Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Mid-Spring Edition. Happy Beltane!

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I actually see Fallen Angels and The Killing of the Chinese Bookie as the lesser work of those respective director. In fact, I often use The Killing of the Chinese Bookie as a divide for Cassavetes' career, as that is the point he wants to break into the mainstream, and I become a little mixed on his subsequent works.

I agree that The Killing of the Chinese Bookie might be JC's weaker film, but my favorite one came right after it so I can't support the rest of your proposition!

 

[sr edler]

Porco Rosso (1992) by Hayao Miyazaki – 7/10

Yeah, this film is about an Italian pig-human WW1 bounty hunter who flies around in his red plane and fights off airborne pirates, while simultaneously dreaming about his long lost belle Gina, who runs a hotel at some small island where he dines occasionally. If it sounds stupid it's because it is, but damn that scene where he reminisce some old war memory and his plane gets elevated above the clouds and he catches a caravan of deceased fighter pilots.... amazing. It also has some great melancholic tunes.

It also contains some really silly stuff though that seems pitched to kids, like over-the-top caricature dumb looking pirates, and one scene where the plane gets raided by toddlers in diapers. It seems the film wants to pitch itself to two different audiences at once, and I don't know if it succeeds with that mission.

 

[nameless1]

I agree that The Killing of the Chinese Bookie might be JC's weaker film, but my favorite one came right after it so I can't support the rest of your proposition!

My favourite is probably Shadows, followed by Husbands. I am not as high on Cassavetes' post The Killing of the Chinese Bookie works.

 

[kihei]

My favourite is probably Shadows, followed by Husbands. I am as high on Cassavetes' post The Killing of the Chinese Bookie works.

My favourite's are Husbands, A Woman under the Influence and Love Streams. I would go so far to say that Cassavettes is my favourite US director (I sense Pranzo's research mice furiously swinging into action fact-checking that one).

 

[kihei]

I really don't have a top ten list for movies and it would be difficult to invent one.

Here is a list of first movies to come to mind (not in any order of quality, just the ones that popped in my head at first). Nothing special here for a cinephile, the list is mainstream.

Lawrence of Arabia
Apocalypse Now
Lion in Winter
Lilies of the Field
African Queen
Driving Miss Daisy
Bridge on the River Kwai
2001 A Space Odyssey
City of God

These were the first that came to mind. I thought of many more after jotting those down, some I liked a bit better maybe but it was all too close to filter and sort. There's nine in that list, consider the missing tenth a place holder for the dozens of others I thought of later that could knock out some of the first-to-come-to-mind in order to make room.

I noticed most are older films, I started sorting by time I suppose. Noticed that City of God is the only 21st century film to enter. But believe me, there are many more in my 'movies' upper quadrant. Ask me again in a year and the list would change completely. A list of best Non-English foreign films would be different. Doing lists by genre or by decade could also lead to different results.

The Lion in Winter is underrated. Big juicy theatre-type entertainment with great acting and no expense spared. Have you seen Becket, by any chance? Similar in scope and powerhouse script and acting. I have a soft spot for Lilies of the Field, too.

 

[kihei]

