SCFZ

Haha, I love both Ottinger and Jodorowsky but can sympathise if it is not your thing.

I will say that this is the time to watch Dorian. When I saw it, it looked like this:



Now it looks like this:

yeah i'm def gonna watch it for 1984. but for america's birthday i'm feeling more like michael ritchie's prime cut: a nightmare american gothic neo-noir

https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1544 ... qDPvgxvI_A

perfect for america day

The Runner Stumbles (Stanley Kramer, 1979) 8/10

What a beautiful and somber film. Kathleen Quinlan's performance is one of a kind. She plays a nun Sister Rita who's sent to the parish in the rural town in Michigan where she meets Father Rivard played by none other than Dick Van Dyke. I never expected to see Dick Van Dyke in a such a role and while he is perfectly fine, its Quinlan who steals every bit of, what came to be, Stanley Kramer's last picture. Beautiful cinematography by Laszlo Kovacs and a great supporting turn by Maureen Stapleton. Young Beau Bridges too.
A sad and yet a very poignant story about religious convictions taking a tragic turn. I was surprised to read afterwards that the film is actually based on true story that took place in the same town of Isadore, Michigan in 1907.

cœur de femme - ferdinand zecca, rené leprince (1913)

these guys are still very much in 'early' mode (with a twist)





BUT

the sad bloke's lovelorn despair is crystallized by an IMAGE, and love's resolution occurs via the reflected IMAGE, and i just lap that stuff up.

Tennessee's Partner (Allan Dwan, 1955)



What a movie! I don't remember the last time I had this feeling of being lovestruck by a hidden gem, but it's a great feeling and it's been too long. Dwan's masterpiece, surely. Missed this for '55, alas, but the find of the summer maybe.

you probably know this already, but tennessee's partner was #12 on scfz's top 100 american films list! long time scfz favourite

https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... scfz-poll/

Yes, I knew it as an SCFZ fav. Although it looks like M_Penalosa is the only one to give it the full 5/5 on Letterboxd. I'd probably give it 4.5 — y'all are cowards with your 3.5s

nocturne (chanson triste) - marcel silver (1927)

psycho-arborography! (gorgeous)

a woman waits in a stormy tree-tossed night for her lover. will he come too late? (yes, it's french, she's dead)

myrna loy minievent on the criterion channel so i watched several unseen including

manhattan melodrama (1934) gable was the standout in this one. i didn't much care for it
test pilot (1938) gable and spencer tracy as hotshot pilots - we know the drill, it's a bit long but mostly works
i love you again (1940) this was my favorite of the bunch - beginning with william powell and frank mchugh on a boat. also i'm a sucker for a (reverse?) amnesia plot. not powell/loy's best but pretty funny

when did letterboxd get all those generic posters?? i vastly prefer the old school posters :'(

well at least i can still post images. someday maybe i'll learn to resize them

Taking Off (Milos Forman, 1971) 9/10

Taking Off is an absolute laugh riot! What a marvelous comedy and, most of all, it's one of the best edited films I've seen in a while. Instantly quotable too!

kino 4k restoration of planet of the vampires (w commentary by two british scifi nerds) very fun!!

https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1556 ... WVLeAb984g

and guess what there is a bluray of green snake now so i'll be watching that today

and now i'm gonna rewatch predator which i've apparently seen but have no memory of so i can watch the latest outrageously woke action picture PREY

prey was like a violent disney movie? i respect they made a comanche language version tho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGL4ETxVKd8

went out to see masaaki yuasa's (relatively) new feature inu-oh, which was playing at our local theater.

don't think i've read anything that quite captures the feeling of this genuinely strange movie, about two literally cursed outsiders (one dancer, one musician) finding and then, tragically, losing themselves by channeling the spirits and stories of a culture destroyed and forbidden by the fall of the heike. it's also something of a rock opera, although music is by the great avant-garde composer otomo yoshihide, although the music sequences don't dominate the movie as much as some reviews suggest.

it is also a formally beautiful movie, he's reaching back to some old techniques and inventing new ones, i don't think i've seen a feature since princess kaguya that centers drawing so specifically. and i think in line with yuasa's somewhat inward recent turn; like the very different keep your hands off eizouken! series (a comedy about high schoolers wanting to make anime that becomes a kind of parable of the artistic process and the restrictions of work and finance) it is very much about art and art making.

need to watch a second time to really make sense of it, but if yuasa really wants to retire (at least for awhile) after this recent burst of work he is going out on a pretty high note. ]

(would also say the trailer, as is typical, makes the movie seem much "louder" than it actually is...)

