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Picked at random:zogo posted:1928 Two Arabian Knights - A WWI comedy. 2/20/18 Rosemary's Baby A young couple move into an old apartment where murders took place. The neighbours are satanists. That sounds so hokey, but I was pleasantly surprised by how grounded and real this film felt. The flat's not a haunted house set, it's light and spacious and you can see why the couple would be so pleased with it. The neighbours are also not outwardly sinister, but instead nosy busybodies who are very nice in their own way but you'd make every effort to avoid. Ruth Gordon gives the stand out performance as Minnie. There are no explicitly supernatural elements. Good things happen to Rosemary's husband. Bad things happen to others. The film finds a good balance for Rosemary's paranoia being just justified enough while leaving open the possibility it's all in her head until the end. There was one moment where Rosemary's having a disturbing sexual dream, wakes up with scratches on her body and touts that as proof of supernatural shenanigans. To which her husband cheerfully replies Oh that was just me raping you in your sleep, honey  What the gently caress?I enjoyed the 60s fashions and Mia Farrow looked great in that haircut all the characters hated. My List: 1) (highest ranked imdb) Avengers: Infinity War Major superhero fatigue. 2) (classic comedy) The Producers (1967) I've loved 50% of Mel Brooks' films that I've seen 3) (animation) The Lord of the Rings (1978) The books and Jackson's films were favourites of my childhood/teenage years and I'd like to see this oddball one. 4) (Academy Award winner) On the Waterfront A contender 5) (foreign language) M (1931) Silent era director makes his first talkie. 6) (Monster) Dracula (1958) I've never seen a Hammer Horror 7) (Horror) Martin Romero didn't just do zombies 8) (sci fi/fantasy) Solaris (1972) I keep seeing it on greatest sci-fi lists 9) (epic) Ben Hur (1959) Probably the first thing that comes into my head when I think of the term 'epic film' 10) (wildcard) Eraserhead Lynch's most iconic film Watched (32): Taxi Driver; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; The Iron Giant; Platoon; American History X; City Lights; My Neighbour Totoro; Rashomon; Duck Soup; Friday 13th (1980); Birdman; Frankenstein (1931); Time Bandits; Carrie (1976); King Kong (1933); Das Boot; The Blair Witch Project (1999); The Sting; Annie Hall; The Bridge on the River Kwai; The Cabinet of Dr Caligari; Godzilla (1954); Bicycle Thieves; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974); The English Patient; Scanners; Forbidden Planet; Deliverance; The Creature from the Black Lagoon; Life is Beautiful; Minority Report; Rosemary's Baby
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Jul 16, 2018 16:07
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bitterandtwisted posted:There was one moment where Rosemary's having a disturbing sexual dream, wakes up with scratches on her body and touts that as proof of supernatural shenanigans. To which her husband cheerfully replies Oh that was just me raping you in your sleep, honey The concept of marital rape flat-out didn't exist in the US legal system until the mid- to late 70s. Most state criminal codes explicitly excluded spouses from their definition of rape, arguing that marrying someone gives them permanent consent. Part of the reason Rosemary's Baby is so widely acclaimed is that it uses its supernatural premise to examine real systemic issues women were facing in the 60s, even in relatively progressive places such as New York City. Just look at the way Rosemary's husband undermines or subverts her agency at every turn, all the way up to selling her body for his own material gain.
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Jul 16, 2018 19:14
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bitterandtwisted posted:
I'll give you this one... because it's great. Enjoy! Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit To follow up on bitterandtwisted's choice for me - yes I have watched (some of) the shorts, and what I always love is the attention to detail: the creative freedom with animation that Nick Park uses to the greatest of possibilities. The storytelling is both inventive with it's premise and simplistic in it's pacing , making it a joy to watch for all ages. It doesn't ever get too complex or bogged down with twists and turns, feeling very confident. I'll pinpoint the exchange between Wallace and Victor Quartermaine as Wallace is ridding Lady Tottington of her rabbit problem using the BunVac6000 - as Victor's toupee gets sucked up along with the many rabbits. The misdirection and the puns and the clever animation in their back-and-forth sums up exactly why I love these films. I feel that I could re-watch it right now and notice 100 things I didn't notice the first time through.. it's truly amazing. LIST Amy [2015 - 128mins] - (2018.05.19) - don't know much about her or her music but have heard great things about this film. (documentary) Beauty and the Beast [1946 - 96mins] - (2018.06.24) - I love the Disney film and I've had this for far too long not to have watched it. (Criterion) The Best of Youth [2003 - 366mins!] - (2018.05.01) - if I'm ever going to commit to watch this one, it'll be from this list. (unwatched DVD) Cactus Flower [1969 - 103mins] - **OLDEST** (2017.04.28) - my Walter Matthau choice, and with Ingrid Bergman! (Walter Matthau) An Education [2009 - 100mins] - **NEW** (2018.07.16) - love Carey Mulligan & always heard great things but never make it a priority. (21st Century shame) Irma La Douce [1963 - 135mins] - (2018.05.17) - another 2+hr Lemmon/Wilder collaboration .. & Shirley MacLaine returns! (Jack Lemmon) The King of Marvin Gardens [1972 - 103mins] - (2018.05.24) - Jack Nicholson, Ellen Burstyn & Bruce Dern.. should be good! (blind-bought boxsets) The Little Foxes [1941 - 115mins] - (2018.04.21) - from one of Bette's later roles in 'Sweet Charlotte to one of her earlier ones. (Bette Davis) My Darling Clementine [1946 - 97mins] - (2017.09.02) - Westerns still aren't a top priority, even after loving just about every one I watch. (western) Wings [1927 - 144mins] - (2018.02.18) - adding the first Best Picture winner to hopefully get this in before the Oscars ... [too late now] (unwatched bluray) De-shamed Pt2: True Romance (4/5), The Right Stuff (3/5), Syndromes And A Century (4/5), Still Life (3/5), My Cousin Vinny (2.5/5), Doctor Zhivago (3.5/5), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (4.5/5), Peeping Tom (4/5), Shadow of a Doubt (4.5/5), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (4.5/5), Only Angels Have Wings (4/5), Umberto D (4/5), Anatomy of a Murder (4.5/5), Only God Forgives (1.5/5), Missing (3.5/5), Howl's Moving Castle (4.5/5), Rio Bravo (4/5), Cloud Atlas (3.5/5), Children of Paradise (4/5), That Obscure Object of Desire (5/5), The Fountain (3/5), Malcolm X (4/5), Warrior (4/5), American Movie (4/5), Being There (4/5), Leaving Las Vegas (4.5/5), Rope (4/5), Ed Wood (4.5/5), American Hustle (2.5/5), The Man Who Knew Too Much (3.5/5), Mister Roberts (4/5), Charley Varrick (4/5), A Face in the Crowd (4.5/5), Farewell My Concubine (3.5/5), Slacker (3.5/5), Drugstore Cowboy (4.5/5), Love and Death (3.5/5), Fantastic Mr. Fox (4.5/5), A Scanner Darkly (4/5), Marketa Lazarova (5/5), A Clockwork Orange (4.5/5), The Fly (5/5), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (5/5), King Kong (5/5), Gilda (3.5/5), Airplane! (4/5), Nobody Knows (4.5/5), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (4.5/5), Dark Victory (3.5/5), Dead Man (4.5/5), Shane (4/5), Fail-Safe (4.5/5), It Should Happen To You! (4/5), I Killed My Mother (4/5), Bringing Up Baby (5/5), Happiness (1/5), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (2.5/5), Russian Ark (4/5), Don't Look Now (3.5/5), Rome Open City (4/5), Let the Right One In (4.5/5), Woman in the Dunes (5/5), Brief Encounter (4.5/5), Night of the Living Dead (5/5), My Dinner with Andre (4/5), Inland Empire (1/5), A Matter of Life and Death (4.5/5), Broadcast News (4.5/5), The Last Detail (4/5), Run Lola Run (4/5), Chimes at Midnight (2/5), The Conformist (4.5/5), Castle in the Sky (5/5), Watership Down (4/5), Sophie's Choice (4/5), Ordet (2/5), Born on the Fourth of July (3.5/5), The Young Girls of Rochefort (4.5/5), Patton (4/5), Mon Oncle (4.5/5), The Big City (4.5/5), Only Yesterday (5/5), The Silence (4.5/5), Life Itself (4/5), Chicken Run (4/5), Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (4/5), The Last Emperor (3.5/5), In the Heat of the Night (4/5), Animal Crackers (3.5/5), Avanti! (3.5/5), Grizzly Man (4/5), Lola (4.5/5), Safe (4.5/5), Paprika (4.5/5), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (4.5/5), [Total:194]
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Jul 16, 2018 20:52
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friendo55 posted:My Darling Clementine [1946 - 97mins] - (2017.09.02) - Westerns still aren't a top priority, even after loving just about every one I watch. (western) Next one for you. Two Arabian Knights - It isn't the easiest task to turn a WWI setting with trench warfare, people being blown to bits by mortars and people choking to death on a variety of noxious gasses into a COMEDY. But here we are. The main characters are two soldiers at odds at first. In a memorable shot they're surrounded by German soldiers and sent to a prison camp. Later they reconcile and kind of turn into a proto-Laurel and Hardy duo still able to sabotage each other. They use white cloaks to hide in the snow and get through an electrical fence. These same white cloaks help them blend in with Arabs being shipped to Constantinople. On the cargo ship/freighter they rescue what they think to be an Arab woman but isn't actually. Later they have to evade an angry suitor and his father and rescue the girl. So in the end it's kind of what'd happen if you inserted Ray Gibson and Claude Banks from Life (1999) into an Indiana Jones film. Also watched: Pandora's Box - The title refers to the seductive and sultry Lulu (Louise Brooks), the German harlot who leaves ruination in her wake. She ends up marrying a philandering doctor (who does it despite knowing it'll be the end of him). He's accidentally gunned down at his own wedding. He should've known better. Lulu is taken to court as the presumed murderess and is sentenced to five years. She decides to flee and drag her new stepson into a downward spiral of his own. Using her feminine wiles she also keeps borrowing money from a Countess. They end up gambling for their lives while Lulu is nearly sold to an Egyptian man. Things continue to worsen for the dangerous mistress and by the end Lulu's prostituting herself out on Christmas to a serial killer. This might not end well. James Bond versus Godzilla (30/64 completed): new A View to a Kill - Duran Duran, Grace Jones and Christopher Walken. What a cast. Also, Roger Moore's last appearance. The end of an era. 7/18/18 new Terror of Mechagodzilla - Mechanical Godzilla lives. The end of an era. 7/18/18 Academy Award for Best Directing (88/91 completed): 1932 Bad Girl - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ_KbwEVBjU 3/23/18 1929 The Divine Lady - A love story of some sort. 2/27/18 Notebooks on Cinema's 100 Most Beautiful Films in the World (77/100 completed): #50 The Story of a Cheat - I've never seen a Sacha Guitry film. 4/26/18 #74 Sense AKA Senso - I haven't heard much about this one. 6/19/18 #76 Van Gogh - A film about the last days of the eventually famous painter. 7/13/18 #79 The Scarlet Empress - I expect some strange atmospheres and settings if it's anything like The Shanghai Gesture. 6/9/18 #82 The Party - I haven't seen too many Blake Edwards films. 7/13/18 #85 A Star Is Born (1954) - There's a 1937 version and a 1954 version and a 1976 version and a 2018 version. And I haven't seen any of them. 6/14/18
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Jul 18, 2018 06:03
