What Have You Been Watching? (06/12/15)

[u/a113er]

Please don't downvote opinions, only downvote things that don't contribute anything.

[u/a113er]

The Blue Angel Directed by Josef Von Sternberg (1930)- There was a Masters of Cinema blu-ray sale and I went a little wild, this was my first stop on the MoC train. Sternberg and Emil Jenning’s blew me away with The Last Command, but their next collaboration is a very different beast. They are not films without similarities but The Blue Angel has a strange alienness that The Last Command lacked. Sternberg saw himself as a man of two places, Germany and New York (Brooklyn is where I believe he lived when there). The Last Command feels like his American film while The Blue Angel is thoroughly German. Makes sense as it was one of (if not the) first talkies in Germany. It tells the story of Jennings as a stuffy slightly-oafish professor who finds out some of his students have been spending time at a seedy establishment of drink, women, and song. In trying to chastise them he finds himself drawn to the same world, specifically to Lola Lola (Marlene Dietrich). It’s a classic tale of a spiralling life due to ones choices while also quietly about the cruel pointlessness of our sexual hangups. Almost all the cruelty could’ve been avoided if everyone wasn’t such a prude, including the main character himself. He’s a man who was already performing for his students and due to love finds himself forced into a very different type of performance, one that he cannot keep up for long if he is to retain his dignity and sanity. Something about the film doesn’t work as well as The Last Command but it’s Sternberg mid-shift into a changing medium, sound, and he makes the change more effortlessly than Lang. Now Lang’s transitional film was M which is a masterpiece, I’m not commenting on the quality, but it’s near enough a silent film for large sections. The Blue Angel on the other hand could not be silent. Not just because it’s partially a musical but for how sound and song play a part in so many scenes. Sternberg didn’t use a stepping stone like Lang he just jumped right in and there’s something to commend in that. The Blue Angel is a very distinct and interesting film that unfortunately is the follow-up to a masterful collaboration, but the fact it’s not a total disappointment or a retread makes it special in another way as it shows Sternbergs ability to adapt.

Mark of the Devil Directed by Michael Armstrong and Adrian Hoven (1970)- I went into this more blind than most films. I’d never heard of it until I saw it was on sale. It’s an Arrow Video release with Udo Kier on the cover and was under a tenner so I couldn’t say no. And man am I glad I didn’t. It’s a witch hunter story, based on true events, that has similarities to others like Witchfinder General and The Devils. When Udo first showed up I was a little dubious as he was dubbed (sacrilegious) but luckily the rest of the film was so engaging I barely even cared. Mark of the Devil is like if Werner Herzog went mainstream and made an updated Hammer film. Similarly to another recent watch The Shout this film gave me what I often want from Hammer films. I might even try make a list of great Hammer-alternates as I love the ideas and actors in so many of their films but I rarely feel the thrills. Where a Hammer film would have stuffy sets and a languid pace Mark of the Devil shoots on beautiful locations and keeps things snappy. Parts of it feel derivative but it never lingers too long to bother, and it fills other scenes with so much that’s fresh that it makes a familiar story enjoyable again. Getting the Arrow blu-ray was a great call too as it is a wonderfully striking film. Armstrong mixes it up between formal stillness and handheld immediacy, both vibrant whether he’s showing beauty or the nastiness of these times. Though voices are mainly dubbed there are some amazingly expressive faces in this. Seeing the smooth skin model-looks of Kier face-off against the endlessly craggy Reggie Nalder is a perfect pairing. There’s a near-exploitationy pulpiness to the film too (it’s posters flaunt it’s V for Violence rating) but it carries an undercurrent of rage at what’s happening that it never gets too skeezy. There’s even a point where Armstrong takes things further than just anger and amazement at the cruelty of man to calling these propagators of evil what they are, complete and utter idiots who equate what they don’t understand with evil. A mindset that’s scarily an ever-present burden of the human race. Really dug this film. It came out of nowhere and worked better than I could’ve imagined. Sometimes cool pulpy films like this are qualified viewings. Even a cult classic like Zombi 2/Zombie Flesh Eaters is something which only works intermittently for me. This just straight works.

