Forgot about Tennenbaums. That has to be up there for sure. That’s an incredible role

Lex Luthor ffs

The Conversation

Showed City Lights to my film class tonight. They loved it and clapped when it was over.

Guilty pleasure... Herod in Raimis The Quick and the Dead

Bravo

Btw if anyone here knows Snoop Todd offline get in touch with him and tell him to report to the things that piss you off but shouldn't thread

Someone from a hilarious story of his from 11 years ago found his thread and wants to say hi

Watched Light of My Life and really enjoyed. I'm a bit of a sucker for post apocalyptic movies.

A couple little details that annoyed me a bit but I really enjoyed...I think Casey Affleck has been quite good in a number of films (in spite of him likely being a creep previously)

For some reason, I thought I had watched Drive before. I hadn't.

Uncut gems got released on Netflix in Europe. It was OK but didn't live up the hype for me.

Just watched Magnolia once again. Perfect film, and Melora Waters' look into the camera and smile at the end.

also watched Uncut Gems finally. I thought it was really good. Still prefer Good Time but yeah I definitely like their style, feels like cranked to 11 versions of 70s downer crime movies. Also watched:

Heaven Knows What (Josh & Benny Safdie, 2014)

Liked this a lot too, but a notch below the later ones. Maybe only because I'm more into crime movies than junkie movies, idk. Well-acted and very bleak.

Daughter of the Nile (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 1987)

Definitely feels like a minor work and have pretty much forgotten it already, but it was nice enough to watch. Good visuals and cool soundtrack.

The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019)

This guy's movies are just not really for me I guess. Well-acted and looks good etc, but was kinda bored with it tbh.

Deadlock (Roland Klick, 1970)

Trippy western. Was excited about it after the opening which was really cool but then it sort of petered out. Worth a watch tho, soundtrack by Can.

Carnal Knowledge (Mike Nichols, 1971)

Been meaning to watch this for a long time so took the opportunity when it was on Mubi. Pretty big disappointment. I'm sure it was ahead of its time and has some insights but I just didn't really get invested in any of it.

My GF had never seen it, so we watched it last week....such an amazing movie. And yes, that last look is amazing.

Still think the "Wise Up" montage is legendary.

Watched the almost-five-hour version director's cut of Until the End of the World, Wim Wenders' big bomb from 1991. It's on Criterion Channel.

It stars William Hurt, Solveig Dommartin, Sam Neill, Max von Sydow, and Jeanne Moreau.

It's such a strange movie. It was made in 1990, but takes place during the last month before the year 2000, so they are trying to anticipate what 10 years in the future looks like, and it's fascinating what they got wrong and right.

It's basically a road movie, like so many of Wenders' films are, with Dommartin chasing after Hurt who is on the run from who-we-think is a hitman, while Dommartin is also sometimes chased by lovelorn writer and the film's narrator, Sam Neil.

Dommartin (the trapeze artist in Wings of Desire) has come into some money by helping a pair of bank robbers after a car wreck. Hurt has some kind VR-like camera that can record dreams and help blind people see. In fact, he is traipsing around the world recording all of his blind mother's relatives and friends so that she can see finally see them.

They go from France to Berlin to Lisbon to Moscow to China to Tokyo to San Francisco, and finally end up in the Australian outback, where Hurt's parents (Sydow and Moreau) are the ones in charge of this new tech/camera.

During all this, there is some failing Indian satellite that is threatening to fall out of the sky and irradiate half the world and kill everyone that is constantly being referred to.

It's an odd, episodic, shaggy dog kind of story....with not much happening beyond people traveling and talking and drinking...I watched it over two nights, but the length has this strange effect once you just sit back and go with it. It's just mesmerizing with fantastic cinematography and and justifiably famous soundtrack, with David Byrne, U2, Leonard Cohen, and many more.

The "dream" recordings are what you want to see this film for. This was shot before the digital revolution in the film industry - before the pixilated video that we're so used to now....so Wenders went to Sony and asked them to help, and they were like, "you know, we have this new digital camera that we've been working on..." and they used that for the dream-like footage of the recordings Hurt is making. It's pretty cool.

In the end, they realize people who record their own dreams become addicted to wanting to watch their dreams back, and it's an eerie, prescient version of how people today are addicted to their phone screens.

This is not a great film, per se, but if you're a Wenders' road movie fan, then you should make sure you see this director's cut version of perhaps his least-seen movie. It bombed with a 2 hour 45 minute version when it first came out.

I took my sister to see it 30 years ago and we both really loved it, but I hadn't been able to see it again until now. Definitely worth it for film fans.

Magnolia is a filter film for me. If you don’t like it we probably aren’t going to be best friends.

Dated a woman who loved both Magnolia and Aimee Mann. Shame I found out too late.

Always show it to my film students to demonstrate how cinematography, editing, and sound can mean so much.

1917 so meh
Joker great
Ford v Ferrari great
Parasite whatever
Judy killed me
Marrige Story was brutal
Once Upon a Time whatever
Irishman uhmm
Little woman whatever
Jojo good

I don't understand you or the things you like

I was pretty underwhelmed by Dunkirk after coming in with high expectations. Re: The Rewatchables, I was so disappointed when I learned which three movies QT was commentating on. If you had told me QT, one of my fave directors and the ultimate cinemaphile, was participating in three Rewatchables podcasts, it'd probably be 90+% I'd listen to at least one of them. After seeing what the movies are, I don't think I'll be listening to any of them.

Watched this morning. Good story and good cast. Worth watching

1917 - liked the opening sequence where they’re moving through the trenches. The rest is hollow spectacle - technically impressive, not much in the way of plot or characters.

The Personal History of David Copperfield - really enjoyed this. It’s funny with a lighthearted tone throughout, which can lead a lack of pathos. That didn’t overly bother me, although it may trouble people who liked the book more than I did.

The colourblind casting did leave me a little nonplussed at first. It’s a little strange when there’s a black woman with a white son, and East Asian man with a black daughter, in a period English drama. It becomes a non-issue though because the film isn’t trying to make a point other than race doesn’t need to get in the way of casting. The acting is uniformly great, and that’s what truly matters.

Is it the synchronization that you like?

Camera movement begins with tracking in, then moves to left to right and right to left, and ends the scene with tracking out. Characters joined by the song and the camera moves.

Movie clip with critical commentary at the end to improve your movie acumen: