Last Watched

[thoxans]

The [...] of course.

curious about your opinion of hou/rivette. i've seen basically zero rivette (one short, i think), but most of hou's filmog. can certainly understand how hou might not click - he doesn't for me every time (i seriously need to rewatch goodbye south, goodbye cuz it's rated so highly by so many, and it's not even t5 hou for me tbh). but also, yang's a brighter summer day is all time great (not to mention hou's flowers of shanghai)!

as for tourneur, anne of the indies is mid-to-upper tier for me. solid, but not superlative. his westerns are amazing though. as good as any of the dude's horror flicks, and better than his noirs imo. canyon passage is obvs highly regarded 'round these parts (for good reason), but great day in the morning is maybe my fav tourneur western, and stranger on horseback is also great (a slim trim +65min pure genre escape)

[greennui]

Twilight (Govindan Aravindan, 1982) - Gorgeous, hypnotic film about the saddest of all the bois.

[Roscoe]

TOO MANY KISSES, a slight but charming 1925 comedy directed by Paul Sloane. Good breezy fun for the most part. Richard Dix in the lead as a compulsive flirt has a tasty butch presence, despite some overdone comic mugging. There's William Powell as a villain, and the divine Harpo Marx himself in a bit role. Most enjoyable for an hour's diversion. Dix's father has paid too many apparent breach of promise complaints, and decides to ship Dix off to a place where there are no women, to keep him out of temptation's way (this is 1925, remember). It goes along from there, breezily and charmingly, with some good flashes of fun. And there's Harpo.

[rischka]

Judas and the black messiah -- it's not bad. more of a safe biopic then you'd like but that was expected. Daniel Kaaluya is phenomenal tho as fred hampton, and i guess i shouldn't be surprised at this point -- is from london. in fact i think i first saw him in a black mirror episode.

[Roscoe]

What I was able to endure of JOJO RABBIT -- like Wes Anderson's version of THE TIN DRUM.

[Abe]

Saint Maud was pretty okay as debuts go. I felt that after a decent set up it went a little too safe and predictable in its final third, but there were some nice ideas and Morfydd Clark was very good. Still not sure why they marketed it as a horror though.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Watched Eduardo De Gregorio's Surreal Estate or Serail(?) I have no idea which title it's more known by.
Really fun stuff though. Yeah, it's got the whole Celine and Julie vibe going on, but I'm also just a sucker for impossibly literary cinema. By about halfway through I got this feeling that this had to have been an adaptation of some postmodern meta-novel or something. Also, Bulle Ogier had a remarkable career, and I always love seeing her, but Marie France-Pisier is killer in this. This is by far the best performance of hers that I've seen.

[Joks Trois]

The [...] of course.

curious about your opinion of hou/rivette. i've seen basically zero rivette (one short, i think), but most of hou's filmog. can certainly understand how hou might not click - he doesn't for me every time (i seriously need to rewatch goodbye south, goodbye cuz it's rated so highly by so many, and it's not even t5 hou for me tbh). but also, yang's a brighter summer day is all time great (not to mention hou's flowers of shanghai)!

as for tourneur, anne of the indies is mid-to-upper tier for me. solid, but not superlative. his westerns are amazing though. as good as any of the dude's horror flicks, and better than his noirs imo. canyon passage is obvs highly regarded 'round these parts (for good reason), but great day in the morning is maybe my fav tourneur western, and stranger on horseback is also great (a slim trim +65min pure genre escape)

Rivette mentioned Hou when giving his opinion of Happy Together, which he liked:

But I still think that the great Asian directors are Japanese, despite the critical inflation of Asia in general and of Chinese directors in particular. I think they’re able and clever, maybe a little too able and a little too clever. For example, Hou Hsiao-hsien really irritates me, even though I liked the first two of his films that appeared in Paris. I find his work completely manufactured and sort of disagreeable, but very politically correct. The last one [Goodbye South, Goodbye, 1996] is so systematic that it somehow becomes interesting again but even so, I think it’s kind of a trick.

To me Hou is just a good craftsman, and I'm not that impressed by his technique. As for Rivette, I've only seen a handful of his films because most of them are long and time is precious. I do like what I've seen though.

re: A Brighter Summer's Day. I was really disappointed. It was too long and I felt the end was disappointing, far fetched (in terms of what it was trying to say) and only small step away from agitprop. Perhaps I need to revisit it, but I didn't like it nearly as much as some of his other films, although Yi Yi is the only film of his I've watched more than once.

