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Postby walt whitman » Thu Feb 14, 2019 7:43 am

naturemorte wrote:About to fly out of Berlin after my first Berlinale. I ended up sticking almost entirely to the Retrospective, Forum and Forum Expanded programs which was probably a mistake--I'm getting super tired of bog-standard "experimental" films and toothless political documentaries. The dominant modes are just SO dominant--revisiting earlier political histories through unusual archives, landscapes with voiceovers, "spontaneous" 16mm footage of beautiful people, and drones, so many fucking drones...Feel like I did a lot of running to stand still overall--hitting five or six programs per day, of which maybe one or two didn't feel like mistakes. I wish I was a little more adventurous when it comes to going blind into the Panorama section stuff, but bland arthouse shit drives me up the wall too.

Anyway, the Schanelec is the only thing I saw that felt like a masterpiece, and I was very cool on The Dreamed Path. Heimat Is A Space In Time, a 4-hour essay film that rehearses the last century of East/German history (through landscape shots and personal archives!) is pretty good, but the visual motifs (crowds! trains! ruins! more trains, and more still!) are more than exhausted by the end. Bait was good, but is smashing the novelty buttons (it's shot with black-and-white 16mm, hand-processed, and edited like a Pudovkin film or something) really hard for what is narratively a die-stamped British Class Politics movie. "Just Don't Think I'll Scream" is an interesting found-footage film made mostly out of insert shots from obscure films--the only thing I consciously recognized was "Funeral Parade of Roses". I most hipinion members would, like me, identify deeply with the film's subject, about the difficulty of excavating oneself from out of the self-constructed caves of media, weed and despair we constuct to shield ourselves from the shittiness of the current moment, but that's what makes it kind of uninteresting as found footage. Every shot relates primarily to the narration and to the emotional identification of the narrator with that image, and so thee images rarely interact with one another in meaningful or challenging ways. Of the new films I saw, only Ute Aurand's "Rushing Green with Horses" really made me think in any exciting way--i think I need to write something about it. If the older films I saw, Marta Meszaros' "Adoption" was the only knockout for me.


thanks for report on berlinale

was there any VR cinema worth mentioning?

i was at sundance this year and while they had a lot of VR filmmaking, it was extremely small scale and nearly impossible to access (unless you wanted to wait in line for hours and hours). not sure if i missed anything tho- the descriptions of the works sounded like run-of-the-mill "gallery films" though without a critical posture, from what i could tell

sadly there are few platforms for this area of moving image art- again, i can't tell if the FOMO is real, or it is still too young to be good
“Short film, Long film, It’s ALL film!” - Walt Whitman
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Postby someguy » Thu Feb 14, 2019 7:55 am

The Kohlberger short at Berlin is good
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Postby naturemorte » Thu Feb 14, 2019 8:13 am

someguy wrote:The Kohlberger short at Berlin is good

bummed i missed this–i liked "keep that dream burning" and imagine this would have played amazingly on some of the festival's massive screens

hoping it's at Ann Arbor this year

didn't see any VR stuff, ww. i don't go out of my way to see vr cinema, even if i thought something sounded interesting, it's way outside the purview of my programming.
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Postby Plainsong » Fri Feb 15, 2019 1:23 am

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Diary Of A Chambermaid (1964)- Luis Bunuel
Really liked it.
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Duelle (1976)- Jacques Rivette
Found it really fascinating and liked it overall.
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Equinox Flower (1958)- Yasujiro Ozu
Loved it. Found it amazing how confident Ozu was with colour so early on.
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Father Of The Bride (1950)- Vincent Minnelli
Loved it. Tracy and Taylor's performances were perfect.
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Postby warmjets » Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:21 am

Free Solo

saw it in the theaters but had to watch it again when i saw that it was released digitally.

christ what an achievement. i did a little bit of bouldering/rock climbing when i lived out west so i feel like i know a little bit about the technical shit involved and it is completely fucking insane that he did this. and in under 4 hours! he is a freak of nature, but he is still rolling the dice everytime he solos something like that. i wonder if he will be able to walk away from the sport alive. i dont know if he ever wants to stop though.
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Postby antoine » Fri Feb 15, 2019 5:00 pm

Prometheus - I still like this movie even though it has a lot of problems. I wouldn't say it's a Good Movie but I find it extremely entertaining, especially the goofy parts. Also the visuals and world Ridley created are A+.

Alien Covenant - Not as good as Prometheus and again, tons of problems but I still find this movie enjoyable. Visuals are again top notch. The last act with the boring cgi xenomorph is so flat and shitty though. That's my biggest knock against it. Also somehow the characters are even more cardboard than in Prometheus. I still like it though.

On the whole I love the Alien franchise/universe, despite how uneven and dumb it can be.
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Postby aububs » Fri Feb 15, 2019 5:27 pm

uhhh wow thank you to whoever put this in the db. it's incredible. goes from really well observed teen hijinks to deep drama to pure terror, dern is astonishing right out the gate, climactic scene hovering between reality and dream/nightmare, forshadowing dern's work with lynch (blue velvet was her next movie), tightly written, confident....p much faultless. this movie doesn't fuck around. probably one of the best 80s teen dramas i've seen.

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Postby spix et chicho » Fri Feb 15, 2019 6:58 pm

Prometheus is definitely better than Covenant which is fucking nuts because Prometheus is a truly dumb ass flick
CIARA IS DEFIANTLY A MAN AND ITS DISGUSTING MY CUZIN WAS THROWING UP FOR 2 WEEKSM YUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK PLEASE SIGN THIS B/C THATS JSUT HERENDOUZ
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Postby goofjan » Sat Feb 16, 2019 3:16 pm

I have the goddamn flu but a wonderful side effect is temporary relief of my usual "can't choose something to watch" ADD. I turned on the TV, randomly clicked on Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and away I went.

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Super balmy movie in a lot of ways. I didn't know the story at all, so the ending really surprised me even though in retrospect it's very obvious. Incredible performances but a lot of thick accents so subtitles were helpful. Finney is so sublimely irritating as Poirot and I guess that's the point but it took me about an hour to calibrate. Really enjoyed this one- couldn't pay me to see the remake.

imdb trivia has this nugget:

Since Albert Finney required many hours of make-up procedures before shooting each day, and because he was performing in a stage play at the same time, he didn't have much time for his badly needed sleep. A daily routine was developed, where an ambulance arrived to pick up the sleeping actor at his house, in his pajamas, carefully, trying not to wake him up. During the half hour commute to the studio, the make-up artists would begin the rough work on his face. The rest of the fine detail work was completed at the studio on a still sleeping Finney.
plz if u get a chanse put some flowrs on algernons grave kthxbye
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Postby groupb » Sat Feb 16, 2019 3:18 pm

i bet that's what killed him
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Postby goofjan » Sat Feb 16, 2019 3:30 pm

pana wrote:i bet that's what killed him

Look at Poirot over here.
plz if u get a chanse put some flowrs on algernons grave kthxbye
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Postby Honga Ciganesta » Sun Feb 17, 2019 8:33 am

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Somehow only got around to this, incredible movie. Maybe the best. I wish I was watching it again right now
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Postby Plainsong » Sun Feb 17, 2019 8:43 am

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Flesh And The Devil (1926)- Clarence Brown
Really loved it, Garbo, Gilbert, and Hanson all gave brilliant performances.
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Gaslight (1944)- George Cukor
Really liked it and loved all the performances, especially Boyer's and Bergman's performances.
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Grand Hotel (1932)- Edmund Goulding
Loved it. All the performances were brilliant.
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He Who Gets Slapped (1924)- Victor Sjostrom
Morbid as hell and I loved it.
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Postby Repo » Sun Feb 17, 2019 9:15 am

Honga Ciganesta wrote:Image

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Somehow only got around to this, incredible movie. Maybe the best. I wish I was watching it again right now


there's a moment when tina weymouth is smiling while playing this song, one of my favourite moments in time
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Postby pink snake » Mon Feb 18, 2019 2:23 pm