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Can't believe there's still Bond films you've not seen so:zogo posted:new A View to a Kill - Duran Duran, Grace Jones and Christopher Walken. What a cast. Also, Roger Moore's last appearance. The end of an era. 7/18/18 On the Waterfront Terry Malloy is a dockworker who once had dreams of being a boxer. He's an interesting character, downtrodden and resentful at the lost life he could have had, with a gentle side as shown by his taking care of the pigeons. He's naive and passive at first, just going along with whatever he's told until he falls in love with Edi, who seeks justice for her murdered brother. The film does a good job of showing the conflict between the workers' loyalty to the union and disdain for the mob boss and there are consequences for snitches: pigeons get stitches  Karl Malden is excellent as Father Barry, who starts out unassuming, almost timid, becomes a firebrand rabblerouser and eventually a Jiminy Cricket conscience and voice of reason for Terry. The ending, where we see Friendly stripped of all his power was powerful and more satisfying than if Terry had killed him as he'd wanted to before Father Barry intervened. My List: 1) (highest ranked imdb) Avengers: Infinity War Major superhero fatigue. 2) (classic comedy) The Producers (1967) I've loved 50% of Mel Brooks' films that I've seen 3) (animation) The Lord of the Rings (1978) The books and Jackson's films were favourites of my childhood/teenage years and I'd like to see this oddball one. 4) (Academy Award winner) Driving Miss Daisy Just sounds different to the sort of films I normally watch 5) (foreign language) M (1931) Silent era director makes his first talkie. 6) (Monster) Dracula (1958) I've never seen a Hammer Horror 7) (Horror) Martin Romero didn't just do zombies 8) (sci fi/fantasy) Solaris (1972) I keep seeing it on greatest sci-fi lists 9) (epic) Ben Hur (1959) Probably the first thing that comes into my head when I think of the term 'epic film' 10) (wildcard) Eraserhead Lynch's most iconic film Watched (33): Taxi Driver; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; The Iron Giant; Platoon; American History X; City Lights; My Neighbour Totoro; Rashomon; Duck Soup; Friday 13th (1980); Birdman; Frankenstein (1931); Time Bandits; Carrie (1976); King Kong (1933); Das Boot; The Blair Witch Project (1999); The Sting; Annie Hall; The Bridge on the River Kwai; The Cabinet of Dr Caligari; Godzilla (1954); Bicycle Thieves; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974); The English Patient; Scanners; Forbidden Planet; Deliverance; The Creature from the Black Lagoon; Life is Beautiful; Minority Report; Rosemary's Baby; On the Waterfront
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Jul 19, 2018 15:45
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bitterandtwisted posted:8) (sci fi/fantasy) Solaris (1972) I keep seeing it on greatest sci-fi lists It is great. A View to a Kill - The opening titles of this film definitely rank as one of the pinnacles of the series thus far. I still have a ways to go but these might end up being the greatest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWVbVT3igdw This theme is reprised many times throughout the film with flute, saxophone, string, trumpet etc. to convey different emotions. Life is cheap in Bond's world. 007 finds a new kind of CPU on the dearly departed 003 agent. New CPUs that are impervious to EMP attacks. I liked its believable premise that wasn't too exotic. The notion of someone flooding Silicon Valley to corner the market on chips is more plausible than most of the standard Bond fare. Flooding it and making it look like a natural disaster too. If this was made today there'd be a risk of the villain being a hero as Silicon Valley has drawn more ire as of late. In hindsight I believe they should've killed off each Bond when the respective actor was done. The genius villains continuing to fail to kill Bond remains a glaring weakness in many entries. Zorin (Christopher Walken) is wealthy and likes doping horses to enhance their performance by using RFID chips. The ultimately altruistic May Day (Grace Jones) does what few henchwomen do when she reverses course. And a monocle-wearing villain (named Dr. Carl Mortner) in the 1980s is a funny throwback. Later Bond has a run-in with the SFPD and blasts a cop with a water cannon before commandeering a fire engine. This part of the film reminded me of the early 1970s Bond films that featured Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James). The ending that takes place at Golden Gate Bridge with the dirigible airship was memorable. Lackluster Bond stuff: -Silly snowboard chases. -Steeplechase nightmare course. -Assassination by fishing rod. -No Duran Duran cameo! Also watched: Bad Girl - There's a lot of 1920s and 1930s sentiments. Dating and flirting arguments from a bygone era. Two characters meet up and go through the normal rituals. He doesn't want marriage and gets cold feet at first. The film has many misdirections that work okay I guess. It also covers some goings-on at a tenement house filled with troubles. Including the brides overbearing and stern brother and her bossy girlfriend. The husband misreads his brides true feelings and buys a giant furnished apartment as a surprise rather than saving $$$ for the new baby that he doesn't know about yet. To remedy this he moonlights as a boxer. It reminds me of Warrior (2011) in that regard. He specializes in getting beaten up for cash. The title is kind of a misnomer in that she doesn't seem like a bad girl. It should've been called "domestic life" or something like that. James Bond versus Godzilla (31/64 completed): Terror of Mechagodzilla - Mechanical Godzilla lives. The end of an era. 7/18/18 Academy Award for Best Directing (89/91 completed): 1929 The Divine Lady - A love story of some sort. 2/27/18 Notebooks on Cinema's 100 Most Beautiful Films in the World (77/100 completed): new #26 Hiroshima, My Love - Sounds like an interesting setting. 7/27/18 #50 The Story of a Cheat - I've never seen a Sacha Guitry film. 4/26/18 new #62 Trouble in Paradise - Something about thieves. 7/27/18 #74 Sense AKA Senso - I haven't heard much about this one. 6/19/18 #76 Van Gogh - A film about the last days of the eventually famous painter. 7/13/18 #79 The Scarlet Empress - I expect some strange atmospheres and settings if it's anything like The Shanghai Gesture. 6/9/18 #82 The Party - I haven't seen too many Blake Edwards films. 7/13/18 #85 A Star Is Born (1954) - There's a 1937 version and a 1954 version and a 1976 version and a 2018 version. And I haven't seen any of them. 6/14/18 Zogo fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jul 27, 2018 |
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Jul 27, 2018 22:41
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Zogo posted:#50 The Story of a Cheat - I've never seen a Sacha Guitry film. 4/26/18 This sounds fun. Network (1976; Sidney Lumet) Watched this on FilmStruck today. I've had this film on my to-watch list for years. I've been a fan of Sidney Lumet after I saw 12 Angry Men in high school, but I've been slow to explore more of his filmography beyond Dog Day Afternoon. Network's reputation seems to rely on it's almost-prophetic satire. I see Howard Beale and think of Alex Jones and Fox News and CNN. I see the citizens that scream that they are outraged but stay glued to the television and think about people right now on Facebook and YouTube howling into the digital void. I hear the shady dealings of network execs trying to scramble for more profits and nod. Lumet allowed plenty of comedy to seep into this film. His detached subtle style allows the actors to make their characters pop;Robert Duvall's heated energy, Ned Beatty's corporation speech, Peter Finch's soaked refrain that he's not going to take this anymore, William Holden's melancholy, Faye Dunaway's obsessive hunger... The scene where Diana's only dialogue throughout her evening date and lovemaking is her spinning ideas for television programming deals greatly disturbed me. The turn towards the macabre was such a great resolution. Excellent film. My List Godfather Part 2 (1974; Coppola;) - (7.29.18) Greatest movie ever made? The 400 Blows (1959; François Truffaut; Criterion - (2.6.18) Another "Film School movie" I have never seen; classic of French cinema Bicycle Thieves (1948; Vittorio De Sica; Criterion) - (1.21.18) The mandatory film school movie. Sideways (2004; A. Payne) - (11.19.17) Can it really be as good as everyone says it is? I liked Nebraska and About Schmidt Monsier Hulot's Holiday (1953; J. Tati; Criterion) - (11.7.17) A lot of my favorite director's love this little comedy, and I needed something on this list from the 50's Akira (1988; Katsuhiro Ōtomo) - (8.31.17) I wanted to add some classic animated movies I haven't seen, this being the BIG one I've missed out on. Stranger Than Paradise (1984; J. Jarmusch; Criterion) - (8.25.17) I love everything I've seen of Jim Jarmusch, which only amounts to 5 films. This is his first film. I've only seen the first 15 minutes. Philadelphia (1993; J. Demme) - (8.21.17) Trying to fill in my Jonathan Demme gaps. A huge moment in Tom Hanks's career that seems to have been forgotten by modern audiences. (Currently on Prime) In Cold Blood (1967; R. Brooks; Criterion) - (6.29.17) I've read the book, which I enjoyed. I know the movie looks great, I've seen the famous window rain show. I own it on blu-ray. Fitzcarraldo (1982; W. Herzog; Criterion) - (6.23.17) The other big Werner Herzog narrative I haven't seen. COMPLETED: Aguirre: The Wrath of God; Casablanca; After Hours; Schindler's List; Ikiru; F for Fake; Raging Bull; The Seventh Seal; Treasure of the Sierra Madre; Lawrence of Arabia; The French Connection; In The Mood For Love; Stalker; Tootise; M.; The Thin Red Line; Network Letterboxd
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Jul 30, 2018 01:58
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This is a must-watchFranchescanado posted:
Solaris (1972) Psychological drama on a space station, where the crew are experiencing hallucinations. Or are they? It's a first contact film, where the alien life is a sort of sentient ocean. This lifeform is so alien that decades have gone by and there has still been no meaningful communication with it and faith in the project has dwindled to the point that a station built for around 90 people now has just three. The film has a very grand, slow pace, reminiscent of 2001, but without the special effects. The main drama centres around the psychologist and his dead wife, who has re-appeared on the station due to the entity below. It explores themes of love and what it means to be a person in a slow, thoughtful way. Hari, the dead wife, has a great vulnerability to her character and there's a lot of tenderness between her and Kelvin. The set design is very interesting. Most of the station has a lived-in, but practical aesthetic that looks like a space station, but there are some parts, most notably the library, that are strangely out place. The library has wooden furnishings, paintings, busts, a chandelier and real candles. It's a striking contrast with the rest of the set. Would recommend, but you do need to be in the right mood. My List: 1) (highest ranked imdb) Avengers: Infinity War Major superhero fatigue. 2) (classic comedy) The Producers (1967) I've loved 50% of Mel Brooks' films that I've seen 3) (animation) The Lord of the Rings (1978) The books and Jackson's films were favourites of my childhood/teenage years and I'd like to see this oddball one. 4) (Academy Award winner) Driving Miss Daisy Just sounds different to the sort of films I normally watch 5) (foreign language) M (1931) Silent era director makes his first talkie. 6) (Monster) Dracula (1958) I've never seen a Hammer Horror 7) (Horror) Martin Romero didn't just do zombies 8) (sci fi/fantasy) Ghost in the Shell (1995) I don't know much anime 9) (epic) Ben Hur (1959) Probably the first thing that comes into my head when I think of the term 'epic film' 10) (wildcard) Eraserhead Lynch's most iconic film Watched (34): Taxi Driver; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; The Iron Giant; Platoon; American History X; City Lights; My Neighbour Totoro; Rashomon; Duck Soup; Friday 13th (1980); Birdman; Frankenstein (1931); Time Bandits; Carrie (1976); King Kong (1933); Das Boot; The Blair Witch Project (1999); The Sting; Annie Hall; The Bridge on the River Kwai; The Cabinet of Dr Caligari; Godzilla (1954); Bicycle Thieves; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974); The English Patient; Scanners; Forbidden Planet; Deliverance; The Creature from the Black Lagoon; Life is Beautiful; Minority Report; Rosemary's Baby; On the Waterfront; Solaris (1972)
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Jul 30, 2018 11:41
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Franchescanado posted:The scene where Diana's only dialogue throughout her evening date and lovemaking is her spinning ideas for television programming deals greatly disturbed me. Diana nutting talking about distribution numbers or whatever is one of the great pieces of verbal sex comedy.
