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I just completed a fairly big project. The original idea of course was to see all these 1001 films but then they kept publishing updated editions, add
I just completed a fairly big project. The original idea of course was to see all these 1001 films but then they kept publishing updated editions, adding some new titles and throwing out some old ones. The total number of films listed in all editions is currently 1228, quite a large number. As the years rolled by it became clear to me that there were a few types of film that the gang who put this vast book together thought would be good for me instead made be feel ill, so I excused myself from those. In the end there were 293 of those. I know, sounds like a lot. The intro calls this an all-time, all-genre-, all-world must-see films list… if you make the effort to go and see the films discussed herein, you can be sure to die a happy moviegoer. In short, the more you see the better off you’ll be. There are dozens of great movies listed here that I would most likely have never come across otherwise, but I do think I and you too can die contentedly having never seen The Jazz Singer (1927 – Al Jolson in blackface); The Ten Commandments (1956 – Charlton Heston as Moses); Horror of Dracula (1958 – another silly Hammer horror); The Nutty Professor (1963 – Jerry Lewis, no thanks); Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom (1974, the great Pasolini’s last film which always appears towards the top of the Most Disturbing Movies of All Time lists – coprophagy, anyone?) and so many others, all for different reasons. [image] (no thanks, Pier Paolo) The editor hastens to say that one person’s Midnight Cowboy will always be another person’s Ishtar, or as I might put it, one man’s Bad Boy Bubby might be another person’s Human Caterpillar. And of course there is no way to judge in one single aesthetic between Meshes of an Afternoon (14 minute experimental short, most intriguing), Satantango (7 hours, requires patience) and Terminator 2 (my favourite action movie - requires no patience). So they try to be inclusive and that meant not excluding popular genres like slapstick comedy, blaxploitation and movies that are of somewhat questionable aesthetic merit (Pink Flamingos, Saturday Night Fever, Blair Witch Project), wholehearted populist appeal (Top Gun, Rain Man, Big, ET, Titanic) or dubious ethical or ideological value (Birth of a Nation, Triumph of the Will, Salo). They throw in cult movies (El Topo, Mondo Cane), experimental stuff (Dog Star Man, Limite, Flaming Creatures), kung fu, Ealing comedies, and 25 silents from 1903 to 1924 which I decided to forgo (what a philistine). So they are not just sticking to the time-honoured list of great auteurs. (However there are way too many Fellini pix in here.) This may be stating the obvious but it is the best time in history to be trying to watch all these movies because there are many sites out there whose mission is to make them all available (for free). Even so, there were 37 I could never find. So maybe those will turn up later. The end result of all this is very banal indeed – I liked or loved about two thirds of the titles, and I disliked or actively hated about one third. But as my old granny used to say, you can’t like everything. And she also said it takes all sorts to make a world. Even the sort that would make a movies like The Royal Tennenbaums, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and The Sound of Music. TEN GREAT MOVIES I PROBABLY WOULDN’T HAVE SEEN WITHOUT THIS BOOK Land without Bread A Day in the Country The Cow Detour The Phenix City Story Cairo Station Chronicle of a Summer Daisies Wake in Fright Celine and Julie go Boating [image] ...more |
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As usual, my companion piece to Kirk’s 6 month summary, which is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Movie round-up July To December 2021 FOUR As usual, my companion piece to Kirk’s 6 month summary, which is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Movie round-up July To December 2021 FOUR NEW(ISH) FAVOURITES Chop Shop (2007) The House Of Hummingbird (2018) Rocks (2019) The Father (2020) Regarding the last one – I thought I had seen enough Alzheimer movies (all of which feature terrific performances) but this one is on a different level, much more bracing, much less sentimental, and for my money, far better. SOME GREAT OLDER MOVIES Safety Last Harold Lloyd hanging off a skyscraper Panic In The Streets Richard Widmark trying to find Patient Zero who has plague Easy Living Just when you thought you’d seen all the great screwball comedies Five Star Final 1931 drama about the tabloid press exposing someone’s past criminal acts – this exact thing happens these days, with the same consequences. Le Million Utterly delightful early French farce with some silly songs The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner I thought I didn’t need to see this one as I knew the story, but how wrong can you be, it was mesmerising. All about a boy’s prison in the early 60s. Compare this with Scum made in the late 70s – things got a lot worse! [image] Dinner At Eight Again, I thought it would be predictable and not that funny. Again, wrong! FOUR FABULOUS FOREIGN FILMS The Tree Of Wooden Clogs (1978 , Italy) Sometimes those lists of greatest films ever come up with yet another dismal Robert Bresson film, and sometimes they come up with something you would never have otherwise watched, like this one all about 19th century Italian peasants. Lilya-4-Ever (2002, Sweden) About a trafficked 16 year old girl, a real heartbreaker. Fireworks Wednesday (2006, Iran) Complicated domestic dispute. Iranian cinema is really good. Taxi (2015, Iran) Not to be confused with Taxi, Taxi Driver, The Taxi Driver or Night on Earth which is all about taxis and their drivers. This one is about an Iranian director Jafar Panahi who was banned from making films by the government so he pretended to be a taxi driver and made a film of his various conversations with people about the problems of modern Iran. THREE WILDLY OVERPRAISED MOVIES The Artist The Shining This was the most famous movie I had never seen, having taken over from Gone with the Wind. I thought I had but I hadn’t. Limelight Ugh, what a corny old load of bollocks. INSUFFERABLE HOLLYWOOD TRASH Baby Doll Has to be seen to be believed, but don’t see it! Love In The Afternoon One of the Bad Billy Wilders, featuring a hot romance between Gary Cooper (aged 56) and Audrey Hepburn (aged 27). Classic Hollywood all right. A REALLY GRUESOME TRUE CRIME MOVIE The Golden Glove [image] TWO HILARIOUS LOOPY HORROR MOVIES Be My Cat Why Don’t You Just Die FOUR UNMISSABLE DOCUMENTARIES Collective In which a Romanian night club fire scandal then uncovers a much larger public health scandal. Quite horrifying. The Act Of Killing Land Without Bread The War Game THE WEIRDEST MOVIE I COULD NOT FINISH The Color Of Pomegranates Not so much a film as a lot of [image] ...more |
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| Feb 17, 2018
