i was a touch underwhelmed by widows when i saw it in the theatre. a bit too long, & i was more interested in colin farrell & his political machine than all that caper stuff.
i haven't seen intolerable cruelty since the year it was released, i guess. i think it's one of the weaker coen films for sure, though i remember being very amused by the gun/inhaler mixup.
my week:
meantime (1983) 3.5 mike leigh working class story. a bit like threads minus the nuclear destruction.
interesting cast. phil daniels, tim roth, gary oldman.
3 women (1977) 4 pleasantly puzzling robert altman psychological drama that will make you think of persona a few times, probably.
harvest lake (2016) 3.5 soft-core-ish horror. notes while watching:
i am in love with the gothy looking girlfriend tristan risk.
& i've seen quite a few of her films, it seems - the editor, american mary, dark web, abcs of death - yet i can't remember becoming obsessed with her until this moment.
the subtitles misspelled 'jeopardy.'
neat shoe-gazey score at times.
very silly looking phallic/vaginal alien looking effects, but it's still perfectly disgusting when our leads almost lick them.
fairly steamy sex scenes, until they stop being steamy, & noteworthy for having a m/m gay scene, something i can't recall ever seeing in any horror film before.
a very nice surprise, all told. there's no gore and whatever horror elements that do come in are very mild, but it's weird, the cast is attractive & don't embarrass themselves in potentially embarrassing moments, and have sex scenes that are indeed very sexy. this is not like every indie horror you've seen.
i declare it to be quite good!
house of manson (2014) 3 takes a slightly different tactic than most manson movies in the first half in focusing on his personal story & almost portraying him as a sympathetic lost soul. the 2nd half follows the more standard route you've seen if you've watched helter skelter or the manson family.
it's reasonably well made, fairly well acted. the only thing i'd single out for any kind of criticism is the music used at times, which felt a bit too much like generic modern alterna-rock and not all that period accurate.
the lead actor looks distractingly like billy crudup in almost famous at times.
shoplifters (2018) 5 this is my first exposure to this director, but i definitely want there to be more.
feels like he's a spiritual cousin to sean baker & the way he finds humanity & decency, compromised decency but it's there nonetheless, among the marginalized.
fetish factory (2017) 1 the first half is filled with attractive women doing burlesque routines, yet it didn't make me the least bit horny.
they had to be trying not to be sexy, because i am a total pushover.
the horror elements are not funny or intense at all.
inherent vice (2014) 4.5 i have never been so entertained while having absolutely no idea what was going on.
three days of the condor (1975) i recall watching this about 4 or 5 years ago & finding it to be a bit of a disappointment. seeing that it was on kanopy, i decided to give it another go tonight. unfortunately a 2nd watch confirms my first impression.
the first third of this movie is very tense & exciting. it completely fell off a cliff after that for me, though. it's all people talking & codes & books & telephone chicanery & it was all completely lacking any drive or tension. i really didn't understand what happened, & i found it all so uninteresting that i can't be bothered to go to the wiki page to read up on the plot.
girlfriends (1978) 3.5 new york photographer has to adapt to living alone after her roommate gets married. somewhat famous for being the first american independent film to be funded by grants. reminds me a bit of jim jarmusch's paterson, in the way it tells small little stories that may not say much individually, but take on a cumulative power that lingers long after the last shot fades away. if you have any kind of tolerance for shaggy, shambolic indie film, it's absolutely worth a watch.
the ranger (2018) 2 loading your movie with unlikable, really kind of awful characters isn't necessarily a show-stopper for me, as long as you go somewhere interesting & i feel engaged.
i really detested all of these people though. i wished they all would have been doused in gasoline & set on fire, then swept away in a flood so they would simultaneously burn to death & drown.
the ranger, the apparent bad guy i guess, is the most sympathetic person in the movie.