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Jul 30, 2018 14:52
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bitterandtwisted posted:4) (Academy Award winner) Driving Miss Daisy Just sounds different to the sort of films I normally watch I've chosen a lighter one for you (by comparison) after Solaris - enjoy! My Darling Clementine There's no doubt this is a great film - both narratively and technically. The landscape shots are breathtaking throughout, and plenty of time spent on extras and their thoughts & activities provide a three-dimensional world of Tombstone in 1882. Victor Mature (who I've enjoyed in noirs I Wake Up Screaming & Kiss of Death) is great here as the tortured surgeon John "Doc" Holliday, as is Linda Darnell as love interest Chihuahua, and Cathy Downs as the titular Clementine. But maybe it's the Fonda/Ford pairing, as I felt this way too with Stagecoach, where Fonda comes off as uninteresting and almost a stiff - not quite as bad as say Paul Heinreid in Casablanca, but a similar vibe. I've loved him in other things (12 Angry Men, Once Upon a Time in the West, Mister Roberts) but as the film's grounded center as Wyatt Earp, he just doesn't have much going on, even as he's there to avenge the death of his brother James. I just finished this minutes ago, so maybe it needs to sit with me some more. LIST Amy [2015 - 128mins] - (2018.05.19) - don't know much about her or her music but have heard great things about this film. (documentary) Beauty and the Beast [1946 - 96mins] - (2018.06.24) - I love the Disney film and I've had this for far too long not to have watched it. (Criterion) The Best of Youth [2003 - 366mins!] - (2018.05.01) - if I'm ever going to commit to watch this one, it'll be from this list. (unwatched DVD) Cactus Flower [1969 - 103mins] - **OLDEST** (2017.04.28) - my Walter Matthau choice, and with Ingrid Bergman! (Walter Matthau) An Education [2009 - 100mins] - (2018.07.16) - love Carey Mulligan & always heard great things but never make it a priority. (21st Century shame) Irma La Douce [1963 - 135mins] - (2018.05.17) - another 2+hr Lemmon/Wilder collaboration .. & Shirley MacLaine returns! (Jack Lemmon) The King of Marvin Gardens [1972 - 103mins] - (2018.05.24) - Jack Nicholson, Ellen Burstyn & Bruce Dern.. should be good! (blind-bought boxsets) The Little Foxes [1941 - 115mins] - (2018.04.21) - from one of Bette's later roles in 'Sweet Charlotte to one of her earlier ones. (Bette Davis) McCabe and Mrs. Miller [1971 - 120mins] - **NEW** (2018.08.01) - another western I've heard tons about but won't make a priority otherwise (western) Wings [1927 - 144mins] - (2018.02.18) - adding the first Best Picture winner to hopefully get this in before the Oscars ... [too late now] (Best Picture winner) De-shamed Pt2: True Romance (4/5), The Right Stuff (3/5), Syndromes And A Century (4/5), Still Life (3/5), My Cousin Vinny (2.5/5), Doctor Zhivago (3.5/5), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (4.5/5), Peeping Tom (4/5), Shadow of a Doubt (4.5/5), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (4.5/5), Only Angels Have Wings (4/5), Umberto D (4/5), Anatomy of a Murder (4.5/5), Only God Forgives (1.5/5), Missing (3.5/5), Howl's Moving Castle (4.5/5), Rio Bravo (4/5), Cloud Atlas (3.5/5), Children of Paradise (4/5), That Obscure Object of Desire (5/5), The Fountain (3/5), Malcolm X (4/5), Warrior (4/5), American Movie (4/5), Being There (4/5), Leaving Las Vegas (4.5/5), Rope (4/5), Ed Wood (4.5/5), American Hustle (2.5/5), The Man Who Knew Too Much (3.5/5), Mister Roberts (4/5), Charley Varrick (4/5), A Face in the Crowd (4.5/5), Farewell My Concubine (3.5/5), Slacker (3.5/5), Drugstore Cowboy (4.5/5), Love and Death (3.5/5), Fantastic Mr. Fox (4.5/5), A Scanner Darkly (4/5), Marketa Lazarova (5/5), A Clockwork Orange (4.5/5), The Fly (5/5), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (5/5), King Kong (5/5), Gilda (3.5/5), Airplane! (4/5), Nobody Knows (4.5/5), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (4.5/5), Dark Victory (3.5/5), Dead Man (4.5/5), Shane (4/5), Fail-Safe (4.5/5), It Should Happen To You! (4/5), I Killed My Mother (4/5), Bringing Up Baby (5/5), Happiness (1/5), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (2.5/5), Russian Ark (4/5), Don't Look Now (3.5/5), Rome Open City (4/5), Let the Right One In (4.5/5), Woman in the Dunes (5/5), Brief Encounter (4.5/5), Night of the Living Dead (5/5), My Dinner with Andre (4/5), Inland Empire (1/5), A Matter of Life and Death (4.5/5), Broadcast News (4.5/5), The Last Detail (4/5), Run Lola Run (4/5), Chimes at Midnight (2/5), The Conformist (4.5/5), Castle in the Sky (5/5), Watership Down (4/5), Sophie's Choice (4/5), Ordet (2/5), Born on the Fourth of July (3.5/5), The Young Girls of Rochefort (4.5/5), Patton (4/5), Mon Oncle (4.5/5), The Big City (4.5/5), Only Yesterday (5/5), The Silence (4.5/5), Life Itself (4/5), Chicken Run (4/5), Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (4/5), The Last Emperor (3.5/5), In the Heat of the Night (4/5), Animal Crackers (3.5/5), Avanti! (3.5/5), Grizzly Man (4/5), Lola (4.5/5), Safe (4.5/5), Paprika (4.5/5), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (4.5/5), My Darling Clementine (4/5), [Total:195] friendo55 fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Aug 2, 2018 |
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Aug 2, 2018 17:08
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Ford's greatest strength was his ability to showcase a variety of different characters, develop them, and make them likeable(or detestable, whichever he's going for). Aside from Monument Valley, that's really the other main hallmark of a John Ford film. There's a great interview with Scorsese on The Searchers blu ray, where he explains why he thinks VisaVision was probably the best format ever for filmmakers. Using Ford and The Searchers as an example, he demonstrates how the wide frame combined with the tremendous depth of field allowed Ford to almost exclusively use medium to long shots, very few close ups. Now, obviously My Darling Clementine was made before Ford had access to VistaVision, but showcasing multiple characters in any given scene is a core part of what he did in all of his films. Here's the scene from The Searchers that is discussed in the Scorsese interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn-0LOPnQNw You've got 8(?) characters in this one shot(beginning about 30 seconds into that clip), and every single character is important to the story. Even further, almost every one of them gets some characterization here, and without ever having to move the camera or cut away. You've got Wayne and his subtle interactions with his brother's wife, Ward Bond sipping his coffee and very obviously pretending not to notice what Wayne is up to. Then you've got several minor characters bustling around in the background, but because this is John Ford you know them extremely well by the end of the movie. And of course Martin Polly, who at this stage of the film hasn't quite transitioned into the main protagonist he will become later. Every one of them gets their little moment.
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Aug 2, 2018 17:24
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I've never really thought that much to look deeper into Ford's work (appropriately shameful I know), but that's a great point and a good example with The Searchers. That's a film I found visually stunning but didn't care for too much - merely on a surface level. Both Wayne and the subject matter didn't do much for me when I saw it years ago. I think his ability to showcase in wide shots is something I notice subconsciously... but worth focusing on. I've got westerns on my list for reasons like that.
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Aug 3, 2018 06:20
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friendo55 posted:But maybe it's the Fonda/Ford pairing, as I felt this way too with Stagecoach, where Fonda comes off as uninteresting and almost a stiff - not quite as bad as say Paul Heinreid in Casablanca, but a similar vibe. Fonda brings so many fun little moments to the role though.  Stiff is the exact opposite of how I would describe him. He's such a goofball in the film.
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Aug 3, 2018 13:34
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Samuel Clemens posted:Fonda brings so many fun little moments to the role though. I also just remembered that line (I think it happened twice) about how great it smells and he says "that's me........ barber." I think I was remembering the few quotes throughout with the score behind him, kinda like the Grapes of Wrath "I'll be there" moment that didn't ring quite so true. What hurt too is that I was forced to watch the movie in 3 parts.. and forgot the little moments like that one you posted. And like I said when I wrote it, I had just finished it - I think next time I'll give myself some breathing room. friendo55 fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Aug 3, 2018 |
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Aug 3, 2018 15:05
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friendo55 posted:I also just remembered that line (I think it happened twice) about how great it smells and he says "that's me........ barber." I wouldn't say that your comments about Fonda are totally inaccurate, but there's a balance there that I think he was purposely going for with Earp. He's got plenty of personality in the proper moments, but then he can also go into that kinda total relaxation mode that you expect in the classic gunslinger. For instance, in his first interaction with Doc Holliday when Holliday tries to goad him into picking up a gun. He's in total control, but he's flipped that switch and in those moments it's a different guy than the one who messes around leaning back really far in his chair.
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Aug 3, 2018 15:15
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bitterandtwisted posted:3) (animation) The Lord of the Rings (1978) The books and Jackson's films were favourites of my childhood/teenage years and I'd like to see this oddball one.
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Aug 3, 2018 19:20
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Who had Deliverance on their list? One of my favorite all time movies and was curious what they thought about it. Been thinking about "signing up" for the thread but don't have much time to watch TV these days.
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Aug 3, 2018 21:30
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BiggerBoat posted:Who had Deliverance on their list? One of my favorite all time movies and was curious what they thought about it. Been thinking about "signing up" for the thread but don't have much time to watch TV these days. bitterandtwisted a couple of months ago: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3311444&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=233#post484989872 You can make up a list and go at your own pace. Some people go years between movie posts. Seaside Loafer posted:Im not in on the thread purpose I use it as one of many sources for info but id give that a go, its surprisingly good, remember it from when I was like 10 years old. Shame they didn't finish it The rotoscoping and solarization techniques used definitely give it an uncommon look.