Resident Evil: Retribution Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson (2012)- Speaking of what works for me apparently Paul W. S. Anderson’s Resident Evil films are just that. Afterlife was another crazy ludicrous surprise so I was locked in to seeing the follow-up. Retribution once again highlights this as one of the wildest mainstream series that kind of becomes Fast and Furious but for women by the end. Like the Furious films these are films in love with their own mythology and characters which is taken to the extreme in this instalment. By ten minutes into the film Anderson’s cribbed from Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, that Dead Island trailer, and Inception, to make what may be the craziest and slickest RE film yet. As much as I was laughing at this film I still can’t deny Anderson’s talents. Dude has style and not in the usual flat blockbuster way, and he knows how to keep things moving. And not in the Jurassic World sense of just things happening a lot (cause man is that film dull) but he knows how to make a really taut action adventure work even if his methods lean towards the ludicrous. Hey, I’m glad he leans towards the wild cause I had so much fun watching this. In a year where filmmakers managed to bore me with dinosaurs and superheroes whom I love I’m thankful a guy like this can entertain with all the dopey tools in his kit. Dude also knows how to use effects. His cg sure looks hokey but at least that’s what he keeps it for. What can be done for real he does for real and everything else is in-your-face with its gamey fakeness. And man does this one feel like a game even more than Afterlife, it’s essentially a chase film through several video game levels. These are modern mainstream camp classics and I’m so in I’ll be seeing the next one in theatres if possible. Here I was laughing at it and with it, and I was laughing a lot. It’s got the same dopey sincerity that drew me in with the Fast and Furious films but with a whole different toy box to play around in.

For All Mankind Directed by Al Reinert (1989)- Every day the news cycle reminds us why humanity sucks but there are films that can make us believe in us again. For All Mankind is one of those films. Cut from hours of footage shot by NASA and their astronauts during the Apollo missions For All Mankind is a more expressionist look at the space program through the guise of a documentary. It was actually more documentary-y than I was expecting (as I was expecting Koyaanisqatsi in space) but more than the how of each of these missions it is about the why and the results of doing them. With Brian Eno’s music or the thoughts of astronauts guiding us aurally we visually get treated to one of the greatest representations of space travel I’ve ever seen. For All Mankind has all the elements we recognise from space fairing stories. There’s the shots from inside looking out as Earth gets smaller and the torrent of flames comes out the back of the ship, cigar smoking men watching with trepidation then delight from the control room, and so on. Yet with all that’s familiar Reinert collects into a film that conveys why it’s worth something, why all these people are doing this, and why we should never stop exploring. Just to get across the impact of this film I’ll describe the reaction of my friend who I watched it with. Before watching he never quite got space travel. As in the basic sense that it seems a little unnecessary in a world where there is still starvation and poverty. Billions spent to ride rockets through the heavens seemed a little silly and at worst wasteful. After watching this he said he finally got it. He was completely won over. In recent years we’ve seen a few films with those real pro-science pro-exploration like Interstellar and The Martian, but only this made him feel what it was saying rather than just hearing them say it. Speaking of Interstellar, how Nolan shot space travel is clearly very influenced by how NASA themselves documented it but I gotta say they’ve got a better eye than he did. They mix it up a lot more at least. For All Mankind doesn’t just make the case for the scientific benefits of space travel, it makes the case for the spiritual and internal side. That as the title says this can be something to fuel the wonder of all mankind. Some say there are no new worlds to conquer, no blank spots left on the map, but there are others who live as proof that not even the sky is the limit and how far we can go is limited by nothing but our will.

Fantastic Planet (Re-watch) Directed by Rene Laloux (1973)- One of my favourites. Very glad to finally have it on blu-ray. Written about it a bunch so I’ll not waffle. Dope film.

[u/a113er → u/a113er]

Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (Re-watch) Directed by George Lucas (1999)- In the run up to the new Star Wars a friend and I are going to revisit each film out of curiosity and a little self-loathing I guess. The Phantom Menace is the one of the prequels I generally hold up as the best. Relative “best” of course. Part of that probably comes from it hitting me at just the right time as a kid (it was the first trailer I watched online and I watched it many a time), but I also remembered it as less flat and oppressively stilted and fake as the following two. If that is as true as I recall then oh boy am I in for a rough time coming up cause this is often a really flat lifeless film. Re-watching this made me realise I hadn’t seen it in non-redlettermedia form since I was maybe in my early teens and so this was my first full-on confrontation with its issues from a more knowledgable place. From moment one the film is such a strange puzzle as the second line in the opening crawl mentions trade agreements when later there’ll be, at least, more than 8 references to poo. It is so childish in some moments then absurdly adult in others. There was one scene I never even fully understood until this time around as the language is so obtuse. When the film works it’s usually because Lucas is leaning on the strengths of his artists designs or John Williams’ music. The rest of the time is a different story. Some folk who are trying to reappraise the prequels or to fight back against the criticisms often note that the originals are hokey and pulpy in their dialogue too. That I wouldn’t disagree with but the difference is that the originals do it well. Everything feels a part of the same world from the deliciously evil English Imperials to the aw-shucks nature of young Luke. Like the Indiana Jones films it captures the feel of its pulpy origins while transporting it to a new visual place. It’s a far cry from the extreme highs and lows of Phantom Menace. There are so many little things that bother me from the stuff that warp the lore or characters in ways I choose to ignore to fully enjoy the originals to little bursts of stupidity. Stuff like introducing force run (probably because it was mentioned in the EU) just to end with a sequence that couldn’t exist if Jedi can force run. The overly choreographed lightsaber fighting works better for me here than the successive films. In 2 and 3 it feels like Lucas never really understood what made the use of lightsabers work and be so cool. In the originals lightsabers are handled more like how samurai hold swords. How one uses their lightsaber also reflects who they are and where they’re at. Phantom Menace kind of has this as Maul is a different foe than Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon have faced before, he’s an athletic guy so he would fight using his skills. His fighting style is also necessary in facing two swords at once. But after this film Lucas seemingly gave up on that idea for the most part and just made everyone a spinning dervish of laser light. Beyond the nit-picky or fan-based world woes it ultimately bothers me because it bores me. A world that I have loved and followed through films, comics, and games, loses me with one of its biggest entries. This was also my first time seeing the cg Yoda instead of the puppet and while that was not one of their best puppets it was far more expressive. That was just jarring. Sadly the worst is yet to come as Lucas would lean more into the digital and strive to win everyone back by making things even blander. The real Phantom Menace is the film that could’ve been straining under the weight of all this plodding silliness occasionally rearing its head to show you what you’ve lost before leaving once again this wet blanket of a Star Wars film.

The Assassin Directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien (2015)- If people don’t adore this film they seem to find it long, slow, and dull. So there was baggage going in. I haven’t seen any Hou Hsiao-Hsien films but I’ve heard enough not to expect an action film from his take on the wu xia genre, the same way one wouldn’t expect the same when Wong Kar-wai did it. Maybe having watched Satantango and Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives reset my barometer when it came to pacing ‘cause I didn’t find this film slow or dull in the least. Ever since seeing Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning which takes from experimental and art house cinema and injects it into full-blooded action I’ve been interested in the merging of these styles. It’s something I’ve wanted to see done in the other direction. Only God Forgives and Ashes of Time are somewhat that but The Assassin might be the most successfully I’ve seen it done. One criticism I agree with in relation to the film is that it’s a little hard to follow but I was surprised how little this hindered my enjoyment. That’s mainly what I came away from the film with, pure enjoyment. It was always ravishing to look at, gave us bursts of action that is sometimes sublime, and mixes the authentic with the mystical and mythical in a way I really liked. Similarly to how Apichatpong Weerasethakul merges realism and fantasy so does Hsiao-Hsien but at about double the speed. It’s funny, the film is still somewhat incomplete in my mind yet I didn’t walk away with the same misgivings that usually leaves me with. Something about it worked so well just in impact that I’m happy letting it come to fullness eventually or revisiting it and getting more from it that way. As is it’s hard to have many issues with something I was always engaged with, always swept away by. Kind of baffled at some of the slow criticisms since it’s only an hour and 45 minutes with plenty things happening, I guess if you expected all out action then it’d maybe feel that way. I certainly liked it more than Ashes of Time. That film isn’t really an action film either but whenever it became one its action frustrated me in its choppiness. Hsiao-Hsien is less rigid in his action and in his shooting generally. For such a perfectly shot film there’s still a sense of spontaneity, it’s not as formal as one might expect. A real cool film for me.

