SCFZ

rischka wrote: ↑Sun Mar 10, 2019 12:51 pmbut...

explosive, wasn't it?

ha. yeah

marriage of the blessed is pretty great. i was surprised at the brutal war trauma and scenes of homelessness, crime and drug addiction. but of course this film is banned in iran, as i think all of his films are. the flashback scenes were so well done





and the wedding i should really see more of his films, bread & flowerpot is a huge favorite of mine



reading some of makhmalbaf's backstory, he was shot, imprisoned and sentenced to death under the shah just like dostoyevsky! anyway this is on youtube if y'all didn't grab it in time. as is bezai's bashu the little stranger

Bagh Bahadur/The Tiger Dancer/Tiger Man - B. Dasgupta

Tiger dancing in the age of mechanical reproduction: it very pointedly is all-about folk culture being displaced by commodified entertainment. Set in 1962, as though the makers had a clear idea of when that historical process took place. Print quality is barely okay...

In case anyone needs even more recommendations from this kick-ass year, here are all the movies that got an average rating of 4 stars or higher on letterboxd (based on data from champs on my records).

For some reason I have the impression that my fellow champs lack a sense of humor... Anyway, for those of you who have one, another delightful Eastern European comedy from the year, this time from the almost always reliable Jiří Menzel. If it's not in Closely Watched Trains/Larks on a String league that's only because few films attain such heights.

(Image below spoilered for those championing while at work, or who're disturbed by topless ladies in bubble baths)


on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p6pzk6JY1g

subs here:

https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/subtit ... ch-casu-en

nsfw spoiler tab would be helpful with such images, karl

What's an nsfw spoiler tab?

karl wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2019 4:05 pm What's an nsfw spoiler tab?

Sorry, didn't realize there were kids and little old ladies on Superchamps. If the breasts bother, I'll go on and spoiler those.

Had to look up "nsfw" - ha! Well, you know, if you're at work you ought to work and not goof around on movie forums.

Edit: nsfwed for you guys!

karl wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2019 4:17 pmIf the breasts bother

nawww

karl wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2019 4:17 pmI'll go on and spoiler those

awwww

no worries, i'm almost always on here at home only, but sometimes i'm in a public location and things can get weird fast :geek:

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Someone posted a pic with a naked man in it during the early days of the first SCFZ board. Actually I think it must still be there. I remember thinking "How come this hasn't been deleted yet, or at least commented on, by the mods?"
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maybe we’re just a bit biased

thx vm for yaaba too kanafani. love the colors and framing/perspective

For once I sat down to watch two films for a yearly poll, both from directors I strongly respect, but sadly have not seen to much from Makhmalbaf & Assayas.

Marriage of the Blessed was very creative, but felt incredibly low budget and aimless throughout - this can work well, and to an extent it did, but Makhmalbaf works much better with beautiful colours or direct meta techniques. Still good, and worth a viewing. 7/10.

Winter's Child was Assayas second film, and in such a bare-boned film filled with screaming emotions within the frame (stylistically it felt like a mellow Pialat meets Denis). I especially love the first 20 minutes, where the characters are introduced in a brilliant rotating fashion, each character leaving to meet the next - it truly showed the eye of a fantastic director. It loses a little momentum as the minimalism takes over as the timeline becomes condensed in a Bressonesque manner, but this is a great move in and of itself. I would strongly recommend it, and I am editing may list to give it a (lower) spot.

