What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2018 Edition)

[Custard]

Cheers, will check that out!

[Neomod]

Beautiful Darling (2010)
I've had a love hate relationship with all things Warhol but this is a fascinating and heartbreaking documentary on Candy Darling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkSeQ_xCKzU

[zomgmouse]

Underground (the Kusturica one). Starts off as a pretty straightforward freewheeling wartime comedy-tragedy and as it goes on gets darker and more surreal until you're trapped in a kind of nightmare world where everything and nothing makes sense.

[Custard]

Shot Caller (2017)

Jaime Lannister goes to prison, and has to get all rock hard to survive it.

Pretty good. Went on a bit, mind

Velvet Goldmine (1998)

It looked quite nice, but I found this a bit rubs. Ewen McGregor does not make a good Iggy Pop. Toni Collette was good as Angie Bowie. This film also goes on way too long

[sevendaughters]

Annie Hall - am probably the bravest person in the world watching this film by Woody "GG" Allen in our political climate but screw all the haters, come after me libcels, this is the best romcom because it is genuinely rom and incredibly com, ten on ten, his best film and also one of the best films. Remember when his films actually had some little bits of technique in them rather than just assembling a marquee cast and getting them to nonce about a city and act like it's some perpetual 1933?

[Better Midlands]

Forbidden Zone

Fucking fantastic!!
It's like a school play made by some extrovert children without any supervision, in the middle of the 70s San Fransisco gay/drag scene... or something like that.
I couldn't understand what was going on half the time, but that didn't matter much as the plot was secondary to the spectacle of fun and madness on display.
It reminded me of Eurotrash mixed with Devo's early music videos. I may have spotted one of the members of Devo in the rape cage near the end wearing stockings and sunglasses, or maybe it was just an homage to their amazing Jocko Homo video.

I really need to look more into Oingo Boingo, Danny Elfman's tunes in this are excellent.
All I know him for are this amazing song & music video, countless film/TV scores and dating Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth.

Quite tempted to recommend this to a friend of mine who's into Ru Paul and weird, spectacular gay stuff. Not sure, it might be like recommending Muse to a Radiohead fan.

Have you seen Paris Is Burning? It's a documentary movie about the 80's New York drag scene and vogueing. My 18yr old daughter is a big Drag Race fan and she really enjoyed it. It's up on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xf6Cn2y2xEc

Also this really great youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/5ninthavenueproject it's basically a gay guy living in New York in the 80s vlogging with a video camera documenting the underground gay club & drag scene there. Loads of pre fame faces turn up, such as Rupaul, Keith Haring and Michael Alig.

[Shit Good Nose]

Annie Hall - am probably the bravest person in the world watching this film by Woody "GG" Allen in our political climate but screw all the haters, come after me libcels, this is the best romcom because it is genuinely rom and incredibly com, ten on ten, his best film and also one of the best films. Remember when his films actually had some little bits of technique in them rather than just assembling a marquee cast and getting them to nonce about a city and act like it's some perpetual 1933?

I still love his "early funny ones", and am not ashamed of it.

[sevendaughters]

Have you seen Paris Is Burning? It's a documentary movie about the 80's New York drag scene and vogueing. My 18yr old daughter is a big Drag Race fan and she really enjoyed it. It's up on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/w

one of my fav films ever, just brilliant documentary making, and a bit too much perspective when you look some of them up

I still love his "early funny ones", and am not ashamed of it.

touch my nip w/yours my friend

[Calistan]

A non non-new film but Dogman is brilliant. Absolutely gruelling but worth the watch. Immensely likable lead actor - I'm shocked to find out he got the part purely by accident and isn't a major actor.

[greenman]

Annie Hall - am probably the bravest person in the world watching this film by Woody "GG" Allen in our political climate but screw all the haters, come after me libcels, this is the best romcom because it is genuinely rom and incredibly com, ten on ten, his best film and also one of the best films. Remember when his films actually had some little bits of technique in them rather than just assembling a marquee cast and getting them to nonce about a city and act like it's some perpetual 1933?

To be fair he did go though a period of showing a bit more visual ambition in the Johansson films(well haven't seen Scoop but the other two), albeit rather more conventionally.

[greenman]

Watched the US cut of The Shining for the first time yesterday, I think rather undervalued actually as I'v always heard the line that it was the "version for dumber American audiences" but you could argue it ends up giving it a rather wider focus with the family drama played up a good deal more.

[greenman]

Embrace The Serpent, definitely lived up to the positive hype around it for me, interesting to look at visually rather than just being revivalist monochrome(looks a lot like Sebastiao Salgado's photography)and not your typical "white guy finds salvation with the natives" story, more like Apoc Now told from the native perspective at points.

[Blumf]

Xchange (2001)

A interesting idea in a dumb movie. It's 'Tomorrow' (the FUTURE!!!) and it's fast and easy to swap your mind between bodies, people use it instead of air travel. Amazingly, something goes wrong for some bloke and we end up in a D.O.A. type situation, but who nicked his body? The film came out in 2001 (Twin Towers in opening shot, whoops) but it looks and feels like a mid-90s thing.

