Movies you've just watched

[Lord British]

Nostalghia [1983]

4k restoration making the rounds, and I caught this at The Roxie here in San Francsico. A mostly Italian language film.. It was 1983, and I'm guessing he had already defected to said country by this time. If you don't like Tarkovsky, you won't like this. Long takes, very slow zooms (both in and out) on things such as water puddles, amazing pans, next level lighting and all around fucking absolutely beautiful. However, it is definitely abstract. I'm not high brow enough to get most of the stuff, but I know photography, and I could stare at this for quite some time. In fact, a few of the shots (definitely the end one) I scratched my head on how they pulled it off. Anyway, Solaris is still my favorite as it has a much more straight forward story and isn't hours of the main character self-reflecting, but nonetheless, I'm glad I saw this.

Tarkovsky truly tests my patience while watching his films, but they linger in my mind quite a bit afterwards after finishing. Mirror is the one that went completely over my head, and that was the shortest in length!

[Lord British]

Holy Motors - 2012 - Leos Carax (France)



You want art-house? This movie is as bonkers as it gets. A bit too pretentious for me to give it the highest rating, but it's very well done and Denis Lavant puts on a performance so bizarre that it would make even a Willem Dafoe envious. You have a guy being carted around in a big limousine tasked to do various assignments while adopting different identities. If any of these make sense to you I'd be happy to hear from you cuz, pffft, idunnowtf. Not recommended for a first date, but probably great to watch with a group of people who are into this sort of movie type. Watched on Prime after doing a free trial thingy, but I just noticed that it's free on Pluto TV if you wanna take a dive.

Yes, i've seen this Holy Motors flick. The particular scene with the motion-capture suits back in 2011-2012 was period correct. Nowadays, the actors and actresses don't need to don such mo-cap suits anymore like when filming the mo-cap scenes for (Battle Angel) Alita live action scenes. The Holy Motors film is quite a riot indeed. So the main character is driven to different places and interact with different people -- I'd have to assume that he's being paid to do the various "tasks" as they are quite different from each other and never the same task twice either. It's been awhile since I've last seen it though. Will have to view it again. I think it's been shown on TCM in the past as they regard it as an "art house cinema film".

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Carax was a couple more that are supposed to be really good, I'm looking forward to those.

[emphatic]

Argylle - 2/5

I guess my expectations weren't met? The hammy acting didn't help though.

[Lord British]

Letter From An Unknown Woman - 1948 - Max Ophüls



This one hooked me from the beginning and never lost its sense of dread throughout. Ophüls is a master filmaker; the camera smoothly glides into carefully framed shots quite often and the cinematography is stunning. I can also say the same for the other film of his I've seen, The Earrings of Madame De.... Like Earrings, this one is set in the upper crust setting of early 20th century Vienna. A troubled, world-famous pianist (who's star has been fading) receives a letter just after agreeing to a duel with an appointment (but looking to escape it). The letter is from an anonymous woman who open the letter with "By the time you read this, I will likely be dead". The letter then goes on to detail the experiences she has had with the pianist, but since he's partied on the road like Vince Neil for years, he can't quite remember who she is exactly. Then the movie switches to the point of view of the woman and her life. She comes from a wealthy family and she turns down probably several marriage prospects for this pianist that she's never met. Then soon enough she does, and they go out on the town, then they go back to his place and they :censored: . This results in her pregnancy, and she would later marry someone else but run into the pianist a few more times, but he never remembers her. It's a pretty dark and haunting film, and it's a good one. Watched here

[Lord British]

Nuts In May - 1976 - Mike Leigh (UK)



Another great Mike Leigh film, an earlier one made for TV. This one is about a very fussy liberal couple who go on holiday at a little public campground. It doesn't take long to realize that our protagonists are very self-involved, condescending, and socially unaware of themselves, especially Keith, who could be in a room with Noam Chomsky and still find a way to talk-down. After some heated interactions with their tent neighbor, Ray, they invite him over to their campsite for tea, and they spew their yippie obsessions to him and insist on signing songs on guitar to him. I swear it's hilarious torture to watch this scene, looking at Ray's face as they insist on prodding him to sing along with their song "We're Going To The Zoo". I think what makes the film unique is that it's played so straight; there's no real "laugh" cues in it; it pre-dates the "cringe comedy" that's popular now. Watched on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pxN2BADHwk

[RGC]

Big fan of Nuts in May and its "Play for Today" companion piece, Abigail's Party. Steadman is barely recognizable here compared to her role as the drippy Candice Marie. Recommended if you've not seen the latter. Proto cringe comedy with a dose of improvisation!