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Aug 4, 2018 01:38
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I literally got halfway through my last movie (Heaven’s Gate, which is pretty good after all!), was interrupted by an errand, and since then I’ve been so preoccupied with moving to a different country, finding a job, and living with my husband that I just haven’t had the time to sit down and finish it.
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Aug 4, 2018 15:29
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That seems.... pretty reasonable! I still need to see that myself.
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Aug 4, 2018 19:51
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friendo55 posted:Cactus Flower [1969 - 103mins] - **OLDEST** (2017.04.28) - my Walter Matthau choice, and with Ingrid Bergman! (Walter Matthau) This sounds funny. The Godfather Part 2 (1976; Francis Ford Coppola) (available on Netflix) I didn't think I'd be able to get to this so soon. I haven't seen the original in years and had contemplated re-watching it before watching this one. It is also difficult to make time for a 3.5 hour movie. The film being focused on Michael and Vito's storylines gives the film more intimacy with their perspectives, compared to the original which balances its perspectives on each of the brothers. The blending of the past and present, and the echoing of themes between them, are what maintain the epic feel of the first entry. It's a dense film, due to limiting the perspectives to that of each story's protagonist, that manages to flow it's non-linear story-telling with balance, answering every question necessary to the plot. Coppola's directing style is detached (much like the last film I watched, Network by Sidney Lumet) and allows the actors to tell the story without stylistic flourish. The camera is framed as to be invisible to the viewer in each scene. The cast is stacked and fantastic. The set designs, the costumes, the cinematography, the locations. It's all perfect. It's an excellent film, certainly deserving of it's reputation. My List Nashville (1975; Robert Altman) - (8.4.18) Need to watch more Altman flicks. The 400 Blows (1959; François Truffaut; Criterion - (2.6.18) Another "Film School movie" I have never seen; classic of French cinema Bicycle Thieves (1948; Vittorio De Sica; Criterion) - (1.21.18) The mandatory film school movie. Sideways (2004; A. Payne) - (11.19.17) Can it really be as good as everyone says it is? I liked Nebraska and About Schmidt Monsier Hulot's Holiday (1953; J. Tati; Criterion) - (11.7.17) A lot of my favorite director's love this little comedy, and I needed something on this list from the 50's Akira (1988; Katsuhiro Ōtomo) - (8.31.17) I wanted to add some classic animated movies I haven't seen, this being the BIG one I've missed out on. Stranger Than Paradise (1984; J. Jarmusch; Criterion) - (8.25.17) I love everything I've seen of Jim Jarmusch, which only amounts to 5 films. This is his first film. I've only seen the first 15 minutes. Philadelphia (1993; J. Demme) - (8.21.17) Trying to fill in my Jonathan Demme gaps. A huge moment in Tom Hanks's career that seems to have been forgotten by modern audiences. (Currently on Prime) In Cold Blood (1967; R. Brooks; Criterion) - (6.29.17) I've read the book, which I enjoyed. I know the movie looks great, I've seen the famous window rain show. I own it on blu-ray. Fitzcarraldo (1982; W. Herzog; Criterion) - (6.23.17) The other big Werner Herzog narrative I haven't seen. COMPLETED: Aguirre: The Wrath of God; Casablanca; After Hours; Schindler's List; Ikiru; F for Fake; Raging Bull; The Seventh Seal; Treasure of the Sierra Madre; Lawrence of Arabia; The French Connection; In The Mood For Love; Stalker; Tootise; M.; The Thin Red Line; Network; The Godfather Part 2 Letterboxd
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Aug 4, 2018 20:05
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Franchescanado posted:Monsier Hulot's Holiday (1953; J. Tati; Criterion) - (11.7.17) A lot of my favorite director's love this little comedy, and I needed something on this list from the 50's A change of pace from the Godfather... enjoy! Cactus Flower I was very excited to see this... I almost watched it on my own multiple times (why didn't I?) - but instead waited the 15 months since putting it on here for someone to choose it (44 movies later). Anyway! Two of my favourite actors from different eras are here with Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman and it felt almost surreal seeing them act together. It also felt a LOT like The Apartment, which makes perfect sense since the same guy, I.A.L. Diamond, wrote both of them. Think of Mr Sheldrake with his wife and secretary Miss Olson before CC Baxer or Fran Kubelik ever showed up, and Sheldrake was a dentist in a small office - it's not perfect but close enough. Thankfully, Matthau wasn't trying to imitate Jack Lemmon - they're the Odd Couple after all - but made Dr. Julian Winston all his own and played to his strengths. And Bergman was a lot of fun as the no-nonsense receptionist Stephanie Dickinson who slowly begins to loosen up thanks to all the surrounding circumstances (it was fun seeing her dancing and drinking many 'Mexican Missiles'). But it was Goldie Hawn in her debut role as the captivating & pretty love interest Toni Simmons who demands everyone's attention - it's no wonder she won the Oscar. Diamond's screenplay isn't doing anything new, but the casting is top-notch and makes all of this work as the romance shifts back and forth - there's that discotheque dance sequence with all the main actors there and was a ton of fun. OH, I was shocked that Rick Lenz, as Toni Simmons' neighbour Igor Sullivan, has no relation whatsoever to Jimmy Stewart - his look, mannerisms and even his voice at times reminded me him... crazy! LIST Amy [2015 - 128mins] - (2018.05.19) - don't know much about her or her music but have heard great things about this film. (documentary) Beauty and the Beast [1946 - 96mins] - (2018.06.24) - I love the Disney film and I've had this for far too long not to have watched it. (Criterion) The Best of Youth [2003 - 366mins!] - (2018.05.01) - if I'm ever going to commit to watch this one, it'll be from this list. (unwatched DVD) An Education [2009 - 100mins] - (2018.07.16) - love Carey Mulligan & always heard great things but never make it a priority. (21st Century shame) Irma La Douce [1963 - 135mins] - (2018.05.17) - another 2+hr Lemmon/Wilder collaboration .. & Shirley MacLaine returns! (Lemmon/Matthau) The King of Marvin Gardens [1972 - 103mins] - (2018.05.24) - Jack Nicholson, Ellen Burstyn & Bruce Dern.. should be good! (blind-bought boxsets) The Little Foxes [1941 - 115mins] - (2018.04.21) - from one of Bette's later roles in 'Sweet Charlotte to one of her earlier ones. (Bette Davis) McCabe and Mrs. Miller [1971 - 120mins] - (2018.08.01) - another western I've heard tons about but won't make a priority otherwise (western) Wings [1927 - 144mins] - **OLDEST** (2018.02.18) - adding the first Best Picture winner to hopefully get this in before the Oscars ... [too late now] (Best Picture winner) Your Name [2016 - 106mins] - **NEW** (2018.08.04) - noticed that I'm 86% done the IMDb Top 250 list... let's get this thing completed. (IMDb Top 250) De-shamed Pt2: True Romance (4/5), The Right Stuff (3/5), Syndromes And A Century (4/5), Still Life (3/5), My Cousin Vinny (2.5/5), Doctor Zhivago (3.5/5), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (4.5/5), Peeping Tom (4/5), Shadow of a Doubt (4.5/5), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (4.5/5), Only Angels Have Wings (4/5), Umberto D (4/5), Anatomy of a Murder (4.5/5), Only God Forgives (1.5/5), Missing (3.5/5), Howl's Moving Castle (4.5/5), Rio Bravo (4/5), Cloud Atlas (3.5/5), Children of Paradise (4/5), That Obscure Object of Desire (5/5), The Fountain (3/5), Malcolm X (4/5), Warrior (4/5), American Movie (4/5), Being There (4/5), Leaving Las Vegas (4.5/5), Rope (4/5), Ed Wood (4.5/5), American Hustle (2.5/5), The Man Who Knew Too Much (3.5/5), Mister Roberts (4/5), Charley Varrick (4/5), A Face in the Crowd (4.5/5), Farewell My Concubine (3.5/5), Slacker (3.5/5), Drugstore Cowboy (4.5/5), Love and Death (3.5/5), Fantastic Mr. Fox (4.5/5), A Scanner Darkly (4/5), Marketa Lazarova (5/5), A Clockwork Orange (4.5/5), The Fly (5/5), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (5/5), King Kong (5/5), Gilda (3.5/5), Airplane! (4/5), Nobody Knows (4.5/5), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (4.5/5), Dark Victory (3.5/5), Dead Man (4.5/5), Shane (4/5), Fail-Safe (4.5/5), It Should Happen To You! (4/5), I Killed My Mother (4/5), Bringing Up Baby (5/5), Happiness (1/5), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (2.5/5), Russian Ark (4/5), Don't Look Now (3.5/5), Rome Open City (4/5), Let the Right One In (4.5/5), Woman in the Dunes (5/5), Brief Encounter (4.5/5), Night of the Living Dead (5/5), My Dinner with Andre (4/5), Inland Empire (1/5), A Matter of Life and Death (4.5/5), Broadcast News (4.5/5), The Last Detail (4/5), Run Lola Run (4/5), Chimes at Midnight (2/5), The Conformist (4.5/5), Castle in the Sky (5/5), Watership Down (4/5), Sophie's Choice (4/5), Ordet (2/5), Born on the Fourth of July (3.5/5), The Young Girls of Rochefort (4.5/5), Patton (4/5), Mon Oncle (4.5/5), The Big City (4.5/5), Only Yesterday (5/5), The Silence (4.5/5), Life Itself (4/5), Chicken Run (4/5), Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (4/5), The Last Emperor (3.5/5), In the Heat of the Night (4/5), Animal Crackers (3.5/5), Avanti! (3.5/5), Grizzly Man (4/5), Lola (4.5/5), Safe (4.5/5), Paprika (4.5/5), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (4.5/5), My Darling Clementine (4/5), Cactus Flower (4/5), [Total:196]
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Aug 6, 2018 15:40
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friendo55 posted:Wings [1927 - 144mins] - **OLDEST** (2018.02.18) - adding the first Best Picture winner to hopefully get this in before the Oscars ... [too late now] (Best Picture winner) Next one for you. The Story of a Cheat - The story is told in a unique way in that nearly all of the film is narrated over by the man who's writing his autobiography. Tales of a reluctant conman who seems destined to cheat in that his humorous adventures always go badly when he tries to go honest. It's kind of like Oliver Twist at times. At the start the boy steals $$$ from the till and is punished by getting no mushrooms for dinner. However, the mushrooms were bad and kill his entire family instead. Later on in life he meets up with a few conwomen and they try to scam the roulette wheel, steal rings, and cheat other card games etc. He also fights in WWI and becomes a croupier in Monaco when he tries to go straight. In the end his honesty is always his downfall. Also watched: The Scarlet Empress - The story of a how one German bride ended up taking over the Russian Empire in the middle 1700s. It opens with an execution montage and how this ever passed the MPAA standards is a mystery. It has a crazily low MPAA certification number (16). I've seen a handful of triple-digit MPAA offerings but not a double-digit before. There's so much going on with these lavish sets, actors, editing techniques. Amazing footage for a film released in 1934. Peter III (the Grand Duke AKA the groom) turns out to be a half-wit with an insane smile. This dysfunctional marriage is clearly doomed to fail from the get-go so the eventual coup is no surprise. I plan to watch more offerings from that Criterion box-set just released called "Dietrich and von Sternberg in Hollywood." James Bond versus Godzilla (31/64 completed): Terror of Mechagodzilla - Mechanical Godzilla lives. The end of an era. 7/18/18 Academy Award for Best Directing (89/91 completed): 1929 The Divine Lady - A love story of some sort. 2/27/18 new 1928 7th Heaven - Not to be confused with the TV show featuring the pedophile dad. 8/10/18 Notebooks on Cinema's 100 Most Beautiful Films in the World (79/100 completed): #26 Hiroshima, My Love - Sounds like an interesting setting. 7/27/18 #62 Trouble in Paradise - Something about thieves. 7/27/18 #74 Sense AKA Senso - I haven't heard much about this one. 6/19/18 #76 Van Gogh - A film about the last days of the eventually famous painter. 7/13/18 #82 The Party - I haven't seen too many Blake Edwards films. 7/13/18 #85 A Star Is Born (1954) - There's a 1937 version and a 1954 version and a 1976 version and a 2018 version. And I haven't seen any of them. 6/14/18 new #86 Mr. Hulot’s Holiday - I've heard a lot about it over the years but have never had a strong urge to watch it. 8/10/18
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Aug 10, 2018 22:07
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BiggerBoat posted:Who had Deliverance on their list? One of my favorite all time movies and was curious what they thought about it. Been thinking about "signing up" for the thread but don't have much time to watch TV these days. Definitely make a list and jump in! I'm currently halfway through Ikiru right now... Not because I'm bored or it's not good--in fact, it's fantastic--but, you know, life.
