Last Watched

[kanafani]

I've been going through Wang Bing's behemoth Dead Souls. 5 hours down, 3 and change to go.

[DT.]

Sunset (Laszlo Nemes) - I really admired this on a technical level, being as formally impressive as Son of Saul was. But the screenplay became increasingly preposterous as it morphed into a conspiracy/revenge thriller. I'd admire the lead actress' relentless performance more, if her character didn't keep putting herself in blatantly dangerous situations just because she needs to know firsthand the unpleasant truths already in the back of everyone's mind. Also ties with last year's Suspiria remake as having the most redundant epilogue in recent memory.

[thoxans]

i also felt like son of saul ran out of momentum, during its latter half fwiw. sos coulda been great, but i felt like nemes just slacked on it being the claustrophobic nightmare that it started out as

[Roscoe]

Seen at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival:

OPIUM -- a lurid potboiler from 1919 about madness, self-sacrifice, opium, revenge and revenge and revenge and some opium. Performances of great grace and sense and total mad scenery chewing, and fascinating ahead of its time cinematography and full out weirdness to spare. Basically, there's this Dr. Gesellius who rescues a woman from an opium den in Exotic Asia, incurring the wrath of her father who just happens to be the owner of the opium den (played by Werner Krauss who played Dr. Caligari) who swears revenge, following the doctor back to his practice in Europe, and there's trouble and a hell of a lot of fun. OPIUM is like Louis Feuillade wrote one of his ten episode crime serials, condensed it down to 90 minutes, and did a hell of a lot of drugs while directing it. It's a gas.

Also seen - Dovzhenko's EARTH, a film of real beauty and power, managing to inject a degree of poetic loveliness into the familiar tale of Soviet farm life. Some reading has suggested that the film's content is not as totally kosher-Soviet-wise as they might have wanted, which got it in some trouble, it seems.

Pabst's THE LOVE OF JEANNE NEY started out promisingly, in that German Silent Drama way, with brilliant cinematography and editing and production and performances, and it carried on really really well, and then it all kind of fell apart as the story just became a little too implausible, a narrative rabbit fell out of the movie's hat at one point that was supposed to resolve everything but only did most of it and just felt too rushed. Still a good time, and it was gorgeous to look at.

New restoration of Keaton's THE CAMERAMAN, and lovely indeed -- apparently coming out on Criterion at some point this year. And a new restoration of Keaton's OUR HOSPITALITY, and lovely to look at, and a glorious 65 minutes.

The big surprise for me was THE WEDDING MARCH, which had been underwhelming at Film Forum a few weeks previous. On the BIG FUCKING SCREEN at the glorious Castro Theater, the movie worked like gangbusters. The tenderness was real, and the brutal satire was utterly brutal. There are bits in that film that come off like Georg Grosz come to life. And there's Fay Wray, and Zasu Pitts.

[Curtis, baby]

The Castro is an amazing cinema. Only been there once but it's one of my one or two favourite screens in the world. Can't wait to go back next time I'm in sf

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Same. Only been once, but the Castro Theatre (and their double-bill programming) is a dream come true.

[pabs]

Thunder Road, D Jim Cummings. (2018)

Just saw it at the cinema. Great little indy film. Cummings directed, wrote and starred in it. Looking forward to seeing what he does next.

I saw it today and completely agree - Cummings was excellent.

7.5/10

I also saw Mid90s (Hill), which skillfully immersed me in the LA skateboarding culture of that time. It was reminiscent of the type of film Korine and Linklater did so well in Spring Breakers and Dazed and Confused.

7.5/10

[rischka]

fyodor otsep, mirages de paris (1933) -- otsep, like barnet, was a different kind of soviet filmmaker. in fact he left russia and made films in a number of countries.



a girl runs away from her boarding school with dreams of stardom and soon



she's the toast of paris. it's full of wonderful oddball characters, including our heroine



unusual designs, musical numbers, a chorus of newsies, big fantasy set pieces, and other delights



thx to gleode as i spotted it in his 1930s favorites list

warning: i have a few other 30s films lined up. i need to go to my happy place while civilization is crashing around us

[...]

That looks good! I'll have to try and see it. Where'd you find it?

[rischka]

That looks good! I'll have to try and see it. Where'd you find it?

i shall make sure you stumble across it it is a treat. check resources


https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1127382257616822274

[uuni]

Rewatched The Love Witch a couple nights ago. A bit stagier than I remembered. Still pretty fun, though.

