Last Watched

[rischka]

la red (fernandez 1953)





not sure why anyone needed subs for this as it's practically a silent film w the most basic setup but alex phillips' cinematography giving figueroa a run here

i think of this as a sun drenched noir w italian femme fatale or as lencho dubbed her, 'the nipple lady'

[rischka]

maybe i've mentioned it before but fred & ginger's rko musicals are my happy place and i think 'shall we dance' might be my very favorite bc it has the best songs. thx gershwins. they were right. everyone should dance whenever they get the chance





they've all got ginger serving incredible looks while gliding around art deco apartments and/or cruise ships and fred's mugging w a few jokes that maybe go on too long but all is forgiven when they start to dance







and look at this wonderful rooftop theater where fred is staging a creepy show with chorus girls in ginger masks and ofc you know the rest since they all have the same plot ♥





oh i nearly forgot this great hat. they can't take that away from me..

[cinesmith]

Czech New Wave! When The Cat Comes (1963)

[cinesmith]

Harry Lachman's 'Dante's Inferno' (1935) The restored print is really gorgeous

[rischka]

preminger's advise & consent (1962) always assumed this was boring but i was so wrong. rip don murray. also betty white gets to be sassy as the only woman senator



preminger's roving camera invigorates what could've been just a bunch of talking heads



i was skeptical of laughton's accent for a minute but he's very effective as a southern senator every bit as slimy as welles in a touch of evil

[cinesmith]

The Great Yokai War (2005) Takashi Miike

A film that's PG-13 and cast with actors playing the various spirits and demons inspired by the original manga.
Nothing earth shattering here but Miike knows how to add a mixture of absurd in any of his films.
I had know idea about this one at all I guess it was packaged with a series of the Yokai stuff via ARROW VIDEO and I noticed that it also appeared on MUBI. Go fig.

[rischka]

oh i watched american fiction and the funniest parts were in the trailer. jeffrey wright is great but this movie is too corny oscar bait

seems to me it's making sure not to offend certain people (ahem white liberal oscar voters). still no sign of the zone of interest

[nrh]

A film that's PG-13 and cast with actors playing the various spirits and demons inspired by the original manga.
Nothing earth shattering here but Miike knows how to add a mixture of absurd in any of his films.

i'm always tempted to make a case for this one; there is something very beautiful, for example, with the way miike brings together shigeru mizuki's beloved yokai work with his equally important autobiographical anti-war comics like onward towards our noble deaths; it's a pretty interesting example of miike the director for hire being able to shape the material towards his auteurist interests from inside the project, and that probably read more clearly at the time, since it was released back to back with his eternal cycle of violence passion project izo. a lot of of it probably depends on how much you like the monsters though. i think they're pretty cool. his later ninja kids{/i] gets at all of this better, and isn't weighed down by the need to deal with so much plot business.

would make a nice "oddly somber children's movies about adult violence" double with joe dante's small soldiers.

[nrh]

made it to two of my favorites, subida al cielo and la ilusión viaja en tranvía at the buñuel in mexico retrospective at moma. digital restorations, probably about as good as these movies are going to look given the source material, although the audio was kind of piercing.

packed house for both and the crowd seemed to love them, which is great after years of these being relatively obscure.

[pabs]

Poor Things (Lanthimos, 2023). Big screen.

It's not often you see such magnificent sets and artistic design. Wow. Loved it.

[rischka]

au nom de la loi (maurice tourneur 1932) - atmospheric melodrama with a roster of hard cases and a beautiful cocaine trafficker





best part is an undercover detective falls for her, tries to throw his superiors off the track of 'a poor girl selling a few drugs to get by.' he even joins her at an opium den !





thrilling climax with the drug gang under siege - well most of them ...

[rischka]

watched kanafani's recent subtitle job El-keif (d ali abdel-khalek 1985) - yes this is an egyptian stoner comedy with shades of 'breaking bad' a chemist tries to convince his druggie brother that drugs' effects are an illusion, then cooks up a batch of phony stuff that somehow becomes very popular, thx to a local drug lord



his brother meanwhile tries to start a singing career - somehow also wildly successful his songs reminded me of 'spinal tap.' the last third veers into crime drama as the drug lord takes the brothers hostage and they learn a dark secret



an excellent film, biting social satire and also very very funny

[rischka]

last watched: the best of everything d.jean negulesco (1959)

this is the original mad men tho focussed on the women: suzy parker, diane baker and hope lange



roommates working in the secretarial pool at a new york publishing house. rampant sexism including brian aherne actually assaulting people (no arrests ofc)



this is what they used to call a soap opera, each with their little dramas and it's pretty good!



