Movies you've just watched

[drauch]

last film i watched was this cool polish surrealist thing called The Hour-Glass Sanatorium.

the cover fuckin' rules too

Rad. I bought the Bluray to that and Saragossa Manuscript a few years ago but still haven't gotten around to it, like usual. Polish posters from around that time are all so amazing.

O-Bi, O-Ba is another rad film with a killer poster. I could post a ton but this one really sticks out. Pretty bleak post-nuke tale with a bunch of people living underground.

[Zen]

Who produced A.I.? Why our good friend, Kathleen Kennedy.

Back when it was being Spielberg-ed after Kubrick's death and in the midst of my disgust that Spielberg was pursuing it, I was under the impression, strongly given by Spielberg himself,
that it was Harlan, who was producing (you know, the show of keeping it all very Kubrick and all that) but it was a front?!

Should have known. Pretty much everything we know about it is; "According to Spielberg".

Kathleen Kennedy. I didn't know. Fuck! . . . . Sonofabitch!

I think A.I., done by Kubrick, would have really been something.
I think he would have taken our very limited notion of "Being" and slapped the shit out of us, with it.

The difference structurally and morally between the two directors, could not be greater.

Spielberg, feeds you bullshit and plays Moral hazard, with his audiences souls.
Kubrick shows you the bullshit and offers salvation through altered perception.

[Zen]

Julianne Moore I kinda like

Oh, shes great.
I found her interesting in Safe (1995) - Todd Haynes, which I watched earlier in the year.

It's just . . . well take a look at this and tell me if I'm imagining it. She plays everything, "sexual". From her first film; (I see that one commenter "gets it"); https://youtu.be/FRogQQGQn1g

And she started her career, as she meant to continue. At any random moment, the clothes come off. It's like she gets it written into her contract.

Reminds me of this one; https://youtu.be/RPnsvvB1B1I

Julianne also like to "take her shirt off", the only difference being that ms Moore wants you to believe that it's art.

[dan76]

I think A.I., done by Kubrick, would have really been something.
I think he would have taken our very limited notion of "Being" and slapped the shit out of us, with it.

The difference structurally and morally between the two directors, could not be greater.

Spielberg, feeds you bullshit and plays Moral hazard, with his audiences souls.
Kubrick shows you the bullshit and offers salvation through altered perception.

Yeah, one of the great lost films. Kubrick spent decades trying to adapt that short story into a film and within two years after his death Spielberg had rewrote it, shot it, released it and moved on. It's hot stinking garbage.

The script is the main offender, but if you read any Kubrick scripts that he had prior to filming there dreadful stuff in there. For Kubrick writing was a continuous process for right up until release. I think what Spielberg did was take his most recent draft, altered some shit over the weekend and filmed the fucker.

I remember when I went to see it, towards the end of the film my mate shouted out "Make it stop!" and loads of people laughed. Fucking turd.

[GaijinPunch]

Rad. I bought the Bluray to that and Saragossa Manuscript a few years ago but still haven't gotten around to it, like usual. Polish posters from around that time are all so amazing.

Apparently Chicago is the largest population of Polish outside of Warsaw. I live about 50 meters from the Roman Polish Catholic Union. And 50 meters in the other direction is an art space that took part in the annual Polish Film Festival. Didn't go see a single one. I wonder if that was an error.

[GaijinPunch]

Julianne Moore I kinda like

Oh, shes great.
I found her interesting in Safe (1995) - Todd Haynes, which I watched earlier in the year.

It's just . . . well take a look at this and tell me if I'm imagining it. She plays everything, "sexual".

Quite possibly... but again, I've not seen a ton of her shit. In fact, going through IMDB, I've seen embarrassingly little of it. The most recent being her stint on 30 Rock and only vaguely remember. Obviously not her usual stuff. And before that Blindness & the amazing Children of Men. Being in Asia or fake Asia for all of 1998 - 2014 is a filter. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. (Usually good, but you have to deal w/ Japanese pop culture... ugh...)

[EmperorIng]

I guess it's sometimes easy to pile on Ridley Scott Zen, but that's more perhaps a case of disappointment of a guy who used to be the best, but has slipped considerably (imo) in his later age - I guess you can't be as good as you were at 40 when you are 79 or 80, to be fair. It's more of a disappointment that his talents are usually wasted in my eyes.

