Last Watched

[Roscoe]

CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN -- with Christopher Lee as The Creature and Peter Cushing as the Frankenstein Monster. Cushing's ice-cold malice is the main attraction here. And Lee's remarkable physicality is a major asset, too. There's one remarkable moment that has stayed with me, where the severely brain-damaged creature has to obey a command to perform a basic motor function. Wow.

[greennui]

Salomé (Pierre Koralnik, 1969) - I do like me some far-out Salomé adaptations. This was one that was very hard not to take screenshots of every other minute.

[Holymanm]

(Personally I prefer Salame adaptations...)

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

[Roscoe]

THE ASCENT -- Larisa Shepitko's war drama manages to not sink under the weight of its allegoricalosity, but there are some danger signs here and there. Most impressive snow-bound black and white, which I'm sure will look even more splendid in the upcoming Criterion Blu-Ray which is now an essential purchase that's for damn sure. I was particularly taken with Anatoli Solonitsyn's work here.

[kanafani]

Junior Bonner (Sam Peckinpah, 1972). Decent character study about the decline of a man and the vanishing of the West etc. A little wooden and predictable. You can set your watch to some standard scenes - the drunken bar brawl, the quick and systematic romance with a random babe, the dinner at the dysfunctional family table... Steve McQueen's good, it was nice to see Ida Lupino. The rodeo scenes are the cinematic highlight. I didn't know that cow milking racing was a thing though, first time I've seen one of those.

[Roscoe]

bronson (nicolas winding refn) from what little i've seen, nwr is a shotmaker, not a stylist. there's a difference. i can make sure your sideburns are even, and still fuck up the rest of your hairdo. nwr can give you a powerpoint presentation with plenty of pretty slides, but the transitions in between will be awkward and ugly and wildly inconsistent. hardy's good. imo he seems to be one of those actors that can make watchable what's in reality pretty mediocre material (think roscoe disagrees with me on this point, as he does on ddl). but i'll hand it to nwr: he doesn't make outright shite films, so much as interesting failures (though drive was decent, as a genre throwback)

Yeah -- I was a fan of Mr. Hardy's for a while but his showoff Big Acting has come to be a turn off. He was one of the few bright spots in that INCEPTION thing, and in TINKER TAILOR. And yeah, he was hot as fuck. And then I just remember giggling helplessly at his foolishness in THE REVENANT, all that makeup and facial hair and grunge but still those gleaming white teeth, and that thing where he plays the Krays, and that idiotic voice he put on as Bane, jesus. It's cool that he's looking to stretch as an actor, I'm just not sure he's got the versatility that he wants so desperately to prove he has. As opposed to Robert Pattinson, whose turns in COSMOPOLIS and THE LIGHTHOUSE show he's more than just a teen vampire matinee idol.

I take it you're not a fan of Mr Day-Lewis?

[thoxans]

Mr. Hardy [...] Robert Pattinson [...] Mr Day-Lewis

re: hardy: i hated inception, so don't even remember hardy's role in that one tbh. didn't care for tinker tailor soldier spy either, and once again don't remember his role. really didn't like the revenant, but i actually do remember him in that one, and yeah, that was a case where he couldn't prop up the overblown self-important material, though nobody really could have. and the dark knight rises was just bad; not sure why nolan has batman and bane do the stupidest voices possible, as if they were being portrayed by ten-year-old boys playing pretend superheroes and supervillains. legend was garbage, but was one where hardy was the most watchable thing about it. locke was at least interesting conceptually, and hardy does a good job carrying the entire thing, even if the film isn't entirely successful imo. the drop was a pretty solid little flick, and hardy's subdued perf there i think showed he could do subtle just as well as the over-the-top (suppose the same could be said about his mad max, though no one in that film really had to act that much). he was also good in lawless, but i had to turn that one off after about 20min cuz it was just so laughably inept. the man really needs a better agent or something. given the right material, and right director, he could be all around great. much better than joaquin phoenix, who seems to have become the critical darling of the moment

