Girls’ Club (Jacques Deval, 1936)
The Rains Came (Clarence Brown, 1939)
Je meurs de soif, j’étouffe, je ne puis crier… (Gérard Courant, 1979)
Vivre est une solution (Gérard Courant, 1980) 🏙
Roses Dances Roses (Thierry De Mey, 1997)
Kestrel’s Eye (Mikael Kristersson, 1998)
Come and Go (João César Monteiro, 2003)
The Wayward Cloud (Tsai Ming-liang, 2005)
The Pirate (Vincente Minnelli, 1948) ♥
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)
Three Sisters (Wang Bing, 2012) ♥
Mountain in Shadow (Lois Patino, 2012) *short
By the Grace of God (Francois Ozon, 2018)
The Wandering Soap Opera (Raul Ruiz, Valeria Sarmiento, 2017)
Water Lilies (Celine Sciamma, 2007)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma, 2019) *rewatch ♥
The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman (Kihachi Okamoto, 1963)
Oh, Bomb! (Kihachi Okamoto, 1964) ♥
I Still Hide to Smoke (Rayhana Obermeyer, 2016)
Belle Epoque (Nicolas Bedos, 2019)
In the Absence (Yi Seung-jun, 2018) *short
Tiny Light (Cho Min-jae, 2018)
The Man Standing Next (Woo Min-ho, 2020)
Little Women (Gillian Armstrong, 1994)
Les Misérables (Ladj Ly, 2017) *short
What Did Jack Do? (David Lynch, 2017) *short
A Woman’s Revenge (Rita Azevedo Gomes, 2012) ♥
Elena (Petra Costa, 2012)
Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov, 2019)
For Sama (Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts, 2019) ♥
The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)
Judy (Rupert Goold, 2019)
Hair Love (Bruce W. Smith, Matthew A. Cherry, Everett Downing Jr., 2019) *short
Kitbull (Rosana Sullivan, 2019) *short
Memorable (Bruno Collet, 2019) *short
Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019)
Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodovar, 2019)
Uncut Gems (Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie, 2019) ♥
Good Time (Josh and Benny Safdie, 2017) - 9/10
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma, 2019) - 9/10
Me and You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July, 2005) - 8/10
1917 (Sam Mendes, 2019) - 8/10
Blackhat (Michael Mann, 2015) - 7/10
Good Boys (Gene Stupnitsky, 2019) - 7/10
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019) - 7/10
Triple Frontier (JC Chandor, 2019) - 6/10
Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012) - 6/10
Ford v Ferrari (James Mangold, 2019) - 6/10
Hearts Beat Loud (Brett Haley, 2018) - 5/10
The Witch (Robert Eggers, 2015) - 5/10
Crawl (Alexandre Aja, 2019) - 5/10
Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019) - 3/10
Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019) - 3/10
Greenberg (Noah Baumbach, 2010) - 2/10
The Badge (Joseph Antoine Clavet, 2015) - 1/10
shorts
Flammes (Patrick Bokanowski, 1998) - 8/10
Film, Film, Film (Fyodor Khitruk, 1968) - 8/10
To Speak or Not to Speak (Raoul Servais, 1970) - 8/10
Atraksion (Raoul Servais, 2001) - 7/10
Winnie-the-Pooh (Fyodor Khitruk, 1969) - 7/10
Sirene (Raoul Servais, 1968) - 7/10
Man in the Frame (Fyodor Khitruk, 1966) - 7/10
Operation X-70 (Raoul Servais, 1971) - 5/10
Mindscape (Jacques Drouin, 1976) - 5/10
January first watches that have stuck in memory warmly, with a single line on why:
Jimmy the Gent (1934, USA) -- the pleasures of pre-Code James Cagney
Mad Monkey Kung Fu (1979, HK) -- pure Lau Kar-Leung wonderment
The Contract (1978, HK) -- consistently funny satire elevated into something like art
Yes, Madam! (1985, HK) -- Michelle Yeoh & Cynthia Rothrock, one of the great action movies
Jerry and Me (2012, Iran/USA) -- the personal, the political, and the pleasures of fandom
The Errand Boy (1961, USA) -- Jerry Lewis reflects on his place within the Hollywood machine
Air Hostess (1959, HK) -- Grace Chang and artful production design
Bluebeard’s 10 Honeymoons (1960, UK) -- steal my fortune and off me, George Sanders, you devil you!
