Last Watched

[Roscoe]

EL CAMINO -- the feature length follow up to BREAKING BAD, showing what happened to Jesse Pinkman after that terrible last night in the final episode. A fascinating couple of hours, impeccably done on all counts, and featuring some splendid performances. I'm not sure it didn't tell me anything that I didn't already pretty well figure would have happened.

[Roscoe]

COTTON CLUB ENCORE -- Coppola's restoration and re-arrangement of his 1984 release, here put back in its original form before it was cut to shreds by idiots. The storylines are clearer, musical numbers have been added and expanded, some gifts have been given to the actors (one of Richard Gere's most ridiculous onscreen line readings has been removed) and to the audience (some precious moments of Gwen Verdon dancing in the Grand Central Finale have been restored). Still not a masterpiece, I mean, watch Bob Hoskins and Fred Gwynne display more chemistry than Gere and Diane Lane are able to generate, but all in all a much much better movie.

[Joks Trois]

The script and casting were the biggest problems of that film. Gere and Lane weren't right for their roles. Unless he edits around them, I'm not sure the pic can be saved. It sure looks good though.


US: Confused, messy and pretentious. Not without its moments, but easily one of the most overpraised films of the last year or so. 5/10

[Roscoe]

The good stuff in COTTON CLUB, and believe it or not there is good stuff in COTTON CLUB, is still good. The bravura intercutting sequences are handled with a skill that has eluded other less skilled directors. It has to be said that some of the new stuff just kind of lies there -- Lonette McKee's performance of "Stormy Weather" is handsomely done, but it doesn't have near the impact of the later performance of "Ill Wind" with its intercut montages of imagery created by the late Gian-Carlo Coppola. And one odd little music element -- splashily costumed and shot and choreographed Cotton Club Finale number midway through the film has only a piano and drumset accompaniment, despite the presence of Ellington's band visible in the background, maybe the full band accompaniment couldn't be located.

[Roscoe]

JOKER -- well, okay, sometimes you just gotta go see the movie Everybody's Talking About. I bought it by and large. That's goddamn New York as it was. A misstep here and there (that ending?) but well, it felt real to me.

[eleanor]

Scarlet Diva (2000, dir. Asia Argento)
Interesting as an anecdote on abuse in the film industry, but it's so intrinsically tied to Asia's personal life that it's hard to separate the film from the accusations against her.

[sally]

WOOOOOAAARGH

finished out 1 finally
reading everyone's reviews it seems everyone saw what they saw in it. so what i saw irrelevant (i saw waaaaaay too much of the theatre stuff tho ghastly stop it)

99's going to have to wait a bit. need a ton of silents to recover from all that earnestness
but god léaud is pretty

[wobblyshoes]

Recently King of New York (1990)

I haven't watched much Ferrara, but this was more exacting and elusive than I expected from him. Some wild things pointing every which way to untangle here, but at least one can't say it doesn't tackle politics in interesting and blunt ways. Walken and Fishburne really guide the general moods, with Walken embodying the overarching icy late night coat; the violence feels suffocated under it. It puts me in a similar headspace as Blue Steel.

[wba]

The Mothman Prophecies (2002, dir. Mark Pellington)
Was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. Cryptozoology is a passive interest of mine so hearing this be cited as one of the best films to explore the subject piqued my interest. Our very own Lencho has a great review of it on LB: https://letterboxd.com/lencho_o_t_apes/ ... rophecies/

Yeah, I also liked this film very much!

[Roscoe]

DOLEMITE IS MY NAME -- Eddie Murphy stars as Rudy Ray Moore, a low-level showbiz wannabe who finds success as Dolemite, a comedy badass pimp character that he leverages into a career in albums, on tour and finally in a movie. From a script by Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, authors of Burton's ED WOOD, the echoes seem deliberate enough, and if DOLEMITE IS MY NAME can't carry the weight of Burton's masterpiece (due largely to the absence of anything really approaching the weight of the Lugosi elements in the Burton film) there's plenty of good fun and surprising emotional involvement. It's not just fun and games, of course -- a few moments of Murphy's Moore showing the anger and resentment lurking behind the surface good cheer are most impressive.

[Roscoe]

KHRUSTALYOV, MY CAR! got another spin in my Blu-Ray player last night. A viewing a few months back was interrupted a half hour in, because I just couldn't make head or tail out of what was going on, and a quick look at the brochure in the package was a big help, and I started from the beginning again and made it about 90 minutes in until I just had to move on. Not a reflection on the film in any way, more a reflection on me the mere mortal movie-goer. I'll be doing a complete watch before too much longer, no doubt.

[sally]

the old man and the land - robertas verba

this has been on my watchlist for ages, we all know how poetic lithuanian docs are - well this is one of the key ones. lovely. here, with more, all eng-subbed, at http://sinemateka.lt/

and in the eastern european poetic doc miasma i remembered jan špáta's respice finem when i came across a listing in the scottish national archives. does anyone know if his 'looking over the fence' is available anywhere?

[Roscoe]

TOKYO OLYMPIAD at Museum of the Moving Image. Splendid on pretty much all counts. Ichikawa's fascinating picture of Olympic competition and competitors. Would have been even more memorable if not for the pair of idiots in the front row who talked at full volume throughout, and the pack or morons behind us who seemed to find way too much of the movie hilarious.

