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

[Spring in Fialta]

I can find pretty much anything if you're really stuck.

 

[nameless1]

I can find pretty much anything if you're really stuck.

I may ask you to PM me later.

By the way, if you have time, give Moebius by Kim Ki-duk a try. That movie seems to be right up your alley. If it is not, I truly apologize.

 

[kihei]

The Big Feast (1973) Directed by Marco Ferreri 3C

Somehow the title in French sounds more promising: La Grande Bouffe. Doesn't improve the movie a bit, though. Four middle-aged guys--a pilot, a judge, a TV personality, and a chef--decided to eat themselves to death, literally, on haute cuisine. Why? No explanation given. They take over a mansion, hire a trio of hookers, and are joined by overweight teacher who is smitten by the judge...but she spreads her favours around generously. Yucky things occur--that's it. Nothing much happens except for a lot of eating, a lot of farting, and several leakages of various bodily waste products. In short, The Big Feast is an art house gross-out movie, and I have to wonder why a talented cast--Marcello Mastroianni; Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, and Ugo Tognazzi--even bothered with this thing. It is rumoured that Mastroianni's then girlfriend Catherine Deneuve showed her disgust by not talking to him for a week after the premiere. If the movie's purpose was to show how vulgar the bourgeoisie are, well, avant-garde artists had done that to death by the end of the '30s. A waste of celluloid.

subtitles

MUBI

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I may ask you to PM me later.

By the way, if you have time, give Moebius by Kim Ki-duk a try. That movie seems to be right up your alley. If it is not, I truly apologize.

I think I've only seen 3 of his films. Loved 3-Iron, but Bad Guy and Sping, Summer, etc I'd have at around 5/10 each.

The Big Feast (1973) Directed by Marco Ferreri 3C

Absolutely can't remember this one. I guess it's not a good sign, but I know I've seen it.

 

[nameless1]

Ferreri is so weird to me. He is probably a genius, but I never liked his stuff. They often make zero sense to me.

 

[nameless1]

I think I've only seen 3 of his films. Loved 3-Iron, but Bad Guy and Sping, Summer, etc I'd have at around 5/10 each.

Give Time and Samaritan Girl a shot. Those are my top Kim Ki-duk movies.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Carry on Cruising (1962) - 7.5/10

Carry on Cruising is a British comedy set in the 1960s, taking place entirely on the luxury cruise ship 'The SS Happy Wanderer'. The story follows Captain Crowther on his attempt to get promoted to captain of a new cruiseliner set to open soon after the events of the movie. Captain Crowther quickly learns that 5 of his trusty sailors have been replaced at the last moment. Each of the replacements would like nothing more than to please their new captain and hopefully secure a position as full time sailors. The other central part of the story involves passengers Flo and Gladys and their attempt to find suitable husbands on the trip (mostly Flo).

I was made aware of this film by the musician Pogo in his song Go Out and Love Someone. He specializes in sampling from movies/TV and splicing sound bytes together to create music. I thought the film held up very well over the years. I was somewhat expecting that it would have a lot of out-dated British humor which wouldnt be understood or appreciated by a 29 year old American. However I found that most of the comedy bits have aged very well and were actually more entertaining to me than contemporary comedy movies or even comedy movies which were released when I was growing up.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Michael B. Jordan has a generational nose for shit projects.

Not once has he impressed me in anything. He's as generic as they come.

 

[kihei]

Carry on Cruising (1962) - 7.5/10

Carry on Cruising is a British comedy set in the 1960s, taking place entirely on the luxury cruise ship 'The SS Happy Wanderer'. The story follows Captain Crowther on his attempt to get promoted to captain of a new cruiseliner set to open soon after the events of the movie. Captain Crowther quickly learns that 5 of his trusty sailors have been replaced at the last moment. Each of the replacements would like nothing more than to please their new captain and hopefully secure a position as full time sailors. The other central part of the story involves passengers Flo and Gladys and their attempt to find suitable husbands on the trip (mostly Flo).

I was made aware of this film by the musician Pogo in his song Go Out and Love Someone. He specializes in sampling from movies/TV and splicing sound bytes together to create music. I thought the film held up very well over the years. I was somewhat expecting that it would have a lot of out-dated British humor which wouldnt be understood or appreciated by a 29 year old American. However I found that most of the comedy bits have aged very well and were actually more entertaining to me than contemporary comedy movies or even comedy movies which were released when I was growing up.