The Future Is Bright (2011, USA) -- Jodie Mack pick-me-up, big warm hug
47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019, USA) -- awesome small-scale Means Girls with sharks
Hercules in the Haunted World (1961, Italy) -- Reg Park, and Mario Bava production design, the most handsome
Richard the Lion-Hearted (1911, Italy) -- sometimes well-staged, often goofy history short
L’auto di Robinet (1911, Italy) -- Italian bike cops falling down a lot remains the pinnacle of film comedy
Tourist (1985, USA) -- seeing the sights with Barbara Hammer
Upperworld (1934, USA) -- pre-Code Warren William, a lip-smacking wolf you struggle to not want to be eaten by
The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920, Germany) -- Divine lighting, Psalm 27:1
Blondie Johnson (1933, USA) -- One of Joan Blondell's best roles
The Italian Switzerland (1910, Italy) -- seeing the sights with Piero Marelli
glass, m. night shyamalan
ditirambo, gonzalo suarez
trap for the assassin/roger la honte, riccardo freda
cure, kiyoshi kurosawa
the beast to die, toru murakawa
target, toru murakawa
irandam ulagaporin kadaisi gundu, athiyan athirai
his motorcycle, her island, nobuhiko obayashi
swami, basu chatterjee
scent of a spell, toshiharu ikeda
murder in the doll house, susumu kodama
tricheurs, barbet schroeter
labyrinth romanesque, shunya ito
suspicion, yoshitaro nomura
white nights on the pier, paul vecchiali
the killing game, toru murakawa
good month but the obayashi and vecchiali are truly great.
Most watches were from the first part of the month, started to slow down lately (which is good). Just enjoyed finally watching the Jurassic Park franchise almost solely for entertainment, a nice change from my normal viewings. Long Day's Journey and Primer should be moved up high on people's watchlists if you haven't seen them!
♥♥♥
Diqiu zuihou de yewan / Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018, Gan Bi)
♥♥
Primer (2004, Shane Carruth) (rewatch)
The Hustler (1961, Robert Rossen)
Begone Dull Care (1949, Norman McLaren, Evelyn Lambart)
♥
Die Büchse der Pandora / Pandora's Box (1929, Georg Wilhelm Pabst)
Mi mi jin yu / Secret Goldfish (2016, Gan Bi) (short)
Listen to Britain (1942, Humphrey Jennings, Stewart McAllister) (short)
Searching (2018, Aneesh Chaganty)
good
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari / The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Robert Wiene)
Mon Oncle Antoine (1971, Claude Jutra)
Jurassic Park (1993, Steven Spielberg)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997, Steven Spielberg)
Jurassic Park III (2001, Joe Johnston)
Jurassic World (2015, Colin Trevorrow)
eh
1941 (1979, Steven Spielberg) (rewatch)
Shadow in the Sky (1952, Fred M. Wilcox)
abbott and costello meet frankenstein (charles barton) a day in the death of donny b. (carl fick)
the thief of bagdad (ludwig berger / zoltan korda / william cameron menzies / michael powell / tim whelan) chopping mall (jim wynorski)
the gunfighter (henry king) painted faces (alex law)
barfi! (anurag basu) kucch to hai (anurag basu / anil v. kumar)
the thin man (w. s. van dyke) eega (s. s. rajamouli / j.v.v. sathyanarayana)
student (darezhan omirbaev) les rendez-vous d'anna (chantal akerman)
the kid (charlie chaplin)
devil in a blue dress (carl franklin)
office (johnnie to) the terrorizers (edward yang) friendly persuasion (william wyler) otōto (kon ichikawa) mandi (shyam benegal)
state of the union (frank capra)
the st. valentine's day massacre (roger corman)
house of usher (roger corman)
Barque sortant du port / Boat Leaving the Port (1895, Louis Lumière) (short)
Le royaume des fées / The Kingdom of the Fairies (1903, Georges Méliès) (short)