The Naked Island Directed by Kaneto Shindo (1960)- I only really know Shindo from his horror films Onibaba and Kuroneko, and The Naked Island is a very different story. With almost no dialogue it follows a family who live on a small island with no fresh water source. Every day, multiple times, they sail to the mainland to collect large buckets to haul on back. My reaction to a lot of this is similar to Herzog’s own at Fitzcarraldo. It’s a brilliant metaphor but for what I’m still not quite sure. Everything has a poetic truthful resonance to it without being as didactic as it could. The Naked Island captures a feeling and a way of being unshaken by the outside world while so reliant on it. Had me more pulled in than his other films even though they’re more outwardly exciting in cool. Their best moments might wow me more than this did but this had me in another place quite fully for the whole time. Different aims and different pleasures. Another good film in a week quite full of them.

[u/montypython22]

I recently wrote a review of Brooklyn, a riveting tearjerker that's one of my favorite movies of this year! (I even went to the theater TWICE to see it!) Read on here to understand my fascination with Saorise Ronan's mug, and how this movie is related to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Quiet Man, and the second-best film of this year so far: Sean Baker's Tangerine.

You can also follow me on The Letterboxd.

Ranked in order of preference:

The Leopard Man (Produced by Val Lewton, directed by Jacques Tourneur, 1943): ★★★★★

Jack Tourneur and Val "The Pal" Lewton do it again. Their three collaborations are increasingly higher in quality, and Leopard Man blows me away to another level of sublime B-movie-horror beauty. Ostensibly the story of a series of deadly attacks on (mostly Mexican, mostly young) women by an unseen beast (is it man? leopard? both?), Tourneur/Lewton blur the lines between reality and fantasy in highly economic ways. Through their daring suggestion of an entire boulevard of horror by just a puny streetlight and the ominous donut-eyes of the steel-black cat, they demonstrate how it doesn't take more than just human creativity and an unwavering commitment to the low-budget spectacle to wow audiences into fearful submission.

What's most brilliant about Leopard Man, aside from its stark beauty in magnificent setpieces like a girl's death (suggested through milk-chocolate-blood seeping through the girl's mother's door) and a ballroom dance (where the exotic and the erotic melt into one another imperceptibly), is its prescient look at the undervalued, underprivileged loner/outsider/maverick in society. For Lewton in Cat People, it was the Eastern European. In I Walked With a Zombie, it was abused housewives and African-Americans. Here, it's the Mexicans of an increasingly homogenized society derived from Conquistador days....except, now, the new Conquistadors are the white intellectuals in power, and the new Indians are the Mexicans. Quite subtle, doesn't make its political and social aspirations blatant, weaves them into the tapestry of the much-more-engaging artistic sphere.

It's the perfect B-movie.

Sound of the Mountain (Mikio Naruse, 1954): ★★★★1/2

My first Naruse film. I was compelled to watch this following the recent death of one of the greatest actresses to ever grace the silver screen--Setsuko Hara. Here, Hara riffs off of her Ozu character Noriko; instead, however, Naruse probes into more melodramatic territory than Ozu ever did, asking, "What does a world look like where Noriko's sacrifices were all for naught?" That world is coldly, devastatingly embodied in Naruse's Sound of the Mountain, where Hara's marriage is crumbling at the seams owing to her husband's doomed affair with his secretary. She finds solace in her father-in-law, who sympathizes with her quiet plight and attempts to convince the son of his wrongdoing.

The emotional beats are whispered, not hammered. The performances, beautifully understated in their stark Ozu-like simplicity, are ones for the ages: this may very well be Hara's best natural performance. Naruse's sympathies are firmly with all females of the world: the wife, the mother, the daughter, the mistress, the lonely teacher in the sake bar. Watch it today, you won't be disappointed.

The Ghost Ship (1944, Val Lewton producing, Mark Robson directing): ★★★★

Lewton, you tricked me! I thought this was a supernatural flick! (Who says power and authority isn't supernatural, though?)

Though certainly not to the consistently high-artistic heights and wide thematic variety of the Jack Tourneur-Val Lewton movies, this minor low-budget thriller still delivers quite a wallop when you stop and see how well it's addressing its primary thematic concern: power and its corrupting consequences. A third captain suspects his captain (Richard Dix, of Cimarron fame) is a homicidal lunatic. But because Dick Dix is a well-respected seaman (wrap your head around that), no one believes the Third Captain.