I just saw the Oscar nominated short documentaries program b. Really good.
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Postby carlagain » Mon Feb 18, 2019 4:00 pm

i watched Comment Je Me Suis Disputé and L’importance C’est D’aimer and I’m just miserable
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Postby Fr. Blanc » Mon Feb 18, 2019 7:52 pm

The Front Runner - you’ve got to be kidding me. This is dress-up
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Postby furrowed brow » Mon Feb 18, 2019 8:08 pm

The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012) - The first PTA i've seen. Met expectations. Clearly the work of technical and story-telling competence to say the least, as well as stylistic confidence. For a movie about a cult leader it's ultimately not too surprising, i think you kinda get the characters you'd expect to get, which is maybe another way of saying the characters are believable but believable for the very Hollywood-ized portrait they exist in. I'd like to know more about Peggy's motivations. The cast is obviously just insanely good. Can't decide if Phoenix is better in this than in Her. Been a while since I watched any PSH (rip). It's crazy that Laura Dern still isn't consistently a leading lady, sort of off-topic but man. Maybe she just chooses bit and supporting roles over leading ones?
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Postby Reliable Tradesman » Mon Feb 18, 2019 10:29 pm

Black '47 - nah
Overlord - nah, but got me thinking about the trajectory of a young director. Avery directed one feature before this, 'Son Of A Gun' which went grossly over budget and over schedule, forcing a second round of financing, which resulted in a lot of people losing a lot of money and was an absolute disaster of a film. Three years later Bad Robot come knocking.
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Postby palmer eldritch » Tue Feb 19, 2019 12:11 am

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Ride Lonesome (Boetticher, 1959)

It has its good spots, it's tight and to the point. I think it lost me with the truly awful hackneyed cowboys and indians bit near the beginning and had to win me back so maybe I'm too hard on it. But on the other hand one of the main characters is primarily defined by wanting His Own Piece of Land and feeling horny so it's not like this is really breaking the mold. Some really nice shooting locations though.
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Postby landspeedrecord » Tue Feb 19, 2019 12:20 am

I love ride lonesome. all those boetticher/scott westerns are pretty damn good. so lean and mean. my favorite is the tall t
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Postby peshay » Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:04 am

Free Solo - can't comprehend the achievement, amazing doc. Can't get to sleep thinking about Honnold's commitment/passion.
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Postby someguy » Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:54 am

The Angela Schanelec film naturemorte talked about (I Was Home, But...) is very good, hoping Grasshopper or some other small distributor picks it up. Most likely going to be at TIFF and/or NYFF
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Postby someguy » Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:54 am

Also Free Solo is a piece of shit
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Postby mellowgold » Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:55 am

someguy wrote:Also alex honnold is a piece of shit
wimbledon, strawberries, bubbles, please protect me. happy midsumma, hope you spend it in your heart, everyone is there. bitch.
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Postby aububs » Tue Feb 19, 2019 9:04 am

alex honnold seems to be quite firmly on the autism spectrum so while he does come across as a piece of shit in free solo I'm not sure the reasons why are totally cut and dry?
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Postby No Good Advice » Tue Feb 19, 2019 1:34 pm

The Edge of Seventeen was really fucking amazingggg. Really super great.
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Postby goofjan » Tue Feb 19, 2019 1:34 pm

No Good Advice wrote:The Edge of Seventeen was really fucking amazingggg. Really super great.

ha, I just watched this too! very very good.
plz if u get a chanse put some flowrs on algernons grave kthxbye
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Postby tgk » Tue Feb 19, 2019 1:41 pm

Minding the Gap

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Man, so many characters and scenes reminded me exactly of my late teens/early twenties, like EXACTLY the same shit. All the parties, the drunken philosophizing, could have been taken verbatim from friends i've had. Great doc that goes deep into the generational trauma these kids are all dealing with.
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Postby tricksforchips » Tue Feb 19, 2019 1:49 pm

Oh fuck I have to see this. Thanks TGK.
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