Some people can cope with old age. For example, I know you don't like David Lynch but his Twin Peaks The Return was easily as good as anything else he's done - take that as you will!

The Dark Crystal (1982) - Henson, Oz; is a masterpiece!

Ha, I agree. Even if the main characters are the least interesting thing about the movie, the real star is the fantasy world and how it is realized onscreen.
The Gelfing concept art sadly doesn't quite match their execution. But that's a small foible in the larger scheme of things.

To answer Vex, I agree that The Dark Crystal isn't too scary, though the scene with the life-draining is definitely creepy. I think if you are a 6-year old though, there is enough to be scared of (note: I didn't' watch it until I was in my 20s). Seeing something ugly and threatening is enough to be scared as a kid. Coincidentally my sis got me a blu-ray of the Dark Crystal for christmas, which gives me ample reason to rewatch, again!

This is possibly the best example of the "rule of two", where you repeat a subject or location only twice, occasionally thrice, and that serves to create familiarity without things getting old. It's extremely rigid about it to the point where every scene has something in it that comes back later - Roger freaks out about his wife cheating on him > Eddie broods about the better times he had with his girlfriend and brother. Roger performs to Merry-Go-Round Broke Down > Eddie does the same. It's a reward for actually paying attention instead of napping through the film.

I never heard of this; I'll have to see if I notice it in good movies from here on out.

I kind of assume the audience that'd be more open to that kind of stuff have moved on to niche cable TV shows and the like. That movies as a medium are largely dead thanks to the more even amount of money put into them. ("A limerick wrapped in an eternity" is my negative description of the format.) In fact a smaller budget probably makes them better at this point - every single scene isn't a CGI cartoon'd up greenscreen.

Of course a Disney more open to the darkness is one who'd have been willing to make that Roger Rabbit 2 flick. It's just not gonna happen, so we'll have to make it ourselves. Paper maché is better than CGI anyways.

re: niche tv: I think so, though there is a bit of despair in that you really have to dig into the mud to find something worthwhile (like, is that Sabrina show actually interesting, or is it just clever marketing: "Sabrina, BUT WITH SATANISM!?!?). It is too bad that for a brief period, all too brief, a lot of money was pumped into studio movies to make things strange and off-kilter. Maybe they were a victim of their own successes. Or failures - think Heaven's Gate.

I've been coming around to your "youtube is actually the platform of choice" opinion these days. I mean, what does a hollywood CGI cartoon offer me that Alan Resnick can't with 1/100th of the budget?

[BryanM]

Ye, thank god for the internet. Rejected Street Fighterer Zubaz never would have been able to reach his full potential without it.

I think A.I., done by Kubrick, would have really been something.

Maybe it'd have been better, but no one bats a thousand. Having the kid be the sole protagonist doomed it in my opinion - outside of being a Pac-Man-esque monster that wants to hug his mom, he just has random things happen to him. He's not really an active agent.

On the topic of softer and schmaltzier versions of stories, I just looked at Kubrick's credits page and noticed he worked on that PBS film standard mainstay, Lolita. A film where the protagonist is only around ~20% as evil as his book counterpart. Perhaps the correct call, as one wouldn't want the people in the theater vomiting in their seats I guess.

David Lynch but his Twin Peaks The Return was easily as good as anything else he's done

That's 'cause Lynch ain't no hack fraud. While Scott has always talked about making Alien-origin mythology movies since the beginning of time.

.. heh, I just had a funny idea of how one could have made those movies. Step 1. Have the Engineers be the protagonists, no humans. Step 2. Have them talk to one another in their made up alien language, but go full George Lucas with it and don't have subtitles. It's completely stupid but so is the premise. It deserves to produce a movie that bombs completely.

(Also, Prometheus does kind of undermine Alien in a "Hans didn't shoot first" kind of way. It ret-cons things so those miners aren't the first humans known to have xeno contact.)

(There's also kind of a sadness that abandoning the Xenomorph and using different monsters is obviously necessary to improve the quality of this franchise, but they can't do it because they're too afraid it won't sell. Ergo, the franchise is doomed to zany bad fanfiction from here on out.

