948)
Hail the Conquering Hero (Sturges 1944)
The Beguiled (Coppola 2017)
Duel at Diablo (Nelson 1966)
*Hellraiser (Barker 1987)
Blood of a Poet (Cocteau 1930)
Fall of the House of Usher (Harrington 1942)
Sworn to the Drum (Blank 1995)
The Men (Zinnemann 1950)
Virtue (Buzzell 1932)

The Master Mystery (King & Grossman, 1918)
All Night Long (Edwards, 1924)
The Marines Are Coming (Howard, 1934)
La Piscine (Deray, 1969)
Curse of the Undead (Dein, 1959)
Third Time Lucky (Forde, 1931)

Halston (7.0)
Versailles '73: American Runway Revolution (7.0)
The Handmaid’s Tale (S4 – 6.0)
The Love Machine (5.5)
Pose (S4 – 6.0)
Flack (S2 – 4.5)
American Boy (6.0)
Straight, No Chaser (7.0)
Valley of the Dolls (5.0)
Bliss (4.0)

the Carey adap?

I'm not sure which of the above that refers to, so I'm guessing the answer is no.

The 1985 Bliss, adapted by director Ray Lawrence and Peter Carey from Carey's 1981 novel. (bcz it's better than Valley Of The Dolls imo)

No--new thing on Prime with Salma Hayek and Owen Wilson. Tense opening scene, waste of time after that.

The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (Florey 1928) expressionist short
Black Sabbath (Bava 1963) 5/10
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Meyer 1970) no rating
*Tales of Beatrix Potter (Mills 1971) 9/10
Escape Room (Sony co., 2019) 3/10
Raya and the Last Dragon (Disney co., 2020) 5/10
Luca (Pixar, Disney co., 2021) 6/10

Laurel & Hardy:
Way Out West (1937) 6/10
The Bullfighters (1945) 5/10

Marx Brothers:
The Cocoanuts (Florey 1929) 5/10 incompetent filmmaking, but the bros. are good
Animal Crackers (1930) 7/10
Monkey Business (McLeod 1931) 5/10
Horse Feathers (McLeod 1932) 6/10
*Duck Soup (McCarey 1933) 7/10 probably their best, but their treatment of the lemonade stand guy is really mean
*A Night at the Opera (Wood 1935) 7/10
*A Day at the Races (Wood 1937) 7/10
Room Service (McCarey 1938) 4/10 not a terrible script, but only groucho comes off as himself
At the Circus (1939) 7/10 with some gags by buster keaton

incompetent filmmaking

there was no such thing as competent sound filmmaking at the time tbf! I love that the newspapers are sopping wet bcz 1929 microphones couldn't handle sounds as harsh as "paper."

Duck Soup definitely their best - nearly all of Thalberg's influences in making the filmmaking more competent are good ones, except the romantic / emotional throughlines never work because it's some utterly wet rando, and Duck Soup had JUST proven that lols, more lols, and snook-cocking was all a Bros film needed to work. (Duck Soup cocks its snooks at something important, which also helps - Horse Feathers has almost got the formula down, but college football is so pointless and incomprehensible a target.)

no rating for BTVOTD on a first view because you're still processing, or you don't think it deserves to be rated as a film, or...?

The Driller Killer (1979) 3.5/5
Born in Flames (1983) 2/5
Summer of Soul (2021) 3.5/5 - very entertaining talking head music doc with some great reminiscences by the performers and attendees. I'll never look at the Fifth Dimension the same way again.
* Goodbye Dragon Inn (2003) 4/5
The Gambler (1974) 3/5
* Wise Blood (1979) 3.5/5

short:
Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1971) 3/5. A weird one; Baldwin is captivating as usual here but he has to spend most of the short runtime arguing with the obtuse documentarian.

I'll never look at the Fifth Dimension the same way again.

That was one of my big takeaways, too. I reviewed the movie for Stereogum.

The Gambler definitely a little self-serious (James Toback...), but I do like it for Caan; that scene where he listens to the Lakers lose is great. Stay clear of the terrible remake.