[thoxans]

But I still think that the great Asian directors are Japanese

who knew rivette was a weeaboo?

but i have trouble defining a generation (i.e. the taiwanese new wave, or new taiwanese cinema) basically by two filmmakers. beyond hou and yang, i'm not certain who else would be considered a major figure from that period...? the omnibus films might have been a big deal at the time, bringing together all these new filmmakers, but outside of those pictures, doesn't seem that any of them really made a lasting mark (or it's that their films just otherwise haven't been discovered, for whatever reasons). and i don't consider tsai of hou and yang's generation. idk. other new wave 'movements' seem to cast a wider net. even the romanian new wave's got jude, mungiu, muntean, porumboiu, and puiu, just to name a handful

[rischka]

Plz watch 'a borrowed life' by wu nien-jen

[St. Gloede]

Re: First Taiwanese Wave vs. Second Taiwanese Wave:

The main separator is the kind of films they made.

The First Taiwanese New Wave is generally understood as being creating specific Taiwanese experiences/Taiwanese identity. They were generally coming of age stories, and often set in the past.

The Second Taiwanese New Wave is a bit of an odd misnomer, with no coherent core. Tsai fits in better with the traditional new wave traditions with cinematic playfulness, while Ang Lee's first two films being focused on Taiwanese expat experiences in the US and was far more commercial. Essentially the term is used to show that something changed,

Returning to the first new wave, you are completely right. Unlike most other new waves, where you can point to a long list of directors with notable output, only Yang and Hou made a large, lasting mark.

The same thing happened in the second new wave, with at the time major figures like Stan Lai disappeared almost immediately. People only remember Tsai and Lee.

This said, other big names from the first wave are:

Kun-hou Chen (only seen Growing Up, it is great, he also did My Favourite Season, My Mother's Teahouse, Osmanthus Alley, etc.)
Toon Wang (only seen Strawman, which was good, he also did Hill of No Return, Red Persimmon, Run Away, etc.)

The 3 directors who did In Our Time with Yang also continued making films, and were relevant at the time, though I have seen none of their other work. Yi Chang did This Love of Mine and Kuei-Mei, A Woman, among others. I-Chen Ko made Kidnapped, Blue Moon, etc. Te-chen Tao made other films, but seemingly none of note.

[thoxans]

eyes of a stranger (ken wiederhorn) actually... kinda...... great.........? slowburn that pays off. genuinely tense in the second half (haven't been on the edge of my seat like that for a while); cool kitschy lowkey '80s horror first half does the job; lots of buildup. jj leigh was talented from the get-go. got the rear window-shoutout goin on. even the crazy outdated psychodynamics can't diminish the quality, commitment, and execution. too many memorable scenes and sequences for this to fall into minor status imo

sideways (alexander payne) didn't really watch it watch it. rented it as a background movie to decompress. but even still its rewatchability remains immeasurable for me. saw it in theatres back in the day, when i was young, and liked it well enough; then rewatched it occasionally in the years since, and have really grown to like it more and more over the years. it's not a technical marvel. visually, it's uninteresting. sure. but damn, it's human. it's also a great buddy film, like the mainstream the whole shootin' match

[Joks Trois]

Hollywood or Bust: I much prefer Lewis on his own, and probably Martin too. Lewis was more restrained in their films and Martin was often a wet blanket. I get that that was their 'thing', but it was very limiting, especially for Lewis. Don't understand why this is referred to as a 'Hollywood satire' either. Satire requires wit. This is simply a farce, and not a great one either. It has its moments, but it wasn't a creative high point for anyone involved. 5.5/10

[Roscoe]

CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT -- the more I see it, the more rough the rough spots get, and the clearer I get about some less fortunate aspects of it, and the more I see it the less of a fuck I give about those rough spots. If I ever make it to the end of this one with dry eyes it'll be time to call the undertaker because I'll be dead.

[greennui]

Crystals in Color (J.C. Mol, 1927)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC2KDIr31T0

Uit het rijk der kristallen is one of the scientific films made ​​by Mol. In the film, the crystallization processes of various chemicals are shown. There are different versions of Uit het rijk der kristallen: the original silent film was given a soundtrack in the 1930s, and there is a colour version of the film which was made ​​using Dufay colour. The film was not only screened at educational and scientific presentations, but also resonated within avant-garde circles.

[sally]

i've seen a few films from j c mol. innovative early filmmaker and he doesn't even have an imdb page!...the vicissitudes of fate....

