Last Watched

[rischka]

hit man pissed me off. birding is not only for nerds. also cops were doing entrapment

edit: i liked the noir second half and that powell fellow is quite talented

[rischka]

bingeing john wick since they're all on peacock lol

someone else watch something. it's too hot to go outside

hmm maybe le samourai needs a rewatch

ok le samourai then that's it

[pabs]

I watched them both a couple of weeks ago. Loved them both. I saw them with a friend who knows a lot about Japanese culture and philosophies (e.g., Bushida), so it was an even richer experience than it would have been if he hadn't explained to me how all these things were connected to the characters and the stories in these two Misumi films. Anyway, he loved the films too. So thanks r.

[pabs]

Last film I saw was Zeffirelli's 1990 Hamlet with Mel Gibson and Glenn Close and Alan Bates. I really enjoyed it and even though I don't like Mel at all, he was a good Hamlet.

[pabs]

I found out Misumi died young, in his 30s. Such a loss.

[rischka]

I found out Misumi died young, in his 30s. Such a loss.

if you enjoyed those then definitely watch kiru (destiny's son)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056144/

[St. Gloede]

Coming Out (1989, Heiner Carow)



I thought this classic was a much bigger deal than it apparently is in the zeitgeist, but it was an instant new favourite for me. It was the first (and probably, given the date) last East German film openly focused on homosexuality. Fun trivia:

Premiered in East-Berlin on 9 November 1989. When the news broke that the border between East and West had been opened, the film was stopped, and the audience was informed about the event taking place outside the cinema. The vast majority of the audience demanded to see the rest of the film before joining the masses outside.

The plotting and core themes of the film are very familiar at this point, tracking the difficulties of coming out and living openly in a society that actively treats you differently and with threats of violence. We follow a young man who is still in denial about his sexuality and starts a relationship with a woman to fit in, but he is starting to have doubts and to think that maybe he can actually be open about who he is.

What I loved the most was how full, nuanced and complicated our characters, especially our lead, are. The central performance by Matthias Freihof (pictured above) is phenomenal. He is not a hero. He is not brave. He can be, but not always. The need to fit in and live "normally" even makes him a somewhat toxic figure at times - but it is done with so much humanism. The second part of the film that brings it further to life is a certain authenticity and realness of the environments the film shows - and surprisingly it was shot on location in real gay bars and cruising areas. Highly recommended.

[wba]

One More Time, One More Chance (Tetsuo Shinohara, 1996)

Unbenannt2.png (250 KiB) Viewed 1757 times

Wonderful Japanese "Heimatfilm" with a twist. The final performance of the title song is breathtaking.
I need to finally watch much more films by Shinohara!

[wba]

Coming Out (1989, Heiner Carow)

I haven't seen COMING OUT, but Carow is a great director. You should definitely try and check out more of his films, if you loved this one.

[St. Gloede]

Coming Out (1989, Heiner Carow)

I haven't seen COMING OUT, but Carow is a great director. You should definitely try and check out more of his films, if you loved this one.

I likely will. I saw The Legend of Paul and Paula (1973) a long time ago, which I think is one of the biggest East German pop classics. I liked it a decent bit, but didn't feel that the characters were as well-drawn out as here, and not all of the comedic touches worked as well for me. Might give it a revisit in the future though. I also saw his early The Russians Are Coming (1968), which I once again liked, but didn't feel that special in the big war film canon. Which other films would you recommend the most?

[wba]

Coming Out (1989, Heiner Carow)

I haven't seen COMING OUT, but Carow is a great director. You should definitely try and check out more of his films, if you loved this one.

I likely will. I saw The Legend of Paul and Paula (1973) a long time ago, which I think is one of the biggest East German pop classics. I liked it a decent bit, but didn't feel that the characters were as well-drawn out as here, and not all of the comedic touches worked as well for me. Might give it a revisit in the future though. I also saw his early The Russians Are Coming (1968), which I once again liked, but didn't feel that special in the big war film canon. Which other films would you recommend the most?

