Last Movie You Watched

[DavidW]

I enjoy his Dune, for a number of reasons, but of course for Lynch this film is atypically straightforward. The murder mystery of Twin Peaks I found a good fit for his penchant to be elliptical. It's partly a wonder that this became such a popular hit.

Of course in Twin Peaks once the mystery resolved itself and it went to Lynch crazy town it was canceled on a cliff hanger!  And The Return was a critical darling that most people didn't watch.

[Karl Henning]

And The Return was a critical darling that most people didn't watch.

That's certainly fair.

[Cato]

Over the last 2-3 days, Four movies I tried for the first time

I didn't go beyond 45 min to 1 hour for any of them

Fellini's 8 & 1/2
Fellini's Dolce Vita

Both tiring and disjointed, overdubbing not helping either

Many moons ago I overheard my Classics professor engaged in a conversation with a colleague, who was extolling the benefits of spending time watching Fellini movies.

Professor X: "And so, if you see all of Fellini's films, you will know all about what he thinks of Life!"

My Professor: "Well, there's a problem with that, you see."

Professor X: "What could that be?"

My Professor: (wry, regretful smile) "I really don't care to know what Fellini thinks about Life, Death, or anything else." * 

(In fact, he had a fairly thick Southern accent, and the sentence was closer to "Ah rillah dohn't cayuh ta know whut Fahlleen-ee thinks abowt Laff, Dayuth, o-ah ennythin' a-yulse.") 

[JBS]

Over the last 2-3 days, Four movies I tried for the first time

I didn't go beyond 45 min to 1 hour for any of them

Fellini's 8 & 1/2
Fellini's Dolce Vita

Both tiring and disjointed, overdubbing not helping either

Lynch's Blue Velvet. What a dragging affair...

Mad Max. Pointless.

(NB: Never seen any Fellini, Lynch or any Mad Max before).

I've seen one Fellini film, Amarcord. I suggest trying that one when you're in the mood.  It's apparently bawdier than usual, and based on Fellini's own teenage years.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I've seen one Fellini film, Amarcord. I suggest trying that one when you're in the mood.  It's apparently bawdier than usual, and based on Fellini's own teenage years.

Love the movie!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Enjoyed the movie. It's not hero vs. villains. All the characters are ambiguous but lively and significant. Paradoxically, the movie/story doesn't make sense at all and yet it totally makes sense. Surprisingly, the music was very good- modern and sophisticated.

[Papy Oli]

Thank you for your takes on Fellini and Lynch 

Also noted about "Amarcord" @JBS , thank you!


TD: Last night, Nolan's Memento



Loved the chronological and reverse-order storytellings intertwining and their subtle merging for the concluding chapter. A mindfudge of sorts but most of it makes sort of sense eventually.

Read a couple of online reviews/analysis for further understanding and grasps what I would have missed. There's apparently a YT video of Nolan explaining the building up and meaning of the movie, I might watch that some time (then I read he also made Inception, now that was a mindfudge  Not seen Tenet which apparently is in the same vein ? )

[DavidW]

Not seen Tenet which apparently is in the same vein ? )

Memento is perfectly executed though, and Tenet while good is Nolan at his most indulgent.  I think that Tenet is a much weaker film.  Just IMO

[relm1]

Memento is perfectly executed though, and Tenet while good is Nolan at his most indulgent.  I think that Tenet is a much weaker film.  Just IMO

Totally agreed.  Nolan is not a great storyteller, gets too lost in his own cleverness.  Terrible audio mixes and poor story telling but at his best in his smaller scale films like Memento that have intrigue and drama without excess.  I will be interested in Oppenheimer, a story I adore already.

[Brian]

Ghajini, the Bollywood remake of Memento, is remarkable (though that does not necessarily mean the same thing as "good"). Because it's Bollywood, the first two hours is a romantic comedy about the couple getting together, then suddenly she gets murdered, he wakes up with all the tattoos and Polaroids, intermission happens, and then the second two hours are the Memento remake. 

[Cato]

[Quote from: Papy Oli

Thank you for your takes on Fellini and Lynch 

Also noted about "Amarcord" @JBS , thank you!

on April 20, 2023, 06:11:13 AM]

Over the last 2-3 days, Four movies I tried for the first time

I didn't go beyond 45 min to 1 hour for any of them

Fellini's 8 & 1/2
Fellini's Dolce Vita

Both tiring and disjointed, overdubbing not helping either

I've seen one Fellini film, Amarcord. I suggest trying that one when you're in the mood.  It's apparently bawdier than usual, and based on Fellini's own teenage years.

Let me recommend one of his earliest and most famous movies:  La Strada (The Road) with Anthony Quinn at his Anthony-Quinniest    and, rather unexpectedly, Richard Basehart, as a circus clown.

The movie is not a comedy. 

[Papy Oli]

Let me recommend one of his earliest and most famous movies:  La Strada (The Road) with Anthony Quinn at his Anthony-Quinniest    and, rather unexpectedly, Richard Basehart, as a circus clown.

The movie is not a comedy. 

ok, noted as well, thank you @Cato

[Karl Henning]

As a kind of cool-down from Time After Time last night, I watched "Bergman 101" from the supplements to The Seventh Seal.

[vandermolen]

Tonight on DVD. This was a hoot!

[San Antone]

The 15:17 to Paris is a 2018 American biographical drama film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood and written by Dorothy Blyskal, based on the 2016 autobiography The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story of a Terrorist, a Train, and Three American Heroes by Jeffrey E. Stern, Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler, and Alek Skarlatos.



The film stars Stone, Sadler, and Skarlatos as themselves and follows the trio through life leading up to and including their stopping of the 2015 Thalys train attack. Judy Greer and Jenna Fischer also star.

Better than I anticipated, actually quite moving. With each movie of his I watch I am more and more impressed by Clint Eastwood.

[SimonNZ]

A perfectly okay John Hughes -knockoff teen flick.

But I'd seen and heard it hyped in some serious places by some serious people as perhaps the best and cleverest Shakespeare "retellings" (Taming Of The Shrew), and I'm not seeing that at all. Even among the limited number of similar things I've seen I can recommend much better - the Macbeth with James MacAvoy and Keeley Hawes set in a London restaurant, for example. But its an okay teen flick.

[Cato]

We watched this again to show it to a friend of ours:



Franz Jaegerstaetter, the Austrian martyr depicted in the movie, is on the path to sainthood (canonization) in the Catholic Church.

Just a marvelous movie on every level: it uses works by Kilar, Schnittke, Gorecki, Paert, and others in the soundtrack to great effect!

[Karl Henning]

Only my second Bergman movie: Wild Strawberries. 

[LKB]

... I have lined up some other unseen major movies for the coming weeks (Lawrence of Arabia, Schindler's list, 12 Angry Men... and two I have only seen dubbed in French yonks ago but never in original English: Papillon, The Graduate) . We'll see how these goes.

Lawrence of Arabia features Sir Adrian Boult conducting Maurice Jarre's score, and is ( imho ) David Lean's masterpiece. You'll be happy to have it in your brain.

Schindler's List may be one of the films you'll never wish to see again, but it's probably the most significant film Steven Spielberg will ever make.

12 Angry Men, I've not seen.

[DavidW]

We watched this again to show it to a friend of ours:



Franz Jaegerstaetter, the Austrian martyr depicted in the movie, is on the path to sainthood (canonization) in the Catholic Church.

Just a marvelous movie on every level: it uses works by Kilar, Schnittke, Gorecki, Paert, and others in the soundtrack to great effect!

I'm not a Malick fan, but with that kind of music I might watch the movie!