[rischka]

i know i'm hopelessly behind but i just watched john wick: chapter two. what a great looking film.





there's a lot of hk in it and there's keanu

[Joks Trois]

^^It's one of the few aesthetically pleasing mainstream action films since Domino in my view, but I also found it a bit draggy. Want to see the 3rd one though.

FOUR SISTERS: Interviews with 4 female Holocaust survivors. It is basically an extended dvd extra that is being presented as a standalone feature. Obviously there is a strong humanist quality to it, and it's nice to see Lantzmann focus on women (Shoah was mostly men) but it's just a series of interviews with a rather limited scope. Maybe a 6.5 or 7/10.

[Javier]

"When I Get Home, My Wife Always Pretends to Be Dead" (2018) Toshio Lee

As a script (because there is no complex audiovisual form attached) it is really interesting and full of metaphors, symbols and elements that can synthesize big ideas into simple images. That makes it stimulating for being a movie without antagonists or moral/ethical conflicts. If you are or have been married, that gives you an extra point for reception and interpretation. There is always this feeling that something really horrible, sad and devastating is about to happen, but it does not take place. Kudos to this film for all the false clues and fake expectations given on purpose throughout the almost two hours. The only problem I had with the movie is the non-diegetic ton of extra sugar and artificiality contained in the music, opening title and ending credits. They are so awful and empty that can really make you easily forget and doubt about the fresh findings the movie has.

[greennui]

0.5 mm (Momoko Ando, 2014) - After having been transfixed by Sakura Ando in Shoplifters, I felt the urge to watch her in something else and this one looked the most interesting. I thought it was effin great, a wonderfully loose and nuanced road movie. I'm convinced that Kore-eda must have had this film and Ando in mind whilst writing Shoplifters. It might just be the first Japanese film of the 21st century that I'd consider a strong favourite.

If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2018) - Lush and tender filmmaking but it failed to paper over the charisma vacuum that was the leading couple.

No Home Movie (Chantal Akerman, 2015) -

[rischka]

0.5 mm (Momoko Ando, 2014) - After having been transfixed by Sakura Ando in Shoplifters, I felt the urge to watch her in something else and this one looked the most interesting. I thought it was effin great, a wonderfully loose and nuanced road movie. I'm convinced that Kore-eda must have had this film and Ando in mind whilst writing Shoplifters. It might just be the first Japanese film of the 21st century that I'd consider a strong favourite.

YAY this was a great discovery for me, courtesy nrh been including it in every icm poll i could in hopes it would catch on

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Continued my impromptu Don Weis retrospective with the last of American-International Pictures beach party films, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966). Surprised to say I maybe loved it ("Don't look at me, I can't explain it either.") There's just something about its Sixties time capsule charm. Susan Hart is the nifty titular ghost, Quinn O'Hara is Basil Rathbone's improbably far-from-the-tree daughter, Nancy Sinatra is taught through song the fighting power of bikinis, and Hart calls Boris Karloff "pussycat." Ben Rubin plays an anti-Indigenous caricature, though, which is obviously a considerable knock against it.

[Roscoe]

THE LITTLE FOXES on TCM -- a film I know almost by heart at this stage, and it's just irresistible. Those Hubbard boys have taken over, haven't they.

[Roscoe]

Bondarchuk's WAR AND PEACE -- in that restoration that will be coming out on Criterion, at the Walter Reade Cinema at Lincoln Center, Chapter One and Two because other obligations necessitate doing it in two days, and man is this movie one of the biggest fucking con jobs out there. Every fucking ruble is on that screen, the spectacle is spectacular, but dramatically the movie (which I saw in its entirety a few years back, so this is a revisit) is a wash, only occasionally rising above mimimal competence in terms of performance and direction.

[Joks Trois]

^^After watching Shoah, Die Nacht, Four Sisters and La Belle Noiseuse over the last 2 months, I'm really done with long films for the time being.