I was watching this to show my wife that Kyle MacLachlan always does stupid sex scenes, and this film was no exception, almost proto-Twin Peaks' Dougie, except this character didn't have the excuse of being discombobulated. Kyle's scene, however, was just a bit daft, a later tryst between the bad guys is plain ridiculous, actually spouting exposition between demands to 'pull my hair'! A solid contender for one of the dumbest sex scenes ever.

So, definitely one for a bad movie night. Not solid gold terrible, bit dull in parts, but you can pull the thing apart pretty easily.

I give it Stephen Baldwin out of Alec Baldwin

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000242150/

[DukeDeMondo]

I've you're a Mubi subscriber, or you sign up for the free trial, you still have another fortnight or so to catch Radu Jude's absolutely incredible The Dead Nation, or Tara Moarta. As extraordinary and powerful and pummelling a picture as any I've seen in ages and ages. Timely too, like, obviously, you would say.

Charts the progression of nationalism and fascism and antisemitism in Romania from 1937 to 1946, from the Legionnaires to Antonescu and on through the end of the war and the People's Tribunal and things like this. The image track is made up of stills taken by a south-eastern Romanian photographer during that period. Family portraits, a small number of memorial or post-mortem photographs, shots of farmers posing with livestock, this sort of thing. These are juxtaposed with a soundtrack dominated by snatches of radio broadcasts and jingoistic anthems and a series of absolutely harrowing extracts from a journal kept by a Jewish physician then living in Bucharest. The details are horrific beyond measure. A litany of everyday acts of persecution, subjugation, humiliation, torture, and murder that seem universes removed from the (usually, but not always) fairly innocuous scenes depicted in the photographs and yet at the same time feel like they're pressing on them and warping them the whole way through.

I was absolutely transfixed and overwhelmed.

"No-one could stop the decline of a country crazed with megalomania, poisoned by hatred, open to imbecility and cruelty."

Christ. Can't recommend it enough.

[zomgmouse]

They're playing that in two weeks so I'll let you know then!

So finally got to see Yi Yi. It was terrific, though somehow seemed a little mellower than A Brighter Summer Day, which I'd say I enjoyed more overall. However still absolutely wonderful.

[hedgehog90]

Have you seen Paris Is Burning? It's a documentary movie about the 80's New York drag scene and vogueing. My 18yr old daughter is a big Drag Race fan and she really enjoyed it. It's up on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xf6Cn2y2xEc

Well that's sorted out what I'm watching tonight, thanks!

Edit - Also on Netflix:
https://www.netflix.com/watch/60036691?source=35

Another edit:
Just watched it. Wow! What an fantastic doc. What a fantastic scene!
Everyone involved was so forthcoming and eloquent, you couldn't have asked for better subjects in a documentary could you?

I'm glad the filmmaker concentrated more on the scene itself than the background of individuals, for the most part showing everyone in their best light and making the whole thing look quite fun & appealing. From my completely alien perspective it certainly helped in making it easier to plug into and get. A modern documentary would have felt obligated to show more strife and hardship, I'm sure.

They only featured for a minute or so, but the young gay couple (aged 13 & 15) hanging out on the street together made the biggest impression on me. The 15 year old had this wonderful vitality and charisma, he just seemed so alive and with-it. His presence alone made the entire backdrop of mid-late 80's New York seem more vivid and real. I very much hope him and his friend are both alive and well.

And it was only during the credits that I realised how well the film was put together. The filmmaker clearly had a real knack for finding true moments, whereby a phrase, a look or a performance revealed so much.

Thanks so much Better Midlands, as you can probably tell I really enjoyed that :)

[zomgmouse]

Tampopo. So delightful! Feel-good film about ramen and food in general. Just such a happy film.

[Large Noise]

Nocturnal Animals- Enjoyed this, worth a watch. Don't really have any insights to add except that Jake Gyllenhaal is too muscular for it not to be a character feature. He's a novelist but he looks like a professional boxer when his shirt's off. Which wouldn't be much of an issue except there's a scene where he's conspicuously unable to defend himself.

[Shit Good Nose]

Tampopo. So delightful! Feel-good film about ramen and food in general. Just such a happy film.

On a similar note I can highly recommend Babette's Feast if you haven't seen it.

[MortSahlFan]

I saw a lot of great Egyptian movies
-Chitchat on the Nile
-Cairo Station
-Cairo '30

some great japanese movies from the 60s, including "The Man With No Face" and others by the same director..

The last handful of movies I have seen were starring Patrick Dewaere, who I think is a heck of an actor, and regardless of the director, the movie is good or great...
-Serie Noire
-A Bad Son
etc

[zomgmouse]

On a similar note I can highly recommend Babette's Feast if you haven't seen it.

I have not, thanks for the rec!

[Cuellar]

Well that's sorted out what I'm watching tonight, thanks!

Fun fact! There was a mummified body in the flat of the older white queen the whole time.