Orizuru Osen / The Downfall of Osen (1935, Kenji Mizoguchi) (rewatch)
Catch Me If You Can (2002, Steven Spielberg) (rewatch)
Blood of the Beasts (1949, Georges Franju) (short)
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962, Tony Richardson)
Northern Pursuit (1943, Raoul Walsh)
Ten Skies (2004, James Benning)
Fury (1936, Fritz Lang)
Knives Out (2019, Rian Johnson)
THX 1138 (1971, George Lucas)
Outer Space (1999, Peter Tscherkassky) (short)
Tennessee Champ (1954, Fred M. Wilcox)
Hills of Home (1948, Fred M. Wilcox)
A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick, 2019)
Güeros (Alonso Ruizpalacios, 2014)
The God of Cookery (Stephen Chow and Lee Lik-Chi, 1996)
Birds of Prey (Cathy Yan, 2020)
Morgiana (Juraj Herz, 1972)
Duvidha (Mani Kaul, 1973)
Sonic the Hedgehog (Jeff Fowler, 2020)
Double Suicide (Masahiro Shinoda, 1969)
Minding the Gap (Bing Liu, 2018) ♥♥
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
Letter Never Sent (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1960)
M (Joseph Losey, 1951)
February first watches that stuck in memory warmly
Santa Lucia (1910, Italy) -- Breathtakingly beautiful tinted travelogue of boats on water
Suffragette Demonstration in London (June 1910) (1910, UK) -- I could watch this every day
Les timidités de Rigadin (1910, France) -- Working-class joie de vivre, avec Madame Flumkin
Un matrimonio interplanetario (1910, Italy) -- Earth-Mars love story, sweetness and wonder
The Oval Portrait (1910, France) -- Leonce Perret’s Vertigo
When the Tables Turned (1911, USA) -- Edith Storey makes John Ford’s brother play horsie
Phantom Lady (1944, USA) -- One of the great lady detective movies
The Grand Dame (1931, USA) -- Who do I have to bribe to be one of Patsy Kelly's frilly handmaidens?
Hot News Margie (1931, USA) -- A delightful bolt of energy, bringing to mind Lucille Ball
The Slave (1962, Italy) -- Well-made peplum with half-naked hunk of man Steve Reeves
The Hands of Orlac (1924, Germany) -- Cinema’s greatest use of hands
Chicken and Duck Talk (1988, HK) -- Anti-capitalist satire, and pretty funny too
Madame DuBarry (1919, Germany) -- Studio mode of production historical pageantry at its peak
Corpus Christi (Jan Komasa, 2019)
Honeyland (Ljubomir Stefanov, Tamara Kotevska, 2019)
American Factory (Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert, 2019)
The Edge of Democracy (Petra Costa, 2019)
1917 (Sam Mendes, 2019)
The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019)
Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi, 2019)
Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019) *rewatch
Flag, Blue Sky, Party (Jang Yun-mi, 2019)
Birds of Prey (Cathy Yan, 2020)
Beasts Clawing at Straws (Kim Yong-hoon, 2020)
Naseem (Saeed Akhtar Mirzam, 1995)
The Abyss (Urban Gad, 1910) *short
The Automatic Moving Company (Emile Cohl, 1910) *short
The Birth of a Flower (F. Percy Smith, 1910) *short
Frankenstein (J. Searle Dawley, 1910) *short
The Grand Duke’s Tour (Leonce Perret, 1910) *short
The Oval Portrait (Leonce Perret, 1910) *short
The Unchanging Sea (D. W. Griffith, 1910) *short
The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese, 1988)
Never Look Away (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2018)
Island (Fyodor Khitruk, 1973) *short
Rehearsals for Retirement (Phil Solomon, 2007) *short
White Film (Joseph Bernard, 1978) *short
Garden Pieces (Margaret Tait, 1998) *short
Ljubav (Vlatko Gilić, 1972) *short
Fountain of Dreams (Jordan Belson, 1984) *short
This Bit of That India (S. N. S. Sastry, 1975) *short
Could See a Puma (Eduardo Williams, 2011) *short
Fantomas (Louis Feuillade, 1913~1914) ♥
Blue Blood (Nino Oxilia, 1914)