I actually really liked seeing the giant blue goon and squid monster in Prometheus, even if they weren't used well. If the Blue Goon wasn't just a stupid monster, he could have been used to turn the movie into a blend between Cube and Predator. Maybe he's a sadistic asshole, so you could throw a little Saw in there, too.)
___

And in the beginning, Yahweh said "let there be light". But, before he could invoke the 9th level Wish spell to make it happen, Ridley Scott grabbed his arm and said "Woah, slow down there hombre. I think we should first make a film explaining where the aliens came from. Otherwise, they won't understand."

[JBC]

Hereditary - Suprisingly great for a modern horror. Better than the trailers made it look. A couple of cheesy tropes work their way in but they seem intentional, like a celebration of horror. Well executed suspense & dread makes for a good classic campfire tale. This movie sorta drops bombs on you every few minutes in an unpunctuated, unabrasive way. You'll go, "Waitaminute, what?" while the movie has kept steadily moving forward.

The Neon Demon - Visually & aurally stunning, but thematically not my thing. It's like Mulholland Drive but with more logic & linearity, less subtlety. Not a very classy picture, alot of this feels done more for shock value than conveying it's message. This same thing was done so much worse in Starry Eyes if I remember right. Another movie where there's no one to root for since every character is a terrible person. Dolled up trash, which was probably the point. That's fine, just not a very pleasant experience.

[professor ganson]

Yeah, Hereditary was really gripping. Visually interesting-- I loved the artwork of the tormented mother character and the way they filmed her work. An unpredictable story line which came together nicely in the end. Some memorable acting performances. One of the better horror movies in recent years.

[GaijinPunch]

Some people can cope with old age. For example, I know you don't like David Lynch but his Twin Peaks The Return was easily as good as anything else he's done - take that as you will!

I can't think of a better TV show. Debating doing round 3 again this winter.

[iconoclast]

Apparently I watched more movies this year than ever before (169). I don't plan on watching anything else, so here's the best stuff I saw:

Spoiler

★★★★★
The Tokyo Night Sky Is Always the Densest Shade of Blue (2017) - Most people won't like this as much as I did, but so far it's my 2nd favorite film of this decade. (The Handmaiden is the only other one I rated 5 stars)

★★★★½
One Cut of the Dead (2018) - Top tier zombie movie. Best watched completely ignorant going in.
Swallowtail Butterfly (1996) - Second favorite Shunji Iwai film so far, after Rip Van Winkle.
Happy Go Lucky (1997) - Underappreciated film from Tetsuya Nakashima (Memories of Matsuko, Confessions etc) before he blew up.
Close-Knit (2017) - Not the same type of film that Naoko Ogigami usually makes (Glasses, Seagull Diner, Rent-a-cat) but just as good. Safe to say she's one of my favorite directors now.
Mixed Doubles (2017) - Movies about ping pong are always great. How can other sports even compete
The Furthest End Awaits (2014) - Feeling like I overrated this a bit but I liked it a lot either way.

★★★★
Oh Lucy! (2017)
Dear Etranger (2017)
The Florida Project (2017) - Best hollywood movie I've seen in a while.
Hanging Garden (2005)
Kaza-hana (2000)
Cutie Honey (2004) - I want Anno to make more goofy live action movies like this. It's perfectly executed.
Fuku-chan of FukuFuku Flats (2014)
Tokyo Sonata (2008)
Bright Future (2002) - Favorite Kiyoshi Kurosawa movie.
The Foreign Duck, the Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker (2007)
Where I Belong (2017)
Over the Fence (2016)
What a Wonderful Family! 2 (2017) - I liked this just a bit more than the first one, but they're both great. 10/10 cast.
Wonderful World End (2015)
I Can Speak (2017)
A Boy and His Samurai (2010)
Sad Vacation (2007)
Moving (1993)
Burning (2018) - Not sure why so many people were giving this 5 star reviews when it was new, but it seems like the ratings normalized now. Great movie anyway.

