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I fucking LOVE that movie

Used to fall asleep to it every time I came back from a big night of drinking.

The Platform - Truly dumb shit. i loved it! Like someone read Charles Dickens and Samuel Beckett and Orwell and then watched 15 Saw movies and the Human Centipede. It's everything Parasite isn't lol

BEST OF MARCH

01 The Face of Another (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1966)
02 The Invisible Man (James Whale, 1933)
03 With Beauty and Sorrow (Masahiro Shinoda, 1965)
04 Last Hurrah for Chivalry (John Woo, 1979)
05 Angels in the Outfield (Clarence Brown, 1951)
06 Reflections of Evil (Damon Packard, 2002)
07 Story of a Prostitute (Seijun Suzuki, 1965)
08 Mysterious Object at Noon (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2000)
09 Claudine (John Berry, 1974)
10 Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton, 1964)
11 Cranes are Flying (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957)
12 In the Cut (Jane Campion, 2002)
13 Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006)
14 The Great McGinty (Preston Sturges, 1940)
15 The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Lotte Reiniger, 1926)

WORST OF MARCH

Hoosiers (David Anspaugh, 1986)

i almost exclusively watched conspiracy documentaries and christian movies in march, i'll go ahead and list my 10 favorites for shits and giggles

1.The Clinton Chronicles
2. Kids And The Occult
3.Hells Bells 2
4. Devil Worship: The Rise of Satanism
5. Law Enforcements Guide To Satanic Cults
6. Dark Secrets:Inside Bohemian Grove
7. The Evolution Conspiracy
8. The Saber
9. 20 Minutes to Go
10. Every Mans Battle

narrative feature films i watched and enjoyed for the first time in march 2020

1. Hardcore
2. Trancers
3. Trancers II

fave march first time watches:

the shop around the corner (lubitsch 1940) - wow, instant fave
personal shopper (assayas 2016) - my only complaint was there were moments i felt like i was just looking at a phone screen and not watching a film. they passed though
the florida project (baker 2017)
dawson city: frozen time (carpenter 2016) - such a cool story. there were so many fires in the old days
black orpheus (camus 1959) - this was fun and felt and looked more contemporary than it is. i had little familiarity with the myth beforehand
one sings, the other doesn't (varda 1977)
white material (denis 2009)
auto focus (schrader 2002)
good time (safdie & safdie 2017) - honestly a little underwhelmed. much prefer uncut gems
the wicker man (hardy 1973)

fave march rewatches:

2001 a space odyssey (kubrick 1968) - saw it for a second time in 70mm before the world went to shit. i will continue seeing it every time my local theater plays it
hoop dreams (james 1994) - still the best doc i've ever seen
the royal tenebaums (anderson 2001)
office space (judge 1999)
children of men (cuaron 2006)

worst:

three billboards outside ebbing missouri (mcdonagh 2017) - what on earth. this was horrid. and i liked in bruges!

first-times:

bringing out the dead (scorsese 1999)
baby boy (singleton 2001)
police story (jackie chan, 1985)
rope (hitchcock 1948)
mad max 2: the road warrior (miller 1981)
the witches of eastwick (miller 1987)

first time watches in march (didn't watch many movies)

losing ground (collins 1982)
day for night (truffaut 1973)
the hidden fortress (kurosawa 1958)
princess yang kwei fei (mizoguchi 1955)
a brighter summer day (yang 1991)

i thought all of these were pretty great, brighter summer day was a pretty transcendent experience. one of the best movies i've seen in a long time/ever

i also watched road to roma (clariond & nuncio 2020) which was pretty chill although a bit ridiculous. it is funny to watch directors work because they are strange creatures.

All the movies I watched in March, ranked:

The Peanut Butter Falcon - it's a cutesy 2000's indy movie a decade late, but it's still great. I dug its heartfelt, hopeful tone, its Huck Finn poor Southern odyssey narrative (and mood), and the contrasting performances from LaBeouf and Gottsagen. I also loved the few joint interviews of them that I read.

Arrietty - loses a bit of the early magic as it goes on, particularly with a forced antagonist. Still good though

Knives Out - pretty fun take on the whodunnit genre

The Platform - no-holds-barred sci-fi allegory. Pretty good

True Romance - Starts strong with the Badlands-esque off-kilter fairytale romance, but it fades as it goes. Maybe Tarantino's stylistic verve would have helped the climactic scene.