Child of the Big City (Yevgeni Bauer, 1914) *short
Gertie the Dinosaur (Winsor McCay, 1914) *short
The Mysterious X (Benjamin Christensen, 1914)
Till We Meet Again (Yuzo Kawashima, 1955)
The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell, 2020)
Emma. (Autumn de Wilde, 2020)
Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Preston Sturges, 1943) ♥
Airport (George Seaton, 1970) 7/10
Joe Kidd (John Sturges, 1972) 5/10
The Mackintosh Man (John Huston, 1973) 3/10
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (John Cassavetes, 1976) 10/10
Comes a Horseman (Alan J. Pakula, 1978) 6/10
The Driver (Walter Hill, 1978) 6/10
Southern Comfort (Walter Hill, 1981) 7/10
Escape from New York (John Carpenter, 1981) 7/10
Hanna K. (Costa-Gavras, 1983) 5/10
The Fugitives (Francis Veber, 1986) 6/10 Coming to America (John Landis, 1988) 9/10
Love is a Gun (David Hartwell, 1994) 4/10
This World, Then the Fireworks (Michael Oblowitz, 1997) 4/10
Gothika (Mathieu Kassovitz, 2003) 2/10
Street Kings (David Ayer, 2008) 3/10 Whatever Works (Woody Allen, 2009) 8/10 Contagion (Steven soderbergh, 2011) 9/10
Freelancers (Jessy Terrero, 2012) 4/10 Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Taika Waititi, 2016) 8/10
Vox Lux (Brady Corbet, 2018) 9/10
Uncut Gems (Benny Safdie & Josh Safdie, 2019) 7/10
Best: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Vox Lux, Contagion
Worst: Gothika, Street Kings, The Mackintosh Man
features:
Mnaga - Happy End (Petr Zelenka, 1996) - 8/10
Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019) - 8/10
Jack Reacher (Christopher McQuarrie, 2012) - 8/10
The Future (Miranda July, 2011) - 7/10
Year of the Devil (Petr Zelenka, 2002) - 7/10
The Trial (Eric Notarnicola, 2017) - 7/10
Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, 2019) - 7/10
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredsson, 2011) - 7/10
Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993) - 7/10
Wrong (Quentin Dupieux, 2012) - 6/10
A Holiday Engagement (Jim Fall, 2011) - 6/10
The Hellbenders (Sergio Corbucci, 1967) - 6/10
True History of the Kelly Gang (Justin Kurzel, 2019) - 6/10
The World's End (Edgar Wright, 2013) - 6/10
Jurassic Park III (Joe Johnston, 2001) - 6/10
Jurassic World (Colin Trevorrow, 2015) - 6/10
The Bed Sitting Room (Richard Lester, 1969) - 6/10
Bacurau (Klebr Mendonca Filho/Juliano Dornelles, 2019) - 5/10
Bombshell (Jay Roach, 2019) - 5/10
High Life (Claire Denis, 2018) - 4/10
Flight (Robert Zemeckis, 2012) - 4/10
Jurassic Park: The Lost World (Steven Spielberg, 1997) - 3/10
Thor: The Dark World (Alan Taylor, 2013) - 3/10
John Wick (Chad Stahelski, 2014) - 2/10
Knight and Day (James Mangold, 2010) - 2/10
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (Edward Zwick, 2016) - 2/10
Thor (Kenneth Branagh, 2011) - 2/10
The Heat (Paul Feig, 2013) - 1/10
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (JA Bayona, 2018) - 1/10
My Perfect Romance (Justin Dyck, 2018) - 1/10
The Hottie and the Nottie (Tom Putnam, 2008) - 0/10
shorts:
White Film (Joseph Bernard, 1978) - 9/10
Beirut Outtakes (Peggy Ahwesh, 2007) - 8/10
This Bit of That India (SNS Sastry, 1975) - 8/10
Lights (Marie Menken, 1966) - 7/10
Love (Vlatko Gilic, 1972) - 7/10
The Acrobatic Fly (F Percy Smith, 1910) - 7/10
Rehearsals for Retirement (Phil Solomon, 2007) - 7/10
Could See A Puma (Eduardo Williams, 2011) - 6/10
Garden Pieces (Margaret Tait, 1998) - 6/10
Boniface's Holiday (Fyodor Khitruk, 1965) - 6/10
Fountain of Dreams (Jordan Belson, 1984) - 5/10
I Give You A Star (Fyodor Khitruk, 1975) - 5/10
Jurassic World is a 6 and John Wick is a 2? Never thought I'd see that! JW is one of the most incompetently made blockbusters of the last 5 years imo.
