Recently Watched Films 2017

[Dan Warburton]

Ulrich Seidl, Safari, 2016

"Colonies are the outhouses of the European soul, where a fellow can let his pants down and relax, enjoy the smell of his own shit. Where he can fall on his slender prey roaring as loud as he feels like, and guzzle her blood with open joy. Where he can just wallow and rut and let himself go in a softness, a receptive darkness of limbs, of hair as woolly as the hair on his own forbidden genitals." I wonder if Seidl was aware of Pynchon's lines when he took his camera to the Leopard Lodge in Namibia to film his dear compatriots "hunting" big game.. Nobody makes films like Seidl, nobody.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/s ... st-hunters

[dialectics of shit]

Next someone's gonna characterize Querelle as "lesser Fassbinder"—or something worse—and I'll really lose my shit.

Anyone watched the recent rip of Eight Hours Don't Make a Day? Have it downloaded, just haven't gotten to it. I'll be very surprised if I don't dig it.

[walto]

"Colonies are the outhouses of the European soul, where a fellow can let his pants down and relax, enjoy the smell of his own shit. Where he can fall on his slender prey roaring as loud as he feels like, and guzzle her blood with open joy. Where he can just wallow and rut and let himself go in a softness, a receptive darkness of limbs, of hair as woolly as the hair on his own forbidden genitals."

Excellent!

[Steve Minkin]

"Colonies are the outhouses of the European soul, where a fellow can let his pants down and relax, enjoy the smell of his own shit. Where he can fall on his slender prey roaring as loud as he feels like, and guzzle her blood with open joy. Where he can just wallow and rut and let himself go in a softness, a receptive darkness of limbs, of hair as woolly as the hair on his own forbidden genitals."

Excellent!

Ditto! Gravity's Rainbow.

[Piano Mouth]

Is it OK to have different opinions regarding a single film? Can we argue or discuss things amicably? Isn't this a discussion forum?

[Dan Warburton]

Is it OK to have different opinions regarding a single film? Can we argue or discuss things amicably? Isn't this a discussion forum?

Well it used to be...

Next someone's gonna characterize Querelle as "lesser Fassbinder"—or something worse—and I'll really lose my shit.

I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you. We all have our personal preferences, which is as it should be, and if I like or dislike something I try to put into words why, and that's about as far as it goes. It's a shame that some people here who have, in the past, written long and passionate posts about the films they love, and why they love them, have taken to drive-by posting. Guess they're too busy elsewhere.

Anyone watched the recent rip of Eight Hours Don't Make a Day? Have it downloaded, just haven't gotten to it. I'll be very surprised if I don't dig it.

That's lined up for the new year - can't wait! Did you snatch the Schatten der Engel too, DOS? Looking forward to that

[dialectics of shit]

Definitely cool to have different opinions and wasn't my intention to imply otherwise. Any confrontation in my vehemence was only meant jokingly, but that doesn't anyways translate well online. Mea culpa.

[Dan Warburton]

Friðrik Þór Friðriksson, Angels of the Universe, 2000

There are only about 340,000 people in Iceland (and three times as many sheep), and it would seem no more than a couple of dozen of actors, so if you've seen any Icelandic films - and I've been flying the flag for Icelandic cinema for a couple of years now - you'll recognise Ingvar E. Sigurðsson. But this performance could be his best, as Pall, a sensitive if somewhat spoiled and rather eccentric man still living at his parents' place (another recurring theme in Icelandic cinema) who, when unceremoniously dumped by his girlfriend Dagny (there are plenty of Dagnys to be found in Icelandic film too) becomes increasingly unstable and is eventually committed to a mental hospital, where he befriends Oli (Baltasar Kormakur), who's convinced he has written all the songs ever recorded by The Beatles, and Pétur, who has a, shall we say, rather unhealthy admiration for Adolf Hitler. If that sounds funny, well, it is - especially when the three of them end up at Reykjavik's poshest restaurant - but not surprisingly things don't end well for our hero.

[Dan Warburton]

Andrzej Wajda, Man of Marble, 1977

If you don't mind, I'll wait until I've seen the sequel Man of Iron before singing the praises of this one. I'll let The Guardian do so instead https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/m ... lassic-dvd
Awesome work though, looking forward to the follow-up soon.

[walto]

Just saw this today, on twitter.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ho ... ssion=true,

FWIW, I've only seen maybe fifteen minutes or so of it on TV. I really like the version of 'Nearer My God to Thee' on one of the older British takes on the story, though. I don't believe they do that version on this fancy reissue.

Happy xmas, all.

[Steve Minkin]

TALK TO ME (2007) -- True story of ex-con Petey Greene, who became a D.C. radio personality in the 60s and 70s. Don Cheadle in the title role, Chiwetel Ejiofor as his friend and manager and a hot young Taraji P. Henson as Greene's girlfriend. GREAT soundtrack, some good exploration of the crises of the time, MLK's assassination, the DC black community, etc. Not entirely satisfying, a little too formulaic and predictable, but an enjoyable film.