One down, another 29 to go. The "Carry ons" must be one of the most prolific franchises in movie history. A few of them were what passed as "foreign films" in my hometown theatre growing up. All I remember is that they were of wildly varying quality. Glad you enjoyed this one.

 

[Pink Mist]

Quest for Fire [La Guerre du feu] (1981) directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud

80,000 years ago, a prehistoric band of cavemen have their sole source of fire stolen when they are raided by a rival band of cavemen. The tribal leader sends out three cavemen (Everett McGill, Nameer El-Kadi, and Ron Perlman – in his first feature film and perfectly casted in the role he was born to play as a neanderthal caveman) on a quest to steal a source of fire from another tribe of cavemen in the region. The film is notable for attempting to portray an accurate representation of life 80,000 years ago to the point that they invented different prehistoric languages for the different tribes to speak – though the ones spoken by our protagonist is mainly a series of grunts, one of the more advanced tribes speak something based off of Cree and Inuit languages. At first the costumes, makeup, and grunts is hard not to laugh at but then the story transitions into a great and very engaging adventure story that feels all to human – but I think the practical effects work a lot better than the alternative of if it was made today which would be full of CGI. Very surprising that this film worked so well, because it could have easily been dragged down by its campiness but I think part of its success is because of how the film takes itself so seriously despite its kind of ridiculous premise.

 

[kihei]

Absolutely can't remember this one. I guess it's not a good sign, but I know I've seen it.

Hard movie to forget, I would have thought. Blessing in disguise, though.

 

[kihei]

Minnie and Moskowitz (1971) Directed by John Cassavettes 3B

Revisited my least favourite Cassavettes movie to see if my opinion had changed over the years; it hasn't. Cassavettes was always a high-risk, high-reward director. When his improvisational style worked, it was revelatory. But improvisation is an approach that can also bite the director in the ass, and I think it does in Minnie and Moskovitz, Cassavettes' attempt at a romance, a romantic comedy even. However, outside of Gena Rowland's Minnie, there are no other characters to latch onto worth caring about, just a series of male losers, abusive losers at that. (Has any director ever relished portraying American males as uncouth, brutish louts to the extent Cassavettes has? It's extraordinary, really).

Minnie and Moskowitz has too many actors giving long undisciplined speeches. The movie is one endless, screechy, overly repetitive harangue. The improvised approach is all too evident in this film what with numerous pauses where actors take a sip from their handy drink or a drag from their cigarette to buy themselves time to think of the next line. Topics change too quickly; too many emotions get repeated. Plus, big plus, Cassavettes is an East-Coast director to his teeth. The movie is filled with New York types plopped down in LA and the rhythms just aren't the same.

Except for Rowlands. She is stuck being bullied by various men and taking it. She fight backs, too, sometimes, but you can be sure that if a man makes enough of a fuss Minnie will cave in. She is more or less forced to fall in love with Moskowitz, a character with no ambition who only wants to park cars and who is nowhere near as charming as the movie wants him to be. But Rowlands is great anyway, giving this cardboard cut-out of a woman unexpected depth and vulnerability. She is not in every Cassavettes' directed film, but she is in a lot of them. I think of her as his special sauce--if a scene has even a hint of traction, she will find a way to pull it together. Anything she is in, she makes better. But ultimately Minnie and Moskowitz is even beyond her gifts.

Criterion Channel

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Death of A Cyclist (1955) - 7/10

Rated as one of the top 50 Spanish films up till '96 by El Mundo, this is described as a noir but really more of a character drama focusing on a man and the woman he's having an affair with who hit and run a cyclist at the beginning of the film. 50s European cinema is quite obsessed with the wealthy so of course this is all about that and the usual stereotypes associated with them in European classics but just enough drama to prevent it from being a zany lifeless Fellini or Antionininizzz film despite a bit of predictability i the ending.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

One down, another 29 to go. The "Carry ons" must be one of the most prolific franchises in movie history. A few of them were what passed as "foreign films" in my hometown theatre growing up. All I remember is that they were of wildly varying quality. Glad you enjoyed this one.

I've been checking out a list of some of the rankings of the Carry On films and may check out a few more of them in the future. I had honestly never heard of it until I song from Pogo, lol.

 

[Osprey]

I've been checking out a list of some of the rankings of the Carry On films and may check out a few more of them in the future. I had honestly never heard of it until I song from Pogo, lol.

