SCFZ

kanafani wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 11:48 am

Joks Trois wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 11:10 am
You haven't seen many Stallone films I take it?

Seen 23 apparently.

Then what the hell are you talking about mate? He was better in Rocky, Rocky Balboa and Copland than he was in those bloody Creed films!

Joks Trois wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 11:51 am

kanafani wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 11:48 am

Joks Trois wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 11:10 am
You haven't seen many Stallone films I take it?

Seen 23 apparently.

Then what the hell are you talking about mate? He was better in Rocky, Rocky Balboa and Copland than he was in those bloody Creed films!

Ya I've seen Rocky and I liked him in that, but that was a long time ago, before he settled into meathead mode. I've not seen Copland. Seen things like Cobra, Rambo, Judge Dredd, Cliffhanger, Demolition Man...

please tell me you saw cobra in a tiny movie club in beirut that was run by the communist party

thoxans wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 12:00 pm please tell me you saw cobra in a tiny movie club in beirut that was run by the communist party

No

Roscoe wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2019 12:30 am DETOUR -- streamed from the Criterion Channel, and my that restoration is a marvel. The movie is what it is, great fun especially when the sublime Ann Savage is soiling the screen as the vile Vera, the one villain in American cinema to approach the sheer cruelty of the Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch of the West.

I'm watching this today. Been meaning to check it out for years, but I'm slow in getting around to these old Hollywood b films. Probably because I rarely understand the hype about them. Not a big fan of Fuller etc

i foresee a joks rating of roughly 6.5 in the near future

^^Less. Almost finished it

yeah i woulda bet less. less than the mighty ducks, hudson hawk and hook

Haha! Not that low, but not much higher than Hudson. Apples and oranges of course.

Dumbo time! (the original)

In my ongoing semi-blind-semi-directed exploration of shorts, I've come across this Kurt Kren fellow a few times now. Just saw my third by him, "31/75: Asylum". Holy shit, is that film fire. Hit me to my very core. Dude has a hell of a way with just like expressing feeling through the modification of perspective. Gets my esteemed top-20 shorts designation FOR SURE

Joks Trois wrote: ↑Sun Mar 31, 2019 12:34 am

Roscoe wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2019 12:30 am DETOUR -- streamed from the Criterion Channel, and my that restoration is a marvel. The movie is what it is, great fun especially when the sublime Ann Savage is soiling the screen as the vile Vera, the one villain in American cinema to approach the sheer cruelty of the Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch of the West.

I'm watching this today. Been meaning to check it out for years, but I'm slow in getting around to these old Hollywood b films. Probably because I rarely understand the hype about them. Not a big fan of Fuller etc

Yeah, I'm not sure that DETOUR is all that it is cracked up to be, but I'm a big fan of Ann Savage's Vera -- her single-minded pursuit of sheer awfulness always entertains. She can always be counted on to make everything just that much worse just by showing up.

PETERLOO, at the Museum of the Moving Image, Mike Leigh's film about the times and issues in 1819 that led to the terrible Peterloo Massacre. Lots of political meetings and speeches and political meetings and speeches and demonstrations of the poverty of the poor and the overt brutality of the rich and the less than entirely convincing conviction of reformers, and somehow it works. The screws get tightened and tightened, and the final explosion is, well, explosive.

Moontide (Archie Mayo, 1942) - Man, the sound of the distant foghorns sounded just like a vibrating cell phone, made slightly anxious each time. I got the feeling they were a little too eager to cast Gabin in an American picture and had already started production before a script had been produced, thus making it feel like they were making it up as they went along. Murder? Yeah, will get back to that...Claude Rains? Put him in some ragtag clothes and he'll wing it. Let's get Salvador Dali on board as well!

The Confessions of Winifred Wagner (Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, 1976) - 5 hour interview with Wagner family matron Winifred Wagner (wife of Richard Wagner's son and personal friend of Adolf Hitler) in which she tells her life story. Filmed chronically, mostly in medium close up, all according her wishes. It's basically just her face for the entire running length with some occasional digressions by Syberberg. She tried to be as a proper as possible but there were a few cracks where she got carried away/forgot she was being filmed and answered some questions rather honestly. It became apparent that she regretted nothing, not even meeting Hitler. It's an incredible account no matter what you think of her as a person.


.

^^Where (or how) did you see the 5 hr version?

Joks Trois wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 8:45 pm ^^Where (or how) did you see the 5 hr version?

KG

^^Figures.

Bad News Bears (1976): Very enjoyable film with Matthau in fine form. Tatum O'Neil was so damn charming back then it's almost ridiculous. She had a real natural screen presence, and the kids actually seem like kids rather than 'movie kids'. 6.5 or 7.

HEATHERS -- the famed dark 1980s comedy creaks pretty badly now. Some of the good stuff still works, but it's a pretty shallow piece of work. Maybe a more interesting movie might have asked why Veronica wanted anything to do with the Heathers in the first place, as they're shown to be a pretty vile bunch. I doubt I'll need to see it again.

