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The Three Colours trilogy (1993-1994) Watched the 4K restoration of the trilogy at my local arts centre and had a really good time - it's very hot and sunny today, so it was nice to get out of the heat as well. I enjoyed all three, even if I wasn't quite sure at first what the films were going for, but then got more into them as I realised they were deliberately different genres and weren't all going to be the same film. With Blue I was getting Tár vibes seeing a composer struggle to finish a score, and the sudden bursts of music. The comedic scenes in White were fun, and help to neatly blindside me with that tragic ending. Finally, with Red I got the impression that it was straying into magical realism - either the advocate and judge had both experienced very similar incidents with the study book and their relationships, or the retired judge was supposed to be an older version of the younger man? Or am I reading too much into it, and it's just supposed to lead to a meet cute between the two neighbours? I had fun spotting the references to the other films though that bit at the end of Red almost felt a bit too gratuitous, but I guess that was the final thread linking the three stories together. All of the films looked fantastic, great fine details, tidy grain and colours, and although Blue had a rather yellowish tinge I believe this is how it looked originally. Might have to splash out for the 4K set.
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Jun 25, 2023 19:49
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I would kill to see the trilogy in a theatre. You're lucky you had the chance
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Jun 25, 2023 20:25
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Just watched Jaws for the first time. I know, I know. Well worth all of the hype. What a movie. Was tense for the full length of it. Loved it.
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Jun 25, 2023 23:55
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Rules of Engagement is a passable courtroom drama but the reveal that every Arab at the protest was armed - including the kids - and had it coming is such a USA #1 moment that I was surprised to find it was released before 9/11.
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Jun 26, 2023 00:45
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John Wick 4 Yeah, nah. This is a supreme jump the shark moment and I'm glad the series is over and not because it was any kind of satisfying conclusion. John is about as invincible as a looney tunes character. I can suspend disbelief in regards to a bulletproof suit, fine,but at least getting shot in previous films had impact. It actually hurt. There were consequences Now it's something you shrug off like a mosquito bite. John gets hit by cars what feels like a half a dozen times. He jumps off of a second story and hits a van on the corner of the roof so hard that it dents the frame in by a foot. He shrugs it off with all of the blase indifference of a superpowered comic book character. Making your action movie hero tough is one thing, but this was ridiculous to the point of eliciting laughter. I'm reminded of the ridiculous amount of plot armour John McLain got in the latter die hard movies. Not to mention that the whole broader world of assassins that JW2+ introduces has turned out to be completely lacking. 100% sizzle, no steak. You have a world where every second person seems to be an assassin, working for an organization that doesn't seem to do anything except arbitrarily kill and punish its own members. Each new movie in the series introduces a new aspect or tradition of this society that clearly only exists because the plot of that film in particular demands it, not because it's a well-crafted universe. There's just nothing of substance there. And the scenes where there's just a pitched battle going on in the middle of a nightclub with people dancing around and not raising an eyebrow while dozens of heavily armed mooks are shot, stabbed, and brutalized around them, like, directly within the crowd, are just naff. I don't know what they were going for but it didn't land. The entire universe they've crafted is a wet poo poo in a paper bag. Post-credit scene was a complete downer too, there's nothing like being told that actually all of that effort was for nothing to make you not care about a movie's stakes. At the end of the day it would have been a net gain for everyone involved if John had just put a gun in his mouth at the beginning of the first film and pulled the loving trigger. I'll give credit where it's due: the overhead shot action scene was really well shot, and definitely the highlight of the movie. But the rest was so terrible that it's kinda made me want to never see movies 2+ ever again. The first film stands up, but if you're going to introduce this lore filled world replete with assassins around every corner and end on this wet of a fart then consider my interest in anything subsequent killed.
