hell yeah
just left the movie theatre. looked like Helldivers 2 to me
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finally saw āperfect daysā as it was playing at the art museum.
what a movie. every scene was nourishing. deeply resonant and contemplative, but honest and tactile. i donāt know if life really is that beautiful, but the film makes you think it can be.
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Tonight am showing āLEFTOVERSā. Cuz itās that time again, for movies that I had planned on showing at one point or another but did not, because of āreasonsā (technically itās āMORE LEFTOVERSā cuz I did this before, during the previous Thanksgiving season)
Anyhow, first is a movie that was originally earmarked for āLAW & (DIS)ORDERāā¦
Second is a movie that was originally intended for āLOST IN TIMEā, by the same director of Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes, which some may calling seen via FUTURE IMPERFECT"ā¦
Third is a movie that I was going to play during both āMIND OVER MATTERā and āTHE KIDS ARE NOT ALRIGHTā (those familiar with both themes will understand why)ā¦
And last but not least was something originally scheduled for āROAD RAGEāā¦
The stream will again be via the alt account, starting around 8PM-ish ESTā¦
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I watched Porco Rosso for the second time last night, havenāt seen it since like 2013. Iāve since maintained itās a movie I donāt like very much.
Well I was pretty wrong about that turns out! I think I was just very young without a lot of life experience or an understanding of how to watch something that is a little challenging, and a sensitive reactionary streak honestly. Thatās not to say it or any Ghibli flick are like deeply complex in general but there was definitely some stuff in there(misogynistic pig man, effects of war, self-inflicted exile) that I was a little too ready to react to at face value when they made me feel a bit gross inside. Now Iām almost to my mid-30s and I feel like I was able to really understand the movie for the first time. Itās pretty amazing, and has a good amount to chew on across a lot of different subjects.
Also how amazing is it that the American in the movie is some spoiled hot shot who only wants to be famous in Hollywood and then the President. Bleak.
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I also rewatched it a couple days ago and had a similar experience! I love how fluid and elegant everything is. How silly the bad guys are. That it is not concerned to explain or resolve itself in any major way. How did he turn into a pig? How normal is that in this world? What is going on in his heart and mind? Who knows, who cares, enjoy the breeze. I miss that in later Ghiblis that sort of beat you over the head with the message, Pixar style. While the animation reached amazing heights later on, for me the best storytelling is undoubtedly the Nausicaa-Totoro-Porco Rosso era, perhaps culminating in Whisper Of The Heart.
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Catherine Hardwick, director of lords of dogtown, sent someone to contact me about renting my van for their next film in Venice
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Iāve been thinking about Robot Dreams for a while. Itās streaming now and ended up being a solid holiday watch. I cried. A wordless animated movie marathon would probably hit the spot.
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Yesterday was less Thanksgiving and more Judd Nelsonās birthday for me, so I decided to watch a Judd Nelson movie I had never seen and ended up watching the 1987 film From The Hip. This movie really felt like two different movies sorta smashed together as it tries pretty hard to be witty and funny in the first half and takes a pretty dark turn almost exactly halfway through. My favorite part about the film is John Hurtās performance by far. He delivers this really cold and calculated monologue during the 2nd half and watching his movements and mannerisms genuinely gave me the heebie jeebies. I doubt I will ever watch it again, but Iād definitely watch that monologue another time or two.
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i saw that wicked that everyoneās been talking about. as an ex-theatre kid who grew up in the wicked/glee era, believe me when i say that it wasā¦ fine. meaning that it was slop, but i had a very nice time enjoying my slop. and it is, at least, slop in a way that is inherent to wicked the musical, and not solely because it is a modern cgi-heavy hollywood blockbuster. and there are some nice practical sets in there beneath all the green screen!
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Some assorted movie watching because iām off my job and on vacation for the week, and itās 30 degrees and windy here on beautiful marthaās vineyard massachusetts.
unforgiven
rocks. totally rocks. other westerns ask this, but in simply asking the question, hey cowboys were probably cold blooded murderers, Clint makes a much more compelling look at the old west than any of these revisionist westerns weāve been getting the last few years trying to touch what he did (true grit innocent)
taste of cherry
pure form here by kiarostami, unreal how bold it is to basically have half the movie play out in this shot reverse from his car, and then those vistas! feels almost like stalker in a weird way, where our premise basically allows us to just expound on life for 90 mins.
the witch
iām in new england for the first time in a long long time. not my favorite eggers, but it is incredible how he just rips you down into the time period his stories take place in, better than anyone else at what he is doing for sure.
nowhere
Gregg Araki is in such sicko mode all the time. he has probably the best production designers working in 1995, it is amazing the craft that goes into his movies. that said, i get what heās going for with his dialogue but i donāt necessarily love it. in saying i get it, i feel like he is going for ironic detachment that boils into the horrible metamorphoses at the end.
out of the blue
my favorite of all of these. what an amazing picture. Dennis Hopper lays out bleakness in a way sean baker could only dream of. man linda manz is so good in this.
to whoever runs the movie theater here, can we get something more than moana and wicked please and thank you
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scrolling the internet archive for Sonatine and somehow only finding the italian dub?
