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What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2017 Edition)

Started by zomgmouse, January 01, 2017, 10:32:18 AM

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Black Moon by Louis Malle

Load of bollocks, the sort of shite somebody would come up with once they've twigged that surrealist films win awards at festivals so they proceed with making the first thing that comes into their head despite having no interesting preoccupations or insights.

Red Lantern

Quote from: Dr Syntax Head on January 07, 2017, 05:24:17 PM
Another Earth. Lovely film

Thanks for this. I watched this film on Sunday (via Amazon Prime) and enjoyed it very much. The director and main actress/co-writer were both unfamiliar to me, but I thought the direction, story and acting were great.

Last night I went to the cinema and watched The Man Who Fell To Earth. I'd seen it before, about 25 years ago when it was shown on terrestrial television. That version must have been cut to fuck though, as I don't remember there being so much gratuitous sex and nudity in it (and I'd definitely have remembered that as a teenager!). It seemed weirder second time round, and a bit too long. Still good though.

zomgmouse

I watched The American Soldier. I've borrowed a set of the "Fassbinder gangster films" which I'm making my way through. This was quite good, a very moody take on the neonoir with an intensely depressive quality about it. Interested to see the other two in the series.

I also rewatched Pink Flamingos, my third time. Waters' vision of America was what really stood out to me this time. The image of the mobile home burning to the ground felt like a great summary of the film and his commentary on the country. Not to mention the corruption of the mass media and the condemnation of fake criminal filth.

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on January 09, 2017, 08:57:16 PM
Black Moon by Louis Malle

Load of bollocks, the sort of shite somebody would come up with once they've twigged that surrealist films win awards at festivals so they proceed with making the first thing that comes into their head despite having no interesting preoccupations or insights.

I disagree. This is a beautifully perverted Alice in Wonderland tale with mesmerising and confusing imagery.

Numéro deux by Jean-Luc Godard

Fantastic examination and dissection of how society shapes the family unit and the female role within that model. Very creative mix of film and video forms an original and startling approach to the construction of images, specifically those of domestic activities. Liberated and liberating cinema.

Quote from: Dr Syntax Head on January 07, 2017, 05:24:17 PM
Another Earth. Lovely film

I watched this last night based on the recommendations on this thread and unfortunately I can never trust you again: it's shite.

Spoiler alert
The film starts with a two car crash which puts a professor of music into a coma and kills his feeble son, and  pregnant (because of course she is) wife. The person in the other car was the main female protagonist who was driving under the influence.

After she gets out of prison, she finds and starts befriending and then banging the now physically recovered professor who's family she is responsible for the deaths of (he doesn't know who she is as her name was kept under wraps after the accident as she was under-aged) making her THE WORST HUMAN BEING ALIVE.

There's some twaddle about the other Earth which has appeared in the sky which goes nowhere interesting, and a, I kid you not, old asian man who gives the main character his own particular brand of wisdom before disappearing from the film (I thought this bit was possibly taking the piss it was so ill-placed).
[close]

I give this film ZERO stars... ok, 1 star.

Dr Syntax Head

Quote from: Wentworth Smith on January 12, 2017, 11:50:00 AM
I watched this last night based on the recommendations on this thread and unfortunately I can never trust you again: it's shite.


It's ok I wouldn't trust me either. I'm someone that finds Star Wars tedious so my opinions don't count for much really.

I stand by Another Earth However, it's nice in a kind of ambient film kind of way.

Zetetic

Quote from: Howj Begg on January 02, 2017, 05:29:06 PM
Culloden (Watkins): Basically an examination of how the poor and marginalised always get fucked in war, and the rich and powerful leading them always contrive to win even when they lose.
I don't think that's what it's about. The leaders of the Highland Clans that find themselves on the wrong side of history certainly don't contrive to win. Charles Stuart does alright for himself I suppose (although Culloden downplays this if anything, emphasising the act of his miserable buggering off rather than seeking to particularly strongly contrast his later life with what he leaves behind).

zomgmouse

Jacques Tati's Trafic, which wasn't on par with his best work. It's till brimming with heart and imagination but it does get repetitive and slow as it goes on.

Quote from: zomgmouse on January 12, 2017, 10:54:17 PM
Jacques Tati's Trafic, which wasn't on par with his best work. It's till brimming with heart and imagination but it does get repetitive and slow as it goes on.
I felt very much the same way. It's still special in the way all his films are, but it drags and feels longer than it is for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on.

zomgmouse

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on January 12, 2017, 11:00:57 PM
I felt very much the same way. It's still special in the way all his films are, but it drags and feels longer than it is for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on.

My theories are that it was such an expensive production that they just wanted to use all the footage they had, or that Tati was getting older and had lost some of his magic, or that Tati found it somehow amusing to make a film about cars really slow. Either way it was a bit of a struggle - although I have to say that only really kicked in about half an hour into the film, the first section was top notch.