HM: Picnic (1996), Water Flower (2005), Route 225 (2006), Island of Light (2006), Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018), Queen of Walking (2016)


Disappointments:
The Third Murder - Mediocre and unremarkable. I expect more from Koreeda
Night is Short, Walk on Girl - Good, but doesn't come close to Mind Game
Survival Family - One of Shinobu Yaguchi's weakest films but I still liked it.
Galaxy Turnpike - This got terrible reviews. I actually thought it was alright, but Koki Mitani is my favorite comedy director. This is way below his level. Kiyosu Conference was a bit meh too, maybe he's slipping.
Laplace's Witch - One of the worst Miike films I've watched. Boring and bad.
Crazy Lips - Looked really interesting, and it starts off well. I thought I found a good cult movie, but by the end it's just trash. Edgy for the sake of being edgy.

I really want to see Shoplifters but the closest theater is 1h20m away

[GaijinPunch]

I really want to see Shoplifters but the closest theater is 1h20m away

My local one got this and I debated going to see it but I ironically got a paid translating gig, then had to cruise town for Xmas. Apparently it's playing through Thursday, so perhaps I will treat myself.

Cheers for the detailed list, btw.

EDIT: After reading it...

The Third Murder

I had looked this up before and saw it wasn't well regarded. Bummer. I've only see three of his. I found Our Little Sister not even close to the same league (or even game) as Nobody Knows and After the Storm. Will continue through his back catalogue though.

[boagman]

"Romantics Anonymous"

A French romantic comedy (with English subtitles) about two awkward, single introverts who fall for each other and the ensuing madness of the circumstances and their eccentricities which bring it about.

Impressively funny, and extremely well cast. Terrific movie for a date night, with few things objectionable. We enjoyed it a lot, and the actors made it a great, funny journey. Yes, it's a rom-com, and I suppose you might need to be in the right mood for it, but if you are, this will made you laugh, especially if you're with a date who's in the mood to laugh with you.

Recommended.

[emphatic]

Rebecca (1940), 4/5

The acting is top notch in this Hitchcock classic. Especially Joan Fontaine. Her nervous behavior is timeless in quality.

[garrz32]

Rebecca (1940), 4/5

The acting is top notch in this Hitchcock classic. Especially Joan Fontaine. Her nervous behavior is timeless in quality.

+1, a fantastic film.

[emphatic]

Notorious (1946), 5/5

Very funny in the beginning with great acting from Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman and uses it to build tension towards the climax in the last seconds of the film. Masterful.

[BrainΦΠΦTemple]

last film i watched was this cool polish surrealist thing called The Hour-Glass Sanatorium.

the cover fuckin' rules too

Rad. I bought the Bluray to that and Saragossa Manuscript a few years ago but still haven't gotten around to it, like usual. Polish posters from around that time are all so amazing.

O-Bi, O-Ba is another rad film with a killer poster. I could post a ton but this one really sticks out. Pretty bleak post-nuke tale with a bunch of people living underground.

dang, that poster's fuckin' sick

imma add that to my movie backlog for when i get around to chuggin' films 'n stuff again

[Ixmucane2]

Suspiria (2018)

A remake of Dario Argento's classic, set in West Berlin in 1977. The unusually gifted Susie (Dakota Johnson) comes from the USA to join a dance school in which the staff, led by Mme Blanc (Tilda Swinton), are suspected by some students to be "witches". Truth is much worse...

Excellent scenery (except for "Ohio" farmland, in Susie's childhood flashbacks, looking very much like northern Italy and seriously off in other ways), costumes, photography, editing, but the story vacillates between incoherent and mismanaged tones and themes; it's probably the traditional combination of a weak and ill-considered script, "exploratory" shooting (there are apparent remains of major discarded scenes) and tormented editing.


There seems to be a lot of ambivalence about making a horror movie and dealing with supernatural elements, leading to an inappropriate emphasis for more "serious" and "realistic" stuff that's actually out of place.
The thriller aspect is downplayed (few characters are scared or in peril, and for a short time); it could be an opportunity to offer insight into the group dynamics of the "witches" and their horrifying evil plans, or into the psychology of Susie and other interesting characters, or into the fairly epic evil things in the background, but instead we get

• A German psychiatrist and the sad story of how his lost wife was caught by the SS and deported to Theresienstadt
• Singing at the restaurant
• Lots of modern dancing
• Depressing buildings in depressing streets
• Abuse of badly dressed policemen
• Mutilations
• Slaughter
• Terrorism, mainly the hijacked Lufthansa plane and the RAF, infringing on the main plot and obsessively occupying banners, graffiti, and TV and radio news

Appropriately irritating music by Thom Yorke. Dakota Johnson is rather credible as an ambitious dancer and good (but limited by the script and direction) as

Spoiler

an elder god.