re: pattinson: now this is a guy who knows how to pick the right material (post-twilight fame)! no matter what anyone thinks of pattinson, ya gotta respect a guy who takes his craft seriously, and wants to avoid any sort of comfort zone whatsoever. he was great in good time, good in high life, and chameleonic in the lost city of z. i need to see the lighthouse

re: ddl: no, i luvvv ddl! i thought you didn't care for him, but maybe i'm wrong...? i'm one of those suckers who thinks he's one of the all-time greats. i get confused when people call his ability to metamorphose overacting. idk where that line is drawn. to me, late career al pacino is representative of overacting (sometimes in very fun ways though). ddl doesn't do any of that. he changes his voice, his mannerisms, his physical presence, his very being. don't know if i've ever seen anything like it outside of maybe early brando, and even then i think ddl is better, more fully committed to actual tangible embodiment than mere nuanced portrayal

[MrCarmady]

DDL in There Will Be Blood is quite hammy but I found him very funny in Phantom Thread and terrific in A Room with a View and especially The Age of Innocence.

Hardy is very overrated, I agree, a good-looking man with a decent range but I can't point to a single performance of his I fully enjoyed. Locke is supposed to be good, right?

[Roscoe]

re: ddl: no, i luvvv ddl! i thought you didn't care for him, but maybe i'm wrong...?

Nope, I'm good with DDL, one of the all-time greats as far as I'm concerned. His Daniel Plainview is a particular favorite, likewise his Reynolds Woodcock, and so on. He does seem to have one small blindspot -- his appalling Guido in Rob Marshall's catastrophic NINE is one of the grossest mistakes in film history, blessed with the charm of Josef Goebbels on a bad day. Does his absolute commitment have to be only involved in such utterly grim projects? I mean, damn, even Dustin Hoffman's got LITTLE BIG MAN and TOOTSIE. DDL's Cecil Vyse was a looooong time ago...

[MrCarmady]

Phantom Thread is a comedy though?

[Roscoe]

Well yeah, in that it isn't as grim as TWBB, I guess. But, well, it ain't exactly a load of laughs. I can't think of a scene of DDL being actually hilarious, like Hoffman as Michael Dorsey half dressed as Dorothy Michaels panicking about what to wear on his first date with Jessica Lange ("This is our first date. I just want to be pretty for her."), or like George C. Scott's Buck Turgidson or Sellers' mad doctor.

There are glimmers, of course -- DDL's Bill Cutting has some blackly funny moments, of course. Couldn't he have found a comedy at some point? Maybe he didn't think he had a flair for it. I'm remembering a little movie called STARS AND BARS where he plays an Englishman in America, and I'm not having a problem with it having fallen into oblivion.

[MrCarmady]

I dunno, I found him pretty hilarious, with lines like "Are you a special agent sent here to ruin my evening and possibly my entire life?” he's hard to take very seriously.

[rischka]

well i still have some hammers lying around. one is called 'never take sweets from a stranger' d. cyril frankel, 1960 ... nice bit of victim blaming in the title there. the film deals straightforwardly with a dangerous topic. when a family moves to a new town, they soon find their daughter has fallen victim to the local molester, and are increasingly discouraged from doing anything about it due to his prominence in the community. as we well know, this kind of thing is STILL happening; i've read just today how the fbi let epstein slip in 2007 because he was material witness in another case. in the end it devolves toward disturbing exploitation but due credit for tackling a subject most would rather not talk about, especially in 1960

[Roscoe]

I dunno, I found him pretty hilarious, with lines like "Are you a special agent sent here to ruin my evening and possibly my entire life?” he's hard to take very seriously.

Sure, Reynolds is a fool in a lot of ways. I didn't find the movie or character to be especially comic. That little line about "kiss me my girl before I'm sick" had me laughing in an OMG way, I guess.