Dip huet seung hung (The Killer)

A Dry White Season
Bajarse al moro (Going Down in Morocco)
Bal poussière (Dancing in the Dust)
Batman
Bicycleran (The Cyclist)
Black Rain
Dharmaga tongjoguro kan kkadalgun (Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?)
El mar y el tiempo (The Sea and the Weather)
Farewell to the King
Field of Dreams
Glory
La vie et rien d'autre (Life and Nothing But)
Monsieur Hire
Orapronobis (Fight for Us)
Prikosnoveniye (The Touch)
Sea of Love
The Abyss
Uçurtmayi Vurmasinlar (Don't Let Them Shoot the Kite)
Yaaba

Deliberately excluded (IMDb/TSPDT/S&S top 500)
Bei qing cheng shi
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Dead Poets Society
Dekalog
Do the Right Thing
Elephant
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 
Majo no takkyûbin
My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown

Nominations for Doubling the Canon 2019
Baxter
Dead Poets Society
Dharmaga tongjoguro kan kkadalgun [Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?]
For All Mankind
Ganashatru [An Enemy of the People]
Jésus de Montréal [Jesus of Montreal]
Kuroi ame [Black Rain]
Lonesome Dove
Posetitel muzeya [Visitor of a Museum]
Recordações da Casa Amarela [Recollections of the Yellow House]
Remains to Be Seen
Resan till Melonia [The Journey to Melonia]
Reunion
Roger & Me
Rosa de Areia
Santa Sangre
Sweetie
Tetsuo [Tetsuo: The Iron Man]
Tma/Svetlo/Tma [Darkness/Light/Darkness]

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Wiseman's Near Death is incredibly moving. I'm only 30 minutes into it, there's a doctor talking to a patient, breaking some terrible diagnosis to him, and I'm close to tears.
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Kuduz (Ademir Kenovic). A Bosnian Yugoslav movie about a guy who gets out of jail after seven years and marries the first good-looking woman he meets, with unfortunate consequences. A very fine little pic - that is, if you can stomach the toxic femininity.

what does that mean exactly? does she wear too much perfume or something?

i tried watching lopushanskiy's visitor to a musem. i remember liking letters from a dead man but i think i've lost my taste for dystopian sci-fi.



it's just too real. i don't know if it's good but it certainly is creepy

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I'm still watching Wiseman's Near Death. Had to break it into sections and I think I'll get to the end of it tomorrow, so three sessions should do it.

It's so good. Another thing is it's helped restore (some of) my faith in humanity, that there are people out there who do their best everyday, who do the right thing by others ethically, and who try as much as they can to help alleviate other people's emotional and physical suffering.

It's got me completely absorbed in the lives of people dealing with the immininent death of their loved ones and, especially, doctors' meetings and their discussions about the best way to inform those family members of their prognoses for the fates of their dying loved ones, figuring out how to break the harsh truth as gently as they can.

This film might well be my favourite of 2019. If not, definitely in my top 5. It's a beautiful exposition on how to be humane.

...........................................................

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Near Death is beautiful and brutal. I watched it in a single day with just a break for lunch, certainly one of the most intense movie-watching experiences I've had.

Yep, one of Wiseman's very best. Might be my favorite along with Welfare and Belfast Maine. A family member spent a lot of time in that very same hospital battling cancer a few years ago, so that kind of added another level of intensity for me.

Beijing Watermelon was quite nice. It's got a really affecting Utopian streak running through it, though I personally think we need to pump the breaks a little on all this 'Hou Hsiao Hsien eat your heart out' business.

Lost In New York, by Rollin, is marvelous. YA version of Duelle, strategies straight out of the haut-surrealist playbook. (Too much Ernst? How can there be such a thing as too much Ernst?) Only 52 minutes long.

Ah, Rollin...

I am one of the very few people who are not at all a fan of Garrel's early work, and as it is often his most noted work I had given the rest of his career a miss. Luckily I caught Lover for a Day last year, which showed tremendous craftmanship. This is one of the rare cases where I simply enjoy someone more after they call down and "sell out", which for Garrel means increadibly creative and personal love budget films. Les Baisers de secours / Emergency Kisses is the second film by him I find great and I will definitely continue to explore his later work.

wba wrote: ↑Thu Mar 21, 2019 4:21 pm Ah, Rollin...

i really liked this too!

Only four days and sooooo much left to watch.

i'm psyching myself up to watch near death

Yeah, Lost in New York is a treat and such a neat summarization of Rollin's filmography.