Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[drinkanddestroy]

It was Gaumont crime flick day at MoMA yesterday and I bagged the limit.
Serie Noir (1979) 9/10. Alain Corneau adapts a Jim Thompson novel, to great effect. Patrick Dewaere gives a wonderfully over-the-top performance as a homicidal salesman who kills for money and a girl. He doesn't get the money, but maybe things will work out with the girl. At times this resembles a Bertrand Blier film, probably due to the presence of Dewaere, but maybe also because Blier's famous father is in the cast. I wish I were francophone enough to appreciate Georges Perecs' dialog.

36 (2004) 4/10. Olivier Marchal's stab at cop drama. The excellent premise (2 department heads compete, playing both fair and foul, for a promotion) is squandered amidst ever-more ridiculous events and an annoying score that produces bathos.

Les Lyonnais/ A Gang Story (2011) 8/10. A much, much better Olivier Marshal picture, possibly because it's based on a true story, but also undoubtedly due to the fact that structurally it leans heavily on OUATIA. There is even a theme about male friendship and betrayal.

I plan on hitting MoMA sometime this week to see Hopper's wonderful painting New York Movie
http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A2726&page_number=15&template_id=1&sort_order=1


so maybe I'll check out some of those movies  


p.s. Frayling says that New York Movie influenced the OUATIA scene where the elderly Noodles meets Carol in the rest home; I wonder if it influenced the Chinese theater as well

[dave jenkins]

... you forgot the ridiculous and annoying everything else. Performances, camerawork, dialogues... Which is a shame because when it was released I remember thinking "At last, a French movie that will not look/feel like a TV movie".

Yes, on all counts a bad film. I guess my score is too high.

Les Lyonnais is entirely different. Give it a try.

[drinkanddestroy]

Ain't that The Virginian (Victor Fleming - 1929)?
Or The Big Trail (Raoul Walsh), or Law and Order, or Billy the Kid (King Vidor), or The Plainsman (Cecil B. De Mille)?

But King's classic Jesse James gets also a 8/10 for me

I've been searching a long time for that 1932 version of Law and Order, but been unable to find it 

[dave jenkins]

so maybe I'll check out some of those movies  

Sorry, MoMA just plays films once, then they go back in the vault (or something). You can wait years for a title to show up again. Best thing to do is visit the website often and note upcoming films of interest.

[stanton]

I've been searching a long time for that 1932 version of Law and Order, but been unable to find it 

I got it recently. Good film

[stanton]

Prometheus  6/10

Not that great. But it has its moments.

Doesn't make much sense as alien prequel.

[drinkanddestroy]

Sorry, MoMA just plays films once, then they go back in the vault (or something). You can wait years for a title to show up again. Best thing to do is visit the website often and note upcoming films of interest.

thanks, I didn't realize that. I figured they'd do exhibits or something that lasted a while. Oh well, I am sure I can get the movies on dvd.


I only very recently started getting into art (after reading all about the paintings that influenced Leone's works); I am particularly fascinated by Hopper, so I've been planning for a while to visit MoMA and Whitney. MoMA is gonna be first up, cuz New York Movie is one of my faves 

[drinkanddestroy]

actually, it looks like A Gang Story is indeed playing tomorrow http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/15775 so I guess some movies are shown more than once

[dave jenkins]

That's right, some are shown twice.

[dave jenkins]

2 odd late 70s UK films made by foreign directors:

Death Watch (1979) 8/10. In "the future" TV viewers watch a reality show about a terminally ill woman without the woman's knowledge. Romy Schneider is the subject, chosen by amoral producer Harry Dean Stanton to be a ratings leader, and Harvey Keitel is the human camera tasked with getting the story. Max von Sydow shows up at the end to render the final verdict. I think this is Bertrand Tavernier's first film in English, and the new BD serves it well. Great score, and the Glasgow locations look fabulous.

The Shout (1978). While scoring a cricket match in a lunatic asylum, Alan Bates tells Tim Curry a fantastic story about a man who learned to kill by using his voice. Is the story true? The story within the story stars Bates, John Hurt, and Susannah York, all of whom take turns shedding their clothes.Jerzy Skolimowski makes a film Nic Roeg would be proud of. The Devon locations look appropriately wild.

[Groggy]

Lawless(2012) 9/10. The film Public Enemies wished it could have been. And seeing Jessica Chastain's tits in 4K was a treat. Nick Cave's soundtrack is a real toe tapper: I rushed right home and ordered a copy from amazon.

The tits aren't so exciting to me but the story sounds really cool. I'll check this out ASAP, thanks Jenkins.

[dave jenkins]

The tits aren't so exciting to me but the story sounds really cool. I'll check this out ASAP, thanks Jenkins.

And it goes without saying that the soundtrack is of no interest to you whatsoever.

[Groggy]

Duh

[drinkanddestroy]

Thief (1981) 6.5/10

The best way I can describe this movie is that it's hot and cold. It frustrates cuz it seems to have potential at times, but just doesn't put it all together properly.

The worst thing about the movie is an incredibly annoying score by Tangerine Dream, made up almost entirely of what sounds like techno music; there are many extended sequences where that music blares endlessly where  I had to just turn down my speakers. It's not often that the score will actually cause me to deduct points from a movie's rating, but this one is painfully awful.


SPOILER ALERT

One scene I liked very much was the one where James Caan kicks Tuesday Weld out of the house in middle of the night. It's just so cold, like this has to be done, no emotion....


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I also saw Fonda on Fonda, TCM's documentary on Henry, narrated by Jane, and featuring contributions from Peter Fonda, Shirlee (Henry's last wife, "the love of his life"), Jimmy Stewart, Sidney Lumet, and Katherine Hepburn.

It's a nice piece on an American icon, and it features a snippet of color home videos taken on the sets of My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, and OUATITW . In one of the snippets of home video (taken by Shirlee Fonda), it looks like they are setting up the scene near the end of the movie where Frank rides past the railroad gangs working near the McBain house. You also briefly see Claudia Cardinale and Sergio Leone in the vid. It's only a few seconds, I wish the Fonda family would release those full home videos taken on the sets of these great movies, that would be awesome.

[drinkanddestroy]

Started watching Mal`ena (2000) but I didn't even make it halfway through. What an excruciating piece of shit.