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Aug 12, 2018 07:45
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There's no film for which "life" is a better excuse to postpone it than Ikiru.
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Aug 12, 2018 13:43
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Heaven's Gate "They're just things! I can buy you lots of things!", Kris Kristofferson says, his face unmoving. Thus passes one of many lines of dialogue in this movie, which is notably much more well-known for the troubled process of its creation and the critical apocalypse it inspired than for the actual content of itself. And it would bring me nothing but pleasure to announce that, in fact, the critics were wrong and the movie is terrific and has plenty of deeply-realized things to say about the follies of the American West and of its peoples, and that it takes both a thrillingly grand look at its political landscape while simulatenously gripping us with more subtle psychological explorations of the characters who live there and their relationship with the issues of the broadening country. Unfortunately, it's not really any of that. It's beautiful, that's for sure. Ebert's review begins with a shocked proclamation of its ugliness, which seems almost obscene to me. It's likely, of course, that something was altered in its restoration, which is something that's been discussed at length elsewhere - Cimino and Zsigmond pre-flashed the film to give it a sepia tone, which is apparent in older clips on YouTube, but the Criterion disc glimmers with the full color spectrum. Nonetheless, as it exists now, it stands on its own as a cinematographic achievement. The play of light is frequently its own feature in the film, shining at angles through windows, cutting up dusty interiors into amber blades, or glowing above the Wyoming mountains at dusk. There are some sequences of tremendous dynamism, and even some shots that are so playfully shot that admiring them takes precidence over listening to the characters. But that's not really a problem, because the characters have nothing to say, and they take a long time to not say it. Kristofferson is a primary offender here - his performance is rigorously stiff, which is presumably the result of Cimino attempting to pull a Barry Lyndon by shooting the same scenes over and over, but where the rigidity of the characters in Barry Lyndon is supported by the script's dark wit, Cimino gives his characters nothing to fill out their pauses with. It's a remarkably goofy film. In one (long) sequence, Kristofferson comes home to his bordello-madame girlfriend, played by Isabelle Huppert, who has baked him an entire pie and gleefully insists he eat the entire thing, and then she takes her clothes off and begs him to come to bed with her, and then they roll around and kiss for a little bit, displaying their clean, pampered bodies before he tells her he's brought a gift and they both run outside, wrapped in blankets, to look at their pretty new carriage. Isabelle Huppert stands in the grass, one boob out, saying things like "I'm so happy I could bust!" while a gaggle of bawdy prostitutes tumble from the house in celebration. In a different movie, this might almost work, but this happens an hour into the film, at which point we've travelled through a laborious twenty-minute Harvard graduation intro and forty minutes of set-up that establish ten minutes of plot. I am not, of course, against films that are sparse, but Cimino's script is so disjointed and blunt that pausing for a comical lovesick interlude full of half-baked dialogue can only be an excruiating test of patience. A little later, it happens again - Kristofferson and Huppert have a drawn-out discussion about moving away from Wyoming after we've been given a nice long time to look at her boobs again as she bathed in the river. "Maybe it ain't things are different, Jim", Cimino makes her say. "Maybe it's you." Much later, Kristofferson says "You can't fire me, I quit". During a climactic battle sequence, he spends most of it telling Isabelle Huppert to "get down!" - I had subtitles on, and those words came up what seemed like twenty times. Why? Why make the main character spend so much time during the climax saying two words over and over, to no avail? There's a vacuum of interest in this movie - it's hard not to be aware that there are more captivating ways to tell the story, and of potentials that float by, utterly ungrasped. I shouldn't spend the majority of a film feeling exasperated. What does work are all the extraneous things. The waltz scene is dazzling, as is the fiddle-roller-skating. Cimino packs his scenes with bustling extras, which is almost disorienting but provides an fantastic sense of the human rush of the Wild West. John Hurt's arc is the most fascinating element of the film, and comes closest to achieving what I can only assume was Cimino's thematic intent. In the first scenes, he's a jocular, ironical fop who embarasses the Harvard stuffed shirts and thrills his classmates with his caustic speech, and the next time we see him, he's a spiralling drunk, hanging on with the crusading villains and laughing at both sides. During the climactic seige, he's trapped in the middle, drunkenly and angrily mumbling about having recently been in Paris, and, in a really, truly breathtaking moment, the film cuts to him obscured by dust, horses rattling by in the background, the air exploding with bullets as he bitterly proclaims, "I love Paris!". It's a fiendish, terrifying shot that hints at the possibilities of the film that go sadly unexplored. It's not an "unqualified disaster", the two words Vincent Canby famously used to kill Cimino's career, but it's not really a secret masterpiece, either. Mostly, it's Vilmos Zsigmond walking uphill in the snow. I can't even particularly praise the film's sympathetic depiction of immigrant struggles, because Cimino does nothing to depict their suffering with precision, and fails to do more than roughly outline the cruelty of the villains. Kristofferson's character isn't much more than a stock protagonist - at one point, when Huppert is being gang-raped, the film treats us to an unexpected cut of him crawling across the roof (from where?), before dropping down like a superhero, slitting a villain's throat, and coming in pistols a-blazin', killing all the rapists. It's that kind of movie, but that movie happens to be suspended in a grander one that seems to be mostly taking place offscreen, as if they'd accidentally filmed the wrong story. I've never watched a bad movie in this thread, which is kind of the point. I rate them depending on how much I enjoy them - if I give a film a low score, it's because it either didn't resonate with me, or because it was too troubled and flawed to be truly successful. Heaven's Gate is not a bad movie. But boy, is it troubled. 4/10 shamezone 1) A Poem Is A Naked Person - more blank 2) Shoah - i will try 3) A Short Film About Killing - poland 4) The Pillow Book - skin movie 5) The Tree of Wooden Clogs - mike leigh's favorite 6) Ugetsu - tspdt 1000!! 7) Colossal - recent rave 8) Veronika Voss - fassbinder continued 9) Alexander Nevsky - ice movie 10) Desert Hearts - sand movie [full list] Floating Weeds 9/10, Daisies 8/10, Stray Dog 8/10, Victim 6/10, Man Bites Dog 9/10, Night and Fog 10/10, Weekend 8/10, Jubilee 10/10, Sans Soleil 10/10, Candidate 8/10, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders 10/10, The Freshman 5/10, Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers 10/10, Branded to Kill 8/10, In Heaven There Is No Beer? 10/10, Blood Simple 10/10, The Marriage of Maria Braun 7/10, A Day In The Country 7/10, A Brief History of Time 10/10, Gates of Heaven 10/10, The Thin Blue Line 10/10, The Fog of War 10/10, My Beautiful Laundrette 10/10, Blind Chance 8/10, My Winnipeg 10/10, The River 7/10, Odd Man Out 8/10, The Passion of Anna 9/10, Brute Force 10/10, The Rite 5/10, The Piano Teacher 10/10, Ashes and Diamonds 7/10, Meantime 9/10, Carnival of Souls 8/10, La Notte 10/10, Frances Ha 10/10, L'avventura, Again 10/10, A Room With a View 9/10, Laura 8/10, Marjorie Prime 10/10, Ex Machina 8/10, Tampopo 10/10, Pickpocket 4/10, Harlan County USA 10/10, The Spirit of the Beehive, Heaven's Gate 4/10 (total: 147) Zogo gets Mr Hulot's Holiday Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Aug 13, 2018 |
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Aug 13, 2018 01:54
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Magic Hate Ball posted:3) A Short Film About Killing - poland This is shameful for me too as I claims to be a big fan of Kieslowski (though I have watched the Dekalog... but it's been over 10 years or so). Enjoy! Wings Clara Bow is absolutely captivating as the, literal, girl next door Mary Preston who longs for the affection of her neighbour Jack Powell (Charles Rogers). The problem is, he's attracted to the "it" girl Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston) who's already dating the wealthy David Armstrong (Richard Arlen). Set in 1917, Jack and David are great friends as they join the US Air Corps together as fighter pilots, while Mary joins as a driver for the Women's Motor Transport Corps. This silent film won the 1927 'Outstanding Picture' Oscar (though I'd say it tied with Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans which won 'Best Unique & Artistic Picture') and in both cases, it's easy to see why. Mary and Jack, specifically, are great as both showcase wonderful character & emotion, and the action in the sky holds up extremely well. It's all the more impressive to wonder how they did a lot of it being 90+ years old. There's one sequence where a pilot gets shot down and the camera stays on him as blood flows out of his mouth - something I wasn't expecting to see. There's also 2 different scores on the bluray, and I opted for the new DTS 5.0 score which sounded fantastic. LIST Amy [2015 - 128mins] - (2018.05.19) - don't know much about her or her music but have heard great things about this film. (documentary) Beauty and the Beast [1946 - 96mins] - (2018.06.24) - I love the Disney film and I've had this for far too long not to have watched it. (Criterion) The Best of Youth [2003 - 366mins!] - (2018.05.01) - if I'm ever going to commit to watch this one, it'll be from this list. (unwatched DVD) An Education [2009 - 100mins] - (2018.07.16) - love Carey Mulligan & always heard great things but never make it a priority. (21st Century shame) Irma La Douce [1963 - 135mins] - (2018.05.17) - another 2+hr Lemmon/Wilder collaboration .. & Shirley MacLaine returns! (Lemmon/Matthau) The King of Marvin Gardens [1972 - 103mins] - (2018.05.24) - Jack Nicholson, Ellen Burstyn & Bruce Dern.. should be good! (blind-bought boxsets) The Little Foxes [1941 - 115mins] - **OLDEST** (2018.04.21) - from one of Bette's later roles in 'Sweet Charlotte to one of her earlier ones. (Bette Davis) McCabe and Mrs. Miller [1971 - 120mins] - (2018.08.01) - another western I've heard tons about but won't make a priority otherwise (western) Ordinary People [1980 - 124mins] - **NEW** (2018.08.12) - I never hear anyone talk about this one.. or I'm really good at ignoring it because I've yet to see it (Best Picture winner) Your Name [2016 - 106mins] - (2018.08.04) - noticed that I'm 86% done the IMDb Top 250 list... let's get this thing completed. (IMDb Top 250) De-shamed Pt2: True Romance (4/5), The Right Stuff (3/5), Syndromes And A Century (4/5), Still Life (3/5), My Cousin Vinny (2.5/5), Doctor Zhivago (3.5/5), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (4.5/5), Peeping Tom (4/5), Shadow of a Doubt (4.5/5), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (4.5/5), Only