Movies you've just watched

[NYN]

did this guy deliver his creepy lines in his creepy as shit voice.

Helen. Be my victim.

The cool thing is when you watch it for a second time around. Despite the title and TT's performance.

Spoiler

It's actually Helen's urban legend origin story.

Did you know they're planning a remake/sequel? Jordan Peele is supossed to write and produce.

[soprano1]

I think I read that somewhere, yes. Let's hope for the best.

[soprano1]

Ivan the Terrible (1944/1958)
Superb Soviet two-part epic by the director of Battleship Potemkin. Very propagandish, which is to be expected, but the amazing wardrobe and sets, the camera shots, and the great acting made up for it many times over.

[system11]

Well I saw Joker tonight.

Ignore the drama in the media, it's not even about what they've been saying. It's a fantastic character study drama, and the acting and cinematography are on a level we haven't seen for years. If Phoenix doesn't get an oscar for that one, then something is very badly wrong. The people who did the trailers also need special recognition, there are some big aspects of the film which aren't even hinted at - appreciated in the days of "showing the bad guys death scene is no problem" trailers.

[Jonny2x4]

Paprika - The only Satoshi Kon work I've seen before this was the Paranoia Agent TV series years ago. Seems like he had a thing for doing psychological-themed stories, since Perfect Blue (which I've not yet seen, but it's in my backlog) dealt with a similar subject. I rewatched Paprika with the director's commentary and at one they mention that the dolls in Himuro's apartment that appear throughout most of the dream sequences were inspired by J.B. Sebastian's toys in Blade Runner. I always thought it was inspired by the giant teddy bear scene from AKIRA, seeing how apparently Kon started off as an assistant for Katsuhiro Otomo on the AKIRA manga. Really good stuff. Shame he only made a few movies in his short lifespan. I'm looking forward to discovering the rest of his filmography.

Brazil - I'm a bit more familiar with Terry Gilliam, having seen Tideland and parts of 12 Monkeys on a TV airing, and of course, the Monty Python movies and TV show. This was quite a trip and feels a bit more relevant now than ever before. The protagonist is a bit of an annoying self-serving putz and somewhat deluded from the very beginning, but I don't think he was ever intended to be the "unlikely hero" type anyway. I want to track down the "Love Conquers All" cut, since I only have the 1-disc DVD version of the Criterion release.

[it290]

First Love—Takashi Miike, 2019. As you might expect from a Miike yakuza action drama, this one is just straight up fun from beginning to end, but also carries some real emotional resonance. Every actor is perfectly cast and the script is full of fun little surprises and twists and turns. Really glad I got a chance to catch this one on the big screen.

[GaijinPunch]

First Love—Takashi Miike, 2019. As you might expect from a Miike yakuza action drama, this one is just straight up fun from beginning to end, but also carries some real emotional resonance. Every actor is perfectly cast and the script is full of fun little surprises and twists and turns. Really glad I got a chance to catch this one on the big screen.

Assume you went to Music Box? I thought about heading over but I don't think I'm going to make it. Travelling a lot this month and it's hard to get the gal on board for anything at music box due to the horribly uncomfortable seats. It's also not super convenient as we don't live near the red line.

[GaijinPunch]

The Mirror (1975)
Probably would have enjoyed this more w/ a bit of a warning about it being so disjointed. I actually was not tired and paid careful attention. Generally a collection of musings of a dying man. Some actors playing two roles [from different time frames of his life] and some subtitles that admittedly don't read perfectly well in English made some parts a bit hard to follow. Like with Stalker, we see film stock switch from color to monochrome, which at first seems like it is used to distinguish the time frame but then that rule is thrown out as well. Of course, the imagery is god tier.

Coherence (2013)
This was a re-watch for me, and will say the perfect in-flight movie, assuming you're wide awake. Not the same tier as Primer, but definitely falls in the mind-bending category. It was fun to look for subtleties I missed the first time. Impressive work by the cast as it's almost entirely unscripted and filmed in 5 nights.

[Flashman]

Night of the Living Dead 1990 Big fan of the George Romero zombie films, particularly the original trilogy. I tend to go back to this remake more than the original 50's one now - it's basically the same film, but with better acting and better Zombie / gore effects. The 50's original is a classic, but the low quality of the filming make it hard work to watch on modern displays these days I find - it was always a VHS on a 14' CRT film for me.

[NYN]

Ok, I'm that kinda guy.
Dude, the first Zomero is from 1968. Just clearing that because of the times and the subtext you have a very different movie next to one from the actual 50s. Flicks like I Was a Teenage Werewolf and The Thing and The Fly and Invasion of the Saucer Men. Paranoia and the countering of subversive elements a major flavours. The most offensive thing I could find in The Fly is the depiction of women. When mom's not a-cleaning and a-cooking, she's squealing and close to a nervous breakdown. Real horror preserved.

