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What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2020 Edition)

Started by Small Man Big Horse, January 01, 2020, 05:03:07 PM

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Cuellar

I thought it was good? Maybe, not sure.

I dunno. Can't appreciate anything these days, everything's just 'meh'. No feelings about anything. Christ.

finnquark

Went to the pics tonight to see the astonishing American Dream by Barbara Kopple, a documentary telling the story of a meatpacking strike in Minnesota in the mid 1980s. Incredibly effective at conveying the complexity of strike action and opening up the grey areas in industrial disputes, by following local and national union leaders, loyal striking members and those tempted/forced to cross the picket line. Absolutely superb.

Sebastian Cobb

Just watched El Topo, it was great but I think it's going to need at least another viewing.

MiddleRabbit

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 16, 2020, 10:52:28 PM
Just watched El Topo, it was great but I think it's going to need at least another viewing.

El Topo's ace.  Holy Mountain too. I watched the latter with the commentary recently and, apart from thinking Jodorowsky was making up his reasoning as he went along, it was delightfully daft.  The part about the ludicrously tall toilet was a highlight among many.

Sebastian Cobb

Yeah I thought it was great.

I can't help thinking large amounts of the second half were copied by Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

Neville Chamberlain

I've become kind of exhausted this past year ploughing my way through Netflix series and films in an effort to stay in touch with today's culture, so last night I watched The Shining and reminded myself why this is my absolute favourite film of all time (along with Nuts in May, of course!). Whatever flaws it may have and criticisms people may have of it (e.g. compared against the book), I don't see them any more - it's just an absolutely beautiful and utterly immersive treat from beginning to end.

Back to Mindhunter tonight ;-)

sevendaughters

Quote from: finnquark on January 16, 2020, 10:43:38 PM
Went to the pics tonight to see the astonishing American Dream by Barbara Kopple, a documentary telling the story of a meatpacking strike in Minnesota in the mid 1980s. Incredibly effective at conveying the complexity of strike action and opening up the grey areas in industrial disputes, by following local and national union leaders, loyal striking members and those tempted/forced to cross the picket line. Absolutely superb.

she's a great underrated documentary maker, Harlan County USA is also hers.

greenman

The Studiochannel 4K version of Don't Look Now really does look amazing, probably the best thing I'v seen in UHD so far.

Cerys

Just watched Vacancy.  That ... could have been worse.

Sebastian Cobb

Three Days of the Condor, quality bit of 70's paranoia surrounding wheels-within-wheels in the CIA starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: greenman on January 17, 2020, 11:06:20 AM
The Studiochannel 4K version of Don't Look Now really does look amazing, probably the best thing I'v seen in UHD so far.

I was really excited about the fact they've released a remastered 4k scan of Until the End of the World, but this is really offputting:

[old dvd]







Some of the other scenes look great though - warning there's a slightly nsfw one with a bit of tit in it.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film5/blu-ray_reviews_73/until_the_end_of_the_world_blu-ray.htm

peanutbutter

The Baxter

Michael Showalter starring and directed romcom about the kind of guy who gets abandoned at the aisle in those "speak now or forever hold your breath" scenes in films. Stars Michelle Williams in a role that would now be dismissed as a manic pixie dream girl but I thought the whole thing was extremely charming and aware throughout. Biggest issue is Showalter is upstaged by a pretty fucking amazing ensemble around him, some great casting across the board otherwise.
Seemed to get absolutely shit upon on release for not having enough jokes and relying on Williams's charisma too much but I thought it all flowed pretty well.

Cerys

I watched Heathers yesterday for the first time in about twenty years.  It was rated 15 when it came out.  If it were made these days, I reckon it'd be an 18.  If it were made at all.

I really love that film.

Sin Agog

Not a week has gone by without me saying 'fuck me gently with a chainsaw' at some point.

sevendaughters

rewatched GHOST WORLD. saw it when I was Enid & Rebecca's age at the time it came out, but it makes a lot more sense now I am the age Clowes was when he wrote it. the heroes of the film are all the poor bastards they mock, going on with their lives without deconstructing it from within a hardened shell of irony. it's not a great adaptation as Clowes distills all the humour and mortal sadness in one single panel that the film takes a scene to over-explain. Buscemi is great in it as ever, and I feel a connection between Seymour and Pete from Horace and Pete (and not just because he plays them both).

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Buscemi also played (and wrote/directed) a similar character in Trees Lounge.

