ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

Recommended Posts

I started watching Penny Dreadful because I like vampires and shit, and it's definitely piqued my interest. I'm only three episodes in. There's a psychic lady who appears to be hunted by all manner of the supernatural including possibly the devil?? i dunno, a fake cowboy who's a pretty good shot and apparently bisexual, a pretty boy obsessed with sex who's also apparently bisexual (Dorian Gray), an old man who wants to save his vampiric daughter, and literally Doctor Frankenstein.

 

There's also one African guy who is the old man's servant. It is Victorian London, and he's never treated poorly, at least. He's got a bunch of bumps on his cheeks? I don't know what that's about.

 

Very violent and NSFW.

Ah I love that show! I wasn't sure about that during the first series but the second season is really strong. There's an episode in there where Eva Green goes off to learn some of her mysticism and it's just so friggen good.

The show does do a bit of a weird rehash of certain plots by the final season but it's a short series and it keeps things fun enough to not outstay their welcome.

Oh and they end up doing a pretty good deconstruction of the old man's British explorer archetype but it is a shame that they don't really develop the African guy beyond friendly sidekick.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm trying to give Banshee another go and I'm liking it a lot more this time. I couldn't really get into it the first time because it didn't seem that believable and some other things were going on that made me indirectly not like the show.

Anyway once I just accepted everything about the show and where it wants to go I have to say it's really good.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is pretty damned good! Very predictable quirky indie dramedy "let's build a family" beats, but very funny and heartwarming.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites



This Japanese Stephen Spielberg TV documentary is kind of incredible. If you have any interest in Spielberg, this is great unguarded stuff, maybe peak overgrown child state. And at some point he calls Scatman Crothers in Twilight Zone (which there is some on set footage of) "the black ET", which is both accurate and a perfect encapsulation of why his segment of The Twilight Zone movie is racist garbage.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I watched The Assassin and didn't have any idea what was going on but it looked pretty nice.

The Monster Squad! Have any of you seen The Monster Squad? Watched it recently and wished I'd seen it when I was young, so great.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

To celebrate Hitchcock's birthday, I watched some of his most famous movies (along with some extras on the Blu-Rays) that I hadn't seen for a while - Psycho & The Birds.

 

Psycho is a magnificient masterpiece that will stand forever as one of the top achievements of cinema. It's just so perfectly crafted that it's hard to find any fault, besides 1) why did the detective have to exit the car through the passenger door? and 2) was the explanation by the psychiatrist really necessary?

 

The Birds is, I think, generally a somewhat underrated movie. IMHO, it's almost as good as Psycho. The downsides I can think of is 1) the length of the second part -- where some quick action was needed after it turned into a monster movie, we got a long dialogue that seemed untypical of Hitchcock, and the rest is also a bit sluggish 2) the leading woman needs to be rescued by the leading man 3) the special effects and some studio shots just look obviously wrong considering the generally realistic style. What seemed cool to me (maybe because I was reading about diffusion in photography yesterday) was that all Tippi's close-ups seemed to have been shot with diffuse lighting or a diffuse lens(?) while I didn't notice this with other characters. I'm now curious to see if this was mentioned in Truffaut/Hitchock

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

After watching The Trouble with Harry, I'm now aware that besides timeless masterpieces, Hitchcock also made some real turds. This movie is a complete failure as a movie. Some of the individual elements work - the visual style and look is exquisite, the music is well cued with the action (although the oft-repeating themes began to annoy me). There are even some good jokes in it, especially in the opening chapter. But as a complete package, it just falls apart for me. The deliveries by the cast don't seem to work, and the repetition of the same joke over and over again becomes tedious instead of funny. In fact, tedious is how I would describe watching this piece of excrement. There is almost no use of film as medium to deliver comedy. Almost all of the jokes are delivered by deadpan dialogue. This is totally unlike Hitchcock and I think it's because he went into a completely different genre and suddenly didn't know how to apply his skill any more. He seems to have lost his basic abilities with timing... when we know what's going on inside a house, nothing too sinister is visible... he shows a policeman slowly approaching it and ringing the doorbell twice, a completely useless waste of time, as there's no suspense. Later on, a cupboard door (that's been hinted various times) suddenly opens by itself to reveal... yes... we knew there was nothing in there and it still revealed only a completely normal household thingamajig.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I am seriously angry at myself that I hadn't seen Hackers (1995) until yesterday. I had no idea it was such a gaping hole in my media literacy, but it was. It really was.