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MOVIE REVIEW January to June is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... July to December 2020 I saw so many movies this year because of lockdown and MOVIE REVIEW January to June is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... July to December 2020 I saw so many movies this year because of lockdown and because Selma explained to me that there really are lots of websites that provide good quality FREE movies, old ones, new ones, Hollywood, arthouse, indie, the whole delicious banquet of cinema spread out, indeed, for your delectation, and that, furthermore, partaking of these online treats will not instantly infect your computer, or your physical body, or even your very soul, with noisome disease or subtle invasive corruption, such that my doubts were dispersed once and for all and a feeding frenzy resulted. SOME REAL ODDITIES The Sum of Us [image] One of our films of the year is this total obscurity from Australia. This is all about 29 year old Russell Crowe growing up as a gay son of a single parent father who once he discovers his son’s sexuality becomes the most gay-friendly dad ever in the entire history of cinema, to the point where his gay-friendliness teeters over into full-on creepiness. He never stops talking about how he loves and supports his gay son. Mercifully a tragic affliction robs the father of the power of speech towards the end of the film, and the audience can relax for the first time. Has to be seen to be believed. Freaks Well this is so famous and we hadn’t seen it and now we have and we feel – what’s the right word – freaked out. This movie would not have been allowed to be made at any other time. It ain’t a good movie, but it features those genuine carnival performers, and it presents them without condescension or apology. Wake in Fright Another Australian obscurity, now a cult movie, it says here. And I see why. This is a unique exploration of a particularly vile kind of male cameraderie/male brutality and a vision of hell. Totally recommended. Meet John Doe Anyone who thinks they know the difference between right wing and left wing and what was going on in the USA in the early 1940s has to see this, it will drive you quite insane. Dogtooth Shortbus NEW OR NEWISH MOVIES : FAVOURITES Never Rarely Sometimes Always Because it is rigorous and committed and perfect this may be my film of the year. There’s more tension here than ten ordinary thrillers, but all that’s happening is a teenage girl trying to get an abortion. We love American indie movies by the way. A Taxi Driver Yeah, stupid title since Taxi Driver is already somewhat famous; but this is great – a western journalist tries to get to the cut-off city of Gwangju where some big anti-government riots are going on, and this random taxi driver is the only guy who says he can get him there. Many hair raising and/or ludicrous events then follow and 2 hours 20 minutes go by in a blur. This was a true story. Land of Mine Wonderfully grim as German prisoners of war are forced to clear Danish beaches of thousands of landmines. The POWs are around 15 years old but at that point nobody cared about that. Secret Sunshine Me and Selma share a love of long leisurely Asian movies where very little happens, they can be around two and a half hours long and maybe three things will happen in that time, and that’s okay with us. This is one like that. When you get the taste, it’s just wonderful. Beanpole I guess this was a Russian miseryfest but it was kind of uplifting and mesmerising at the same time. Really great. OTHER GOOD RECENT MOVIES I’m Thinking of Ending Things Charlie Kaufman just about rescued his reputation with this morbid trudge towards death. I had tried to read his novel Antkind because what could possibly go wrong and I found everything went wrong. But this movie was ghastly fun. Gutterbug This looks like a painful ticking-all-the-boxes right-on indie wallow in punky-druggy squalor and, well, that’s because it is! But Andrew Yackel as Bug gives us a full-tilt performance that got him an Oscar nomination from me. Judy Another slightly more high profile movie entirely carried by a committed performance – in this case TOO committed. The ever lovely Renee sang her own vocals, demonstrating why in the olden days they dubbed singing stars with vocals by people who can actually sing. Renee hit all the notes and had all the passion and so forth, but alas, there was no getting away from her actual voice, which no amount of coaching could render more mellifluous. It remained a harsh and strident bellow throughout. Otherwise, a very nice movie. The Gentlemen A real fun self-parody of ultramachismo, comedy of the year. Summer 1993 The Lighthouse Tyrannosaur Oasis Safe The Magdalene Sisters Breathless The Trial of the Chicago 7 The Beguiled Interstellar Philomena Fire Will Come SOME NEW OR NEWISH MOVIES TO AVOID LIKE CORONA A Rainy Day in New York God knows why we watched this, everybody and his chihuahua knows that Woody hasn’t made a decent film for 20 years with the single exception of Blue Jasmine. But graciously we gave Woody another chance and it may be the worst least funny smuggest most pleased with itself smirky movie since the previous Woody movie. Pain and Glory So much love for this one but it was another in the long line of Tortured Artist weepfests. Pedro Almodovar is hardly Mr Misunderstood. The Invisible Man They tell me it was a reboot of HG Wells’ original but it was nasty and fairly stupid. The Devil all the Time This wasn’t such a bad movie, I even quite liked it, but when you’ve read the book it was Trainspotting all over again. Savage book becomes slightly edgy Netflix entertainment. Also, the extremely-fake-spiders-over-the-head scene is in the top ten most-unintentionally-funny scenes. Tenet I could be wrong but it seems Christopher Nolan takes some old established science fiction ideas and gives them a mild rewrite and with a very considerable budget makes movies that are increasingly irritating. The System Alas, goodly-hearted well-meaningness will not make a good movie, no matter that it’s torn from the latest front page. This BLM protest movie was gruesome. OLD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES : OUR BETTE DAVIS YEAR The Catered Affair I’m not a fan of filmed plays but this one (screenplay by Gore Vidal) was terrific – when young working class Debbie Reynolds decides to get married mother Bette Davis (almost unrecognisable) wants to make it a big wedding but father Ernst Borgnine explains they just don’t have the money Old Acquaintance This is the one where she strides across a grand drawing room to grasp Miriam Hopkins by the neck and strangle her. They asked her how she felt about that scene and she said she thoroughly enjoyed it. Mr Skeffington Of Human Bondage OLD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES : FAVOURITES Design for Living Thirty years before Truffaut’s famous Jules and Jim, Noel Coward’s play about a woman who doesn’t see why she can’t live with two men got a saucy Hollywood production that surely must have raised a few eyebrows in 1933 because it still raised all of our eyebrows in 2020. Bigger Than Life The Big Clock The Naked City OLD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES : OTHER GOOD ONES IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER The Innocents The Bad and the Beautiful King’s Row The Chase The Big Combo Pickup on South Street A New Leaf Smoke Tootsie The Desperate Hours Bunny Lake is Missing Prince of the City But I’m a Cheerleader OLD NON-HOLLYWOOD STUFF : FAVOURITES Vagabond Criterion Collection released a box set of dvds of the COMPLETE Agnes Varda, all shorts, documentaries, all features, lots of extras, and it isn’t available outside the USA and it’s just too expensive. Like Mick Jagger says, you can’t always get what you want. [image] Alfie Ashes and Diamonds Odd Man Out The Cranes are Flying The Wings of the Dove A Man Escaped Ikiru Street of Shame OLD NON-HOLLYWOOD STUFF : OTHER GOOD ONES To Our Romance Minne and Moscowitz Harakiri To Live The Wind Will Carry Us SOME OLD MOVIES ARE TERRIBLE Spellbound I don’t get why Hitchcock’s crude Freudianism gets waved through by critics. It wrecks a few of his movies bt this is the reducto. You have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at Ingrid’s psychiatrist and Gregory’s florid ravings. A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy Harvey The Lady from Shanghai Long Day’s Journey into Night A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Conclusion : what a great year for movies. We ended by watching three films by Kenji Mizoguchi yesterday (available on Youtube). I know, we’re kind of crazy. ...more |
