what did you watch today?
I tried to watch A Zed and Two Noughts, but I can’t handle it. I’ll finish tomorrow. What a joke of a movie.
Heat just gets better and better, every time I watch it. The subtleties in the technique just blow my mind.
Top Three of the 90s?
This will change as i revisit a bunch of foreign films I missed during that decade, but here ’tis:
1. Pulp Fiction
2. Chungking Express
3. The Thin Red Line
I also loved The Puppetmaster, Magnolia, Leon, Run, Lola, Run, Goodfellas, Miller’s Crossing, Schindler’s List,
You forgot Gremlins 2: The New Batch
No EWS?
SHIT: I knew I was forgetting something huge, and that would be EWS, my absolute favorite 90s film.
I know why it didn’t occur to me—I associate it with a certain girl that I was seeing in the early oughts.
But it’s undoubtedly the best film made during that time frame.
The Mask of Zorro (1998) d. Martin Campbell
Dead Ringers. I was surprised that it was more of psychological character(s) study than a horror film. Indeed, Cronenbergian elements (i.e. the insect looking instruments and gore) seemed unnecessary. Irons’ performance was very good.
Run Lola Run.
Cruel Gun Story directed by Takumi Furukawa. A very entertaining Japanese noir film starring Joe Shishido. Part of the Eclipse series from Criterion
Where the Heart Is (1990)
d. John Boorman
w/ Dabney Coleman, Uma Thurman, Suzy Amis, Crispin Glover, Joanna Cassidy, Christopher Plummer
DoP: Peter Suschitzky
The Big Red One: The Reconstruction (1980/2004) d. Samuel Fuller
Sex, Lies, and Videotape
My Cousin Vinny- 8.5/10
about to sit down to The Last Days of Disco for, like, the fourth time this week.
Pete Campbell is a douche.
RUS – How is The Last Days of Disco? Is it worth the bother?
I saw three films in the theater today:
The Headless Woman
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
I had never seen Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and I really enjoyed it. John Candy is missed.
Ferris Bueller – still one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s easily dismissed b/c of the genre but I believe it’s a technically brilliant film and a modern masterpiece.
Got Dreyer’s “Ordet” (The Word) from Netflix, so tonight was the time to re-acquaint myself with this powerful film.
Then I saw that “The Parson’s Widow” (Dreyer, 1920) was available for streaming, so that was the second feature of the night.
Amazing, low-key acting from a period not known for it.
Eden Log and Lions For Lambs
Cleo from 5 to 7 (1961) Agnes Varda
An ending, beautiful in its simplicity.
I couldn’t place the tentative camera work in time, but this explains: the grandmother of the French new wave, Varda belonged more precisely to the complementary Rive Gauche movement. Of course, hubby was the redoubtable Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg).
Lots of technical objections:
neither lead worked for me – they put the female lead in flatter shoes when she met the guy. Harsh lighting – shooting EOD makes a difference even in B&W. Glaring continuity problem in the middle of the intersection
Not enough Michel Legrand music – you recognized him in the film.
Guy she meets pops out of nowhere – symbolic of love. Clichéd, he’s going off to war the next day.
In terms of drifting around the Champs Elysees , nothing will compare to what Malle did with Jeanne Moreau in Elevator to the Gallows – but hey, that was an entirely different film !
This has got to be one of those films that, despite all its faults, will endure 9/10.
7 Lucky Ninja Kids
Sans Soleil
L.A. Confidential
Most recently, Polanski’s Knife in the Water. Disturbingly sexual and tense.
Re-watched The Nomi Song.
God, Klaus Nomi is/was sooo adorable! ♥
This is England – Whoa, powerful stuff. I don’t know what to say. It tears your face to pieces and rips your soul out.
Shane Meadows is at the top of my “impressive young directors” list.
Nothing yet, but I am feeling the peer pressure from this thread
and I do like to watch….♥District 9 and National Lampoon’s Vacation
Deja Vu- 6/10 not bad until it reaches that horrendous third act!
Peter Watkins’ “Punishment Park”
That this was shot in three weeks circa 1970, largely improvised and Herzogian in its verisimilitude of filming non-professional actors in the heat of some Californian desert would alone make this a remarkable piece of cinema. That is so cannily projects what the US government is doing today to foreign and domestic terrorists makes it prophetic.
Today I watched a real classic; “Road House” with Patrick Swayze! Ha god it was such a ridiculous movie and yet I was oddly drawn to it, I watched the whole thing. Thanks Spike TV.
Drew.
Josh, Hey he could’ve picked something worse! I would put it in the top 20 probably. What is your top 3 of the 90s?