Dex Sawash

Quote from: Wentworth Smith on January 12, 2017, 11:50:00 AM
I watched this last night based on the recommendations on this thread and unfortunately I can never trust you again: it's shite.

Spoiler alert
The film starts with a two car crash which puts a professor of music into a coma and kills his feeble son, and  pregnant (because of course she is) wife. The person in the other car was the main female protagonist who was driving under the influence.

After she gets out of prison, she finds and starts befriending and then banging the now physically recovered professor who's family she is responsible for the deaths of (he doesn't know who she is as her name was kept under wraps after the accident as she was under-aged) making her THE WORST HUMAN BEING ALIVE.

There's some twaddle about the other Earth which has appeared in the sky which goes nowhere interesting, and a, I kid you not, old asian man who gives the main character his own particular brand of wisdom before disappearing from the film (I thought this bit was possibly taking the piss it was so ill-placed).
[close]

I give this film ZERO stars... ok, 1 star.

do they show it going in?

L'Histoire d'Adèle H. by François Truffaut

Took me about 20 mins to get into it, but once I started to understand Adjani's character more I was hooked. One of many examples of why obsession or L'amour fou works so brilliantly as a theme in cinema. Very difficult to decide who was the more beautiful between Adjani and the young Bruce Robinson.

Serge

I've had a quick look and I couldn't find a thread, so I'll toss this in here as it's not worth starting a thread for.

I've just seen 'Eight Days A Week', the Beatles Touring Years documentary by Ron Howard and was extremely underwhelmed, even though I went in with the expectation that it would be 'The Beatles: The Hollywood Version' where things are only really important if they happened in America. Pretty much everything pre-1964 is wrapped up in about 10 minutes, so that's seven years that don't count because they didn't take place in the USA. Against this, oddly, is the fact that two of the major interviewees are Eddie Izzard and Howard Gooddall, who I don't think are big names in the States. And I really couldn't give two fucks what Eddie Izzard thinks about The Beatles.

Because the Actual Touring Years ended with such a bummer (The Phillipines incident/Record burning after Lennon's 'Bigger than Jesus' comment), they have to tack on a happy ending that says, 'But then: Sgt Pepper!' which has no place in a film subtitled The Touring Years. Oh, and they apparently ended racism in the South single-handedly, which was nice of them.

There's some great footage - admittedly, any Beatle freak will have seen much of it before - and in the hands of another director, this could have been a good film, but in Howard's anodyne mitts, it's just bland.

Steven

Brian DePalma's 1973 film Sisters.

It's a kind of pulpy mash-up between Psycho and Rear Window. It also makes use a split-screen gimmick for many sequences to show what the observer and the observed are both doing. I saw the main twist coming from the beginning but it does go a bit zany and beyond that towards the end, and I still don't quite understand the final scene.

Resolution 2013.

Good score on Rotten Tomatoes but meh, two blokes trapped in a cabin in the woods, things go a bit weird where they start to see they're being observed by entities unknown. Didn't think too much of it to be honest.

Phantasm 1979.

It's a fun quirky horror, but I'd never seen it up until recently and it's really quite dated now full of things you've seen before whether copied or not, asside from floating silver balls with spikey lances coming out of them and all that.

Quote from: Serge on January 14, 2017, 09:47:17 PM
I've had a quick look and I couldn't find a thread, so I'll toss this in here as it's not worth starting a thread for.

I've just seen 'Eight Days A Week', the Beatles Touring Years documentary by Ron Howard and was extremely underwhelmed,

I started a very short-lived thread about it a while ago if you want to read any of the minimal discussion that went on in there: http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=55635.0

But I agree with you, it's a very vanilla, feel-good and narrow minded look at a very interesting and complicated period of time in their career.

zomgmouse

Quote from: Steven on January 14, 2017, 10:21:31 PM
Phantasm 1979.

It's a fun quirky horror, but I'd never seen it up until recently and it's really quite dated now full of things you've seen before whether copied or not, asside from floating silver balls with spikey lances coming out of them and all that.

I thought it was quite inventive, with some rather cool sequences. I loved the dreamlike atmosphere of it

Van Dammage

Watched Duck Soup for the first time today. Laughed out loud several times and I'm surprised that they managed to squeeze so many gags into such a short running time. Still feels amazing even these days. How would any of you rank the marx brothers films? After enjoying that immensely i'll definitely have to check the others.

Serge

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on January 14, 2017, 10:54:10 PMI started a very short-lived thread about it a while ago if you want to read any of the minimal discussion that went on in there: http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=55635.0

Ah cheers, I did somehow miss that!