[greennui]

Eye has titled the colour version 'Uit het rijk der kristallen' even though it clearly says 'Kristallen in Kleur' in the beginning. Everyone is doing my boy Jan Cornelis dirty.

[sally]

thought i'd make a start on 2015 with a nice gentle comedy in case all the silent stuff had made all the modern arty-farty fare unpalatable, so i watched a man called ove.

this was a mistake.

holy shit the music. here is the sad bit, here is the overcoming bit, here is joyous reconciliation. here are all the reactions you should be having all handily mapped out for you in case you missed them.

is there a straub for 2015? oh yes there is, thank god.

[MrCarmady]

thought i'd make a start on 2015 with a nice gentle comedy in case all the silent stuff had made all the modern arty-farty fare unpalatable, so i watched a man called ove.

this was a mistake.

holy shit the music. here is the sad bit, here is the overcoming bit, here is joyous reconciliation. here are all the reactions you should be having all handily mapped out for you in case you missed them.

is there a straub for 2015? oh yes there is, thank god.

dunno how you feel about guy maddin but i would be interested to hear your thoughts on the forbidden room as far as 2015 stuff goes

[greennui]

thought i'd make a start on 2015 with a nice gentle comedy in case all the silent stuff had made all the modern arty-farty fare unpalatable, so i watched a man called ove.

this was a mistake.

holy shit the music. here is the sad bit, here is the overcoming bit, here is joyous reconciliation. here are all the reactions you should be having all handily mapped out for you in case you missed them.

is there a straub for 2015? oh yes there is, thank god.

lol I've stayed well clear off that one, can tell by just the people involved that it's mediocre and sentimental awards-friendly guff.

[sally]

dunno how you feel about guy maddin but i would be interested to hear your thoughts on the forbidden room as far as 2015 stuff goes

it's been years since i've watched a guy maddin, so i'd be interested in what i think too, but goodness me, it's on amazon, i can watch it legally even. defo on the watchlist...

[sally]

lol I've stayed well clear off that one, can tell by just the people involved that it's mediocre and sentimental awards-friendly guff.

i did kind of have the idea of trying to watch a broad range, like that sort of dunno what you call them 'things my dad's wife would watch'? and maybe some 'made for local consumption' films like the godawful crap that bloats netflix (the turkish ali baba & the 7 dwarfs etc) but yeah no i don't think i will now

[greennui]

i did kind of have the idea of trying to watch a broad range, like that sort of dunno what you call them 'things my dad's wife would watch'? and maybe some 'made for local consumption' films like the godawful crap that bloats netflix (the turkish ali baba & the 7 dwarfs etc) but yeah no i don't think i will now

I get that feeling sometimes, to actually make use of my netflix subscription but after just one in vogue film I'm usually back in my 20th century cave again.

Perhaps I'll give Guy Maddin another shot as well, everything about him, his aesthetics and sensibilities, screams of something I should be into, but I'm just not.

[nrh]

2015 was a good year, lots of small interesting films. i'll try to put the pierre leon up in the usual place, should be a few more overlooked things of interest...

[rischka]

lol I've stayed well clear off that one, can tell by just the people involved that it's mediocre and sentimental awards-friendly guff.

i did kind of have the idea of trying to watch a broad range, like that sort of dunno what you call them 'things my dad's wife would watch'? and maybe some 'made for local consumption' films like the godawful crap that bloats netflix (the turkish ali baba & the 7 dwarfs etc) but yeah no i don't think i will now

sally watch mad max: fury road

[nrh]

fury road is good, the seventh best action movie of that year

[rischka]

SPL2, blackhat and what else

also i recommend kei horie's wonderful forget-me-not which i saw thx to nrh

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4192636/

not necessarily to sally though. is there a thread yet?

[nrh]

i'd say

spl2
baahubali
the taking of tiger mountain (EDIT: 2014 on imdb)
bruce lee: the fighter
strayer's chronicle
maari

i wouldn't count assassin or blackhat as action movies but if i did fury road would be at 9

[rischka]

i just thought it would be funny for sally to watch it. i want a livestream too

[sally]

2015 was a good year, lots of small interesting films. i'll try to put the pierre leon up in the usual place, should be a few more overlooked things of interest...

ooh thanks, that was one of the first ones i came across that i couldn't locate anywhere...from my crafty process of going 'what films did serge bozon do in 2015, those i will watch'

sally watch mad max: fury road

um okay, but i am thinking of watching the mads mikkelsen mad masturbator one which sounds worse....

in the space of an hours looking my 2015 watchlist is already on the verge of being unrealistic, don't recommend me any more....