Edit: just got reminded of a great moment in Nuts in May where Candice Marie asks Keith if it's really necessary to chew your food 32 times, and his reponse is to finish chewing his food (while we have to wait ages), only to say it's important to use your discretion in such matters.

[Lord British]

Irréversible - 2002 - Gaspar Noé (France)



So yeah, I finally watched this very-hyped movie found at the top of most of the "Most disturbing/shocking/soul-crushing films, etc" lists. It lived up to the hype and I found it to be pretty amazing though it's likely to give you scars; the violent scenes in this you'll never forget. See spoiler

Spoiler

It's fair to me to warn that there's a brutal rape scene of Monica Bellucci that lasts about 10 minutes

The movie is sequenced like Nolan's Momento where the scenes are shown in reverse order. I found this to be very effective as the movie reached the end. The style of it is amazing; the camerawork, the darkness, the colors, and the soundtrack. I'd seen Noé's Enter The Void a couple of times, and this one is consistent with that. If you can handle Aronofsky movies then this one is a high reco. Watched on Prime doing a free trial thingy.

[Lord British]

Big fan of Nuts in May and its "Play for Today" companion piece, Abigail's Party. Steadman is barely recognizable here compared to her role as the drippy Candice Marie. Recommended if you've not seen the latter. Proto cringe comedy with a dose of improvisation!

Edit: just got reminded of a great moment in Nuts in May where Candice Marie asks Keith if it's really necessary to chew your food 32 times, and his reponse is to finish chewing his food (while we have to wait ages), only to say it's important to use your discretion in such matters.

Good call on that scene, lol. I've had Abigail's Party in queue for awhile,I'll get to that soon.

[Some-Mist]

I watched some like it hot (1959) yesterday and I was surprised by how entertaining it was. It kept my attention the entire time, even when Marilyn Monroe wasn't on the screen driving me bonkers. I didn't know anything about the premise and as it was unfolding I had an "oh no" moment where I was nervous that it was going to take an offensive turn, but it stayed tasteful throughout the entire movie (makes me think of a certain scene in Heaven Can Wait (1943) but for another reason). Top tier crime comedy which will likely lead to double indemnity or the apartment tonight.

I also found out the new Bob Byington movie, Lousy Carter (starring David Krumholtz) has a one-night local showing in a small theater w/ a Q&A with Byington following the screening, and I'm so disappointed because I'm going to be out of state for it. The only opportunity I've had to see any of his new releases in theater was 7 Chinese Brothers and it was a screening only

[Lord British]

The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse - 1933 - Fritz Lang (Germany)




This was Fritz Lang's last film made in Germany (hint: he's Jewish), and a sequel to his 1922 4+hr film Dr. Mabuse The Gambler (pron. mah-BOO-zeh). Mabuse is a mute mental patient and criminal mastermind, running things outside from inside the asylum. Basically he's like the Joker in Arkham, having his cronies perform jewelry heists for him. Also like the Joker, he intends to unleash poison gas upon the metro. His super-villain skill is his power of hypnosis, used on several including the asylum Dr. watching over him and also one of the detectives that was on his trail. I enjoyed it enough, but it deserves a re-watch. It's pretty unique for its time and it's gotta be pretty influential. Watched on Max.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Irréversible - 2002 - Gaspar Noé (France)



So yeah, I finally watched this very-hyped movie found at the top of most of the "Most disturbing/shocking/soul-crushing films, etc" lists. It lived up to the hype and I found it to be pretty amazing though it's likely to give you scars; the violent scenes in this you'll never forget. See spoiler

Spoiler

It's fair to me to warn that there's a brutal rape scene of Monica Bellucci that lasts about 10 minutes

The movie is sequenced like Nolan's Momento where the scenes are shown in reverse order. I found this to be very effective as the movie reached the end. The style of it is amazing; the camerawork, the darkness, the colors, and the soundtrack. I'd seen Noé's Enter The Void a couple of times, and this one is consistent with that. If you can handle Aronofsky movies then this one is a high reco. Watched on Prime doing a free trial thingy.

