Recently Watched Films 2019

[Dan Warburton]

John Coney, Space Is The Place, 1974

"Sun Ra - space-age prophet, pharoanic jester, shaman-philosopher and avant-jazz keyboardist/bandleader - lands his spaceship in Oakland, having been presumed lost in space for a few years. With Black Power on the rise, Ra disembarks and proclaims himself 'the alter-destiny.' He holds a myth-vs.-reality rap session with black inner-city youth at a rec center, threatening 'to chain you up and take you with me, like they did you in Africa,' if they resist his plea to go to outer space. He duels at cards with The Overseer, a satanic overlord, with the fate of the black race at stake. Ra wins the right to a world concert, which features great performance footage of the Arkestra. Agents sent by the Overseer attempt to assassinate Ra, but he vanishes, rescues his people, and departs in his spaceship from the exploding planet Earth." Yeah! This is a trip, a crazy mix of cheesy 50s sci-fi, blaxploitation and.. Sun Ra (who wrote all his own lines) at his Tutankamun-helmet sporting, Moog-destroying, riddle-spouting best. The concert was shot in downtown San Francisco in the Mitchell Brothers' O'Farrell Theater, where they were shooting Behind The Green Door at the same time. Must have been fun.

[walto]

Burt nearly starts WWIII, but you can probably guess how it ends.

Everyone dies in a giant conflagration--but bedbugs and cockroaches survive and start things over for the better?

[Dan Warburton]

Burt nearly starts WWIII, but you can probably guess how it ends.

Everyone dies in a giant conflagration--but bedbugs and cockroaches survive and start things over for the better?

Oh so you haven't seen it then Try this instead Walt, I remember you were rather impressed with Ms Mangano in a screenshot I posted earlier on Riso Amaro



Alberto Lattuada, Anna, 1951

OK, the "duty before love" melo ending has dated, but that striking Mussolini-period architecture hasn't, and the more I see it the more I think this is one of the sexiest dance sequences in cinema (you will recall Nanni Moretti quoted it too - see above): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y3Lv1AnbB0.

[Dan Warburton]

Jean Girault, La soupe au choux, 1981

Yes, it's as daft as it looks. But I'll take a couple of hysterical farting farmers and a yodelling alien (Jacques Villeret, a delight) over Star Wars any day of the week.

[Dan Warburton]

Roy Del Ruth, The Mind Reader, 1933

Excellent lengthy and (beware) slightly spoilerish write-up of this hugely entertaining film http://pre-code.com/pre-code-the-mind-reader-1933/

[Wombatz]

Jean Girault, La soupe au choux, 1981

Yes, it's as daft as it looks. But I'll take a couple of hysterical farting farmers and a yodelling alien (Jacques Villeret, a delight) over Star Wars any day of the week.

i remember seeing that after it came out, but as a jaded 13-something i felt too old for this kind of shit. we recently rewatched 2 defunesses: the one where they sit in a car caught by a tree in mid-cliff (possibly the first film i ever saw at the cinema) still is surprisingly good, the one where he acts the hysterical maitre d is unwatchable.

[Dan Warburton]

To be honest, the only de Funes I can honestly say I like is his Molière L'avare... I could just about stand him in this one because of Villeret. Elsewhere, he's just far too hysterical. You can see why the French like Jerry Lewis.. Meanwhile, continuing the French 70s classics..



Diane Kurys, Diabolo menthe, 1977

"In the fall of 1963, Anne is becoming a teenager. She lives in Paris with her mother and her older sister, Frédérique. They're just back from summer at the beach with their father. School starts. For Frédérique it's the year of her first serious love, her first foray into politics (the Algerian question and "ban the bomb"), her first kiss from an older man, her first friend who runs away, and her first loss of friendship over values. For Anne, who watches her sister closely, it's a year of her first period and of learning to talk to boys, dealing with unfair teachers, and sorting things out with mom after getting in trouble." Nice attention to period detail - not surprising as it's autobiographical - including authentic open-back Paris buses, Algerian war grafitti and Cliff Richard posters. Always wondered what the view from the top floor of the Lycée Jules Ferry on Place de Clichy looked like - now I know.