Wondering about Prosthetic Conscience's top ten and his missus.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955) – First of all, a thousand thanks to @kihei for bringing this one to my attention. This is a gorgeous film, beautifully framed and lit, that plays with a lot of interesting ideas, with images and sounds. I am very aware that I lack all of the knowledge that could feed an exhaustive and satisfying understanding of the film's relation to Indian cinema and reality, but it felt to me that there was a lot more to say about it than what my limited Googling could find this morning – the film's readings seems to be greatly limited to its neorealist influences, its universality, or to some views of the world “through the eyes of a child”(a comment that might apply best to the source material – a children book – and not to its dark and pessimistic adaptation). I know it is the first entry in a trilogy that has the boy Apu as central character, but this film is on itself first a portrait of women stuck in tradition, driven “bitter and mean” by the impossibility of emancipation. It is very much a modern film: in technique (the apparent simple recording of reality of the first half) and in themes (the opposition between traditional and modernity). The mother is stuck and unhappy in her husband's ancestral home, but everybody else around her is doing fine with the little they have – because everybody escapes. And this is where – to me – the film is brilliant. At midpoint in the film comes the eagerly awaited festival where the theater play fascinates the kids – and that's an important key to the whole thing. There's two means of escaping the dry reality of the first half of the film: imagination (the play, the father's writing of plays, and the children games) and technology (the train, the electric pylons) – both are identified as lies in the film (Durga mocks her brother's prince fantasy, and the mother calls Durga a liar when she says she has seen the train) and, more importantly are brought together through the sight-seeing machine (a cousin of the kinetoscope through which the kids can see modern cities and other destinations). Reading about Ray's struggle to make the film makes it very tempting to go back to Zizek's proposition that every modern film is a film about the possibility or impossibility to make a film (or to write a play) – and here about the difficulty to break free from tradition. Still, I don't think the film goes against tradition, and when the family decides to leave the ancestral home, the elders come and tell the husband that they could have helped. Auntie, another elder and carrier of traditions, is the only woman that manages to avoid being bitter and mean, but she repeats a few times that she is free to go as she please, and she too, like the children, escape everyday routine through stories and songs. The second half of the film is all about that, the play, the sight-seeing machine, but also the train scene, and scenes that are less and less bound to the banality of everyday life and that escape to a more lyrical and symbolic imagery (the waterlilies, the insects, the amazing rain sequence, culminating with the snake entering the home at the end). I read somewhere that the film was loose in structure, but I highly disagree, the film is a rigidly structured work, with a narrative loop (the young niece bringing fruits to her auntie) and a true resolution to the basic intrigue of the film at the end (with the boy finding the necklace). 9/10


I realize I said nothing about sound... but there's much to say there too.

 

[Shareefruck]

Porco Rosso (1992) by Hayao Miyazaki – 7/10

Yeah, this film is about an Italian pig-human WW1 bounty hunter who flies around in his red plane and fights off airborne pirates, while simultaneously dreaming about his long lost belle Gina, who runs a hotel at some small island where he dines occasionally. If it sounds stupid it's because it is, but damn that scene where he reminisce some old war memory and his plane gets elevated above the clouds and he catches a caravan of deceased fighter pilots.... amazing. It also has some great melancholic tunes.

It also contains some really silly stuff though that seems pitched to kids, like over-the-top caricature dumb looking pirates, and one scene where the plane gets raided by toddlers in diapers. It seems the film wants to pitch itself to two different audiences at once, and I don't know if it succeeds with that mission.

As someone who thinks that it does succeed, my feeling is that the only thing this just suggests is that kids should grow the **** up and adults need to appreciate a bit of well placed dumb silliness.

 

[kihei]

