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What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2021 Edition)

Started by zomgmouse, January 14, 2021, 11:12:22 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

zomgmouse

#1710
A Prairie Home Companion. Robert Altman's final film. Great choice of subject matter, a lovely way to bow out. Really beautiful, gently bittersweet. I loved this.

Taipei Story. Wonderful Edward Yang. Brooding on past, present and future. Some fantastic moods here.

Artie Fufkin

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on November 29, 2021, 05:22:55 PMI can completely understand that, the opening twenty minutes aren't representative of the film as a whole and for me it only becomes entertaining when Sam Neill
Spoiler alert
starts to talk about how he used to be a dog.
[close]
Ok. I may well give that another go then thumb

Quote from: Herbert Ashe on November 29, 2021, 10:32:30 PMNot having seen it in ages, I want to say that in Traffic Hulot is closer to the Playtime Hulot but maybe I'm just remembering a couple of scenes badly (like the hippies), don't take my word for it.

I think Playtime is an anomaly, but maybe only because of circumstances: Tati wanted* to de-emphasise himself/Hulot as the star of the film (like sevendaughters mentioned above, to democratise his films - c.f. all the 'fake' Hulots throughout the film) but because of the financial failure, had to retreat from this position, so Traffic was a more commercial prospect, with Hulot back to being the focus. (Parade returns to the democratisation but as a semi-documentary)


* as per various Jonathan Rosenbaum writings on Tati

Thanks. Hadn't joined up the democratising and de-emphasising himself to no longer causing as many accidents.

Small Man Big Horse

Out Of The Past (1947) - Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas star in this beautifully shot film noir from director Jacques "Night of the Demon" Tourneur, a twisty, complex creation where Mitchum has tried to start a new life but it's only a matter of time before Douglas tracks him down,
Spoiler alert
while Jane Greer may just be the ultimate femme fatale
[close]
. The dialogue's really strong and it's a gripping piece, and especially captivating whenever Douglas and Mitchum are in the same scene. 7.8/10

Small Man Big Horse

Cat People (1942) - The second part of a Jacques Tourneur double bill, here Serbian artist Irena (Simone Simon, hammy) marries Oliver Reed (Kent Smith, bland) but is worried about a superstitious tale she was told as a child, and has formed a strange attraction to the local panther in a zoo. There's a couple of nice shots and the end amused but most of the time this plods along at a slow pace, none of the characters are that interesting, and the ending is predictable, all of which make it the first Tourneur film I didn't really rate. 5.4/10

sevendaughters

Absolutely love Out of the Past. Take your girl and your mute pal, Bob, don't go to your doom!

Saw The Bird with the Crystal Plumage today.  Wow. I've seen later Argentos like Suspiria and Deep Red and they didn't do it for me. Too gory and too stylised. But this? Just right. Wow.

A drum tight thriller that basically does the same kind of thing as The Conversation and Blow Out, except with seeing instead of hearing. There's more of a genre thriller thing happening, with police and a killer trying to off the main character, but it all works in a satisfying and original way. Can't believe this is a debut, actually.

You might find the last scene where someone explains all the slightly loose threads a bit trite in attempting a combination of catharsis and meaning, but I was convinced and it showed that the whole thing - right down to the incredibly eliptical title of the film - was immaculately designed.

zomgmouse

The Smallest Show on Earth. Count this as another in the series of "films I thought were incredibly well-known but turns out are not very widely seen at all". Light comedy where a couple inherit a cinema which turns out to be a dingy hole and attempt to redo it in the hopes of selling it for a lot of money. Margaret Rutherford, Peter Sellers and Leslie Phillips are in strong supporting roles, and Sid James pops up in one scene. It's a bit too slight but it's really very enjoyable.

Famous Mortimer

No No Nooky TV (1987)

The horniest piece of experimental video art ever?

Barbara Hammer ("The Female Closet") bought an Amiga and filmed the art she created with it on a 16mm camera; she spliced in a few filmed bits, including a few seconds of what looks like a real unsimulated bit of masturbation, and recorded some computer voices, interviews, some avant-garde electronica to go on top.

It's on Youtube if you're so inclined, 11 very interesting minutes.

Egyptian Feast

Quote from: sevendaughters on November 30, 2021, 07:51:47 PMSaw The Bird with the Crystal Plumage today.  Wow. I've seen later Argentos like Suspiria and Deep Red and they didn't do it for me. Too gory and too stylised. But this? Just right. Wow.

