Last Watched

[rischka]

christopher plummer continued to be the best tho :'(

[nrh]

think the knives out accent is a knowing goof (as apart from his logan lucky accent which just doesn't work). but knives out (which isn't very good) is one of those saturday afternoon cable movies that somehow got turned into a prestige thing. but then 2019 was a weird year.

some good character actors though.

[rischka]

at such a meta level i didn't get it then who can tell? and this ridiculous game of thrones chair



then again i didn't like brick so i'll just give rian johnson a pass from now on

[sally]

never sleep again - pia frankenberg (1992)

3 women getting drunk and wandering around berlin! wonderful!

[kabs]

watched natchathiram nagargirathu on netflix yesterday (thanks @nrh for the notice, i really thought it would be on prime). i quite liked it, it is definitely a movie that has hit me on an emotional level, particularly with the ending (the brutality of the villain did leave me shaken despite the clear foreshadowing, I still don't know how I feel about seeing violence inflicted on the group but it was cathartic to see the resistance). i really like its ambitiousness, pa ranjith thinking through the position of love in society on a personal, political, spiritual and cosmic level and attempting to merge all of this into a single movie. primarily though, the question at the heart of it all i think is how can we form and sustain true, equal aka casteless + discrimination-less, caring, collaborative and affirming community where love can truly flourish and i loved that. for me, the film can be too-on-the nose with characters exchanging strangely sweeping statements on love but there was something beautiful and transformative with the space given to the exchanging of specific stories. some of his ideas don't fully work and certain characters are given too much time (i did still really love dushara vijayam + kalidas jayaram chemistry together) while other characters are kind of sidelined.

[St. Gloede]

One of the most terrifying and disturbing films I have seen:

Mali vojnici / Playing Soldiers (1967, Bahrudin 'Bato' Cengic)



This is a film that is very much open about what it is from the very beginning but then tries to lull you into more childlike games and possibilities of friendship and innocence to make you forget. The bright, sun-coated cinematography, with the film's final frames being further captured by the light until nothing remains is further deceptive in a tale where death is handed out without remorse and violence has left traces that can not be removed.

It is also really interesting and daring that they made the child a German and the son of a Nazi officer, looking at the immediate anti-German sentiments after the war:



I think I have to spoil the film to be able to get into the details of why the film troubled me so much, hopefully, someone else here has seen it and would like to join in:

Spoiler!

The early scene that sets the tone of the film, is seeing a set of children chase a German Shepard, at first possibly innocent play, before they corner the dog and shoot it multiple times as it whimpers. Our lead, a young orphan, already established to have been German as he was transported on a train containing German POWs, come upon them as the children glee at the death of a German dog. Once the other children have left, the young blonde child looks at the tag, sees that it has a Swastika and removes it, keeping it for himself.

Arriving at the orphanage the director is horrified to read his paperwork and changes his name, informing the child that he must pretend to be Yugoslavian and never, ever give his past away. This works for a while and he is welcomed by the other children and starts to form friendships with them as we see their sympathetic faces, feel their plight, sadness and loss - along with the hope of family members possibly being alive to get them. For a while, it feels very much like many of the Eastern Block films focused on child friendships and the repercussions of world war 2, but simple pranks slowly start to escalate, and suspicions that the young blonde boy may not be who he says he is, adds in a creeping sense of danger.

Even more so than the ending, the most disturbing moment of the film comes in the final act when all innocence and any doubt of the nature of the film is removed in a crushing and horrifying attempted rape sequence. Starting as a normal scene in the lockerroom, the tension between the children and the director's wife turns violent as they push her to the floor and hold her down, while one of the boys tries to climb on top of her and lift her skirt. These are all children, some young teens, and the imagery is not only disgusting but in light of the sympathy built for these children previously, soul-crushing.

From this moment on we know the children are capable of anything - and no one is willing to stop them. Our protagonist too, while not participating in the event, merely stands there and watches until the director comes in and has to whip the children away with his belt. Repercussions for this event are not seen as everything starts to escalate too fast. Our protagonist discovers that the other children have ransacked his bed and found the proof of what he is, and before he can find the director again, he is cornered and put on "trial", where the children place a gas mask on his face and stop the air as a torture mechanism to get him to confess - a confession they get - though slowly.