 

It's as if the creative team behind Disney Channel Movies were given a real budget and tasked with making a PG-13 cyberpunk film. That's a compliment.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I saw A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night for the fourth time and this time I payed more attention to the way some subtle hints were used to create tension. However, I think the intent to create tension isn't that successful in this movie (maybe it was too subtle, and was never meant to be very strong?), so I'm kind of starting to lean towards "maybe it's not THAT great". Still, I think it's one of the better and more memorable movies from 2014-2015).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Watched terms of Endearment, basically the only thing I can come up with that I didn't like is that I was baited into thinking Danny Divito was in it when he basically wasn't. Other than that it was great, I went in knowing literally nothing about it other than it was a movie James L Brooks made before Broadcast News.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I saw Jason Bourne over the weekend.  While not terrible, it felt entirely unnecessary.  The first three were much better (I don't count the fourth one at all).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I am seriously angry at myself that I hadn't seen Hackers (1995) until yesterday. I had no idea it was such a gaping hole in my media literacy, but it was. It really was.

 

It's as if the creative team behind Disney Channel Movies were given a real budget and tasked with making a PG-13 cyberpunk film. That's a compliment.

 

This is one of my all time least favourite films. I would rather watch The Net again.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm watching 10 Cloverfield Lane and John Goodman is doing a really scary scary version of my Dad right now.

Horror wise it's making my skin crawl atm.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The new restoration of Chimes at Midnight should be out now from Criterion. Unfortunately, since I don't have a region free player, I'll be waiting for the rip to appear. It should be glorious, though. I think it will be my movie of the year, unless I manage to see the new Mosfilm restoration of Stalker somehow.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

A couple of days ago I discovered for myslef another genius of soviet cinema - Sergei Parajanov. Just look at the opening scene of his Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors:

 

 

The whole movie is full of exciting camerawork like that. I guess The Color of Pomegranates is better known among his movies, and I want to watch that soon. There really should be an effort to get these movies properly restored for HD or even 4K, along with the works of Mikhail Kalatozov (Soy Cuba, The Cranes are Flying) and Elem Klimov (Come & See).

 

Also, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is currently on Mubi, in Estonia at least.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

One More Time with Feeling was a tough, beautiful cinema experience.

Background: Nick Cave's 15 year old son fell of a cliff and died last year. Instead of discussing it at length with media, he collaborated with Andrew Dominik and made a documentary about the grief and the process of recording the new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album Skeleton Tree. The film was shown in theaters one night only on 8th September.

The documentary does not touch on the accident itself or the conditions surrounding it at all. It does not show Nick Cave or his wife, Susie Bick, getting over or erasing the sadness and the grief and the anger. Instead, it shows them trying to cope, or more precisely, live with these feelings. Nick Cave put it beautifully by describing the accident (although, he actually feels that, in some sense, there are no accidents) as this fenced off disaster area inside of which nothing makes sense and everything is chaos, and they are attached to the fence by a rubber band, so that the can walk away and carry on with their lives, but at any moment they might be blunged back to the chaos by the elastic band. This is clearly visible in the film, as well. One moment Nick Cave might be having a friendly chat - even laughing and joking - then after a while he is distant and forgetful and sad.

In addition to not claiming to have any instructions for dealing with a grief of this scale, what I liked most about the documentary was watching the dynamic between Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. I suspect that Warren Ellis already played a major role in the overall sound of the previous albums, but here he is pictured as basically keeping the ship afloat, dealing with the other musicians and supporting Nick Cave in the best possible way. Watching them work together highlights how well they fit together, and helps explain how they can make such beautiful things as

soundtrack.

Despite the subject matter, the documentary is not a tear-jerker and does not feel exploitative in any way. There were several genuine laugh out loud moments, and not all of the documentary was about the grief. For example, there were several fascinating glimpses into the album recording process.

About the cinema experience: Although, it is a shame that not all people that are interested in this documentary are able to see it in theaters, there was something really arresting about the ephemeral quality of the experience. It was interesting to see what kind of audience this film attracts (turns out, all kinds of people, from children to pensioners). When most people had settled in, the lights went out and the documentary just started; no commercials, no trailer, nothing. I had no idea what to expect, since I hadn't come across any reviews, comments, or opinion pieces (A rare delight. Even if I try to avoid them with regular movies, I often stumble across "the consensus" on the movie before I am able to see it).