I watched this and his next two, Cat O Nine Tails and Four Flies On Grey Velvet, over the weekend. It was fascinating seeing his style develop over the three, from the increase in 'killer cam' shots in the second, to the experimental touches he adds to the third like cameras placed inside acoustic guitars etc.

Neither film works quite as well as his assured debut, but are definitely worth a watch and quite restrained in terms of gore compared to his later work, you'll be glad to know. Morricone's soundtracks, some of his most experimental and eclectic work, fit the movies like a black leather glove and it's a shame they didn't work together much after this (though it was a great idea getting Goblin on board for the next two).

Rizla

Jack The Ripper (1988)

The TV movie/miniseries, starring Michael Caine, Lewis Collins, Aramand Assante, Jane Seymour et al.

Searched this out after listening to the Smershpod episode, and watched with the missus over 2 nights (as it was broadcast - it's 3 and a bit hours). Brilliant, utterly gripping, and essential viewing for any Caine fan. Not being a huge true crime head, I was only vaguely familiar with the dramatis personae, but without spoiling anything, the writers went with the same theory, I think first postulated in the 60s, that Alan Moore used in From Hell, which I've yet to read. The tale is presented as a whodunnit, edges of our seats throughout. Superb casting (nice buddy cop dynamic between Collins and Caine), huge budget readily apparent on the screen (it was a transatlantic co-production between CBS and Euston films (The Sweeney, Van Der Valk etc), just top class, highly recommended, they don't make 'em like that anymore etc etc. 10/10

Small Man Big Horse

Ma Vie De Courgette (2016) - Co-written by Portrait Of A Lady On Fire's Céline Sciamma despite being a stop motion animation about a group of children living at a children's home it isn't really aimed at a young audience, what with the reason for the kids being there (victims of rape, parental suicide or murder, etc) and their frank if misunderstood notions of sex. Despite elements of darkness it's a truly adorable film however, sweet natured and funny and all kinds of lovely and affecting, and an absolute must see. 8.7/10

zomgmouse

À nous la liberté. Brilliantly playful and inventive French comedy from René Clair in 1931. A prison escapee becomes the head of a gramophone company and all sorts of twists and shenanigans ensue. Visually resplendent, very clever and silly, the storytelling and joke-making are geniusly striking. Heavily recommended.

Small Man Big Horse

Water Lilies (2007) - Teenagers go swimming, fancy each other, in Céline Sciamma's debut feature that feels very realistic and has strong performances, but also doesn't really have much to say other than that being young and in love with someone, especially when they're of the same sex, is complicated and frustrating. 6.0/10

Small Man Big Horse

Man Of The First Century (1961) - Another Oldrich Lipsky comedy, this time upholsterer Joseph (Lipsky regular and 1962's Baron Munchausen Milos Kopecký) is fixing part of the seating on a spaceship when he accidentally stands on the launch button and ends up flying off. A brief bit of narration explains how he landed on a blue star, met some aliens, and now one of them is helping him fly back to Earth, though when he gets there it's five hundred years in the future and sometimes the alien is invisible which allows Joseph in to being able to trick people in to thinking that he's really intelligent when the opposite applies. It has a really likeable vision of the future with some quite impressive looking future technology, and some quite naff bits too, like a robot that looks like the offspring of a dalek and a henry hoover, while a visit to a 20th century museum allows it to mock our violent ways. A fair amount of the movie sees Joseph trying to understand how the futuristic people interact, and how they're free from ego, in what's an impressive mix of smart satire and deliberately daft idiocy, and after a slightly slow start this gets funnier and funnier as it goes on. 7.9/10

zomgmouse

Man on the Moon. Gets a bit biopic-y towards the end but it's a wonderful encapsulation of Andy Kaufman. I think Jim Carrey gets into him really well if not portraying him a little too earnestly, doesn't quite feel as mischievous as the real figure. The cast around him are all great as well and I enjoyed the addition of actual people who were in his life (some of which playing characters other than who they are). Art direction was spot on for this film as well, and Forman's direction in general was terrific.