Leading the German away, it becomes clear the children, or at least some of them, are intent to kill him - and command him to walk down a pathway as they raise a gun prepared to shoot him in the back. The director shows up in time just to intervene and gets the gun away from them in time for the German boy to flee - in a scene tense because you think they may just shoot the director as well. The scene does once more reveal a little weakness in the children, but it is for nought as even after, with the German boy sprinting for his life stones start flying towards him and suddenly we see children, all in gas masks, running after him. The tension builds and builds as they get closer and closer, the sun continues to envelop everying around them, and just as they are about to catch up, light overtakes the screen.

There is so much left after the film to digest, just beyond the feelings, and much to be questioned about the German boy as well - for instance why he takes the swastika, and how the film wants the audience, at the time most people would still have lived through and remember the war, would be expected to feel about him and the children.

-

Beyond the terrifying acts, there are more subtle stabs. Imagery like this has to be pointed out:



And adding to this, the socialist father that arrives drunkenly rambling on progress and how everything will be free in future Yugoslavia, in a film set two decades in the past much come with an added sting.

[sally]

manolescu - viktor tourjansky (1929)

online pordenone has been fairly shit this year (do not understand obsession with stupid american movies or cute female stars) but here are pleasing ICONS

(even with a mustache ♥)

[rischka]

https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1580 ... uueQxqCYQw

el indio trying to give a voice to indigenous people in 1948. pedantic in part and predictable ending but lovely cinematography as ever from gabriel figueroa

[rischka]

having rewatched the reichenbach for 1960 i came across one from 1970, medicine ball caravan. it seems warner bros made big bank off the woodstock movie so they decided to fund a sort of woodstock roadtrip with concerts along the way - bb king was the highlight. a very young alice cooper was v terrible which is not how i remember him grateful dead backed out. the hippies get called out on a college campus for selling out and trying to make money out of their sacred lifestyle (cancel culture!) everyone is stoned probably all the time and most of reichenbach's crew did not speak english well/at all. 9 hours resulting footage in 3 different formats was edited down by martin scorsese who added some psychedelic visual effects but admitted the project was hopeless. historical interest only plus someone at lb felt like changing the title to: we've come for your daughters. gross

[Lencho of the Apes]

I remember seeing the soundtrack album in cut-out bins for years and years in the first half of the 70s.

Reichenbach had such a strange career -- the first time I came across his name was on a documentary about a TV performer who did clownface on Televisa to teach children about dental hygiene. Here's an excerpt; I think I have the whole movie on a drive, if anybody wants it, but... surely no-one will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skMs4Xrh02c

[rischka]

the kids look kind of terrified

[Joks Trois]

Dark Glasses: Not as bad as Argento's recent work, and the lead actress is somewhat decent, although Argento doesn't care about her vulnerabilities and still makes her look sexy. He can't help himself It's another 'reality' based thriller that follows a long line of undistinguished urban based slashers since Trauma in 1993. He has never really pulled this style off--whether here or in Trauma, Giallo or The Card Player--because it requires a greater attention to narrative detail and logic than his more surreal triumphs of yore, which isn't Argento's strength at all, and it lacks the outlandish moments that made Tenebre so enjoyable. In fact, a few widescreen shots were somewhat reminiscent of that film, but without the same sense of dread and unease.

Overall, there are a couple of decent scenes, and the acting isn't too bad. The first act is actually quite well done and promises more than it actually delivers. 5/10. Probably a generous rating, but I didn't laugh out loud. That's something!

[nrh]

i very much disliked anno's shin godzilla, which despite some great sequences and the best godzilla design in years was hampered by anno's otaku-ish military fetishism being kind of a gross fit for this series and a (perhaps inadvertent) lean towards politics - especially the expansion and increased freedom of the japanese military - that read as right wing nationalistic dog whistles.

but i really enjoyed shin ultraman, written by anno and directed by shin godzilla co-director and special effects guy shinji higuchi. i don't know much at all about the long-running ultraman franchise, but this immediately seems like a different beast, playing up some of the retro qualities (especially in the soundtrack), going for a more episodic mode, with multiple giant monster attacks before it switches in the second half to intelligent aliens vying for either the control of earth as a resource or its destruction.

that second half gets more somber before heading towards a lovely cosmic ending that i wouldn't want to spoil with screenshots. recommended even if you aren't usually into these things.

one major caveat - this follows the shin godzilla strategy of shooting the (many) scenes of people talking strategy over office tables in a wild decoupage style, with the camera cutting rapidly between almost totally unmotivated angles. it's definitely a style i guess...

[rischka]

arise my love (leisen 1940) recommended to screwball fans





fun propaganda with this adorable couple, cracking script by brackett and wilder and leisen's ever classy direction. many double entendres and marked disdain for nazis (newswoman colbert at one point throws mein kampf out a train window) the romance is very effective screwball. propaganda intent is only too blatant at the end.