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My companion piece to Kirk's regular six monthly movie update. His is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... But first, a rant : SO MANY RUBBISH T My companion piece to Kirk's regular six monthly movie update. His is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... But first, a rant : SO MANY RUBBISH TITLES In the olden days they used to come up with beautiful evocative titles for movies – Drums Along the Mohawk, Each Dawn I Die, Whistle Down the Wind, Closely Observed Trains…. Now every other movie is The something or just one word titles – recently I saw Loveless, Burning, Bait, Excision, Taxidermia, Loving, Lemonade, Youth, Skin, Buried, Poetry, Beast and The Child, The Children, The Master, The Judge, The Return, The Lighthouse… I could go on. You get the picture. Then there’s the mania for naming films with female first names – Amy, Blanche, Carol, Chloe, Elena, Gilda, Gloria, Greta, Ida, Iris… who can remember these boring titles? Message to film makers : please, when you finish your movie, spend just a little bit of your time thinking of an interesting title for it, so your audience doesn’t have to struggle to remember it the next day. 2020 JANUARY TO JUNE : CORONA NIGHTS NEW(ISH) MOVIES : THE GREAT Import/Export Two and a half hours of Ukrainian misery. Truly grim. Really excellent. Really grim. The Child This rubbish low-level criminal is truly in love with his girlfriend so when they have a baby together he sells it. Mary and Max Unique animation, never saw this brilliant style anywhere else. [image] Eighth Grade Heartbreaking performance of the year so far. [image] Capernaum Joint film of the year so far. It was made in 2018 in Lebanon. There are so many brilliant kid performances in movies (Room, Spirit of the Beehive, 400 Blows) and this is another. Totally unsentimental. [image] Portrait of a Lady on Fire Joint movie of the year so far Parasite Last movie I saw in a cinema before LOCKDOWN. NEW(ISH) MOVIES : THE GOOD Uncut Gems My friends hated HATED this movie, it gave them migraines, and I can see that, really I can, but this is a breakneck blistering frantic horrible meltdown of a movie and if you wear earplugs it’s very entertaining. Skin Billy Elliott is all grown up and is now an American Nazi – I guess you can never predict how things will turn out. Little Women David Copperfield Bait Non Fiction Elena Beast Poetry Away from Her The Insult Amour Osama 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days The Match Factory Girl The Return Gett :The Trial Of Viviane Amsalem Phantom Thread On Body and Soul LA FRANCE Without intending to I saw a lot of old French films. The best two were A Day in the Country The Mother and the Whore The first of these was uncompleted, only 40 minutes long, although it’s perfect as it is. The second is three and a half hours of Jean-Pierre Leaud and his two girlfriends droning on about their half-baked ideas on life, love and the universe. These two films could not be more French or more great. [image] The other must-see French movies (Must see for people who like French movies, that is.): Le Cercle Rouge A Heart in Winter Cesar and Rosalie La Belle Noiseuse Les Diaboliques Rififi Casque d’Or Port of Shadows OTHER OLD MOVIES : THE GREAT The Spirit of the Beehive Cria Cuervos Alice in the Cities Strangely, these three all feature brilliant performances by child actors, two by the same girl. [image] The Last Days of Disco Metropolitan These last two are the movies that would have resulted if Henry James had been reborn as Brett Easton Ellis. Raise the Red Lantern OLD MOVIES : THE BAD Gone with the Wind Undoubtedly a racist movie. It was the most famous film I had never seen and it was a real eyeful, gorgeous to look at but cringe-making to watch, with all the caricature black slaves happy to serve their white masters but not a single mention of either slavery or why the Civil War was being fought. But plenty of indications that the black people were fine with things just as they were. The Hustler Everyone loves this cheesy macho dick-waving contest but I thought it was beautifully filmed pretentious wankery. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie Ben Gazarra sweats and suffers for 2 hours 15 minutes but not as much as the audience does as once again we wonder why critics love this achingly slow slice of life improvfest, don’t they have homes to go to ? Everything that happens in this movie happened in three minutes in any episode of The Sopranos. You might say that's not the point, but I would say, yes, that is the point. Nights of Cabiria Black Narcissus The Leopard Life is Beautiful NEAT HORROR MOVIES Midsommar Although this is just an updated even more stylised version of The Wicker Man. Buried There’s a movie where a guy is stuck in a phone booth for the whole film, and another one where a guy is in a car for the whole film, this is where a guy is in a coffin for the whole film. And there aren’t any other scenes, no flashbacks, nothing. Capture Kill Release Everybody is fed up of found footage movies but this was cute, a suburban couple decide to murder a random person, just for fun, and film the whole thing, including trips to Walmart to buy axes and drills, etc. ALSO SEEN – A GALLIMAUFRY OF CINETASTIC SCINTILLATION Of Human Bondage This is the one where Bette Davis says You cad, you dirty swine! I never cared for you, not once! I was always makin' a fool of ya! Ya bored me stiff; I hated ya! It made me SICK when I had to let ya kiss me. I only did it because ya begged me, ya hounded me and drove me crazy! And after ya kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! WIPE MY MOUTH! [image] Hail the Conquering Hero Shadow of a Doubt A Blonde in Love Gloria Sunrise Victim Blast of Silence Love and Death Spring Summer Fall Winter …and Spring Babette’s Feast In the Name of the Father The South ...more |
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My companion piece to Kirk's regular six monthly movie update. His is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ***** 2019 - JULY TO DECEMBER NEW MOVI My companion piece to Kirk's regular six monthly movie update. His is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ***** 2019 - JULY TO DECEMBER NEW MOVIES : THE GOOD Support The Girls Booksmart - Kind of obvious and kind of frenetically pushing all available modern buttons but still these two movies have got a lot of heart & soul Tangerine - Four years old but new to me – this is fast and furious and filthy and all shot on iPhones – a modern comedy classic, kind of El Camino - The Netflix epilogue to Breaking Bad, just what fans wanted Ready Or Not - A stupid horror movie just like You’re Next. I liked it a lot. Great cinematography. Lotta screaming. Toy Story 4 - the act you’ve known for all these years. Marriage Story - Two great performances, for sure. NEW MOVIES BAD Charlie Says - Hilarious – Doctor Who (Matt Smith) plays Charles Manson! Must see! The beard takes up most of the screen! But actually, this study of the three central Manson family women is trying hard to say something serious about cults and becoming inured to violence and deprogramming… for a better, less lurid movie on this subject see Martha Marcie May Marlene. First Reformed - Liked by many but I thought it was a right royal wallow and the ending was reedickerlous. Blinded By The Light - File next to Yesterday. In this one the British Asian kid is obsessed with Bruce Springsteen, to the consternation of his family. If you were thinking I bet this kid has a nerdy but cool friend and gets a cool girlfriend at the end you would be right. Also file this next to Wild Rose. Three modern British films that are wish fulfilment fantasies about music. Hmmm. And I didn’t see Rocketman. The Dead Don’t Die - Jim Jarmusch must have some clout to get this zombie uncomedy made. It had two good jokes and it had Bill Murray looking more dead than the zombies. OLD MOVIES GOOD These are mostly blindingly obviously great. La Grande Illusion (1937) Way Out West (1937) Ninotchka (1939) The Great McGinty (1940) Murder My Sweet (1944) Mildred Pierce (1945) - I also saw the Kate Winslett tv series (very good) and I will be reading the James M Cain novel soon & so will become an expert on Mildredology. The Snake Pit (1948) - Sometimes you think an old Hollywood movie will trot out the cliches of the day about its chosen subject and often you’re right but sometimes, as in this fascinating movie about mental illness, you’re wrong. The Reckless Moment (1949) Los Olvidados (1950) - As with La Grande Illusion, when you get round to watching these critically-revered monuments of film culture you are already