[Dan Warburton]

Edmond T. Gréville, Under Secret Orders aka Mademoiselle Docteur, 1937

Wish I could find a decent screenshot.. Seems there might be a DVD out there, but haven't managed to track it down yet. Hope I can, because the only available rip on KG is simply atrocious - a shame, because Gréville's 65-minute English version of a film also shot by Pabst (no, haven't seen it yet) is worth your time, for Dita Parlo as much as Erich Stroheim. The story's a bit convoluted, but Gréville sails cheerily through the fog and delivers a little goody. http://www.filmnoirfile.com/under-secret-orders/

[Dan Warburton]

Sandrine Bonnaire, Marianne Faithfull, fleur d'âme, 2017

As the subtitle above makes clear, Sandrine Bonnaire pushes hard in this fine hour-long profile, with well-chosen archive footage, including extracts from that daft film Marianne made with Alain Delon (The Girl On A Motorcycle), and more recent snippets of the grande dame performing live. Nicely done.

[Dan Warburton]

Mario Bava, The Mask of Satan aka Black Sunday, 1960

Excellent adaptation of Gogol's Viy - had it been in colour it would have been pretty gory - which has aged surprisingly well, despite its rather perfunctory ending. http://sensesofcinema.com/2003/cteq/black_sunday/

[Dan Warburton]

Juan Antonio Bayona, The Orphanage, 2008

Spanish horror films are always quite classy, and this is no exception. But I'm not sure I enjoyed it as much as Peter Bradshaw seems to have done https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/m ... ema.horror - concentrating too much on the emotional pain of the mother draws the film into del Toro / Shyamalan country. More grief, less horror. There are a few moments when you'll jump out of your seat, but on a second viewing I doubt you will. All that's left is the Peter Pan backstory.

[walto]

Watched The VVitch (Eggers, 2015) yesterday. It's a low-voltage, period horror vehicle, reminiscent of Miller's "The Crucible" but with actual blood and demons. I enjoyed the puritanical New England look and the take-down of religious hypocrisy, but my favorite thing was the Mark Korven soundtrack, which I have since downloaded. It's a wonderful cross between Dowland and Ligeti. The link below is to the soundtrack on youtube.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjswCE- ... rt_radio=1

[walto]

Here's a somewhat less favorable review of The VVitch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI-aTycmzbo

On one hand, that guy hates everything, but, on the other, I have to admit he watched it considerably more closely than I did and makes several good points. (Not about the soundtrack though.)

[Piano Mouth]

Graduate First - Dir. Maurice Pialat



Thinking back, this reminded me of a toned down version of Kids. Basically about teenagers maturing and going off to work in the big city. Everyone is brilliantly getting by without working it seems. But these kids aren't into hard core drugs or are stealing everything they have their sights on. These are relatively good kids just trying to figure out the next steps in their lives.

The Mouth Agape - Dir. Maurice Pialat



Ultimately a film about the old man pictured above, and him losing his wife to some illness. The whole movie takes place when she is very sick, and ends when she dies basically. What's cool about this film is that it focuses on the different characters and their relationship to each other, and the dying mom. There's the son who goes off and gets a hooker, and a bunch of friends and acquaintances of the old man, who come and pay him a visit at his business. In the end, the movie centers around the old man, as we see him break down at his wife's death bed etc. Both Pialat films would be a good double feature to watch in one night!

[Dan Warburton]

Both Pialat films would be a good double feature to watch in one night

You'd probably need that bottle of red on the table above Alternatively, you could go for a spot of French comedy -



Claude Zidi, Les ripoux, 1984

Zidi went on to make two sequels, but the original is still the best, and it would have been even better if they'd dispensed with the silly car chase and action movie ending, but never mind: Philippe Noiret is always worth watching, and, since Coup de Torchon, has got corrupt cop ("ripou" is verlan for "pourri", rotten) down to a tee. We all know that his squeaky clean new partner Thierry Lhermitte will end up just as unscrupulous, so just sit back and enjoy the ride through old Montmartre

[Dan Warburton]

Rüdiger Suchsland, Hitler's Hollywood, 2017

Well-researched if a little wordy documentary https://www.riotmaterial.com/hitlers-ho ... f-horrors/ - should have seasoned torrent hunters here out in the woods. Watch this space..!