I can't help but shake the feeling that Dick Dix's character exudes a Hitler-esque vibe. Here's a man comfortable in killing an anonymous sailor (in a truly gut-churning scene similar to [and much more economic than] the opening of There Will Be Blood, since it doesn't stretch nearly as much chewed-taffy-time as the PTA scene), here's a man who only kills merely because his power guarantees that no one will challenge him, and here's a man whose sea-bound ideals mean he can traverse the world, flaunting his power at every corner of the world. The Dix performance as the stark-raving-mad cap'n is worth the price of admission alone. There's the usual Lewton obsession with shadows, blurring of realities, and low-budget whirligigs. It's a knockout entertainment: you may think you won't be invested in it very much, but with Lewton (as with Michael Corleone in the criminally underrated Godfather Part III), just when you think you're out....Lewton pulls you back in.

L'inhumaine (Marcel L'Herbier, 1924): No rating (I liked it quite a lot)

As this schizo Franco-Langian ode to technocrats proves, Germans didn't have the monopoly on Expressionism.

Saw this in the Castro Theatre in San Fran; was not disappointed. Though I'm sort of iffy on its implication that technology is the ultimate salvation of humankind, and though I'm even more iffy on its portrayal of the inhuman woman as a bitchy frump who finds her redemption through the engineer (Ophuls did something similar to this in Lola Montes, but better), it's still a wildly lucid silent film reminiscent of the Gancian impressionist shenaniganry of Napoleon and Au Secours!.

u/thegreatziegfield, you should watch this. You'd like it.

I also rewatched Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927, Murnau, ★★★★★) at the Stanford Theatre, and Woodstock (1969, Michael Wadleigh, ★★★★★+), perhaps the most highly engaging documentary ever made, and certainly one of the most brilliant merges of music and edited image short of Richard Lester.

In 1969, 500,000 people watched Jimi Hendrix simultaneously slaughter and resurrect the Star-Spangled Banner—and not a single Kodak was taken by anyone in the crowd.

Today, Nickelback concerts don't go 5 minutes without someone whipping out their iPhone and recording scratchy chicken-shit.

I'm sure this says something important about modern society and the level we pride "being tuned in to an experience." The hippies got it. We've apparently forgotten. We have to Instagram it before we have an opinion.

[u/a113er → u/montypython22]

Ranked in order of preference

Yet somehow Sunrise (the only one I've seen) is second last. What a week. I got some films to see I guess.

What you say about Brooklyn has me putting it more on my radar. I'd heard good things but much more general. You got me excited dude. Even though I didn't love Tangerine as much as you, we cross over other times.

[u/[deleted]]

Creed Ryan Coogler, 2015: How to bring new life to a franchise that’s been going on so long? Get a promising young actor and director to take over, and don’t even put “Rocky” in the title. It can be a little hard to swallow the idea that a sport about men hitting each other is all about working-class integrity, honor, and rugged masculinity when the real-life champ is Floyd Mayweather...but I’ll maintain that the best sports movies aren’t really about athletics, plus Coogler’s take isn’t uncritical of the sport. It’s just treated as the destiny of this particular character.

What I think holds back both of Coogler’s movies is that you can always tell the direct purpose of a scene as it’s beginning, which leaves no room for spontaneity. Even so, Creed is equally as good as the original Rocky, and probably the best new entry in any franchise this long-running in awhile. One of the year’s best mainstream films.

Mission: Impossible III J.J. Abrams, 2006: I watched this because it was the only Mission: Impossible or J.J. Abrams movie I hadn’t seen, until The Force Awakens comes out. But I had a really baffling experience with it. I can totally, totally see why it might be some people’s favorite M:I movie. I like what the Mission:Impossible franchise stands for. I like all the actors in it. But visually it is abominable; no matter what kind of scene is playing, I just found it really agitating to watch. I don’t even fully blame Abrams’ directing for this though because it’s obviously meant to look like other Orci&Kurtzman-penned movies for advertising reasons. I’ve disliked them for years and this is one of their absolute worst screenplays: it’s 100% contrivance, which even for the espionage genre is pretty bad. Missiles and helicopters appearing out of nowhere, Ethan’s fiance only being introduced so that she can be kidnapped later, and so on. Why did Ethan even need a normal girlfriend? That makes no sense except as a Screenplay 101 way to humanize him.

I’m glad this movie helped the franchise continue but the subsequent movies were a lot closer to the original in style and the better for it.

Biutiful Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, 2010: Also watched this in anticipation of The Revenant. The things that bother me about Inarritu are here too but I still thought it was really moving anyway, perhaps in spite of him: Rodrigo Prieto shot a beautiful movie and Javier Bardem’s face carries all the pain and weathered past of his character.

