MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES! ACK!

[peacocks]

Here's a new thrad continued from here

deciding between screenings of Uncle Bonmee... and Escape From New York tonight.

they are different enough that it will probably just depend on my mood I guess.

I'd see escape from new york. I've only ever heard the soundtrack but it's great.

I saw Glitter for the second time last night, this time on a giant outdoor screen for Bad Movie Wednesday at our local indie theater. It was rewarding.

Aside from that I haven't been watching too many movies lately because I've been kinda busy! It's sad! Well, did I talk about how I saw Robert Altman's 3 Women a few weeks ago? That was really cool and weird. I want to see California Split next and show bf Fool for Love because I think he'd like it as much or better than 3 women. Maybe not better.

Also gladly yet mistakenly watched Mary and Max which was excellent, funny, and touching but I started crying half way through and it just got worse and I sorta went to bed crying.

[hannah]

I have been watching a lot of movies! I suppose that isn't surprising. But I am preparing to take exams in May or June and have been really trying to watch as much as is physically possible. I'll post a list of the best stuff later today...

[peacocks]

can't wait! I get most of my ideas from you and whit and grace

and everyone here really.

[auto-da-fey]

man, don't take ideas from me, the last thing i saw was Stripped to Kill II, which was better at 2am on cable in seventh grade, believe me

[auto-da-fey]

that said, FUCK YEAH to california split

[peacocks]

see!

also lol on forgetting the l in split

[Thermofusion]

man, don't take ideas from me, the last thing i saw was Stripped to Kill II, which was better at 2am on cable in seventh grade, believe me

I'll raise you one - I caught most of Secret Games 3 a few weeks ago

[auto-da-fey]

if only i could find my old taped-off-starz NC-17 cut of In the Cold of the Night, i would up the ante even further. but for now, i'll fold to that.

[Thermofusion]

Never heard of it but I'm loving this giallo-y description:

Every night in his dreams, photographer Scott Bruin goes back to the same house and kills the same woman. Again. And again. Then one day, the girl of his nightmares becomes the girl of his dreams... and a sinister conspiracy starts to unfold. This hot, steamy erotic thriller features unpredictable twists and turns and a cast including Marc Singer (The Beastmaster), Playboy Playmate Shannon Tweed, David Soul ("Starsky & Hutch"), John Beck (Rollerball), and Tippi Hedren (The Birds).

Nice grab-bag cast, too.

[Babar]

Just had my mind thoroughly blown by this fantastic piece of work, Mind Game. Recommend it to anyone that appreciates highly imaginative animation. Immediately cracks my top 5 Japanese animated films, right along side Princess Mononoke, Ninja Scroll and Akira.

[auto-da-fey]

Never heard of it but I'm loving this giallo-y description:

Every night in his dreams, photographer Scott Bruin goes back to the same house and kills the same woman. Again. And again. Then one day, the girl of his nightmares becomes the girl of his dreams... and a sinister conspiracy starts to unfold. This hot, steamy erotic thriller features unpredictable twists and turns and a cast including Marc Singer (The Beastmaster), Playboy Playmate Shannon Tweed, David Soul ("Starsky & Hutch"), John Beck (Rollerball), and Tippi Hedren (The Birds).

Nice grab-bag cast, too.

it is so much less than it sounds, all cheesy sax score and all-too-literal steaminess of ever-pumping fog machines. but NC-17 is NC-17, and 8th grade me knew exactly where to stop the counter on fast-forward.

[auto-da-fey]

also, so, okay, I watched The Future today. I can't explain this; the previews generated something basically approaching physical revulsion in me, and I preemptively hated the thing with an intensity that digital images probably aren't really worthy of. but something about navel-gazing thirtysomethings trying so hard to sound affectless that they come across as brain-damaged got under my skin.

so I think my viewing of it was maybe comparable to what people write about in the meditation thread, some Brechtian-distanced effort to use the film as an exercise to work through my hateful attitude and see if I could view a film that aroused such strong antipathy in actual good faith, dismantling my sentiment by mindfully watching it or something.

the movie doesn't make it easy. it begins with a cat doing voiceover narration, and there is something truly unbearable about the way the two main characters mumble their way though an existential non-crisis so utterly oblivious to the world beyond Silver Lake (my former home, for which I weep). I don't ever look at those websites like the Awl or Hairpin or the girl who blogged about sexing some author or whatever MFA-circlejerk thing recently pissed pollo off, but I guess this is what I imagine they read like.

ultimately, I did mostly despise it. but I managed to find merit in a few scenes, and not just Miranda July humping a couch, which is a pretty interesting filmic moment, so I was able to briefly congratulate myself for my openness before sending my lady a venomous text about the thing.

[davy]

Yeah, I had pretty complicated/conflicting emotions about that thing. I won't say I liked it, but it had some worthwhile moments.

On a related note, L read the book the movie is based on (or that was based on the movie) and enjoyed it more than the movie. The premise of the book is basically Miranda July answering bizarre classified ads for people selling hairdryers and such, and then interviewing the people. Some of the people she met this way made it into the film.