This Irreversible film which made it's debut at Cannes caused quite a stir with one particular scene that some audience folks left never to return. I didn't realize that both the main actor and actress in Irreversible are real-life husband and wife. sure, it's been shown on TCM in the past. TCM's also shown the Belgium made film "Man Bites Dog" which was the original "uncensored" NC-17 rated version -- I recall renting the R-rated version of Man Bites Dog on VHS tape format at my local Blockbuster Video rental store back in the late 1990s (when they used to get in some really crazy independently made films like Man Bites Dog and the funny 'n' serious Japanese yakuza flick of Sonatine that director Quentin Tarantino highly recommends watching).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Lord British]

I saw Man Bites Dog, yeah, that film is nuts.

[Vexorg]

Dune Part 2: ***

Take the review for the first Denis Villeneuve Dune movie, copy and paste, call it good.

Long and tedious (The two films so far are over five hours between them) but it still feels like they had to skip over half the book. It also feels like they had to kill off most of the interesting characters in part one, leaving table scraps for part 2. Pretty much all of the action scenes are basically curb stomp battles, so there's little tension. I did read the book many (25+) years ago and didn't remember much of it, but did remember enough to know that trying to make a coherent movie out of it would be next to impossible.

Short version: The Bene Gesserit really kind of make a huge mess out of everything, don't they?

[Herr Schatten]

The Bene Gesserit really kind of make a huge mess out of everything, don't they?

I think that’s kind of the point of the whole series. It’s been decades since I read the books, but I seem to remember that the later books specifically are about little else than that.

[Lord British]

Black God, White Devil - 1964 - Glauber Rocha (Brazil)



I thought I had a great YouTube rip of this until the subtitles stopped around the 1hr mark. My best alternative then was to use Spanish subtitles to watch people speak Portuguese, and I can't say that worked out very well porque mi español no es bueno. Decent movie though as far as I was able to understand it. A rancher flees his neighborhood after he kills his boss for stiffing his wages. He then finds a religious cult leader to follow, but that gets too weird after he forces him into a sacrificial ritual of a baby (!!!). An assassin is sent after the cult leader, and then we're introduced to the assassin's rival. Unfortunately that's where I lost the plot. Not a bad half-see though.

[Lord British]

Distant Voices, Still Lives - 1988 - Terence Davies (UK)



Brutally emotional British film with a family singing through the pain through rough times of the 40's and 50's. It's kind of an alternative take on a musical with segues of Liverpoolians singing in pubs. Pete Postlethwaite plays the mentally disturbed, abusive father. The children grow up to find their own abusive spouses. Really good film that I might check out again, its very unique. Watched on Tubi I think.

[Lord British]

Gosford Park - 2001 - Robert Altman



For some reason I wasn't excited to see this, yet personally I found it as enjoyable as any Altman film. Huge cast of famous actors killing it in this 1920's whodunnit. Takes place on an estate with a bunch of elites and servants who are equally miserable despite their rank in class. It's over 2 hours with barely a plot yet I could have watched 2 hours more. Watched off a TCM recording

[Lord British]

Death In Venice - 1971 - Luchino Visconti (Italy)



A German composer vacations in Venice after a humiliating live performance. It's a beautiful, dreamlike movie that makes you want to kill yourself. Perfection. Rented off Prime.

[Lord British]

Orpheus - 1950 - Jean Cocteau (France)




Pretty good movie based off the Greek myth of the musician who enters the underworld in search of his dead wife. Some really neat images in this one. Watched on Max

[Lord British]

Cranes Are Flying - 1957 - Mikhail Kalatozov (Russia)



Definitely a very impressive movie in terms of visuals; the cinematography is excellent and the directing is very carefully thought-out. It's an ordinary story done extraordinarily pretty much. It centers on a young woman (Veronica) whose boyfriend (Boris) goes off to war, and after a while reluctantly marries Boris's brother (Mark) whom she does not love. Therefore, the biggest theme in this film is that of guilt. Though the film is almost perfect, I expected to receive more of an emotional gut-punch by the end of it, but it still ranks right up there among the best Russian films alongside those of Tarkovsky, Kilmov, or Eisenstein. I've heard that the film Letter Never Sent might be Kalatozov's best though. Watched on Max

[Lord British]

Hour Of The Wolf - 1969 - Ingmar Bergman



Bergman goes straight-horror starring his regulars Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann. Ends pretty well, but it's pretty slow overall for a movie that's just under 90min. Solid though. Watched on Criterion

[Lord British]

My Life As A Dog - 1985 - Lasse Hallström (Sweden)