Artie Fufkin

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on November 30, 2021, 07:49:42 PMCat People (1942) - The second part of a Jacques Tourneur double bill, here Serbian artist Irena (Simone Simon, hammy) marries Oliver Reed (Kent Smith, bland) but is worried about a superstitious tale she was told as a child, and has formed a strange attraction to the local panther in a zoo. There's a couple of nice shots and the end amused but most of the time this plods along at a slow pace, none of the characters are that interesting, and the ending is predictable, all of which make it the first Tourneur film I didn't really rate. 5.4/10
Spoiler alert
The bit when the bus pulls up!
[close]

Artie Fufkin

Quote from: Rizla on December 01, 2021, 07:12:15 PMJack The Ripper (1988)

The TV movie/miniseries, starring Michael Caine, Lewis Collins, Aramand Assante, Jane Seymour et al.

Searched this out after listening to the Smershpod episode, and watched with the missus over 2 nights (as it was broadcast - it's 3 and a bit hours). Brilliant, utterly gripping, and essential viewing for any Caine fan. Not being a huge true crime head, I was only vaguely familiar with the dramatis personae, but without spoiling anything, the writers went with the same theory, I think first postulated in the 60s, that Alan Moore used in From Hell, which I've yet to read. The tale is presented as a whodunnit, edges of our seats throughout. Superb casting (nice buddy cop dynamic between Collins and Caine), huge budget readily apparent on the screen (it was a transatlantic co-production between CBS and Euston films (The Sweeney, Van Der Valk etc), just top class, highly recommended, they don't make 'em like that anymore etc etc. 10/10
Awwww, man! I loved this at the time. Thanks for the reminder. I'm gonna seek this out to re-watch.
And you MUST read From Hell. Amazing stuff.

Artie Fufkin

Quote from: zomgmouse on December 02, 2021, 11:06:44 PMMan on the Moon. Gets a bit biopic-y towards the end but it's a wonderful encapsulation of Andy Kaufman. I think Jim Carrey gets into him really well if not portraying him a little too earnestly, doesn't quite feel as mischievous as the real figure. The cast around him are all great as well and I enjoyed the addition of actual people who were in his life (some of which playing characters other than who they are). Art direction was spot on for this film as well, and Forman's direction in general was terrific.
The making of, 'Jim & Andy', is well worth a watch if you enjoyed this.

Artie Fufkin

The Comeback Trail - 2020
Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Zach Braff, Tommy Lee Jones, star in this comedy drama (?) about a fading film company run by DeNiro and his nephew Braff, who hatch a scheme to get TLJ (a has been western star of old) to star in their next movie.
De Niro owes a helluva lotta money to gang boss Freeman, and comes up with an alternative scheme to pay back the money.
Not really sure this film knows what it wants to be.
But it was enjoyable.

Famous Mortimer

Evolution
I got in a conversation about David Duchovny and it was revealed that they'd never seen "Evolution". I really wanted it to be better than it was - it was a few rewrites away from being properly decent. Shows that Reitman really needed someone to provide him with good material.

Small Man Big Horse

Trumbo (2015) - First things first, I did enjoy this a good deal, and Bryan Cranston's on great form as the once blacklisted writer who even spent a year in prison because of his beliefs, and then secretly wrote a sod load of films under a pseudonym and recruited other blacklisted friends to help him. But jesus does this scream "Give me an Oscar you dirty whores!" over and over again, it's exactly the kind of lavishly shot period piece which feels like it was only made to get awards and it is one of the least subtle message movies ever made. Still, the cast mostly make up for this, and it's especially fun to see John Goodman and Stephen Root playing brothers who helmed a shitty b-movie studio, though oddly Helen Mirren is pretty bad as Hedda Hopper and her accent wanders a fair bit to the extent that I had to check that Hopper hadn't been born in England or something. 7.6/10

As an aside: I watched this as in Steve Martin's biography he mentions dating Mitzi Trumbo and spending time with Dalton, though that had the side effect of occasionally seeing her on screen and thinking "And that little girl grew up to have sexual intercourse with the star of Cheaper By The Dozen 2".

Sebastian Cobb

I quite enjoyed Trumbo when I saw it, and yeah Goodman was great.

I wasn't really aware of the story beforehand and it made me rethink some people in Hollywood from that era that i previously held in high regard as turncoats, Edward G. Robinson being one of them.

Famous Mortimer

Legion (1998)

"Mum, can we have Aliens crossed with the Dirty Dozen?"