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Jun 26, 2023 01:15
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Some recent watches: Joker - I only ever watched some of the more famous bits from this in isolation, never bothered to sit through it all until now. I think it's nice that they made this look like an actual movie with sets and poo poo, you don't get that out of most superhero movies. Yea they just ripped off some Scorsese movies but that's an improvement over the MCU films which mostly feel like they only watch themselves, like a xerox of a xerox. Still this isn't good enough to be a real character study, there isn't much to the Joker. I'm more interested in the musical idea they have for the sequel. 5/10 The Last Emperor - The first act of this is so mesmerizing, it makes the old Chinese imperial order feel like some sort of ephemeral fantasy world. Puyi's story is just intrinsically interesting, the last Son of Heaven who could only learn to live as a man by forsaking the throne and all that it stood for. The basic interest of the story and the beautiful cinematography carry this long after the initial act, after the film stops trying to engross you in a place and becomes more interested in relaying a bunch of history 101 through really obvious and utilitarian dialogue. That it's in English does not help the impression that they tried to make this broad for general audiences. So while I'd recommend this film I can't help but feel a bit disappointed in it, this isn't the definitive film on the subject matter. 7/10 The Passion of Ann - Will just quote my LB review for this, not really a first reaction but oh well: quote:The Passion of Anna is the third of a loose trilogy of films by Bergman shot on the same sets and with the same actors. Max von Sydow plays yet another reclusive type, a divorced man, while Liv Ullman is the widow. The people inhabiting this film have all been touched by some sort of loss or trauma and have retreated into themselves in self-destructive ways. Holding on to pain can be pleasurable in it's own right, the way it affirms our self identity and makes us pitiable. Each character wears a mask and we pull back the layers until we get 4th wall breaking scenes of the actors themselves being interviewed about their roles. I do not know if these interviews are genuine or scripted, perhaps it's just another mask being adopted. 8/10 Drive My Car - Your Name actually deals with a lot of the same themes as Passion of Anna (as well as many other Bergman films) as it also deals with an artist who has retreated within himself due to grief and regret. The screenplay does not have the same psychologically nuance to it's characters, but then what films do? It's a strong story otherwise, I was emotionally engaged from the first scene and the last third of this made me choke up. It did not feel 3 hours long at all to me. 8/10 Alita: Battle Angel - I've seen reviews praise this one for the visuals and I don't get it, I thought it looked pedestrian and even sometimes ugly. I guess during the actions scenes very late in the movie it picks up a little visual flair, probably because those scenes were put together by the CGI team and not Rodriguez but the movie should have started at the energy level of the Rollerblade scene, not peaked there. The setting and story is like an YA version of better cyberpunk stories. 4/10
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Jun 26, 2023 06:20
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The Phantom Thread: Not at all the movie I was expecting going in, or even after watching the first 30 minutes
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Jun 26, 2023 07:17
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Layer Cake Is it just me or is there something uniquely ethreal about British Crime Drama's? I finished the movie minutes ago and I can already feel my knowledge of the film slipping out of my mind, as it is I can only say that the film was absolutely the most mid film I've ever seen. And I don't meant that in the necessarily derogatory way I would If I called a track mid, I mean it is actually completely middle of the road. The script thinks it's more thrilling, complicated, and dramatic than it is; poo poo just happens without a strong throughline despite the MC theoretically being on a very short clock, it's got a good soundtrack that it leans on far, far too heavily, it's got interesting people in uninteresting roles (shout out Hardy doing loving nothing), the movie is fully watchable, semi enjoyable, and utterly unremarkable.
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Jun 27, 2023 02:17
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The Guy Ritchie genre/era was very much style over substance. Try the Long Good Friday if you haven’t already.
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Jun 27, 2023 07:37
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Just finished Body Double, goddamn that was good. It’s an indication of our culture’s immaturity and shallowness that DePalma has never been fully recognized and celebrated (outside of film nerd circles) as the American Godard that he is.
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Jun 27, 2023 11:41
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nemesis_hub posted:Just finished Body Double, goddamn that was good. It’s an indication of our culture’s immaturity and shallowness that DePalma has never been fully recognized and celebrated (outside of film nerd circles) as the American Godard that he is. i found it really hard to work out what I thought about it afterwards. the scene where he's stalking the woman in the shopping mall feels so creepy (way more than the rest of the movie which is a high bar) also I can't remember anything more than fragments of the plot
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Jun 27, 2023 21:21
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The Comfort of Strangers An erotic thriller that is heavier on tension than it is on thrills. A beautifully shot film that leans entirely on what the participants will or won't or can't vocalize about themselves and their desires. It feels like a less funny Alain Robbe-Grillet picture The random guitar when poo poo pops off in the apartment is either a masterstroke or totally baffling and I'm not sure which. Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Jul 1, 2023 |
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Jul 1, 2023 02:03
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The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) This has been on my watchlist for a while, since seeing the synopsis on Netflix. I never got around to watching it but did get the Blu-ray a few months and I've finally got around to watching it. I had no real idea of the plot, except it was horror-adjacent, and I had thought the title was literal, so did spend the first 30 minutes waiting for the titular deer to turn up. So I wasn't expecting the whole revenge murder pact thing, but despite the heavy sense of expectant dread over the runtime it was surprisingly funny in places. I also hadn't realised Nicole Kidman, Alicia Silverstone and Bill Camp were in it, so that was a pleasant surprise. And I felt like the trademark Yorgos Lanthimos flat delivery of lines was subverted half way through after the ultimatum, I read it as perhaps the characters were finally living . And does that make three films with both Colin Farrell and Barry Keoghan?