Hallström later went on to make some highly successful mid-brow, kinda fluff movies like The Cider House Rules and Chocolat, but this mid-eighties coming-of-age tale has some special qualities to it that make it sort of a lost classic. It deals with a boy getting into a lot of trouble at home trying to cope with his mother dying from a terminal disease. Being too much to handle, he's sent to live with his uncle for some stretches of time and makes some more friends along with some more trouble. One of those friends is his soccer teammate who is a girl posing as a boy so she can remain on the team. Sexual discovery is one of the big themes in this, and is probably considered very "cringe" now considering that the boy is 11 or 12-ish, but some of that is what makes feel real. It can be sad and brutal, not too sad or brutal. Pretty solid overall. Watched on Max

[Lord British]

Good Morning - 1959 - Yasujirô Ozu (Japan)


Farting is OK

Spoiler

My third Ozu movie after Tokyo Story and Late Spring, and my first of his color films. Most of the films of the 50's and 60's that are in black & white seem to be good choices that I'd never change, but seeing an Ozu film in color makes me wish all of his were. This one is a very adorable movie about two young brothers who take a vow of silence until their dad caves in to buy a television. It's not that their dad can't afford it; he just afraid that television is producing "millions of idiots" (well, he right just a tad). The surrounding neighbors, however, are gossipy about everything, especially about those trying to keep up with the Joneses. Economic volatility hangs over this movie as some of the neighbors are jobless, looking for work, or facing early retirement; and this is a middle class village. There's a lot of detail in this movie that makes it a lot deeper than it appears to be if you look for it, making this cute film plenty heavy enough for adults. Speaking of cute, lol, the younger brother in this is the cutest kid I've ever seen. One of the running gags are the kids doing their own version of "pull my finger" where the push each other's foreheads and then fart. One kids doing this shits his pants not once but twice. Uzo is 3/3 for me. Watched on Max

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Revisited the serious 1992 movie of "Bad Lieutenant" with actor Harvey Ketiel -- towards the eventual conclusion that changes the lives of the two juveniles (when they could've been easily turned in and the Lt. could've claimed the reward money to offset his huge gambling debt but his time was running short in dealing with his bookie chump during the MLB World Series going on throughout the film between the LA Dodgers and the NY Mets teams). So with the reward money + the extra $30K could've paid off some of his outstanding debt (but still not enough in the end) that leads towards the eventual outcome with our main but flawed character. I do recall that this "BL" film was available to rent at the local Blockbuster Video stores back in 1993 on VHS format tape. Watched it on TCM.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Vexorg]

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire: **1/2

On one hand, it's a reasonably watchable popcorn movie which effectively bridges the gap between the original and the new Ghostbusters franchises, more so than Afterlife did (just pretend that the 2016 version never happened, OK?). On the other hand, once you get a chance to process all the various fridge logic involved in the plot (and probably even while while you're still watching it) you end up with every molecule of story stopping instantly and exploding at the speed of light. That's right, it's Total Plotonic Reversal. In a way, this movie almost dares you to pick it apart, which is a rather ill-advised move on the part of the movie. It's hard to elaborate on that without spoilers, so I'll put those below. On the plus side, the theater we saw this at brought in some well equipped Ghostbusters cosplayers (complete with realistic uniform and proton pack prop replicas) for photo ops in the lobby before the film. Apparently this is a locally based group that mostly does appearances in children's hospitals, but has been appearing in theaters for the premiere weekend. Anyway, on to the spoilers:

Spoiler

As is the case with most of the Ghostbusters movies it's yet another "Sealed evil in a can" plot, only opening this particular can (or sphere as the case may be) seems to require spending the first 75 minutes of the movie passing around a shockingly large number of idiot balls, as it takes a rather long and convoluted set of coincidences to unleash Garakka on New York City. Somehow Winston Zeddemore turned into Bruce Wayne, built what basically amounts to a supernatural version of S.H.I.E.L.D. in an abandoned aquarium, and didn't even bother to inform those kids playing Ghostbusters in the old firehouse he's paying the rent for of any of this until the plot required it. So by the time Garakka escapes from his Ancient Pokeball of Doom there's suddenly about a dozen different Ghostbusters running around, but somehow the only one who's been issued any plot armor is the girl from the first film so it's up to her and some random ghost she picked up off the street (literally) to save the world. And then they had to bring back Walter Peck in his role as a wet blanket on an already thoroughly soggy plot, who somehow got elected mayor of New York (by far the most unrealistic part of a movie about an invasion by yet another Apocalypse-bringing demigod unleashed on a ghost-infested New York City) just so it could be someone else's fault that you're now a frozen corpse whose shards are scattered all over 47th Street.