Blackhat - Everything in it struck me as ridiculous in a bad way. I just realized I forgot to respond to the poster who helpfully linked a piece on this in the best-of-the-decade thread. Should probably do so.

beau travail (denis, 1999)

blown away by this. not sure how i hadn't seen it until now

the twentieth century, matthew rankin, 2019

this was so great. I was both biased for and against this movie because I know Dan Beirne and Brent Skagford and they're the funniest guys ever and the idea of making a frightening and comedic acid film about Canada's 10th prime minister, William Mackenzie King is hilarious, but was worried from the trailer that the whole aesthetic would be way too Montreal indie twee, but it's really just lovingly done insane Powell & Pressburger / Fritz Lang intersecting with Kids in the Hall, Possession, 1984 (the film), b-horror and exploitation, Gilliam and studio comedies. it's one of the few things i've seen in the last 10 years that can actually be called a 'midnight movie', the tone is perfect and original and it doesn't feel like a pastiche or homage to any one thing except maybe Guy Maddin, which is hard to knock it for as Rankin is from Winnipeg. it's truly Canadian to its core which makes it insane in the way the best insane Canadian films are (Cronenberg, Maddin, Bruce McDonald)

Best of March: All First-Time Views

Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948)
M (Lang, 1931)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Sciamma, 2019)
Funny Face (Donen, 1957)
My Darling Clementine (Ford, 1946)
Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, 1957)
The Handmaiden (Chan-wook, 2016)
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Heller, 2018)
The Spy Gone North (Jong-bin, 2018)
Freaks (Browning, 1931)

HM: The American Friend (Wenders, 1977) - Started last night but gf got sleepy towards the end so we're gonna finish tonight. It's great so far though

brooklyn's spectacle theater & factory 25 are joining together to stream empty metal today at 730pm EST

I saw it last year, thought it was excellent. walt, you did too, right?

Set in the abusive police state of the contemporary United States, EMPTY METAL follows five groups of characters, each emblematic of a different extreme political ideology, as they attempt insurrection against the status quo: a queer noise band is coerced into a dangerous assassination plot by a family of militant Native Americans who are aided by a Rastafarian computer hacker who is old friends with a Buddhist hermit whose son is a local militia leader. This tangled web of marginalized voices is as diverse and contradictory as the nation that spun it, but there is a common thread: all the characters teeter on the dull knife blade that is contemporary American politics, but they refuse to fall right or left. Instead, they lash out from the soul, and under the radar, in an attempt to achieve what their mainstream predecessors have yet to accomplish.

And all the while, the drones are watching...

it's the suspense that gets me wrote:i almost exclusively watched conspiracy documentaries and christian movies in march, i'll go ahead and list my 10 favorites for shits and giggles

1.The Clinton Chronicles
2. Kids And The Occult
3.Hells Bells 2
4. Devil Worship: The Rise of Satanism
5. Law Enforcements Guide To Satanic Cults
6. Dark Secrets:Inside Bohemian Grove
7. The Evolution Conspiracy
8. The Saber
9. 20 Minutes to Go
10. Every Mans Battle

narrative feature films i watched and enjoyed for the first time in march 2020

1. Hardcore
2. Trancers
3. Trancers II

love trancers!

spix et chicho wrote:

the twentieth century, matthew rankin, 2019

this was so great. I was both biased for and against this movie because I know Dan Beirne and Brent Skagford and they're the funniest guys ever and the idea of making a frightening and comedic acid film about Canada's 10th prime minister, William Mackenzie King is hilarious, but was worried from the trailer that the whole aesthetic would be way too Montreal indie twee, but it's really just lovingly done insane Powell & Pressburger / Fritz Lang intersecting with Kids in the Hall, Possession, 1984 (the film), b-horror and exploitation, Gilliam and studio comedies. it's one of the few things i've seen in the last 10 years that can actually be called a 'midnight movie', the tone is perfect and original and it doesn't feel like a pastiche or homage to any one thing except maybe Guy Maddin, which is hard to knock it for as Rankin is from Winnipeg. it's truly Canadian to its core which makes it insane in the way the best insane Canadian films are (Cronenberg, Maddin, Bruce McDonald)

At times it felt way too Maddin-esque but I still love this.

yeah the rally against the Boers in particular was extremely The Heart Of The World, but it was honestly also thrilling and hilarious in its fascist insanity

landspeedrecord wrote:brooklyn's spectacle theater & factory 25 are joining together to stream empty metal today at 730pm EST

I saw it last year, thought it was excellent. walt, you did too, right?

Set in the abusive police state of the contemporary United States, EMPTY METAL follows five groups of characters, each emblematic of a different extreme political ideology, as they attempt insurrection against the status quo: a queer noise band is coerced into a dangerous assassination plot by a family of militant Native Americans who are aided by a Rastafarian computer hacker who is old friends with a Buddhist hermit whose son is a local militia leader. This tangled web of marginalized voices is as diverse and contradictory as the nation that spun it, but there is a common thread: all the characters teeter on the dull knife blade that is contemporary American politics, but they refuse to fall right or left. Instead, they lash out from the soul, and under the radar, in an attempt to achieve what their mainstream predecessors have yet to accomplish.

And all the while, the drones are watching...

hell yeah!!

catching up on what I watch recently


The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman (Okamoto, 1963)

Did not like this one! It's a satirical take on the life of the salaryman or whatever but it just never connected for me and it felt too much like A CHRISTMAS STORY which I hate.