[sally]

i just watched arctic. because 90 mins of mads mikkelsen is 90 mins well spent. and odd to say, seeing as most silent films i watch have near constant jangling tinkles, but jesus the incessant signposting scores on these modern movies. i think it's a huge reason why i'm put off contemporary hollywood shite. (other than it's possibly shite).

DRAMA NOW!!!! WOOOOOO-OOOOOOOO!!!!! FEEELINGS!!!!!!

[Roscoe]

PROSPERO'S BOOKS -- Greenaway's rich and strange fantasia on Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST, with John Gielgud providing the voices of most of the roles, and there's a magic to it that kept me spellbound from start to finish. My Criterion Channel membership is justified for the month.

[wba]

DOMINO

Brian De Palma once more on top form, after the similarly haunting and fascinating PASSION.
The baroque images still linger on..

[Roscoe]

THE IRISHMAN -- Scorsese's latest opus is no cocaine-frantic avalanche a la GOOD FELLAS and WOLF OF WALL STREET. It's much quieter, more restrained, in keeping with its focus on the quiet and restrained Frank Sheeran, who found himself in the middle of much of American mob life in the mid 20th Century. De Niro does his best work in decades, as does Pesci and Pacino, and pretty much everybody. A big canvas, handsomely mounted, and I can't wait to see it again.

[flip]

just checked my 5000th film on letterboxd, which feels like a milestone, turns out my 5000th check was alain robbe-grillet's l'immortelle, which is more in line with the early robbe-grillet novels (the ones i like most) than his later films, though i think he figured out more about what he wanted to do with film as a medium later on.

[Lencho of the Apes]

Aballay El Hombre Sin Miedo / Six Shooters - Fernando Spiner, Arg, 2010

Starts out very US-western and gradually gets more gaucho-specific; the way the cultural tonality drifted was interesting to me. Excellent use of landscape, Peckinpah-level violence in a couple of sequences, overall a pretty strong piece of work.

It's been distributed in English markets, and I can imagine WBA being interested, if no-one else.
A multitude of screencaps (and some extraneous images) : https://duckduckgo.com/?q=aballay+el+ho ... &ia=images

[thoxans]

no-one else

looks (and sounds) cool. i'll keep an eye out for it! anything with javier bardem's and antonio banderas' advanced age lovechild is aight in my book

[Roscoe]

MARATHON MAN, on the Criterion Channel for some reason. Some fine performances mainly from Roy Scheider and Olivier, a couple of very good scenes ("is it safe?"), but at the end of the day there's just not a lot there.

[Roscoe]

PARASITE -- sprightly but vapid, a glib little movie that couldn't make me interested in what was happening onscreen for even a single 24th of a second as the family of con artists invades the home of a foolish rich family by degrees. Clever but mechanical, the social commentary is resolutely one-dimensional, and the attempt at a bittersweet ending fell very flat. My two hours have seldom been so completely wasted.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

I also just saw Parasite. I liked it more than you did, but I'm utterly blown away by the praise I'm seeing for it. I laughed, and was relatively on board for about 1/2 the film, and just lost interest exponentially as it dragged on. If they avoided the Korean Cinema tropes (particularly the shoehorning in of tacky genre elements that don't quite fit, sentimental mood shifts, and 20 minute epilogue which feels almost completely irrelevant) I'd like it a whole lot more.

The film's poster and stills look beautiful... but the film itself just looks generic. There's nothing intriguing about the filmmaking itself, so I have to assume the relatively unique plot is what is clicking with everyone. There's a bunuelian element here that isn't fully exploited, and I think that's to the overall detriment of the film.

[Roscoe]

Yeah, the acclaim that drab little film is getting utterly mystifies me. Whatever. Another entirely undistinguished movie picking up awards bling. I was taken with Joon-Ho's MOTHER, but that silly thing about the train and this thing, I mean really.

TOKYO TWILIGHT -- seen in a 2017 restoration that will probably be on Criterion, Ozu's darker than usual family drama with Setsuko Hara and Chishu Ryu, and I was held in my seat throughout.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

His New Mamma (1924) — Harry Langdon two-reeler, directed by Roy Del Ruth. Christmas setting + Sennett Bathing Beauties playing baseball for the camera! Recommended to silent comedy fans. I'm thinking of going on a Roy Del Ruth kick soon.

[ofrene]

Watched The Irishman at cinema. Not his best, but his most subtle work? Feels like ending note of american gangster cinema...

[rischka]

i watched pina bausch, complaint of an empress -- mysterious, absurd and surprisingly funny. loved the music selections

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Teorema
Wow. Not sure how to talk about this one. Somehow on the nose and completely obscure at the same time. I really liked the bizarre silent B&W prologue. I need to stew on this one for a while.

[rischka]

i remember trying to watch that once and couldn't get into it AT ALL -- i'll try again sometime.

btw once upon a time in hollywood is the best tarantino i've seen in quite awhile. it probably helps that i have an intense interest in the manson family. and also brad pitt

[pabs]

Ford v Ferrari (Mangold, 2019).

This was bloody brilliant boys' playground stuff. Exciting, fast, and extremely well-filmed, the race-track segments (which pretty much take up most of its running time) are thrilling at Daytona and Le Mans, as well as the testing tracks and airport runways. This is a film about egos and men pushing cars to the max.

I don't even like cars and motor-sports, but I loved this. It probably helped that I saw it in a cinema.

Woohoo!

7/10