Last Movie You Saw, Name & Review Movie • Page 4

Horns

What an absolutely batshit insane movie. Thoroughly enjoyed it and didn't expect the mystery elements to it even if they were predictable. Really want to read the novel now.

 

this movie - i've gone on about it so many times and i still don't understand what it is about it that confuses me so much. it's full of uncomfortable scenes and dream-logic and it just feels so strange. i like it - it reminds me of Suspiria or Rosemary's Baby, not necessarily in quality but in the way that it all exists in some realm of logic, but there are enough weird, uncomfortable things going on that make the whole thing more akin to a very lucid nightmare.

 

HAHA, yeah it's just so weird and odd, I really don't know what to think of it. I think I like it but i have no idea really haha.

Have you read the book?

I've never read any of Stephen King's books and only read Hill's comic book work but the ending of this seems like such a thing that King would potentially do and I understand how much of an influence he's had on his son.

 

nope. i've read a little Stephen King and one of his favorite backdrops is "idyllic midwest American dream town with something secretly terribly wrong with it" that can stick a toe into the uncanny sometimes. honestly i'm not even sure how much i'd like the book now - maybe more, maybe less.

 

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I just watched Candyman: Day of the Dead for no particular reason/because I don't love myself. It was bad. (Like beyond the typical levels of horror sequels bad.)

 

the original Candyman was pretty decent though. i seem to remember that movie got some love in the horror thread on AP.

 

The first Candyman is weird. I don't think it's that great necessarily, but it's artistic and ambitious and the imagery is so distinctive that I find it impressive all the same.

 

Gonna disagree, I saw it for the first time last year and was blown away by it. Probably one of the five best horror movies of the 90s for me

 

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I thought it was a good adaptation, but perfect and I didn't think the villain was fleshed out (in the book you really cared about him and it was a blow when you found out who was responsible). Also the snake sermon in the book is insane, very fever-dreamlike

 

I go back and forth on how much I enjoy the original Candyman but I absolutely love the score. I'd purchase a vinyl release if there ever was one.

 

Rewatched Creed and it may be the best made Rocky film. Or, at least, Ryan Coogler is the most engaging and talented filmmaker behind a Rocky film. His use of empty spaces in shot composition, where he implies the presence of Apollo or Rocky behind Adonis is really something, and of course the boxing sequences look amazing. With one or two threads maybe explored a little more, particularly Creed's relationship with Mary Anne, it would easily be the best film in the franchise.

I'm a little bummed Coogler was scooped into the Marvel machine. Ava DuVernay's disagreements with Marvel/Disney about Black Panther has me a bit worried about their plans for the movie. But hopefully Coogler knocks it out of the park and continues to gain the clout to go on to do more interesting work.

 

Body and Soul (1947), dir. Robert Rossen

My near-obsession with Marlon Brando and this week's episode of the You Must Remember This podcast have led to me delving into John Garfield's filmography. Body and Soul is one of his most well-received films, and it was really, really great. It's a well-crafted story of the American Dream, and how it's co-opted and fractured and re-sold to prop up corrupt capitalistic systems and structures, a remarkably progressive message for 1947 (a message which, along with Garfield's insistence on having a black actor portray fictional boxing champion Ben Chaplin, would lead to Garfield's being called to testify before HUAC). Garfield is fantastic in the lead role, but the supporting cast is just as exemplary. Canada Lee brings warmth and fortitude to his role as the aforementioned Ben Chaplin, and is then powerful in his gut-wrenching later scenes. Anne Revere, Joseph Pevney, and Lilli Palmer are fantastic in their roles supporting Garfield. Hazel Brook's character, and her juxtaposition with Palmer in the Madonna/Whore trope, is maybe the films closest thing to a weakness as she's just a little simplified and underdeveloped, but it does serve the story adequately, if not exceptionally. The film is so well-structured that all the emotional throughlines make the final boxing setpiece one of the most emotionally engaging ones I've ever seen. The film is great. Subversive in a way films rarely have to be anymore, but in the way that so many of the great films of more conservative eras often are in their brilliance. Can't wait to continue into Garfield's work.

 

Figured that'd be the case given the cloverfield tie.

 

He's great in his "breakout" performance in Four Daughters, imo. And gives a damn good performance in a small part in Gentelman's Agreement. Doesn't have much to do in Air Force, but I like the movie, too. I've definitely liked what I've seen.

 

Four Daughters, Humoresque, Force of Evil, and We Were Strangers are in some order the next few Garfield performances I was looking into. Will add Gentleman's Agreement because it's also a Kazan I haven't seen.

 

Four Daughers has charm for days. I love Priscilla Lane (and the other Lane sisters are fine) and everyone loves Claude Rains.

In 1938, Michael Curtiz directed that, Angels with Dirty Faces and The Adventures of Robin Hood. What an insanely good year.

 

I didn't realize what type of movie A Hard Day's Night actually was. The dialogue is hilarious

 

D'est (From the East), dir. Chantel Akerman

D'est is a sequence of unbroken shots, varying in length, all with little or no dialogue. What dialogue is present is in languages I can't understand with no subtitles. This distillation of cinema requires a further engagement, to really look at the filmmaking. What information is displayed on the screen? And what does it mean? One of my favorite sequences came early on. An older woman walked down the street, east to west. Her pace was brisk for her, but not all that fast. Often a car or van would come between her and the camera, obstructing her from view. Towards the end of the sequence, a young boy glides by effortlessly on a bike. It was one of the few sequences of the film where the camera moved, following a subject. So what meaning was being conveyed? The effort of continuing in the face of physical obstacles, while newer technology exists above you, and youth speeds by you? I don't know for sure, but it's an interpretation.