[Dan Warburton]

Matthew Chapman, Strangers Kiss, 1983

Much to enjoy in this low-budget tale of a film within a film (within a film), a temperamental director (Peter Coyote) shooting a feature funded by mob money (condition being that the mobster's moll gets the lead role, to the gangster's eventual displeasure) which tells of a washed-up boxer who gets involved with a gangster's moll.. You get the picture. Kubrick is not named (Coyote's character is just credited as The Director, but he is called Stanley), but the film being made is clearly Killer's Kiss. To compound the matryoshka effect, leading lady Victoria Tennant was director Matthew Chapman's partner in real life at the time. With a different allstar cast - not that Coyote is bad, but Tennant is a bit soft - could be a good candidate for a box office smash remake, methinks. They could ditch the rather annoying Gato Barbieri soundtrack too.

[Dan Warburton]

Stanley Kubrick, Killer's Kiss, 1955

After the above, had to return to this yet again - and what a fuckin' great little film it is. Just 67 minutes long, not one shot out of place. Talking of which, if you have time to spare (and to read it all, you'll probably need a couple of hours, which is twice as long as the film itself): http://www.idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus ... kiss_1.htm

[Dan Warburton]

Carl Froelich, Die vier Gesellen ("The Four Companions"), 1938

What piqued my curiosity about this was that it was the first (I think, should check) appearance in German (read Goebbels) Cinema of a certain Ms Ingrid Bergman. She's OK here - the famous pout is already there, if the smile still has to evolve from simply pretty to authentically beautiful - but the film is worth a look just to see Berlin as it was just before WWII. Unless I dozed off, I didn't spot a single swastika or anyone in uniform, but the ideology behind the story is just as brutal. Basically, it's all right for women to study but given the choice between going into business for themselves and marrying (and of course procreating).. well, no choice. The hausfrau it is. "You look nice in an apron" says Kohlund, Bergman's former graphic design teacher and future spouse, as she makes him a sandwich, scowling. How on earth she could fall in love with this creep is beyond me. But she's not alone: one of her companions falls for a bloke she meets on the U-Bahn (doesn't take long for plans for the new house to be drawn up), another for a gnarly tax inspector. It's obviously inspired by 30s American screwball, and there are moments which are genuinely amusing, but you can hear Goebbels laughing along with you, and that smarts.

[Dan Warburton]

Ben Wheatley, Happy New Year Colin Burstead, 2018

I'm no great fan of IMDb user reviews, but keep checking them out regularly out of morbid fascination, as one does Trump tweets. From time to time though, there are some which are right on the money, and this one by somebody called HuddsOn is worth quoting in its entirety:
"Fractious family gatherings, especially those marking a holiday or life event, are a staple of Anglophone popular culture. What Ben Wheatley seems to have done in this comedy-drama is to take this situation, although with a larger than average cast, and assume the script for a comedy-drama would just write itself. But a New Year's Eve drinks party just isn't a sufficiently high-concept idea to sustain a satisfactory full-length movie without character arcs, dramatic tension, or a plot, which are sadly deficient here. It is filmed in an exaggerated docu-soap style, with shaky camerawork, zip pans and sudden focus changes, which many viewers will no doubt find jarring or pretentious. It wasn't this, however, that I had a problem with, so much as the structure. With such a bewildering number of characters, little attempt to provide any back-story for them before the party, and no real central protagonist, it is difficult to care much about any of the people in this movie, and the dramatic potential of the set-up is largely squandered. For me, the only truly dramatic or intense moment was Colin's rant at his serial-adulterer, family-abandoning brother David, who has arrived with his German girlfriend, about a third of the way in. I did not feel that the dialogue was particularly witty or incisive either - the only line that stuck in my mind was when Colin was setting up the sound system and says "we have to have a disco, because if they don't dance, they fight." The themes of indebtedness and financial embarrassment are touched on and there's even a very perfunctory conversation between two characters about Brexit and party politics, but it doesn't go anywhere with these ideas, and in the subsequent Q&A I found the director's claim that he was making, as he put it, "a film about the 'now'", to be somewhat hollow.The country house is a nice location visually, it has a consistent visual style and a strong cast, but I don't think I can give it more than 5/10."
I wouldn't give it that, myself. So these are my compatriots? Yes, alas.