The Killer (Woo, 1989)

I've never actually seen John Woo's HK films. The last third of this is truly unhinged and incredibly violent lol.



how often are you this

oh man the killer is so good. are you gonna watch hard boiled?

in quarantine viewing with a 5-year old, we watched the classics NATIONAL TREASURE and NATIONAL TREASURE 2. the second movie Cage really gets to let loose. then we watched both of the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movies and they held up pretty well. the second one is really funny actually.

we watched THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALL and they let Eli Roth make a family movie? it was ok. Jack Black gets to play Jack Black if he was a warlock that plays saxophone



and also TOY STORY 4. I really dislike the TOY STORY movies and this was not an exception.

mondrary wrote:oh man the killer is so good. are you gonna watch hard boiled?

yeah definitely

I rewatched SUICIDE CLUB because I was going to watch NORIKO'S DINNER TABLE next for Sion Sono and since it's related by being a prequel or sequel or tangent or whatever and it's been probably like 15 years since I watched Suicide Club



I forgot most of what happened except for the one thing that really stuck with me all this time which is when the girl is kidnapped and taken to the torture murder den and then the cult leader man breaks out into a glam rock songToggle Spoiler. it's a good and kind of normal J-horror movie up to about that point, it kind of follows from the technology changing society horror vein of RINGU and KAIRO and with a dose of BATTLE ROYALE. but then he veers it off in his own direction at the end and I enjoyed watching it again.

march top 20:
1. spring breakers (rw)
2. mulholland drive (rw)
3. uncut gems (rw)
4. the wizard of ox (rw)
5. rachel getting married
6. the philadelphia story (rw)
7. tiger king
8. bonnie and clyde (rw)
9. little women (rw)
10. marc maron: end times fun
11. the big sick (rw)
12. under the skin
13. knives out (rw)
14. dawson city, frozen time
15. martin eden
16. love, gilda
17. shane
18. haywire
19. the manchurian candidate
20. swimming to cambodia

great month, really enjoyed all of these. rewatched way more stuff than i normally would because my family has been taking turns picking movies during quarantine

Black Coal, Thin Ice
good. cold winter crime mystery



Free and Easy
bleak slow pace small town in the tundra

The Midnight Meat Train (2008) starring Bradley Cooper - really bad.

In The Tall Grass (2019) - Surprisingly enjoyable. Patrick Wilson is great.

Contagion (2011) - didn't really care for this as a movie but hey props for being prescient.

fave march watches:

heat - holy shit how had i not seen heat. i wish every movie was heat.

out of the past - i rewatched the big sleep and the maltese falcon this month also and i couldn't vibe with the One Good Man In a Bad World thing of big sleep or the kinda drawing room farce style of falcon. out of the past is noir to me. existential/fatalistic/resigned and no good guys.

the searchers - i knew this was the edgiest classic western but i did not expect it to be this bleak from the getgo and then just 100 minutes of a nonstop ride into obsession and depravity. has a crazy energy. almost comparable to uncut gems or something. loved the final shot but hated the unearned character choice in the end (you know the one). but still, way different and more intense than i anticipated.

6 underground - the opening car chase has to be seen to be believed. this movie is like looking into the chernobyl reactor of american masculinity.

palmer eldritch wrote:I forgot most of what happened except for the one thing that really stuck with me all this time which is when the girl is kidnapped and taken to the torture murder den and then the cult leader man breaks out into a glam rock songToggle Spoiler. it's a good and kind of normal J-horror movie up to about that point, it kind of follows from the technology changing society horror vein of RINGU and KAIRO and with a dose of BATTLE ROYALE. but then he veers it off in his own direction at the end and I enjoyed watching it again.

This sounds great. Love Exposure is amazing, but I think I've never seen any other Sion Sono movies.

rewatched man on wire with my family. unexpectedly cried at the end. God bless philippe

suicide club might be my least favorite sono that i've seen but it has a ton of charm to it imo. the scene of the girls jumping into the train is so iconic. like my chemical romance tim burton teen goth shit. i think norikos dinner table fleshes out every single theme in it so well it becomes a legitimately phenomenal film (and honestly, one that i want to revisit already now that i'm in a space where i feel trapped in the internet again)

i think the thing that struck me the most about suicide club when i revisited it last halloween was that i always assumed sono would've been in his 20s when he made it, but no, dude was pushing 40. i find the fact that he keeps churning these things out and hasn't gained an ounce of cynicism to be incredibly inspiring.

we watched american history x for the first time in many, many, many years last night

i don't think i realized how much this film took from like, oliver stone's directorial style c. natural born killers/nixon when i last watched it. as much as i love those films on a pure stylistic and technical level... kinda neutral on that? like, it comes close to being an interesting portrayal of venice beach at a certain time and place but i dunno if those tricks ever actually amounted to much to me. i liked looking at it on a base level while it was on. the films greatest success are it's pacing and how well the story arc veers towards shakespearean tragedy. given that edward norton basically had to force his way into the film to edit how it wanted to be edited, and how much his own acting performance carries a middling script, you can credit almost every single success this film manages to pull off with him. without that, you'd essentially be left with a gussied up after school special that nobody would remember 20 years in the future.

halfway through constructing this post i went over nathan's thread about revisiting this film from last year, i think pretty much everything else i would want to talk about was covered there so i'm leaving it at that https://forums.hipinion.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=132178 . kenny's post about his brothers is v. evocative since both me and my partner realized that we had both watched this film with people who were on their ways to becoming full blown nazis in our adolescence... might do FIGHT CLUB tonight.