Archie
Based
Eraserhead son or Inland Empire daughter?
Posts: 3,693
Likes: 4,385
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Post by Archie on Mar 18, 2020 2:46:26 GMT
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (rewatch) - 9/10
I love this movie so fucking much.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Mar 18, 2020 4:43:33 GMT
Onward - A lesser Pixar effort, and it’s fantasy setting is honestly underdeveloped. But works through the sheer strength of the Holland/Pratt double team, and a genuinely strong emotional throughline. Soul’s gonna be better, though...
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 18, 2020 11:13:03 GMT
The Rite (1969) 8/10 re-watch Director: Ingmar BergmanOne of the most baffling Bergman films or an experiment might be a better word. Very modern, very short, very subversive, very funny (absurdly so, for him), very sexually charged (for him anyway) - it is in effect a play and not meant to be realistic. Each scene starts with title cards and some scenes are hilariously sketchy in the winking bare bones set-up - one, set in a "bar" is literally, just two men, one of whom drinks (at least?) 5 drinks in a few minutes and you see the hand of the bartender. Bergman uses all of this to talk about actors - their narcissism and insecurities, the illusion (and nature) of Art and control, exhaustive fear (twice (at least) the judge asks different characters "Are you laughing at me?") - jealousies, the imposition of power over freewill and self-censorship and the relinquishing of power in personal relationships. It is about something quite serious in a way that is not simply serious - so you may misread it and think it's pretentious. It's really something to ponder....and would have been a great f-you farewell film for him. But then we'd miss out on Cries and Whispers, Scenes From A Marriage, Face To Face, Fanny & Alexander .......and well you get the idea.
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Post by jimmalone on Mar 18, 2020 12:41:41 GMT
How do you like/rate it? I remember from the "overlooked work" directors thread, that you mentioned it there.
That thread was the reason I watched it again. For me is around 7/10. Entertaining and quite funny. A very decent effort from Hitch to do comedie (dark one, to be fair). I think it's overlooked exactly because Hitchcock did comedy, something very unusual. Of course not one of his best ever but solid work nevertheless. Yeah, I also appreciate it for being something different from Hitchcock. I don't find it overly funny, but quite amusing throughout.
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Mar 18, 2020 15:03:55 GMT
Yeah, I also appreciate it for being something different from Hitchcock. I don't find it overly funny, but quite amusing throughout. It had some very funny moments and quotes but nothing hillarious. But it was amusing overall. The Trouble With Harry is one of Hitchcock's more underrated film for me. Nothing masterful, but a really enjoyable black comedy tale. Also that Vermont shoot, gives it a pastoral / autumn feel that is very different from Hitchcock's other films. "Couldn't have had more people here if I'd sold tickets."
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Post by TerryMontana on Mar 18, 2020 15:20:12 GMT
It had some very funny moments and quotes but nothing hillarious. But it was amusing overall. The Trouble With Harry is one of Hitchcock's more underrated film for me. Nothing masterful, but a really enjoyable black comedy tale. Also that Vermont shoot, gives it a pastoral / autumn feel that is very different from Hitchcock's other films. "Couldn't have had more people here if I'd sold tickets." Some of the quotes involving Harry are... deadly!!
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Post by jimmalone on Mar 18, 2020 15:45:57 GMT
The Music Room (1958, Satyajit Ray) A good parable about an indian lord, who lives only for the music, always hosting parties with "famous" musicians in his palace, neglecting his duties and business and therefore becoming poor. After a personal tragedy he fells into a deep depression. It is a small film, that mostly focuses on the character of it's leading character, set nearly exclusively in his palace. The condition of the Music room reflects the state of the lord himself, becoming dilapidated, while the lord is still busy to save his rank opposed to a newly rich businessman. It's very well photographed, but in the end not much more than a character study without a deeper story and the recurring music scenes take to much time for my taste.
Not sure about rating. 7 to 7.5 I'd say at first.