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Jul 1, 2023 23:02
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really enjoyed the Nimona adaptation, pacing was a little off and music was eeh fine but I can forgive it those flaws with that quality of animation and the overall story it deserved to be brought to life in an animated medium
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Jul 2, 2023 00:49
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The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou - My first Wes Anderson. Fantastic colors, a great Bill Murray performance, some very strange and at times very amusing moments, but it really does sort of meander and float about a lot. The climactic scenes near the end are excellent and the soundtrack is sublime but I'm mad at it for using Here's To You so weakly!! That song begs to be used for the biggest, wildest scenes, not just playing on a radio! Deeply interesting film I can see sticking with me and it does make me want to seek out more of his filmography, even if I didn't love it. I'll take an interesting film over a supposedly great but dull one any day.
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Jul 2, 2023 01:58
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Mission: Impossible II (2000) Continuing my catch-up of the Mission Impossible series, I just finished watching this and... yeah, what an absolutely insane film. After a very slow start, with a silly mountain road car chase/battle and numerous gratuitous shots of Thandie Newton's cleavage, we finally get some action. The abseil line drop down into the bio weapons facility seemed a bit like a retread of the CIA scene in the first one, but then we get a full on John Woo shootout, complete with dual-wield diving from Tom Cruise. The Splinter Cell type infiltration of a bunker facility, was fun, complete with a stupid number of pigeons/doves (do they not have covers on the air vents?) and some guard knockouts almost played for comedic effect. I'm pretty Cruise invented ghost riding his whip in the 10 minute motorbike chase, which ended with two bikes flying into the air and crashing into each other. And then that final beach fight scene, which was possibly the most over the top thing in the movie yet; that kicking pick up of the gun, followed by Cruise spinning around to fire it, was the cherry on top.
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Jul 2, 2023 02:16
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just watched the outwaters, a found footage horror film is it cosmic horror? is it a drug trip? who knows. was it gruesome and kinda hosed up? yeah!
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Jul 2, 2023 06:42
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The Boogeyman This is based on a Stephen King movie, so there are some themes/connections you can make with prior material. I really enjoyed it for the atmosphere and acting. There is also more than a little misdirection, which you want in a supernatural horror film. The they do a good job of playing with light and shadows, and the sound effects and foley are really well done. Lots of focus on doors creaking, and the crackling of lightbulbs flickering on and off. All of that helps add to the tension to whether or not you catch a glimpse of the titular monster. Sophie Thatcher is a strong lead, convincingly playing a teenager dealing with grief on top of being haunted by the Boogeyman. The girl who plays Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair) is especially good at playing a cute, endearing little sister. Also, the ending is heartwarming, OR IS IT?!? Also gotta give a shoutout to David Dastalmachian. Dude owns in everything I've seen him in, and he continues to do so in this film. It's a short part, but he delivers in it. Legs Benedict posted:just watched the outwaters, a found footage horror film Okay, I've gotta watch this.
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Jul 2, 2023 08:12
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Carpet posted:Mission: Impossible II (2000) MI:2 was one of John Woo's last American films, feels like he just went for it. Watched it recently and yeah you're pretty much spot on.
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Jul 2, 2023 14:12
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The Age of Innocence - ouch, devastating. The set decorations go way beyond the norm for period dramas and it's completely worth it, transforms the film.
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Jul 2, 2023 22:10
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Carpet posted:Mission: Impossible II (2000) I think the best part of the 10 minute motorcycle sequence was when Ving Rhames was in a helicopter, gun aimed straight at the car he was supposed to stop, and then he remembered this was Tom Cruise's action movie so he let the driver one-shot him with a glock.