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971) 10/10

McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a definitive example of extraordinary filmmaking. Wow! What an experience to watch this marvelous film for the first time! Vilmos Zsigmond's camera is poetry visualized.

i watched white sun of the desert (1969) - very fun red western cosmonauts watch before launch

https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1557 ... YARZQxKRRg

now having a good time with hell in the pacific altho i fell asleep once they started building a raft

Oblako-ray / Cloud Heaven (1990, Nikolay Dostal)



Cloud Heaven tells the tale of a small town in Siberia, where nothing seems to happen and no one really has anything to talk about - or at least that is the case of Kolya. Desperate for conversation and connection, he is struggling with having absolutely nothing to say. The best he can muster is questions about the weather, tragically asking people over and over again if they think the weatherman is right and that it is going to rain. The people around him see him as nothing but a nuisance, even his best friends. Life is standing still, especially on a Sunday, with everyone trapped in their own empty existences.

The joy, unease and power of Cloud Heaven come from the absurd and instant switch of perception, when Kolya, needing something to say, stumbles into the lie that he is leaving for the far east that very night. In a matter of seconds, he is not just the most interesting and beloved man in town, everyone seems to wake up from their daze with an unnerving zealous exuberance. Their lives seem to get meaning from the fact that one amongst them is leaving, all living through him, unable to get enough of him. They put on their finest clothes, party, celebrate, and push to ensure that nothing deters Kolya from his adventure.

This is a bizarre off-beat comedy with a borderline surreal atmosphere - think Kafka without the bureaucracy - as Kolya's entire world is turned upside down, and he is forced to resign, give away his possessions and possibly even his apartment. He tries to break the illusion or find some way to stay, but his "friends", and suddenly he has a lot of "friends", just won't let him "give up". While rarely laugh-out-loud funny, you will likely be smirking throughout at the ludicrous existential display, but there is always a true sense of utter unease, and even tragedy, as the clash between lie, delusion and reality creeps ever closer and Kolya may just be forced to leave without a goal, destination or anyone to turn to.

8.5/10

fire at sea - eduard schnedler-sørensen (1912)

love love love danish 1912, especially the alt russian ending where everyone dies

i watched elvis and wth is wrong with tom hanks. also this thing is like a 2 hour long trailer. i enjoyed it tbh, the kid is very good, but elvis is a bit too much the tragic hero and hanks a bizarrely accented villain and weaving current musicians into the soundtrack felt like pandering at times. also bb and ep were not friends i looked it up :'(

Tom Hanks was simply grotesque is Eivis for sure..

John Carpenter's Elvis was good enough I don't feel like we needed another version.

justice for carpenter's elvis. one of his best movies and one of the great kurt russell performances.

erblich belastet? - harry piel (1913)

story was mildly offensive (inherited character traits bunk) but the film-making was great.(plus vaguely CoMo adjacent as there was an excellent windmill stunt) also undoubtedly the film with the most kisses in from 1913. such a randy couple! and totally LOL'd at the winking pseudo-phallus of the rising violin-bow within the first 3 minutes - these early films are such enjoyable filth (although nothing is ever gonna be as funny as franz hofer's 1913 actual sword polishing or as hot as valdemar psilander's 1912 tennis racket handle masturbation)


this scene was great - the negative frame within the frame and the psychological-physical movement of characters between


also:

https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1563 ... LuJTjV1Ecw

ziegfeld girl (1941) watched for the gowns. lana hurling herself around, judy reliably upbeat, hedy lamarr totally wasted

I didn't actually watch this cuz no subtitles, but, even without, it looked like it had some Sally appeal - Sally in particular -- so I thought I'd stick it here in case anybody.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft3UnZz_T8s

Lencho of the Apes wrote: ↑Sun Aug 28, 2022 4:54 pm it looked like it had some Sally appeal - Sally in particular --

cheers lencho

(have a pinched shoulder nerve & can't actually feel my fingers to type much at the moment, but will watch!)