The House That Jack Built: too long and doesn't really start getting interesting until the final act. Some of the better use of narration I've seen in a while though, and Dillon is very good in the lead. I'm getting sick of Von Trier's handheld work and sloppyish framing, and he hasn't made anything I've really liked in a long time, but this is decent and falls right in the middle of his filmography in terms of overall quality. I can see why the response has been mixed. 6/10

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Moving London (1983) — a charming, creatively made, and, yes, moving seventeen-minute tribute to the history of public transportation in London, recounted in voice-over by a recent retiree. I don't know why I have such an oversized and unabiding soft spot for English industrial/government film propaganda, but it's rapidly becoming one of my favourite depths to plumb. You can find this one on YouTube.

[Roscoe]

STREET OF SHAME 8.5/10 -- I'm coming to the conclusion that I just prefer Mizoguchi's contemporary Japan films over the period films. For me, this and OSAKA ELEGY are far more interesting, more vibrant and alive, than the period films UGETSU and SANSHO THE BAILIFF, which just collapse under the weight of their own prestige.

[Roscoe]

WAR AND PEACE -- 4/10 ultimately. Saw the second half (last two chapters, about 90 minutes each) last night. The spectacle is even more spectacular, and even I have to admit that the Battle of Borodino is pretty damned impressive, and likewise that remarkable sequence showing the burning and evacuation of Moscow -- film even gives a single screen credit to its Pyrotechnician. I can only imagine what might have happened if they'd gotten a sensible screenwriter, director and actor to handle the dramatic scenes. You know, those scenes where people actually talk to each other. The drama just falls way too flat way too much of the time, largely because of the ineptitude of the puppet playing Natasha, whose face erupts into the most grotesque rictus of a girly-looking smile ever captured on celluloid, and Bondarchuk's decision to play Pierre as a bummed out teddy bear (he just furrows his brow and purses his lips, to indicate that he's thinking deeply for most the film's running time) doesn't help much. Some glimmers of humanity struggle to the surface here and there, a little captain who sticks by his cannons in one sequence, old Prince Bolkonsky and his daughter on his deathbed being the main examples. The script just skims over the plot(s).

I've not read much of the novel, making it maybe a quarter of the way through, but I can say that Tolstoy puts more actual breathing human life into any single page than Bondarchuk is able to summon in way too much of the movie. And I've seen this same material brought to the screen with a lot of sense and feeling -- I'm thinking of either of the BBC dramatizations, and a recent piece of musical theater that had me in tears at Pierre's view of the Great Comet of 1812. For all the sound and fury and insane production values, Bondarchuk's plodding opus doesn't measure up. At all.

[Joks Trois]

^^I prefer my 4/10 films to be much shorter. What a colossal waste of time!

[Roscoe]

^^ I don't think so. I saw a massive super-production from another land, and found all over again that it was not all it is cracked up to be. That Battle Of Borodino, and a few other elements of the experience, made it okay. I'm glad to have seen it.

THE SHAPE OF WATER. That's a colossal waste of time.

[rischka]

trying to clean up my hard drive so i watched lady terminator. the weakest of the series. i love the terminator but this was dumb and bad



and not even funny. plus it was dubbed by the worst voice actors ever

[Silga]

Three films for 1949 poll

The Set-Up (Robert Wise) 7/10

Expertly made and compact film.


Criss Cross (Robert Siodmak) 8/10

My second Siodmak and while I still prefer The Killers, Criss Cross is a great noir with another fine performance by Burt Lancaster. I only wish the 3rd act was as good as the rest of the film.


House of Strangers (Joseph L. Mankiewicz) 9/10

Now that's a surprise hit. Being a fan of Edward G. Robinson I somewhat neglected this film, but thanks for a year poll I finally caught it.
Wonderful dialogues and even better delivery by Richard Conte and Susan Hayward. Their bickering, going back-and-forth with light insults provides comic relief in this otherwise dim and somber film.

Also there are a lot of clues to other films that followed, like The Godfather. Props to Mankiewicz for making such a beautiful classic.

[liquidnature]

Days of Heaven (1978) (theatrical)

I'd last seen this about 8 years ago, always loved it but found something missing. Seeing it theatrically was a revelation, everything clicked. Maybe the most beautiful series of images ever captured on celluloid. I don't ever see this leaving my top 10.

[Roscoe]

LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD 5/10 -- the archetypal arthouse puzzle movie, not as bad as I remember but well, you know, for all the artfulness the desire to take the guy aside and say, "dude, she's just not that into you" simply cannot be denied....

[rischka]

moondog 4 evah



ok yeah it's not as good as spring breakers. BUT STILL