Tommy is shit. Fact.

I recently saw Isle of Dogs in theaters

I'm really not big on Wes Anderson. I've always admired his use of the camera, the immaculate compositions, use of color, etc. But most of his previous films left me cold. I find a lot of the main characters unlikable, and they've all failed to resonate with me on an emotional level. I also find his penchant for dry humor more obnoxious than amusing...

Getting that out of the way, I consider his last 3 films (Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and now Isle of Dogs) to be his finest work so far. Maybe it's just me, but he seems to be showing a little more restraint with the "trademarks" that I've grown accustomed to seeing in his films. I also think Isle of Dogs gives Grand Budapest a run for its money from a visual standpoint, but I still prefer the latter.

Phantom Thread is by far and away the best recent film I've seen though... Everyone here needs to watch it ASAP

i like wes anderson’s nostalgia-ridden fantasies for overgrown children. they’re great in their own way. they’re never going to be “important” movies due to their subject, but they have great great style. you can tell every toy he played with when he was 7, and what tv/movies he liked. but anyway, have not seen his latest yet.

—

last night rewatched this after many many years


NUOVO CINEMA PARADISO (1988)

or i guess it was shortened to CINEMA PARADISO for our continent.

i liked this tearjerker even more on rewatch than when i first saw it... in the late 90s? can’t remember. it’s gotten funnier over the years though. i laughed a ton this time.

or maybe i’ve been so deprived by all the low rent garbage on netflix/amazon that this struck me as greater than i remembered it, maybe by comparison. either way, highly enjoyable..

i really need to get me that criterion stream thing *soon*. been starved for good “films” lately while having trash movie indigestion.

Perhaps you'll find filmstruck's particular brand of trash more palatable




;)

There's a lot of good stuff on there, including:

Taipei Story
Nobuhiko Obayashi: House, Emotion (short film)
F for Fake & Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles)
Syndromes and a Century
Floating Weeds
Carnival of Souls
El Sur
Mario Bava: Black Sunday, A Bay of Blood
The Color of Pomegranates
Fox and His Friends (or any Fassbinder)
The Lure
The Archers: A Matter of Life and Death, I Know Where I'm Going!, Black Narcissus
Vera Chytilova: Daisies, Fruit of Paradise
Teorema
Gertrud

Also plenty of Antonioni, Mike Leigh, Wong Kar Wai, Fellini, Bergman, Kieslowski, Tati, Bunuel, Godard, Seijun Suzuki, Ozu, Oshima... I have way too many on my watchlist

One of the best things about the site is that it includes a lot of the supplements from the discs , including commentary

haaa haaa haaaaa i love multiple maniacs

and yes to all that— just reading the titles makes me shudder with relief

I watched Heathers for the first time. Having now seen it I can see the influence that movie had on other 90's high school movies such as Jawbreaker and Mean Girls.

That list looks ridiculously good.

So just rewatched ...



Citizen Kane

It's hard to say anything about a film like this. Like Hamlet or the Mona Lisa, its greatness is almost taken for granted now, but I still find new things every time I watch it. Greatest film ever made? Who knows, but a masterpiece is a masterpiece.

Jawbreaker big time.

Mean Girls was like 2004 but still.

Still never seen Citizen Kane

Mmmmmmm I need to get my subscription back. Is Tarkovsky’s Mirror still on there?

the only thing that bugs me a little is that not everything is there at once

they “refresh the library” instead! which sorta beats the purpose, but okay, it’s not la grande bouffe

https://www.filmstruck.com/us/coming-soon

I’ve been waiting to watch a good transfer of Pasolini’s Gospel According to Matthew. Way on the top of my must-see films. Looks like I’m gonna go ahead and get a subscription. Hope this means criterion will put out some more Pasolini.

Also I see a lot of John Ford. Sold.


For the short time I had it it seemed there was a huge bulk that was always on there. Stuff like Seventh Seal ya know “art house” greatest hits. The refresh never seemed that drastic and they do advertise it when things will be taken off.

All the talk of FilmStruck I forgot to even stick to the thread:

Last films:

Phantom Thread: I couldn’t click with this until I started comparing it in my head to something like Rebecca or Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily. A very well made “gothic” romance. Really enjoyed it. Greenwood’s best score and it’s always a treat to see what character Day Lewis is going to conjure up.

Last Jedi: I’m always going to watch Star Wars because I never want to forget what it feels like to be a kid. That said WAY better than Force Awakens. It’s probably been talked to death already but this one has restored my faith in the franchise. Not by much but just enough to make me happy.

Interesting. I wanted to see this last month at the cinema but missed it. I'll have to wait till it's on DVD now, but as a big PTA and DDL fan it's my most anticipated film so far this year.

yeah that’s why i said “bugs me a little”. there’s more than anyone can watch at any time. so it’s only a little. ha!

i walked out of pasolini’s gospel when i was in college. it reminded me of good friday back in the old country where all they had on tv was religious shit, no commercials. superfucking boring. having said that— i might have been stoned and did not wait too long. wasted opportunity or dodged bullet? hmmmm....

but yeah it’s not only criterion—it’s also tcm. no other service can beat this right now.

The Gospel is my favourite Pasolini film (and I'm a Pasolini nut). I've no religious baggage though so could just watch it for what it is. Incredible film.

An aside, Savage Clone's argument that the board's largely abandoned interesting discussions about interesting music is true, but for some reason those arguments seem to have largely migrated to discussions about interesting films.

it’s a great movie regardless, but when you compare it to movies of that era you realize how much modern cinema owes to it. you could read all about it on the internets, but i’d say just watch it first with an open mind and read afterwards. then watch it again ha ha ha.

Absolutely. The thing that strikes me time and again is how fast it is, not just compared with films from that time but even our own. It's relentless in a way that directors like Michael Bay are supposed to be relentless but end up as merely empty exercises in bombastic confusion.

Happy Valley --docu on Penn State during the Sandusky trial. Pretty well done.

Yup.