Angels Have Wings (4/5), Umberto D (4/5), Anatomy of a Murder (4.5/5), Only God Forgives (1.5/5), Missing (3.5/5), Howl's Moving Castle (4.5/5), Rio Bravo (4/5), Cloud Atlas (3.5/5), Children of Paradise (4/5), That Obscure Object of Desire (5/5), The Fountain (3/5), Malcolm X (4/5), Warrior (4/5), American Movie (4/5), Being There (4/5), Leaving Las Vegas (4.5/5), Rope (4/5), Ed Wood (4.5/5), American Hustle (2.5/5), The Man Who Knew Too Much (3.5/5), Mister Roberts (4/5), Charley Varrick (4/5), A Face in the Crowd (4.5/5), Farewell My Concubine (3.5/5), Slacker (3.5/5), Drugstore Cowboy (4.5/5), Love and Death (3.5/5), Fantastic Mr. Fox (4.5/5), A Scanner Darkly (4/5), Marketa Lazarova (5/5), A Clockwork Orange (4.5/5), The Fly (5/5), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (5/5), King Kong (5/5), Gilda (3.5/5), Airplane! (4/5), Nobody Knows (4.5/5), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (4.5/5), Dark Victory (3.5/5), Dead Man (4.5/5), Shane (4/5), Fail-Safe (4.5/5), It Should Happen To You! (4/5), I Killed My Mother (4/5), Bringing Up Baby (5/5), Happiness (1/5), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (2.5/5), Russian Ark (4/5), Don't Look Now (3.5/5), Rome Open City (4/5), Let the Right One In (4.5/5), Woman in the Dunes (5/5), Brief Encounter (4.5/5), Night of the Living Dead (5/5), My Dinner with Andre (4/5), Inland Empire (1/5), A Matter of Life and Death (4.5/5), Broadcast News (4.5/5), The Last Detail (4/5), Run Lola Run (4/5), Chimes at Midnight (2/5), The Conformist (4.5/5), Castle in the Sky (5/5), Watership Down (4/5), Sophie's Choice (4/5), Ordet (2/5), Born on the Fourth of July (3.5/5), The Young Girls of Rochefort (4.5/5), Patton (4/5), Mon Oncle (4.5/5), The Big City (4.5/5), Only Yesterday (5/5), The Silence (4.5/5), Life Itself (4/5), Chicken Run (4/5), Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (4/5), The Last Emperor (3.5/5), In the Heat of the Night (4/5), Animal Crackers (3.5/5), Avanti! (3.5/5), Grizzly Man (4/5), Lola (4.5/5), Safe (4.5/5), Paprika (4.5/5), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (4.5/5), My Darling Clementine (4/5), Cactus Flower (4/5), Wings (4/5) [Total:197]
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Aug 13, 2018 08:14
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BiggerBoat posted:Who had Deliverance on their list? One of my favorite all time movies and was curious what they thought about it. Been thinking about "signing up" for the thread but don't have much time to watch TV these days. That was me. I liked Deliverance a great deal, it was a lot different to what I expected. I'll definitely keep an eye out for other Burt Reynolds films as I only really knew him as a guy who showed up as himself in the likes of Archer and Saint's row. As far as signing up goes,  Go your own pace, you're not making any commitment. I've found myself watching more films in general since I started posting itt, including a bunch related to ones on my list like Bride of Frankenstein and Brazil, so thanks fellow posters for giving me that extra motivation. Frendo gets: frendo55 posted:Beauty and the Beast [1946 - 96mins] - (2018.06.24) - I love the Disney film and I've had this for far too long not to have watched it. (Criterion) Driving Miss Daisy Jessica Tandy stars as an old battleaxe whose son, Boolie, hires her a chauffeur after she can no longer drive. She ain't happy about it. The build up of the relationship between Daisy and Morgan Freeman's character of Hoke is paced just right. We are frustrated for Hoke having to deal with this terrible old woman, but she slowly comes round to him. She doesn't have any epiphany, she just gradually softens her attitudes. Tandy's performance has a lot of nuance. She's outwardly haughty and imperious, but allows cracks in this facade to appear in ways that feel natural and understated. The racism of the era crops up at several points, and the scene where Daisy defends Hoke from the police is one of her most humanising and vulnerable. Hoke is a supremely patient man but not a doormat, and does on occasion call Daisy out on her poo poo, most notably over the MLK speech, but even then it's done with restraint and not framed as a big movie moment. Although she doesn't employ him directly, it is of course a very unequal power relationship but as she warms to him this becomes less pronounced and by the end, when she politely tells Dan Ackroyd to gently caress off "Hoke's here to see me, not you", it's clear they are now just friends. A little thing I liked was the set design of Boolie's kitchen in the 50s. It, and his wife, look like a fashion magazine from that era while she's yelling at a maid. It's everything we need to know about her character and relationship to Boolie in a short visual. The changing cars were another effective visual technique, used to show time skipping forward from one decade to the next without words. My List: 1) (highest ranked imdb) Avengers: Infinity War Major superhero fatigue. 2) (classic comedy) The Producers (1967) I've loved 50% of Mel Brooks' films that I've seen 3) (animation) The Lord of the Rings (1978) The books and Jackson's films were favourites of my childhood/teenage years and I'd like to see this oddball one. 4) (Academy Award winner) Slumdog Millionaire I've enjoyed Danny Boyle's other films 5) (foreign language) M (1931) Silent era director makes his first talkie. 6) (Monster) Dracula (1958) I've never seen a Hammer Horror 7) (Horror) Martin Romero didn't just do zombies 8) (sci fi/fantasy) Ghost in the Shell (1995) I don't know much anime 9) (epic) Ben Hur (1959) Probably the first thing that comes into my head when I think of the term 'epic film' 10) (wildcard) Eraserhead Lynch's most iconic film Watched (35): Taxi Driver; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; The Iron Giant; Platoon; American History X; City Lights; My Neighbour Totoro; Rashomon; Duck Soup; Friday 13th (1980); Birdman; Frankenstein (1931); Time Bandits; Carrie (1976); King Kong (1933); Das Boot; The Blair Witch Project (1999); The Sting; Annie Hall; The Bridge on the River Kwai; The Cabinet of Dr Caligari; Godzilla (1954); Bicycle Thieves; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974); The English Patient; Scanners; Forbidden Planet; Deliverance; The Creature from the Black Lagoon; Life is Beautiful; Minority Report; Rosemary's Baby; On the Waterfront; Solaris (1972); Driving Miss Daisy
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Aug 13, 2018 12:58
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A Short Film About Killing Which is, in fact, a short film - in the time it takes Heaven's Gate to establish four or five story elements, Kieslowski has crafted and deployed an argument against the death penalty that is brutal, provocative, and concise. Much like in Veronique and Blue, Kieslowski does a great job of making the narrative feel both like an ephemeral apparation and a sturdily crafted concept piece. The cinematography is particularly notable, shot with heavy green filters that, at times, obscure parts of the frame almost entirely, making Warsaw look not just gloomy but sick, and creating an effect of myopia, with characters being isolated in dim circles (Veronique uses similar colors, but the effect there is mystical, instead of oppressive). It kind of reminds me of the original Broadway production of Sweeney Todd, which was done almost entirely in queasy browns and mustards, underlining the sense of there being no true possibly escape for any of the characters - whatever happiness is found in this world, the air is still sick. The killings themselves are upsetting, as they should be, but they only seem like a natural theoretical end point to the film's two halves, which is nasty in its own right. There's a confession scene in the last act that didn't entirely land for me, but the scene that follows is superbly on-point, and there's a neat visual metaphor at the very end that's highly touching. It's gloomy and intense. 9/10 shamezone 1) A Poem Is A Naked Person - more blank 2) Shoah - i will try 3) Rififi - "ice" movie 4) The Pillow Book - skin movie 5) The Tree of Wooden Clogs - mike leigh's favorite 6) Ugetsu - tspdt 1000!! 7) Colossal - recent rave 8) Veronika Voss - fassbinder continued 9) Alexander Nevsky - ice movie 10) Desert Hearts - sand movie [full list] Floating Weeds 9/10, Daisies 8/10, Stray Dog 8/10, Victim 6/10, Man Bites Dog 9/10, Night and Fog 10/10, Weekend 8/10, Jubilee 10/10, Sans Soleil 10/10, Candidate 8/10, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders 10/10, The Freshman 5/10, Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers 10/10, Branded to Kill 8/10, In Heaven There Is No Beer? 10/10, Blood Simple 10/10, The Marriage of Maria Braun 7/10, A Day In The Country 7/10, A Brief History of Time 10/10, Gates of Heaven 10/10, The Thin Blue Line 10/10, The Fog of War 10/10, My Beautiful Laundrette 10/10, Blind Chance 8/10, My Winnipeg 10/10, The River 7/10, Odd Man Out 8/10, The Passion of Anna 9/10, Brute Force 10/10, The Rite 5/10, The Piano Teacher 10/10, Ashes and Diamonds 7/10, Meantime 9/10, Carnival of Souls 8/10, La Notte 10/10, Frances Ha 10/10, L'avventura, Again 10/10, A Room With a View 9/10, Laura 8/10, Marjorie Prime 10/10, Ex Machina 8/10, Tampopo 10/10, Pickpocket 4/10, Harlan County USA 10/10, The Spirit of the Beehive 10/10, Heaven's Gate 4/10, A Short Film About Killing 9/10 (total: 148) bitterandtwisted gets eraserhead
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Aug 14, 2018 03:16
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Magic Hate Ball posted:4) The Pillow Book - skin movie Fitzcarraldo - I've been very busy so it's about five months since I watched this. Kinski was great but what really impressed me about this one was just the scale of everything that was put on screen. I don't know much about the production other than a bit about its reputation but even so it was still really impressive to see. Aside from that, Fitz is really a goofy little character and surprisingly likeable for being colonizing capitalist scum that destroys everything he touches. A really enjoyable watch. 4/5 List: Early Summer - watched Late Spring earlier this year and really need to catch up on Ozu Goodbye, Dragon Inn - been watching a lot of Taiwanese films lately, I should probably check out Tsai Ming-liang. Also it's probably not too relevant, but I loved Dragon Inn Rio Bravo - know the song, never saw the film The Music Room - probably not the recommended place to start with Satyajit Ray, but I bought it and should really watch it Les Vampires - need to watch more silents and I just saw Irma Vep and loved it Gates of Heaven - documentaries Tremors - horror Tristana - Buñuel is one of my all time favorites, but I still have a few to watch The Piano Teacher - should probably give Haneke at least one more shot 9 to 5 - Dolly Completed(26): A Nightmare on Elm Street [4/5], Vertigo [5/5], Repulsion [4/5], Last Year at Marienbad [5/5], Blade Runner[4/5], Akira [5/5], Rear Window [5/5], A Brighter Summer Day [5/5], Rosemary's Baby [5/5], Close Encounters of the Third Kind [4/5], The Godfather Part 2 [5/5], Citizen Kane [5/5], Godzilla [5/5], Psycho [5/5], The Exorcist [4/5], The Blair Witch Project [4/5], Cléo from 5 to 7 [5/5], Faces [4/5], North by Northwest [4/5], Moonlight [5/5], The Act of Killing [5/5], Adaptation [5/5], Ran [5/5], Yi Yi [5/5], Funny Games [2/5], Fitzcarraldo [4/5] letterboxd
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Aug 14, 2018 05:31