[thoxans]

full-on belly laughed my way through that last scene of there will be blood (a case where ddl does ham it up, purposefully though, cuz he's certainly just messing with dano's character the entire time), but i'm also the type to laugh my ass off during the jessie's girl drug deal scene in boogie nights. idk much about acting, but ddl disappears into characters to my eyes. never think to myself 'oh look it's ddl playing a mohican' or 'oh look it's ddl playing lincoln.' de niro is always de niro. he's got his shtick, his style, his way of doing things, which tons of actors have emulated since, so it's great and cool and endlessly watchable in that way. but ddl actually becomes his characters, so that's what i see, not just an actor acting. but that's also why i find discussions on acting interesting cuz the line between overacting and great acting is so drastically disparate (even more so than directing, it seems)

[Joks Trois]

Junior Bonner (Sam Peckinpah, 1972). Decent character study about the decline of a man and the vanishing of the West etc. A little wooden and predictable. You can set your watch to some standard scenes - the drunken bar brawl, the quick and systematic romance with a random babe, the dinner at the dysfunctional family table... Steve McQueen's good, it was nice to see Ida Lupino. The rodeo scenes are the cinematic highlight. I didn't know that cow milking racing was a thing though, first time I've seen one of those.

Watched this with Cable Hogue back to back. Comparable films in some ways, but Cable is better.

Re: DDL. He doesn't even have half the screen presence of prime Pacino, Deniro, Brando or even Nicholson. GTHO with that! You are seriously buggin' bro! He isn't even close. Maybe if you haven't seen those guys in their prime for a long time perhaps. And yeh, DDL mugs. Plainview isn't that much different from Bill the Butcher.

And as far as the cool factor goes, he is a complete dunce compared to the aforementioned. Nothing cool about him. Those other actors were BOSS status. Nobody wants to be DDL. He isn't iconic at all.

[kanafani]

Watched this with Cable Hogue back to back. Comparable films in some ways, but Cable is better.

I saw that one not too long ago. Yes, quite superior to Junior Bonner

[---]

have been watching mostly noirs and i'll post a review/reaction dump soon, but i also went to the cineme last night. saw I VITELLONI. it was already one of fav fellinis, i would say top 5 or so... but it blew me away. 5/5. my second fav behind AMARCORD. so cynical and yet not afraid to show just the utter unbelievability and potential and mystery of one's life unfolding... really captures a post-war youthful energy rooted in negativity that fits well with the current day. the characters are simple, for the most part. they're consistent, at least. not much development. i don't think the asshole is even gonna stop being an asshole (in the film's universe where life continues on there)

the main dude doesn't undergo any change either, save for one: he decides he wants to change, and he throws himself into this. it's only one change but it's an important one

i would probably describe this movie as "good will hunting meets kicking and screaming, except directed by fellini in the 50s"

[Roscoe]

Re: DDL. Pacino, Deniro, Brando or even Nicholson.And yeh, DDL mugs. Plainview isn't that much different from Bill the Butcher.

And as far as the cool factor goes, he is a complete dunce compared to the aforementioned. Nothing cool about him. Those other actors were BOSS status. Nobody wants to be DDL. He isn't iconic at all.

Points taken, sure. I don't have a problem with mugging, when it's good mugging. Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion is mugging, John Barrymore's Oscar Jaffe is mugging. De Niro Pacino and Nicholson mug -- is there a muggier performance than Nicholson's Jack Torrance? Or Pacino's glorious Big Boy Caprice? And yeah, in less charitable moments I've referred to Bill The Butcher as a dress rehearsal for Daniel Plainview. But the Butcher is more operatic, bigger gestures, appropriate for a character who appreciates "dash" while Plainview's much more internalized, holding everything in and torturing himself, building to the bowling alley explosion of outlandishness. GANGS would be a lot more watchable if Scorsese had ditched Leo and Cameron and let me watch the Butcher for three hours.