The incompetent filmmaking that I remember most is the choreographed number where girls sat down and waved their hands around, and the worst door gag bit ever.

BVD is memorable and also has a lot of offensive stuff. Beyond ratings, like an Ed Wood film.

There's good stuff in every one of those Marx bros. movies and I don't regret watching any of them except maybe Room Service. I don't think they ever made a movie where everything worked.

Duck Soup is pretty close to a perfect comedy. The only Marx that I’ve seen (which is most of them) that i thought was completely useless is Go West.

30 years ago, a local station ran Laurel & Hardy movies late at night for a time; loved Way Out West and Sons of the Desert, not sure how I'd feel today.

Chico plays the piano with an orange in Go West

Shopping with Wifie (Stafford, 1932)
The Danger Girl (Badger, 1916)
The Face on the Barroom Floor (Chaplin, 1914)
Autumn Mists (Kirsanoff, 1929)
The Girl From Calgary (Whitman, 1932)
The Sultan's Wife (Badger, 1917)
The Lost Shoe (Berger, 1923)
Hotel Imperial (Stiller, 1927)
Time Walker (Kennedy, 1982)
Boobley's Baby (Drew, 1915)
Behind the Screen (unidentified Universal crew, 1915)
*West of Hot Dog (Rock & Pembroke, 1924)

Sons of the Desert has some hilarious moments. Stan Laurel has some amazing reaction shots. then it ends with spousal abuse.

The one thing I remember, clear as day decades later, is when the wives go to the movies and L&H show up in the newsreel report on the convention they're attending--and how they get into the shot two or three times!

In June I mostly watched the Euros, but also:

The Man With Nine Lives (Grinde, 1940) 6/10 BLU-RAY
Before I Hang (Grinde, 1940) 6/10 BLU-RAY
Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band (Roher, 2019) 6/10 BBC4
The Devil Commands (Dmytryk, 1941) 7/10 BLU-RAY
Hellgate (Levey, 1989) 6/10 DVD
WR: Mysteries of the Organism (Makavejev, 1971) 7/10 YOUTUBE (uncensored version)
The Boogie Man Will Get You (Landers, 1942) 5/10 BLU-RAY
Body Puzzle (L. Bava, 1992) 5/10 BLU-RAY
*The Black Belly of the Tarantula (Cavara, 1971) 7/10 DVD
Saint Maud (Glass, 2019) 7/10 AMAZON PRIME

Slide, Babe, Slide (Stoloff, 1932)
Just Pals (Stoloff, 1932)
Midnight Warning (Bennet, 1932)
Sinners in the Sun (Hall, 1932)
The Devil Horse (Brower, 1932)
Jaws (Spielberg, 1975)
She-Wolf of London (Yarbrough, 1946)
Fragment of Seeking (Harrington, 1947)
Picnic (Harrington, 1949)
On the Edge (Harrington, 1949)
The Assignation (Harrington, 1953)
The Wormwood Star (Harrington, 1956)
Usher (Harrington, 2000)

JUst got through half of Panique before the film froze. I was quiite getting into it but can't have transfered it fully.
Do like the tone of cynicism running throug the french films I've watched this week.
& did France not adopt some version of the Hayes code. Possibly not if the language is not going to be one that a US mainstream audience is goingto be watching and therefore not likely o effect sales etc. Or is the idea that that might be one reason other film making countries would self censor unlikely.
Will get back to it later.

Le Chiene Jean Renoir 1931
wonder if this would be more understated if made elsewhere.
Think I need to watch more Renoir.
Think I recognised a couple of the faces not sure though

Le Corbeau
shows the population of a small town in a decidedly unfavourable light. Brilliant film . Is the comncluding sentiment supposed to be life goes on. France was under Nazi occupation at the time surely so wonder how that effected things.

Chulas Froneteras Les Blank
1976 film on Mexican population in Texas and Tejano music. I see that the s/trk was released on cd combined with another releated film, need to see if i can get it.
Also think I will be picking up some Flaco Jimenez

Eyes Without A Face
Interesting idea seems to have been made o a pretty much B level and bts of it seem a little unfinished.
Has some pretty memorable bits though.
Dr looks like a human owl though so wonder if that was intentional.

