Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5
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Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5
615 Film
Letterboxd
Yeah this was freakin' phenomenal.
The severed arm perfectly acquitted itself, because of the simplicity of its wishes and its total lack of doubt.
This is a fantastic exercise, although it doesn't really develop much. It quickly reaches and then holds that one glorious note of MADNESS for the running time, and I very much enjoyed myself. The visuals shimmer and ripple, the score is a dark entrancement, and the performances are as invigorating as you expect. But The Witch is a fuller, more complete film. I lost some of the dialogue in the accent mud and gristle. That one shot of Dafoe, you know the one, is a striking tableau worthy of Dore. In fact, I was reminded of Dore's Rime of the Ancient Mariner engravings a few times, tho most of those are at sea while this is more earthbound. This was ripping fun, but I think more could have been done after all.
"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
I was inspired to make a thing.
I respect it, but I didn't really like it.
Robert Eggers directs the heck out of this. You can smell the salt from the ocean, and Dafoe/Pattinson certainly keep it interesting the whole way through.
But I'll admit that I couldn't wait for it to end, and gets pretty ridiculous in the end, and not in a good way. It just feels like ideas were thought about and put together as they came.
I think The Witch is one of the most overrated films of the last few years, so I'm kind of dreading this. But I'll watch it to be a good cinephile. Better to support this than live action Disney remakes.
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
I’m pretty much in the exact same boat. I appreciate the performances here, but it reaches a point where it sorta just meanders, and I spent the entire last third thinking, alright, let’s move it along, take us home already. And once we finally got to where we were going, yeah, it wasn’t exactly worth all that time it took getting us there. *shrug*Quoting Ezee E (view post)
I heard Dafoe does some weird, old-timey pirate voice so it might be worth it just for that.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
I'll definitely watch it in the theatres if it ever makes it to Korea. Otherwise it's another trip to the high seas for me as there would be no other way to see it.Quoting Irish (view post)
On the plus side, Korean cinemas are showing The Irishman at the end of this month, so that's pleasant.
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
I mean, that, him and Pattinson dancing around like drunken sailors, and some weird naked mermaid/merman (?) stuff... But it's not really worth it.Quoting Irish (view post)
Someone write Eggers a script.
Quoting Ezee E (view post).Quoting TGM (view post)
This is probably on my top 10 of the decade.
The severed arm perfectly acquitted itself, because of the simplicity of its wishes and its total lack of doubt.
I didn't care for The Witch and I loved this. It's crazy, weird and intense. I'm a sucker for black and white cinematography. Also two great performances, too.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Last edited by MadMan; 11-04-2019 at 05:54 AM.
BLOG
And everybody wants to be special here
They call your name out loud and clear
Here comes a regular
Call out your name
Here comes a regular
Am I the only one here today?
The drunk scenes and Dafoe's angry curse monologue were my favorite parts. Not sure what the ending means or how it went down but I'm fine with that.Quoting TGM (view post)
BLOG
And everybody wants to be special here
They call your name out loud and clear
Here comes a regular
Call out your name
Here comes a regular
Am I the only one here today?
Robert Eggers grew up four miles from me in the town next door and I'm kicking myself that I never ran into the guy. I was perplexed when this was over, but the next morning, I found myself wanting to see it again immediately. There is such a sick pleasure in watching these men suffer in this setting- it is a darkly beautiful, haunting film that leans joyfully into the grotesque. Dafoe is giving a goddamn miracle of a performance here. Just wonderful all around, no matter how perverse and painful it may be.
I'm agnostic about The Witch, like it but don't love it. I think there's too much slow build up to the horror stuff, which would be fine if the film was interesting outside of the horror elements, but I was a little bored.Quoting MadMan (view post)
I totally love this one. It's a weird, self contained descent into madness. I love how self conscious it is about Dafoe's wannabe Captain Ahab shtick and that RPatz calls him out on it. It's such a darkly funny, darkly weird commentary on a shitty roommate situation, a shitty job situation, and a shitty sexual frustration situation. I think a lot of people can relate.
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
I just realized that Willem Dafoe STILL hasn't won a fucking Academy Award. Maybe this film will change that, but I wouldn't count on it.
Last edited by Pop Trash; 11-11-2019 at 08:23 PM.
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
I gave it a 50 something out of a 100 because yeah I was a little bored and the movie is slow burn without the burn.Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
Hah, yeah, especially with the roommate situation. The "but you liked me lobster" line is funny because it's Dafoe expressing the sadness of someone who tries and fails at something. This movie keeps growing on me.
BLOG
And everybody wants to be special here
They call your name out loud and clear
Here comes a regular
Call out your name
Here comes a regular
Am I the only one here today?
As much as I was happy for Sam Rockwell, Dafoe should have won for The Florida Project.Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
BLOG
And everybody wants to be special here
They call your name out loud and clear
Here comes a regular
Call out your name
Here comes a regular
Am I the only one here today?
A grand technical and actors' exercise in service of one single sustained note. When that note is a gorgeous Maddin/Melville one in which the two excellent actors keep finding many psychosexual black comedy variations on though, that's not much of a problem. Wish it was as complete a film as The Witch, but this is still frequently a hoot. 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
Self indulgent by all a parties --- an actor's exercise gone horribly wrong, with nonsense talk and big, loud, chewy monologues in every other scene. (And Jesus, for all the gab nobody says one thing worth hearing.)
The script needed more structure and more sense. There wasn't enough story here to sustain a single episode of television, much less a feature film. The more dreamlike ideas seemed like a desperate play to insert meaning where there otherwise would be none.
Loved the photography, tho. This is one of the few contemporary black and white films that just looks right, as if it could have been shot 60 or 70 years ago.
Dafoe's performance, with certain parts through the movie, makes me think it could've almost played as a silent film.Quoting Irish (view post)
But yeah, you pretty much nailed it with the structure of the movie.
Excuse you. Mermaid fanny is a brilliant metaphor for our age's worst excesses and sins.Quoting Irish (view post)
"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
One of the best films I've ever seen.
The severed arm perfectly acquitted itself, because of the simplicity of its wishes and its total lack of doubt.