& the cute girl died too quickly. even though she was as annoying as everyone else, she was reasonably foxy & i was enjoying looking at her.
reply
share
[deleted]
6 years ago
stop making sense (1984) 5 gave it a watch for the first time in a long time this afternoon, almost by accident. i certainly wasn't thinking about the talking heads today. but i happened to notice a stream of it was on popcornflix, and i thought 'what the heck, i'll play a few songs while i'm puttering around & cleaning or whatever.'
hah. my eyes never left the screen. i guess i'm glad i don't watch this that often. it gives me a chance to forget just how engrossing & exciting & flat out thrilling this performance is. even if you're not a heads fan, i have to think that most sentient people will watch this and recognize that they're seeing something special. if you don't, well..you're entitled to your preferences. but i don't understand you.
wr: mysteries of the organism (1971) 3.5 it wasn't like anything i'd seen before, & i always appreciate that.
but it bored me ultimately. for the first 20 minutes or so, i was having fun, i had no idea where it might go, but it felt like i was seeing something wild & energetic & chaotically enjoyable. but then a mood of numbing boredom took hold of me and i just couldn't have been less engaged most of what came in the last hour.
is it trying to make the same point equating great sex & socialism that some columnist tried to make a year or so back? if that's what it was getting at, then frankly they can all fuck off with that balderdash.
i guess i'm glad i watched & i don't feel like i can completely dismiss it, but i felt like i got almost nothing out of it and i can't imagine ever wanting to see it again.
nuts in may (1976) 3.5 very funny, & weirdly prescient, perhaps. the humorless, proper keith foreshadowed the return we've seen to dour victorian sensibilities, with scolds perpetually telling us what's not to be joked about and so on.
riff raff (1991) 3.5 working class commentary. perfectly good, though it never hit me on any kind of emotional level tbh.
do british people find canadian accents as incomprehensible as i find british accents?
the lure (2015) 4 polish horror mermaid musical.
if that doesn't excite you, then you are entitled to your preferences but you and i are very, very different people.
it's a bit of a mess story-wise, but i loved every bloody minute of it.
tag (2015) 4 gave tag a re-watch since it's getting yanked from netflix fairly shortly.
despite the fact i'd watched it just a little over a year ago, i'd completely forgotten the reveal. that probably speaks more to the fallibility of my middle aged memory than the memorability of the actual ending.
i think this movie is a complete blast. i don't rank it as highly as love exposure or why don't you play in hell, but it's still a fun, imaginative time. plus the great japanese post-rock band mono is all over the soundtrack, so that warrants a big yay from me as well.
reply
share
StoneKeeper (26660)
6 years ago
inherent vice (2014): Unlike you, the fact that it's a bit of a mess prevented me from being fully entertained but I did enjoy parts of it. 6/10
I doubt I'd watch Harvest LAke.
I haven't seen house of manson (2014) but I saw The Manson Family (97) 2-3 times.
I looked for Tag but it's not on my Canadian NEtflix.
reply
share
[deleted]
6 years ago
i've watched the manson family a handful of times as well. i love its sleazy low-budget feel.
tag was pulled off of netflix a week or so back, unfortunately. if you're interested, this site does a pretty decent job of tracking the films that are disappearing from netflix. i find it useful for catching things before they vanish.
https://can.newonnetflix.info/lastchance
reply
share
StoneKeeper (26660)
6 years ago
I think you're the first person I find that loves The manson family (97) as I do. I rate it 8/10.
Thanks for the link
reply
share
Catbookss (13664)
6 years ago
I wonder if there's one for the US. I'd think there would be. I cancelled Netflix a month or two ago, but if I decide to get it again, that'd be very useful.
reply
share
[deleted]
6 years ago
the site that i linked does have a section for US users as well - and also for people in the uk & aus/new zealand.
it also tracks everything that's just been added. i find it much easier to use this site than to try to work out what's been added just by looking at netflix. i have nothing against netflix, think it's a fine service mostly, but they don't do a good job of just showing me what's new on the site imo.
https://usa.newonnetflix.info/
reply
share
Catbookss (13664)
6 years ago
I'm going to bookmark this in case I decide to rejoin Netflix. Thanks!
Exactly, they do not do a good job showing what's been newly added, unless it's a big newish release. Can't watch something if you don't know it's there!
I liked it for most of the time I had it, but found fewer and fewer things I had any real interest in watching.
reply
share