Last Watched

[Joks Trois]

Salt and Fire: Does Herzog want us to take this crap seriously? Easily one of his worst films that simply prolongs his narrative losing streak. Bad acting, bad dialogue, and a waste of a good location in the second half. 3.5/10

[kanafani]

High Life. Quite a disappointment. Some of it feels like it was guest-directed by Lars von Trier. The 'fuck-bot' scene... WTF, Claire?

[liquidnature]

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

Did not disappoint, as far as John Wick movies go. So fun.

[rischka]

wow house of bamboo. i dunno why i was under the impression this wasn't good. because it was! esp the amusement park scenes



sorry sam i shoulda had more faith in you. also has the same plot as point break

[Roscoe]

APOCALYPSE NOW FINAL CUT on a Big Screen, Brainsmash Sound -- the good stuff still works, for me at least. Good to see that Coppola has come to his senses about at least two of those scenes added for REDUX (that dreadful Playboy Bunny sequence in particular) as they are gone without trace and good riddance. Alas, that Plantation scene is still there, complete with what has to be among the very worst bits of dated electronic music score cheese in film history. I suspect that future viewings will be limited to the Original Release version.

[rischka]

Storm Warning by stuart heisler. really dumb KKK movie with ronnie reagan (not as a klansman sadly), ginger rogers and a very naive doris day.



DORIS. your husband is in the KLAN. he MURDERED someone. then he tried to rape your sister. he's not secretly a nice guy. also your son is hanging with charlie manson

saw a couple of black extras in one shot but it's never explained exactly what the klan does, aside from 'a lot of good around here' with perhaps some financial improprieties

[vaka]

I watched Parasite last night and I liked it, however, I woke up this morning not sure if I really do!

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Arizona Cyclone (dir. Joseph H. Lewis, 1941)

Curious to explore more Joseph H. Lewis. Checked out one of his early B westerns. It's interesting to see his strategies for heightening visual interest. His main approach here appears to be placing objects in the foreground to produce a more compelling image. I expect I'll be watching more mediocre Johnny Mack Brown westerns this August, especially the ones with cowgal style icon Nell O'Day. And more Lewis, too.

[nrh]

tea and sympathy, on a faded but still lovely print at metrograph. what a film, seems stranger and stranger the more i see it - this time realizing i'm now much closer in age to the adult characters than i am to the adolescent ones...

[Roscoe]

A REPORT ON THE PARTY AND GUESTS -- a tasty bit of Czech New Wave paranoia, a tightly packed 70 minutes of Bunuelian fun, but with a cooler, less confrontational vibe to it. Looking forward to checking out more in that Eclipse PEARLS OF THE CZECH NEW WAVE box.

[thoxans]

the whole shootin' match (eagle pennell) just might be one of my new fav films. thx to all who rec it!

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Been diving into the Western genre lately ⁠— some recent pleasures:

The Silver Bullet (dir. Joseph H. Lewis, 1942) — Another Johnny Mack Brown programmer western directed by J.H. Lewis. More notable here, though, is the screenplay by Elizabeth Beecher. This one is downright feminist! Johnny Mack Brown acts as campaign manager for a character named Emily Morgan who is running to be her state's first woman senator ("It's about time women took a hand in politics"). Recommended.



Wagon Tracks (prod. William S. Hart and Thomas Ince, 1919) — Extremely handsome silent western, one of the most compelling I've yet seen. Top-tier production values, moving acting from William S. Hunk and Jane Novak, and heart-tugging interpersonal stories of love and family. The use of lighting is a particular standout, aided by fine tinting and buttressed by well illustrated intertitles.



Soft Shoes (prod. Hunt Stromberg, 1925) — Instant fav genre mashup (western, urban crime). Cowboy Harry Carey goes to San Francisco and falls in (love) with badass style icon cat burglar Lillian Rich. A brisk 45 minutes, jampacked with action and laughs. Find this on the National Film Preservation Foundation website.

[Roscoe]

Check out HELL'S HINGES, a tasty silent Western that gets downright apocalyptic.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Check out HELL'S HINGES, a tasty silent Western that gets downright apocalyptic.

Yeah, I watched Hell's Hinges a year or so ago, that's the only other Hart I've seen. It's pretty staggeringly well-made, I recall being impressed. I'd say I liked Wagon Tracks better, though, since Hell's Hinges has a rather offensively vengeful thematic core. Wagon Tracks is interesting for being a more complex treatment of revenge and justice, with perhaps some implicit critique of the mean streak in Hell's Hinges. Would do well to rewatch Hell's Hinges to confirm all this, mind you.

[liquidnature]

Watched the Terminator franchise (all first time viewings) over the past few weeks. Not a series I thought I would enjoy going into it, but the first two films stole my heart, and the third and fourth installments were decent fun and at least had some of the soul of the originals. Genisys should be avoided at all costs.

ranked:
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
The Terminator
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Terminator Salvation

...

arnold taking a poop

...

Terminator Genisys

[pabs]

Interview with the Vampire (Jordan, 1994)

The script was bad, both dialogue and story. I wonder if the book it was based on was just fashionable at the time and only good for way back then? The whole thing was completely tedious. I'd drive a stake through the heart of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt if I could.

4/10

[rischka]

lol i read some of those books and yeah i finished baahubali and my fave part was the fabulous flying ship sequence!!





fave musical number too





re terminator: still love the first one most of all. haven't seen the last two and don't intend to watch any others...but i did see lady terminator which was kind of hilarious

[liquidnature]

baahubali

I'll admit I have a hard time getting into Indian cinema and/or culture for whatever reason, but this looks awesome.

