Films Recently Watched

  On 11/6/2020 at 10:38 PM, Tim_J said:

Browsing the now showing list and apparently there's no Lav Diaz in there... How exactly does Mubi work? I notice there's a library with lots of movies... Do these movies rotate trough the now showing list is that it? 

Yes

Watched the Other Lamb on Mubi which was great. It stars the guy who plays the brother in The Haunting of Hill House as a super creepy/charismatic cult leader. 8/10

Free Fire by Ben Wheatley, not my favourite of his by far but still very good and don't understand the hate for this. Watched it back to back with High Rise which gets worse every time I watch it. 

Alone (2020)

Tense stalker type thriller, nothing original but does it almost perfectly.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt7711170/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3

• Alan partridge 
• Beyond the black rainbow 
• Coherence 
• Bernie
• Better watch out
• Bronson

... just to name a few, all for free on Crackle... Fu Netflix... 

Edit: just browsed their entire catalog, this is a goldmine, so many gems... 

One of my favorite movies of the last few years, watch it for free dudes... 

https://www.crackle.com/watch/6811

Karel Zeman's "Invention for Destruction" 

Fuck that movie is just cool! There is a sequence that is the perfect visual match to Mr. Bungle's "The Bends". Cannot recommend any Zeman stuff high enough.

the devil all the time - I really liked this guy's first movies but this was a major clusterfuck... I feel embarassed for this cast... Miserable performances... 

Carriers (2009)

www.imdb.com/title/tt0806203

  Quote

A swirl of brown poop, shaped like soft-serve ice cream with large, excited eyes and a big, friendly smile.

The Cell (2000)

quite tarsemi-y, cast, except d'onofrio

i'm such a newbie in this streaming services business... been founding lots of sites to watch shit for free... this site is a pretty good way to browse streaming services... here's a link for the free stuff...

https://reelgood.com/source/free

Watched Paterson, thought it was dull.

Guess I'm not a Jarmusch fan.

  On 11/11/2020 at 7:52 PM, MadameChaos said:

Guess I'm not a Jarmusch fan.

Same, always found him and his films obnoxious.

Finally saw Barbara Loden's "Wanda" last night. I will join the chorus who find this film revelatory. Agreed totally with Marguerite Duras's observation that this was an almost impossible and miraculous bond between a character and the actor who portrayed them. The actor is an actor, and not the character. Yet the actor can relate to the character in the way where the performance transcends the plasticity of acting and instead truly channels the life this character lives.

And tangentially, Duras taking the opportunity of an interview with Elia Kazan and choosing to talk about this film instead of his own work is reason #2353453456435345 why I love Duras. And any opportunity to show Elia Kazan as the piece of shit he was should be celebrated.

Watching all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies on Disney+. I think I saw all of them in theatres, but I am watching the third one now and I have no recollection of it. Which is great!

  On 11/11/2020 at 9:20 PM, Enthusiast said:

Watching all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies on Disney+. I think I saw all of them in theatres, but I am watching the third one now and I have no recollection of it. Which is great!

The little psychedelic parts in the third one are nice. Was p. cool in the theatre.

The Tall Man - lol poor rednecks, nobody deserves such a thing...

/

Mikhail Kalatozov's "Letter Never Sent"

Sergei Urusevsky's camerawork was a revelation in "The Cranes are Flying". Here it lapses to overkill (that persistent flame filter/superimposition, GAH!). Shame as well because the location (Northern Siberian Taiga) is so promising for his style. Kalatozov's taste for melodrama doesn't fit here, either.

Wanted to like this but meh. Tatiana Samoilova is beautiful as always, so there's that.

  On 11/6/2020 at 10:47 PM, Tim_J said:

Have you watched this? Do it...

https://mubi.com/library/specials/arabian-nights

I missed this, will check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!

  On 11/12/2020 at 4:06 PM, Taupe Beats said:

Sergei Urusevsky's camerawork was a revelation in "The Cranes are Flying". Here it lapses to overkill (that persistent flame filter/superimposition, GAH!). Shame as well because the location (Northern Siberian Taiga) is so promising for his style.

Soy Cuba is stunning, politics aside... 

  On 11/12/2020 at 4:34 PM, Tim_J said:

Soy Cuba is stunning, politics aside... 

I still need to see that. It's definitely on the watchlist.

  On 11/12/2020 at 4:50 PM, Taupe Beats said:

I still need to see that. It's definitely on the watchlist.

Have you watched these? 

  On 11/12/2020 at 5:36 PM, Tim_J said:

Have you watched these? 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Expand  

Have seen the former (well-made but not really my style). Haven't seen the latter (premise didn't seem that interesting to me).

I've already said a lot about it in this thread and maybe even elsewhere on this forum, but Wang Bing's "Dead Souls" from 2018 is the most moving piece of cinema I may have ever seen. That work will (not might, will) ultimately be held up as a document of importance the way Shoah is. Hopefully in my lifetime.

it's moon (2009) time, again

Gave Barbet Schroeder's "General Idi Amin Dada:  A Self-Portrait" a re-watch last night. Had been many years since my prior viewing.

First:  This film is a documentary, that is not subjective. Schroeder has commented that there were French audiences laughing at several scenes in this film. A reflexive action is to consider that wrong. But I put more of a critique/judgement on Schroeder himself. This film is the blueprint for a mockumentary, before the genre existed. The fact that that the subject matter happens to be very real with very real consequences is only represented in the film 3 times, I reckon (if you've seen the film, it won't be hard to figure out the 3 scenes I'm referring to, not giving anything away here). The rest is a thorough (and frankly, funny) depiction of a tyrannical despot living in isolated luxury without any scrutiny. This is where the film becomes problematic:

p.s. If you choose to read this spoiler and don't know the history of Idi Amin. He was a general who became the sole ruler of Uganda for several years, in which an estimated 300k of his own people were killed. Keep that in mind.

  On 11/13/2020 at 1:45 PM, iococoi said:

it's moon (2009) time, again

i didnt really like this film, which was surprising considering im generally a fan of real-leaning or minimal-storytelling scifi. been quite a few years tho.. worth giving it another chance?

The New Mutants - this wasn't nearly the clusterfuck that Dark Phoenix was, and we actually liked it.  Kind of had the appearance of an FX pilot, but with more CG. The actors were well cast, Chris Claremont wrote the script himself, so it was somewhat faithful to the books, but with a Hollywood adaptation. There was a nice reveal about half way thru,

that sets up future stories possibly. Overall, a better ending for the Fox X-Men franchise.

  On 11/13/2020 at 7:14 PM, markedone said:

i didnt really like this film, which was surprising considering im generally a fan of real-leaning or minimal-storytelling scifi. been quite a few years tho.. worth giving it another chance?

oh man yes, moon gets WAY more interesting the longer it goes on imo