"No, we have Aliens crossed with the Dirty Dozen at home"

Aliens crossed with the Dirty Dozen at home:


(well, it's maybe a bit more like Predator than Aliens, but it's in space)

sevendaughters

meandering through Godard in no particular order and got Every Man for Himself aka Slow Motion out of the library. interesting. touted as his return to a somewhat normal cinema after his Dziga Vertov Group years. it is watchable, definitely, though it is Godard and some experimental flourishes and narrative/emotional indeterminism exists. some of it is really funny to me. I think I liked it even if I didn't fully get it.

Small Man Big Horse

The Producers (1967) - I've rewatched quite a few of the most loved Mel Brooks films of late and enjoyed but never loved them, and that's the case again here. Zero Mostel's superb, the fake musical's fantastic, and Kenneth Mars is great as its author, but strangely I found Gene Wilder's Leo Bloom a little bland, bar his initial freak out early on in the film there's not a lot to him and the character could have done with fleshing out.
Spoiler alert
Once Springtime is a hit the movie starts running out of steam too
[close]
, as a whole it made me laugh a good deal but I still can't help but feel it was a bit too uneven for it to be something I'd revisit again. 7.5/10

sevendaughters

watched The Return (2003) by Russian miserablist Andrei Zyvagintsev. Two brothers have their dad turn up after 12 years and he wants to take them to a sad island in the middle of nowhere and act the cunt about it. Minimal plot so I'll say no more but a well-done tone poem about being a confused and fucked-off kid with a wrongfooting final montage.

joaquin closet

Quote from: sevendaughters on December 05, 2021, 09:38:21 PMwatched The Return (2003) by Russian miserablist Andrei Zyvagintsev. Two brothers have their dad turn up after 12 years and he wants to take them to a sad island in the middle of nowhere and act the cunt about it. Minimal plot so I'll say no more but a well-done tone poem about being a confused and fucked-off kid with a wrongfooting final montage.

Haven't seen this but been meaning to ever since Joel Coen mentioned this film as being evidence of Zyvagintsev being a modern master (in some podcast interview... maybe The Big Picture, can't remember exactly). Loved his Leviathan and though Loveless was alright (after its brilliantly effective opening).

Small Man Big Horse

An Angel For May (2001) - A tv movie based on a novel by Melvin Burgess which was adapted by Shade The Changing Man's Peter Milligan, young Tom's miserable because his Mum's got a new boyfriend, his P.E. teacher Bob, and it's an unrealistic work from the get go as Bob is a kind, pleasant man which then becomes very slightly more unrealistic as Tom finds a portal to the past and ends up in war torn England in the nineteen forties. There he meets young May who's suffering from PTSD after her home was bombed and her parents killed, but luckily for her Tom all but instantly cures her just be pushing her on a swing and milking a cow, before he fucks off to the future, learns that May is now a mad old woman after being involved in another bombing where yet more people died, so he rushes back to the past to try and prevent this. The pacing is all over the place, May and Tom barely spend any time together and their supposedly incredibly important relationship is very poorly fleshed out, while the dialogue is also weak, when  Tom returns to the present there's lots of tedious nonsense with his Mum, and the whole thing is ridiculously over sentimental and it doesn't earn it's supposedly emotional finale at all. 2.4/10

zomgmouse

When Father Goes Away on Business. Early Kusturica, full of childish angst and wonder, set at the time of Yugoslavian independence from the USSR.

Pastoral: To Die in the Country (aka Pastoral: Hide and Seek). Second film I've seen by Shūji Terayama after Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets, which I liked but didn't love. This however I loved. Full of mystical symbolism and sexual energy and a meta-narrative on filmmaking and memory. Just beautiful.

I like when films occasionally turn out to be incidental double features - this was a lovely coming of age double

Quote from: Artie Fufkin on December 03, 2021, 09:32:02 AMThe making of, 'Jim & Andy', is well worth a watch if you enjoyed this.

Thanks I might track it down!

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: zomgmouse on December 07, 2021, 12:23:00 AMPastoral: To Die in the Country (aka Pastoral: Hide and Seek). Second film I've seen by Shūji Terayama after Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets, which I liked but didn't love. This however I loved. Full of mystical symbolism and sexual energy and a meta-narrative on filmmaking and memory. Just beautiful.

I loved that too, it was recommended to me by someone on here a couple of years back and I'm in their debt as it's such an amazing film.