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FancyMike posted:Tremors - horror "I'm a victim of circumstance." Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, or Les Vacances de Monsieur (1953) dir. Jacques Tati, on FilmStruck What a nice breezy summer flick. It feels like a nice vacation.  While it wasn't as funny as I was anticipating, the lackadaisical pacing and sweet charm of this little bougie beach community create such a nice viewing experience. Tati's M. Hulot is a loveable klutz surrounded by a hoity-toity upperclass. The biggest surprise was the subtle satire. There isn't much dialogue, and the majority of it is relegated to background discussions on the post-WW2 bourgeois and an optimistic view of capitalist leanings. M. Hulot is an every-man, affluent enough to afford a nice holiday, but not in the social strata to be accepted by the rich people around him. He doesn't fit into their systems--quiet lives based around systems of rigid schedules--and his mere presence disrupts them and causes great agitation. The music, the idealistic cinematography, the smooth jazzy soundtrack, and the charm will make this a solid film to revisit every spring or summer when I'm in the mood for something light. I'm going to look into the sequels, as I anticipate they can only get funnier from here. Highly Recommended. My List Come and See (1985; Elem Klimov) - (8.14.18) Highest rated movie on my Letterboxd watchlist. Great poster. I guess this will be another heavy war movie. Nashville (1975; Robert Altman) - (8.4.18) Need to watch more Altman flicks. The 400 Blows (1959; François Truffaut; Criterion - (2.6.18) Another "Film School movie" I have never seen; classic of French cinema Bicycle Thieves (1948; Vittorio De Sica; Criterion) - (1.21.18) The mandatory film school movie. Sideways (2004; A. Payne) - (11.19.17) Can it really be as good as everyone says it is? I liked Nebraska and About Schmidt Akira (1988; Katsuhiro Ōtomo) - (8.31.17) I wanted to add some classic animated movies I haven't seen, this being the BIG one I've missed out on. Stranger Than Paradise (1984; J. Jarmusch; Criterion) - (8.25.17) I love everything I've seen of Jim Jarmusch, which only amounts to 5 films. This is his first film. I've only seen the first 15 minutes. Philadelphia (1993; J. Demme) - (8.21.17) Trying to fill in my Jonathan Demme gaps. A huge moment in Tom Hanks's career that seems to have been forgotten by modern audiences. (Currently on Prime) In Cold Blood (1967; R. Brooks; Criterion) - (6.29.17) I've read the book, which I enjoyed. I know the movie looks great, I've seen the famous window rain show. I own it on blu-ray. Fitzcarraldo (1982; W. Herzog; Criterion) - (6.23.17) The other big Werner Herzog narrative I haven't seen. COMPLETED: Aguirre: The Wrath of God; Casablanca; After Hours; Schindler's List; Ikiru; F for Fake; Raging Bull; The Seventh Seal; Treasure of the Sierra Madre; Lawrence of Arabia; The French Connection; In The Mood For Love; Stalker; Tootise; M.; The Thin Red Line; Network; The Godfather Part 2; Monsier Hulot's Holiday Letterboxd
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Aug 14, 2018 18:30
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I've only seen Playtime, from what I've heard of Tati in the Criterion thread, Hulot just keeps getting funnier and funnier and then Playtime is like his magnum opus. Playtime is one of those movies that just simply shouldn't exist, and it's a palpable feeling throughout, much like other mind-blowing accomplishments such as Lawrence of Arabia or Fitzcarraldo. You just marvel at it, how did something like this even get made? It's literally a man's entire life's purpose put to film, at least that's what it feels like.
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Aug 14, 2018 19:47
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FancyMike posted:Fitzcarraldo - I don't know much about the production Here's a remedy for that.
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Aug 14, 2018 21:23
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Hulot’s Holiday underwhelmed me the first time I saw it, but I’ve seen it more times than I’ve seen Playtime and it just gets better and better. It’s a different kind of film but it’s exceptional in its category. The bit with the taffy slays me.
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Aug 14, 2018 21:46
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I probably shouldn't have made Playtime my first Tati film. I enjoyed quite a bit of it, but ultimately found it rather tedious, and I wonder if I'll feel differently if I come back to it after watching some of his earlier films. Edit: 14 months since I last posted in this thread and I still haven't watched the film selected for me. I'm tempted to just start fresh with a new list but I'd probably just do the same thing again. There's no rational reason it should be so difficult to get myself to watch stuff I will almost certainly love, and yet... Rollersnake fucked around with this message at 10:38 on Aug 15, 2018 |
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Aug 15, 2018 10:31
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Rollersnake posted:I probably shouldn't have made Playtime my first Tati film. I enjoyed quite a bit of it, but ultimately found it rather tedious, and I wonder if I'll feel differently if I come back to it after watching some of his earlier films. Just watch Pan's Labyrinth. It's still Del Toro's best movie. I've gotten into the habit of watching the movie on my day off, first thing after breakfast. It's especially helpful for the longer movies I get picked. I have all day to think about it before doing a write-up. If you're not enthusiastic about your list, then I'd change it. But at least watch Pan's Labyrinth.
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Aug 15, 2018 12:28
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My first Tati was seeing Playtime in a packed theater, and I knew absolutely nothing about it. I was baffled but fascinated, it felt like I was taking a crash course in an alien language. The main thing I remember was how scattered the laughter was, not because only a few people found it funny but because not everyone saw everything at the same time. edit: The Pillow Book At some point during The Pillow Book, its protagonist, Nagiko (Vivan Wu), asks rhetorical questions about books, such as if a book needs both a mother and a father. It's one of an innumerable amount of interesting ideas the movie carelessly tosses off as it ambles through its own narrative, which is thematically relevant given the book the film is based on, which is full of lists and minor, sophisticated, and unconnected observations (compare to Greenaway's similar obsession with categories). But it's also kind of bleakly ironic - this is not the first Greenaway film without a Michael Nyman score, but it's the first where his absence is felt (the next, 8 1/2 Women, suffers hugely without Nyman's propelling, ironic music). Greenaway peppers contemporary 90s music throughout, along with Buddhist prayer chants and midcentury Chinese pop songs and, at one point, a Nymanesque saxophone piece (by Yasuaki Shimizu - a version the first track here) , which is where the film feels, suddenly, the most alive. His previous film, The Baby of Macon, is one of my favorites, even though it has no Nyman either. So why does The Pillow Book stumble? There are frequent hints at the misanthropic, juvenile menace that make his best movies so gleeful and shocking. The basic concept of the film, on its own, has that feeling: Nagiko has an obsession with being written on, and eventually transfers that into writing on others, which leads to many discussions on the type of skin that best suits writing. At one point, she says that she needs "some new skin - two meters, front and back", at which point the obese, boorish American at the table next to her, stuffing his face with sushi, says "I could give you three and a half!" and slaps his belly, laughing, his face grotesquely framed by a clownish puff of frizzy hair. It's excellent casting and highlights Greenaway's best qualities as an eerie caricaturist - the film makes a harsh judgement of him, and presents him in a leering, cartoonish way, which is guaranteed fun for the audience. Characters are presented in this way throughout the movie, as being trapped by their own fictions - strange, scary, blown-up versions of themselves, suffering when the narrative they write, or are compelled to follow, produces real-life consequences. Which is its own subject - language as a trap. It's literalized here in the actual act of writing on the skin. Nagiko's father recalls a Japanese legend about God writing on his human clay figures and signing his name on them, and writes on her on each of her birthdays, before making his annual trip to his publisher's to sell his body to him in exchange for literary success. These elements are branded on Nagiko, who develops an obsession with skin-writing, giving herself over to anyone who can write on her. The comforts of childhood are carried into adulthood, where we watch them mutate into uncontrollable spectres, coping mechanisms that we use to create guidelines to separate us from a void of infinite possibility and despair. It's such an interesting concept, particularly when it morphs into a revenge scheme, but Greenaway doesn't bring it together. Part of this might be explained by his reliance on gimmicky visual techniques, which are equally interesting and distracting (the picture-in-picture works more often than the overlaid transparencies), but there's just something about the narrative that doesn't connect. Somehow, it's just not hostile enough. Macon (and, to a lesser extent, 8 1/2 Women) works because you can feel Greenaway's seething discontent and malicious, spiteful sense of humor. Nyman lent his films palpable, churning irony but Greenaway is perfectly capable of that on his own - he has a great taste for the idea of people making themselves sick through their own self-crafted ideologies, and how people can use priggish violence and greed to their own advantage. The Pillow Book has plenty of great ideas, but overall it's kind of a pulled punch. 6/10 shamezone 1) A Poem Is A Naked Person - more blank 2) Shoah - i will try 3) Rififi - "ice" movie 4) Children of Paradise - vichy movie 5) The Tree of Wooden Clogs - mike leigh's favorite 6) Ugetsu - tspdt 1000!! 7) Colossal - recent rave 8) Veronika Voss - fassbinder continued 9) Alexander Nevsky - ice movie 10) Desert Hearts - sand movie [full list] Floating Weeds 9/10, Daisies 8/10, Stray Dog 8/10, Victim 6/10, Man Bites Dog 9/10, Night and Fog 10/10, Weekend 8/10, Jubilee 10/10, Sans Soleil 10/10, Candidate 8/10, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders 10/10, The Freshman 5/10, Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers 10/10, Branded to Kill 8/10, In Heaven There Is No Beer? 10/10, Blood Simple 10/10, The Marriage of Maria Braun 7/10, A Day In The Country 7/10, A Brief History of Time 10/10, Gates of Heaven 10/10, The Thin Blue Line 10/10, The Fog of War 10/10, My Beautiful Laundrette 10/10, Blind Chance 8/10, My Winnipeg 10/10, The River 7/10, Odd Man Out 8/10, The Passion of Anna 9/10, Brute Force 10/10, The Rite 5/10, The Piano Teacher 10/10, Ashes and Diamonds 7/10, Meantime 9/10, Carnival of Souls 8/10, La Notte 10/10, Frances Ha 10/10, L'avventura, Again 10/10, A Room With a View 9/10, Laura 8/10, Marjorie Prime 10/10, Ex Machina 8/10, Tampopo 10/10, Pickpocket 4/10, Harlan County USA 10/10, The Spirit of the Beehive 10/10, Heaven's Gate 4/10, A Short Film About Killing 9/10, The Pillow Book 6/10 (total: 149) Franchescanado gets Nashville Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Aug 15, 2018 |