 

The film is shot in 3D and is mostly black-and-white, but the cinema I saw it in only played the 2D version. Apparently, 3D was used to increase the sense precence, and I can see how it could have that effect in this film. Hopefully they will release a 3D version on blu-ray.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The whole movie is full of exciting camerawork like that. I guess The Color of Pomegranates is better known among his movies, and I want to watch that soon. There really should be an effort to get these movies properly restored for HD or even 4K, along with the works of Mikhail Kalatozov (Soy Cuba, The Cranes are Flying) and Elem Klimov (Come & See).

 

That is damn imaginative camera work. I'd love to see more of that (in this film and in modern cinema).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The whole movie is full of exciting camerawork like that. I guess The Color of Pomegranates is better known among his movies, and I want to watch that soon. There really should be an effort to get these movies properly restored for HD or even 4K, along with the works of Mikhail Kalatozov (Soy Cuba, The Cranes are Flying) and Elem Klimov (Come & See).

 

One of my favorite electric musicians, Nicolas Jaar, made an alternative soundtrack to The Color of Pomegranates. At least on first listen and by itself, the album is not one of my favorites among his projects. Nevertheless, I would be interested to hear how well people think it fits the film, and how it changes it.

 

I'm also looking forward to watching the film at some point in the future

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Not a rec, but I really hope the new MST3k episodes are less tied to contemporary referential humor than the original series. It's really hard to watch any of that with my wife because she's from Germany AND 5.5 yrs younger than me, so she gets very few of the jokes. Not holding my breath, but it would be nice.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I saw In Order of Disappearance recently and liked it.

 

 

It's a very kind of straight forward revenge story, with a dash of dark comedy thrown in.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

To address your subconfession: I've seen Transformers: Dark of the Moon on DVD, having been convinced it would be a fun romp as long as I wasn't sober. I think it may be my least favorite movie. It is so ugly, and is so full of intended "hell yeah" moments that instead fill me with existential dread. It is also apparently significantly better than the movie before it.

 

I also, earlier in life, saw the first Transformers movie, but the only thing I remember about it is a recurring masturbation joke.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

At the beginning of the year I gave myself some specific goals for movie watching because I was drowning under a growing watchlist:

 

1) To have at least a 1000 movies marked as watched on Letterboxd. CHECK.

2) To have watched the Letterboxd Top 100. Getting close... except all that remain (> 80h in total) are mostly mini-series, Shoah, Satantango and a few other rather long movies. I think I'll never cross this off completely because it also contains "The Godfather Epic" as a separate entry from the first two Godfathers, and I've no plans to watch that cut.

3) To watch all Ingmar Bergman movies. Maybe this was a bit misguided, as I didn't quite realize how many he made, but I have watched quite a few and liked what I've seen. 11% done according to Letterboxd.

 

In the Spring I was already feeling a bit trapped with these goals (except the first one, which came easily) and I also started watching all the movies that appeared on the FilmStruck sizzle reel http://letterboxd.com/t4ffer/list/filmstruck-sizzle-reel/ . 3 more to go there.

 

I also started looking at the Rotten Tomatoes Top 100, IMDB Top 250, Sight & Sound 2012 critics & directors polls. There are some overlaps among these top lists of course, so one of them might be completable besides the meat of the Letterboxd 100. I have liked almost all of the movies in these top lists that I've seen so far and feel like my film education has improved a lot in less than a year. However, I'm again beginning to feel a bit trapped by having to watch all these classics and not being able to watch movies on my actual watchlist. Furthermore, I payed for a year of Mubi subscription and now I feel that since I've paid for it, I need to watch movies on there as well... and they usually don't coincide with my watchlist or the top lists. To reduce the potential ones to watch from Mubi, I've also started to cross check their list of 30 movies playing against letterboxd average score and filtering based on that and then filtering further based on my own taste. On my HD, I now have hundreds of movies, mostly in good HD quality. I have also purchased a bunch of Blu-Rays and have only watched a small portion of them. In the summer I did a Spanish movie night series with my Spanish class, but from making the selection, I now also have a bunch of unwatched Spanish movies. Meanwhile, my watchlist still kept growing (from ~400 to 570).

 

So at any time I could pick among hundreds of movies to watch, and it's making me feel a bit overwhelmed. Maybe at one point I should just call my general movie education in classics finished and start picking movies based on content again, and movies that interest me personally, rather than base my selection mainly on some average score...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now