High and Low and the eternally underrated Stray Dog often rest at the top of my Kurosawa rankings, which is funny considering his reputation for samurai films.
High and Low and the eternally underrated Stray Dog often rest at the top of my Kurosawa rankings, which is funny considering his reputation for samurai films.
Letterboxd rating scale:
The Long Riders (Hill) ***
Furious 7 (Wan) **½
Hard Times (Hill) ****½
Another 48 Hrs. (Hill) ***
/48 Hrs./ (Hill) ***½
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (Besson) ***
/Unknown/ (Collet-Serra) ***½
Animal (Simmons) **
Ah, yes. Awkward film school discussions... I remember...
"I love Kurosawa! Seven Samurai is pretty much the greatest movie ever. No contest."
"Oh yeah... Eh, I dunno, I think Ran is better, man."
"No, Rashomon, dude. Rashomon is great. That's my favorite."
"You guys like Yojimbo? I think that's, like, purely? That's his best like, straight up samurai flick, you know?"
"Um... My favorite Kurosawa is Dreams..."
"..."
Movie Theater DiaryQuoting Donald Glover
Quoting number8 (view post)
You all fail. Throne of Blood.Quoting number8 (view post)
The Princess and the Pilot - B-
Playtime (rewatch) - A
The Hobbit - C-
The Comedy - D+
Kings of the Road - C+
The Odd Couple - B
Red Rock West - C-
The Hunger Games - D-
Prometheus - C
Tangled - C+
Okay, I guess you're right.Quoting Philosophe_rouge (view post)
[]
The Princess and the Pilot - B-
Playtime (rewatch) - A
The Hobbit - C-
The Comedy - D+
Kings of the Road - C+
The Odd Couple - B
Red Rock West - C-
The Hunger Games - D-
Prometheus - C
Tangled - C+
I think I might have still been writing reviews at the time it popped up in my top 100 on the old site, but that review is long gone. Needless to say, it's a favorite.Quoting Sycophant (view post)
Weekend:
Lightning Over Water (Wim Wenders, 1980)
A State of Mind (Daniel Gordon, 2004)
Home (Ursula Meier, 2008)
Vincere (Marco Bellocchio, 2009)
Plus I still have The Only Son for another week. Also, I'll probably take a second look at Exit Through the Gift Shop now that it's opening in Halifax, and maybe the Michael Cera flick depending on the reviews.
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
Scott Pilgrim
The Ghost Writer
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs and Flowing
Heartbeat Detector
At Close Range
WENDESDAY AFTERNOON?!
[]
Harakiri is going to rock your world so hard.Quoting Sycophant (view post)
The Princess and the Pilot - B-
Playtime (rewatch) - A
The Hobbit - C-
The Comedy - D+
Kings of the Road - C+
The Odd Couple - B
Red Rock West - C-
The Hunger Games - D-
Prometheus - C
Tangled - C+
Excellent. I've had this suspicion that that'll be the case. Samurai Rebellion got me pretty excited for this one. I've found myself thinking about it every few days at least since I watched it a couple months ago.Quoting Qrazy (view post)
Yeah. Samurai Rebellion is great, but Harakiri is Kobayashi's masterpiece imo.Quoting Sycophant (view post)
The Princess and the Pilot - B-
Playtime (rewatch) - A
The Hobbit - C-
The Comedy - D+
Kings of the Road - C+
The Odd Couple - B
Red Rock West - C-
The Hunger Games - D-
Prometheus - C
Tangled - C+
Harakiri is so much better than Samurai Rebellion, and Samurai Rebellion is great in its own right.
EDIT: Or what Qrazy said.
Anyone seen his The Human Condition? I wanna watch it soon, I think, though 9.5 hours is gonna require a plan of attack.
No, but a 9.5 hour melodrama hardly seems like my cup of tea. I've heard it's a pretty overbearing film.Quoting Sycophant (view post)
I have 3 more episodes of Les Vampires to watch.
Coming to America (Landis, 1988) **
The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019) *1/2
Us (Peele, 2019) ***1/2
Fugue (Smoczynska, 2018) ***1/2
Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013) ***1/2
Shadow (Zhang, 2018) ***
Oslo, August 31st (J. Trier, 2011) ****
Climax (Noé, 2018) **1/2
Fighting With My Family (Merchant, 2019) **
Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013) ***
It's probably my cup of tea, though. Just realized it stars Tatsuya Nakadai. Priority up!Quoting MacGuffin (view post)
Stray Dog is one of my friend's favorites. I'm never that surprised, although always a little bit unsettled, by the number of people that consider High & Low his best. Don't get me wrong; it's fantastic, but it's probably his most Americanized film.Quoting Rowland (view post)
I knew Qrazy's not a fan, though he's not big on at least a few other Cahiers-celebrated Hollywood auteurs.Quoting MacGuffin (view post)
But Preminger is great - I honestly don't know how anyone can call Laura mediocre.
*roll tape*Quoting Sven (view post)
Oh Svensos...I don't really know where to start.
I saw the first two years ago and both are fantastic. Haven't seen the third since Netflix dropped it once it went OOP, but I assure you it's worth your time. Tatsuya Nakadai is soooo good.Quoting Sycophant (view post)
It's one of Nakadai's best roles. I guess I could say this about 10 of his films I've seen. He's probably my favorite actor.Quoting Sycophant (view post)
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is great. The prison break story isn't particularly fresh (although for all I know, it might've been in 1932), and the bluntly written first few minutes had me worried, but LeRoy's matter-of-fact direction strips the film from melodrama or hamfisted social commentary, letting tension and subtext rise naturally from the performances and material; by the time we get to the ending, we're as exhausted and broken as Allen, who slinks slowly to the shadows for a haunting final shot.
Thanks for the encouragement, guys! I have a hard time watching long movies, but I just bumped these discs up to spot #3 on my Netflix queue. Hoping to get to them before the new semester starts.Quoting Derek (view post)
I think I conveyed a rather sensible and well-reasoned opinion this time around.Quoting Derek (view post)
I completely agree with the well-reasoned. It's the sensible part that gets me. It's precisely because your intelligent and you put thought into watching and writing about films that I'm so conflicted when you praise something as thoroughly mediocre and forgettable as the Pelham remake, not to mention calling out what I found to be the weakest element, Travolta's performance.Quoting Sven (view post)
Really? I found his character quite dynamic, a constant flux of fear, desperation, confidence, humor, and sympathy, approached from an alluring perspective of utility and self-pity.Quoting Derek (view post)
And to be fair, my praise is quite tempered with the realities of the film's numerous inadequacies. It feels fundamentally wrong to conclude the film with []