feeling rather browbeaten and a little bit resentful, but mostly they are on the list of Great Movies because they still have the power to reach out of the screen and shake you by the scruff of your neck. Both these movies did it to me. I was well shook. Hell Drivers (1957) The Wrong Arm Of The Law (1963) - Two ancient British movies that are only good if you like corny old British movies. Hell Drivers has an amazing cast : Patrick McGoohan, Stanley Baker, Herbert Lom, pre-Bond Sean Connery, Sid James and Alfie Bass The Servant (1963) - Again, I thought I knew exactly what I was going to get here (homo-erotic sadomasochistic role-switching between master and servant) and I did but there was a whole lot more going on. Really excellent. Le Bonheur (1965) - Agnes Varda movie beamed down from the Planet France where everything is Very Colourful and all the people are Cute. Underneath the vast prettiness this is a real story about real people, too. Daisies (1966) - I did not know of this – should be filed next to those other mid-sixties European anarchist movies like WR – Mysteries of the Organism and I Am Curious Yellow. This one is WILD and a must see for any film fan. The Fireman’s Ball (1967) - A rewatch and still hilariously cringemaking. Also – how much did this movie influence Robert Altman! I think – a lot. Straw Dogs (1971) The Devils (1971) Dancer In The Dark (2000) Monsoon Wedding (2001) Like Someone In Love (2012) OLD MOVIES BAD You Can’t Take It With You (1938) La Ronde (1950) Shane (1953) - Finally convinced me that I have had it with Western movies. Strangely, I have only recently discovered the sub-genre of modern Western novels such as the Sisters Brothers. I love those but these classic Hollywood Westerns are just ridiculous now, so pompous. Paris Nous Appartient (1961) Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961) - This could also fit into the Old Movies Good category but really there are so many things that capsize it – Mickey Rooney’s famously racist comedy Japanese man; all that stuff about the cat; the feeble George Peppard; the eyerolling chic New York swingin’ party which goes on and on and on. Really the divine Miss H is the only untrammeled joy to be had. Au Hasard Balthazar (1963) - I never know which Great Critical Favourites I will love & which I will loathe. This one was truly absurd. Like bresson is standing over us with a donkey shaped hammer yelling “have you got the religious allegory going on here yet?” And the patented blank-faced non-acting throughout makes you long for Joan Crawford. Woman In The Dunes (1964) Fitzcarraldo (1982) A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES The General The New Girlfriend Silent Light Blue Velvet The Baader Meinhof Complex TWO GREAT DOCUMENTARIES The Kingdom Of Us Beaches Of Agnes BILLY WILDER I caught up with a bunch of this amazing director’s stuff. I a lot of it is very iffy – feminists are going to be throwing things at the screen sometimes – but the guy had energy and he knew what a rattling script should sound like. I do admit his fondness for Jack Lemmon is regrettable. Irma La Douce The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes One Two Three - A must see for the final fantastic amphetamine performance by Jimmy Cagney. Has to be seen to believe it. Kiss Me Stupid Witness For The Prosecution The Fortune Cookie The Odd Couple Sunset Boulevard - Just when you think Billy Wilder is all about daft comedies, wham – this tragedy comes along. Three great performances, especially Eric von Stroheim playing one of the saddest men you ever did see on screen. [image] ...more |
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Companion piece to Kirk's summary of the first 6 months of 2019 in movieland, which is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... GREAT OR AT LEAST I Companion piece to Kirk's summary of the first 6 months of 2019 in movieland, which is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... GREAT OR AT LEAST INTERESTING NEW MOVIES The Sisters Brothers I’d read the book and this was like the book so it was rockin’ rollin’ fun. Can You Ever Forgive Me? Gotta say that it was a bold move to construct a movie around a series of forgeries of literary autographs done by a frumpy old alcoholic has-been who lives alone in a grotty apartment with a cat, as has-beens often do. Melissa McCarthy and Richard E Grant were terrific. Must see movie. Thunder Road This is a weird indie movie about a very unbalanced cop whose mother has just died and whose marriage has broken up. This is one of those written by, directed by and starring type things, so if you don’t get on board with Jim Cummings’ wild and crazy performance you’ll really hate this. The Favourite A must see – this is how costume dramas should be done. Quite strange, cruel, funny, demented – great performances all round especially Olivia Colman and Emma Stone, and a mesmerizing style all of its own. [image] Stan and Ollie For me, a knockout, and two more favourite performances. The knowledge that for years after Oliver Hardy’s death Stan Laurel was still writing scripts for them both makes me almost dissolve into boo hooing every time I think of it. Sorry to Bother You This was probably trying too hard but I liked it’s strange energy. File next to Get Out and Us, I suppose. AWFUL NEW MOVIES Late Night Emma Thompson usually means death to any movie but this one was already DOA, ghastly script packed with first world problems all resolved by a non white Very Nice Woman who harrumphs and charms the world into the Way It Should Be. Not even unintentionally funny. Wild Rose Yes, a bad film, but a crackerjack performance in it by new face Jessie Buckley makes you forget just how crap it is until 20 minutes after you’ve seen it. Baby Driver The star was the soundtrack, I guess. Otherwise, well edited wallpaper. Hereditary Allegedly a real horror movie. Actually an incoherent mosh pit. Mandy More frothing incoherence. Not even the bug eyes of Nicholas Cage and not even the quarts of blood dumped all over him could make this watchable. Mary Poppins Returns Don’t ask! Okay – I thought it would be a good idea! How wrong I was. This was a damned remake, with every scene an inferior update of a scene in the great original. And the songs were so really very bad. I FINALLY CAUGHT UP WITH A BUNCH OF FAMOUS MOVIES WITH VERY MIXED RESULTS THE GOOD ONES High Sierra Finally found a Bogart movie that made me understand why people think he’s the king of Hollywood. This one was perfect. The Battle of Algiers I thought this was a war film & so had avoided it but it’s not, it’s a slam bang wrenching, fabulous movie about a people’s revolution against the colonial masters, in this case the French. It’s a stone must-see. [image] Marty A short sharp trip to the lump in your throat from 1955 with Ernest Borgnine as the sad sack not good looking not that sharp bachelor and Betsy Blair as the left on the shelf timid spinster. I thought – aw, this is just going to be a plateful of mush, and it really wasn’t. Totally predictable, but totally loveable. THE BAD ONES I just put all these into a category called oh my god I am really on the wrong planet if film fans and scholars promote these movies as being something you should give your valuable time to Vanishing Point Silent Running (Bruce Dern as Jesus in Space – ha ha ha) Rebel without a Cause (so wrong in about eleven different ways) To Have and Have Not The Barefoot Contessa My darling Clementine Imitation of Life Barbarella (ok, no one thinks this is great, but it’s not even so bad it’s good) The Blues Brothers (tragically unfunny, but it does have Aretha Franklin singing Think) DOCUMENTARIES Hoop Dreams Wow – this lurked in the 1001 Films you Must See list and I thought why should anyone see a documentary about one of those sports that only Americans get excited about, and then I saw it. Blam! It was like The Wire series three mashed up with Friday Night Lights, only for real. Great! Also a must see. Three Identical Strangers Yeah, pretty weird all right. Best to see this one knowing absolutely nothing about it. Kind of recommended. The Gleaners and I I am now an official Agnes Varda fan – this is her goofy documentary about people that scavenge in France – after harvests, after markets in the town square – and how they live off their meagre pickings. She just gets in a car and zigzags around and finds curious people. Great. FOREIGN GOOD ONES Shoplifters Japanese movie from last year about a family of petty thieves. A third masterpiece from Hirokazu Koreeda, following Nobody Knows and Our Little Sister. All these are must-sees. One Cut of the Dead Japanese meta-zombie horror movie, about a crew filming a zombie apocalypse movie when a real zombie apocalypse happens. Fun for all the family, except grandma I suppose. Wadjda A Saudi Arabian movie (never seen one of those before) from 2012 telling the story of a girl who wanted a bike. Quite wonderful, must see. [image] ...more |