except for the very blatant message that women shouldn't be too ambitious or they may end up like this old hag. don't think i've seen suzy parker before; she was the original supermodel and inescapable during the 50s but sadly doesn't seem to be much of an actress

[wba]

au nom de la loi (maurice tourneur 1932) - atmospheric melodrama with a roster of hard cases and a beautiful cocaine trafficker





best part is an undercover detective falls for her, tries to throw his superiors off the track of 'a poor girl selling a few drugs to get by.' he even joins her at an opium den !





thrilling climax with the drug gang under siege - well most of them ...

This looks absolutely fantastic! Need to watch!
Where did U see this, rischka?

[wba]

Rewatched SEA OF LOVE (1989) by Harold Becker after 25 years. Still the only Becker I've seen...

It's proto-Basic Instinct (including, for no reason, a beaver shot of Barkin...), but the serial killer angle doesn't work - at all. Everything else is pretty much cinema gold.
This should have been a romance between Pacino's cop and Ellen Barkin's shoe saleswoman. Barkin is so tense and so good, she's able to outshine Pacino (which is also great, cause it fits the story and characters).
Goodman is glorious as well.
It should have just been dead people, Pacino being a cop, Barkin's ex-husband being an ex-husband (like Pacino) etc.
Becker is of course no Verhoeven, but most of the scenes between Pacino and Goodman and Pacino and Barkin simply talking with each other and hanging out are outstanding.
Two years later we would get the masterpiece that is FRANKIE & JOHNNY (from the genius that was Garry Marshall, no less) and this could have already been a similar one as well - if it wasn't for the completely ridiculous and utterly stupid serial killer stuff. Well... did I say that Becker is no Verhoeven?
Anyway watch this if you love Goodman or Barkin or want to see Pacino doing Pacino stuff (which I personally enjoy very much).

seaoflove1.jpg (251.82 KiB) Viewed 2286 times

seaoflove.jpg (206.12 KiB) Viewed 2286 times

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As someone expertly put it on letterboxd: IT'S A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY THAT AL PACINO DIDN'T DO MORE ROMCOMS.

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

[rischka]

it was on a freeleach at kg

[wba]

it was on a freeleach at kg

Hehe, lucky you!

[Silga]

Rewatched SEA OF LOVE (1989) by Harold Becker after 25 years. Still the only Becker I've seen...
It's proto-Basic Instinct (including, for no reason, a beaver shot of Barkin...), but the serial killer angle doesn't work - at all. Everything else is pretty much cinema gold.
This should have been a romance between Pacino's cop and Ellen Barkin's shoe saleswoman. Barkin is so tense and so good, she's able to outshine Pacino (which is also great, cause it fits the story and characters).
Goodman is glorious as well.
It should have just been dead people, Pacino being a cop, Barkin's ex-husband being an ex-husband (like Pacino) etc.
Becker is of course no Verhoeven, but most of the scenes between Pacino and Goodman and Pacino and Barkin simply talking with each other and hanging out are outstanding.
Two years later we would get the masterpiece that is FRANKIE & JOHNNY (from the genius that was Garry Marshall, no less) and this could have already been a similar one as well - if it wasn't for the completely ridiculous and utterly stupid serial killer stuff. Well... did I say that Becker is no Verhoeven?
Anyway watch this if you love Goodman or Barkin or want to see Pacino doing Pacino stuff (which I personally enjoy very much).

As someone expertly put it on letterboxd: IT'S A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY THAT AL PACINO DIDN'T DO MORE ROMCOMS.

I love this one since I first saw it over a decade ago. Rewatched it once since and been thinking that I should watch it again soon. A truly great and beautifully shot thriller.

As for Harold Becker, I can recommend Onion Field (1979) and City Hall (1996). City Hall also starring Al Pacino.

You might like Malice (1993) too. I found it to be an above average thriller and very much a product of its time - the 90s sleaze (not saying it's a bad thing in this case).

[wba]

Thanks, I'll keep them in mind!

[sally]

i rewatched the harvey bunny movie lately.....are there any critical writings about it? it was a much better film than i remember, it has a pleasingly odd tone at times....and it's pretty unique so thought someone somewhere might have written something more on it other than 'huh who are the crazy ones REALLY'....

[rischka]

he's a puka (pooka?)