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Seen several movies, but I can confirm EugĆØne Green is the one whose appeal invites me to watch more Bresson films. Heās like Bresson, but with some jokes and tenderness embedded into it, and this, with its minimalism in the mise en scĆØne, is nuts specially on Toutes les nuits.
Thereās no trailer, but I think you get the gist of how he films there:
Also, while there are some good films he made in the 2000s, I feel Hong Sang-Sooās films from that epoch areā¦ not good for the most part. Watched Night and Day, which is quite revered from the people I know watched it, and it was insufferable to me at times, specially thanks to the main character.
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Iāve only seen one movie by Green, La Sapienza, which I liked quite a bit when I saw it. I mainly remember some of the humor (there wasnāt a ton of it but what was there was good) and a particular way it shot scenes taking place in the distant past that really conveyed the strangeness of looking back into history for truth. I donāt know that I remember a whole lot else about it, but I remember a general elegance and aww to it, and I like your Bresson comparison.
Maybe more than anything, Iām interested in the idea of Eugene Green as a person, an American who pretty much forfeits being American to become French.
A bunch of movies Iāve seen in the last few weeks.
The Guard from Underground: Japanese horror / thriller about a giant security guard at an office block being hired and eventually going on a murder rampage on a group of workers. For the most part the film is fairly light on gore / slasher imagery which I appreciated and the build-up to the lotās tipping point is well-paced. Recommended.
Wolf Guy: Sonny Chiba is a werewolf cop movie based on the manga (which I havenāt seen). I was perhaps expecting more than I got from this - very literally as it turns out as I thought the narrative was extremely rushed, particularly towards the end, barely managing to tie things together. Thereās some cool scenes in there, including a big basement brawl, but it could have had a little more added to it.
Lair of the White Worm: Iāve long been aware of this film but only recently got around to watching it. Itās about an archaeologist finding remains of a giant worm in the grounds of a lordās Estate, whose ancestors had all slain reincarnations of said worm. At the same time, a succubus posing as a regular person works to reincarnate the worm again. All of which kickstarts a fun, comic horror movie in vein of something like An American Werewolf in London, but sillier and totally straight-faced. Well worth watching.
The Bat Woman and The Panther Women: Ms LeFish and I watched this double bill at my local arts centre cinema. Both of these are Mexican films from the late 60s with a heavy lean towards lucha libre culture, particularly around the emergence of womenās participation. The first film is an homage / a rip-off of the Adam West Batman series complete with comic book scientist villains, nonsense science (including a half man-half fish creature)where the Bruce Wayne character is an awkwardly scantily clad lucha libre who goes everywhere in a bat-hood and spandex underwear. However, as much as I appreciated the age of the film and what they were trying to do, the actual writing is pretty dire and is filled with coincidences and convenient asides to the point where it lost me.
The second film, The Panther Women, fared a lot better for us, and while there was still some poor writing in places it wasnāt anywhere near as egregious as The Bat Woman. This is closer to a horror film involving a well-off family being targeted by women that can turn into panthers; several of the cast are also lucha libre. The accidental silliness is much easier to appreciate in this film and the film rattles along nicely.
The Contestant: I saw this in a near empty cinema. This is a documentary about a guy winning an audition to be on a TV show in the late 90s and immediately being forced to live in a room for the best part of a year, being stripped of his clothes, and only being able to live on the prizes he wins from magazines. The show immediately becomes a national TV icon. Thereās some more to it on top of that but the bulk of the movie has reflections from both the participant and the director as well as family and friends about the time. I really liked this and it amazes me that this was allowed at the time because itās patently obvious how miserable this guy was the entire time. Itās a recommended watch.
Dark Star: John Carpenterās first film as a student. Itās basically a send-up of 2001: A Space Odyssey and whilst itās a really slow start, it picks up a lot as the narrative obstacles escalate - and you can definitely tell that he went on to make The Thing! I really enjoyed it; few of the jokes are overtly jokes and the dialogue is smart and tight, the homage / references are obvious without being bludgeoned into you, and it was a nice surprise to watch. Note: donāt watch if you are epileptic though as thereās one scene with flashing lights for close to a minute.
