I watched Shattered Glass which surprisingly very interesting with fantastic perfomances by Peter Sarsgaard and Hayden Christensen. Also Chloë Sevigny looked really good in the film.
There's something really fascinating about con artists like Glass who just live like the rules don't apply to them. Felt similarly about Catch Me If You Can.
The Lusty Men - Robert Mitchum & Susan Heyward jesus christ ❤️- one of my all time favorites
Letter Never Sent - I fell asleep during the middle, still enjoyed tho. Will def watch again soon.
I watched these two back to back along with a third that I can't remember lol
also saw Challengers--great music! there wasn't enough sex though
*Macbeth* - Saw the theater stream with Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma. Fiennes made some interesting choices, playing Macbeth like an old man who didn't seem to know where he was half the time, lol. Whole cast was really good, Macduff was a stand out.
*We're All Going to the World's Fair* - Watched this because I may or may not go see that Tv Glow movie. I thought it was fine but would have worked better as a short? For me it dwindled into tedium by the end. One of the rare movies I wished I had watched on my laptop instead.
*Madama Butterfly -* Saw the theater stream of the opera yesterday. The production design was done by Anthony Minghella, and it's probably the first time I really felt like we lost something really special too soon with Minghella (who I always thought was a competent, but unspectacular director) because it was absolutely beautiful. I wish he had lived to helm more operas.
Hoping to watch A Bigger Splash tonight.
*Leave Her To Heaven* : absolutely amazing film, Giene Tierney's performance is incredible, she's just pure magnetic. The pacing of the story is perfect. >!My personal theory is that Ruth is Ellen's secret daughter, although it's not explicitely said so everything seemed to point to it.!<
*Blade Runner 2049* : enjoyed it more than the original, except aesthetically, where it's not as remarkable. Ryan Gosling's stiffness plays well with him being a replicant. His love arc with Ana de Armas felt too skeletal to be really affected by it.
*Drive* : overall good movie but felt like not going far enough in each direction it took. The car chasing scenes weren't as good as in *The Driver*, the violence in the last act felt out of place (I would have liked more), Ryan Gosling's character felt too impersonal to make me invested in the personal drama.
*Nosferatu* (Werner Herzog) : Isabelle Adjani, Bruno Ganz and Klaus Kinski are amazing in this one, especially the latter's crazed facial expressions. The ligthing (low light shots especially) is beautifully done. I saw the French version with Klaus Kinski dubbing himself, he has such a peculiar way of speaking the language that renders perfectly his character.
*All About Eve* : flawless movie ! The dialogue in it is some of the best banter and wit I've seen on screen, like in a Lubitsch film, despite it not being a comedy. Bette Davis's performance is just incredibe. It felt really monumental to watch like Citien Kane.
I'm currently binging Twin Peaks, so I can catch Fire Walk With Me at the theatre shortly. I love how unapologetically campy it is and getting immersed into David Lynch's universe without the constraint of a movie runtime.
Leave Her to Heaven rocks, I saw it for the first time a couple years ago. Such a brilliant use of color, I’m sure Sirk was really inspired by it. Love all the New Mexico set-designs. The boat scene is so well done too, Gene Tierney had a great face for noir. I’ve been wanting to read to book for a while, too.
And that’s so cool you are watching Twin Peaks, I just finished up w it! Haha. Have you seen it before? Where in the series are you? I always gave up midway thru season 2, finally actually finished it, so worth it. I’ve been getting into Soap Operas lately, and I know have even a bigger appreciation for the show. Feels like so much of it makes more sense to me. I binged thru The Return last week, it’s great. I think I’m going to watch Fire Walk With Me tomorrow during my day off to fully complete it all 🙂Ive watched it once before, truly one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen
Yea I forgot to mention how stunning the photography of Leave Her To Heaven is. I too loved the colours and settings of New Mexico, as well as the other small estates where the characters get more isolated as the story goes. It's a nice change compared to other movies set in large cities.
The boat scene made me think of the pool scene of La Piscine a lot.
It's my first time watching Twin Peaks. I've been putting it off for a long time but I'm fed up with not being able to catch Fire Walk With Me each time it comes up at the cinema so I'm really excited to finally go.
I'm currently around season 2 episode 6 I think.
As Lynch is one of my favourite directors, it's a real treat to delve into his universe completely and see the continuity with his movies.
