What movies did you see last week? (1/1-1/7)

A Bronx Tale (1993)
Patriot Games (1992)
Clear and Present Danger (1994)
Little Odessa (1994)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
The Third Man (1949)
Frailty (2001)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Hell Camp: Teenage Nightmare (2023) - 5/10: Bizarre to give the abusers family so much screen time, so they can cry about how their dad couldn't be that bad, when y'know, his teen camp killed a kid. Who needs to hear from other victims when his daughter thought it was horrible seeing a helicopter fly over her house. Fuck off Netflix

Blades of Glory (2007) - 6/10: Need more Comedies featuring a character like Chad Michael Michaels, doesn't have to be like him, I just want a character to be there

RW Return of the Jedi (1983) - 8/10: Timeless, Wonderful Visuals, Little Guys, Classic Star Wars

Tale of Tales (1979) - 7/10: Not the one with John C. Reilly (Friend of mine was already confused about that). Yuri Norsteins Stop Motion masterwork is haunting and utterly awe inspiring seeing the amount of work that went into the papercut animation. good shit

Fritz the Cat (1792) - 6/10: Ugly, Depraved, Horny. More specifically enjoyed the voice work for Fritz himself by Skip Hinnant

The Devils (1971) - 9/10: jesus christ. just an insane movie

The Day of the Locust (1975) - 6/10: A pretty ok Hollywood set drama, the ups the downs without the real depravity future films would show. But the ending certainly makes up for that

Well, this a bit tricky........because as much as I make fun of this board (with love  ) I mostly in my heart think we don't really like film noir or on some level reduce it to tropes. So I bend over backwards for it - the way some people do for Westerns or Sci-Fi.........

* For example you never hear anyone (ever) talk about "feminism" in noir (except Bound - overrated btw)  but both of these films are quite feminist in the worst character way - that females replicate horrible male behavior.  Never gets brought up - never........because people think the concept has to be empowering or some dumb shit (Barbie is feminist but HoG isn't?) 

I wrote about Crouse below (link)  and I think it's worth a re-read.  The staccato rhythm of Mamet's text doesn't bother me at all - I'm not a big believer in "naturalism" at all costs  - I think Mamet-style achieves a kind of musicality / poetry. There are many of my favorite lines here tbh - "I'm from the United States of Kiss My Ass"  for one........big fan for many reasons - its premise, Crouse, Crouse's job and how it's used etc

* Bigger fan of The Grifters - a great book - and imo the best American film of 1990.........

* Part of the reason for my affinity with this genre is it just doesn't exist anymore really - I would rather watch Eileen (2023) with its weak ending than stuff like Saltburn or The Iron Claw which people have spilled a lot of words over but which do not replicate any facet of actual life in any way other than the literal..........1 of those movies is easy to blow off - but it has more in it than the other 2 combined.........

* House of Games / The Grfters (along with the terrific After Dark My Sweet (1990)) came in the brief glory return days for the genre and like them was not merely touched with fatalism but actually about it..........each of the 3 movies gets an extra benefit from that - I see them as a piece in some ways ..........and House of Games is the only one not from another source so it strikes me very much as an entirely "new, original noir classic"  - as does the even better but less-noir specific Mamet film Homicide (1991)

 movie-awards-redux.freeforums.net/post/454530 

Mannish Girl - Hair, Suit, Gun

On the subject of feminism, I'm in the camp of the 1980s sitcom Sledge Hammer on it. There's a scene in the pilot episode in which Hammer (a character parodying Eastwood's Dirty Harry) and the villain (named Maxine) are pointing guns at each other, and this exchange happens:

Maxine: Drop your gun! I know you'd never shoot a woman.
Hammer: *Shoots Maxine* Sorry, Maxine. Call me a feminist.