I thought the guy playing Hire and the mark in Le Chiene looked oddly similar but there's 16 years between the 2 and he looks younger as Hire. I guess actors and makeup or something. It's the same guy I think he's supposed to look more beat down by life in Le Chiene though.

La Chienne and Michel Simon.

A Man escaped
Minimalist story about a Resistance lieutenant trying to get out of a detention centre

both A Man Escaped and Le Corbeau are great movies. There is always something a bit haunted about movies made in occupied Europe but the latter has some real hard boiled dialogue and is quite darkly amusing in places.

His New Job (Chaplin, 1915)
Nana (Renoir, 1926)
The Fall of the House of Usher (Harrington, 1942)
The Four Elements (Harrington, 1966)
You Never Know Women (Wellman, 1926)
Buster's Big Chance (Corby & Meins, 1928)
*Back Stage (Arbuckle, 1919)

Buster Keaton:
The Rough House (1917)
The Scarecrow (1920) great first half
College (1927) 7/10
The Cameraman (1928) 7/10
Film (written by Beckett, 1965)
Notfilm (2015) 4/10 as a film

Harold Lloyd:
Over the Fence (1917) poor
Take a Chance (1918)
That's Him (1918)
Billy Blazes, Esq. (1919)

Marx Bros:
Go West (1940) 4/10
The Big Store (1941) 4/10 hays code was fine with racism huh
Brain Donors (1992) 5/10 a remake of a night at the opera with john turturro in the groucho role

Laurel & Hardy:
*The Music Box (1932) great

The Lodger (Hitchcock, 1927) 5/10
*Brute Force (1947) 7/10
Daisies (Chytilová, 1966) 7/10
Putney Swope (Downey Sr., 1969) 6/10
*The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) 8/10 shame about that train climax (also used in Go West)
Asparagus (Suzan Pitt, 1979)
I Know Who Killed Me (2007) 2/10
Cans Without Labels (the Ren & Stimpy guy, 2019)

La Belle et le Bete Jean cocteau.
pretty otherworldly in places plus some near slapstick humour in the mundane world.
Great imagery, I kept wondering if certain shots had been used for other things.
Also wonder how aesthetically influential it is.
Enjoyed deeply.

Black Widow
Great action film tying in with other stories in the MCU.
Do wonder what is likely to spin off this film. Could see a couple of things.
Enjoyed the post credits scene but slightly miss the 2 that used to pepper the credits sequence what appeared to be traditionally..
I had just seen Midsommar a couple of weeks ago so interesting to see Florence Pugh turn up as costar.

saw a few minutes of the Tomorrow War but wasn't in the mood.

if you like credits scenes watch the simpsons marvel travesty, the credit scenes last longer than the short.

Slim and Queen
Cos it got mentioned in a talk about Thelma and Louise this afternoon.
I missed it at the time, glad I finally got to see it.
Both leads are black Brits which I'm not sure shows.
A tinder date goes awry and the people involved are about to go home when they're stopped by a racist cop and things gain momentum from there. Enjoyed t anyway.

yeah trying to type this while drinking Valerian tea. Name is other way round
Queen & Slim.
Ladies first

I liked that movie a lot. Currently watching a mildly crappy one-season crime drama on HBO Max called Jett and the female lead from Q&S, Jodie Turner-Smith, plays a detective in it.

watched body brokers & surprised by how much i liked it ~ reminded me sortof of the big short cuz its like an "explainer" movie but also creates characters that behave stereotypically maybe but also feel p real; has a scuzzy larry clark vibe which is def my jam, 9/10

Kajillionaire was pretty enjoyable!

