Last Watched

[Jürka]

after nearly 9 hours (since making the initial post about the initial scene of the film) i finally finished the 97 min long JOURNEY TO ROME (Tomasz Mielnik, 2015) — if i would sit on a train and travel to Rome i might almost reach it within 9 hours as well i guess.
i will not write at length about all the things this film made me think of.
but i can't omit the trivia that besides Juraj Herz two more local film directors were part of the cast.

Ivan Vojnár plays a devil (tempting St. Anthony).
https://letterboxd.com/director/ivan-vojnar/


and Johana Ožvold (né Švarcová) plays a lady cop (buddy of the boomer detective).
https://letterboxd.com/actor/johana-ozvold-1/


now, i could write at length about Johana Švarcová (later taking the surname of her hubby Ožvold) having together with Ventolin (before he became Ventolin) a band called Kazety (The Cassettes) and me choosing their hit called "Depilation" as an anthem of my genre "Bearded Ladies, Feminine Moustache" during the last Genre Cup. ...... anyway, it's gone.

last but not least, thx Sally for mentioning this film the way that made me to watch it.

[---]

sometimes just to make the film last longer!

cinematic edging

[sally]

last but not least, thx Sally for mentioning this film the way that made me to watch it.

you do know now that i have attached a false mustache to my mental image of you?

i realised it's the last day of my free membership of a uk russian online film service (their subtitles are so useless that there's no way i'm giving them money) so anyway i started watching a film on there and then cuz the subs were so bad had to finish it elsewhere (luckily for me, i could find it)

flights in dreams & reality (roman balayan) 1983

this is one of those wonderful early 80's 'intellectual' disillusionment films (mikhalkov even has a walk on part as himself) and oleg yankovsky is amazing.(yes i fancy him) also loved balayan's also starring yankovsky guard me my talisman, so probably need karl to advise on similar films to seek out that don't star him

but then on the other hand i love all versions of the kreutzer sonata and yankovsky did one in 1987 that's got to be good. can anyone get their hands on it? (co-directed by a woman as well) or at least on subtitles? (there's a crappy 2:29:08 version that i couldn't bear to watch knowing there's a much much clearer 2:31:42 version in existence)

[sally]

*watched for doubling the canon aka i just like silent cinema more

katka's reinette apples - ermler, ioganson (1926)

is there a more feminist cinema than soviet film from the 20's? i adored this. opens with an unmarried pregnant woman who doesn't give a fuck (father....not there) without the slightest hint of censure.



and WHEN have you EVER seen a man willingly, cheerfully change a nappy? (okay he's in an aura of emasculation, but it doesn't seem that the nappy-changing directly implicates him in that)



it's a drama, but there's lots of charmingly shot observational comedy. pls take me to the cafe where one man drinks in just his pants and another goes dining with a goat



in fact whole thing is deliciously shot - belittled man little against the world's unbending structures, gorgeous crowd & exterior scenes, modern touches. i went a little screenshot crazy so have hidden them so that the internet doesn't break

Spoiler!

[Roscoe]

ANDREI RUBLEV 10/10 - Tarkovsky's vast canvas of 15th Century Russia, watched on the Criterion Blu-Ray which looks very good indeed. This is the shortened version which they keep telling me was Tarkovsky's preferred version which I'd like to know a little more about, some of my favorite things from that longer PASSION OF ANDREI version are sorely missed. Still, that great Bell sequence at film's end always lays me out.

[sally]

*watched for doubling the canon

after the curfew - usmar ismail (1954)

classic of indonesian cinema, & print was so bad it was almost as if it had gone through some perfectly appropriate avant-garde treatment to signify the hero's crisis

[pabs]

HyperNormalisation (Curtis, 2016)

Well thanks a lot cinesmith, I just finished watching this and it's ruined my day/week/month. It's made me feel so powerless and trapped in an evil, twisted, sadistic and cruel system controlled by oligarchs that no-one and nothing can change. We're all done for unless some benevolent revolutionary can unite the forces of good and lead us out of this hell-hole.

It's hard to argue with Curtis's arguments, they're really persuasive. He managed to sum everything up perfectly and it all made sense. This is why the world's as completely fucked as it is, folks.

P.S. Poor old Colonel Gadaffi! So sad what we did to him, what he sometimes allowed us to do to him, and how conservative western leaders used him like some pathetic clown to distract the world from the truly horrific developments happening in the Middle East.

It must have cost a lot with all the film excerpts they had, bits from Carrie all the way to Tarkovsky's Stalker. Soundtrack was excellent, too.


https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5lVNV ... UO1n17RnKU


7.5 Highly recommended.

[cinesmith]

I've been bouncing between watching a bunch of the Leo McCarey titles I needed to revisit or having not seen. There's a number of really odd ones in the later period.