View attachment 435081


Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955) – First of all, a thousand thanks to @kihei for bringing this one to my attention. This is a gorgeous film, beautifully framed and lit, that plays with a lot of interesting ideas, with images and sounds. I am very aware that I lack all of the knowledge that could feed an exhaustive and satisfying understanding of the film's relation to Indian cinema and reality, but it felt to me that there was a lot more to say about it than what my limited Googling could find this morning – the film's readings seems to be greatly limited to its neorealist influences, or to some views of the world “through the eyes of a child”(a comment that might apply best to the source material – a children book – and not to its dark and pessimistic adaptation). I know it is the first entry in a trilogy that has the boy Apu as central character, but this film is on itself first a portrait of women stuck in tradition, driven “bitter and mean” by the impossibility of emancipation. It is very much a modern film: in technique (the apparent simple recording of reality of the first half) and in themes (the opposition between traditional and modernity). The mother is stuck and unhappy in her husband's ancestral home, but everybody else around her is doing fine with the little they have – because everybody escapes. And this is where – to me – the film is brilliant. At midpoint in the film comes the eagerly awaited festival where the theater play fascinates the kids – and that's an important key to the whole thing. There's two means of escaping the dry reality of the first half of the film: imagination (the play, the father's writing of plays, and the children games) and technology (the train, the electric pylons) – both are identified as lies in the film (Durga mocks her brother's prince fantasy, and the mother calls Durga a liar when she says she has seen the train) and, more importantly are brought together through the sight-seeing machine (a cousin of the kinetoscope through which the kids can see modern cities and other destinations). Reading about Ray's struggle to make the film makes it very tempting to go back to Zizek's proposition that every modern film is a film about the possibility or impossibility to make a film (or to write a play) – and here about the difficulty to break free from tradition. Still, I don't think the film goes against tradition, and when the family decides to leave the ancestral home, the elders come and tell the husband that they could have helped. Auntie, another elder and carrier of traditions, is the only woman that manages to avoid being bitter and mean, but she repeats a few times that she is free to go as she please, and she too, like the children, escape everyday routine through stories and songs. The second half of the film is all about that, the play, the sight-seeing machine, but also the train scene, and scenes that are less and less bound into the banality of everyday life and that escape to a more lyrical and symbolic imagery (the waterlilies, the insects, the amazing rain sequence, culminating with the snake entering the home at the end). I read somewhere that the film was loose in structure, but I highly disagree, the film is a rigidly structured work, with a narrative loop (the young niece bringing fruits to her auntie) and a true resolution to the basic intrigue of the film at the end (with the boy finding the necklace). 9/10


I realize I said nothing about sound... but there's much to say there too.

Pleased you liked it. It's interesting Ray's sensitivity to women's plight. He was often knocked as not being political enough by some Indian critics, but he has a sensitivity to the issues that matter. For instance, The Big City just in terms of a statement about gender expectations toward women is decades ahead of its time.

When I first saw Pather Panchali, I went into it reluctantly, thinking why the hell should I be interested in a film about a poor family set in rural India. It taught me a thing or two about lessons I needed to learn.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

One of the best meals I ever ate was rabbit three ways — an impeccably roasted loin, a confit and a sausage all classic French preparations — with a Grand Marnier souffle for dessert. I also genuinely love and am excited to eat spam sliced and pan-fried, topped with American cheese slathered with mayo and sandwiched between two pieces of white bread.

With that in mind ....

Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Wages of Fear
Casablanca
Zodiac
The Rules of the Game
The Before Trilogy
The Seven Samurai
Hausu
Dr. Strangelove
Big Trouble in Little China

HM:
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Le Samurai
Chungking Express
Aliens
Sweet Smell of Success
Network
Children of Paradise
The Battle of Algiers
Z
Goodfellas

There are a lot of days where I'd probably put Pulp Fiction in the top 10. I didn't this time. It's probably the most influential movie in my life. I can pinpoint watching that movie in a theater as a 16-year-old in 1994 as the moment my mind expanded from "movies are fun ways to spend time" to the realization they can be so much more. It's still quite a fun way to spend time, but I'm not sure it's even my favorite Tarantino movie. It might be third if I'm being honest.

Related, if you asked me to list my favorite filmmakers Steven Soderbergh, the Coen Brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson would likely be among the first five or six names I said. Yet none of them are represented here. I think that's partially because I can't really pull out a distinct favorite (because that's a moving target) and part of what I love about them is the breadth of everything they've done.

I had a similar feeling about comedies. I LOVE comedies, but it was tough for me to not only pull one to the top of that sizable pile (aside from Strangelove, of course) but also bump something off for that movie.

Richard Linklater (Dazed & Confused) and Stanley Kubrick (Barry Lyndon) are the two directors that almost got multiple movies on the list. Well, Linklater already has multiple movies but I cheated on that. You get my point.

I'm sure I'll be kicking myself over something I forgot.

EDIT: Already regret not having Greenaway's The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover on there, a movie that I both have nostalgic connections to (discovered it in college so it's one of those gateway type moves) but it's also so damn audacious.

EDIT 2: Ah hell, In the Realm of the Sense too.