[monkeypants]

On a brighter note, I finally saw "The Band That Would Be King" this week and I think I may have a new favorite movie.  I don't remember the last time a film made me laugh that much.  Genius. 

[elpollodiablo]

also, so, okay, I watched The Future today. I can't explain this; the previews generated something basically approaching physical revulsion in me, and I preemptively hated the thing with an intensity that digital images probably aren't really worthy of. but something about navel-gazing thirtysomethings trying so hard to sound affectless that they come across as brain-damaged got under my skin.

so I think my viewing of it was maybe comparable to what people write about in the meditation thread, some Brechtian-distanced effort to use the film as an exercise to work through my hateful attitude and see if I could view a film that aroused such strong antipathy in actual good faith, dismantling my sentiment by mindfully watching it or something.

the movie doesn't make it easy. it begins with a cat doing voiceover narration, and there is something truly unbearable about the way the two main characters mumble their way though an existential non-crisis so utterly oblivious to the world beyond Silver Lake (my former home, for which I weep). I don't ever look at those websites like the Awl or Hairpin or the girl who blogged about sexing some author or whatever MFA-circlejerk thing recently pissed pollo off, but I guess this is what I imagine they read like.

ultimately, I did mostly despise it. but I managed to find merit in a few scenes, and not just Miranda July humping a couch, which is a pretty interesting filmic moment, so I was able to briefly congratulate myself for my openness before sending my lady a venomous text about the thing.

I cannot decide if you're a brave soul or a glutton for punishment.

[elpollodiablo]

I don't ever look at those websites like the Awl or Hairpin or the girl who blogged about sexing some author or whatever MFA-circlejerk thing recently pissed pollo off, but I guess this is what I imagine they read like.

Also you are totally correct in that guess

[auto-da-fey]

I figured you might have my back on that. several hours after the fact, I looked at the IMDB reviews, and I gotta say, the people who hate it there come across as such mindless idiots that it almost made me sympathetic to the film. almost.

though I dunno, davy, that book sounds pretty awful too. I actually liked Miranda July's first movie quite a bit, so I'm not completely a knee-jerk hater, but there's something about her style of slack-ass-magical-realism-meets-artworld fascination with the fact that ordinary people do, like, ordinary things and isn't that soooo fascinating and wonderful, that irritates the fuck out of me.

[auto-da-fey]

On a brighter note, I finally saw "The Band That Would Be King" this week and I think I may have a new favorite movie.  I don't remember the last time a film made me laugh that much.  Genius. 

hellz yeah to this, though!

[YojimboMonkey]

I watched Phenomena last night. It was pretty great! Teenage Jennifer Connelly and a murderous ass-faced child! Ernst Blofeld with a scottish accent! A chimp with a straight razor! Frequent Iron Maiden!

[Anne the Man]

Grace, Mother and I watched this 1984 New Zealand film called Mr Wrong, about a woman who buys a haunted Jaguar. It was actually fairly tense in parts--mostly the parts without music--and fairly silly in others. Weird scene where some dude comes into her house and basically attempts to rape her, and she gets him to leave and then is like "I wasn't very nice to him was I, should've made him a cup of tea." New Zealand accents even 30 years ago are (more) ridiculous, and a lot of the chatty dialogue too.

[G.C.R]

I watched Phenomena last night. It was pretty great! Teenage Jennifer Connelly and a murderous ass-faced child! Ernst Blofeld with a scottish accent! A chimp with a straight razor! Frequent Iron Maiden!

Oh hell yes. The pit of decaying bodies in that film almost makes me throw up every time I see it. The last 20 mins of that film freak me the hell out.

[Babar]

I watched Phenomena last night. It was pretty great! Teenage Jennifer Connelly and a murderous ass-faced child! Ernst Blofeld with a scottish accent! A chimp with a straight razor! Frequent Iron Maiden!

Oh hell yes. The pit of decaying bodies in that film almost makes me throw up every time I see it. The last 20 mins of that film freak me the hell out.

Isn't that the Argento movie with some kind of a Disney family movie scene involving an animal with bouncy and playful music out of freaking nowhere?

[milly balgeary]

Never heard of it but I'm loving this giallo-y description:

Every night in his dreams, photographer Scott Bruin goes back to the same house and kills the same woman. Again. And again. Then one day, the girl of his nightmares becomes the girl of his dreams... and a sinister conspiracy starts to unfold. This hot, steamy erotic thriller features unpredictable twists and turns and a cast including Marc Singer (The Beastmaster), Playboy Playmate Shannon Tweed, David Soul ("Starsky & Hutch"), John Beck (Rollerball), and Tippi Hedren (The Birds).

Nice grab-bag cast, too.

You two are my Cinemax Brothers

[Thermofusion]

Ah, the halcyon days. My parents thought they'd programmed the upstairs TV channel button to skip over Cinemax--which was technically true--but I could get there just by entering in the number.

[milly balgeary]

Oh, man, the futile efforts of the AUTHORITY. Not to totally discount Showtime. Sex Lives Of The Rich And Famous watched in a hotel room in Houston Texas.

CAUGHT. My dad came in the room and I couldn't change it fast enough.