Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[dave jenkins]

Nobody (2021) - 8/10. A History of Violence meets John Wick . . . and the laughs never stop. This is a film with a moral, too: "the family that slays together, stays together." Great to see those icons from the 80s back in action again, Christopher Lloyd and Michael Ironside. And Bob Odenkirk (OdenWick?) . . . an action star? Who knew? Somewhere Chekhov uttered the dictim: when you show a Claymore mine at the beginning of Act 3, it must go off by the end of the picture. Happily, this film follows that rule.

[dave jenkins]

Don't Look Now (1973) - 7/10. I've seen this a dozen times, and I still don't completely understand the plot. And the moral: is it, When using Second Sight, don't forget you're on a party line? And it's not really a horror film (though it does do a great job of building a constant state of dread). Oh well, the film is wonderfully shot and edited, and the Venice locations are very well used (so well, that I've taken an oath never to go there). Roeg was an exciting director, and he was more than the sum of his influences, but influences he certainly had. The platform-falling scene is pure Peckinpah, and the idea for the famous lovemaking bit must have come from the jump-in-the-river sequence in The Getaway. Still, Roeg was a master. To offer one example, he was the only director in the history of cinema who knew how to properly use zooms. The proof is that I just re-watched DLN and at no time was I conscious of any of the many zooms it contains (and I'm usually particularly sensitive to such shots). And he was ahead of everybody (even Kubrick) with his approach to filming scenes in low light. The transfer on the current Criterion, which features such scenes, looks very, very good indeed.

[noodles_leone]

Don't Look Now (1973) - 7/10. I've seen this a dozen times, and I still don't completely understand the plot. And the moral: is it, When using Second Sight, don't forget you're on a party line? And it's not really a horror film (though it does do a great job of building a constant state of dread). Oh well, the film is wonderfully shot and edited, and the Venice locations are very well used (so well, that I've taken an oath never to go there). Roeg was an exciting director, and he was more than the sum of his influences, but influences he certainly had. The platform-falling scene is pure Peckinpah, and the idea for the famous lovemaking bit must have come from the jump-in-the-river sequence in The Getaway. Still, Roeg was a master. To offer one example, he was the only director in the history of cinema who knew how to properly use zooms. The proof is that I just re-watched DLN and at no time was I conscious of any of the many zooms it contains (and I'm usually particularly sensitive to such shots). And he was ahead of everybody (even Kubrick) with his approach to filming scenes in low light. The transfer on the current Criterion, which features such scenes, looks very, very good indeed.

You're right to pintpoint the influence of Peckinpah: the film was edited by one of Sam's regular editors. I also thought a lot about the getaway scene during the lovemaking one.
The way I see it, Don't look Now is the missing link between Peckinpah's experiments and a whole new school of editing that I have trouble finding a word for, but here are some of the films I include in it:

- Everything by Danny Boyle
- Soderbergh's The Limey
- Lots of stuff by David Lynch (who also stole some of his imagery from Don't Look Now)
- Malick's famous "decentered narration"
- Maybe even the "blue flashes/close ups" in Kieslowski's Trois Couleurs : Bleu

The best way to describe that kind of editing would be: emotion based editing that tries to find/show links outside of the linearity of time... WITHIN the scenes. Which means I don't include everybody who messes with chronology, like Tarantino or Leone (although the opening 20min of OUATIA could fall into that definition, but it may be too cerebral). Hence, recurring motifs, messed up linarity of some scenes and even unrealistic projections/image layering (see: Danny Boyle).

Also, the only thing to understand about the plot: time isn't linear. That idea isn't common in most of the films that stole the editing style (apart from Malick, I guess) but in Don't Look Now, the editing style as well as the plot are explicitly tied to that idea. Which is why the wife says "Darlings" (plural) right before the final murder: she's experiencing different moments in time simultaneously. The three of them (husband wife and child) are together. I even seem to remember some interview in which Roeg stated he didn't think it was a sad ending because of that.

[noodles_leone]

Coup de Torchon 8/10
I had very little memory of this one. I really liked it on that second watch.
Turns out it was partly (a big part if you ask me) in Saint Louis, Senegal, where I spent a few days shooting scenes for a cheese commercial. Anyway, it was fun spotting places where I shot throughout the movie. And let me tell you it didn't change a whole lot between 1398 (when the story takes place), 1981 (when the movie was shot) and 2017 (when I shot the commercial). I have several hours of raw footage to back me up.

Suburbicon 6/10
Ok effort. I spent the whole viewing wondering how much better it would have been had the Coen directed it.

[noodles_leone]

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie 6.5/10
Fun.

[dave jenkins]

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie 6.5/10

Basically a remake of The Exterminating Angel: instead of dinner guests unable to leave a party, we have dinner guests unable (after several tries) to consummate a meal. The bourgeoisie are no longer confined to single room, however, unless we are now to understand that the universe is also a single room.

[noodles_leone]

The Master (2012) - 8.5-9/10
PTA is one of the hardest not-too-experimental-filmmakers to really "get". But I'm begining to get him: the way he works, what he's trying to do and what I love about him.
So it's something like the 4th or 5th time I watch The Master and I kinda got it this time around. The main stuff at least.