[wba]

Started watching THE NAKED JUNGLE (1953) by Byron Haskin.

Still not sure if this wasn't (supposed to be) a 3-D movie...
I'm a mere 35 minutes in, but I simply love those early Charlton Heston movies like DARK CITY, PONY EXPRESS, SECRET OF THE INCAS or THE FAR HORIZONS, where it's ok for Heston to be an asshole most of the time. No Hollywood star of that era played sleazy better than Charlton, and in addition to that, he's always outshining and outsexing his female co-stars in all of these movies, which are also quite clearly made as (closeted) women's films.
So far, THE NAKED JUNGLE is melodrama to the max, and I can't wait to continue watching it!

[rischka]

watched a couple of egyptian films from director salah abu seif's 50s output, including insane melodrama la anam (sleepless 1957)



faten hamama plays a very bad girl who only has eyes for papa



when her father remarries she becomes determined to destroy the relationship to have daddy to herself



even starting an affair with an older playboy with a very mod apartment. the color scheme is almost sirkian



needless to say things go from bad to worse.... followed by el wahsh (the monster 1954)



about an opium addicted crime lord whose reign is threatened when a new officer arrives in town



both of these were quite entertaining !

[thoxans]

the wages of fear was really good. disappointing ending. then thought about it. oh i get it. so bumped back up to yeah liked > disappointed

samurai trilogy (hiroshi inagaki) was great!!! individually ah pretty decent! so weird to rate in that way ::exasperated shrug:: don't like rating a trilogy

cimino's the sicilian is one of the fav things i've seen in a bit tbh. it's post-heaven's gate-wtf-my-career's over cimino, so it's got that quality about it, eh...!?

still trying to figure out force majeure. technically pretttttty. substantially shallllllow. but hits the right notes just enough that it ain't total garbaggio?

assayas' boarding gate. certain screencap burned in brain since mubi. iykwim. watched. and hey. dichotomous. something about it is just yeah

but working girls (lizzie borden) might be the best thing i've seen so far this year. real-o-plasticity. like it to the core cuz it actually has one

[jal90]

Watched two early Sirks, both from 1935, when he was still called Hans Detlef Sierck: April, April! and Das madchen vom moorhof. I liked them both a similar amount, but I was surprised at how different in tone and direction they were.

April, April! is basically a fast-paced comedy about societal aspirations and mistaken identities, one that is efficient but visually discrete because all the meat is in the dialogue. I think it is Sirk's actual feature debut and it certainly delivers in a way and energy I wasn't expecting to get from such an early effort. Not only the pacing and delivery do wonders to elevate it, but the jokes were also quite genuinely funny by themselves.

Das madchen vom moorhof was... a completely different beast. Melodramatic in tone and with a lot more gravity to the decisions and events around the characters, it is a film with a strong visual identity and well-constructed psychological drama; the pastoral setting is also beautiful. Compared to Sjöström's version, I think I like this more. However, the flaws are more noticeable here; for instance, the chemistry among Karsten and Helga is not one of actual love, so the idea that flies around the whole film doesn't work as intended for me. To be honest, this is the one I was expecting to enjoy the most from this double bill, but ended up appreciating the modest and thoroughly effective April, April! a bit more than this more ambitious and erratic film that reaches higher peaks while also navigating through lower points.

Anyway, these were both very good. I wasn't particularly impressed by the other film I've seen from the early years of Sirk, so it was a nice surprise to find his first two features are two solid pieces and very different in tone.

[wba]

Blood on the Moon (Robert Wise, 1948)

A solid noir-western, with great acting by Mitchum and outstanding camerawork. Not one of Wise's best films, though.

[rischka]

bad luck banging or loony porn - radu jude

I liked it, if not as much as his most recent feature. he's very pro women

[pabs]

How to Have Sex (Manning Walker, 2023)

Shameful and really sad the way so many girls are dragged into shitty first-time experiences like this against their will. Men can be completely amoral sometimes. Great acting and direction.

[rischka]

i saw civil war today. 6 people in the theater

it's pretty obviously about the orange guy. it's very intense and i thought it was rather good.

also didn't know kirsten dunst and jesse plemons are married the blondest couple!

interesting that large swaths of the country seemed to be pretending nothing was happening. sounds familiar

[sally]

une autre vie - emmanuel mouret (2013)

been having a minor mouret retrospective and i'm fully in love with him....he's so good....

eg for instance here the left wall inscriptions commenting on the conversation they're having as they head down towards it. his films are chock full of such things....