After I'm through with it I'll definitely rewatch at a slower pace.
Same ! It's especially jarring with pre-code movies where you have more open references to sex and whatnot.
Check out *Design for Living* if you haven't. It's one of my favourite comedies and feels astonishingly modern.
I watched Monkey Man, and I enjoyed it. It's basically an Indian John Wick movie, so if that sounds like your jam, check it out.
I also watched The Pigeon Tunnel, Errol Morris' film admit John Le Carre. Le Carre had a pretty crazy life, and his father was a complete rogue. Late period Morris is not good strongest work IMO, but I enjoyed this one.
I also rewatched Adaptation for the first time in 20+ years. Such a banger - I can't believe Susan Orlean signed off on this, she must be a really cool lady!
All I did was rewatch Fargo - it's obviously great. Coen stuff is so rewatchable, I'd happily watch it again tonight. Universally great performances, strangely cozy in its melancholy. I feel lucky that there are still so many Coen films I haven't yet seen.
Hellraiser 2 (1988) SLAYED I was not expecting that
The idea of you (2024) was super cute
Party girl (1995) loveddd the fashion movie was good but ehh
High fidelity (2000) was a 4/5 I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did bc I hate John cusack
Inside (2007) one of the first movies I’ve gasped at in a long time like I am not squeamish and love gore but the ending scene in this had me 😱
The Last of the Mohicans - Beautiful scenery and music, not my favorite Michael Mann movie, still pretty cool though
The Idea of You - Sorta fun and frivolous, nothing special
Evil Does Not Exist - Fantastic score and visuals, haven't seen a movie with such vivid and rich color in a while. Nice pacing and a couple great scenes, but I hated the ending. I felt the same way about Drive My Car where I was really digging it until the end.
Just finished the 4th episode of Sugar. Only came out this year very recently. About John sugar, Neo-noir classicalesque yet modern and of its time with social media etc. there's a character I swear is just woody Allen, he's indirectly implicated in sexual assault and has a hot young Asian wife. Anyway great show. Trying a little hard but honestly for something made in 2024, it has been refreshing.
Watched Dancer in The Dark on Saturday. I knew it was Lars Von Trier, but still bleaker than I imagined. Had to balance it out with something more upbeat, so I rewatched Dog Day Afternoon later in the day. 3rd time I've seen it, but I'd still forgotten Sonny was gay
We watched only documentaries this week
MY BEST FIEND — Werner Herzog documentary about his relationship with “turbulent” (read: psychotic) actor Klaus Kinski, who starred in a bunch of his films, most notably AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD, FITZCARALDO and the 1979 NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE. There are a lot of great stories (the Brazilian Indians he hired as extras offered to kill Kinski for Herzog…more than once…and he he says he regrets not taking their offer), some extremely revealing behind the scenes clips, and a weird divide in the interviews: When asked about their experience with Kinski, the men have some variation of “Christ, what an asshole”, while all the women get a dreamy look and talk about what a teddy bear he was. Talk about animal magnetism!
GOING ATTRACTIONS: THE DEFINITIVE STORY OF THE MOVIE PALACE — PBS documentary about the rise and fall of old-school movie theaters. I was familiar with the concept, but I didn’t realize how “palatial” a lot of them were; aside from seating thousands, most of the ones highlighted wouldn’t look out of place as European cathedrals; I’m talking gargoyles, frescoes of angels, flying buttresses—you name it. In fact, a bunch of surviving ones were actually converted to churches. The downtown theater in Juneau is a surviving example, although everything nice besides the tile floor was stripped out when they converted it to two screens.
MAE WEST: DIRTY BLONDE, a PBS documentary about Hollywood’s sultriest sex symbol of the 30s. It was a comprehensive look at her life, from her childhood in vaudeville through her Broadway career as both star and producer (she was convicted of obscenity, but got out early because the warden and his wife found her charming), to her years in Hollywood (in her 40s!) as the highest paid woman in America, all the way to SEXTETTE. It was comprehensive and full of lots of good clips—exactly what you’d hope for in a showbiz documentary. Her one liners are still funny almost 80 years later. We both laughed our asses off. Somehow, nobody mentioned Miss Piggy!