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Post by Viced on Mar 18, 2020 21:15:50 GMT
Was not expecting this to be so slapstick-y (guess I should've checked the genre on IMDb beforehand) but this turns so batshit by the end I couldn't help but admire it. Lancaster (who probably only did this to show off his acrobatic skills) is a blast to watch and keeps it entertaining when it goes too broad. Also was pleasantly surprised to see a young Christopher Lee in this! 7/10
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Mar 19, 2020 0:09:09 GMT
Zodiac - Hot damn. It's been forever since I watched this, and it totally shot up near the top of my Fincher rankings this time around. The filmmaker on display here is insanely good (the interrogation scene is amazingly staged), and the performances are uniformly excellent from top to bottom, especially Gyllenhaal and RDJ, the latter who I wish would take more risks like this these days. Just a brilliantly haunting well-crafted noir-ish period piece. - 10 / 10
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 19, 2020 1:23:41 GMT
The Magician (1958) 7+/10 rewatch Director: Ingmar BergmanLesser and lighter Bergman which incorporates his themes into a (sort of) commercial film with overtones of a Christ allegory (sort of) that you don't have to get to enjoy. Its ending is bound to delight some and baffle others as a "sell-out" which is fairly funny itself - and some of the visuals are memorable. This movie - highly acclaimed by some - comes right after his 2 great 1957 films The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries and right before his peak, his Godlike 60s run where he's all bleak all the time - here he has a lighter touch.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Mar 19, 2020 1:25:56 GMT
On the Basis of Sex (2018) - could never for one instance get over the sheen of fakeness that hangs over this whole project. It really is RBJ's Bohemian Rhapsody. The first hour plays like a series of bullet points (some which are all but dropped later, like the husband's testicular cancer and recovery) and the second like a totally average courtroom drama. Felicity Jones and Armie Hammer have little chemistry and their performances fall flat. They have no characters to inhabit, barely even ideas of characters. This film is so perfunctory and lifeless. Surely this legendary woman deserves better.
The issue I have with this film's imitation of reality as filtered through cinematic formula comes from its own closing minutes. Felicity Jones's RBJ gives her impassioned finale-ready court speech and the film ends, but before it cuts to credits we hear audio footage of some of RBJ's real statements (which by the way are so much more articulate than anything you'll hear in this film). I'm sure this creative decision was meant to celebrate the real RBJ but instead it forces the viewer to compare what they've just seen to a glimpse of the actual events and the actual woman and notice the disparity. It's not so much that I'm bothered this film eschews realism for something more easy and digestible, it's that I'm 100% positive a more realism-minded approach to RBJ's story would have been a better celebration of her legacy.
I haven't seen the documentary yet but I'm going to assume it's much better.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Mar 19, 2020 8:10:47 GMT
"How do you know if they don't print it..."
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 19, 2020 11:40:57 GMT
Persona (1966) 9/10 Re-watch Director : Ingmar BergmanWhat can you say about a movie that I think is too talky but has several of the most startling images ever - some of the choices he makes here are incredible and not often discussed either (Liv Ullman ghost-like entering Bibi Andersson's bedroom or Andersson chasing Ullman on the beach). That doesn't even begin to cover it - incorporating several themes he had just been hinting at prior into a whole new cinematic language (in its way like The Seventh Seal) it was clearly another masterpiece. The problem - and a lot of his masterpieces have problems - is its a masterpiece that also is pretentious, stacks the deck and is at times exasperating. I would also say it's the first time since 1957 that I see him taking from other filmmakers - most specifically Last Year at Marienbad by Alain Resnais. Persona overshadows my favorite Bergman ( The Virgin Spring, Shame, Hour of the Wolf) - but those films weren't as specific AND vague - in the exact cultural moment of the intellectual analysis on film Art either. It's the price you pay to be a fan of Bergman - he's too big to consider him "yours" - so you share him and his many peaks - with the whole world.