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Jul 3, 2023 02:09
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Mission Impossible 2 also had Limp Bizkit release a promotional tie-in song. It was the most year 2000 movie it could have possibly been.
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Jul 3, 2023 02:16
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asteroid city put me in a good mood for the entire weekend. been a while since I've been in such a good theatre crowd, every little sight gag and joke got chuckles from almost everyone. really made a nice compliment to the themes of the movie. just ear to ear smiles. so good. Erin M. Fiasco posted:The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou - My first Wes Anderson. Fantastic colors, a great Bill Murray performance, some very strange and at times very amusing moments, but it really does sort of meander and float about a lot. The climactic scenes near the end are excellent and the soundtrack is sublime but I'm mad at it for using Here's To You so weakly!! That song begs to be used for the biggest, wildest scenes, not just playing on a radio! not even kidding, if you want more, I think asteroid city might be one of the best intros to his style. Famethrowa fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Jul 3, 2023 |
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Jul 3, 2023 06:17
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Famethrowa posted:asteroid city put me in a good mood for the entire weekend. been a while since I've been in such a good theatre crowd, every little sight gag and joke got chuckles from almost everyone. really made a nice compliment to the themes of the movie.  with all of this, we had a ton of fun seeing it last week. See it in theaters if possible, it looks gorgeous!
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Jul 3, 2023 07:03
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Fall is thoroughly OK but there are far too many jump scares and other distractions for any real sense of dread to sink in (which the Descent did very well in its first half). Not a classic of the genre.
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Jul 3, 2023 20:19
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Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance this is a step up in direction and cinematography for Park-Chan Wook. Great looking but bleak film. It can drag a little but it’s not afraid to just linger on the murder and grief to really make you feel it. Shots just hold while stuff happens in the background. Some of those shots like the drowning or killing the organ harvesters just stay with you. There’s some weird stuff like the neighbors mastuerbating that I’m not sure why are in the film. Also I like how being an electrical engineer makes you an expert on electrocuting and knocking people out with electricity. Works for me. The ending doesn’t quite make sense in how the hell did those anarchist find him in the middle of no where, but it’s poetic still. This shows the importance of a national healthcare system or you get into wild murder/revenge cycles.
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Jul 4, 2023 02:09
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A Trip to the Moon Beautiful, and whimsical little tale. I read a lot of Short stories, and I almost wish we'd get more and better short film content like this, as opposed to the nonsense I usually find when I deign to check out the oscar short contenders. Seeing a group of scientists freak out when a man proposes they shoot themselves to the moon is hilarious, and then when they get there they immediately take a nap, beat up some moon men, and then gtfo when the heat is too hot. Johnny Mnemonic Seeing this having a poor reception is absolutely insane. This film owns incredibly hard even if the acting isn't actually all there. There's a lot of cyberpunk out there, but few go as far as this to fully sublimate themselves into the aesthetic. The cyberpunk Newark,corpo Yakuza, Cyberdolphins, Ice-T as a rebel technoskeptic, Cgi hacking, people using brain powered sneakernet. This movie has everything. If someone says this movie is bad they are simply wrong.
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Jul 4, 2023 02:26
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Gaius Marius posted:A Trip to the Moon Beautiful, and whimsical little tale. I read a lot of Short stories, and I almost wish we'd get more and better short film content like this, as opposed to the nonsense I usually find when I deign to check out the oscar short contenders. Seeing a group of scientists freak out when a man proposes they shoot themselves to the moon is hilarious, and then when they get there they immediately take a nap, beat up some moon men, and then gtfo when the heat is too hot. Johnny Mnemonic has a scene where a crack-addicted psychic CIA supersoldier (who is a dolphin) hacks Keanu's brain and I guess people just weren't ready for that. Also - the plot hinges on a guy having to get emergency surgery because he downloaded 320GB of data into his head.
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Jul 4, 2023 13:31
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Famethrowa posted:asteroid city put me in a good mood for the entire weekend. been a while since I've been in such a good theatre crowd, every little sight gag and joke got chuckles from almost everyone. really made a nice compliment to the themes of the movie. Getting ready to go see this and super excited!!