[Vexorg]

Iron Man 2: **1/2

Saw this once back when it was in the theater, and didn't care for it much back then. Rewatched it a couple of nights ago and actually liked it better on the rewatch than I did the first time, but still consider it one of the weaker of the MCU films. Justin Hammer is probably the weakest villain in a Marvel film, and Ivan Vanko / Whiplash isn't much better, which leaves the whole film as basically Tony Stark fighting his own ego (and losing).

Still more entertaining than any DECU film I've seen though. Not that it takes much to do that.

[emphatic]

The Lady Vanishes (1938), 4/5

Quite funny, must've had people on the edges of their seats when it premiered.

[GaijinPunch]

Are you locked in a room with a bunch of old VHS tapes? Blink twice if you're being held against your will...

[emphatic]

Are you locked in a room with a bunch of old VHS tapes? Blink twice if you're being held against your will...

Just pleasing my wife.

[GaijinPunch]

Just pleasing my wife.

So risque!

[boagman]

Iron Man 2: **1/2

Saw this once back when it was in the theater, and didn't care for it much back then. Rewatched it a couple of nights ago and actually liked it better on the rewatch than I did the first time, but still consider it one of the weaker of the MCU films. Justin Hammer is probably the weakest villain in a Marvel film, and Ivan Vanko / Whiplash isn't much better, which leaves the whole film as basically Tony Stark fighting his own ego (and losing).

Still more entertaining than any DECU film I've seen though. Not that it takes much to do that.

This is a pretty fair rendering of the movie, though I'm not as kind to it, ratings-wise, as you are. Plus, I feel that Vanko/Whiplash was just *completely* wasted as a villain, when he could have been absolutely terrific. Sam Rockwell's Hammer was beyond awful, and it's as if what's-his-name-who-plays-Happy-and-also-directs couldn't be bothered to do a decent job with the whole thing like the original was. To be fair, the original was *terrific*, so that'd be a hard line to reach again, but instead, to just rehash the standard "throw everything/too much at the screen and hope the audience doesn't realize that the script is horrendous" process was beyond the pale to me.

I'd prefer to think of the original, then 3, and completely forget 2, but unfortunately, 2 is where they introduce Cheadle as Rhodes instead of Howard, so you kind of *have to* remember 2. Too bad, because 2 was really, really disappointing to me, and still is.

[lilmanjs]

Spirited Away
I blind bought the GKids release and enjoyed this after the parents got turned into pigs. Before that I nearly turned the movie off because of how annoyingly stupid the parents were. After the parents leave the movie, I quite enjoyed it, but man where the parents the most annoying part of this movie by far.

[emphatic]

Rear Window (1954), 5/5

So much clever stuff, great acting, timeless plot.

[Zen]

And Grace Kelly.

[NYN]

Got some Hitchcock lined up too.

Some xx years ago, the wrong peeps 'n creeps commented favorably about Hitchcock and I got it stuck in my not-without-unsolicited-prejudice memory to be a name mentioned by insufferable bores and types I learned to steer away from. Much later, about 2 years ago, I got interested in Psycho after watching Hitchcock with Anthony Hopkins in the title role. I found it compelling enough to follow it with The Boids (Bugs Bunny speak ) and thought of it as endlessly elegant in style. Vertigo some months ago didn't held back one amazing bit. So I snatched some DVDs without bothering to inform me beforehand about the respective plot or faces. Marnie was up some days ago and easily able to hold the attention to the end. The Trouble with Harry was the choice of yesterday and I didn't see that one coming. At all. With the amusing lines and odd characters I didn't really laugh out loud, but felt this certain pleasure about what happend. "What seems to be the problem here?" And the depicted season was a thing to behold.

Rear Window and The Man Who Knew To Much are next.

[emphatic]

Cool. I'm adding the one's you mentioned to the queue. The man made quite a few films to choose from.