Rewatch - Tangerine Sean Baker, 2015: He was all he can be when he joined my navy.

[u/a113er → u/[deleted]]

I'm completely on your side with Mission Impossible 3. Philip Seymour Hoffman's good but boy is that film choppy. Quite telling that one of the moments I remember best is just Tom Cruise climbing that wall of the Vatican and covering the camera. Whats your personal rankings for them? I'm almost leaning towards 5/4/1/3/2, but I think Ghost Protocol needs re-watching to know. 1 is really close to edging 4 out with the the water shot and the ol' Estavez face-smash.

[u/isarge123]

Had a pretty stressful week, but I was able to find solace in some great films and I was able to check off five titles from the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list, which I'm steadily chipping away at. As always, I'd love to discuss any of the films below, and any further viewing suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Battleship Potemkin (1925) - Dir. Sergei Eisenstein:
Finally got around to this one. Firstly, I have no idea how the Odessa Steps sequence got released anywhere in the 1920's. Not necessarily for the political implications, but for the sheer brutality. This famous shot in particular appears quite graphic even by today's standards: http://artsfuse.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Potemkin-_1925-_AF-1.jpeg
Admittedly the film is understandably controversial for a number of reasons, but historical accuracy and politics aside, you can't help but admire Eisenstein's revolutionary cinematic vision. The use of montage and cutaways to create tension is highly effective, and when viewed as a whole it really is quite powerful. 8.5/10

Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) - Dir. Richard Donner:
Have I mentioned how much I love the first Lethal Weapon? If not, suffice it to say I'll be talking about it as we near Christmas. Out of the three sequels, Lethal Weapon 2 is the only one that I think does the original justice. The characters are suitably enhanced, the humour is increased (without taking over the proceedings) and a hilarious Joe Pesci tags along for the ride. It also manages to provide some worthwhile social commentary, in an at times very funny way (the scene in which Danny Glover pretends that he wants to emigrate to apartheid-torn South Africa is priceless). 8/10

Chinatown (1974) - Roman Polanski:
Some of you may have noticed that I reviewed this recently. That's right. This movie will never get old. 10/10

The Hurt Locker (2008) - Dir. Katherine Bigelow:
I like Katherine Bigelow, but I was somewhat expecting this to be a 'Yeah, 'Merica!', propaganda piece. And I was overwhelmingly surprised at how devastatingly unsentimental The Hurt Locker was. The performances are raw and consistently believable (even if occasionally the characters aren't), and never resort to being preachy and cloying. It's a visceral and technically masterful film, with some of the most tense and brilliantly staged set-pieces I've ever seen in a war film, or any film for that matter. I know that there are some who are quite discontent with it, but I loved it, where do you stand? 9/10

Fargo (1996) - Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen:
Hilarious, suspenseful and bizarre in the best ways. As for my favourite Coen Bros. film, it's now a toss up between this and True Grit. 9.5/10

Ordinary People (1980) - Dir. Robert Redford:
It's sad that Ordinary People is nowadays mostly dismissed as the film that undeservedly beat Raging Bull at the Oscars, because this is a finely constructed and incredibly powerful movie. It more than justifies it's title, as everything that occurs feels as though it could truly happen to any ordinary family. The characters and events are never exaggerated, and the film is more emotionally compelling for it. I haven't seen Redford's other directorial efforts, but he does a tremendous job coaxing natural, restrained performances from his talented cast. Best Picture worthy or not, this is a fantastic film. 9.5/10

The Darjeeling Limited (2006) - Dir. Wes Anderson: It lacks coherence, but it's packed with so much wit, imagination and visual splendour that you cease to care. Despite being frequently hilarious, this is also one of Anderson's darkest films. Which isn't to say that it's emotionally draining or not fun, just that it actually takes some time for genuine contemplation. All three main cast members (Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody & Jason Schwartzman) are in fine form and have excellent chemistry and comedic timing. Not my favourite Anderson, but a good one nonetheless. 8/10