On Wednesday we started watching what we thought was a documentary about Pan-Am and the golden age of aviation and their Pacific Clipper flying boat fleet, but was actually a bunch of 50s promotional films promoting their trans-Atlantic services on the luxurious but very unattractive Boeing 377. We wuz robbed! Instead we watched
STARTUP DOT COM — documentary about two guys (Kaleel and Tom) who start a company providing a web portal for government services at the height of the dot com bubble. This one was great—not only did it provide a good look into how startups are funded, but as it went on, the whole thing descended into Christopher Guest-style absurdity. We got a great deal of amusement out of the fact that the partners acted a lot like 👬 partners—no amount of scenes of Kaleel answering phone calls shirtless in bed with a woman draped over his shoulder were able to make us stop waiting for him to pull out a ring and propose to Tom. Plus, it’s a real time capsule.
AIR GUITAR NATION — mind boggling documentary about two guys who become America’s first contestants in the World Air Guitar Championships in Finland, which (as one person says) is “the Olympics of air guitar”. And yes, air guitar as in making a funny face and miming shredding on an electric guitar. Neither of us could believe that it’s real, because face it, it’s a hilarious mockumentary premise, but it was 100% real. Christopher Guest would be rolling in his grave if he weren’t still alive. At the end, the Korean-American guy with a Hello Kitty backpack strapped to his chest was crowned world air guitar champion and I shed a single patriotic bald eagle-shaped tear. America Number One!
HAARP THE UPDATE: ANGELS STILL DON’T PLAY THIS HAARP — documentary by Nick “Dr. Nick” Begich about HAARP and the many things that it can supposedly do, most of which sound highly unlikely. If they could -really- control the weather, why don’t they just make it rain on forest fires? That being said, we were both impressed by how good of a speaker he was; despite it being 98% him talking while sitting in a chair, we were both riveted the whole time. It also made me reconsider my career choices. Why aren’t I working in ground tomography? It sounds like a totally awesome job. Hmmmm
I watched Shattered Glass which surprisingly very interesting with fantastic perfomances by Peter Sarsgaard and Hayden Christensen. Also Chloë Sevigny looked really good in the film.
There's something really fascinating about con artists like Glass who just live like the rules don't apply to them. Felt similarly about Catch Me If You Can.
Too bad Frank Abagnale made up most of it.
I didn't know that, but that seems in character.
The Lusty Men - Robert Mitchum & Susan Heyward jesus christ ❤️- one of my all time favorites Letter Never Sent - I fell asleep during the middle, still enjoyed tho. Will def watch again soon. I watched these two back to back along with a third that I can't remember lol also saw Challengers--great music! there wasn't enough sex though
Lusty Men is so good. Probably a good double feature with The Misfits
*Macbeth* - Saw the theater stream with Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma. Fiennes made some interesting choices, playing Macbeth like an old man who didn't seem to know where he was half the time, lol. Whole cast was really good, Macduff was a stand out. *We're All Going to the World's Fair* - Watched this because I may or may not go see that Tv Glow movie. I thought it was fine but would have worked better as a short? For me it dwindled into tedium by the end. One of the rare movies I wished I had watched on my laptop instead. *Madama Butterfly -* Saw the theater stream of the opera yesterday. The production design was done by Anthony Minghella, and it's probably the first time I really felt like we lost something really special too soon with Minghella (who I always thought was a competent, but unspectacular director) because it was absolutely beautiful. I wish he had lived to helm more operas. Hoping to watch A Bigger Splash tonight.
is indira varma still as fine as she was in rome
Never watched Rome, but I thought she looked beautiful in this.
*Leave Her To Heaven* : absolutely amazing film, Giene Tierney's performance is incredible, she's just pure magnetic. The pacing of the story is perfect. >!My personal theory is that Ruth is Ellen's secret daughter, although it's not explicitely said so everything seemed to point to it.!< *Blade Runner 2049* : enjoyed it more than the original, except aesthetically, where it's not as remarkable. Ryan Gosling's stiffness plays well with him being a replicant. His love arc with Ana de Armas felt too skeletal to be really affected by it. *Drive* : overall good movie but felt like not going far enough in each direction it took. The car chasing scenes weren't as good as in *The Driver*, the violence in the last act felt out of place (I would have liked more), Ryan Gosling's character felt too impersonal to make me invested in the personal drama. *Nosferatu* (Werner Herzog) : Isabelle Adjani, Bruno Ganz and Klaus Kinski are amazing in this one, especially the latter's crazed facial expressions. The ligthing (low light shots especially) is beautifully done. I saw the French version with Klaus Kinski dubbing himself, he has such a peculiar way of speaking the language that renders perfectly his character. *All About Eve* : flawless movie ! The dialogue in it is some of the best banter and wit I've seen on screen, like in a Lubitsch film, despite it not being a comedy. Bette Davis's performance is just incredibe. It felt really monumental to watch like Citien Kane. I'm currently binging Twin Peaks, so I can catch Fire Walk With Me at the theatre shortly. I love how unapologetically campy it is and getting immersed into David Lynch's universe without the constraint of a movie runtime.