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FILM REVIEW AUG TO DEC 2018 (this follow's from Kirks which is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) ************************** BEST (new) Leave n FILM REVIEW AUG TO DEC 2018 (this follow's from Kirks which is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) ************************** BEST (new) Leave no Trace What I loved about this was the vision of a different America to the one we are always seeing – instead of the bleak inner city violence and every man for himself, here is an America where people look after each other, even the father here, who is a difficult customer. Beautiful film, perfect ending. A Simple Favor I like ridiculous corkscrew plots and I like Anna Kendrick so this was a shoo in for me. Totally fun. Blackkklansman Jeune Femme Widows Roma GREAT DOCUMENTARIES All must-see stuff – The Open Road Bus 174 Faces Places Oklahoma City - This latter is a riveting account of the American far right BEST (OLD) The Death of Mr Lazarescu Romanian miseryfest from 2005 is a real must-see. I know you probably don’t believe that. Okay, it’s a must see for people who want to see two and a half hours of a mean old guy’s last two and a half hours. Trouble in Paradise Local hero CATCHING UP WITH THE CLASSICS Look Back in Anger I read the play, too. Holy cow. What a nasty piece of work this is. Jimmy is the poster boy for the intellectual end of the wifebeater spectrum. Two for the Road A real weird must-see for fans of the swinging sixties. Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney try to age 15 years or so but fail. Stanley Donen tries to tell the story of this marriage by showing all the various times they made this exact same trip by car across France to St Tropez. Cue a zillion clothes/hairdo/car changes. Blade Runner No one can now say those fabled words “Whaddya mean you never saw Blade Runner!??” Although the actual story was as gripping as a coma victim, I never saw a movie with such beautiful set design & lighting and unique look. 5 stars just for that. TWO NOIRS Angel face The Seventh Victim You never saw more excruciatingly polite middle class devil worshippers as in this truly loopy movie. Another to be seen to be believed one. Wow, the crazy plots that got greenlighted in those days. TWO MOVIES WHICH PROVE WAR IS HELL IF YOU NEEDED REMINDING Full Metal Jacket Come and See ARTHOUSE STUFF PROBABLY PAST THEIR SELL BY DATE Lola Not a lot happens here except that Anouk Aimee tries to crack the camera lens at every opportunity with Joker-style manic grins and practices some pre-Chubby Checker dance moves. Otherwise a young guy mooches around town. End. Seconds Completely ridiculous science fiction malarkey about getting your youth back starring the elderly John Randolph who gets reborn as Rock Hudson and still finds room to complain. One of those gotta see it to believe this kind of tosh ever got made. Shadows Cassavetes wanted to do a completely improv film and shot Shadows and then found out his soundtrack was inaudible. Nobody had kept a record of what was said so Cassavetes was forced to employ lip-readers so that dialogue could be dubbed. Then, when he finally premiered the film, the audience hated it & he agreed with them. So he shot a further hour of stuff, this time using a script. Less than 25 minutes of the original film is left in the version we now have. But it still has a punch. Hiroshima, Mon Amour Well many people think this is an all time work of genius, but not me. This made me wonder how many of the BFI Critics Top 100 films I actively dislike. So : Vertigo Breathless La Dolce Vita Barry Lyndon The Magnificent Ambersons A Matter of Life and Death The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp Which led me to wonder how many of IMDB’s 100 most-popular films I actively dislike, so : Forrest Gump Se7en The Usual Suspects Vertigo I guess I’m more a man of the people than I thought. TWO OLD STILL-AMUSING COMEDIES, KIND OF Whisky Galore Monsieur Verdoux FOREIGN STUFF Fat Girl A One and a Two Lost in Paris The White Ribbon Timbuktoo Things to Come Regarding this last, I must take issue with those thinking that this is La Huppert’s career best performance. She slogs around from pillar to post in a numbed daze as one damn thing after another happens to her. And all that drippy stuff with the handsome former student-now-revolutionary was more than a little sickmaking. So no, I didn’t like it. WORST Switchblade Romance I had to re-watch this to check out the massive insanely ridiculous plot twist. When you know what’s coming, you see plainly that most of the first 20 minutes of the movie is a big fat LIE and a CON perpetrated upon the audience. So no wonder the plot twist comes as a surprise – it breaks every convention of trust between author and viewer. Oh, plus, it implies that if you frustrate a lesbian, she might slaughter your whole family. So, you know, watch it. ...more |
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MOVIES - JANUARY TO JUNE 2018 Directly In response to Kirk’s list here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... I don’t expect many other people will be MOVIES - JANUARY TO JUNE 2018 Directly In response to Kirk’s list here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... I don’t expect many other people will be interested. MOVIES I SAW ON THE BIG SCREEN Paddington 2 I was glad to find out that to my surprise I don’t have a heart of stone, because only those so afflicted could not be charmed and even tickled pink by the little bear’s antics. Coco Here I rediscovered my heart of stone – couldn’t really raise my appreciation of this pinnacle of modern animation much beyond the tepid. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri Enough has been said about this – a modern classic You Were Never Really Here Wow – a nearly wordless almost-horror masterpiece from Lynne Ramsay, who only makes extraordinary movies and at a very slow pace (4 in 18 years). Ratcatcher, her first, is my favourite, but You Were Never Really Here is a must see too. A Quiet Place Another nifty almost-horror movie which has the immense benefit of shutting up all the loud sweet-rustlers and the popcorn chompers as if you make one tiny sound the Things from Another Planet will getcha. Chomp and ye shall be chomped, as it is written in the Book of Ezekiel. Jurassic World : Fallen Kingdom When me & daughter go to the movies if there are a couple of dinosaur fights we are pretty happy. She's not a kid any more but the same rules seem to apply. DULL STUFF BEST AVOIDED WHICH OTHER PEOPLE INEXPLICABLY LIKE The American Friend A Quiet Passion A Man Called Ove THE USUAL INDIE STUFF Jeff Who Lives At Home The Levelling Lady Bird Winter Solstice The Skeleton Twins Louder Than Bombs Krisha HORROR MOVIES The Autopsy Of Jane Doe Broken It Lives Again (It’s Alive 2) Raw Wrong Turn Creep The Texas Chain Saw Franchise I’m working my way through this – amazing to see stars like Renee Zellweger, Michael McConaughey and Aragorn starting off in these movies. CATCHING UP WITH THE CLASSICS : NOIR These were all great, from a time when movies were 80 to 90 minutes long and not a minute longer. Out Of The Past Detour The Killing The big heat But the best was Sweet Smell Of Success With brilliant performances by Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster. CATCHING UP WITH THE