[rischka]

for whatever reason, A LOT of film lovers have that problem. popular indian films are a joke on many forums. it is SAD

i used to only watch third cinema too. i think people here have influenced me greatly. TY PEOPLE

i have been to india, only briefly, and always been fascinated with it so that doesn't hurt

it's as crazy and fun as hong kong cinema ever was and people who don't give it a chance are missing out

anyways you can try the first part on youtube until it gets taken down

edit: thinking about this some more, i think the music was a stumbling block i overcame by being surrounded with it in india. it remains the only place i've travelled that wasn't dominated by american pop. and wba showing yaadon ki baraat in the cup was a turning point!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu2IJ3c5R7k

[ofrene]

Watching Thunder Road(Jim Cummings) on the plane and really really really really hate that last 10 minute. Jim Cummings's acting is good but his writing and direction... i dunno...

[Joks Trois]

Interview with the Vampire (Jordan, 1994)

The script was bad, both dialogue and story. I wonder if the book it was based on was just fashionable at the time and only good for way back then? The whole thing was completely tedious. I'd drive a stake through the heart of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt if I could.

4/10

Yes, Anne Rice's success was all about timing. She was a novelty for a while, or at least her vampire books were, and the whole goth thing was big in the 90's, so that definitely helped her. In retrospect, her books were complete junk, but when she became ultra successful in the 90's, it did seem 'right' in a perverse sort of way.

I found the film really dull in 1994, but I didn't mind it when I revisited it on dvd 10 years later. I'm sure I wouldn't like it much now though.


Monsieur Verdoux: Not convinced that it's a masterpiece, but it is an interesting, even daring, black comedy from a celebrity who wanted to challenge preconceptions about his image. He didn't go as far with the concept as I would have liked, but it's pretty well done, and it feels more 'cinematic', for lack of a better word, than The Great Dictator, in the sense that the camera work is more fluid.

[Roscoe]

Interview with the Vampire (Jordan, 1994)

The script was bad, both dialogue and story. I wonder if the book it was based on was just fashionable at the time and only good for way back then? The whole thing was completely tedious. I'd drive a stake through the heart of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt if I could.

4/10

The film is particularly hamstrung by poor old Pitt's inability to project intelligence or to deliver a line of dialogue more complex than "coffee, please." There's plenty of blame to go round, though -- a lot of it goes to the hairdressers. Poor old Banderas comes off like Maria Montez here -- "I yam the Owldest Auf The Fampyresssssssssss!" is the "Gif me the Cobra Jool" of the 1990s. Cruise gives it his best shot, as Lestat gives him the chance to show the assholisness that always lurks under his persona, and he gets the film's best and only laugh, when he chastises Kirsten Dunst for being a "very naughty girl!"

Some cool sets, though. And a few lovely moments of Stephen Rea projecting exactly what Pitt cannot -- a functioning IQ. Can't speak for the books, which I've always found entirely unreadable.

[Joks Trois]

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote: Gilliam needs to retire. He is done. The Fellini comparisons are completely off because no matter how shambolic and disjointed his narratives became in late career, he always compensated with interesting set pieces. This is even true of Voice of The Moon. This film has nothing. Pryce is good, but he has f%#k all to work with, and the film is visually uninteresting. 4.5/10.

I'm watching Aladdin (2019) now. The sad thing is that I'm enjoying it more than the Gilliam.

[Roscoe]

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote: Gilliam needs to retire. He is done. The Fellini comparisons are completely off because no matter how shambolic and disjointed his narratives became in late career, he always compensated with interesting set pieces. This is even true of Voice of The Moon. This film has nothing. Pryce is good, but he has f%#k all to work with, and the film is visually uninteresting. 4.5/10.

I'm watching Aladdin (2019) now. The sad thing is that I'm enjoying it more than the Gilliam.

Yeah, poor old QUIXOTE, not since Fincher remade FORREST GUMP and called it BENJAMIN BUTTON has someone spent so much time on such a pointless remake. I found some glimmers of the Gilliam magic, but the tired FISHER KINGiness of the enterprise can't help but disappoint. I did like the trip to the moon though.

ALADDIN -- yeah, uh, no. There's just no reason for me to put myself through that.

[Roscoe]

THE MAGICIAN 4/10 -- Rex Ingram tosses a batch of cliches onscreen, tosses some bargain basement German Expressionist schlock into the mix, and voila. Pure crap, interesting mainly for what it borrows from and what borrowed from it. You needn't bother to seek it out.

[rischka]

watched the beautiful pauwels film essay from 2010



commonly known as film reves or 'dreaming film,' a wide ranging 3 hours on cinema, dreams and explorations real and imaginary. or both. if you've seen the director's 'letter from a filmmaker to his daughter' you'll know what to expect. somewhere between marker and mekas

[sally]

i'm only watching silents these days, so i've lost the ability to tell what's gorgeous (they all are) or misogynist (ditto?) any more, but is full frontal female nudity normal by 1929? my raised eyebrow was one of the less hairy things present

la femme et le pantin (baroncelli 1929)

before the full reveal


and i loved this shot from inside a guitar

[rischka]

OMG SALLY i thought i was on the wrong page!

[sally]

why? am i? are there conventions i've forgotten? or have you invented a SILENT PLEASE thread somewhere?

[rischka]

i just mean i haven't seen you round these parts in a long while. an excellent surprise