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K, itās one last helping of āLeftoversā, as well as the final FORT90 FILM CLUB Twitch stream of the year! And am gonna hit the ground running with a double dose of hard-boiled Korean action; alongside CITY OF VIOLENCE am also playing its behind the scenes documentary ACTION BOYSā¦
Next is a movie so obscure that no translated trailer exits (far as I can tell); itās by the director of Hausu & also has two titles: EXCHANGE STUDENT & I ARE YOU, YOU AM MEā¦
Folks who receive my FILM CLUB emails hopefully downloaded it the first time, tho it was recently re-shared, alongside 40 or so other movies, but if youāre not on the list, A. hit me up via matt @ fort90 dot com, B. am also showing said film tonight as wellā¦
Last but not least is a film that holds the personal record for film I have tried showing the most, cuz it fits under so many criteria, but have not, so itās about damn time forā¦
The stream will again be via the alt account, starting around 8PM-ish ESTā¦
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Godzilla vs Hedorah is my absolute favourite and I will never forget the stunned silence that I got from my Godzilla-obsessive friends when I said that.
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I saw THE END last night in an empty theater.
It was beautiful, healing, emotionally rich, dead serious and also funny. The Act of Killing is my favorite documentary ever, and this is very much in conversation with Joshua Oppenheimerās earlier films. Apparently, he talked to an oligarch in Indonesia who was working on building a bunker kind of like the one in the movie, and he was drawn to the idea of exploring their future feelings of conscience and guilt. It was also inspired by The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which I have not seen but now want to.
The songs were incredible in the sense of being able to constantly feel the tension of hiding from themselves and wondering if and when theyāre going to break through to how they really feel about things when they stop lying to themselves.
The cast was excellent all around. Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton have been kindred weirdo spirits for years. I havenāt seen Moses Ingram or George MacKay in anything before, but they both gave very deep performances. Everybody was great.
Apparently this film didnāt connect with a lot of people who saw it? I wonder how many people misunderstood what they were watching. As far as Iām concerned, this was probably my second favorite movie of the year after I Saw the TV Glow, and Joshua Oppenheimer should be strongly encouraged to make many, many more films. I loved it!
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Probably like a lot of you, I dig Takeshi Kitano. Sonatine has been in my personal canon since I first saw it a few years ago, and so this year I thought Iād go ahead and watch that whole legendary run of his from 1989-1999. I didnāt watch these in order but whatever hereās my mini review of each.
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Violent Cop. I liked it a lot because I like '80s action movies, especially some of the grittier, uglier ones, which this is. Still, the Kitano charm and humor are here even in this first one, which gives it some levity, but itās still more cynical than any of these other ones, I think.
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Boiling Point. Not my favorite of his, but I like all of the baseball and the rage in this one. Also: thereās a part where Kitano shoots a guy and his face is so calm and curious like he almost just wanted to see what would happen. Itās interesting.
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A Scene at the Sea. I love how different this one is from the rest of Kitanoās stuff and from most movies period. Reminds me of silent comedy and city pop album covers. This one is mostly carried by its winsomeness and vibes, so itās good that the Joe Hisaishi collabs started here (which Iāll just say now, his soundtracks elevate all of these subsequent movies (sans Getting Any) in a huge way. They would still be good but definitely missing something important without Hisaishi).
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Sonatine. Rewatched this with some friends. Not much I can add about this one. A masterpiece. One of the best movies about the meaning of life/ just f-ing around, ever. Maybe the ultimate hangout movie.
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Getting Any?. This one took the most work for me to see with subtitles and it also tends not to be regarded super highly, but I thought it was a blast. Just straight goofball comedy. I also like that it was a sex comedy that didnāt exploit women but mainly made fun of the stupidity of male horniness but also without being preachy or annoying.
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Kids Return. This is the most like a normal movie of the bunch. At first that turned me off, but eventually I liked it for being restrained and honest. Really character-driven and grounded. Maybe this Kitanoās most mature movie (that Iāve seen), similar to how Jackie Brown is not necessarily Tarantinoās best movie, but itās definitely the one where you canāt accuse him of just slamming his action figures together.
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Hana-Bi. Another masterpiece. Probably the best fusion of badass and tenderness out of all these.
8.Kikujiro. A road movie and almost a kids movie. Kitanoās gritty goofiness, in all his roles, reminds me of my late grandfather who I loved almost more than life itself. So, itās good to have Kitano actually playing a semi-grandfatherly figure here. The ending is perfect.
Overall, I loved watching all of these. I donāt think Iāve ever watched this much of one director in one year but it was a great experience.
The only 2000s movie Iāve seen by him was Zatoichi, which was really good. Anybody have any favorites of his 21st century works? Iām thinking about trying Achilles and the Tortoise next.
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Watched Here recently. I think Zemeckis has done quite an original film in the visual department by how he uses literally one space (like the space being a moving canvas or something you watch sitting in an art museum) and uses the different frames inside that main frame, like a comic, in order to do something interesting. If only the story was interesting, and not something that can be naively whitewashing the history of the United States, maybe that would have been an amazing movie. Alasā¦
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