Films you've seen recently and would unreservedly recommend:

[CrowleyHead]

I went through digging a ton of DVDs I copped from my old grocery store job for 5$ a piece..."The Black Dahlia" is the biggest mess I've seen in years. Like, it's not even just BAD, it's confounding. I spent whole sections of that movie rewinding and trying to figure out why in the world De Palma would make such maneuverings.

It's amazing how far you can make it by being so sloppy and immature a storyteller. "Dude, look at this... I'm close up on Eckheart's face, but Harnett is up the stairs, talking to the cop, in the distance, and there's this conflict.... You wanna be up there, but you need to be hear right now for the clue!""Yeah, but... Why is the dialog so shitty, and why are these actors turning in so many lukewarm performances?""PFFFT! WHATEVER MAAAAAN."

I mean, this is the idiot who made Scarface, so I'm not shocked. But JESUS. How does he get the backings? At least with Michael Bay the masturbatory action is a setting piece, and therefore serves a purpose.

 

[baboon2004]

He singled out Performance as 'the one film in the story of film everyone should watch' or something like that, and said Come and See is the best war film ever made, and Tokyo Story is the best film ever. (I've never seen the first two of these..)

That's so odd. I grew up on Moviedrome so I love Mark Cousins, but Performance is a snoozefest.

http://www.kurtodrome.net/moviedrome.htm Just found this. God, the films shown on TV were so good back then.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

i dont think i really like nic roeg that much. he knows how to film a sex scene better than most directors, and i seem to remember liking the shots of the ponds and river reeds in dont look now, though dont look now lost it when the actual girl reappears in the river (though it was probably more unsettling at the time), the man who fell to earth is sort of good/sort of terrible/sort of boring, and ok, ive not seen walkabout or performance so maybe theyll change my mind, but theres something a bit reedy and diffident about his direction. maybe its just a british thing.

i finally saw in the mood for love recently. thought it was pretty stunning. for perfectionisms sake, i wanted it to end more elliptically without jumping ahead in years, but visually, apart from some of the slow-mo sequences, its got to be one of the most memorable films ive seen, but without losing any impact on an emotional level.

read this about haneke yesterday -
http://thequietus.com/articles/11667-amour-haneke-review

 

[baboon2004]

Walkabout is completely brilliant from my memory, though I have a fondness for Australian films/films set in Australia so it may not be as great twenty years on from last watching it.

Agree about the shots from Don't Look Now - there are sequences in that film that are utterly stunning. The film lags badly in the middle, but I still love it.

Just couldn't get into In the Mood for Love, though obviously it's visually stunning. Chungking Express was so bad/incomprehensible I had to stop it 30 minutes in, only other Wong Kar-Wai I've seen.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

if you like shots of water/river plants, solaris (the tarkovsky one) is good for that too.

i saw side effects at the weekend. it has a lot of really interesting stuff going on with mental health but i think it ended up concluding them in quite a conservative way, and kind of leaving them at the door, which was a dissapointment (i cant really say more without spoiling it). but it is a really sharp, well made thriller. theres something really efficient about soderbergh imo. i have to say i like rooney mara a lot too. i can imagine a lot of 20 something girls relating to her.

speaking of nature imagery, i saw a docu on bbc4 last night about percy smith, who made really early films about insects and flowers. the docu itself was a bit annoying with all the faux-naive 'journey of discovery' stuff from the presenter, but the footage of the films was seriously good.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hlocZhNc0M

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Come and See is the best war film ever made

pretty good chance that is true

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Walkabout is impeccably, totally brilliant. one of my favorite films of all time.

Roeg's about the cinematography, I mean all those David Lean epics he worked on, like Lawrence of Arabia whatever else you want to say about that movie (and there's a lot that could be said) the images it creates, I think Spielberg said it's like a miracle like he can't even envision how they got it to look that way. at directing actors I dunno. I do like The Man Who Fell To Earth a lot , maybe you have to be American. Performance I like too, but the way I like early Cluster records where it's just an hour of lo-fi hissing droning noise. or at least once they get to the house and then it's just Mick Jagger and Anita Pallenberg hanging out in a house really. I dunno. Don't Look Now sucks tho.

 

[e/y]

if you like shots of water/river plants, solaris (the tarkovsky one) is good for that too.

this, too: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376968/

 

[IdleRich]

"the man who fell to earth is sort of good/sort of terrible/sort of boring, and ok, ive not seen walkabout or performance so maybe theyll change my mind, but theres something a bit reedy and diffident about his direction. maybe its just a british thing."