Also revisiting a bunch of the Zatoichi series again. 25 films over 11 year period! Not including the later TV series and the final feature that Katsu directed himself in 1989. Just saw that they just did a remake with a female in the lead too.

Dog sitting for a week with access to the Amazon 'Firestick' Hadn't had the opportunity to try one of these out before.
Catching up with a bunch of the bigger mainstream releases;

The New Mutants. Par for the course as an 80's comic reader but it's really average at best.

Pinocchio. Watching this version by Matteo Garrone makes me wish that people in the U.S. were more savvy when it comes to foreign films. This has another of those terrible dubbing jobs that will likely give it so less credit to the quality of the vision.

News of the World. Paul Greengrass certainly has come along way from his early years of TV movies for the BBC. It's not a bad picture but I wasn't overwhelmed by it's shifts between violence and melancholy moods.

The Father. The adaptation from the play appears to be heralded from the responses so far. It has some moments here and there that make for setting the example of what dementia probably feels like. It's just the variables in point of view left me underwhelmed and not entirely lucid as to what the actual reality was. Reminded me more of Haneke's 'Amour' as it comes to the hardships we face as our loved ones age.

The Dig. Very fond of this one but it's not likely to gather that much notice from most.

[---]

HyperNormalisation (Curtis, 2016)

Well thanks a lot cinesmith, I just finished watching this and it's ruined my day/week/month. It's made me feel so powerless and trapped in an evil, twisted, sadistic and cruel system controlled by oligarchs that no-one and nothing can change. We're all done for unless some benevolent revolutionary can unite the forces of good and lead us out of this hell-hole.

It's hard to argue with Curtis's arguments, they're really persuasive. He managed to sum everything up perfectly and it all made sense. This is why the world's as completely fucked as it is, folks.

P.S. Poor old Colonel Gadaffi! So sad what we did to him, what he sometimes allowed us to do to him, and how conservative western leaders used him like some pathetic clown to distract the world from the truly horrific developments happening in the Middle East.

It must have cost a lot with all the film excerpts they had, bits from Carrie all the way to Tarkovsky's Stalker. Soundtrack was excellent, too.


https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5lVNV ... UO1n17RnKU


7.5 Highly recommended.

I'm glad you watched I worked hard on this

[sally]

feu mathias pascal (1926)

i always seem to have a problem with l'herbier, his clinical abstraction works with the otherworldly yumminess of say jaque catelain but it just clashes horribly with the earnest 'enthusiasm' of ivan mosjoukine. i don't get why i love him so much when he's such a dreadful actor. might be a cross between buster & lugosi, but he's got the soul of john barrymore in full ham-mode. *shrugs* also i think pirandello provided all the cues and stuff already and there was nothing more l'herbier could really add. never watch film adaptations of books you like (unless it's monteiro/walser or...zulawski doing gombrowicz and even then, that was only..acceptable)



i'm intoxicated with the woman in the middle here, she looks like a painting.

[rischka]

Skazka stranstviy/story of the voyages (1983) - soviet fairytale stuff, not as good as javier's long ago cup film Obyknovennoe chudo/ordinary miracle (1979) but good enough. beware: there be dragons

[Jürka]

if i remember right (i watched it too long ago) "Skazka stranstviy/story of the voyages" (1983) was partly shot in Bohemia and in the scene on the pic (or similar) they fly over the local Trosky castle ruin...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trosky_Castle

EDIT: čsfd confirms the film contains the flight over Trosky.
and moreover it says, the dwelling place of the brother — (til the end of the film, when he is adult) and his sisters meets him — is another local castle called Kost...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kost_Castle

[nrh]

pirandello giving all the cues i guess but i cannot, for the life of me, understand why they completely changed (& botched) the ending. just an absolutely baffling choice.

[rischka]

if i remember right (i watched it too long ago) "Skazka stranstviy/story of the voyages" (1983) was partly shot in Bohemia and in the scene on the pic (or similar) they fly over the local Trosky castle ruin...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trosky_Castle

EDIT: čsfd confirms the film contains the flight over Trosky.
and moreover it says, the dwelling place of the brother — (til the end of the film, when he is adult) and his sisters meets him — is another local castle called Kost...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kost_Castle

correct!! wonderful bohemian castles of which i did not get any decent screenshots

[sally]

pirandello giving all the cues i guess but i cannot, for the life of me, understand why they completely changed (& botched) the ending. just an absolutely baffling choice.

i know it was three hours but the ending of the film was incredibly rushed. maybe it all got chopped out and reworked or something? got the feeling ivan was enjoying his swirling cape and going boo at people too much to do anything else

NOT-FERATU

[Roscoe]

I remember thinking, after seeing LATE MATHIAS PASCAL, that Lubitsch would have done it in half the time with twice the laughs.

[sally]

oooooh that would have been lovely, he wouldn't thrift on the bittersweet stuff either....