My favorites so far are "The Journey to Sundevit" (1966) and "The Mistake" (1991), but I also need to see more of his films. I'd agree that "The Legend of Paul and Paula" was nice, but nothing to write home about.

[wba]

Watched DOC HOLLYWOOD (Michael Caton-Jones, 1991), another wonderful film with Michael J. Fox.
All actors were outstanding, down to the smallest role. And some of the dialogue was quite screwball-y.

[St. Gloede]

Coming Out (1989, Heiner Carow)

I haven't seen COMING OUT, but Carow is a great director. You should definitely try and check out more of his films, if you loved this one.

I likely will. I saw The Legend of Paul and Paula (1973) a long time ago, which I think is one of the biggest East German pop classics. I liked it a decent bit, but didn't feel that the characters were as well-drawn out as here, and not all of the comedic touches worked as well for me. Might give it a revisit in the future though. I also saw his early The Russians Are Coming (1968), which I once again liked, but didn't feel that special in the big war film canon. Which other films would you recommend the most?

My favorites so far are "The Journey to Sundevit" (1966) and "The Mistake" (1991), but I also need to see more of his films. I'd agree that "The Legend of Paul and Paula" was nice, but nothing to write home about.

Thanks, wba! I couldn't find The Journey to Sundevit with English subtitles, but I added The Mistake high on my must-see list.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Five Guns West (Roger Corman, American Releasing Corporation [soon AIP], 1955)

Started off my Complete Corman Retrospective (1 movie a week for a year), accompanied by James Ursini and Alain Silver's retrospective book, with a bang! I'd seen this one before, but really underrated it. Clearly, I don't think I paid it close enough attention when I first saw it five years ago. A really well-done tight character-driven one-location suspenser. Not great, but quite a promising debut, and worth seeing. The dance scene and the final shot have an almost Fordian dimension to them that I never thought I'd see in Corman's work.

[wba]

Five Guns West (Roger Corman, American Releasing Corporation [soon AIP], 1955)

Started off my Complete Corman Retrospective (1 movie a week for a year), accompanied by James Ursini and Alain Silver's retrospective book, with a bang! I'd seen this one before, but really underrated it. Clearly, I don't think I paid it close enough attention when I first saw it five years ago. A really well-done tight character-driven one-location suspenser. Not great, but quite a promising debut, and worth seeing. The dance scene and the final shot have an almost Fordian dimension to them that I never thought I'd see in Corman's work.

One of my favorite Cormans, one of my favorite Westerns, and a masterpiece in my book.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

One of my favorite Cormans, one of my favorite Westerns, and a masterpiece in my book.

How many masterpieces are in your book? I'm curious. Between you and Lencho (6 5-star ratings) we get the full-range....

[wba]

One of my favorite Cormans, one of my favorite Westerns, and a masterpiece in my book.

How many masterpieces are in your book? I'm curious. Between you and Lencho (6 5-star ratings) we get the full-range....

Well, I rated FIVE GUNS WEST a 9/10, so...

Currently I've seen about 2000 masterpieces (out of roughly 8000 films I've seen during my lifetime (thousands of rewatches not included)). But I usually watch (and rewatch) what I know I will like, so my film experiences are mostly very pleasurable.

Although Corman is in my opinion also one of the greatest American directors, I was still surprised that he made such an excellent Western so early in his career. I honestly didn't expect it to be this good.

As for my 100 favorite Westerns (with ratings): https://letterboxd.com/wba/list/100-wes ... es/detail/

[wba]

I just noticed that the screenwriter of FIVE GUNS WEST, R. Wright Campbell, also wrote another favorite Western of mine, also starring Dorothy Malone (and which also seems to be unpopular): https://letterboxd.com/film/quantez/

[rischka]

takeshi kitano's samurai epic kubi (2023) has a wry tone, crowds of ninja, a gay samurai love triangle and many decapitated heads



neck! it's very bloody. beat takeshi is looking pretty good for 77. he gets to wear a fancy hat -- if he can keep it



i thought it was quite good and i don't think i've seen any of his recent work. imdb says he based the script on his own novel

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Mamad (1973)
I'm about to disappear into a year of intensive focus on Indonesian film. Including (hopefully) a visit to the Sinamatek Indonesia in Jakarta to access a few of the films I've been desperately trying to track down for the past 6 months. So I thought it would be fun to watch something from there for the 1967 poll... no luck. Nothing that I can currently access. Which makes sense when thinking about what happened in Indonesia in 1966.