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Jul 4, 2023 15:09
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Inside Man - 2(!) Good ideas but should have been 90 minutes
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Jul 4, 2023 17:00
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I thought Asteroid City was amazing
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Jul 4, 2023 18:17
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Taxi Driver it's amazing how this movie can be so influential, and yet there are basically zero movies that are like it. Certainly there are a lot that do the same introspective look into the psyche of an unwell person, but none that keep you so throughly locked into their perspective that it can thread the needle of showing why Travis is the way he is and empathizing with his plight, while also throughly condemning his actions and behaviors I the film so ruthlessly. Travis might have been wrong, but de Niro, Schrader, Scorsese all know that they're more similar to the man than they would hope or should be.
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Jul 5, 2023 22:34
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If you haven't seen 'em you should check out Mishima and First reformed. It's like Paul Schrader's trilogy about guys being guys.
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Jul 5, 2023 22:35
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I've been waiting on Mishima until I read more of his work, Confessions of a Mask most importantly. Already read the Sea of Fertility, Life for Sale, Sun and Steel, and The Sailor who Fell from Grace so it's kind of academic, but I want to make sure I do the film justice. Spring Snow and Sun and Steel are two of the greatest works I've ever read, I'd highly recommend them. The Last Picture Show Imagine American Graffiti but with all the sentimentality and optimism squeezed out, in that way it feels more unreal of a work to me. That isn't to say living in Small Town USA doesn't suck and feel like a black hole of interest and emotion, but inability to allow anything good or happy to happen to every character quickly feels like a theatre exercise in sadism rather than the realist work the film is trying to be. Billy getting hit by the car and Cybil Shepard's turn into manipulative Femme nonFatale being the worst examples. With Jacy it's almost worse, Billy's death is hokey, her scene after she sleeps with Abilene is heartbreaking, watching her break down as her mother instantly realizes what happened to her, and then she clams right up and starts playing all the men off each other for her own amusement in a way that doesn't feel earned for what we know of her, even after her earlier traumatic events.
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Jul 6, 2023 01:03
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Creed III (2023) Michael B. Jordan brings some flair to the boxing matches that I enjoyed, but the various interpersonal drama is shallow despite the best efforts of the cast. We're never shown the sort of dissatisfaction within Adonis that would internally drive him to get back into the ring and Damian isn't actually a plausible threat to his comfortable life, so the bout feels more necessary to the movie than to the character. Nor does it get a handle on these two estranged brothers as being so broken, as with the great Warrior, that they need to get into a fight to find each other again. Adonis is just too perfect and Damian is less a character in his own right than a plot tool constantly being adjusted to precisely the level of villainy needed to keep the movie rolling. While better than the second, doesn't rise close to the heights of the first Creed.
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Jul 6, 2023 01:57
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The Hunt for Red October (1990) After rewatching all the Indiana Jones movies last week, I’ve decided I want to watch the Harrison Ford Clancy movies from the 90s. However, I wasn’t aware they were direct sequels to Red October until today, so I popped it on tonight. Because it’s been airing on cable constantly for basically 20 years, I’d seen bits and pieces of it but never sat down to watch it all at once, uninterrupted. It’s great! I love me some naval warfare flicks and this has to be among the best. Everyone’s good in it, but special shout-outs to Sam Neill, Scott Glenn’s sub Captain, and Courtney B. Vance as his sonar officer. It does have Jeffrey Jones unfortunately, but to be fair he was basically inescapable in the 90s.
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Jul 6, 2023 06:09
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Mishima, the film, is a great film visually, musically, and of course the direction. I’ve never read any of his work but will be interested to know if it enhances it more. The Mishima, as portrayed by he film to me, seems kind of masculinity obsessed and conservative. Is his writing like this?
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Jul 6, 2023 19:06
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The Batman (2022) gave me a new appreciation of Christopher Nolan's talent as a director.
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Jul 6, 2023 21:45
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The Conversation (1974) Goddamn, what a movie. I love 70s thrillers, but I wasn’t super into it until something happened around the time of the convention and ensuing party scenes and then it just completely clicked for me.
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Jul 7, 2023 06:41
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checkplease posted:Mishima, the film, is a great film visually, musically, and of course the direction. I’ve never read any of his work but will be interested to know if it enhances it more. The Mishima, as portrayed by he film to me, seems kind of masculinity obsessed and conservative. Is his writing like this? Yes, also honour and belonging to a place. I liked "The Sound of Waves", a sort of coming of age romance set on a small island.
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Jul 7, 2023 07:55
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