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Aug 15, 2018 14:07
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Magic Hate Ball posted:10) Desert Hearts - sand movie Next one for you. Mr. Hulot’s Holiday - The film covers Hulot and a series of mishaps and small gags that run throughout his vacation. He's kind of a dunce and he usually walks around with a herky-jerky gait and has lots of pratfalls. He also has a dinky car that sticks out. He reminds me of John Cleese's character in Fawlty Towers. Every day on the hotel beachfront starts with the same music and there isn't much dialogue. He also excels in tennis and table tennis. The film does end on a strong and funny note as Hulot has car troubles, a dog chase and an explosive ending full of fireworks. Also watched: Terror of Mechagodzilla - This is fifteenth mainline film and the end of an era but surprisingly this is a premier Godzilla film. One of the few able to truly harmonize the small world and big world events going on and exhibit some pathos. There's concise editing and storytelling as the film opens with a cool prologue as the last film gets a brief recapitulation. Mechagodzilla has been rebuilt so that the aliens can once again conquer the planet. A disgruntled scientist who wants to destroy the world sides with the aliens and gives them access to Titanosaurus, a monster known for its shrieking ability. The now requisite surprise bonus monster. It also sweeps its tail to and fro and harnesses/unleashes wind power with great effect. Kind of like what Rodan does with its wings. Katsura, the daughter of the mad scientist, has been rebuilt into a cyborg by the aliens after a laboratory accident. She controls Titanosaurus like Dr. Morbius controls the Id Monster in Forbidden Planet (1956), that is to say not that well. It's also reminiscent of Phoenix's futile struggle to control her seemingly limitless rage and anger in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). Ultimately, all three characters have to sacrifice themselves. Godzilla eventually decapitates Mechagodzilla (just like last film) but UH-OH there's a second head underneath that's also been weaponized. Godzilla doesn't care though. What a privilege it's been to watch these all in their original form rather than dubbed 4:3 VHS. It's a shame I couldn't see these films on the big screen with speakers blasting out monster roars and buildings collapsing during an earthquake (for full effect). Now that I've seen this era fully...hierarchically speaking, I must say that the IMDb ratings have failed in ranking this series as Terror of Mechagodzilla, Godzilla vs. Hedorah and Invasion of Astro-Monster are my three favorites of this grouping. James Bond versus Godzilla (32/64 completed): Academy Award for Best Directing (89/91 completed): 1929 The Divine Lady - A love story of some sort. 2/27/18 1928 7th Heaven - Not to be confused with the TV show featuring the pedophile dad. 8/10/18 Notebooks on Cinema's 100 Most Beautiful Films in the World (80/100 completed): #26 Hiroshima, My Love - Sounds like an interesting setting. 7/27/18 #62 Trouble in Paradise - Something about thieves. 7/27/18 #74 Sense AKA Senso - I haven't heard much about this one. 6/19/18 #76 Van Gogh - A film about the last days of the eventually famous painter. 7/13/18 new #77 An Affair to Remember - Still have some Leo McCarey films to see. 8/15/18 #82 The Party - I haven't seen too many Blake Edwards films. 7/13/18 #85 A Star Is Born (1954) - There's a 1937 version and a 1954 version and a 1976 version and a 2018 version. And I haven't seen any of them. 6/14/18 new #93 Lola - I have seen Run Lola Run but not Lola Montès or this one. 8/15/18 Zogo fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Aug 16, 2018 |
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Aug 16, 2018 05:33
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RND gives Zogo:quote:#74 Sense AKA Senso - I haven't heard much about this one. 6/19/18 Eraserhead Buncha weird rear end poo poo goin on here. Where do I even start? There's the bare-bones of a story, more of a setup really, where a man gets his girlfriend pregnant, has a gross mutant baby and then has to look after it when she leaves him. There are multiple dream sequences and it's very ambiguous which of the more fantastical parts are real, if any. There's a woman in a radiator with a papier-mache face and a leper on the moon pulling railway signal levers. The body horror is nauseating, but used sparingly enough to not lose its shock value. The chicken scene set the tone for the rest of the film, and being in black and white possibly made it even grosser. The final scene with the baby was barf inducing. Throughout this we have the character of Henry, the only somewhat grounded and relatable thing in this film. He's kind of an everyman, but very passive in this weird, revolting world. This is probably a film I'll be chewing over for a while in my mind. Also watched: M (1931) A child murderer is abound and the police and thieve's guild are both trying to bring him down. We see the local populace become paranoid as anyone could be the murderer. There's a lot of tension while the thieves are cornering Beckert and the police are on their way. There's a weird mock-trial for Beckert who is held in front of an angry mob, but his "laywer" puts in a spirited defence to the point where the mob is ready to turn on him as well. As a very early talkie, it's interesting to see what it did or didn't do with sound compared to later films, for example there are scenes full of people with no foley effects at all. This is one of the first films to use a leitmotif (Grieg's hall of the mountain king) for the villain and it works to instantly set up when a child is in danger. The very end of the film has someone practically look at the camera and say "won't someone please think of the children?", which it could have done without, the message was strong enough already. My List: 1) (highest ranked imdb) Avengers: Infinity War Major superhero fatigue. 2) (classic comedy) The Producers (1967) I've loved 50% of Mel Brooks' films that I've seen 3) (animation) The Lord of the Rings (1978) The books and Jackson's films were favourites of my childhood/teenage years and I'd like to see this oddball one. 4) (Academy Award winner) Slumdog Millionaire I've enjoyed Danny Boyle's other films 5) (foreign language) Cinema Paradiso This forum's namesake 6) (Monster) Dracula (1958) I've never seen a Hammer Horror 7) (Horror) Martin Romero didn't just do zombies 8) (sci fi/fantasy) Ghost in the Shell (1995) I don't know much anime 9) (epic) Ben Hur (1959) Probably the first thing that comes into my head when I think of the term 'epic film' 10) (wildcard) This is Spinal Tap It goes up to 11 Watched (37): Taxi Driver; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; The Iron Giant; Platoon; American History X; City Lights; My Neighbour Totoro; Rashomon; Duck Soup; Friday 13th (1980); Birdman; Frankenstein (1931); Time Bandits; Carrie (1976); King Kong (1933); Das Boot; The Blair Witch Project (1999); The Sting; Annie Hall; The Bridge on the River Kwai; The Cabinet of Dr Caligari; Godzilla (1954); Bicycle Thieves; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974); The English Patient; Scanners; Forbidden Planet; Deliverance; The Creature from the Black Lagoon; Life is Beautiful; Minority Report; Rosemary's Baby; On the Waterfront; Solaris (1972); Driving Miss Daisy; Eraserhead; M (1931)
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Aug 16, 2018 10:42
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Desert Hearts I wrote a review I was really happy with, and then Chrome ate it and I'm legitimately upset. This movie could be a lot less than it is, if the leads didn't have such amazing chemistry, if Robert Elswit didn't have an incredible knack for capturing the shifting color and light of Nevada's days and nights, and if it wasn't pervaded by an overall sense of absolute and knowing enthusiasm. The script is dressed in the silly language of cowpoke paperbacks, but it's balanced by a kind of kinetic motion - we're constantly being given different pairings of characters, which illuminate aspects of the theme and their personalities, and this loping rhythm (similar to the rhythms of the 50s country songs that populate the soundtrack) keeps the melodrama from spoiling. When the sex arrives, it doesn't feel cheap or exploitative - Deitch and her actors have a very clear understanding of the emotions in the scene. In the curtained light, Shaver and Charbonneau look at each other with their huge, expressive eyes and we feel, undeniably, their wanting, and it perfectly communicates the strange, fragile cocoon of mutual connection that queer people share in hostile atmospheres. Two people in the semi-darkness engaging in trust - we can feel themselves, and particularly Shaver's character, allowing it, and finding the depths of it. It's a beautiful moment. For all of its low-budget herky-jerkiness (many scenes end with an awkward fade or wipe), it's surpring how consistent the mood of the film is. The script is so compact, and the style is so cohesive, that it holds together, like a big piece of amber. I particularly liked the way the central themes of the film are reflected by the rest of the characters. One, a big-haired would-be country singer, who had dreams of being "discovered" while working at the casino, finds that she's moved on to middle age and is still working at the casino, still undiscovered. But, at her engagement party, she goes up onstage and thrills her wide group of friends with a performance that's just as vivacious as her day-to-day personality. There's something valuable about being able to simply be, the film suggests. It's hardly a new observation, even in terms of queer cinema, but the way all the parts of the movie coexist makes it feel, in the moment, fresh. Mostly, it's a film I feel a lot of good will towards. I can see why Jane Lynch watched it over fifty times on video - you just want to be around it. 9/10 shamezone 1) A Poem Is A Naked Person - more blank 2) Shoah - i will try 3) Rififi - "ice" movie 4) Children of Paradise - vichy movie 5) The Tree of Wooden Clogs - mike leigh's favorite 6) Ugetsu - tspdt 1000!! 7) Colossal - recent rave 8) Veronika Voss - fassbinder continued 9) Alexander Nevsky - ice movie 10) Alice in the Cities - road movie [full list] Floating Weeds 9/10, Daisies 8/10, Stray Dog 8/10, Victim 6/10, Man Bites Dog 9/10, Night and Fog 10/10, Weekend 8/10, Jubilee 10/10, Sans Soleil 10/10, Candidate 8/10, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders 10/10, The Freshman 5/10, Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers 10/10, Branded to Kill 8/10, In Heaven There Is No Beer? 10/10, Blood Simple 10/10, The Marriage of Maria Braun 7/10, A Day In The Country 7/10, A Brief History of Time 10/10, Gates of Heaven 10/10, The Thin Blue Line 10/10, The Fog of War 10/10, My Beautiful Laundrette 10/10, Blind Chance 8/10, My Winnipeg 10/10, The River 7/10, Odd Man Out 8/10, The Passion of Anna 9/10, Brute Force 10/10, The Rite 5/10, The Piano Teacher 10/10, Ashes and Diamonds 7/10, Meantime 9/10, Carnival of Souls 8/10, La Notte 10/10, Frances Ha 10/10, L'avventura, Again 10/10, A Room With a View 9/10, Laura 8/10, Marjorie Prime 10/10, Ex Machina 8/10, Tampopo 10/10, Pickpocket 4/10, Harlan County USA 10/10, The Spirit of the Beehive 10/10, Heaven's Gate 4/10, A Short Film About Killing 9/10, The Pillow Book 6/10, Desert Hearts 9/10 (total: 150) bitterandtwisted gets Spinal Tap
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Aug 17, 2018 18:54
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