I have a huge excel file too, but 2018 was the first year I didn't add movies to it. I was hoping I could rely on Letterboxd for stuff like this. That director rating would be a really nice feature to have.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
I have a huge excel file too, but 2018 was the first year I didn't add movies to it. I was hoping I could rely on Letterboxd for stuff like this. That director rating would be a really nice feature to have.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Nice. I keep a word file for each, plus compile a file by month and year. I'm only about 9 months behind thanks to work.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Made it about halfway through The Nutty Professor, the Jerry Lewis original, before I finally had to tap out. There was exactly one sequence where I chuckled, when the stentorian dean chews him out, and Lewis keeps sinking further and further into his chair. The rest was just nothing. I liked Jim Carrey back in the day, and I still have affection for Jim Varney's Ernest P. Worrell, but this character was just insufferable. Eddie Murphy's 1996 remake did a fantastic job of making Sherman Klump clutzy and nervous instead of obnoxious and abrasive.
Dunno where else to put this, but twitch is streaming a ton of Shaw brothers movies in the next week or so, with some other "movie nights" coming up in the next weeks: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...hedule-1179098
Lots of cycling schedules in case you miss anything.
One-Armed Swordsman
The Five Deadly Venoms
The 14 Amazons
The Kid With the Golden Arm
The Lady Is a Boss
The Savage Five
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
Return to the 36th Chamber
Disciples of the 36th Chamber
New One-Armed Swordsman
Executioners From Shaolin
and more.
MOVIE NIGHTS
Feb. 15
5:03 p.m.: King Boxer
6:43 p.m.: Five Element Ninja
Feb. 16
5:03 p.m.: Come Drink With Me
6:36 p.m. Super Inframan
Feb. 22
5:03 p.m.: Chinatown Kid
6:32 p.m.: All Men Are Brothers
Feb. 23
5:03 p.m.: My Young Auntie
7:00 p.m.: Dirty Ho
March 1
5:03 p.m.: Crippled Avengers
6:46 p.m.: Masked Avengers
March 2
5:03 p.m.: Challenge of the Masters
7 p.m.: Vengeance
March 7
5:03 p.m.: The Web of Death
6:32 p.m.: Death Duel
March 8
5:03 p.m.: Mad Monkey Kung Fu
6:39 p.m.: Eight Diagram Pole Fighter
Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/gammaray_tv
I think I'll make a new thread with this post too just so more people can see it since Twitch streaming is sort of not thought of much when it comes to movies (it didn't really have rights to stream movies for a good while, so little things like this are trickling in now more and more).
"How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home wine-making course and forgot how to drive?"
--Homer
Can't remember if anyone here lives in or around NYC, but Brian DePalma's "Hi, Mom!" (1970) is playing at the Film Forum on February 6: https://www.artforum.com/film/philip...mom-1970-78567
I've just learned that Sergio Leone was apparently first choice for directing The Godfather, but he turned that because he wanted to do Once Upon a Time in America. I wonder how differently it would have turned out; could it possibly have been even greater?
Nah.Quoting StanleyK (view post)
It would be nothing like the cultural milestone that comes to your head when you hear the words The Godfather, so you wouldn't be able to gauge if it's better or worse.
Rocky IV is the first Rocky sequel in between the original and Rocky Balboa I have seen. Amidst the 80s extreme cheese and excess, these characters retain their personalities and life-sized emotions/interactions from the original more than I expected, which helps inject a little investment into the rushed storytelling. Also, apart from a uselessly random flashback-filled one, some damn good montages here.
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5
Heads up! The Academy Award nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening is streaming free on PBS until February 25 (the day after the Oscars):
------> https://www.pbs.org/video/hale-count...vening-sayve8/
Trailer: []
I went to a concert (in Belgium) of Ennio Morricone yesterday, as part of his farewell tour, scheduled to end in Rome, his place of Birth.
It was amazing and very emotional of course with some rarer pieces of music such as the amazing "love theme" for The Red Tent. Casualties of War was a high point, my God is that haunting and powerful.
[+] closer to next rating / [-] closer to previous rating
- Dark (S3) ✦✦✦½ [-]
- Fall (Mann, 2022) ✦✦✦½ [-]
- Ms. Marvel (S1) ✦½ [+]
- Dark (S2) ✦✦✦✦
- Moon Knight (S1) ✦✦½ [-]
- Get Carter (Hodges, 1971) ✦✦✦½ [+]
- Prey (Trachtenberg, 2022) ✦✦✦ [-]
- Black Bird (S1) ✦✦✦✦
- Better Call Saul (S6) ✦✦✦½ [+]
- Halo (S1) ✦✦✦ [-]
- Slow Horses (S1) ✦✦✦½ [+]
- H4Z4RD (Govaerts, 2022/BE) ✦✦½ [-]
- Gangs of London (S1) ✦✦✦½ [+]
- We Own This City (S1) ✦✦✦½ [+]
- Thor: Love and Thunder (Waititi, 2022) ✦✦ [+]
Does someone know of an analysis of the opening sequence of Tati's Playtime? The first five minutes seems to be the most dense and I feel like I'm missing a lot.