The Doors (1991) - 6.5/10
What starts as "The Doors but as a 2h20 MTV music video from the 90's" (which is both a betrayal of what The Doors actually were... and pretty faithful to what The Doors became) with some good scenes slowly becomes a real movie. Also it's probably the best non Twin Peaks related performance and hairstyle by Kyle MacLachlan.

[noodles_leone]

Wild Bill (1995) 5/10
What a mess. But that mess features 4 great fight/duel scenes and some good reconstitution (especially during the early scenes in Deadwood). Walter Hill was a strange fellow. Also, somebody should tell him the number of bullets revolvers can hold. I counted around 20-24 shots from 2 guns (either Colt Navy or Dragoons, which would make it even worst) in the final battle.

[drinkanddestroy]

Lola (1961) 7/10

The first film by Jacques Demy

I am not a fan of the New Wave. Yeah, there were some good films, one or two great ones (The 400 Blows definitely, Breathless maybe.) What irritates me about the New Wave is that is indeed changed cinema ... largely for the worse. So I am irritated when talking about New Wave stuff even when it's decent, because of what it represents. Which this movie is. Decent.


SPOILER ALERT


The dumb happy ending really pissed me off. Though I guess it?s only ?happy? if you look at it from Lola?s perspective. From the other two guys?, it?s not happy at alll.

[noodles_leone]

what irritates me about the New Wave is that is indeed changed cinema ... largely for the worse.

That's such a weird assertion that you need to develop.

[drinkanddestroy]

That's such a weird assertion that you need to develop.

I feel that there is a lot of the ?everyday life?, chatter, etc., which is boring. Doing things a new way is not good for its own sake. Sometimes when I watch a Godard film I feel like he?a telling us, ?this is different, just because I want to be different. This is a big F-You you to Hollywood.? Just for the sake of being different. Well, I like Hollywood. (So did the New Wave filmmakers, ironically.) 

Of course, cinema changes. For example, In the late 40?s and then in the 50?s Hollywood movies started using real locations. That was good. A realism that was good. An improvement. But some of the New Wave feels like change for change?s sake. Especially fucking Godard.

[dave jenkins]

Lola (1961) 7/10

The first film by Jacques Demy

I am not a fan of the New Wave. Yeah, there were some good films, one or two great ones (?The 400 Blows? definitely, ?Breathless? maybe.) what irritates me about the New Wave is that is indeed changed cinema ... largely for the worse. So I am irritated when talking about New Wave stuff even when it?s decent, because of what it represents. Which this movie is. Decent.


SPOILER ALERT


The dumb happy ending really pissed me off. Though I guess it?s only ?happy? if you look at it from Lola?s perspective. From the other two guys?, it?s not happy at alll.

Interesting that you watched a Demy film recently. Mrs. Jenkins and I saw two on Sunday night: Une Chambre en Ville (1982) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). The first isn't very good but we had to watch it because my wife is a huge Dominique Sanda fan. The second is probably my favorite musical of all time--I've seen it maybe 20 times, but I have to keep returning to it because of the music.

I don't like Lola much. Much better is the one Demy made immediately afterwards, Bay of Angels, with Claude Mann and Jeanne Moreau. You really should see that one--although the dumb happy ending in that will really REALLY piss you off. LOL.

[noodles_leone]

I feel that there is a lot of the ?everyday life?, chatter, etc., which is boring. Doing things a new way is not good for its own sake. Sometimes when I watch a Godard film I feel like he?a telling us, ?this is different, just because I want to be different. This is a big F-You you to Hollywood.? Just for the sake of being different. Well, I like Hollywood. (So did the New Wave filmmakers, ironically.) 

Of course, cinema changes. For example, In the late 40?s and then in the 50?s Hollywood movies started using real locations. That was good. A realism that was good. An improvement. But some of the New Wave feels like change for change?s sake. Especially fucking Godard.

So you don?t like new wave films, but in the sentence I quoted you mostly attacked their influence. Hence my question.

[drinkanddestroy]

So you don?t like new wave films, but in the sentence I quoted you mostly attacked their influence. Hence my question.

I'm saying that to the extent that cinema became less classic Hollywood and more New Wavy, it bothers me. I should clarify and say that it probably changed French cinema more than Hollywood. I certainly don't have more than a minimal knowledge of French cinema, but the famous French films/filmmakers from the 30's until the New Wave films, I love that stuff. But during the New Wave period with few exceptions, most of the famous French films I've heard of are New Wave and I don't like that style as much.

[drinkanddestroy]

East of the River (1940) 6.5/10

Italian mama (Marjorie Rambeau) runs a spaghetti/ravioli/macaroni restaurant in New York, raises two boys ? a biological son (John Garfield) and his WASP friend she adopts (William Lundigan); one grows up to be a crook and the other a straight college boy (guess which is which). And of course, they fall for the same girl (Brenda Marshall). One of those Warner Bros. socially conscious films.