Heh. You do realize that both movies would be abbreviated as JW, no?
The John Wick thing is weird. I mean I'm all for Keanu having a hit, seems like a good dude and pleasing enough to watch on screen doing whatever, but that ain't enough to do all the heavy lifting for Wick, and adding some nice enough lighting and the usual absurdist action scenes, moderately better handled than in the least examples of the genre, doesn't increase the reward by all that much. It kinda feels like there's an expectation that there needs to be some medium budget action movie that catches public imagination as much out of want for it as it being all that exceptional, just as opposition to the bigger budget action blockbusters if nothing else.
circuit of sorrow (toru murakawa)
yasha (yasuo furuhata)
house of hanging (kon ichikawa)
petulia (richard lester)
sonchiriya (abhishek chaubey)
negotiator (takashi miike)
yakuza demon (takashi miike)
as the gods will (takashi miike)
my sister's good fortune (angela shanelec)
the day after (lee suk-gyeong)
masque of the red death, roger corman
the haunted palace, roger corman
the tomb of ligeia, roger corman
love aaj kal 2020, imtiaz ali
jurassic world was at least a bit fun, which is not something i can say for john wick, outside of that one amazing club scene. the drama is straight out of a cartoon, and was all the more ridiculous with its bela tarr pacing, and i don't get excited about films that are all about finding cool ways to shoot people. it is probably a hundred times more competently made than jurassic world though, i'll grant that.
Kung Fu Hustle (2004, dir. Chow) (rewatch, streaming)
Love On Delivery (1994, dir. Lee) (rewatch, streaming)
(T)ERROR (2015, dir. Cabral & Sutcliffe) (public screening, political event)
my partner likes stephen chow a lot :)
i wrote up a long review of the documentary to try to prove my commitment to returning to this forum but i lost it.. it's a film that fits together a bit oddly. subjects on the opposite sides of an fbi entrapment plot (an informant and the target) independently contacted the filmmakers and have a vested interest in emphasizing the absurdity and laziness of the operation, which the filmmakers roll with. there's a number of reasons the fbi focuses on hack ops on politically marginal people (people with low ideological commitment at the edges of political milieus are easier to push out of political action than those with high ideological commitment, it spreads paranoia among social and political communities leading activist groups to become insular and politically ineffective, and the low-background hum of bogus anti-terror convictions does more to maintain the prestige of the fbi than any individual high-investment operation could) and it's not responsible to simply raise awareness on the point without sharper perspective. worth a watch.
scent of a woman (dino risi)
after the thin man (w. s. van dyke) pitfall (hiroshi teshigahara)
an exercise in discipline: peel (jane campion)
passionless moments (jane campion / gerard lee)
a girl's own story (jane campion) another thin man (w. s. van dyke) creature from the black lagoon (jack arnold)
le silence de la mer (jean-pierre melville)
mysterious object at noon (apichatpong weerasethakul) dust in the wind (hou hsiao-hsien)
the little prince (mark osborne) dead or alive (takashi miike) dead or alive 2: birds (takashi miike)
good time (benny safdie / josh safdie)
dead or alive: final (takashi miike)
fan (maneesh sharma) who's camus anyway? (mitsuo yanagimachi)
the happiness of the katakuris (takashi miike)
shinjuku triad society (takashi miike)
PHANTOM THREAD 10/10
PROSPERO'S BOOKS 100/10
1917 0/10
ROMA (Cuaron) 10/10
ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES 10/10
L'INNOCENTE 8/10
TWENTIETH CENTURY 1000/10
SONG OF BERNADETTE 5/10
Not a lot in February.
These matters are best disposed of from a great height. Over water.