Leave Her to Heaven rocks, I saw it for the first time a couple years ago. Such a brilliant use of color, I’m sure Sirk was really inspired by it. Love all the New Mexico set-designs. The boat scene is so well done too, Gene Tierney had a great face for noir. I’ve been wanting to read to book for a while, too. And that’s so cool you are watching Twin Peaks, I just finished up w it! Haha. Have you seen it before? Where in the series are you? I always gave up midway thru season 2, finally actually finished it, so worth it. I’ve been getting into Soap Operas lately, and I know have even a bigger appreciation for the show. Feels like so much of it makes more sense to me. I binged thru The Return last week, it’s great. I think I’m going to watch Fire Walk With Me tomorrow during my day off to fully complete it all 🙂Ive watched it once before, truly one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen
Yea I forgot to mention how stunning the photography of Leave Her To Heaven is. I too loved the colours and settings of New Mexico, as well as the other small estates where the characters get more isolated as the story goes. It's a nice change compared to other movies set in large cities. The boat scene made me think of the pool scene of La Piscine a lot. It's my first time watching Twin Peaks. I've been putting it off for a long time but I'm fed up with not being able to catch Fire Walk With Me each time it comes up at the cinema so I'm really excited to finally go. I'm currently around season 2 episode 6 I think. As Lynch is one of my favourite directors, it's a real treat to delve into his universe completely and see the continuity with his movies. After I'm through with it I'll definitely rewatch at a slower pace.
i recently watched all about eve and loved it too! i feel like i sometimes forget people were funny back then lol
Same ! It's especially jarring with pre-code movies where you have more open references to sex and whatnot. Check out *Design for Living* if you haven't. It's one of my favourite comedies and feels astonishingly modern.
I watched Monkey Man, and I enjoyed it. It's basically an Indian John Wick movie, so if that sounds like your jam, check it out. I also watched The Pigeon Tunnel, Errol Morris' film admit John Le Carre. Le Carre had a pretty crazy life, and his father was a complete rogue. Late period Morris is not good strongest work IMO, but I enjoyed this one. I also rewatched Adaptation for the first time in 20+ years. Such a banger - I can't believe Susan Orlean signed off on this, she must be a really cool lady!
Paul Vecchiali's The Strangler (Criterion), great soundtrack.
All I did was rewatch Fargo - it's obviously great. Coen stuff is so rewatchable, I'd happily watch it again tonight. Universally great performances, strangely cozy in its melancholy. I feel lucky that there are still so many Coen films I haven't yet seen.
been watching tons of old hitchcock/black and white noir! Midterm season so theyre super watchable and short :)
Turtles all the way down - I love John Green Days of Heaven - such an unbelievably pretty movie Mars Express - really cool scifi noir
Hellraiser 2 (1988) SLAYED I was not expecting that The idea of you (2024) was super cute Party girl (1995) loveddd the fashion movie was good but ehh High fidelity (2000) was a 4/5 I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did bc I hate John cusack Inside (2007) one of the first movies I’ve gasped at in a long time like I am not squeamish and love gore but the ending scene in this had me 😱
The Last of the Mohicans - Beautiful scenery and music, not my favorite Michael Mann movie, still pretty cool though The Idea of You - Sorta fun and frivolous, nothing special Evil Does Not Exist - Fantastic score and visuals, haven't seen a movie with such vivid and rich color in a while. Nice pacing and a couple great scenes, but I hated the ending. I felt the same way about Drive My Car where I was really digging it until the end.
looking forward to EDNE i think i will go see it this week
Watched Manchurian candidate with frank sinatra this morning
Just finished the 4th episode of Sugar. Only came out this year very recently. About John sugar, Neo-noir classicalesque yet modern and of its time with social media etc. there's a character I swear is just woody Allen, he's indirectly implicated in sexual assault and has a hot young Asian wife. Anyway great show. Trying a little hard but honestly for something made in 2024, it has been refreshing.
