We decided we’re gonna do periodic recaps of the movies we’ve been watching, so here’s everything I saw since my movies 2018 post; Davey’s list in a separate post shortly.
Recommended
Burning (2018) – tonally on-point Korean adaptation of a Murakami short story, about typical Murakami male-oriented takes on topics like cooking dinner, sitting in silence, being isolated but horny, and “the unknowable.” basically a slob gets a crush on a girl, who ends up with a snob, then disappears. every single scene has a twist or flourish of some kind, and the movie has a twist halfway through, giving it a micro/macro wriggling quality which I felt was formally impressive and satisfying in a way that the story itself maybe isn’t. I don’t like Murakami’s writing very much but did feel that it was majorly elevated by such an aggressively stylized but faithful rendition in movie format. Shoutout Pat for recommending!
Phantom Thread (2017) – I loved this one, a Daniel Day Lewis “never stop working and never leave the house” movie with an amazing script that’s cozy and jammed with detail. Recommended.
Roar (1981) – mindblowing; we wrote about this
The Rules of the Game (1939) – incredible OG that def doesn’t need my endorsement. Robert Altman said “I learned the rules of the game from The Rules of the Game.”
Tommy tricker & the stamp traveller (1988) – watched this twice this week, expect more about it
Worth watching
A Scanner Darkly (2006) – we wrote about this last week
A Simple Favor (2018) – Davey and I had a long email exchange abt this one that maybe we should distill and post – a highly plastic and absolutely demented Paul Feig suburban thriller, recommended to anyone who likes mutant “wtf even is this” movies that are way too broken for their genres, in the vein of Grown Ups 2 (2013). Recommended(???????).
The Duelists (1977) – we wrote about this one. Bumped to “Recommended” as a double feature following Barry Lyndon.
The old man and the gun (2018) – Robert Redford ruled (RIP) and he’s well-deployed here; Casey Affleck is as good as ever at being listless and depressed (cf. Manchester by the Sea (2016)). this movie’s slightly overcooked and high-budget in a way that feels “awards”-oriented to me, but is still fun and cute. with Tom Waits, who seems to be riffing off-script, Danny Glover, yet again in old-timer mode, and a regal Sissy Spacek as “the girlfriend.”
Support the girls (2018) – fun new Andrew Bujalski restaurant movie with a strong ensemble centered on Regina Hall. recommended, tho not as good as his best-of-decade last one, Computer Chess (2013).
Everything else
Adjustment Bureau (2011) – Matt Damon is trying to run for office and also kiss some lady he met in a bathroom; the angels-as-bureaucrats insist he choose one. plays like a less visually interesting, less dangerous Dark City (1998). a PKD adaptation; it’s bad.
Black Rain (1989) – ugly Ridley Scott movie with Michael Douglas as a racist asshole cop in Osaka. Not recommended.
(Cock) Blockers (2018) – I didn’t realize that John Cena and Channing Tatum were different people until Davey corrected me, which explained why this was not as good as I expected it to be
Crooked House (2017) – not great, not terrible Julian Fellowes murder mystery with a legitimately bonkers ending. unlike his best stuff (Gosford Park (2001)) it’s a bit bleak and not very fun.
Deliverance (1972) – we wrote abt this
The Duchess (2008) – Kiera Knightley gets into a bad 18th century marriage with Ralph Fiennes and has to figure out ways to persevere. Featuring tons of huge wigs, and at least a couple shots of carriages rolling up to mansions.
Good Manners (2017) – Brazilian “newborn baby werewolf” movie in the same pocket as Let the right one in (2008), but a little more twee and a little less goth
The favourite (2018) – I liked it and it’s a great period movie with the always-killer Rachel Weiss pitching a perfect game, but it’s got a “Lanthimos in Hollywood” feel that I found a little sad, it’s not his best one. Hopefully there’s a resurgent interest in Hot Fuzz (2007) now that everyone in America knows who Olivia Colman is, and in Dogtooth (2009) now that everyone knows who Lanthimos is.
Galaxy Guardians 2 (2017) – pretty boring Chris Pratt daddy issues movie. I didn’t realize Chris Pratt was different from Ryan Reynolds until Davey told me, when he read this post’s draft.
IJ raiders of lost ark (1981) – the best part of this is the Karen Allen bar scene, it’s otherwise pretty much a montage of typical Spielberg obstacle courses, chases, spills, and mini-games. Imo this whole franchise is “just okay”.
Minority Report (2002) – stars a supercomputer you control by dancing around with a nintendo powerglove, that reads data off of glass floppy disks, and is operated by cornball later-era Tom Cruise, completely misreading the movie and trying to make every scene Mission Impossible-style urgent and physical. a PKD adaptation; it’s bad.
Murder on the Orient Express (2017) – absolute waste of time Agatha Christie adaptation, directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, in what Jeff calls the “what a cast!” genre. nobody is good in it. for “train book made into a weird dumb movie,” “take” The Polar Express (2004).
Night Moves (1975) – I watched this after we watched Roar to get a better sense of what Melanie Griffith’s life on film had been like so far, and… she’s kinda in an exploitation role in this one too. Night Moves is a bleak Gene Hackman noir, but not as bleak as Chinatown (1974), not as noir as The Long Goodbye (1973), and not as Gene Hackman as The Conversation (1974), but is still pretty good.
Paddington 2 (2018) – the best Wes Anderson movie in ages
Skate Kitchen (2018) – nice relaxing movie about teenage girls skating the lower east side and being young, for some reason featuring Jaden Smith. shoutout Bennett for recommending!
Smuggler (2011) – a Katsuhito Ishii (Redline, Taste of Tea) movie. it’s got some good stuff in it but is overall a bit like an unfun, unpleasant side story in the John Wick universe.
Spiderman spiderverse (2018) – I had fun watching this but don’t remember a single goddamn thing about it
Taj mahal travellers on tour (1973) – watched this at Spectacle, tho it’s widely available (ubuweb; youtube). a painter’s-eye camera follows Japan’s OG delay jammers on european/asian tour, fully 30 years before Double Leopards et al popularized touring USA basements with this style during the Bush era. untranslated, and with a Don Cherry sequence where his interview is completely obfuscated by a Japanese overdub, it’s pure image and sound with occasional English stage-setting placards. super beautiful and dialed-in in the mode of Crystal Voyager (1973), and in a “languid, abstract images foregrounding jams” mode not unlike Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda (1968); strongly recommended if you like that stuff, guaranteed extremely boring otherwise.
subUrbia (1996) – watched this to accompany A Scanner Darkly; it appears to be the “forgotten” Linklater movie or at least the only “100% definitely bad” one. Giovanni Ribisi is an angsty “writer” teen who’s friends with racist assholes and, somehow also, a riot grrl; they hang out together drinking behind a Texas gas station until Parker Posey shows up in a limo with their old high school classmate. It’s like a worse Mallrats (1995), is not to be confused with Penelope Spheeris’s excellent Suburbia (1983), and is not recommended.
Vanity fair (2004) – we wrote about this
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) – typically bad & plastic Netflix-produced movie, this time abt haunted art that attacks art world stereotypes. aptly starring Jake Gylenhaal, the least-organic screen presence in movies.
Venom (2018) – love Tom Hardy and will watch him in anything but I didn’t like this as much as everyone on the TL; it seemed like an absolutely normal superhero movie to me.
Cabin Boy (1994) – we wrote abt this.