[Necronopticous]

I caught One Cut of the Dead down in Long Beach over the weekend. I went in having no idea what to expect which was definitely the right call. Hilarious! Highly recommend.

[it290]

Assume you went to Music Box? I thought about heading over but I don't think I'm going to make it. Travelling a lot this month and it's hard to get the gal on board for anything at music box due to the horribly uncomfortable seats. It's also not super convenient as we don't live near the red line.

Yep. They're showing this in the smaller theatre, which as I'm sure you're aware is...small, but the seats are definitely more comfortable. I hear ya on the location—I'm in Logan so it's a bit of a pain to get over there, but as it was a beautiful October day it served as a nice excuse for the missus and I to take a stroll.

[GaijinPunch]

Yep. They're showing this in the smaller theatre, which as I'm sure you're aware is...small, but the seats are definitely more comfortable. I hear ya on the location—I'm in Logan so it's a bit of a pain to get over there, but as it was a beautiful October day it served as a nice excuse for the missus and I to take a stroll.

Yeah, when the weather is nice, it's nice. Didn't know it was in the small theater... I never bother w/ that one. I mean... why play 70mm there? It's like printing medium format on 5 x 8 (which I've actually done before even though it was a waste).

I went to buy tickets at a nice "lay down" theater here in town for tonight (Tuesday) and they only had front row left. This movie is gonna make bank. Good for the DC guys. About time they had a win.

[Steamflogger Boss]

The Machinist 8/10

[soprano1]

Purple Rain (1984)
Too good for words. Some bits of amateur acting, some good ones. The best wardrobe ever, straight from the best times, and the music is self explanatory. My only criticism is the ending scene, should have ended right after Purple Rain finished.

[it290]

Yeah, when the weather is nice, it's nice. Didn't know it was in the small theater... I never bother w/ that one. I mean... why play 70mm there? It's like printing medium format on 5 x 8 (which I've actually done before even though it was a waste).

It's not in 70—I saw First Love, not Joker.

[chempop]

Kon and Gilliam are 2 of my absolute favorites. I am somewhat a blind fanboy when it comes to these things, but I don't think either have done wrong. Tokyo Godfathers, Fisher King, Baron Munchausen are some of my all time favorites. Tideland and Paranoia Agent are both remarkable. I heard Tideland almost didn't get a distributer because of the questionable relationship between two of the characters. Such an odd dreamlike movie, very surreal vision.

Paprika - The only Satoshi Kon work I've seen before this was the Paranoia Agent TV series years ago. Seems like he had a thing for doing psychological-themed stories, since Perfect Blue (which I've not yet seen, but it's in my backlog) dealt with a similar subject. I rewatched Paprika with the director's commentary and at one they mention that the dolls in Himuro's apartment that appear throughout most of the dream sequences were inspired by J.B. Sebastian's toys in Blade Runner. I always thought it was inspired by the giant teddy bear scene from AKIRA, seeing how apparently Kon started off as an assistant for Katsuhiro Otomo on the AKIRA manga. Really good stuff. Shame he only made a few movies in his short lifespan. I'm looking forward to discovering the rest of his filmography.

Brazil - I'm a bit more familiar with Terry Gilliam, having seen Tideland and parts of 12 Monkeys on a TV airing, and of course, the Monty Python movies and TV show. This was quite a trip and feels a bit more relevant now than ever before. The protagonist is a bit of an annoying self-serving putz and somewhat deluded from the very beginning, but I don't think he was ever intended to be the "unlikely hero" type anyway. I want to track down the "Love Conquers All" cut, since I only have the 1-disc DVD version of the Criterion release.

[Jonny2x4]

I heard Tideland almost didn't get a distributer because of the questionable relationship between two of the characters.

I can see why. There were definitely some pedophilic undertones between the main girl and the manchild son of her dad's ex-girlfriend, even though nothing really happens between them. I felt a bit sorry for him when he died at the end, but it was probably for the best.

[GaijinPunch]

Yeah, when the weather is nice, it's nice. Didn't know it was in the small theater... I never bother w/ that one. I mean... why play 70mm there? It's like printing medium format on 5 x 8 (which I've actually done before even though it was a waste).

It's not in 70—I saw First Love, not Joker.

Ah sorry... I lost track of what we were talking about. Yeah that just didn't make sense. And kind of a bummer that they didn't play First Love on the main screen.

