Last Movie You Watched

[milk]

I am with you.  Not many I care for.

I think I like it because it's much more limited in scope than his other work.

[North Star]

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS

Excellent work from Tarantino and most of the cast

    
 

[SonicMan46]

Well, just received some more BD replacements in the mail, but the last few nights, I've been watching some 'purchased' seasons of:

Justified w/ Timothy Olyphant - just finished Season 5 - believe they are committed to one more season?  Probably need to also watch him in Deadwood?

Rome, Season 1 - watch the first 2 episodes last night - think that I'll enjoy this series which went for just two seasons - Dave

 

[Bogey]

Justified w/ Timothy Olyphant - just finished Season 5 - believe they are committed to one more season?  Probably need to also watch him in Deadwood?

]

Great series!

[Wakefield]

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS

Excellent work from Tarantino and most of the cast

    
 

No doubt it has some anthological scenes: the very first scene and the apple strudel scene. 

[mc ukrneal]

Rome, Season 1 - watch the first 2 episodes last night - think that I'll enjoy this series which went for just two seasons - Dave

We really enjoyed this one. It some gratuitousness, but those two soldiers were the highlights I thought. They made them such rich characters with a nice dose of humor. I still haven't seen the second season though.

[Ken B]

We really enjoyed this one. It some gratuitousness, but those two soldiers were the highlights I thought. They made them such rich characters with a nice dose of humor. I still haven't seen the second season though.

Falls to pieces.
Season 1 had some dramatic problems, but in season 2 they just gave up part way through.

[SonicMan46]

Great series!

Hi Bill - just love Olyphant in that role & east KT is close to home - did an overnight in Corbin years ago on my first trip to NC! 

We really enjoyed this one. It some gratuitousness, but those two soldiers were the highlights I thought. They made them such rich characters with a nice dose of humor. I still haven't seen the second season though.

Neal - enjoying Rome - as a physician & Civil War buff, I loved the head trepanation scene (below a not too good pic grabbed from a web video) - the second image is a Civil War kit used for the same purpose, i.e. absolutely no change for about 1900 years!  Even a simple skull X-ray would not have helped much - not until the 20th century w/ the development of cerebral angiography and then finally CT & MRI did imaging of the head enter a modern era - amazing!  Dave

[EigenUser]

Not a big movie person at all, but I love Hitchcock and just saw "Les Diaboliques" last night. Apparently, Hitchcock lost buying the rights for the story to the French director Clouzot -- only by a couple of hours! It is very Hitchcockian. I saw it once a long time ago, but I wanted to see it again. Great movie!

[Cato]

Well, just received some more BD replacements in the mail, but the last few nights, I've been watching some 'purchased' seasons of:

Justified w/ Timothy Olyphant - just finished Season 5 - believe they are committed to one more season?  Probably need to also watch him in Deadwood?

Justified has a quasi-Shakespearean tone to its dialogue at times, especially when the villains are talking.  Fun and tragic with at times some brutal scenes.

The same thing applies to Deadwood which also has some of the most epic cursing ever heard on television or in the movies!   

[Ken B]

Not a big movie person at all, but I love Hitchcock and just saw "Les Diaboliques" last night. Apparently, Hitchcock lost buying the rights for the story to the French director Clouzot -- only by a couple of hours! It is very Hitchcockian. I saw it once a long time ago, but I wanted to see it again. Great movie!

Seen Wages of Fear? Clouzot's best movie, even better than Diablique.

[SonicMan46]

Justified has a quasi-Shakespearean tone to its dialogue at times, especially when the villains are talking.  Fun and tragic with at times some brutal scenes.

The same thing applies to Deadwood which also has some of the most epic cursing ever heard on television or in the movies!   

Yep, I was reading the Amazonian reviews of Deadwood and often start w/ the 1* ones - the one attached gave me a chuckle - will probably still buy the first season in the near future.  Dave

[Cato]

Yep, I was reading the Amazonian reviews of Deadwood and often start w/ the 1* ones - the one attached gave me a chuckle - will probably still buy the first season in the near future.  Dave

Heh-heh!  That's Deadwood!  Guaranteed to offend even sailors!  0:)

After you see Season I, you will absolutely want the next two!  Incredible, but it was cancelled after 3 great seasons.

Some think Justified went (a little) awry two seasons ago, spending too much time outside of Harlan County.  This past season seemed to get things back to eastern Kentucky and to our (occasionally murderous) friends Boyd and Ava and Dewey much more often!

[milk]

Heh-heh!  That's Deadwood!  Guaranteed to offend even sailors!  0:)

After you see Season I, you will absolutely want the next two!  Incredible, but it was cancelled after 3 great seasons.

Some think Justified went (a little) awry two seasons ago, spending too much time outside of Harlan County.  This past season seemed to get things back to eastern Kentucky and to our (occasionally murderous) friends Boyd and Ava and Dewey much more often!

Deadwood is my favorite. I'm glad it ended when and the way it did. I once wanted a movie to see everyone wrapped up. Now I'm glad they never did it. I think, just let it be, perfectly. Milch hasn't done very well since. But I'm still hoping his next project may dazzle.