I like all of those films up to a point but I can't imagine that watching the ones you've not seen will change your mind about his directing. Reading about how he included the nude scenes in Walkabout because her birthday was during shooting and she was suddenly old enough to do it legally made me feel a bit queasy.

 

[stephenk]

roeg's bad timing would be great if it wasn't for art garfunkel, who is so grating

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

ive not seen that one either. though i thought art garfunkel was good in carnal knowledge.

I like all of those films up to a point but I can't imagine that watching the ones you've not seen will change your mind about his directing. Reading about how he included the nude scenes in Walkabout because her birthday was during shooting and she was suddenly old enough to do it legally made me feel a bit queasy.

thats such a 70s story.

 

[jorge]

My dad showed me Walkabout a few years ago, I remember really enjoying it. Was pretty creeped out by the aboriginee at the end and I do remember thinking the girl seemed pretty young to be nude. Put it down to it being the 70's and my dads often questionable taste in films from his youth. He showed a group of us Pasolinis Canterbury tales when I was about 11. It was dubbed badly into italian and was full of dodgy 70's sex scenes and Tom Bakers rather large dong. I enjoyed it (as an 11 year old faced with sex on a screen would) but the other parents in the room were were quite shocked!

Saw Koyaanisqatsi recently and thought it was brilliant. Very intense and thought provoking. Would love to see a modern or less american-centric version. Will have to check out the rest of the trilogy

 

[baboon2004]

What does everyone here make of the Conformist? I wanted to like it, not least because the set-up is really interesting, but it was trying my patience tbh, so I've only watched the first half thus far - the motivations/actions of the characters didn't always seem to make much sense. It looks ravishing, of course, and I can see why Coppola pursued Storaro.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

from what i remember, i thought it was more of a head film than one to love, although i did actually end up loving it, just cos i found myself really empathising with the main character's internal conflict. some of the backstory to explain his actions etc was a bit unnecesssary though.

 

[baboon2004]

It was one of those films that i have a problem with because I'm not sure whether things are being badly explained, or it's just that i'm not paying enough attention.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

i think its one you have to pay attention to... though saying that, when i finished it i wondered if i was missing something or not paying enough attention also. tbh i like what its *about* more than i actually liked the film itself. in my head afterwards it became more attractive and interesting than when i was actually watching it in the cinema. i keep thinking its one i want to watch again but i dont know if i can be bothered.

 

[baboon2004]

Yeah, I found myself thinking the idea was perhaps better than the realisation. I'm going to watch the second half, but with lowered expectations.

 

[IdleRich]

I've never seen any of Val Lewton's productions before but I know people really rate Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie - on the weekend I rented The Seventh Victim intrigued by its noir meets satanists premise and I'm very glad I did. Strange film, a kind of existential musing dressed up as a noir. Not every scene works and very little happens but some of it is very powerful indeed - I love it when they break into the rented room and discover nothing there but a chair and noose set up for a hanging - and the ending is fantastic.
Good review here

http://filmsnoir.net/film_noir/the-seventh-victim-1943-and-all-my-pleasures-are-like-yesterdays.html

 

[craner]

I think that The Conformist is ruined by Bertolucci's crude grasp of Marx and Freud; as a critique of fascism it is laughable, almost pitiful. Which is a shame, because apart from Bertolucci the talent on display is unmatched, and at a peak. The cinematography is breathtaking, possibly perfect; the players are exquisite, and deal with the director's dumb ideas admirably; and, to be fair to Bertolucci, he does devise some magnificent set-pieces (the dance, the chase in the woods).

 

[baboon2004]

Brilliant, isn't it? I thoroughly recommend I Walked With a Zombie - same strange atmosphere - though I haven't seen Cat People yet, strangely enough.

I've never seen any of Val Lewton's productions before but I know people really rate Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie - on the weekend I rented The Seventh Victim intrigued by its noir meets satanists premise and I'm very glad I did. Strange film, a kind of existential musing dressed up as a noir. Not every scene works and very little happens but some of it is very powerful indeed - I love it when they break into the rented room and discover nothing there but a chair and noose set up for a hanging - and the ending is fantastic.
Good review here

http://filmsnoir.net/film_noir/the-seventh-victim-1943-and-all-my-pleasures-are-like-yesterdays.html

The Conformist - yep, Storaro's cinematography is pretty unbelievable. Need to get around to watching the rest of it now...