Small Man Big Horse

Violence Voyager (2018) - Beyond crazy Japanese animation where the paintings are cut out and animated in a sort of mix of basic puppetry and stop motion. It tells the story of a bunch of kids (one of whom looks like a young Robin Askwith*) who find a weird theme park which looks like innocent fun initially as the squirt water pistols at obviously fake aliens, but then
Spoiler alert
the kids start having acid shot in their faces, and being killed in other ways and everything becomes enormously distressing, it's without doubt a truly strange piece with a perverse sense of humour, and if you enjoy seeing naked dead children then it'll be a film you'll love.
[close]
(Sorry, just trying to get on the poster with that last comment). 8/10

Riki-Oh - The Story Of Ricky (1991) - Often mentioned here on CaB I finally got around to watching this Very daft but very fun Hong Kong action flick set in a prison, where Ricky has been sentenced to ten years for manslaughter. Writing wrongs by punching people right through the stomach (among various other violent ways), the blood and gore's of the silly variety but it's endearing stuff nonetheless as Ricky avenges those who have been treated cruelly. 7.8/10

*

Sebastian Cobb

Jean Luc Godard's Contempt. Some melodrama about a French playwright rewriting the script of Friz Laing's Oddesey for some cretinous American producer, the producer offers to give the playwright's wife a lift in his 2-seater car and rather than encouraging his wife to get a cab with him he shrugs, him and his wife spend most of the film falling out about it. It gets a bit wearing but Friz Laing doddering about and Bridget Bardot rolling about in the nip keep things going.

Gundermann - Biopic about a folk musician and excavator driver in the GDR who in order to tour informed the stasi about other band members. Also upset the powers that be running things in the GDR by being outspoken about their beurocracy.

Le Harve - an old bohemian shoe shiner with a wife in hospital concealing how ill she is befriends an African child who escaped a shipping container that was discovered bound for London and ropes his friends into helping him. Quite good, nice and surreal.

Blumf

Human Highway (1982)
Fun, but I don't think Neil Young (or Dean Stockwell) is a good director. Nothing really hung together even though there was an overarching plot. In better hands I think it would have clicked. Forbidden Zone (1980) is a more interesting film of a similar, New Wave surrealism, style.

Preaching to the Perverted (1997)
Wasn't expecting much, didn't get it. Young bloke get roped in (heh) by a religious public decency crusader to spy on some fetish club, blah, blah, blah, you know the rest. Lacks the charm or wit of such things as Personal Services and the try-hard 90s fetish scene setting doesn't help much either. Still, always nice to see Georgina Hale, and there are some fun bits here and there.

Sebastian Cobb

Holy Motors - Holy shit why are these things happening, more like.

Will need to watch again I reckon.

sevendaughters

THE NAVIGATOR: A MEDIEVAL ODYSSEY strange NZ film that plays out like Tarkovsky directs a really serious episode of Round The Twist. There's even a metal-casting scene. Story is that a Cumbrian village live in fear of the Black Death visiting upon them and think by offering a token to the church they will be spared. Their quest is led by a young kid who has visions and those visions lead to them tunnelling through a portal that takes them from the 14th century to contemporary New Zealand. They never realise this, nor does anyone from the present realised they're from the past. It's just part of the adventure. Odd film with some really memorable visuals but genuinely can't figure out what its wider audience was meant to be.

grassbath

Videodrome (1983) - pile of wank, soz. I've never seen a Cronenberg film I really liked (admittedly haven't seen The Fly), but if this is supposedly his best then I won't bother going any deeper than I already have. Daft and incoherent plot, terrible dialogue, James Woods near-unwatchable.

Safe (1995) - the Todd Haynes one with Julianne Moore in. Fuck me, went in expecting just a good, dark drama, but this was the most unsettling film I've seen in a long old while. When it ended I sat in my darkened living room chilled to the bone. The print they're using on Mubi is really blurry and lo-fi and 90s in a way that totally suits the film's themes - the overwhelming banality of American consumerism, cheesy late-night infomercials, creeping environmental dread, the cult out in the desert, the frosty hauntological synth soundtrack. Tons to get stuck into and think about, though maybe I'd rather not.

Then two pre-Good Time Safdie brothers things - Heaven Knows What (2014) and The Pleasure of Being Robbed (2008). Apart from the unsparing, naturalistic documentary-style direction and the NY setting, very different films, one relentless throbbing electro misery porn and the other twee and bittersweet. Enjoyed them both, need to actually get round to watching their more recent stuff.

Blumf

Quote from: grassbath on January 26, 2020, 10:58:01 PM
Videodrome (1983) - pile of wank, soz. I've never seen a Cronenberg film I really liked (admittedly haven't seen The Fly), but if this is supposedly his best then I won't bother going any deeper than I already have. Daft and incoherent plot, terrible dialogue, James Woods near-unwatchable.