[snyprrr]

Rosemary's Baby (2014)

Part 2 Thursday

It was ok. The witch lady was hottt in that EuroClass way, but I wasn't taken with the 'black' Rosemary- I mean, that's really not commenting on Farrow's pallid marble, is it? I mean, the actress is fine, but someone else would have been better, many Rooney Mara?

It's four hours plus ... commercials...

Gonna check it out tomorrow?

"What's wrong with his eyes?"

[snyprrr]

Rosemary's Baby (2014)

Part 2 Thursday

It was ok. The witch lady was hottt in that EuroClass way, but I wasn't taken with the 'black' Rosemary- I mean, that's really not commenting on Farrow's pallid marble, is it? I mean, the actress is fine, but someone else would have been better, many Rooney Mara?

It's four hours plus ... commercials...

Gonna check it out tomorrow?

"What's wrong with his eyes?"

Part 2 right now. Anyone?

[Octave]

MUSEUM HOURS (Jem Cohen, 2013)
All I'd previously known by this guy was his Fugazi film; this new one was interesting and there were many beautiful passages.  I had mixed feelings (irritation) about a number of things, but the ethic of looking at the world, of the museum and the world having a lot to do with one another (John Berger was a stated influence) is appealing.  The Bruegel room at Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum especially becomes a launchpad for some reflections on city life (and walking around a city), friendship, detritus, poverty, etc.

I definitely liked it enough to seek out more of his work.

[Octave]

Deadwood is my favorite. I'm glad it ended when and the way it did. I once wanted a movie to see everyone wrapped up. Now I'm glad they never did it. I think, just let it be, perfectly. Milch hasn't done very well since. But I'm still hoping his next project may dazzle.

I watched the entirety of DEADWOOD in a pretty short of amount of time just recently, and I agree it was excellent and addictive.  My enthusiasm led me to leap directly into JOHN FROM CINCINNATI, which I did not like much at all; though one DVD 'making of' extra showing Milch interpreting the metaphysics to his cast on location, was funny and kind of fascinating....it seems he never stopped being a professor in a certain mold.  (Also, maybe a bit fried from his many years of excess.)  If one of the DEADWOOD extras discs contains stuff like that, I'd be keen to watch it.
The outsized characters and calisthenic swearing were what put me off when it was first out on disc several years ago; I am very glad I went back to it and pushed through those episodes again.  (The grotesques are certainly what I love about it this time, along with the dialogue; maybe not quite so much the swearing.)
I am still thinking about watching LUCK and maybe even NYPD BLUE, which I've never seen.

[...]the modern situation is predicated upon the illusion of the self's isolation—that business of 'I'm alone, you're alone, we can bullshit each other when we're fucking or whatever else, but the truth is we're alone. Right?' Well, I believe that that is fundamentally an illusion.

(from an old NEW YORKER profile when DW was still on TV)

[Octave]

THE ACT OF KILLING (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2013)

"All we had to do was direct them."
"There are people like me all over the world."
"The word 'gangster' means 'free man'.  If everyone worked for the government, we'd be a nation of bureaucrats---we'd get nothing done.  We need gangsters to get things done."
"You feel haunted because your mind is weak."
"'War crimes' are defined by the winners.  I'm a winner, so I can make my own definition.  I needn't follow the international definitions."
"We shouldn't look brutal, like we want to drink people's blood.  That's dangerous for our organization's image.  But we must exterminate the communists.  We must totally wipe them out....but in a more humane way."
"What I regret....honestly, I never expected it would look this awful."
"We murdered people and were never punished.  The people we killed....there's nothing to be done about it.  They have to accept it.  Maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better, but it works.  I've never felt guilty, never had nightmares, never been depressed."

I noticed that contempt was my immediate mechanism for dealing with the disgust.  I kept wondering if the movie was prompting thisreaction (the contempt); and in this sense, if it wasn't especially subversive or potent or illuminating: I just kept seeing protagonists on the screen who I "knew" were worse than me.  If anybody has read some insightful writing about this film in English, I'd like to know about it.  I saw a long essay at SIGHT AND SOUND (which declared this their "film of the year") in which the author waves some Walter Benjamin at the film, but for the moment I've only glanced at it.  Probably better for me to skip the cultural theory and just dig into 20c Indonesian history.

The images of Indonesia's current "youth paramilitary" situation were pretty unsettling; I need to find out how much of a player they really are in politics there.

[milk]

THE ACT OF KILLING (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2013)

I noticed that contempt was my immediate mechanism for dealing with the disgust.  I kept wondering if the movie was prompting thisreaction (the contempt); and in this sense, if it wasn't especially subversive or potent or illuminating: I just kept seeing protagonists on the screen who I "knew" were worse than me.  If anybody has read some insightful writing about this film in English, I'd like to know about it.  I saw a long essay at SIGHT AND SOUND (which declared this their "film of the year") in which the author waves some Walter Benjamin at the film, but for the moment I've only glanced at it.  Probably better for me to skip the cultural theory and just dig into 20c Indonesian history.

The images of Indonesia's current "youth paramilitary" situation were pretty unsettling; I need to find out how much of a player they really are in politics there.

It just looks so disturbing and hard to watch. Of course it looks very compelling also. I feel I should find out. But, again, it's hard for me to get myself to do it. Was it difficult to sit through?