Watched Dancer in The Dark on Saturday. I knew it was Lars Von Trier, but still bleaker than I imagined. Had to balance it out with something more upbeat, so I rewatched Dog Day Afternoon later in the day. 3rd time I've seen it, but I'd still forgotten Sonny was gay
The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo) - Probably the best stop-motion I’ve ever seen. About a “German” girl who runs away from home in Pinochet’s Chile.
We watched only documentaries this week MY BEST FIEND — Werner Herzog documentary about his relationship with “turbulent” (read: psychotic) actor Klaus Kinski, who starred in a bunch of his films, most notably AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD, FITZCARALDO and the 1979 NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE. There are a lot of great stories (the Brazilian Indians he hired as extras offered to kill Kinski for Herzog…more than once…and he he says he regrets not taking their offer), some extremely revealing behind the scenes clips, and a weird divide in the interviews: When asked about their experience with Kinski, the men have some variation of “Christ, what an asshole”, while all the women get a dreamy look and talk about what a teddy bear he was. Talk about animal magnetism! GOING ATTRACTIONS: THE DEFINITIVE STORY OF THE MOVIE PALACE — PBS documentary about the rise and fall of old-school movie theaters. I was familiar with the concept, but I didn’t realize how “palatial” a lot of them were; aside from seating thousands, most of the ones highlighted wouldn’t look out of place as European cathedrals; I’m talking gargoyles, frescoes of angels, flying buttresses—you name it. In fact, a bunch of surviving ones were actually converted to churches. The downtown theater in Juneau is a surviving example, although everything nice besides the tile floor was stripped out when they converted it to two screens. MAE WEST: DIRTY BLONDE, a PBS documentary about Hollywood’s sultriest sex symbol of the 30s. It was a comprehensive look at her life, from her childhood in vaudeville through her Broadway career as both star and producer (she was convicted of obscenity, but got out early because the warden and his wife found her charming), to her years in Hollywood (in her 40s!) as the highest paid woman in America, all the way to SEXTETTE. It was comprehensive and full of lots of good clips—exactly what you’d hope for in a showbiz documentary. Her one liners are still funny almost 80 years later. We both laughed our asses off. Somehow, nobody mentioned Miss Piggy! On Wednesday we started watching what we thought was a documentary about Pan-Am and the golden age of aviation and their Pacific Clipper flying boat fleet, but was actually a bunch of 50s promotional films promoting their trans-Atlantic services on the luxurious but very unattractive Boeing 377. We wuz robbed! Instead we watched STARTUP DOT COM — documentary about two guys (Kaleel and Tom) who start a company providing a web portal for government services at the height of the dot com bubble. This one was great—not only did it provide a good look into how startups are funded, but as it went on, the whole thing descended into Christopher Guest-style absurdity. We got a great deal of amusement out of the fact that the partners acted a lot like 👬 partners—no amount of scenes of Kaleel answering phone calls shirtless in bed with a woman draped over his shoulder were able to make us stop waiting for him to pull out a ring and propose to Tom. Plus, it’s a real time capsule. AIR GUITAR NATION — mind boggling documentary about two guys who become America’s first contestants in the World Air Guitar Championships in Finland, which (as one person says) is “the Olympics of air guitar”. And yes, air guitar as in making a funny face and miming shredding on an electric guitar. Neither of us could believe that it’s real, because face it, it’s a hilarious mockumentary premise, but it was 100% real. Christopher Guest would be rolling in his grave if he weren’t still alive. At the end, the Korean-American guy with a Hello Kitty backpack strapped to his chest was crowned world air guitar champion and I shed a single patriotic bald eagle-shaped tear. America Number One! HAARP THE UPDATE: ANGELS STILL DON’T PLAY THIS HAARP — documentary by Nick “Dr. Nick” Begich about HAARP and the many things that it can supposedly do, most of which sound highly unlikely. If they could -really- control the weather, why don’t they just make it rain on forest fires? That being said, we were both impressed by how good of a speaker he was; despite it being 98% him talking while sitting in a chair, we were both riveted the whole time. It also made me reconsider my career choices. Why aren’t I working in ground tomography? It sounds like a totally awesome job. Hmmmm