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Post by jimmalone on Mar 19, 2020 15:06:55 GMT
My Man Godfrey (1936, Gregory La Cava)
Simply hilarious.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Mar 19, 2020 19:26:48 GMT
Anomalisa (2015 rewatch)third viewing, things are becoming slightly clearer. Also Tom Noonan doesn't get enough credit. Anomalisa replicates with devastating precision the experience of being depressed and unable to connect meaningfully with the world around you. It's painfully honest and human. Michael Stone does make terrible decisions and is hopelessly selfish but Kaufman doesn't let him off the hook and also makes it clear how mental illness has crippled his wellbeing and ability to connect with his world. That what depression feels like. That Lisa's voice bleeds into Tom Noonan's is indicative of how that part of Michael's brain is still broken, and no one-night stand or romantic fling with all the remarkable women in the world is going to fix that. Lisa's letter at the end (delivered in her own voice) offers a glimpse of reality that Michael can't see, in which all those nameless faceless puppets have their own identities and voices, their own childhoods, bodies, and aches. I used to rate this a bit higher but the score came down because Lisa's lack of agency still bothers me. This is first and foremost a self-reflective examination on depression (especially male depression) but it still uses Lisa in service of that narrative whilst inferring that she needed saving too. She seems to genuinely dislike herself, constantly calling herself ugly and questioning why this man would find her attractive. Maybe it could've worked but Kaufman lays it on much too thick, or can we can chalk it all up to Stone's unreliable naval-gazing POV?? I'm not sure... Anyways, that's my only complaint, and it's somewhat mitigated by Jennifer Jason Leigh's spellbinding performance. 8/10
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 19, 2020 19:27:00 GMT
Shame (1968) - way over a 10/10 re-watch Director: Ingmar Bergman
Coming to the end (almost!) of my Bergman mini-festival and this may be his best (The Virgin Spring remains my favorite) - his most complete and expansive work at least. Playing with setting (set slightly in the future), economics - for the first time money really matters - but also politics (a breakthrough for him) and "hiding" God within the story fabric this is incredibly sustained and coherent filmmaking. Themes laid out at the start are then later refracted or unsparingly mocked as circumstances change. Visually he matches his text - fire, water, stone, earth - are used as a shifting symbol of death/salvation and permanence/alteration. Best of all Shame contains the greatest single sequence of Bergman's career - the boat sequence, several minutes long and entirely wordless (!) - and it rivals anything ever put on film by anyone. Man's creation in stone, crumbling, God's creation Man, crumbling too:
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Javi
Badass
Posts: 1,541
Likes: 1,629
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Post by Javi on Mar 19, 2020 20:46:56 GMT
Shame (1968) - way over a 10/10 re-watch Director: Ingmar Bergman
Coming to the end (almost!) of my Bergman mini-festival and this may be his best (The Virgin Spring remains my favorite) - his most complete and expansive work at least. Playing with setting (set slightly in the future), economics - for the first time money really matters - but also politics (a breakthrough for him) and "hiding" God within the story fabric this is incredibly sustained and coherent filmmaking. Themes laid out at the start are then later refracted or unsparingly mocked as circumstances change. Visually he matches his text - fire, water, stone, earth - are used as a shifting symbol of death/salvation and permanence/alteration. Best of all Shame contains the greatest single sequence of Bergman's career - the boat sequence, several minutes long and entirely wordless (!) - and it rivals anything ever put on film by anyone. Man's creation in stone, crumbling, God's creation Man, crumbling too:
This movie is extraordinary from the first minute--every little detail matters. That it begins with a naked Liv Ullmann, evoking a much older idea of shame is no small thing. The editing in this movie is genius too, particularly in its suggestions of life and death, violent activity vs. near-silent/"driftless" passages... simultaneously his most political and his most existential work. It boggles the mind that Bergman hated this film, but then directors are often terrible at judging their own work.
