Last Watched

[Roscoe]

Guy Maddin's THE GREEN FOG is streaming on Vimeo for free, and I only found out yesterday, and watched it last night, and like it even more than I did when I saw it at the IFC Center. Is VERTIGO San Francisco? Is San Francisco VERTIGO? Are all San Francisco movies VERTIGO? Is VERTIGO all San Francisco movies? Yes. And no. And well probably.

The movie also features a few moments of such utter mean-spirited satire of a certain movie personality, I cannot call him an actor, and he is here hoist by his own petard. You'll know what I mean when you see it.

[Curtis, baby]

shout out to sally for hating craponofsky's pi as much as i did

my least favourite moment in terms of the math was when the guy suggests that the other dudes have written down every 216-digit number, but my least favourite moment in terms of the cinematic choices was all of it

[liquidnature]

Watched Columbo: Murder by the Book (1971) the first official 'episode'/tv movie of Columbo, directed by none other than Steven Spielberg - whose films I have been going through slowly, same year that Duel was released on TV, and it is genuinely fantastic. Lowkey blew my mind with its direction and script; Spielberg was young and inventive with his shots back then of course, more experimental and subtle than his later overbearing on-the-nose sentimentalism. Jack Cassidy is genius in this; shame to discover he died just five years later - he could have been a household name, he was that talented.

Def recommend this one to all, fun and breezy 77 mins with beautiful views of Big Bear Lake and '70s L.A., on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWY1-ukV2M4

[Silga]

I've watched Columbo: Murder by the Book years ago, but I still remember it fondly. It is the only Columbo episode I've ever seen and I did so because of Spielberg's involvement. Definitely a recommended watch. Just as Liquidnature said, it is a fun and swift crime mystery that also looks great. I wonder if the subsequent episodes of Columbo retained the same quality.

[Roscoe]

LOVE AND DEATH -- Woody Allen's romp through Russian literature and Swedish movies, and for me his funniest film. I like it a lot. That little exchange about "wheat" will always rank on my list of favorite things.

[nrh]

finally got around to watching lester's juggernaut last night and it's actually kind of wonderful. what should be generic '70s disaster movie (there are bombs on a cruise ship!) turns into something small and melancholy, and weirdly moving in current context in the way it deals with political institutions not being able or not being willing to deal with crisis. visual texture is beautiful too.

so weird to see anthony hopkins young -

[pabs]

LOVE AND DEATH

My personal favourite moment is "No... Not here!"

[Roscoe]

finally got around to watching lester's juggernaut last night and it's actually kind of wonderful. what should be generic '70s disaster movie (there are bombs on a cruise ship!) turns into something small and melancholy, and weirdly moving in current context in the way it deals with political institutions not being able or not being willing to deal with crisis. visual texture is beautiful too.

Agreed, a better and sadder movie than you'd think. Good old Roy Kinnear trying to keep everybody's spirits up. And that grim little cameo from Cyril Cusack as the jailed bomber who doesn't want to help with the investigation "I just don't care who gets blown up anymore."

[nrh]

Agreed, a better and sadder movie than you'd think. Good old Roy Kinnear trying to keep everybody's spirits up. And that grim little cameo from Cyril Cusack as the jailed bomber who doesn't want to help with the investigation "I just don't care who gets blown up anymore."

[Roscoe]

Kinnear was a god.

[MrCarmady]

The Big Gundown was dope.

the music from Morricone is typically fantastic
Van Cleef and Milian are a great double act, they ooze charisma and confidence in radically different ways. And the anti-capitalist, pro-revolutionary message is pretty simplistic but nonetheless a fun thing to build a spag western around. In between we get a lot of enjoyably ridiculous set-pieces and characters, from gun-toting priests and hot ranch owners with a reverse harem to German assassins with monocles and mormons with 13-year-old wives (this is obviously a pretty vicious indictment of cults and exploitation of women but is played for laughs and somehow works)

[Curtis, baby]

Those screens look amazing

[MrCarmady]

frames

[Curtis, baby]

Didn't Godard say "cinema is truth hammering print screen 24 times a second"? Am I misremembering?

[pabs]

Hong's Tale of Cinema (2005). I loved it. So when did Korea become the best country for films?

[Joks Trois]

^^Never!

Liberte (Serra): Faaaarrk! Finally a new film that feels loose and unrestrained by market imperatives. Not perfect, but a fascinating glimpse at dark desire in relentless slow-mo. Looks great too. Like Costa, Serra uses digital properly in ways that seem new and distinct. 7.5/10

[Roscoe]

Lockdown Cinema -- the first third of Gance's NAPOLEON in that delicious BFI Blu-Ray that made a multi region player a necessity. The good stuff is still good (the snowball fight, the Marseillaise, the Double Storm), and the rest is what it is, I'm thinking the film's picture of Napoleon as World's Greatest Human Ever No Really EVER is just really eye-rolly.

The second third today. The third third tomorrow.