I've mentioned my problems with this on Facebook and I seem to be having a pointless argument with a friend who thinks I'm slagging off The Beatles rather than this film.

Shaky

Arthouse classic Kindergarten Cop was on last night. In the absence of anything else to do, and ever the fearless adventurer, I watched that sucker good and proper.

Very silly, but not unamusing. A couple of the kids' montages seemed improvised and were genuinely funny. Arnie surprisingly good.

Next week - Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.

EDIT: Another Earth from earlier in the thread is great and has been mentioned on this site fairly recently. "Ambient" is a good way to describe it, actually; it doesn't make a lot of sense if you start dissecting it but let it work it's subtle magic and it really gets under your skin.
Spoiler alert
The scientist making radio contact with her double is one of the most genuinely unsettling things I've seen in a film in recent years.
[close]

Frazer

Dead and Buried 1981. I went into this thinking it was a detective story, the first brutal murder was enough of a 'Woah there!' moment to keep my interest throughout. Not a top quality production but far from dull; I'd recommend it. I'm purposely not giving too much away about the nature of the story as the less you expect the less you'll be disappointed.

Spoiler alert
Zombies
[close]
!

Gulftastic

Quote from: Shaky on January 15, 2017, 01:00:21 PM
Arthouse classic Kindergarten Cop was on last night. In the absence of anything else to do, and ever the fearless adventurer, I watched that sucker good and proper.

Very silly, but not unamusing. A couple of the kids' montages seemed improvised and were genuinely funny. Arnie surprisingly good.
.

My favourite part is when he turns the kids into a sort of Hitler Youth to make them recite the Gettysburg Address or something.

Blow Out

1981 Brian DePalma thriller. Excellent tense stuff with a pre-shit John Travolta as a b-movie sound technician who gets mixed up in conspiratorial shenanigans. A nice turn from John Lithgow, some fun stuff with the sound technician premise and a fantastic
Spoiler alert
but very dark
[close]
ending.

Van Dammage

Quote from: Wentworth Smith on January 15, 2017, 06:16:11 PM
Blow Out

1981 Brian DePalma thriller. Excellent tense stuff with a pre-shit John Travolta as a b-movie sound technician who gets mixed up in conspiratorial shenanigans. A nice turn from John Lithgow, some fun stuff with the sound technician premise and a fantastic
Spoiler alert
but very dark
[close]
ending.

The only bit I actually remember about that film is the ending. Due a rewatch I think, I remember enjoying it. It's very similar to Blow Up but a lot less arty.

Howj Begg

#83
Quote from: Zetetic on January 12, 2017, 09:22:33 PM
I don't think that's what it's about. The leaders of the Highland Clans that find themselves on the wrong side of history certainly don't contrive to win. Charles Stuart does alright for himself I suppose (although Culloden downplays this if anything, emphasising the act of his miserable buggering off rather than seeking to particularly strongly contrast his later life with what he leaves behind).

Absolutely, the Highland Chiefs are victims of Charlie Stuart. The film does emphasis the rottenness of the tactics of the commanding general, sure, but my takeaway from it is the different outcomes consequent upon class and status of the losing side. Stuart being the main exemplar of this. One of the other major themes is the extinguishment of a traditional rural society by a more technologically advanced one.

Howj Begg

Quote from: zomgmouse on January 12, 2017, 10:54:17 PM
Jacques Tati's Trafic, which wasn't on par with his best work. It's till brimming with heart and imagination but it does get repetitive and slow as it goes on.

Have you seen Playtime?

zomgmouse

Saw the other two Fassbinder "gangster films": Love Is Colder Than Death and Gods of the Plague. I thought the former was fantastic, a really great debut. So much style and moodiness. A great sense of malaise mixed with the coolness. The latter didn't quite work for me, but was still fairly good. Both - in fact all three - had marvellous cinematography.

I also saw The Cars That Ate Paris. Brilliant Australian smalltown horror from Peter Weir. Imposing and sinister and unravels the odd mystery very slowly. I enjoyed this a lot, very creepy stuff.

And finally, Taste of Cherry. My first Kiarostami. Took me a while to get into it but when I did I was really into it up until that unnecessary shit of an ending (I mean
Spoiler alert
the epiloguey behind-the-scenes bullshit not the lovely unresolved conclusion
[close]
). It felt distasteful and disrespectful. But overall I found the film was poignant and profound except for the vague and aimless moments that occasionally popped up. I'm definitely keen to see more of his films.

Quote from: Van Dammage on January 15, 2017, 01:38:11 AM
Watched Duck Soup for the first time today. Laughed out loud several times and I'm surprised that they managed to squeeze so many gags into such a short running time. Still feels amazing even these days. How would any of you rank the marx brothers films? After enjoying that immensely i'll definitely have to check the others.

