last movie watched

[ifear]

my chronology may be a little out, but i'm pretty sure this is the best action film since die hard. just straight-up, unironic, no bullshit, genre-literate perfection.

[Marigold]

Grand Illusion - It's been a while since I saw a movie that moved me like this one did (it's also been a while since I've seen many movies, for that matter). Thank you Based Renoir. Glad I waited to see this in a theater instead of on a DVD.

[husbands]

sorry for the large poster

watched this again, first time since the intro to film class at school

I'm not as big a de palma fan as most people, but this is so good

[Phil]

Yeah, Blow Out is a masterpiece. I'll take that over Blow-up any day.



Traveling Light - They have next to nothing in common other than having been made by deeply knowledgeable young cinephiles, but as far as relative importance to American independent film goes, this is 2012's The Color Wheel. It's the closest any American director could get to the first third of Film Socialism.

[emotional fascism]

Love Blow Out, especially getting to see gritty Philly (not that it's not gritty now, but it was a different, almost Times Square in the 70s-esque gritty)

[grayfox]

last post of the last page so it probably got skipped over, but what are your thoughts on ditching netflix instant and getting hulu plus? i know hulu has the full criterion selection.

[Polynoggin]

Kind Hearts and Coronets - fun film. Alec Guinness does a great job at playing eight different roles and making each of them feel distinct from one another.


Wild Strawberries - I liked it well enough but I don't know if its main themes/ideas were ones I could relate to all that much. Maybe one to watch again when I'm older.


Shame - really good. loved the bleak atmosphere and I like how spare and unpretentious the dialogue was.


The Muppets - very heartwarming.

[catatronic]

Anyone else notice how hilarious the waiter is in this scene? You have to have a bit of serving experience to get all the jokes, stuff like not putting the napkin in her lap, not pouring the wine for her after under, then over pouring for him. Suggesting the pinot noir, 'If you like something lighter (ulp)'. Especially the, 'I forgot to tell you the crab comes in the shell', out of nowhere.

[Totally]

Haywire was a fucking mess but the fight scenes were glorious.

[Fun With Teeth]

Death in the Land of Encantos

A few parts of this are boring and don't work well with the rest of the film but the majority of Encantos is spot on and left me feeling emotionally destroyed by the end.

[deadwolfbones]

Headhunters

Really fun thriller. Will no doubt be remade in Hollywood within a few years. Pretty juicy premise.

[Buddy Glass]

Hadewijch (Bruno Dumont, 2009) - Finally got around to watching this on the New Wave Films release, even though I've had copies of this in various forms for the past few years. It seems to me that this and Hors Satan are sibling films: Hadewijch is all about the close-up, the human face, overt emotion, and finding God or the spiritual/divine in a fellow human being as expressed through love. Hors Satan is about landscapes where human figures are just a tiny element, dwarfed by the magnitude of their surroundings, the question of morality and elemental forces. Once again we have God or the divine present in a human form, but this time it's the supernatural, that which transcends humanity, even death. The hopefulness and genuine spirituality (though not an endorsement of religion by any stretch) at the end of Hadewijch really took me by surprise coming from Dumont, and I found it quite moving.

As an aside, when Céline approaches the pond in her distraught state, I thought to myself "Wow, this is kind of like his Mouchette." Then in the extras, Dumont spends several minutes complaining about everyone comparing him to Bresson and giving several valid reasons why this shouldn't be the case, even though I think there are still a lot of commonalities.

[fraew]

the classic giant insect movie, lots of anti-nuclear/genetic messages. plus I was a huge fan of the old Amiga game 'It Came From the Desert', which was based on this movie.

[macseries]

empire strikes back. fucking amazing. are you kidding me? jesus, that was even better than episode 4

(them sucks)

[Lyndon]

Anyone else seen Bronson?

[grayfox]

a virgin stripped bare by her bachelors

i liked it more than the others film by him i've seen, but it's irritating that he just makes the same film over and over and over.

[someguy]

Las Acacias - I was surprised at how much I liked this considering its lame storyline but the barren approach worked for me.

[unpredictable landlord]

vertigo - in honor of the golden gate bridge's 75th birthday.

[morbo]

Iron Sky, but I fell asleep halfway through. Not because it was boring, I was just tired.

[someguy]

Michael - Big ups 2 Markus Schleinzer for making child rape/kidnapping as dull as antiques roadshow

[Phil]

Las acacias might've been my least favorite movie at TIFF last year; it's just Alonso with added cute baby sentimentality.

[Elephant]

Anyone else seen Bronson?

Yeah--like Valhalla Rising I didn't think it was the greatest film but it was violent and entertaining

From Refn though I really like The Pusher Trilogy

[someguy]

i'm just gonna file las acacias into my baffling pile and call it a day



The Darjeeling Limited/Hotel Chevalier - One of his weakest but at the same time contains some of the best things I've seen from Anderson's movies. Only have Moonrise and Life Aquatic left.

[witold]

Las acacias might've been my least favorite movie at TIFF last year; it's just Alonso with added cute baby sentimentality.

I'm quite confused by all the Alonso love in here, there must be some lost in translation thing going on.

[Phil]

I'll always owe him the debt of Liverpool being a moment where a lot of things clicked for me, but at this point I think Alonso is pretty easily the least interesting of the universally revered slow cinema guys.

[Mesh]

Contagion

So economical. And interestingly coded. Asian disease transmission and Asians also like to kidnap, Fishburne/black man CDC director suspected of callous self-interest, Jude Law given extra tooth to pull down his trustworthiness. Lots of attractive white victims. Plain-looking white lady saves the day. White bread Minnesota prom resolution. I also liked the casino/surveillance interplay between this and Ocean's Eleven.

[Elephant]

I'll always owe him the debt of Liverpool being a moment where a lot of things clicked for me, but at this point I think Alonso is pretty easily the least interesting of the universally revered slow cinema guys.

Phil who are your favorite slow cinema guys

[Phil]

Costa. Serra is good, he's got a sense of humor that I like. Lav Diaz has really made duration work in new ways.

So much of that aesthetic has congealed into movies that are just as bad as whatever dreck is coming out of Sundance. Of however many dozen titles in a given year full of long takes and Rotterdam money, maybe 2, 3 are of any interest. I don't begrudge these guys taking an oppositional stance, but I don't buy it as the most productive direction for making due with meager funding. At this point I'm 1000x more interested in what someone like Raya Martin is up to than I am in seeing just how observational things can get.

[Elephant]

Costa. Serra is good, he's got a sense of humor that I like. Lav Diaz has really made duration work in new ways.

Yeah Serra is no joke. I've seen two of his films at Anthology and both were incredible experiences

Haven't seen any Lav Diaz though

[Phil]

Would love to see Birdsong in a theater.

Still haven't watched his film from the Correspondences project (which was actually with Alonso).