[greenman]

Really recommend you Czech out (see what I did there? Answer: I changed the word check into Czech, on account of we're talking about a Czech director) Vlacil's next film, Valley of the Bees, where it seems he's exorcised all the oblique demons out of his system, but retained the beautiful, unique medieval aesthetic.  I also wonder if his sweet and pure bit of juvenilia, The White Dove, influenced Tarkovsky in a similar stage of his career a year or two later when he was making Ivan's Childhood?

Got around to it and I'd pretty much agree, its feels more like the parts of Marketa with the Nun's spread over an entire film, you could probably argue I spose it would actually make for a better introduiction to his work as well being rather easier to follow.

[monolith]

United 93. I had avoided it for many years as I thought that it might be a tad upsetting.

It turns out that it was indeed a tad upsetting.

Great film, but utterly horrifying. Harsh on the German fella though.

[Sin Agog]

Was getting a bit fed up of solely relying on subscription services which give you the illusion of choice for your diversions but just the illusion, so busted out an old Noir boxset (the one shaped like a giant cigarette box).  How are your old DVDs holding up?  I remember reading that they only had a ten, fifteen year lifespan, and couple that with living on a damp old boat, some of mine aren't doing too hot, while others are about the same as they ever were.

Anyway, watched Out of the Past, Crossfire, The Big Steal, and Murder, My Sweet so far.  They're all RKO pictures, and the first three are with Robert Mitchum.  I guess Out of the Past is considered a bit of a classic by connoisseurs, but, despite Jacques Tourneur being something of a genius, it's only quite good.  I think I threw it on expecting The Big Steal, which is a colourised caper starring the same two leads, but way more of a fun, hang-out film.  The colourisation actually works pretty well in this case, being as it's pretty much entirely set in the Mexican daytime.  Reminds me a bit of a Bogart movie called Beat the Devil, in that it's clearly an excuse for everyone involved to have a laugh in a hot country, and the plot is an after-thought, but like I said, it's a fun movie to hang around in.

Crossfire is an interesting one.  It was based on a book about some homophobic servicemen who bop a gay guy they meet in a bar to death, but then they changed it to a Jewish guy instead as it was still the '40s ffs.  Might have worked out better for the director Dymytryk if he'd stuck with the original theme, as he ended up being thrown in jail by the House of Unamerican Activities for not being a racist pinhead (he eventually talked and got out, which people still hold against him and Elia Kazan, rather than focusing their ire on the McCarthys who are still with us today).  He was a talented dude, really nailing the shadowplay the genre is famous for.  There's a bit of an Important Message vibe at points, but it's not too bad here.  He also did the Philip Marlowe film Murder, My Sweet which I just watched, and that really builds into something interesting as well.  Wasn't sure Dick Powell was nailing the role at first, but then by the end he'd sold me.  Feels like a cross between William Powell (no relation) and Bogey.  Oh yeah, and the scene where he gets drugged with a psychedelic cocktail to get him to talk is genuinely inspired and trippy.

[Sebastian Cobb]

If you want variety in a streaming service try Mubi or the bfi player.

[greenman]

Got around to it and I'd pretty much agree, its feels more like the parts of Marketa with the Nun's spread over an entire film, you could probably argue I spose it would actually make for a better introduiction to his work as well being rather easier to follow.

Added to that watched the documentary in that boxset and enjoyed it, really not so much focus on Vlacil's career as a Herzog like serious of conservations(albeit more introspective and less overt playing to the interviewer) with him largely unrelated to film intercut with some atmospheric tracking shots though locations similar to his films.

Definitely a thumbs up for that boxset as a whole rather than just getting Marketa Lazarova separately.

[hedgehog90]

After enjoying The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre I sat down to watch The African Queen last night.
What a load of shite! The only joy I got out of it was from laughing at the film's expense.
I found this old review from 1951 quite agreeable:

...On the whole the dialogue is childish, the action silly, and the story bereft of human appeal. The characters act as childishly as they talk, and discriminating picture-goers will, no doubt, laugh at them. There is nothing romantic about either Katharine Hepburn or Humphrey Bogart, for both look bedraggled throughout.

Also, not to get all Mr Skin, but has anyone else noticed that you can clearly see right down Hepburn's top when she gets out of the water? Considering the puritanical culture of the time, it was perhaps the most remarkable moment of the film.

[Sin Agog]

Not surprised they all looked bedraggled as they all had severe water poisoning, except for John Huston and Bogart, who were excluded on account of solely drinking whisky.  Bogart has some of the worst line delivery ever in that movie, emphasising all the wrong things.  Haven't seen it in over a decade, but I do still kind of remember the wet t-shirt contest shot.

Anyway, gonna throw on Rock n Roll High School.  Despite of course liking The Ramones and Corman, I've never even come close to seeing this before, but I woke up with a yen and that yen will be satisfied.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I like The African Queen.

Not as much as Maltese Falcon, Sierra Madre, In a lonely place and The Big Sleep though.