Celine
odd little film that shows Celine the title character recovering from a suicide attempt after her adopted father died. She is saved by a female doctor with a heart disease who is hired to watch over her by Celkine's adopted mother. Celine becomes the dr's nurse and secretary and picks up the practise of yoga as part of her healing regime.
Somewhere along the way there is a sudden supernatural subtheme introduced though it seems to come like a bit ofa deus ex machina.
Film was released in the early 90s and looks really nice. I wondered if i had seen it before somewhere. Still not sure.

Mama Weed
Isabelle Huppert stars as a woman used by the police to listen through recordings and live scenes to interpret language used.
She has a mother who is being looked after in a nursing home by a nurse who comes from North Africa. THis set up leads to adventures in the drugs trade.
Quite enjoyed it.

Nomadland (7.5)
Eyes Wide Shut (7.0)
Manhunter (7.0)
A Taste of Honey (7.5)
Barry Lyndon (10.0)
Warning Shot (7.0)
The Woman in the Window (2021 - 5.5)
The Killing (8.5)
Twin Peaks (pilot/S1 – 8.5)
Twin Peaks (S2 – 7.0)
Once Is Not Enough (5.5)
Full Metal Jacket (7.0)
A Clockwork Orange (5.0)

last couple of months

CINEMA IS BACK, BABY:
Fast & Fourious (Lin, Morgan 2009)
Fast Five (Lin, Morgan 2011)
Fast & Furious 6 (Lin, Morgan 2013)
Furious 7 (Wan, Morgan 2015)
The Feight Of The Furious (Gray, Morgan 2017)
F9 (Lin, Casey 2021)

AIR-CONDITIONING IS BACK, BABY:
* Raiders Of The Lost Ark (Spiels B, Kas D, Ratliff, The Right Kauf 1981) 7.5.10
The Enfield Case (Wan, Hayes, Johnson 2016) 2/10
To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar (Kidron, Beane 1995) 1/10
The Sparks Brothers (Wright 2021) 8/10, would be ten at six hours long
* The Sparks Brothers (Wright 2021)
A Quiet Place Part II (Halpert 2021) 3/10
The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (Hughes, O'Connor, Murphy, Murphy 2021) 1/10
* Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (Lord & Miller 2009) 8/10
The House Next Door (Taylor, Harrell 2021) 2/10, one point just for Katt Williams as a vampire pimp, even if he shot out in three days
@Zola (Janicza Bravo, A'ziah "Zola" King, Jeremy O. Harris, David Kushner 2021) 6.5/10
* The Lego Batman Movie (McKay, Grahame-Smith, McKenna, Sommer, Stern, Whittington 2017) 7/10
on a TV:
The Tomorrow War (McKay, Dean 2021) 0.5 tines /10
Tenet (naloNolan 2020) 2/10, would pay up to $1 to watch in theatre just for the backwardsy action scenes
* The Great Muppet Caper (Henson, Patchett, Tarses, Juhl, Rose 1981) 9/10 ⚰️
Collateral (Mann, Beattie 2004) 8/10
* Notting Hill (Curtis, Mitchell 1999) 7/10 and I'm mad about it, did not expect this to work so well: liked it better than on release
The Personal History of David Copperfield (Ianucci, Blackwell, Finnemore, Schneider, Smith, Dickens 2020) 8/10 also surprised here but pleasantly so. Armando & crew managed to make a Dickens that crunches down the sprawl to a chewable multiplex size, but remains funny in exactly the say that Dickens is funny.
* Tomorrow Never Dies (Spottiswoode, Feirstein 1997) 2/10 surprised again: without remembering anything about this one bar The Melting Candle being the villain, discovered that it does absolutely nothing with the scope of his irl villainy, and is very dull besides.
Plan B (Natalie Morales, Prathi Srinivasan, Joshua Levy 2021) 8/10 a delight
Unpregnant (Rachel Lee Goldenberg, Ted Caplan, Jenni Hendriks, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, William Parker 2020) 5/10 having so enjoyed the 2021 teen sex comedy about states that restrict access to the morning after pill, I went back to catch up on the 2020 one: this was the wrong order, and I would have enjoyed this one more in a stand-alone context
The To Do List (Maggie Carey 2013) 7/10 a restorative vote for low-stakes teen sex comedies by female filmmakers
The Go-Go's (Alison Ellwood 2020) 6/10 a basic rise / fall band narrative but a great visual sense
Shaft 2000 (Singleton, Salerno 2000) 2/10 feels like it should be ACABaganda but the movie is firmly on the side of the guy beating the shit out of random teenagers in the street in the hope they will give him information that they don't have
Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria, Jessica Pressler 2019) 6.5/10 less edifying than the print article but would pay up to $2 to watch a 90-minute supercut of just the music-based scenes in a theatre
Hulk (Lee, Schamus 2003) 4/10 the wipes are good
Identity Crisis (McGoohan, Driskill 1975) 6/10
The House Bunny (Fred Wolf, Kirsten Smith, Karen McCullah Lutz 2008) 6/10 totally being carried by the lead performance, but that lead is probably worth 7 points by itself
No Sudden Move (Soderbergh, Solomon 2021) 7/10
Summer Of Soul (?uestlove 2021) 7/10
The Nice Guys (Black, Bagarozzi 2016) 7.5/10 wish I'd seen this with an audience, probably plays like a 9
* Lethal Weapon (Black & Donner 1987) 4/10 ⚰️
The Monster Squad (Black & Dekker 1987) 5/10
SHORTS:

Dead On Time (Hobbs, Curtis, Atkinson 1983) 31 min (nb that we are further from Notting Hill than Notting Hill was from this. Is The Girl In The Cafe and 1/3 of a Dr Who episode the only decent thing Curtis has done this century?)
C'était un rendez-vous (Claude LeLouche 1976) 8 min
Gershwin's Trunk (Paul Bartel, John Meyer 1987) 25min

4:44 Last Day on Earth (2011) 2.5/5
What Happened Was... (1994) 4.5/5. Gotta admit I thought this was going to be an awkward indie comedy and was blown away by its build-up and emotional depth. Essential.
* Minnie and Moskowitz (1971) 4/5
Barb and Star Go to Visa Del Mar (2021) 3.5/5
* Bad Day at Black Rock 4/5
* Tombstone (1993) 4/5
Heaven's Gate (1980) 3.5/5
Son of the White Mare (1981) 3.5/5
Swimmer (2012) Lynne Ramsey short. I was really tired and I didn't get it.
* Force of Evil (1948) 4/5

The Empty Man, which is now streaming via HBO Max, is pretty good. It starts off one thing (hikers encounter a Malevolent Force while trekking through the Himalayas-I-think), becomes a different thing (James Badge Dale, one of my favorite low-key actors, plays a Retired Cop With A Dark Past investigating the disappearance of some local teens, which seems to be related to the titular urban legend) and then becomes a The Conspiracy Is Deeper Than You Think story. Stephen Root fans, take note: He’s only in one scene, but it’s great. It doesn’t totally make sense, and it’s too long (two and a quarter hours), but there’s enough creepy shit to make it worth your while.

Gojira (Honda, 1954)
The Law of the Wild (Eason & Schaefer, 1934)
Soup to Nuts (Stoloff, 1930)
I Was a Spy (Saville, 1933)
Crimson Romance (Howard, 1934)
Whirlpool of Fate (Renoir, 1925)
The Mummy (Fisher, 1959)
Pig (Sarnoski, 2021)

does pig have anything to recommend it?
just saw Truffle Hunters which was a lovely sort of tone poem

Cage gives possibly his most controlled, solid performance of the last decade. I didn't see Truffle Hunters because I normally find documentaries less entertaining than the same amount of footage of paint drying. Is it worth watching?

I forgot one and it was good:
The Clockmaker of St. Paul (1974) 4/5

xp probably not if that's the way you approach docs tbh. it's really not much of a documentary, more a series of vignettes of strange men, their dogs and their phenomenally expensive fungus. I found it deeply charming but you're not gonna learn much.

I lost my body . French cartoon about an immigrant boy from the middle east becoming smitten by a girl he was supposed to be delivering pizza to. & the effect on his life things are in consequence. Quite nice, touchiing in places.