What's the last movie you've seen?

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Five films over the weekend:

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman, 1975): Finally got around to seeing this, though it kept occuring me throughout the film that I had seen it many times before, in pastiche. The best scenes in the film, are by far, the ending and the scenes where all the inmates talk in their circle, the scenes when they leave the institute jar a bit. However it is very funny. Great as it is, it is not the 11th best film of all time (According to IMDB, might be old).

Il Decameron (Pier Luigi Pasolini, 1970): My first Pasolini movie and to be honest not all I was all that impressed. In a nutshell, the film which is based on a group of short Italian stories written in the 14th century, is classical eurotrash with all that implies. At least Pasolini can maintain a scene and Medieval Naples (the setting) is done very well. But I stopped paying attention to the stories last way through and the visual ambience of the film reminded me of Life of Brian. Meh.

Happy Go Lucky (Mike Leigh, 2008): This plotless film about an overly cheerful South London Primary school teacher and her odd structureless adventures can be divided into two parts: Those when she is taking driving lessons with a far-right quasi-fascistic instructor and the bulk of the film which follows her on the rest of her life. The former is at times very, very funny, the latter is dull and celebrates a life I can't celebrate no matter how much Leigh wants me to. There are some other good moments as well, including one with a crazy drunk Irishman (no cliche there!) but never gripped me.

Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984): Odd, really odd and not in a David Lynch sort of way even if it does a Lynchesque feel to parts of it. Basically a soap opera\serious drama about a man who went missing for 4 years in the Texas Desert, is then found and eventually tries to win his life back. It is no masterpiece, but is perfectly good 'art' movie. Even if a bit shallow once one begins to think about it in any serious way.

Hannah and her Sisters (Woody Allen, 1986): Easily the best of lot, A really Underrated Woody Allen movie, full of typical Allenesque themes but feels alot more whole and a lot less pretentious than some of his more recent movies. When Allen is at home (ie. Upper Class New York 'arty' types) you can really feel it, the film has an excellent sense of place. A Drama which never gets out of act two, it is imo one of the best films of the 1980s.

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Or MAYBE, maybe... it was the only film of his than my college library had available on that weekend (the college doesn't do a film course and its library has a very small, but rather eclectic collection). Or perhaps its just that I suck. Yes, that's it. (Actually if I had the choice I would have picked The gospel according to St. Matthew over Salo, but hey, I suck remember.)

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When I saw Annie Hall I was 16 (I think) and it didn't click for me either. Wish to see it again however.

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Persepolis. Loved it although some of the translations for the subtitles were a bit dodgy.

You got to see the French Language version?

(Persepolis also being btw the last film I saw)

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Charlie Bartlett

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_People_F...ing

How was it?

Pretty good. I'd recommend it. Unlike my favourite Canadian movie, Americans would not feel lost watching this one.

Which is..?

Speaking of Canadian Films, one the last films I saw was My Winnipeg which made the city sound like a cool place tbh even if totally fictional in a factual way (you have to see it for it to make sense.) Today however I saw Wall-E but wasn't impressed even if I do like most things post-apoclayptic.

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Lindsay Anderson If....

Fantastic, we need more old-timey British "public school" (that's a private school for most here) movies.

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Once Upon A Time In America

I've been meaning to see it for years but never got around to. Saw a DVD of it the other day, thought "why not". Watched it. Loved it, and in several different ways.

w00t!

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Der Baader Meinhof Komplex

Too Stylistic and Shallow with a smattering with some very good ideas not done very well. Interesting and entertaining, but no Die Edukators.

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Changeling.

Why does it take Clint Eastwood to do what so many younger directors try to do and epicly fail; simple drama, no pretentious nonsense, no "Doesn't Society Suck" message (Are you Listening Sam Mendes?) just classic American style Drama put to perfection. Probably my favourite American film of the year, yes, that's ahead of No Country and There Will be Blood (I'm talking about Irish Release Dates, before anyone gets bitchy. You know who.)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Changeling.

Why does it take Clint Eastwood to do what so many younger directors try to do and epicly fail; simple drama, no pretentious nonsense, no "Doesn't Society Suck" message (Are you Listening Sam Mendes?) just classic American style Drama put to perfection. Probably my favourite American film of the year, yes, that's ahead of No Country and There Will be Blood (I'm talking about Irish Release Dates, before anyone gets bitchy. You know who.)

Because Clint Eastwood is a right wing piece of sh!t, so it's not surprising you would like his horrid trash, especially this "Certified Rotten" as opposed to those >90% on RT movies listed that were released in 2007 (and by the way I consider foreign films to be released by the date of their release in their home country, like IMDB.)

Like I care.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Changeling.