Shame it didn't work for you, but do give The Fly a try. It's a more coherent plot, but still with Cronenberg's trademark body horror.

greenman

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 18, 2020, 11:19:16 PM
I was really excited about the fact they've released a remastered 4k scan of Until the End of the World, but this is really offputting:

[old dvd]







Some of the other scenes look great though - warning there's a slightly nsfw one with a bit of tit in it.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film5/blu-ray_reviews_73/until_the_end_of_the_world_blu-ray.htm

Not sure whats closer to the original print but honestly I never liked the look of the DVD, everything just seemed too bright and over saturated, the new version looks rather more subtle.

bgmnts

Quote from: grassbath on January 26, 2020, 10:58:01 PM
Videodrome (1983) - pile of wank, soz. I've never seen a Cronenberg film I really liked (admittedly haven't seen The Fly), but if this is supposedly his best then I won't bother going any deeper than I already have. Daft and incoherent plot, terrible dialogue, James Woods near-unwatchable.


Oh noooooo I have this queued up on Nutflix.

grassbath

I mean, a lot of people like it, so would still be worth seeing what you think!

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 25, 2020, 08:41:09 PM
Holy Motors - Holy shit why are these things happening, more like.

Will need to watch again I reckon.

I love that movie to be pieces, it'd definitely make my top 10 favourites list.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: greenman on January 27, 2020, 04:37:20 PM
Not sure whats closer to the original print but honestly I never liked the look of the DVD, everything just seemed too bright and over saturated, the new version looks rather more subtle.

Wenders supervised it so I guess we have to assume it's at least close to what he thinks it should be if not the original print.

However, I have read a few reviews that suggest the colour palette has been altered, something which is really starting to annoy me with archive releases.

greenman

I didn't see it at the time but the previous home releases did make it feel a bit too "early 90's music video" like with the brightness/saturation.

I wonder whether anything by Wenders might actually get a true 4K/UHD disk release? generally its just been more mainstream cinema so far but he's probably as well known as art-house would get, Wings of Desire got a 4K scanned cinema release a year or two ago if I remember correctly.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: greenman on January 28, 2020, 12:13:00 PM
I didn't see it at the time but the previous home releases did make it feel a bit too "early 90's music video" like with the brightness/saturation.

I wonder whether anything by Wenders might actually get a true 4K/UHD disk release? generally its just been more mainstream cinema so far but he's probably as well known as art-house would get, Wings of Desire got a 4K scanned cinema release a year or two ago if I remember correctly.

I did see it in the mid 90s when the Watershed in Bristol had a Wenders season, but fucked if I can remember what it looked like as my common reference point was the pan and scan VHS video.

I would say Wings of Desire and Paris, Texas are the most likely IF it were to happen, but I don't think it will, at least not in a physical media form - 4K UHD uptake has been incredibly poor (even in Japan sales of both the equipment and UHD releases have been massively disappointing) and most of the boutique distributors aren't bothering at all.  Criterion have been hinting at their first UHD release for years, with insiders long saying it would be spine 1000 (spine 1025 has recently been announced and still no hint of a UHD from them), Arrow have said they'll never bother as it's too much of a loss leader, and another one (might be 88 Films, but can't remember now) were prepping a few that were all cancelled for much the same reason.

I've read several industry and tech experts refer to 4K UHD as being this generation's laserdisc, only with MUCH higher production overheads, and the current expectation is that it will die a slow and quiet death. 

Mind you, physical media sales in general are falling as well of course, with more and more people streaming, downloading and, cunting Norah, watching on their phones or tablets, which will only do further damage to UHD's longevity - there are those that have said 4K UHD will be the last mass produced physical media, especially as Sony (or whichever manufacturer it was) has ceased R&D on blu-ray's planned replacement (green ray or terrawatt laser or summat, originally announced the same day as blu-ray was announced victor of the HD war). 

Being a huge film buff, I'm quite concerned at the prospect of physical media going altogether - I read a while ago an example given of a Robert Mitchum film (can't remember which one), which has only been released once on DVD in the States in the very early days of it and hasn't been released in any territory on any other format since, and the only way you can see it is on whichever streaming platform it's currently on.  So, for arguement's sake to illustrate the point, let's say this film is currently available on Netflix.  When that runs out it then transfers over to, say, ComCast.  Which is not available in the UK...

That's a very real future reality if physical media goes completely, that plus the possibility of the ability to permanently download and own digital copies being taken away.  Scary stuff.