Last Movie You Watched

[TheGSMoeller]

TUVALU (Veit Helmer, 1999)
I liked it, especially the Tati-esque reduction of dialogue to virtually only grunts and monosyllables and laughter and exagerrated sound effects.  And Denis Lavant! 
I could not shake the feeling that it was a post-communist allegory of some kind (the 'robust 90s' apparently being pretty terrible economically for Bulgaria, where the film was shot); but I tried to resist that kind of interpretation as a needless distraction.  Still: the transplant of a beautiful, outdated (mechanical) heart into a nomadic vessel.  And the comic mantra "technology, system, profit" being the most dialogue I can remember ever being spoken at one time.
I kept thinking of those two Caro/Jeunet films, DELICATESSEN and CITY OF LOST CHILDREN, though the similarities probably don't run too deep....RIYL.  I see at a brief webglance that I am hardly the only one to compare these movies, esp. DELICATESSEN.  Actually, it did seem that TUVALU was referencing the aforementioned, plus L'ATALANTE and some other predecessors...maybe a bit persistently.

It is a shame that the USA DVD edition (from First Run) was poorly formatted; at least, I had to fiddle with my player to fix a strange aspect-ratio clipping that sometimes happens (greedy letterboxing plus black "1:33" type bands on the left and right) and even then the image seemed distended.  Occasionally with older DVDs I have this problem.

A film I really enjoy too, Octave. You're now the only person I've met that has seen Tuvalu. And if I recall it was recommended to me because of my interest in Jeunet.

[Brian]

Rewatched Tarantino's second best flick.  It's been a while.

...after...? (I enjoyed Robert Forster in this film more than anyone else in any Tarantino movie I've seen, aside from everyone's favorite SS Colonel.)

This weekend I've watched two movies I should probably have watched before now...





I love that when you Google Image Search "Fargo," everything is from the movie rather than the actual place.

[Todd]

...after...?

Pulp Fiction.





Thread Duty:





The To Do List.  A raunchy, coming of age type film, but get this, it's from a brainy girl's point of view.  Wow!  Mildly amusing with decent work from a bevy of C-listers. 

[North Star]

LE CERCLE ROUGE
Jean-Pierre Melville


Alain Delon
Gian Maria Volonté
Yves Montand
Bourvil

Corey is a cool, aristocratic thief, released from prison on the same day that Vogel, a murderer, escapes from the custody of the patient Mattei, a cat-loving police superintendent. Corey robs Rico, his mob boss, then enlists Vogel and an ex-police sharpshooter, Jansen, in a jewel heist. While Corey is harried by the vengeful Rico, Mattei pressures Santi, a nightclub owner and pimp, to help him trap the thieves. Over all hangs the judgment of the police directeur, that every man is guilty.

Great cinema right here. No unnecessary dialogue, and the thing looks gorgeous, of course. Oh, and the very sparsely used music is brilliant, too.
For more just as great screenshots, copy the html of one of the dvdklassik addresses and enter a number between 1 and 40. 






Ed: see wacky trailer at Criterion

[Papy Oli]

DU RIFIFI CHEZ LES HOMMES (1955)

LE CERCLE ROUGE

2 great movies Karlo.

Le Cercle Rouge is a long running entry in my personal top 5.

Bourvil (playing the role of Mattei) is mostly known for his hilarious roles in French comedies in the 50's/60's so that superb dramatic performance here stood out.

[Artem]

Same with me on the LE CERCLE ROUGE. And I was also rather surprised to see Bourvil in that film, being used to his comedy films which are very popular at home.

[North Star]

2 great movies Karlo.

Le Cercle Rouge is a long running entry in my personal top 5.

Bourvil (playing the role of Mattei) is mostly known for his hilarious roles in French comedies in the 50's/60's so that superb dramatic performance here stood out.

Same with me on the LE CERCLE ROUGE. And I was also rather surprised to see Bourvil in that film, being used to his comedy films which are very popular at home.

Yes, I think it's in my top 5 now, too

[Bogey]

From 1955:



Some folks rate this fairly high on their noir lists.  I found it decent, but not much beyond that.  Pales compared to Maltese and Third Man type efforts imo.  The opening scenes were incredible with their camera work and lighting, but after the film got rolling, this level of attention was captured only now and then....like the iconic image below:

[Karl Henning]

Blade Runner (1982) w/ Harrison Ford & Sean Penn (Video = 4.5  Audio = 4.5)

That typo has me grinning all the morning! And it cannot be too flattering to Sean Young to be mistaken for that superannuated punk     

[Karl Henning]

One excellent flick.