 

[kihei]

One of the best meals I ever ate was rabbit three ways — an impeccably roasted loin, a confit and a sausage all classic French preparations — with a Grand Marnier souffle for dessert. I also genuinely love and am excited to eat spam sliced and pan-fried, topped with American cheese slathered with mayo and sandwiched between two pieces of white bread.

With that in mind ....

Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Wages of Fear
Casablanca
Zodiac
The Rules of the Game
The Before Trilogy
The Seven Samurai
Hausu
Dr. Strangelove
Big Trouble in Little China

HM:
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Le Samurai
Chungking Express
Aliens
Sweet Smell of Success
Network
Children of Paradise
The Battle of Algiers
Z
Goodfellas

There are a lot of days where I'd probably put Pulp Fiction in the top 10. I didn't this time. It's probably the most influential movie in my life. I can pinpoint watching that movie in a theater as a 16-year-old in 1994 as the moment my mind expanded from "movies are fun ways to spend time" to the realization they can be so much more. It's still quite a fun way to spend time, but I'm not sure it's even my favorite Tarantino movie. It might be third if I'm being honest.

Related, if you asked me to list my favorite filmmakers Steven Soderbergh, the Coen Brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson would likely be among the first five or six names I said. Yet none of them are represented here. I think that's partially because I can't really pull out a distinct favorite (because that's a moving target) and part of what I love about them is the breadth of everything they've done.

I had a similar feeling about comedies. I LOVE comedies, but it was tough for me to not only pull one to the top of that sizable pile (aside from Strangelove, of course) but also bump something off for that movie.

Richard Linklater (Dazed & Confused) and Stanley Kubrick (Barry Lyndon) are the two directors that almost got multiple movies on the list. Well, Linklater already has multiple movies but I cheated on that. You get my point.

I'm sure I'll be kicking myself over something I forgot.

EDIT: Already regret not having Greenaway's The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover on there, a movie that I both have nostalgic connections to (discovered it in college so it's one of those gateway type moves) but it's also so damn audacious.

EDIT 2: Ah hell, In the Realm of the Sense too.

I know just what you mean. One of the best meals I ever ate was rabbit three ways — an impeccably roasted loin, a confit and a sausage all classic French preparations — with a Grand Marnier souffle for dessert. I also genuinely love and am excited to eat Dover sole Bonne Femme with a crisp Meursault followed by Cherries Jubilee....damn it to hell, that time it didn't work so well.

I think that is now two mentions of Sweet Smell of Success. Z should have made my HDs, but what are ya gonna do? Haus surprised me a little; Have you seen Surprise Style 5+? Worth a look after Haus.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

One of the best meals I ever ate was rabbit three ways — an impeccably roasted loin...

I know just what you mean. One of the best meals I ever ate was rabbit three ways — an impeccably roasted loin...

Is there something going on here?

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Is there something going on here?

Burner accounts! Scandal in HF Entertainment!

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Burner accounts! Scandal in HF Entertainment!

I was thinking of something more romantic

 

[kihei]

Is there something going on here?

I was just goofing around, trying to subtly suggest that my taste for spam as a menu item was not the equal of KallioWeHardlyKnewYe's.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I was just goofing around, trying to subtly suggest that my taste for spam as a menu item was not the equal of KallioWeHardlyKnewYe's.

You don't have to explain the joke!!

 

[kihei]

You don't have to explain the joke!!

Now he tells me.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Any of you see the original Attack The Block? They're making a sequel with Boyega returning. Original seems like it has middling reviews but a bit of a cult status. I forgot I wanted to give it a watch despite my annoyance at the South London accent.

 

[kihei]

Any of you see the original Attack The Block? They're making a sequel with Boyega returning. Original seems like it has middling reviews but a bit of a cult status. I forgot I wanted to give it a watch despite my annoyance at the South London accent.

I saw it when it came out at TIFF and liked it. Best monster teeth ever.

 

[kihei]

You don't have to explain the joke!!