Icon-wise -- sure he's an icon. An Icon for Extreme Acting Commitment and stuff like that. He's the Male Meryl Streep, he's spoken of in hushed whispers. The difference is, for me at least, is that there are performances by DDL that I actually seek out to watch. And it's that Extreme Acting Commitment thing that can get wearying, frankly. Reading of his apprenticeship in the NYC Ballet Costume shop to prepare for PHANTOM THREAD I couldn't help but think 'dear boy have you ever tried acting?"

[MrCarmady]

John Barrymore's Oscar Jaffe is one of the most irritating performances I've seen in any film, so I'm not sure that strengthens your point. Then again, I never really got the appeal of Brando's mumbling in On the Waterfront and how that's considered a brilliant performance, thought Steiger acted him off the screen in that. I do agree DDL is iconic, moreso than 'cool'. Pacino is a funny one, because he had a decade where he actually bothered to act and then just started mugging in everything, but he's usually enjoyable even when he's doing that, especially when the director knows what to do with him - either make the film itself as ridiculous and excessive, as in Scarface, or surround him with great, more understated performers, like in Heat and Glengarry Glen Ross. Scent of a Woman, though, Christ.

[Roscoe]

Mileage is gonna vary, clearly. One person's glorious display of over the top comic genius is another person's "one of the most irritating ever." I'm good with good over the top, of which here are a few examples:

DDL in TWBB, GONY
Barrymore, Carole Lombard, Walter Connolly and Roscoe Karns in TWENTIETH CENTURY
George C. Scott, Peter Sellers in DR. STRANGELOVE
Pacino in DICK TRACY (which he seems to have settled for repeating ad nauseam ever since)
Cagney in WHITE HEAT
Mifune in SEVEN SAMURAI, THRONE OF BLOOD
Hugh Keys-Byrne in MAD MAX

and here's some, for me, Bad Over The Top:

William Hurt in HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
Michael Keaton in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (Keaton's Dogberry is unique in cinema history as being the worst performance in a film that also stars Keanu Reeves)
Streep in what I've been able to endure of THE IRON LADY
Brad Pitt in TWELVE MONKEYS
Tom Hardy in THE REVENANT

[Holdrüholoheuho]

HOW WINGS ARE ATTACHED TO THE BACKS OF ANGELS (Craig Welch, 1996)
https://letterboxd.com/film/how-wings-a ... of-angels/
https://youtu.be/NRHVzbJVx8I

I'M YOUR MAN (Roslyn Schwartz, 1996)
https://letterboxd.com/film/im-your-man-1996/
https://youtu.be/4jyJTpZbpJY

[thoxans]

I've referred to Bill The Butcher as a dress rehearsal for Daniel Plainview

this is a reasonable take, especially since gangs of new york itself seemed like a dress rehearsal for a whole other much better movie that never got made; but yeah, they're very different characters, no matter the similarities in facial tics and mustaches

[thoxans]

I never really got the appeal of Brando's mumbling in On the Waterfront

it wasn't until i saw his perf in a streetcar named desire that it finally clicked, and i went 'ohhh so that's why everyone says brando is an amazing actor'

[thoxans]

William Hurt in HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

and this is why talking acting is so interesting! i loved hurt in a history of violence. on first viewing, really didn't care much for the movie tbh, but still liked hurt a lot (have rewatched and revised my opinion of the film since then). i think all of this is to say: bad guys rule, and good guys drool! seems most of the best perfs are done by actors playing the bad guy

[Holymanm]

Portrait of a Lady on Fire was painfully disappointing. The best movie yet by one of my favourite contemporary directors? No! A piece of crap? ...No! Still okay and not terrible, but with expectations high the negatives stick out a little more. Awful editing*; glaring period inauthenticity; stiff, wooden leads; that horrible singing scene; and... nothing much to look at in this movie about art and aesthetics. It's certainly very digitally HD and clear, but is it pretty? Beautiful? Is it interesting? Literary? Any interesting lines?