[Bogey]

'Morning, Karl.  Late night in New England due to our visiting Broncos. 

Thread duty:



A young Richard Attenborough in this U.K. noir, that almost had a Welles' quality about it at times.  Some very neat camera work here (especially the carnival scenes and the demise of Spicer) and the story holds tight with any flippancy.   The supporting cast members were a highlight and the last scene still had you wondering what direction the story would take.

[Karl Henning]

Good morning, Bill! I could hear the turbulence below stairs! Myself, I was writing some more passacaglia . . . .

[SonicMan46]

That typo has me grinning all the morning! And it cannot be too flattering to Sean Young to be mistaken for that superannuated punk     

Hi Karl - ya know that did look funny when I was typing it!    And I agree much prefer seeing Sean Young in that role - thanks.  Dave

[mn dave]

I saw The World's End. My socks were not knocked off, nor was I bored to tears.

[Bogey]

Still the tightest, sharpest, and most cynical of Hollywood's official deathless classics, bracingly tough even by post-Tarantino standards. Humphrey Bogart is Dashiell Hammett's definitive private eye, Sam Spade, struggling to keep his hard-boiled cool as the double-crosses pile up around his ankles. The plot, which dances all around the stolen Middle Eastern statuette of the title, is too baroque to try to follow, and it doesn't make a bit of difference. The dialogue, much of it lifted straight from Hammett, is delivered with whip-crack speed and sneering ferocity, as Bogie faces off against Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet, fends off the duplicitous advances of Mary Astor, and roughs up a cringing "gunsel" played by Elisha Cook Jr. It's an action movie of sorts, at least by implication: the characters always seem keyed up, right on the verge of erupting into violence. This is a turning-point picture in several respects: John Huston (The African Queen) made his directorial debut here in 1941, and Bogart, who had mostly played bad guys, was a last-minute substitution for George Raft, who must have been kicking himself for years afterward. This is the role that made Bogart a star and established his trend-setting (and still influential) antihero persona. --David Chute

[asin]B0020MMRC0[/asin]

I ordered this one on Saturday and should be here tomorrow, James.Thoughts on the quality.

[George]

I ordered this one on Saturday and should be here tomorrow, James.Thoughts on the quality.

If you're referring to the perfomance, I guess it's alright.

[Karl Henning]

The bird does not fare at all well, I understand.

[SonicMan46]

I ordered this one on Saturday and should be here tomorrow, James.Thoughts on the quality.

Bill - know that you'll enjoy the Falcon, but encourage you to purchase African Queen, The & Casablanca w/ haste -   Dave

[Bogey]

The bird does not fare at all well, I understand.

We'll do, Dave.  Visual quality, George.  But you knew that.    Karl, my friend gave me a replica of the statue a few years back.  An original just sold....deep well.:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/11/25/247162646/for-sale-one-maltese-falcon-dreams-included

The stuff dreams are made of, gentlemen.

[Octave]

A film I really enjoy too, Octave. You're now the only person I've met that has seen Tuvalu. And if I recall it was recommended to me because of my interest in Jeunet.

I wish I'd gotten to it before now.  Speaking of (very, very loosely speaking) "that" aesthetic, I am guessing you have long-since seen the Brothers Quay films?  Not really to compare those to Jeunet/Caro or TUVALU, but there's a very particular life-among-the-ruins quirk and charm and darkness in their films.  I finally saw the PHANTOM MUSEUM collection not long ago and liked it even more than when I first saw a number of the shorts on 16mm film, years ago.  I was amused to see a neon "Supraphon" sign in one of the short films, looking like a beer sign displayed in a bar.  (That did not mean a thing to me many years ago when I saw it, because I did not know what a "Supraphon" was.)
It seems that their Leos Janacek: Intimate Excursions animated film has had difficulty reaching DVD due to Supraphon licensing issues, per this blog entry by Gavin Plumley:

"Unfortunately some titles have been impossible to put onto the DVD for a number of reasons. The reason for Intimate Excursions is that although the music is out of copyright, the recordings aren't. They were originally sourced from the Czech Supraphon label, which was state-owned until the Velvet Revolution (so relatively easy to clear for broadcast in the 1980s), but since then the catalogue has passed into private hands."

I wonder why other recordings of the Janacek pieces were not used?   

The digital rip I saw of the Janacek film was from VHS and looked pretty rough; here is a a two-part YT version from a Japanese laserdisc.  The image looks much better but there are obtrusive Japanese subtitles.  I have not been able to watch it properly with sound, but it definitely looks better than what I saw elsewhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1jmqsb7UFo