Per Ray: After giving it some thought, I would definitely recommend Charulata (aka The Bored Wife or The Lonely Wife) next should you catch another Ray film.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

I know just what you mean. One of the best meals I ever ate was rabbit three ways — an impeccably roasted loin, a confit and a sausage all classic French preparations — with a Grand Marnier souffle for dessert. I also genuinely love and am excited to eat Dover sole Bonne Femme with a crisp Meursault followed by Cherries Jubilee....damn it to hell, that time it didn't work so well.

I think that is now two mentions of Sweet Smell of Success. Z should have made my HDs, but what are ya gonna do? Haus surprised me a little; Have you seen Surprise Style 5+? Worth a look after Haus.

I haven't, but I will seek it out.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Also Lost in Translation and LA Confidential.

See this is why I didn't want to start because I can't stop.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Also Lost in Translation and LA Confidential.

See this is why I didn't want to start because I can't stop.

Ohhhhhhh that reminds me of Somewhere. It would for sure deserve an HM from me. I think it's such a forgotten piece considering how famous Sofia Coppola is. She's also fascinating (as are a few other filmmakers) where I'm always baffled that someone who can direct a film that good can make others that are so bad. Like, I always suspect that there's a certain floor that folks who have made a great film will always reach and I'm confused when they don't. For example, how could she have made Somewhere and then followed that up with the inane piece of shit that is Bling Ring?

 

[Pink Mist]

Fahrenheit 451 (1966) directed by François Truffaut

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this or not but François Truffaut is my favourite director. I’ve watched everything he’s ever filmed (excluding some of his short films) and even from some of his stinkers from the 1970s (A Gorgeous Girl Like Me, The Man Who Loved Women) I can appreciate his infectious energy that he brings to his work. Fahrenheit 451 stands out as an odd entry into his filmography. For one, it is his first film that he shot in colour (cinematography by Nicolas Roeg just before he transitioned to directing), and boy does he take advantage of colour film like many directors did in the ‘60s shooting a lot of deep reds into his film. Secondly, it is Truffaut’s one and only film he directed in English – it was a commercial failure and the production caused a lot of strain on Truffaut personally and he never directed a non-French film again. He wrote a journal about the production of the film for Cahiers du Cinema and it's a really bleak and depressing journal (its available online in English ). And finally, it is the only sci-fi film that Truffaut directed. The first time I watched this film I didn’t like it at all, it seemed like such a departure from the height of Truffaut’s work in the early ‘60s and found it a slog to sit through. My second time watching it last night, I enjoyed it a lot more. I still think its far from Truffaut’s best work, but it probably is somewhere in the middle of the pack for his overall career if I were to rank it. Despite being in English the film maintains Truffaut’s wit, humour, and much of the trademarked style and experimentation from the French New Wave. The first half is the strongest half in the film, before it loses momentum and becomes dull as I think the style of the world Truffaut creates from Bradbury’s story is a lot more interesting than what the story becomes. Casting Oskar Werner was a pretty unsubtle move though – he acts fine albeit a little flat as the lead, though him being the only Austrian accented speaker in an English town is odd - as its no coincidence that Truffaut casted someone who looks like the prototypical Aryan as an obedient book burner. But apparently Oskar Werner and Truffaut had a huge falling out during the filming of this because Werner became a massive diva with an inflated ego after starring in Ship of Fools. Despite not being my favourite of Truffaut’s work it does speak to the range of films that he directed in his relatively short but prolific career, but it certainly sticks out as a strange film in his œuvre.

 

[NyQuil]

Any of you see the original Attack The Block? They're making a sequel with Boyega returning. Original seems like it has middling reviews but a bit of a cult status. I forgot I wanted to give it a watch despite my annoyance at the South London accent.

It was a strange film.

On the one hand, you're sort of rooting for the underdogs and are amused by their working class perspective on an alien attack.

On the other hand, these are not pretend hooligans.

They actively terrorize a lone woman which is something you probably wouldn't see in an American production along the same lines.

It's laudable in that I think it is intended to make you a bit uncomfortable, and British films and TV don't need to assign black hats and white hats in the manner of the big Hollywood studios.

It would be interesting to re-watch in the current climate of BLM.