Don't think too hard about any of this and it's a reasonably entertaining movie, but good luck not thinking too hard about any of this...

[Lord British]

Knife In The Water - 1962 - Roman Polanski (Poland)



Polanski's debut feature from his native Poland. Took a while to get going, and that's not too surprising since his movies are almost always a slow-burn, but once it did it became pretty unique. An affluent couple with a tense relationship invite a young hitchhiker to join them on their sailboat after almost running him over on the road. Winds up being pretty unpredictable, and I don't want to spoil anything. Lots of masculine dick-waving one-upmanship. Wound up being pretty good. Watched on Max

[NYN]

STREETS OF FIRE

A first, which is strange, given that I adore most of Hill's movies. A MTv Arcade High Adventure Riot. Big fun to be had: spotting familiar faces and adding lines from some other Hill that would not be out of place here ("Real though mothers, ain't yah?!"; "Be looking good, babies, all the way back to Coney!"). The near-to-camp feel with the tough guy dialouge. Arriving at Torchie's the gal and I started a game to determine the dancer hoppin' and boppin' as a lad or lady or neither, when we each arrived at a conclusion, a pair of titties finally flashed, and I won. Not to critique, though I have to say that the main guy was a bit to layed-back and Dafoe is now known to take it farther than this, having thus a mild flavour to this role as Raven. Thinking that James Remar would be more impressive as the Cody lead, can't see how that would've failed. And of course, the awe to watch what incepted so much background and motif for video game brawlers. To look at Diane Lane's Ellen Aim (who rocks here) is to look at Blaze Fielding. Bomber's cycle action! Looking forward to watching it again.

[Lord British]

STREETS OF FIRE

A first, which is strange, given that I adore most of Hill's movies. A MTv Arcade High Adventure Riot. Big fun to be had: spotting familiar faces and adding lines from some other Hill that would not be out of place here ("Real though mothers, ain't yah?!"; "Be looking good, babies, all the way back to Coney!"). The near-to-camp feel with the tough guy dialouge. Arriving at Torchie's the gal and I started a game to determine the dancer hoppin' and boppin' as a lad or lady or neither, when we each arrived at a conclusion, a pair of titties finally flashed, and I won. Not to critique, though I have to say that the main guy was a bit to layed-back and Dafoe is now known to take it farther than this, having thus a mild flavour to this role as Raven. Thinking that James Remar would be more impressive as the Cody lead, can't see how that would've failed. And of course, the awe to watch what incepted so much background and motif for video game brawlers. To look at Diane Lane's Ellen Aim (who rocks here) is to look at Blaze Fielding. Bomber's cycle action! Looking forward to watching it again.

Only saw this once, I definitely thought it was high-end trash, but high-end trash can be fun sometimes, no? (Highlander, anyone?). To be honest, I think I sometimes mix my memories of this movie together with Abel Ferrara's Fear City (also 1984, and you sub Melanie Griffith for Diane Lane) because that's high-end trash as well. I agree with James Remar, he's more likable than Paré, though he probably possesses less lead-actor skills. This Rumble-Fish/Purple Rain mashup makes it sort of a cult-gem though, and any early Dafoe appearance is a treat. I'll give it a re-watch at some point.

[NYN]

Only saw this once, I definitely thought it was high-end trash, but high-end trash can be fun sometimes, no?

0h yeah! Though I woudn't call SoF trash, by any measure. It's some kind of retro from an '80s point of view. Nobody in their right movie-going mind would dare call Blade Runner's ambient world trash, though it's very deliberate a retro world. Instead it's called "retro-futuristic" and hailed for it. No, it's something about the feelings that are conjured with it. Sure enough, SoF is inclined to be campy.

I agree with James Remar, he's more likable than Paré, though he probably possesses less lead-actor skills.

Huh? Even less than said Parè? He would have my vote, hence my mention. Anyway, that didn't happen.
After The Warriors Hill cast Remar as psycho in 48H.

This Rumble-Fish/Purple Rain mashup makes it sort of a cult-gem though, and any early Dafoe appearance is a treat. I'll give it a re-watch at some point.

I haven't seen those two. Know Purple Rain only by aural means. Agreed about Dafoe. And yes, please a have re-watch. I maintain that the flicks don't change: they possess qualities that appeal or they do not, it's only our own flavours that are ever a-changing.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

The Zone of Interest
One of the darkest films I have ever seen. Highly recommended.