[Roscoe]

DAWN OF THE DEAD -- Romero's sequel to the far superior NIGHT, and it starts well enough with some good tension and jumps. The problems start when Romero attempts humor -- some foolish music choices are the film's main problem. Is it a satire, or just bad decisions? A character's decision to put aside gloom and fight for his life would be a lot more effective and even moving if it wasn't accompanied by what amounts to the theme from ROCKY. Still, there's plenty of good stuff here.

[greennui]

The Khayal Saga (Kumar Shahani, 1989) - Dtc nomination. Can't say I understood much of what was going on but it was gorgeous to look at and to listen to.



YT link

Spoiler!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5IcdaYyvHY

[sally]

that does look gorgeous, but i did worry i wouldn't be familiar enough with the content to follow it....

[sally]

two DtC films from 1950

pietro germi's il cammino della speranza

okay but pretty black & white (although the black & white WAS pretty)





marcello pagliero's un homme marche dans la ville

port movie!

[pabs]

HyperNormalisation (Curtis, 2016)


7.5 Highly recommended.

I'm glad you watched I worked hard on this

Excellent job!

[Lencho of the Apes]

persuasive

Wait... where's the part where you told the guy to fuck himself for not embracing the D machine that offered us J Biden as a planetary savior? I'm confused.

[jal90]

Lang's Die Nibelungen, both films. What a beautiful dyptic, it's a fascinating visual piece as well as an epic scale ride. But I swear, the dragon is the only character out there that didn't deserve to die in the end. Siegfried is a jerk.

[Roscoe]

Agreed -- Siegfried is just too good to be true. It's Brunhilde and Attila who have the life in those films.

[jal90]

Oh yeah, Attila! A surprisingly solid source of empathy. I also empathized with Brunhilde for a while, but like the rest, she fully veered toward the asshole side in the end of her arc. This is quite the cautionary tale against all forms of revenge.

They are all fascinating characters in their ways in my opinion, Siegfried is the one that sticks out the most to me in a negative light, because the way he's made to look gracile and dignified is almost insulting, specially when he's among common citizens. This particular display of noble germanic traits vs plebeians and huns has aged like milk and one can't help but think of the usual suspicions over Thea von Harbou's involvement here.

[sally]

a DtC orphan, pelin esmer's something useful (2017)

ignoring the meaningful *stares hard* ponderous symbolism (and that's a lot of ignoring) this is a movie made by a middle-aged woman, about a middle-aged woman, that (somewhat) passes the bechdel test and just for that alone, hooray. also it may have been sponsored by the turkish tourist board because although i swore i would not go visit turkey whilst erdogan was in power, i could totally do a (haphazard) sleeper car train trip across the country based on this film. (as long as no one insists on reading me poetry tho) was really enjoying it until it started getting to The Point.

[Roscoe]

Oh yeah, Attila! A surprisingly solid source of empathy. I also empathized with Brunhilde for a while, but like the rest, she fully veered toward the asshole side in the end of her arc. This is quite the cautionary tale against all forms of revenge.

They are all fascinating characters in their ways in my opinion, Siegfried is the one that sticks out the most to me in a negative light, because the way he's made to look gracile and dignified is almost insulting, specially when he's among common citizens. This particular display of noble germanic traits vs plebeians and huns has aged like milk and one can't help but think of the usual suspicions over Thea von Harbou's involvement here.

I dug that shot of Attila's first look at Kriemhild -- one of the few convincing depictions of Love At First Sight I can think of. Kriemhild is a bit of a stick, herself, just reeking of nobility and virtue and then reeking of vengefulness. And for all Siegfried's nobility, and how straight up hot he is as embodied by the hunky Paul Richter, I can't forget that noble Siegfried disgraces himself pretty thoroughly by participating in a dishonorable plot to win Brunhilde for the staggeringly unworthy King Gunther, and then goes even further in that really ugly rape scenario, disguising himself as Gunther to trick her into consenting to a wedding night. The Noble Huns are a pretty vile lot, overall.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

I watched Duras' first film La Musica, mostly in honor of Delphine Seyrig's birthday (yesterday). It was really great. Duras is working with a slightly more French New Wave sensibility here, but it's still a pretty recognizable piece of her body of work. More traditional than a lot of her later stuff, but still formally inventive from time to time, and anchored by really great performances. You can see a lot of little moments that would lead to major setpieces or formal conceits in her later work. A lot of fun. Found the whole thing on youtube, uploaded just 4 days ago. Good timing for me.

[rischka]

i watched ursula - recommended by jiri. the anabaptists come out looking completely mad and it's hard to imagine these were the ancestors of mennonites lol. also technically they were communists so no idea why the east german government didn't approve of them?? is this a facetious question? maybe. made for tv but featuring full frontal nudity of both sexes and a lot of it. like marketa lazarova meets the devils