This feels like a ridiculous thing to say about such a good director... but the movie just feels like pandering to people who want to see women doing female things while surrounded by other women, and with an emphasis on the fact that they're women. That's fine and good (and obviously as a man I never had any idea in my entire life that women have historically had to bear the brunt of birth control and abortive measures, so having that long scene in this was startling and educational rather than a bizarre sideplot in a 120+ minute movie), but is it art? ...Why can't it be both? All her other movies are clearly (and by her own account) deliberately trying to highlight marginalised cultures and people, but they are also great! Where is the emotion dripping off the screen in this one, à la Water Lilies? The urgency?! This film** just feels so bitterly slight. Underwhelming. And French. I could forget that she was French before, because her other movies were so good, but there is no hiding it in this one. Just a standard modern European movie with nothing special.

Spoiler!

Down to the still-shot crying ending that will make everyone think of the other big overrated recent queer film CMBYN, and right down to the dramatic sudden cut to black that every fucking movie made in the last 10 years does now.

Nous sommes Mackés


* All I heard about this movie, for months, was how it had an all-female crew - super cool! But it seems almost the whole pre- and post-production crew is male?? Why? Why? Why? ...Why couldn't they have just had a female editor who wasn't as terrible as this guy???
** French for "film"

[thoxans]

parasite (bong joon-ho) l'argent for dummies: a foreigner's guide to making americanized shit

[pabs]

parasite (bong joon-ho) l'argent for dummies

[Joks Trois]

Points taken, sure. I don't have a problem with mugging, when it's good mugging. Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion is mugging, John Barrymore's Oscar Jaffe is mugging. De Niro Pacino and Nicholson mug -- is there a muggier performance than Nicholson's Jack Torrance? Or Pacino's glorious Big Boy Caprice? And yeah, in less charitable moments I've referred to Bill The Butcher as a dress rehearsal for Daniel Plainview. But the Butcher is more operatic, bigger gestures, appropriate for a character who appreciates "dash" while Plainview's much more internalized, holding everything in and torturing himself, building to the bowling alley explosion of outlandishness. GANGS would be a lot more watchable if Scorsese had ditched Leo and Cameron and let me watch the Butcher for three hours.

Are you suggesting that Plainview is a more subtle character than Bill? Perhaps, but that is like arguing that some STD's are less severe than others. Sure it's true, but it kind of misses the point. His performance in Blood is LOUD, unquestionably. 'I DO BELIEVE I'M AN OIL MAN!' That is almost parody level stuff, like a live action Snidely Whiplash. When he is mad, you can see it all over his face. He doesn't need to 'explode' in the bowling alley. He explodes much earlier in the film, several times in fact ('I'LL CUT YOUR THROAT!!'). Much has been done to excuse the eccentricities of this performance (i.e. it's meant to be funny etc). It's a good performance, yes, but it isn't a subtle or particularly complex one. It is certainly an interesting and forceful one. Unfortunately, Dano almost ruins that film for me. Terrible actor.

Pacino and Nicholson can mug with charm. To me DDL is mostly technique and basically a bit of a stiff Anglophone. Like Sean Penn, I can see the gears turning when I watch him, but he is superior to Penn.

Icon-wise -- sure he's an icon. An Icon for Extreme Acting Commitment and stuff like that. He's the Male Meryl Streep, he's spoken of in hushed whispers. The difference is, for me at least, is that there are performances by DDL that I actually seek out to watch. And it's that Extreme Acting Commitment thing that can get wearying, frankly. Reading of his apprenticeship in the NYC Ballet Costume shop to prepare for PHANTOM THREAD I couldn't help but think 'dear boy have you ever tried acting?"

Who has he influenced? What has he done that is distinctive enough to make him an icon? To me an icon is 'something else'.

[Roscoe]

Amazon would know, I guess.