I had never heard of them until your review. I was surprised to read that the series has more films than any other British franchise, including James Bond. Supposedly, the highest rated one at Rotten Tomatoes is Carry on Spying, so you may care to look for that one first, though even that one doesn't seem to be available to stream in the US, at least according to justwatch.com. The franchise must not have gotten much (or any) distribution in the US for it to be so foreign to us.

 

[Pink Mist]

Don’t Look Now (1973) directed by Nicolas Roeg

Following the accidental death of their young daughter, a couple (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) travel to Venice where the husband has been hired to restore an old church. While in Venice they encounter a pair of elderly twins, on of whom is blind and clairvoyant and can foresee death if they were to stay in Venice. Really wanted to enjoy this film more and I can see why people consider it a classic but it didn’t really connect for me. The technical aspects of the film are really impressive, in particular the editing, montages, and cinematography, not to mention the performances by Sutherland and Christie which are also great – but I was expecting more. I think part of it has to do with my own expectations going into the film as I’ve heard the film describes as shocking and disturbing psychological/supernatural horror, but it really is more just unsettling than terrifying. I do think this film would benefit from a rewatch to pay more attention to and appreciate some of the subtle storytelling and symbolism that I missed.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Psycho Goreman (Kostanski, 2020) - The young actress that carries the whole thing ain't always very good, but her over-the-top character conceals some of her flaws. Without the superfluous substories and characters, and the humorous repetition (it doesn't hold its screentime), it could have been one of the good horror-comedies. Funny, funny, funny, funny, funny... 4/10

 

[kihei]

Don’t Look Now (1973) directed by Nicolas Roeg

Following the accidental death of their young daughter, a couple (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) travel to Venice where the husband has been hired to restore an old church. While in Venice they encounter a pair of elderly twins, on of whom is blind and clairvoyant and can foresee death if they were to stay in Venice. Really wanted to enjoy this film more and I can see why people consider it a classic but it didn’t really connect for me. The technical aspects of the film are really impressive, in particular the editing, montages, and cinematography, not to mention the performances by Sutherland and Christie which are also great – but I was expecting more. I think part of it has to do with my own expectations going into the film as I’ve heard the film describes as shocking and disturbing psychological/supernatural horror, but it really is more just unsettling than terrifying. I do think this film would benefit from a rewatch to pay more attention to and appreciate some of the subtle storytelling and symbolism that I missed.

There is no question that yours is an understandable reaction--hype and expectations have often derailed some of my reactions to old movies that I see for the first time. I don't know if there is any practical way around it. However, I saw Don't Look Now when it opened in Toronto and had no expectations whatsoever; I didn't even know what the story was about. The only thing I knew was that the movie was based on a story by Daphne Du Maurier, an author I would never associate with a scary story in a million years. If someone had asked me, I would have said I was probably going to be seeing a romance which, of course, it is....but, um, not just. So the film totally blew me away. Initially, the key was two things: the marvellous performances by Christie and Sutherland who together created a couple who were both believable and sympathetic. who mattered to me; and, secondly, the editing of the film which built up in me an almost subliminal sense of dread, "unsettling" squared, as it were. I've seen the film several times since then, and it works on me every time to the point that I am a bit surprised that a film that I am now so familiar with can still weave this spell over me.

I would never describe the film as "shocking" or "disturbing," though, which I would argue are inappropriate words for such a subtle film (and, in my case, such a complex emotional experience). My choice of descriptors would be more difficult to pin down--"ominous," "disquieting," "apprehensive" and "foreboding" come to mind--and would derive not just from the performances and the editing, but would be more of a description of the atmosphere that Roeg creates using all the tools of cinema to do so (Perhaps not so oddly, I, who am not a superstitious man, never bought a red ball for either of my kids). I've mentioned before that I don't consider Don't Look Now a horror film which is perhaps just my way of saying that it transcends that genre. I do find the film haunting, though, in the sense that we get to know someone who has a classic tragic flaw--he cannot see that he contains an intuitive awareness that he ignores to the extent that it becomes the cause of his own peril and eventual destruction. I guess it is the inevitability of his fate that seems most haunting to me in retrospect, the unfairness of it. To me horror is magnified many times over when, as is true in life, it is visited upon good people. I think that is the case in Don't Look Now, and it amplified my sense of empathy dramatically. I've tried to explain this movie to myself many times--it remains elusive, and I'm at the age of thinking that it always will.