^^It's all cartoon surface.

The Favourite: Lanthimos is a bit of a poser to me. The style is ripped staight from Kubrick and Welles, but he doesn't create memorable compositions like they did nor does he have much flair for movement. He picks an easy target and goes in, but I didn't find the film witty like The Draughtman's Contract. Just charmless people being nasty to each for no good reason other than to show how corrupt and decadent the aristocratic class is. This is really a message from another time. Lanthimos is living in the past. I'll give it a 5.5 for the production design, some of the performances, and the fact that I was rarely bored, but overall it's another overhyped film that will be quickly forgotten. The Tom Jones of 2018.

nazareno cruz y el lobo - well i had to watch this twice. baroque folk horror soap opera and i mean that in the best possible way ♥ i really should have taken notes.



thx brian i've finally seen it - 6 years later favio does everything you're not supposed to do. and it works. argentina rarely disappoints

california split (robert altboy) easily my second fav altboy (who's in a sorta stripped-down-cassavetes-mode here) after cbtt5adjdjd. did we do a dir minipoll on this dude yet...?

El Baul Macabro - Miguel Zacarias, Mex., 1936

Features one of the two amazingest editing fails I've ever seen.

Lencho_of_the_Apes wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2019 7:32 pmamazingest editing fails

i.e. you luvved it

bizarre eurotrash classic femina ridens (1969) at least the production design is striking

THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE -- 6/10

The screening at the festering shithole known as NYC's AMC EMPIRE 25 started a full half hour late, which might have affected my mood. It came to me about halfway through that I was watching a retread of THE FISHER KING (among my very least favorite Gilliams anyway) with dashes of BARON MUNCHAUSEN via Cervantes, and the movie just fell into place before me. This being Gilliam, there are some lovely flourishes -- a scene directly from Cervantes is given a tasty contemporary twist as Quixote is beset by enchanters who send him on a rocking horse ride to the moon being the film's real highlight. Jonathan Pryce is splendid as Quixote, but poor old Adam Driver never for a moment makes Toby sympathetic or even particularly interesting, and the film's denouement left me with a shrug.

Might be worth checking out again in less festering shithole staff-stupidity delayed circumstances. It's always nice to see Sergi Lopez. But I could never banish the feeling that Gilliam might have done a lot better to just film Cervantes straight up -- or at the very least to find a more appealing leading man. Or maybe, just maybe, find another movie to make. We've been here before.

And the very next night, I went to see Tim Burton's DUMBO, which amused for a while, the dark Burtonian DREAMLAND section of the movie was a good chunk of fun, and I dug the Pink Elephant bubble scene, and overall I preferred it to that other movie from a couple years back about an anthropomorphic piranha and the woman who loves it.

thoxans wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2019 4:40 pm california split (robert altboy) easily my second fav altboy (who's in a sorta stripped-down-cassavetes-mode here) after cbtt5adjdjd. did we do a dir minipoll on this dude yet...?

best poker movie ever made, and no, we haven't polled altman yet (nor coppola or cassavetes for that matter).

Roscoe wrote: ↑Fri Apr 12, 2019 5:42 pm And the very next night, I went to see Tim Burton's DUMBO, which amused for a while, the dark Burtonian DREAMLAND section of the movie was a good chunk of fun, and I dug the Pink Elephant bubble scene, and overall I preferred it to that other movie from a couple years back about an anthropomorphic piranha and the woman who loves it.

I want to see it, but it's tanking. That Gilliam looks very ordinary to me, which is a shame considering how long it took him to finally make it. Have you seen Honor of The Knights?

FLIP: Not just poker, gambling in general. I grew up around gamblers, and it's the most authentic depiction of it I've seen for sure. I actually recommended it to 2 gambling buddies of mine who aren't 'cinephiles' and they said it was well made but very depressing. i.e they identified with it too strongly.

Joks Trois wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:45 am I want to see (Burton's DUMBO). That Gilliam looks very ordinary to me, which is a shame considering how long it took him to finally make it. Have you seen Honor of The Knights?

Yeah, it's going to be a bomb, alas. Far worse films have made a lot more money. As for the Gilliam, well, I'm thinking of seeing it again just to make sure, but I'm not exactly in a hurry. I have not seen the Serra. I'll check out his available works.

Joks Trois wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:45 am FLIP: Not just poker, gambling in general. I grew up around gamblers, and it's the most authentic depiction of it I've seen for sure. I actually recommended it to 2 gambling buddies of mine who aren't 'cinephiles' and they said it was well made but very depressing. i.e they identified with it too strongly.

yeah, that's a world i know well, and california split nails it. it's a different kind of movie altogether, but von sternberg's the shanghai gesture also gets the psychology right. i can at least give owning mahowny and swanberg's win it all some credit for trying to do that too, but they're only roughly in the orbit, and they're not good films.

and i sort of object to calling poker gambling, but that's not really that important! if anyone's interested, i have a very much unloved list of poker films on letterboxd, here.