I can't think of any analysis of just the opening sequence but Kristin Thompson analyses the film as a whole pretty thoroughly in Breaking the Glass Armor. In any case, I wouldn't worry about not catching everything since there's too much on the screen to take it all in on one viewing.Quoting Yxklyx (view post)
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
Sense and Sensibility (1995) - Superb performances, great Ang Lee direction, and from what I glean from wiki and other comments, a beautifully adjusted adaptation, so I wish I was taken with the core story more. This makes me realize in retrospect how much I like Pride and Prejudice and its protagonist, whose personality, which seems like a combination of two sisters' here, ensures that the mores of the time and most men in her life (S&S, being Austen's first work, really does feel like a test run for P&P, right down to Mr. Willoughby being proto-Mr. Wickham) don't shade into borderline emotional cruelty that makes this rather rough for me at times. Thompson's sublimely acted moment of carthasis near the end alone is worth the watch though. 7.5/10
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5
Jane Austen ranked:
- Pride and Prejudice (1813)
- Mansfield Park (1814)
- Sense and Sensibility (1811)
- Northanger Abbey (1817)
- Emma (1815)
- Persuasion (1817)
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
I will have to check out Mansfield Park. Recently read Pride and Prejudice for the first time after having watched the '95 "mini-series" several times. What an awesome book!Quoting baby doll (view post)
First dysfunctional family in film? Is that Dreyfuss and Garr's family in Close Encounters of the First Kind? I can't recall any other before this. Did Spielberg invent the dysfunctional family?
I dunno. Depends on how broadly you define "dysfunctional."Quoting Yxklyx (view post)
Like, the Bates ("Psycho") and the Sawyer/Hewitts ("The Texas Chain Saw Massacre") probably have Spielberg's little obsessives beat.
Or any of the people in "Imitation of Life" or "Through a Glass Darkly" or "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
Or the Trasks ("East of Eden") or the Starks ("Rebel Without a Cause").
Or the McAdams ("Winchester '73"). Or the Edwards ("The Searchers").
Or the Kanes ("Citizen Kane") or the Ambersons ("The Magnificent Ambersons").
I can't tell if you're joking.
ETA: By that I mean I took the question seriously (maybe I shouldn't have?). I suspect I'm working off a very different definition than you are, in any case.
Last edited by Irish; 02-24-2019 at 02:09 AM.
Ah well, then the modern interpretation. From what I've read, the term didn't come into play until the 70s. TCSM is a bit out there.Quoting Irish (view post)
Well, ya can't get much more dysfunctional than killing and eating people ... as a family.Quoting Yxklyx (view post)
Oedipus' family was pretty messed up.
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
Woah, that kind of talk should be reserved for the Unpopular Opinions thread!Quoting megladon8 (view post)
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
Kicking and Screaming (1995) - Still need to see Margot at the Wedding and Greenberg to have this confirmed (or refuted), but me giving this the same rating as The Squid and the Whale feels like I only like Baumbach post-Greta Gerwig. Even his weakest film there (While We're Young) still injects more of a pulse and actual layered humans into his dry wit. I'll give that this is one of his strongest endings though. 5.5/10
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5
F.W. Murnau:
Journey Into the Night - 5.5
The Haunted Castle - 7
Nosferatu - 5.5
The Burning Soil - 5.5
Phantom - 4
The Grand Duke's Finances - 5.5
The Last Laugh - 8.5
Tartuffe - 4
Faust - 7
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans - 10
City Girl - 8.5
Tabu - 7
Nosferatu was pretty dull, and the second half of Faust ruined the masterful first half, but Sunrise alone ensures he deserves his reputation.
There are a bunch of Johnnie To's on Thai Netflix, so I get to make a very great double feature here:
Election (2005)
This is more streamlined that I expected, despite the dizzying array of characters and shifting dynamics, because the film's main thrust boils down (almost hilariously) to a competitive treasure hunt, in which the MacGuffin has been endowed with such grand ritualistic power that it overwhelms everything else, including honor and loyalty. Its propulsive momentum and Johnnie To's exacting thriller craft draws us more easily into its bleak, insinuous worldview, where To can both exercise a lean, mean gangster film entry and harshly rebuke the genre's often romanticized code in the process. Appropriate that this ends on an innocent's shell-shocked face, because when the code of thieves is tested against powerful capital to be seized within reach, no one here escapes clean. Plus, a machete fight in the middle of the film! 8/10
Election 2 (2006)
It feels productive to compare Johnnie To's Election diptych against the first two Godfather films, as they have some similar character arcs and tone changes. This sequel makes up for the story dynamic being almost a retread of the first by plunging deeper into the underworld's heart of darkness (figuratively and literally), not unlike The Godfather Part II. In both cases, I slightly prefer the original's first glimpse into a closed world over its sequel's scope expansion, but Election 2 is still very worthy, full of memorable set-pieces, and avoids being stale by making its moral rot deeper and more systematic. One main character's arc over the two films echoes Michael from the first Godfather, but in the last act here he seems to encompass the positions of both Michael and Kay at that film's closing image, becoming ruthless to achieve what he wants, and then growing horrified as the door closes him into this world. In place of a door, Election 2 has him looking out a window cage, forever locking him heavily there. 8/10
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5