So instead I watched Sjuman Djaya's Si Mamad, from the early 70s. After being very impressed with his Atheis from 1976, I thought it would be fun to check out something else by him. This one exists online in much better quality than Atheis, though still quite problematic in a few sections.

An adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Death of a Civil Servant it tells the story of Mamad, who steals a few reams of paper from work and is slowly driven insane by the guilt of his actions. His incessant attempts to atone for his sin only end up annoying his boss who truly does not care about some stolen paper.

Strange mix of wry comedy, tragedy, and every once in a while stupid slapstick. But overall it's pretty charming, and it got a couple chuckles out of me.

[MrCarmady]

re-watched master and commander (first time in 15+ years) yesterday, what a great picture. so many minor characters that feel more real and fleshed out than protagonists in a lot of other hollywood blockbusters do. visuals, acting, music - all on point. kinda wanna check out the books now...

[rischka]

i loved those books when i read some of them decades ago


menus-plaisirs-les troisgros (wiseman 2023) a pleasure to watch for 4 hours

[Silga]

menus-plaisirs-les troisgros (wiseman 2023) a pleasure to watch for 4 hours

Rischka, I heard only good things about Menus-Plaisirs, but haven't seen it yet.

but this year at the festival I saw She Chef (Melanie Liebheit, Gereon Wetzel). Very good documentary about a young chef as she tries three restaurants through internship and chooses one where she wants to continue her career. It's a real culinary delight to watch and adding to it, it also goes deeper into how demanding and challenging this career can be. Plus some gorgeous scenery from Faroe Islands and from, currently, the best restaurant in the world - Disfrutar in Barcelona.

Highly recommended if you ever find it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l15kWGpb6iQ

[rischka]

thx silga! watching people cook is more fun than cooking xD

chime was damned creepy. good on kurosawa for making 45mins films in a world of 150mins epics

[pabs]

menus-plaisirs-les troisgros (wiseman 2023) a pleasure to watch for 4 hours

I love Wiseman's work, so I was so excited to hear about this new one and I was mad-keen on seeing it asap! But that was before I watched THE TASTE OF THINGS, which I saw recently at the cinema, where Juliette Binoche cooks delicious things for about two hours. It bored me after 30 minutes and put me off watching Menus-plaisirs.

I just need to snap out of it and remind myself that it's a Wiseman film and Wiseman's never once disappointed me.

[rischka]

watched klute (pakula 1971) and discovered the odd title is actually sutherland's character's name. he's intense yet subdued letting jane fonda have the showy role for which she won an oscar. they were a (radical left wing) couple irl for two years. part of pakula's paranoia trilogy - with the parallax view (1974) and all the president's men (1976) RIP donald sutherland an indelible character actor. i was surprised to see 5 of his top 6 by lb popularity are those hunger games movies



considered one of the best actors never to win an oscar (he recieved an honorary oscar in 2017) maybe i should track down their documentary F.T.A. (fuck the army) from 1972

[cinesmith]

Finally saw 'Mr. Thank You' (1936) given all the love it's been getting. How I've overlooked Hiroshi Shimizu for this long feels kind of embarrassing. He really deserves much more credit for his understated films.


'The Masseurs and a Woman' (1938) was also a fantastic pic too.

[ofrene]

Chimes is the scariest movie i've seen in years, still feel creepy when i think about it

remember Menus-Plaisirs - Les Troisgros as the least interesting lengthy wiseman' work but final 10~20 minutes give a convincing reason for all this time

[rischka]

chime makes me wanna watch cure again

[rischka]

ninja, a band of assassins (d. yamamoto 1962)





w/tomisaburo wakayama as the cat-loving warlord battling a clan of ninja



lots of ninja training and tricks, similar to many shaolin temple films of the 70s



a very fun movie and first in a series it seems ...