[Curtis, baby]

Recently discovered Mike Hoolboom. Incredible. His most famous work, "We Make Couples", was, well, very very very brilliant... but it's "Frank's Cock" that blew me away the most. Need to see more by this guy

[thoxans]

gang boy (arthur swerdloff) who knew that bresson ghost-directed american after school specials in his sparetime? starts out aight, becomes strangely watchable, then ends in typical educational film fashion. whatever its modal faults tho, they can't diminish (if anything, maybe even supplementing) its austere alienness and compositional pleasures. rec'd for evelyn and lota

[Lencho of the Apes]

After-school Bresson? I'll watchlist it, at least. I wonder if it's easy to find.

[Roscoe]

Watched the rest of NAPOLEON over the last couple days. I can't comment on the history and what Gance does with it, beyond wondering how accurate it all is. Napoleon's divinity is insisted on all times, though, and there's that weird little scene near film's end where two women are shown praying at an altar to his awesomeness. The filmmaking is magnificent, those triptychs can't help but impress even on TV, but I'll wonder what the hell is really going on in that final section where Napoleon rallies a "naked and ill-fed" army to invade another country for no apparent reason.

[thoxans]

the day after (hong sang-soo) hadn't watched a hong in a lil bit, saw pabs' comment bout tale of cinema, and thought to myself, 'damn ain't watched a hong in a lil bit.' funny how that works. from my experience, hong always nails at least three things: 1) structure (obvs); 2) ending; and 3) music (bonus points for whomever can send me a link to the synth song that's on replay throughout this, so i can put it on replay irl). structure feels tripartite in ways. three women. three diff types of relationships. three-ish tenses; distant-ish past, recent-ish past, and present-ish. and tho that narrative becomes clearer earlier than it does in other hong's, the interplay scene-to-scene seems more intricate, a dialogue between/within the interchange from one take to the next. broader, the shifts extend to characters, from protag to love interest(s) to prospective. with some hong's, i feel like it might be a lesser entry in an autoexpressive whole. this is one of those that can stand on its own. still, hong's will be an endlessly fascinating filmog when all is said and done, like a fictionalized (apted) up series, the growth of an individual making movies about himself throughout the years for others. thinking a great contemporary comparison for hong is actually linklater, not as an inspiration, but as a member in the tiny modern cohort of this style of metabiographical filmmaking

[greennui]

Opfergang (Veit Harlan, 1944) - Like a Powell/Pressburger technicolor melodrama shrouded in a dreamy haze of death obsession. The score was properly weird, exuberant yet funereal, in a review someone described it as 'trying to pull you over to the other side", which is indeed an apt description. Kristina Söderbaum randomly breaking out in Swedish throughout the film added another layer of strangeness as a Swedish viewer. The Nazi themes weren't really that overt, apart from the ones of death and sacrifice. Goebbels deemed it unfit for release, citing 'death eroticsm and mythologising of adultery" yet he himself became obsessed with it and is said to have held numerous personal screenings, eventually releasing it with a rating of "artistically valuable". I found it really transfixing.





Mo screens:

Spoiler!

[Umbugbene]

Opfergang is such a strange and fascinating movie. It's one of Slavoj Zizek's favorites. I always think of that grandfather clock with the inscription "One of these hours will be your last." So morbid.

[rischka]

opfergang looks appropriate for these days, i may have to check it out too. currently watching the battle of chile

[greennui]

Yeah, the appearance of typhoid fever in Opfergang def made the present spring to mind.

[pabs]

Naked Hollywood: Four Million Dollars Is Cheap (BBC).

Highly recommended. I saw it on youtube. Directed by Margy Kinmonth, the image quality on youtube is not so good, but I didn't care, as the story of how agents run (ran? this is 1991, so maybe things have changed?) and manipulate people in Hollywood is so vile and disgusting an occupation - lower than you could ever imagine - is a compelling watch.

This episode features the dealings of Michael Ovitz who was the world's most famous and successful agent when this series was produced.

A bit about the BBC's Naked Hollywood tv series (from wikipedia):

Naked Hollywood is a 6 part TV series directed by Margy Kinmonth. The film includes Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Caan, Barry Diller, Joe Roth, Sydney Pollack, Oliver Stone, James Brooks, Nora Ephron, Terry Gilliam and many more. The film won a British Academy Film Award for Best Factual Series.

Episodes

The Actor and the Star - 24 February 1991
Four Million Dollars is Cheap - 03 March 1991
Good Cop, Bad Cop - 10 March 1991
Funny for Money - 17 March 1991
Eighteen Months to Live - 24 March 1991
One Foot In, One Foot Out - 31 March 1991

I've found only three episodes available on youtube so far.

[liquidnature]

Opfergang

this has been on my watchlist for ages. Any chance you could put it in the spot??

[MrCarmady]

Shakespeare in Love, of all things. Probably one of the most sneered at Oscar winners, but actually it's one of the most delightfully unexpected ones (well, if you ignore that the push was masterminded by an evil serial rapist) - very light, not clumsily attempting to tackle a social issue, and basically taking the piss with the whole concept of a historical movie. Great cast and Gwyneth Paltrow in particular is incredible - actually nailing an English accent which Americans basically never do; fragile; funny; gorgeous.

Now I need something with 420 votes on IMDB to regain my street cred again...

[Curtis, baby]

Nice, 420 is my fav number