The Two Faces Of January (2014) - Dir. Hossein Amini:
The Two Faces Of January is an excellently shot and consistently suspenseful homage to Alfred Hitchcock and other thrillers of the 1950's/60's. The characters represent many Hitchcock staples: the alluring blonde (Kirsten Dunst), the outwardly charming man with darker secrets (Viggo Mortensen) and the everyman who gets caught up in an increasingly hectic and dangerous situation (Oscar Isaac), and all are played brilliantly by their respective actors. Sadly, it didn't do too well at the box office, but I highly recommend that you give it a chance.
8.5/10

La Dolce Vita (1960) - Dir. Frederico Fellini:
I've owned the Blu-Ray of Fellini's masterpiece for a while now, but only mustered the courage to watch it last night, after viewing Fellini's La Strada and feeling as though I was ready for it. The wait certainly payed off. Right from the breathtaking opening sequence I was totally absorbed and enamoured with this charmingly cynical and delightful adventure. Every sequence is highly entertaining, whether it be Marcello's iconic escapade with movie star Sylvia or merely a simple conversation with his father. The black and white cinematography is entrancing, Fellini's direction is magical and the story becomes quite poignant as Marcello and other characters stoop low in their quest to obtain the sweet life. Now that this is destined to become one of my favourites, what's next for Fellini? 10/10

[u/a_s_h_e_n]

Adaptation: It really stuck with me for about a day after I watched it, and I can really appreciate that in a film. Nic Cage does an incredible job as the twins, can a person have chemistry with himself? Because he does. Meryl Streep doing classic Meryl Streep things, of course, and Chris Cooper is great as well. I loved how it would nest itself, and yet parallel itself within the nesting, often 2 or 3 flashbacks deep. Very meta and all the better for it. And you can't help but be inspired by Donald. ★★★★

[u/crichmond77]

Star ratings are out of five. Responses welcome.

(I'm probably going to piss more than a few people off today)

Cannibal Holocaust (1980) - ★★★★

There's a lot to get into with this one. Arguably the first well-known found-footage film, arguably the most controversial film of all time, certainly in the top five or so most fucked up films I've seen.

Part of what's interesting about Cannibal Holocaust is attempting to determine how much of its message was intended and how much was incidental. Regardless of whether Ruggero Deodato was, as he somewhat dubiously claims, just trying to make a movie about cannibals, there exist a lot of a thought-provoking scenes and concepts about the role of cameras in real life atrocities, how images affect us, how the truth is malleable, particularly with video, and how we prioritize our morality and why.

There are some things you could easily point to as flaws, such as the awful acting outside of the found footage or the heavier-than-heavy-handedness of the film's closing line, but I think these things actually serve to preserve the B-movie quality of the film and keep it from being too obviously self-aware. If it played out without these things, the satire would be too readily apparent. As is, its controversy is derived partly from walking that line.

As for the much talked about animal cruelty shown on screen, I think it's overblown. All of the animals are killed relatively quickly, and although it's extremely discomforting to watch any previously living creature be mutilated for sport in front of us, I think it's absolutely necessary for the film to work both as a reminder that whether we like to look at it or not, this happens and as a sort of question posed to the viewer: does the knowledge of an image's truthfulness outweigh the importance of its meaning? After all, the image is the image, whether or not we know how it was created. The fact that Deodato faced murder charges after the film's release only serves to re-enforce this concept.

All in all, a film that totally succeeds in terms of its goal. Cannibal Holocaust is singular, an exploitation film that makes you think, a pioneer in terms of film-making style, and a testament to the gut-wrenching, bottomless pit of depravity that exists in humanity and in nature.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) - ★★1/2

I know, that's quite the 180. I guess I needed something light-hearted after that.

Anyway, How to Train Your Dragon 2 was met with critical acclaim to accompany its box office success, much like the equally over-rated film it followed. Why? I really have no idea. It pretty much feels to me like all a Pixar or Dreamworks movie has to do is not be very obviously awful, and everyone will fawn all over it. I remember Frozen getting similar treatment and that was just as ridiculous.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 follows the same formula as the first: melodramatic, self-aware voiceover intro with bad jokes, a thin plot strung together by unexciting action scenes with no sense of peril whatsoever, dialogue hedged entirely around hammering you over the head with the obvious, tried-and-true themes, and a series of by-the-nose losses and victories that lead to an ultimately happy ending.

I guess if you're 10 you'll enjoy this. Otherwise, the immaturity of the character relationships, the ridiculousness of the plot and every decision made by anyone, and the lack of anything remotely original or interesting will probably turn you off.