Why does it take Clint Eastwood to do what so many younger directors try to do and epicly fail; simple drama, no pretentious nonsense, no "Doesn't Society Suck" message (Are you Listening Sam Mendes?) just classic American style Drama put to perfection. Probably my favourite American film of the year, yes, that's ahead of No Country and There Will be Blood (I'm talking about Irish Release Dates, before anyone gets bitchy. You know who.)

I watched this about a week ago. It was better than I had expected. Don't agree with your assesment relative to those other films though. I feel Eastwood is a competent director with interesting stories to tell but he's a bit lacking when it comes to artistic touch in the delivery.

Actually I do agree with what you said there: Eastwood is good craftsman not an artist. I just preferred the film to the overblown NCOM and TWBB (Though now that I think of it, it isn't the best American film of the year. That would be Man On Wire)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Changeling.

Why does it take Clint Eastwood to do what so many younger directors try to do and epicly fail; simple drama, no pretentious nonsense, no "Doesn't Society Suck" message (Are you Listening Sam Mendes?) just classic American style Drama put to perfection. Probably my favourite American film of the year, yes, that's ahead of No Country and There Will be Blood (I'm talking about Irish Release Dates, before anyone gets bitchy. You know who.)

I watched this about a week ago. It was better than I had expected. Don't agree with your assesment relative to those other films though. I feel Eastwood is a competent director with interesting stories to tell but he's a bit lacking when it comes to artistic touch in the delivery.

Actually I do agree with what you said there: Eastwood is good craftsman not an artist. I just preferred the film to the overblown NCOM and TWBB (Though now that I think of it, it isn't the best American film of the year. That would be Man On Wire)

Haven't seen that one. We're going to have to disagree on the films though. I'd rank both of those other two higher than Changeling.

I am definitely going to watch some more Eastwood-films though. I've only seen this one and Million Dollar Baby as far as directing goes.

Never seen Unforgiven? What Blasphemy is this.... (I'm happy to agree to disagree on the other two btw; I just found them overblown, pretentious and incoherent in the case of TWBB.)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Dean Spanley

Fantastic. Why can't there be more films like this?

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Gonzo.

Documentary on the life and times of Hunter S. Thompson, who strangely enough I quoted in my previous post. Too preachy and counterculture nostalgic for my liking (it constantly infers references between Iraq and Vietnam and one of the talking heads claims that HST would have been a leading writer talking about the crisis of today. Viz. Bush, etc. Totally untrue, he was utterly washed up. The problem with gonzo is you need to be an interesting person as a person, HST just took loads of drugs but in ways wasn't a hugely fascinating personality.) and focuses too much on politics. Some of the talking heads, including Pat Buchanan, were interesting. Entertaining film, though with HST's life it would be epic fail not to be entertaining and did show him as the self-indulgent bum that he became. Also good archive footage, especially from the Hell's Angels - who 40 years on now look incredibly camp if anything. But in the end just too nostalgic and I felt like I heard this story of the 60s and 70s all so many times before.

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Australia

It was okay, but really sugary and predictable.

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Rachel Getting Married

Words can not describe how well I recognized the whole scene... even if I don't know any ex-heroin addicts. Very depressing.

Also Recommended.

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Heavenly Creatures. Without a doubt Peter Jackson's best film.

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Watch it again. (Was it Directors Cut, Final Cut or Original Hollywood release?)

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Can anyone name a good musician who's a conservative?

Rush, Ted Nugent, Ramones, ...yeah, it's a short list (and you could make good arguments against two of them)...there are others though.

Ah yes...I'm seeing a correlation between the decline of rock in the 70s and the political views of its artists.

^^^^^ (For the win)

I've seen four movies over the past two days: The Damned United, Il Divo, Metropolis (not the Fritz Lang film, but an Anime equivalent) and Doubt. I recommend all four; though probably some knowledge of 20th Century Italian politics is a must before seeing Il Divo; that and a tolerance of surrealist unclear political references and gnomic remarks made by politicans (it's a film about the life of Anderotti). It is still probably good; but don't ask me what exactly was going on all the time.

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The Informant.

Less a classic "informant" movie (like All the Presidents' Men) then a con movie in reverse.

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The Informant.

Less a classic "informant" movie (like All the Presidents' Men)

It's not like it was supposed to be one.

Thus my pithy comment.

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Let the Right One In.

It was Awesome.

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Taken  Liam Neeson

Awesome

Who's Driving the boat?

(Epic win for anyone who gets the reference).

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Taken  Liam Neeson

Awesome

Who's Driving the boat?

(Epic win for anyone who gets the reference).

One batch of Epic "It's the death of narrative cinema" win for Jas.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Late Autumn

A light-hearted and charming story - it was most interesting though from a sociological (given my dearth of knowledge regarding Japanese society of the era) and cinemagraphic perspective.

That seems a bit arty for you. Just sayin'. (Ah bless the IFI and its old-directors seasons).

(And for the record the last film I was Precious, too 'ghetto porn-y' for me really. I don't what everyone is going on about.)