[BryanM]

Classic SJW flick Pleasantville. A movie I actually like since it actually has something to say and is pretty meta about the artificial reality of fiction. One neat way of looking at it I didn't have when I was a kid is through the lens of transhumanism: The town undergoes a change in terminal values. This kind of transformation is a horror trope. Even if the characters aren't vampires, zombies, werewolves, cannibals, wraith-thralls etc by the end of the movie, the original people of the town are effectively dead and replaced with someone else by the end of the movie.

It's a little more interesting than making a xerox copy of a Star Wars clone and slapping a girl boss into it.

[emphatic]

JOKER | 5/5

OMFG, what an effort. Phoenix is magnetic, tension at times is on Breaking Bad levels, the music is terrifying/terrific at once. I'm over the moon.

[GaijinPunch]

Aguirre: Wrath of God

Chalk this one up to a piece of history I'd probably never have known about if not for this. However the Spanish characters speaking German kills the immersion for me. The first of Klaus Kinski's I've seen, but from reading posts about Cobra Verde it was easy to imagine where he was coming from.

Chronos
Ron Fricke's follow up short to Koyaanisqatsi. Good, but inferior to it's predecessor. There are some new tricks in the urban sequences. They are quite amazing, actually. But, despite a short running time of 42 minutes, there's a lot of shots of nature that I found dragged on. Nothing against them - they are beautiful. But there are nature videos everywhere.

[Jonny2x4]

Desert Saints (2001) - Kiefer Sutherland plays a hitman who has a history of using emotionally-vulnerable women as his accomplices and disposes them once he has no more use for them. He befriends a hitchhiker (Melora Walters) and ends up using her as his pretend-wife when he goes to Mexico to assassinate a Presidential candidate. It's nothing particularly original and one of the movie's twists is telegraphed in such a transparent way, despite the lack of any real setup. There's one scene where a detective and some forensic scientist are trying to figure out Kiefer's motives and the detective tells her "you and I are nothing like him, were law-enforcers" or something to that effect, only for her to end up going rogue at the end. Nothing worth watching, unless you're a Kiefer Sutherland fan.

[xxx1993]

Just saw Gemini Man. Yes, it's as generic as it gets, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless. It felt like John Wick and Bourne with a bit of Looper thrown in.

[BrianC]

Just saw Gemini Man. Yes, it's as generic as it gets, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless. It felt like John Wick and Bourne with a bit of Looper thrown in.

Were you disappointed that it had nothing to do with the Mega Man 3 boss?

[BIL]

Joker (2019) Decidedly not a capefuck! :O Troubling gutter-dive with darkly enveloping ebb and flow. Magnetic performance from Joaquin Phoenix. Not without considerable black humour and release. The debt to Taxi Driver & The King of Comedy is obvious, but it more than puts its own outre spin on things. A standout being

Spoiler

the tribal fever of the riots following Murray's shooting, redolent of death and rebirth as a senseless Joker is delivered from the wrecked cop car and Batman is christened in his murdered parents' blood.

Edit1: Ok kind of capefuck there but it works seamlessly. Edit2: also BRB goin to SHOOT UP ME LOCAL (did the same after I pirated FALLING DOWN )

[xxx1993]

Just saw Gemini Man. Yes, it's as generic as it gets, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless. It felt like John Wick and Bourne with a bit of Looper thrown in.

Were you disappointed that it had nothing to do with the Mega Man 3 boss?

Not really. Though the title definitely made me think of it.

[soprano1]

Aguirre: Wrath of God
the Spanish characters speaking German kills the immersion for me.

It was weird in Cobra Verde as well, listening to Brasilians speaking in German, most amusing when they said names (KOBBRRAAA VERRRDDEEE ).

[GaijinPunch]

Ran (1985)
This one lived up to it's title. Quite the shit show, in a good way. One day I'll find out why all blood in Japanese cinema is so damn bright.

El Camino (2019)
Very enjoyable with the usual quality of the series... however, unnecessary.

[rapoon]

Aguirre: Wrath of God

Chalk this one up to a piece of history I'd probably never have known about if not for this. However the Spanish characters speaking German kills the immersion for me. The first of Klaus Kinski's I've seen, but from reading posts about Cobra Verde it was easy to imagine where he was coming from.

I never thought much of Aguirre, Klaus Kinski as.... Klaus Kinski. Fitzcarraldo on the other hand is absolutely brilliant; another epic Herzog and Kinski collaboration that manages to dwarf Aguirre in scope. Arguably more interesting than the films (Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo) themselves are the circumstances and events that occurred in production:

The film had a troubled production. Herzog forced his crew to manually haul the 320-ton steamship up a steep hill, leading to three injuries. The film’s original star Jason Robards got sick halfway through filming, so Herzog hired Kinski, with whom he had previously clashed violently during production of Aguirre, the Wrath of God. Their second partnership fared no better and an extra even offered to kill Kinski. Herzog reluctantly declined.