It's not all bad. The animation is pretty stellar, if nothing new. And at least they had the balls to kill off our protagonist's father, even if it came at a really weird time and kinda detracted from things. Plus they basically just swapped his previously "dead" mother for his now "officially dead" father so they could double down on the cheap empathy, which is pretty absurd.

This film might contain the lamest and most under-developed villain there's ever been.

Infernal Affairs (2002) - ★★1/2

Man, this one surprised me. The Departed is one of my favorite films of all time, and I'd heard many say they preferred this, the movie The Departed was adapted from, so I was plenty excited. I'm not sure if knowing the plot beforehand was the reason I found so little redeeming value in it, but I really don't understand why anyone would praise this film.

The story is virtually unchanged, occurring almost scene by scene and line by line identical to Scorsese's version. There are a few minor changes for The Departed's script, including most obviously a different ending, and I actually prefer the adapted version's modifications.

The biggest problem with Infernal Affairs happens to be one of The Departed's greatest strengths: the editing. And sure it's unfair to compare anyone to Scorsese in that department, but this has some of the cheesiest, high school level editing I've ever seen. Black and white flashbacks and over-the-top vocalizing choirs abound, turning every moment that should be gripping into a snicker-fest.

Things like slow motion that looks choppy because it wasn't shot at a higher frame rate...I mean these are things that even amateur filmmakers should know better than to do.

As far as the composition of the film, it's fine. And the lighting is decent. A little more camera movement or interesting framing would have been nice, but again, comparing people to Scorsese isn't really fair.

The performances are all right. Nothing close to what we got from DiCaprio, Nicholson, et al, but again, is it fair to ask people to outdo that ridiculous ensemble?

I'd love for someone who prefers this one to tell me what I'm missing here, because from what I can tell, The Departed blows this out of the water on all fronts. I'm not usually someone who prefers a remake, particularly when discussing Asian cinema translated into an American version, but this is one case where it seems to be no contest.

Snake Eyes (1998) - ★★1/2

I swear I'm not going to give every film this rating. Snake Eyes is a Brian DePalma film starring Nicolas Cage. Talk about intriguing.

Cage, alongside Gary Sinise, actually does a good job. He's his usual over-the-top self, but it works well for his character. Towards the end, things go off the rails and his performance feels a bit like self-parody, but hey, that's just Cage for you.

The camerawork is really interesting, as per usual with DePalma. Some of the shots in the hotel sequence seem to have been a big part of the inspiration for Enter the Void.

The problem here is the script. This script is fucking awful. Conspiracy plots are usually pretty iffy because you're inherently pushing the limits of the audience's suspension of disbelief, and you're going to need a few twists that the audience is going to be looking for. The major twist in this one is actually done pretty well initially, but there are just so many stupid decisions by every character, even once you get past the slight absurdity of both the premise and the twist, that you can't take it seriously. And even after all that, you get this horrendous shoehorned-in romantic subplot, because "there's always a girl."

The Monster Squad (1987) - ★1/2

The Monster Squad is the kind of movie I can usually enjoy: light-hearted family fun with some occasional nods to the adult audience. Unfortunately, it's neither fun, nor funny, nor smart enough to make up for its extensive shortcomings.

The plot is absurd, but that's totally fine. In fact, I'd be disappointed if it wasn't, given the nature of this film. The bigger problem lies in that there is no effort, none whatsoever, put into creating characters whose relationships or fates I'm at all interested in. Our main Squad member sorta has a background, with some really hammy parental issues that are poorly written in and melodramatically displayed, but outside of that we get zilch. These are just some kids. And they're not particularly talented or unique or funny kids either.

The special effects aren't terrible, but I've seen better makeup, costumes, and mise-en-scene at a few haunted houses.

The script is God-awful. Even for this kind of movie. Nothing makes sense, there's too much exposition-via-dialogue. Points that don't need to be repeated are needlessly hammered in. The attempts at humor fall flat. The tone is all over the place.

Still another problem with this film is the terrible editing and choreography that make every action scene 100% without tension or believability.

There's nothing in this movie that wasn't done a hundred times better by the likes of The Goonies, E.T., or Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. In fact, even Fright Night and The Lost Boys substantially outdo this garbage.

[u/Amnestic]

Plot twist: this post no longer exists because Redact swept through and cleared it out along with everything else. Social media, messaging apps, people finder sites, all of it.

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