Those are the equal rights I believe in.

solid start the new year for me

two 2007 rewatches:
Michael Clayton - really crisp and well-written thriller but slightly lacks an emotional spark. Clayton is a bit too cold for the movie's own good 8/10

Ratatouille - literally perfect. this was always my favorite Pixar when I was younger and I'm glad I still have feelings for it. It's the opposite of Inside Llewyn Davis which is a heartbreaking story about how some artists through no fault of their own will just never make it, while Rataouille is full of optimism and hope. Anyone can cook. And the happy ending is just so satisfying. They get their own little bistro and it works out for everyone. They all find their roles according to their skills and support each other providing great food for Paris. "Surprise me!" 9/10

and a few more 2023 entries
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire - I'll never understand how a movie with this much money pumped into it can get filmed and color-corrected and post-produced to hell without having any semblance of a story, like at all. People have called this derivative of Star Wars and Seven Samurai, and yeah sure it is, but this movie's biggest crime is that the screenplay never got through the rough outline stage. There's so much missing that it barely feels like a movie. It's a 2+ hour trailer. Some of the images look cool, others look really cheap. The slow-mo is corny and makes the action scenes tedious. Some of the makeup is really impressive, especially on Jena Malone spider-lady, but she only has one scene. Anthony Hopkins plays an adorable robot that disappears after 20 minutes. 4/10

The New Boy - the colonization metaphor is too obvious for how tedious the movie feels. There are long stretches with no dialogue and the story progresses with very little momentum. Gorgeous cinematography though, some of the best of 2023 quite handily. Thornton knows how to frame an image. 5/10

Upon Entry - chilling Spanish chamber piece that follows an immigrant couple's interrogation upon arriving at Newark Airport. Incredible debut and uncomfortable as all hell, powerfully driving home a pervading sense of paranoia and high tension as the couple are made to feel guilty despite having done nothing wrong. Powerful depiction of interrogation of a tool of manipulation and how immigration can be made to seem as unappealing as possible. 8/10

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes - the fanfic-iest franchise of all franchises returns. YA totalitarianism, oppression & marginalization fable delivered via hot young people fighting to the death. This was always a pretty awkward franchise that took itself too seriously and without J-Law holding it all together it's never been less palatable. Coriolanus Snow is a bland Capital hottie, Rachel Zegler hamming up a cornball southern accent is the district 12 tribute he falls in like with. Zegler playing a Romani-coded songstress stares wide-eyed and longingly at the camera in between belting out pop songs. Such a bizarre movie. 4/10

Priscilla - another swing and a miss for me. Offers nothing to the Elvis mythos other than the idea that he was an abusive controlling jerk. Cailee Spaeny's titular heroine is dead behind the eyes. I understand if the idea was to depict her having ceded her identity and personality to her relationship with this man, but just having her drift from scene to scene with no purpose isn't cinematic, and the relationship as depicted is just a meandering elongated montage of abuse without focus or direction. It felt so cursory and pointless, like Coppola had one thing to say and didn't have enough to say about it to justify a 110-minute runtime. Love the outfits but Philippe Le Sourd's low-lightning cinematography was borderline infuriating. Some of his shots are really striking but others feel like he shot them in a closet. There are lots of daytime shots in this (both interior AND exterior) that have no business being as shadowy as they are. 5.5/10

The Crime Is Mine - the latest from François Ozon, a modest and amusing legal farce following a struggling actress in 1930s Paris who takes credit for a crime she didn't commit in order to boost her career, and the case ends up being a feminist rallying cry for fed up Parisian women. Isabelle Huppert hams it up as the real murderess who appears in the 11th hour to reclaim her notoriety. 7/10

Appreciate your thoughts! I agree that these female characters are portrayed in a more typically "bad male" type of way and that the films are all the more interesting for it. Another interesting point on how these noir-ish thrillers aren't really being made as frequently today and it reminded me of two other noir-esque films of its era that I like a great deal in Deep Cover and Dead Again.


I'll have to check out Homicide and After Dark My Sweet; thanks for the recs!