The Queen album films aka A Day at the Races and A Night at the Opera are both fantastic and Animal Crackers isn't the greatest but is filled with gags. At the Circus is underrated and The Big Store is what happens when The Marx Brothers become older and more tired.

Quote from: Howj Begg on January 15, 2017, 09:18:23 PM
Have you seen Playtime?
Yes - that and Mon Oncle are my favourites of his. Simply sublime cinema. Mr Hulot's Holiday is also very good. In fact all three are on such a completely different level to Trafic, which is why that one disappointed me.

Howj Begg

Quote from: zomgmouse on January 15, 2017, 09:38:54 PM
Saw the other two Fassbinder "gangster films": Love Is Colder Than Death and Gods of the Plague. I thought the former was fantastic, a really great debut. So much style and moodiness. A great sense of malaise mixed with the coolness. The latter didn't quite work for me, but was still fairly good. Both - in fact all three - had marvellous cinematography.

I also saw The Cars That Ate Paris. Brilliant Australian smalltown horror from Peter Weir. Imposing and sinister and unravels the odd mystery very slowly. I enjoyed this a lot, very creepy stuff.

And finally, Taste of Cherry. My first Kiarostami. Took me a while to get into it but when I did I was really into it up until that unnecessary shit of an ending (I mean
Spoiler alert
the epiloguey behind-the-scenes bullshit not the lovely unresolved conclusion
[close]
). It felt distasteful and disrespectful. But overall I found the film was poignant and profound except for the vague and aimless moments that occasionally popped up. I'm definitely keen to see more of his films.

The Queen album films aka A Day at the Races and A Night at the Opera are both fantastic and Animal Crackers isn't the greatest but is filled with gags. At the Circus is underrated and The Big Store is what happens when The Marx Brothers become older and more tired.
Yes - that and Mon Oncle are my favourites of his. Simply sublime cinema. Mr Hulot's Holiday is also very good. In fact all three are on such a completely different level to Trafic, which is why that one disappointed me.

Yeah, Playtime is the one I love. Couldn't hack M Hulot's Holiday, and turned if off. Must try it again.

I saw Taste of Cherry recently and loved it. I particularly like the ambivalence of the final 'helper' character, we never know what he really thinks or whether he's to be trusted. In fact I think the character changes and evolves before our eyes, leading me to feel he's symbolic of something. Maybe the indifference of the universe to human wishes. I agree the ending feels cheap, but I also feel Kiarostami's instinct is somehow right here. To deprive us of satisfaction in such a summary way is his privilege  after what he's shown us.

I'm watching a Fassbinder right now as it happens: Fear eats the Soul.

Shaky

Quote from: Gulftastic on January 15, 2017, 04:43:21 PM
My favourite part is when he turns the kids into a sort of Hitler Youth to make them recite the Gettysburg Address or something.

Certainly one of the highlights. My favourite bit was were Arnie murdered the baddie in front of the baddie's son and ex-wife, earning their instant love and respect despite having lied to them about his true identity throughout the rest of the film. Lots to be learned from that.

zomgmouse

Quote from: Howj Begg on January 15, 2017, 09:54:03 PM
Yeah, Playtime is the one I love. Couldn't hack M Hulot's Holiday, and turned if off. Must try it again.
Holiday is a lot simpler and lighter, more reliant on Hulot's antics himself than grand set gags. Could be trickier to get into because of that?

Quote from: Howj Begg on January 15, 2017, 09:54:03 PM
I saw Taste of Cherry recently and loved it. I particularly like the ambivalence of the final 'helper' character, we never know what he really thinks or whether he's to be trusted. In fact I think the character changes and evolves before our eyes, leading me to feel he's symbolic of something. Maybe the indifference of the universe to human wishes. I agree the ending feels cheap, but I also feel Kiarostami's instinct is somehow right here. To deprive us of satisfaction in such a summary way is his privilege  after what he's shown us.

Well as I said I loved the fact that
Spoiler alert
you never find out if he did or didn't commit suicide
[close]
. But that's not what I had a problem with. It was
Spoiler alert
the little behind-the-scenes epilogue
[close]
that irked me.

Quote from: Howj Begg on January 15, 2017, 09:54:03 PM
I'm watching a Fassbinder right now as it happens: Fear eats the Soul.
Oh cool, I recently borrowed that from the library. Not sure when I'm going to watch it though.

Gulftastic

Setting a new record on here for oldest film, yesterday I watched One Week, a Buster Keaton short from 1920. The first film he made alone, apparently. Sky Arts have been showing a few recently.

Buster and his new bride are given a 'build it yourself' house, and a rival of Buster's renumbers the boxes, meaning it's constructed wrongly.

It's a smashing half hour of great stuff from Buster, with some amazing prop work. The house itself is a fantastic creation.

BTW, this is not the film with the famous falling wall gag.