 

[Pink Mist]

There is no question that yours is an understandable reaction--hype and expectations have often derailed some of my reactions to old movies that I see for the first time. I don't know if there is any practical way around it. However, I saw Don't Look Now when it opened in Toronto and had no expectations whatsoever; I didn't even know what the story was about. The only thing I knew was that the movie was based on a story by Daphne Du Maurier, an author I would never associate with a scary story in a million years. If someone had asked me, I would have said I was probably going to be seeing a romance which, of course, it is....but, um, not just. So the film totally blew me away. Initially, the key was two things: the marvellous performances by Christie and Sutherland who together created a couple who were both believable and sympathetic. who mattered to me; and, secondly, the editing of the film which built up in me an almost subliminal sense of dread, "unsettling" squared, as it were. I've seen the film several times since then, and it works on me every time to the point that I am a bit surprised that a film that I am now so familiar with can still weave this spell over me.

I would never describe the film as "shocking" or "disturbing," though, which I would argue are inappropriate words for such a subtle film (and, in my case, such a complex emotional experience). My choice of descriptors would be more difficult to pin down--"ominous," "disquieting," "apprehensive" and "foreboding" come to mind--and would derive not just from the performances and the editing, but would be more of a description of the atmosphere that Roeg creates using all the tools of cinema to do so (Perhaps not so oddly, I, who am not a superstitious man, never bought a red ball for either of my kids). I've mentioned before that I don't consider Don't Look Now a horror film which is perhaps just my way of saying that it transcends that genre. I do find the film haunting, though, in the sense that we get to know someone who has a classic tragic flaw--he cannot see that he contains an intuitive awareness that he ignores to the extent that it becomes the cause of his own peril and eventual destruction. I guess it is the inevitability of his fate that seems most haunting to me in retrospect, the unfairness of it. To me horror is magnified many times over when, as is true in life, it is visited upon good people. I think that is the case in Don't Look Now, and it amplified my sense of empathy dramatically. I've tried to explain this movie to myself many times--it remains elusive, and I'm at the age of thinking that it always will.

Yeah my expectations also partly had to do with its legacy as an influential "horror" film, but as you said it really is not much of a horror film aside from its ending I suppose. But I've also read the novella (very good) so the ending wasn't a surprise to me but I figured there must be more spooks to the movie to garner it's reputation. It's more of a thriller than a horror movie but even then I'd squabble with the term, you're right its hard to categorize as the horror is more internal and unsettling than what normally is categorized as horror. I don't know I'm keen to revisit it in a few months (maybe during spooky season) with a better idea of what I'm going into because there's a lot to like and I think there's a lot to pick up in its structure and editing that is easily missed in a single viewing. The editing especially is phenomenal.

Also probably didn't help that I watched the horror show of Toronto's playoff performance right before putting the film on.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Also probably didn't help that I watched the horror show of Toronto's playoff performance right before putting the film on.

That Paul Byron goal is going be in advertising/highlight reels for years.

 

[kihei]

Also probably didn't help that I watched the horror show of Toronto's playoff performance right before putting the film on.

Well, think of it as a horror film in the way that Amour or 45 Years are horror films, which is, to say, they aren't really horror films at all. More like something else closer to home.

As for that goal....what to say? True horror. I wished Ovie could be imported from Washington to scream at them. No more Jumbo on the power play, please.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Don't Look Now is an amazing film for lots of things already mentioned, but most of all because it is genre-bending and one of the rare filmic example that efficiently plays with what Todorov meant by fantastic. I know I've said it before, so I apologize for the repetition. It's not a thriller.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Well, think of it as a horror film in the way that Amour or 45 Years are horror films, which is, to say, they aren't really horror films at all. More like something else closer to home.

What are the supernatural elements in either of these films?

I'd add - Saying Don't Look Now is not a horror film is like saying Annie Hall is not a comedy.

 

[Pink Mist]

What are the supernatural elements in either of these films?

He's not referring to the supernatural but more subtle everyday forms of horror we experience. Like the horror of experiencing a loved one slowly dying before you eyes (Amour) or the horror of realizing your long term partner has engaged in infidelity (45 Years) and you don't truly know who they are

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

He's not referring to the supernatural but more subtle everyday forms of horror we experience. Like the horror of experiencing a loved one slowly dying before you eyes (Amour) or the horror of realizing your long term partner has engaged in infidelity (45 Years) and you don't truly know who they are

I get that, but saying a film is not horror at all, just like films that aren't horror at all, when it does contain supernatural elements and scares, is false equivalence.