Another challenge is to engage with the film as a whole. These mesmerizing sequences were chosen to exist together in this film, what does that mean? One sequence featured the camera on a train, moving east to west, filming people walking west to east in the snow. The train then speeds up until the sequence ends. Then, in a later scene, we're again witnessing people walking in the snow, from east to west this time, filmed again from a train. The train slows down. The scenes rhyme. It's hard to say why, but while it may seem like nothing is happening, information and action is being portrayed. Being aware of it and engaging with it is the next step.

It feels almost Malick-ian, but in direct contrast. While Malick is known for absolutely gorgeous and huge shots of nature and people glowing in majesty, this film is gritty, small, and dirty. But that's part of life too, these spaces are as real as Malick's, and this happened somewhere. The film offers so much to think on, it feels almost like a cop out to say it felt like it was about life itself. Saying it's about life feels so broad, so vague, so easy, but I felt it in the theater. This was about small, idle moments in life and how they propel us through our journey. It was really beautiful, and almost eerie in that way.

I got to see the film as part of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and I'm grateful for that. Attending a Jem Cohen retrospective tonight that I'm excited for.

 

It's fairly shocking how well These Three works, given that it had to be neutered for the censors. Credit to Hellman for finding a way to adapt her play in the 30s with the characters and the power intact. I haven't seen much of Merle Oberon but I think I'm a pretty big fan.

 

The Jem Cohen retrospective was pretty great. He showed a few short films, including a short narrated by Patti Smith and some really interesting footage of Occupy Wall Street at Zuccotti Park. The highlight was a short film he showed called Lost Book Found. It was a story that dealt with a narrator working as a peanut cart vendor who becomes friendly with a grate fisher who pulls up objects from the subway grates. The fisher shows him a book he'd found, a composition notebook full of addresses and dates and times and odd phrases, all clearly organized but in a fashion incomprehensible to anyone outside of the writer. The fisher is unwilling to part with the book for less than $8 so the narrator lets it go, but the book remains a part of his consciousness, he'll be triggered by seeing an address or hearing a conversation that reminds him of the book, which lends itself well as a metaphor for New York City and it's infinite mysteries, and what we hold onto and look back on. Really something. It was partially scored by Vic Chestnutt.

Cohen was there and did a brief Q&A and talk about his work. I hadn't been too familiar with him beyond name before tonight, excited to look into his films about Fugazi and Elliot Smith.

 

Humoresque (1946), dir. Jean Negulesco

I continued my journey into John Garfield's filmography with Humoresque. In it, Garfield plays another young man with exceptional talent who rides that talent from modest beginnings to fame and fortune (it came a year before 1947s Body and Soul). But his Paul Boray is a very different character than Body and Soul's boxer Charley Davis. Garfield plays Boray as a man possessed, completely single minded and driven by his passion for violin. He is pragmatic and eager and focused, and it nets him results. When paired with Joan Crawford as Helen Wright, the film erupts into a truly special study of passion, and how it manifests differently in different people. Crawford is exquisite as Wright, her performance is so achingly beautiful and tragic as she plays someone who's passion can lead them to be overcome by waves of emotion, and who always tries to run from that, whether in alcohol or affairs or divorce. Her Helen almost makes Garfield's Paul look simple and uninteresting in comparison, but that would be unfair to Garfield and the writing of Paul. Humoresque might actually be a rather progressive statement on mental health and how it manifests differently in men and women: Paul is rewarded for his obsession, his ego, his inconsiderate nature. Helen is afraid of hers, it eats at her and she is actively ashamed of it. It's a really special film, and it's impossible to speak on it without mentioning the music. The scoring on this film, the sound design, it's magnificent. Paul's violin screams and screeches, it sings and soars. For Oscar Levant's pianist (a hilariously straight-faced chatterbox), the piano is simply an extension of his body and mind and soul. The orchestral scenes can go on for minutes with no dialogue, and the performance by Garfield in these moments is powerful. The orchestral scenes organically lend themselves to the action playing out, which of course it should do, but in particular in this film it really heightens the action and the performances in a special way, an audible manifestation of the character's mental state. It's a heck of a movie.

The Night Before (2015) dir. Jonathan Levine

Seth Rogen/Evan Goldberg collaborations can often be hilarious romps, simultaneously clever and dumb, all layered over a heartfelt emotional core in the friendship between it's protagonists. The Night Before is some of that sometimes, but not to the highs of, say, Superbad. Rogen, Anthony Mackie, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are all good enough as the three leads, but the world around them doesn't feel as full as it should to make an impact. The emotional external pressures on the main trio's friendship are underdeveloped. Mackie and his sports career/mother, Rogen and his fiance, a restrained Jillian Bell, and Levitt and his love interest, Lizzy Caplan, in a role she is infinitely times better than. It's not a waste of time, it just could have been better. Nathan Fielder was a highlight as an overenthusiastic limo driver, and just for tapping Fielder at all the film gets credit for recognizing one of the most incredible comedic performers working today. Filling the film out with funny people like Tracy Morgan, Jason Mantzoukas, Mindy Kaling, and Ilana Glazer helps it be entertaining, if not particularly strong. A strange turn by Michael Shannon as a prophetic weed dealer is worth mentioning. Miley Cyrus and James Franco cameos probably aren't. At the very least, Rogen's performance deserves some credit for making a tired "bad trip" trope actually funny. And that probably exhausts all there is to talk about in the Night Before.

 

Triple post but since I'm getting more active on my Letterboxd account I figure I'll link to it. I'm trying to use it regularly, we'll see if I keep up with it this time.

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