CLASSICS : FOREIGN FILMS Bonjour Tristesse From 1958 – David Niven, Deborah Kerr and Jean Seberg – three names which for me may as well be the names of dinosaurs we only know from 400 million year old fossils. But this was fascinating! All about the wages of carefree sex being death in a fast car. Some people would say that’s a fair price to pay. Stromboli Ingrid Bergman in a strange but very intense film about being stuck forever living a impoverished life on an island that happens to be a big volcano. Unsurprisingly Ingrid becomes increasingly irked that there is not a reasonably sized supermarket within 200 miles by boat. And God Created Woman Hilarious introducing-Brigitte-Bardot-to-the-unsuspecting-world trash. Entertaining dancing on tables! Bob Le Flambeur Rocco And His Brothers Cries And Whispers I’m increasingly thinking that the time when discerning movie fans were hypnotised by Bergman’s unremitting ice cold miseryfests to the point of thinking they were in some unexplained way terrifically significant has now passed. Great. We can now see a lot of them for what they are : tiresome in the extreme. Summer With Monika That does not apply to every Bergman of course. This one is beautiful. I was glad to see that the two young lovers are in no way cute – quite annoying in fact. Otherwise the film would have drowned. Goto, Island Of Love A must see (if you can find it) for fans of European weirdness – companion piece to Herzog’s Even Dwarfs Started Small – an enclosed community run on its own quasi-military rules is upturned by revolution. The director Borowczyk then made the even better and even more difficult to find Blanche (1972) but alas made a left turn into soft porn (Immoral Tales, The Beast) and even ended up directing Emmanuelle 5 – what a waste of a career. Ossessione Jules And Jim Pickpocket Lift To The Scaffold These four were fascinating, and Lift to the Scaffold was GREAT – perfect caper-goes-‘orribly-wrong movie. Must see. CATCHING UP WITH SO-CALLED CLASSICS WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE COMPLETE CRAP I know where I’m going! Having been mentally scarred by A Matter of Life and Death, which everyone thinks is a great classic but which I found absolutely unbearable, I thought I should give the famous Powell/Pressburger team another go. So, I Know Where I’m Going! Turned out to be very slightly less unbearable, but by not much. The fake fakery of everything they ladle onto the screen must appeal to a lot of otherwise reasonable people. I have no real explanation. These movies are awful. The girl can’t help it! The Beatles’ favourite rock and roll movie – what could possibly go wrong? Well, two things – ha ha, nudge nudge wink wink. This horrible movie is all about making jokes about the size of Jayne Mansfield’s breasts. Example : she shimmies up the stairs from the street to the door of her apartment in the tightest possible dress. A milkman is delivering the milk at this particular moment. He sees Jayne and stands rivetted (sort of like in cartoons when their eyes bug three feet outside their heads). Then – honestly! – the milk in the bottles he’s carrying suddenly gushes out all over the place. So this is Benny Hill territory. But is it not rescued by a fantastic cast of early rockers? Little Richard, the Platters, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent – wow! Yeah, it would have been totally rescued except their performances are all around 70 seconds long. Total frustration, like the milkman. SOME RANDOM ODDITIES Mother! Colossal Lucy Annihilation Faster, pussycat! Kill! Kill! Quiet Days In Clichy These are all well worth watching – their aesthetic is from somewhere east of Neptune, so normal standards don’t apply. I think they might be complete rubbish, but I can’t tell. But they are fun. ...more |
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Madly, hectically following my summary of 2017 in books comes this handy fun-sized my year in movies, which, frankly, and I probably shouldn’t say thi
Madly, hectically following my summary of 2017 in books comes this handy fun-sized my year in movies, which, frankly, and I probably shouldn’t say this out loud, have, pound for pound, given me more actual fun than books this year. I know, it’s mildly shocking. 24 BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR NEW(ISH) MOVIES Your Name – Japanese anime, how cutting edge I am, but actually, everybody will de dazzled and emotionally wrought up with the beauty and time trippy body switching complexities. Most beautiful film for a long long while. Our Little Sister – another Japanese movie, this one a drama in which practically nothing happens except people get on with each other really well. The Florida Project – completes a trilogy of three brilliant performances by little kids from recent years – the other two are Jacob Tremblay in Room (aged 8) and McKenna Grace in Gifted (aged 11). Here we have Brooklynn Prince (aged 7) coping wonderfully with life at the bottom of the pile – actually all three of these kids do a lot of good coping. It almost gives you hope for the future. Tower - this is a must see (it's on Netflix) – an animation of the Charles Whitman massacre at the University of Texas in 1966, which was the first big ticket American massacre in an ongoing series. The dazzling beauty of the graceful visuals smashes head on into the horror of the actual events; and all of this intercut with interviews from the time and interviews with survivors from the present day. Wow, I was floored by this movie. American Honey - this is a must see – Sasha Lane could be the grown-up version of the kid in The Florida Project, all tough & sassy on the outside and not really that tough on the inside. For a quick tour of American poverty, see these two movies as a double bill. The Disaster Artist - could have been awful but this careful, respectful homage to the worst-movie-ever (The Room, not to be confused with Room) is just right. They do tweak a couple of things, like avoiding Lisa’s nude scenes (in order to concentrate on James Franco’s bottom) but as a fan of the Disaster Artist book I had no complaints at all. You probably do need to see The Room before, though. The Death of Stalin - well, it’s a sort-of comedy but really only makes you smile in the way that all skulls do, mirthlessly and bitterly. It’s very cartoony and has miles of style and you will like it. Toni Erdmann - a 3 hour long German comedy with the most uncomfortable cringe making nude scene in many many years Revanche Hidden Figures Hell or High water Manchester by the Sea Detroit OLD MOVIES WHICH I FINALLY CAUGHT UP WITH Celine and Julie Go Boating - all three hours of it…. Started very whimsically, lots of really silly magical realist nonsense, and then just got progressively more whimsical and hypnotised me into slithering right down the rabbit hole too. I no longer know who I am. Pretty Baby – you couldn’t make this movie today but Louis Malle could in 1978 with 12 year old Brooke Shields as a girl growing up in a New Orleans brothel and having the madam auction off her virginity and it not being that much of a big deal. The morality of this movie, which is all about why make such a big deal about such a little thing, is guaranteed to amaze, astonish and probably distress a modern viewer. And it’s all filmed and played so gracefully, casually and beautifully too. Recommended for anyone wishing to step outside their comfort zone. When I call this one of the best movies I saw this year, I should say this is really one of the most amazing. Is it actually good? Well, not good like Goody Two Shoes, that's for sure. But then again, this year there was also a movie which challenged received opinion about sexual crime – it was Elle, starring the semi-divine Isabelle Huppert, (note - she must be the only actress to star in a movie the title of which is part of her own name) but this was a truly terrible movie, which appeared to be saying that for some women rape isn’t that bad, and maybe if you’re lucky, somebody will come in and bop the rapist with a blunt object and everything will end happily. So that was I think the worst movie of the year. Even Dwarves Started Small The African Queen Millions Like Us Elmer Gantry The Shop on Main Street A Streetcar Named Desire I Want to Live! The Quiet man The Bridge on the River Kwai All of these are recommended – I could go on about each one but let me for once be merciful. ...more |