[rischka]

https://scfzfilm.org/@rbg/109304624106023787

can't embed links here like twitter hmm

[rischka]

gonna watch 5 hours of 90s russia today to prepare for the worst

[Lencho of the Apes]

Well, that was different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7K02HCA0KQ

[rischka]

is that the robert gardner film? always wanted to see it

Também Somos Irmãos (José Carlos Burle 1949)





pretty terrific early brazilian film addresses racism pretty directly. someone on filmtwitter passed me this one

i can share if people aren't too snooty about the condition a pair of black brothers raised in white society take different paths to the same place

[nrh]

fango, by jose celestino campusano

a low key masterpiece, as rigorous in its own way as late period costa and far less obnoxious. one of the great utilitarian uses of digital camera technology.

RK: En tus películas los barrios y los interiores revelan un espacio poco filmado y a la vez nos permite entender una topología y una modalidad del habitar en el Conurbano: ¿cómo trabajas respecto a la elección de las locaciones? ¿Qué te interesa mostrar?
JCC: Cuando abordamos esas locaciones suplico que no se cambie absolutamente nada; cualquier factor de decoración que se incorpore se torna en una herejía. Incluso la escopeta tumbera a repetición fue construida por un psicópata (que es fabricante) con el que por muy poco no terminamos en un hecho de sangre. Conozco varios artesanos en hierro que podían haber fabricado una, pero hubiera sido aceptar un factor de decoración. Me interesa que el cine sea un equivalente a las pinturas rupestres de Altamira, como si se tratara de un documento para la posteridad.

[Lencho of the Apes]

robert gardner

Yeah, that's the one.

EDIT: The copy above is not the copy I watched. If the print quality is not good, I can fix you up with something a little better if desired.

[rischka]

nah thx i watched it. it was beautiful but the voiceover was cringe

[pabs]

Memoria (Weerasethakul, 2021).

I don't know what to say about this film but it's grown on me after I slept on it. I think it's about the human mind and its unknown powers of perception. Tilda Swinton is marvellous.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Finally got to the new adaptation of Lost Illusions now that it's up on Mubi.

The film is profoundly uninterested in the provinces and their juxtaposition with Paris, and it suffers from that lack of interest. But the depiction of restoration era journalism and capitalist ethics is passionate enough that you can feel Balzac and his cynical worldview shining through. Also it had really impeccable casting. I hesitate to call it the best Balzac adaptation I've seen, but that bar isn't too high, so I wouldn't be surprised if that is the conclusion I eventually settle on.

[nrh]

I hesitate to call it the best Balzac adaptation I've seen, but that bar isn't too high, so I wouldn't be surprised if that is the conclusion I eventually settle on.

rivette set the bar pretty high...but then they are great rivette films rather than great balzac adaptations, but isn't that the right way to do it?

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Yeah... That's a fair point. Thanks for the reminder that I have yet to see his Duchess of Langeise.
I love La Belle Noiseuse as a Rivette film, but I wouldn't go to it to scratch my Balzac itch.

I did not originally intend that pun, but once I noticed it my juvenile sense of humor prevented me from changing it.

[rischka]

watched TÁR. why is it ALLCAPS. really want this apartment if you're a fan of blanchett (or of music) definitely see it

[rischka]

https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1594 ... cW0UA&s=19
This was terrific but I see everyone knew that but me. Thrilling!

[rischka]

ermmm i made my twitter private so i'll have to stop being lazy. made a cute gif



manolescu is fun to watch cuz of these two and lavish UFA production. standard madonna-whore plot not so much.

brigitte was so sick of these vampy parts she sued to get out of her contract. it didn't work



ivan was pretty hot with the beard i thought

[rischka]

i don't know why holiday weekends makes me want to watch 'mainstream' movies.

lost city of z was pretty good! james gray does have an old fashioned movie sense and charlie hunnam was good enough

spider-man: homecoming was funny, i'm a tom holland stan now, but other avengers showing up repeatedly got annoying and i fear that aspect will only get worse
(yes i got all three but taking breaks between)

kinda wanted to see fabelmans at a theater but i'd have to drive an hour. even spielberg is too artiste for my local apparently

[Silga]

Homecoming is the only decent Tom Holland Spider-Man movie. The other two are ridiculously over-stuffed with characters and nonsensical plot. (or should I say - more so than the first one or other Marvel movies).