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Post by Viced on Mar 19, 2020 20:53:26 GMT
Another ridiculously entertaining/entertainingly ridiculous Burt Lancaster yarn. Except instead of being a pirate with randomly excellent acrobatic skills, here he's a Robin Hood rip-off with randomly excellent acrobatic skills. A fine way to spend 88 minutes, and Virginia Mayo is always worth watching. 7/10
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 20, 2020 2:58:18 GMT
Hour of The Wolf (1968) 10/10 re-watch Director: Ingmar BergmanThe last film in my Bergman mini-marathon and simultaneously the hardest and easiest to comprehend. It rather works in the way his talented but lesser heirs (David Lynch, for one) movies do - you watch it to see what they will do next - and Bergman has essentially structured his movie entirely on its ending - the "next" doesn't just need to pay off it has to justify everything. Here he all but throws away his structural rigor for surrealistic set pieces and dream logic. He is fascinated by elements now - never has sound design (and inverted "musical score") been as creepy for him as it is here. Never has a Bergman film needed to be in black and white more than this either - note the use of light in the photo below. The sort of movie that could never be loved when first released (or on just a single watch) but which can't NOT be loved upon rewatches where it becomes much more powerful and distinct in his catalog. It's only then you realize no scene is a true reflection of what plays out except when Liv Ullman speaks directly to the camera. Even simple early scenes which ominously cut out far too early - are a spin on the artist and his (often humiliating) mental anguish. Including 2 bravura set pieces - one involving a boy and one extended coda following a gun shot - that will leave you exhilarated, baffled or both.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 20, 2020 16:19:18 GMT
Knife in The Water (1962) 9/10 re-watch Director: Roman PolanskiMy favorite director and a landmark film - his debut - though I've never bought the set-up or liked its pacing much. Aside from that it is still extraordinary in every way. Almost every motif of his amazing career is in place already - sexual tension, violence as an omnipresent threat, the loss of the self and being subjugated to someone or something else. Repeatedly here inanimate objects are simultaneously functional tools or potentially unexpected weapons (knives, oars, a scalding pot, boat sails etc.) Almost all modern film follow his psychological sketches here - it's that important in extending psychology in film (following Kurosawa and Bergman). In the way he defines a female especially, already he's way ahead - both males are visibly flawed while she is sexual, strong, forthcoming and at least her husband is a lesser in each way - asexual, weak and dishonest (to himself even). At least on the land you are on solid ground with your feet beneath you .........right?
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Post by notacrook on Mar 20, 2020 18:11:34 GMT
Match Point - 8.5
Was really surprised how much I liked this, as I'm usually not a big Woody Allen fan. Takes a while to get going, but the second half is wonderfully taut and suspenseful, and the performances are roundly excellent.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 20, 2020 22:13:22 GMT
In A Glass Cage (1986) - ~6.0-6.5/10 rewatchGut-wrenching, extremely difficult to watch Spanish horror-drama that examines the nature and appeal and pursuit of cruel violence. It's also very long or feels it at least - as scenes are set up and played out - in the most unpleasant and grueling ways. Some people consider this a masterpiece.......it's well made at least. Not for all tastes .....not for mine either.....
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Post by Viced on Mar 21, 2020 4:14:09 GMT
After the first half hour I thought this might be a masterpiece... it was bizarrely enchanting, Conrad Hall's cinematography was lush to an almost ridiculous extent, unique characters in an intriguing setting... then it became a mess, then the mess became boring (until the final 10 minutes or so). Donald Sutherland had some extremely strong moments here though... he should've been nominated over Burgess Meredith. I have to assume that this works much better as a novel. 6.5/10
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 21, 2020 16:15:53 GMT
Repulsion (1965) - 10/10 re-watch Director: Roman PolanskiTHE most important English language film ever made imo - in modern terms anyway this increases psychological components and grafts it to genre, and his narrative dynamics are never once compromised in any way. Working in English (which was fairly disastrous for Bergman when he did it) - Polanski somehow here seems more assured, precise and in control. Taking everything in Knife in The Water and increasing it, improving it - the pace and setup now are tighter - everything is functional and threatening - scissors, razors, candlesticks - and much in the narrative is now cruelly foreshadowed in this GOAT level script - the "I must get this crack mended" line and the "photo" is seen earlier to pick two obvious examples. The sexual motifs are now not only underneath - it is also overt - when Catherine Deneuve sees her sisters lover's shaving brush in the bathroom not only her metaphorical space is invaded - her literal space is too. As a feminist manifesto - and I've said this a lot in defense of his films - Polanski is amazing here working with his screenwriter genius Gerard Brach: The first shot you see is a female in the beauty parlor looking like a corpse under her "treatment: - all for men after all - heck the sisters job alone is a feminist wink as is the "rabbit" here as a symbol of fertility - that's how complex this screenplay is - and most importantly of all this film defined/established the ambiguous ending. The ending can be taken several ways - but none of those readings is "certain" - and yet the ending is not unsatisfying or unclear in any way at the same time. What does she see?:
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Mar 21, 2020 19:33:11 GMT
Toy Story 4 - Holds up remarkably well on second viewing. If anything I appreciated the Forky related plot even more this time around, and that ending still hits like straight-up bricks. Bravo Pixar, bravo. - 9.5 / 10
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