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following on from Kirk's 6 month roundup which is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... here is my 6 months of 2017 MODERN MAINSTREAM STUFF The Be following on from Kirk's 6 month roundup which is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... here is my 6 months of 2017 MODERN MAINSTREAM STUFF The Best Hidden Figures – this really does look like the Well Meaning Liberal Film of the Week but it gets past all that and is just altogether a delight T2 Trainspotting – another one which had to overcome a lot of instant prejudice – how dare they! Etc etc – but they did, and it was a moody melancholic meditation on middle age in the rackety-but-lovely Danny Boyle cinematographic stylee Denial – a dramatization of a libel trial over a book about Holocaust denial – yes, they surely sexed up the character of author Deborah Lispstadt by having the lovely Rachel Weisz playing her but they got themselves a great hugely creepy unpleasant and dramatically-thinner Timothy Spall to play the denier David Irving. Solid stuff but the movie does take on way too much. The Martian – this is the movie everyone says Gravity was but wasn’t. Hell Or High Water Manchester By The Sea The Not Bad Gifted – great kid performance, best one since the kid in Room. Story is a bit sticky. [image] (Okay, a movie featuring a seven year old maths genius and a one eyed cat - what's your point? Sentimental? Come on, you know me by now. I'm not sentimental at all.) Viceroy’s House – better than Gandhi and another movie which tries to cram in way too much history. Should have been a miniseries. 20th Century Women La La Land The Worst Zero Dark Thirty – worst movie I’ve seen for a long while – torture porn in the guise of American political expediency. Kathryn Bigelow’s follow up to the excellent Hurt Locker is just horrible. Americans who wonder why the Muslim world hates them so much can start here. The Edge Of Seventeen – some movies I see because I love the an actor or actress – in this case Hailee Steinfeld who was such a knockout in True Grit. Oh well, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and this was just another high-school-angst movie. She gets to fall over and jump around a bit. The Neon Demon – I’m (a little bit creepily) also stalking Elle Fanning who is another great young actress but this was all flash and zero dark horror. Elle was good but the movie should be shoved in a cement mixer. Companion piece to Black Swan. The Nice Guys – what was I doing watching this? High-Rise - like the Neon Demon this was all stupid batshit atmosphere; source novel was from the time J G Ballard was cranking out one dystopia after another, each constructed around a Big Obvious Symbol of Modern Degeneration How To Be Single – passes for a modern comedy, and such are the depths we have fallen to The Hateful Eight – passes for a rebooted Western with that “crackling” Tarantino dialogue. Last time we heard the famous dialogue in a QT movie that was any good was Jackie Brown (1997) Modern Indie Stuff Paterson - I did like a movie called Paterson about a guy called Paterson who lives in Paterson. He’s a bus driver and he’s played by Adam Driver. Sorry, this does sound ridiculous, but the actual movie, in a faintly lobotomised way, is sweet, and as very little actually happens in it, it was my kind of thing. This is what happens in this movie: [image] Adult Life Skills – awful British indie – AVOID – made by people who need to have the basic concepts of comedy and acting explained to them Lady Macbeth – cracking British Victorian melodrama with fab female lead. Nothing to do with Shakespeare! DO NOT AVOID!! Hunt For The Wilderpeople - sweet indie from New Zealand; honestly, it’s gonna be hard for anyone to dislike this, you’d have to really set your mind to it. Nothing so original, you’ve seen the story a fair few times before, but it’s a minor treat Wiener-Dog – alas, a very so-so follow up to Welcome to the Dollhouse which is one of my all time favourite movies – if you want a high-school-angst movie at all that is the all-timer. The End Of The Tour – curious little drama about David Foster Wallace and a journalist following him around on a book tour. DFW fans will like it. Okay, I liked it too. Birdemic – recommended to me as one of the worst movies of all time, and it really was! You have never seen special effects like the homicidal birds in Birdemic! Horror Don’t Breathe – in 2011 there was You’re Next, now this one – put some people in a house and see who kills who. Very strong atmosphere, excellent dog. This movie doesn’t remake the contours of the Western imagination but it’s pretty cool. The Brood – early Cronenberg which I had never seen and how ignorantly happy I was in those pre-Brood days! But there was a saving grace – one of the DVD extras was an interview with Mark Irwin, the cinematographer, and his account of how the movie got made, the on-set battles with drunken Oliver Reed, and Mark’s adulatory relationship with Cronenberg was much better than this Godforsaken stupidity of a horror movie. [image] Train To Busan - everyone is right about this nifty zombie movie, it was tasty, tasty, very very tasty! Blair Witch – what a confusingly titled follow up to Blair Witch Project… well, it got slated but it ain’t that bad. It’s really the same as the first film with added drones. The twentysomethings lost in the woods are just as annoying and you’re just as happy to see them die. 10 Cloverfield Lane – pretty much a movie with two twists to it and not much else. John Goodman looked so much like Mr Creosote in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life that any moment I thought he’d explode. Ms 45 – was waiting forever to see this early Abel Ferrara and it was…. Very strange. 80s horror movies are blighted now by the not-good gore effects. Maybe this one could do with a remake. Kill List – crazy-ass British horror which does one of those From Dawn to Dusk-style hairpin turns from one genre (crime) to a whole other one (supernatural horror). Completely crap and highly entertaining. Animation Your Name – probably my favourite of the year so far. Wasn’t expecting a great deal from my first try at Japanese anime, and the gorgeous visual style just blew me right away. The deranged time-slip gender-bending plot is just right too. Two Box Sets The first one was Truffaut, featuring the complete Antoine Doinel movies – so these were The 400 Blows – I saw this many years back and thought it was great; now I think it’s even greater. 5 of anyone’s stars. Stolen Kisses – after the bittersweet perfection of The 400 Blows Truffaut descended into light comedy for the rest of his stand-in’s autobiographical escapades. His actor Jean-Pierre Leaud grew up from a sharp featured, bright but hounded boy into a totally annoying self-satisfied dork. But I can take the charm of light weight French social comedy from the 60s any day. Bed and Board – was film number 3 Love On The Run -and by film number 4 you are quite sick of Antoine Doinel and you wish one of his wives or girlfriends might shove him off the Pont Saint-Louis. C’est vrai! [image] Then came a Herzog box set : Even Dwarves Started Small – a must see just because it’s so bonkers. Cast is entirely made up of persons of restricted growth, who have violently taken over the asylum they have been forced to live in. I guess it’s another Metaphor for Society. The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser Stroszek – these two feature Herzog’s weird discovery, the non-actor Bruno Schleinstein who had psychological issues. IMDB says He was very difficult to work with, though, sometimes needing several hours of screaming before he could do a scene. [image] Heart Of Glass - all of Herzog’s early movies are strange, with a slow motion stretched-time feel to them. I’m glad I saw them, ain’t going to be rewatching them any time soon Other European movies The Club - Chilean movie - paedo priests ensconced by the Catholic church in a remote house in a remote coastal town; then their secret gets out and everything goes all to hell Clouds Of Sils Maria Headhunters – this is a fairly crazed Norwegian thriller which is a whole lot of fun. Son Of Saul – probably the only way you could ever make a movie about the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz was by tightly focussing on one guy and following him around for a couple of hours so that you didn’t have to actually try to reconstruct Auschwitz itself, as there are never any long or even medium shots; but I didn’t like it. I don’t like movies where you feel before you see them that you have to like them or you’ll think you’re a bad person. Rome Open City Women On The Edge Of A Nervous Breakdown The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie Catching Up With Stuff I Should Already Have Seen Almost Famous Alien Resurrection Nativity! Rabbit Proof Fence The Belles Of St Trinians Wall Street Romancing The Stone Sunshine Julia Classic Old Hollywood I Finally Got Round To, or, Whaddya Mean you never saw The African Queen? Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – with one famous exception the songs were so terrible, as would this movie be except for its two very starry stars The Quiet Man – 5 stars of pure ridiculous Oirishness The Ox-Bow Incident Gilda – quite often I find these highly rated Hollywood greats to be total tripe when I get round to them; this certainly was The African Queen – and sometimes they turn out to be utterly captivating and warm-hearted and just wow Laura The Lady Vanishes Love Me Or Leave Me – man, what a miserable film in which Cagney abuses, belittles and controls Doris all the way to the end; how this movie was supposed to be entertainment I don’t know; could put it on a double bill with Ladybird, Ladybird, Ken Loach’s horrible examination of domestic violence The Maltese Falcon Sullivan’s Travels Rio Grande Letter From An Unknown Woman The Lost Weekend Keeper Of The Flame The Docks Of New York - found this on youtube, so I watched it there, which was a first. 1928 silent, and really good. Victorian melodrama. [image] ...more |
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2016 AT THE MOVIES PART ONE : HOLLYWOOD THE BEST Love And Mercy – As a Brian Wilson fan I resisted seeing this, I thought it was really quite a creepy id 2016 AT THE MOVIES PART ONE : HOLLYWOOD THE BEST Love And Mercy – As a Brian Wilson fan I resisted seeing this, I thought it was really quite a creepy idea - he has been turned into a suffering saint - but finally I crumbled & was humbled – it was great, could not have been better. The King’s Speech - as a hearty disliker of the British Royal family I resisted seeing this – what, a movie which inculcates sympathy for these tiresome parasites? but finally I crumbled & was humbled – it was great, could not have been better… hmmm Room - ew, one of those capture-a-young-woman-and-rape-her-at-your-leisure stories which pop up in the news from time to time? No thank you, haven’t we had a plateful of female suffering on our screens already? But finally I crumbled & was humbled – it was great, could not have been better… er, didn’t I just say that already? Love And Friendship – you’re kidding, a costume drama based on a Jane Austen short story? Gotta be so borrrringgggggg…. No thank you. But finally I crumbled & was humbled – it was great, could not have been better…. Er, I’m seeing a pattern here. Joy – this was head and shoulders the best movie about the development and manufacture of mops I saw all year Sing Street - musical of the year if that’s what it is – effortless and completely charming, must see if you don’t mind dreadful 1980s hair-dos [image] Plus these well-known winners Brooklyn Carol Spotlight The Big Short Arrival THE WORST Sisters – Tina Fey, a comedy hero of mine, crashes and burns in painfully unfunny, crass and crude disaster. Oh, Tina. Fifty Shades Of Grey – it had to be seen and having been seen does not need to be seen any more by anyone else ever Kill Your Darlings and On the Road – I read a great Jack Kerouac biography so I had to watch these two, and lo, they were really ghastly, as you probably could have told me Independence Day : Resurgence - well, we like a good disaster movie, so we got hornswoggled 45 Years – got so much love and but it was like outtakes from a British version of The Walking Dead -okay, that’s a little harsh PART TWO : FOREIGN STUFF THE BEST Rams (Iceland) – two sheep farming brothers have some unresolved issues in deepest Iceland; no really, you need two elderly Icelandic sheep farmers in your life! Trust me on this [image] Second Mother (Brazil) – the estranged daughter, now a hipster student, finally visits her mother and finds to her horror that she’s a live-in maid who’s treated like a dishcloth by the rich family. Everybody gets what they deserve. Five stars. Dear Diary (Italy) – a discovery from 1993 – wayward, wacky & wonderful – just a modest little autobiographical movie which shows effortlessly how movies can be. Five stars. About Elly (Iran) – tense stuff about a missing woman – stuff your Gone Girl, this is more like it Beyond The Hills (Romania) – if you’re looking for a great drama about a Romanian nunnery here it is – the 2 and a half hours will flash by in a trice. What We Do In The Shadows (New Zealand) – Shaun of the Dead is now 12 years ago and how many really funny horror comedies have there been? Finally here is another. [image] Mustang (France/Turkey) – enthralling drama about five orphaned teenage sisters; the aunt and uncle can’t cope with them in rural Turkey & so decide to marry them off; great stuff [image] Girlhood (France) – everybody loved this one about girl gangstas in ruff tuff Paris and everybody was right The Golden Dream (Mexico) – tough heartbreaker about three kids trying to get across Mexico to the USA THE WORST A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Contemplating Existence - avoid I’m So Excited! - avoid A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night - avoid THE FIVE BEST FOREIGN MOVIES I FINALLY GOT ROUND TO SEEING Europa Europa – Young Julie Delpy as a Nazi – how good is that The Double Life Of Veronique Le Trou Nosferatu Cleo From 5 To 7 THE WEIRDEST Enter The Void – I’m a big fan of Irreversible, which I can see many people would really hate, it's a really great sort-of-horror movie, if you can take it; but I couldn’t take this lunatic froth with the camera perched perpetually two feet behind the head of the protagonist the entire time, plus all the acid trip stuff, ugh PART THREE : CATCHING UP WITH CLASSIC OLD HOLLYWOOD THE BEST Grand Hotel Roman Holiday [image] Nothing Sacred THE WORST How Green Was My Valley – words cannot express how bad etc etc Shanghai Express – words cannot express how annoying etc etc The Magnificent Ambersons – words cannot express how tedious etc etc PART FOUR : AMERICAN INDIES Three good ones: Diary Of A Teenage Girl – cringemaking but sort of beautiful Captain Fantastic – all about either the best dad in the world or the worst dad in the world, you decide James White – glumfest in which hipster tries desperately to look after his dying mother – I’m not really selling this one too well 2016 was a crap year for me on a personal level but a very good one for movies. So let Hank Williams sum it up : The land's so poor so hard and yeller You have to set on a sack of fertilizer to raise an umbrella And it rains out here nearly every day But we're still a-livin', so everything's okay The hogs took the cholera and they've all done died The bees got mad and they left the hive The weevils got the corn and the rain rotted the hay But we're still a-livin', so everything's okay The porch fell down that's more expense The darned old mule he tore down the fence The mortgage is due and I can't pay But we're still a-livin', so everything's okay [image] PS this is in response to Kirk's summary here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more |
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Dec 29, 2016
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