[Piano Mouth]

The Human Condition - Kobayashi



So good, and around 10 hours in its entirety, it's very epic and enthralling. Lots of memorable scenes, great performances and awesome cinematography. Aside from all the political criticisms about the main character being too innocent, I've taken the film on more on a story based viewing, and it is indeed a great story of character with lots of of social critique in the narrative. Didn't get to finish it all during Christmas break, but will continue hopefully finish watching all of it before the New Year. On FilmStruck.

[Steve Minkin]

HE WHO GETS SLAPPED -- (1924) MGM's first film, Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, John Gilbert. Strangely powerful silent classic. Story doesn't completely work and the production overreaches, but the visual and symbolic imagery are so strong they overpower the film's flaws. Chaney is magnificent as HE. Unique, must see.

[Wombatz]

if i may quote myself:

He Who Gets Slapped from 1924 is a somewhat lackluster movie, given what one would expect from the combined mad energies of director Victor Sjöström (watch The Phantom Carriage instead) and actor Lon Chaney (watch The Penalty instead). Apart from some refreshing moments, such as the main character’s open delight at the bloody carnage committed by a lion he has let loose (for reasons that would only disappoint you, so better watch West Of Zanzibar instead), it’s stale waters, with a storyline straight out of an impotent teenage revenge fantasy (as in: they’re gonna be sorry once I’m dead), and the clichéd circus setting also doesn’t help (watch The Unknown instead) ...

anyway, christmas watching was pretty dismal (as it should be?). i screamed and ran midway through the following (all of which at least some of the others enjoyed except 3):

1) Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, 1999, by George Lucas. i've never seen a complete star wars movie but had the sticker album when the first one came out. this was not as good as the sticker album. 2) Doctor Zhivago, 1965, by David Lean. it's like in 65 cinema still had to prove it could be proper literature (at a time when literature was already pretty much dead). 3) Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, 1983, by Terry Jones. which triggered another childhood memory: watching MP and the Holy Grail with a bunch of Mormon kids on exchange in Idaho, them on the floor and trying to explain the funny to me, me thinking i'd just grown out of that kind of funny and it must be a cultural thing. only, this time nobody thought the film was funny. was it ever funny? 4) Our Man in Havana, 1959, by Carol Reed. this was my fault. i thought: for a proper christmas movie let's watch something with alec guinness in it. maybe this once was good enough and has just dated badly (i seem to remember i was bored stiff by the novel too). one could probably watch it all through even today, but then the cold war plays out so differently now that watching musty old clichés about a spy world that also never existed but maybe related to funny cartoons in men's magazines 50 years ago does seem somewhat pointless.

[jon abbey]

no, The Meaning of Life was never very funny, the Holy Grail is/was fantastic and Life of Brian is fine but overrated, but Meaning of Life I never liked much.

[Dan Warburton]

Wow Lutz, you seem to be a real glutton for punishment Quite agree with Jon on Meaning of Life (I do like "Every Sperm is Sacred" though), but less so on Brian, which we watched recently and I found to have aged rather well. They nail today's ridiculous 31-gender PC stupidity very nicely. ("Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans', but that he can have the right to have babies"...)

[Dan Warburton]

Billy Wilder & Alexander Esway, Mauvaise graine, 1934

Debut feature from the recently-exiled-from-Berlin Wilder, shot on the fly (he doesn't remember where the money came from) and mostly on location in and around Paris, it's a fast-moving comedy action film about a spoilt daddy's boy who falls in with a colourful band of professional car thieves (sort of Gone in 60 Seconds half a century earlier) and falls for Danielle Darrieux, just seventeen at the time and already blowing everyone else off the screen in every shot. Very entertaining, cool pre-Nouvelle Vague vibe.

[Dan Warburton]

Vittorio & Paolo Taviani, La Notte di San Lorenzo, 1982

Another fine Italian film about the end of World War II (someone should write a thesis on the subject), though I think Ms Kael was overdoing it saying it was as good as (Renoir's) La grande illusion - there are no central characters here, and certainly none with the stature of Stroheim, Gabin or Fresnay, and that's surely the point: we're just a bunch of peasants hiding in a wheatfield and we don't know what side the other guy's on until it's too late.

[Dan Warburton]

Edouard Molinaro, La cage aux folles, 1978

Well, it's kissmush time after all

[Dan Warburton]

John Ford, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, 1962

Dunno what you folks out there in the real West - well, across the Atlantic anyway - feel about this iconic flick 55 years after it was made. I find claims like Richard Brody's "the greatest American political movie" rather hard to agree with (but with Alabama in mind maybe American politics is still about loudmouths riding horses into campaign meetings), and the whole thing a little bit dated, if entertaining. More dated in fact than earlier Ford westerns (Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine..). I could have done with much less Andy Devine, more Woody Strode and Vera Miles, and no John Carradine at all. Lee Marvin has a ball with his sneer and his bullwhip - and once he's out of the way the film runs out of steam somewhat. Thoughts?