The Naked City: A really great detective noir/pulp film from Jules Dassin. The narration from the producer of the film was pretty unique for its time (1946). I believe it was the biggest movie during its time to be shot on location in Manhattan and not in a studio.

The Life Ahead: Sophia Loren comes out of retirement to star in her son's film. Beautifully photographed on Italy's seaside. Very character driven story, great performances. Full of typical Italian melodrama. Actually felt a bit more like a Almodovar film (mixed with Sorrentino?) This will probably end up being Loren's final screen performance, which will make it more emotional that it already is.

Beyond The Law: After hating Norman Mailer's 'Wild 90', I decided to give this one a try. Looks and sounds like it was shot underwater. One of the roughest film production's I've seen, and I was watching a Criterion (eclipse) restoration, so I could just fucking imagine how rough a regular transfer would look. At parts, you can see the fucking boom mic, and camera-person's reflection in mirrors, but it kind of doesn't matter because the film comes across as a documentary. I was actually super interested in this, even though I felt pretty disgusting during parts of it due to the homophobia/misogynistic characters (especially those in the position of power)

Maidstone: So after that, I wanted to complete my Mailer viewing by seeing the one he is most known for. Wow. A lot going on here. Another mockumentary about a fake film director (played by Mailer) that is running for President of the United States. I think watching this on the last day of the Trump presidency was somewhat fittings. This is full of sexist bullshit from Mailer as well, and most known for its scene at the end in which:

Beau Travail.
I really love the other Claire Denis films I've seen (White Material is my favourite), and this is wildly considered her best, so I was anxious to see it, however, I didn't really like it much at all. I knew I was in for a slow-burn, but this seemed like 90 minutes of watching men do their military exercises in Djibouti, without much development at all. The subtext was so subtle and thin, it barely carried the story (what little there was of one) at all.

Thirst For Love.
I blind purchased this in a boxset full of other Koreyoshi Kurahara films, and this was the last one I watched (I watched them in chronological order of release), and it was by far my favourite of the set. Some of the other films are bit too wacky (I believe I turned Black Sun off), but this was a well acted, twisting little melodrama from 60's Japan. Sometimes it's nice to see black-and-white Japanese films that AREN'T samurai, yakuza or geisha based. The camerawork in this is very unique, and the film incorporates a lot of off-the-wall elements throughout (using subtitles for private conversations, unexpected scenes with colour, a narration track that appears and disappears throughout)

When I saw this in a theater (full of college kids), everybody was laughing at Cary Elwes. And it wasn't the nervous laughter that you might hear during a horror movie; his performance was just so comedic.

Ironically enough, Saw is the other thing he's most recognized for aside from The Princess Bride, as just about everything else he's ever done has been character acting support roles. I don't think he's terrible in Saw, far from it, but he definitely has a couple really wonky sounding line reads in that movie.

Yeah, like this one.

I think both characters trapped in the bathroom had some rough acting moments. But I probably have a higher tolerance for amateurish acting than many movie watchers. So Saw 1 is a solid 7 / 10 for me.

One Night In Miami.
Maybe it's because I'm a huge Sam Cooke Stan (besides Springsteen and Metallica, he's my favourite recording artist), but I absolutely adored this film. I was very familiar with a lot of the stories and scenarios in it, but it was so well executed and impeccably acted. Kingsley Ben-Adir and Leslie Odom both deserve Oscar nominations. I guess this doesn't really count as a biopic, since it focuses on 4 characters (almost) equally [Jim Brown seems a little under explored], but if I were to include this in the biopic category, I don't remember the last one I saw that I loved this much. I really hope one day one is done solely on Sam Cooke. I'd love to see a really good director explore the legendary Harlem Square Club concert.

Chronicle Of A Summer.
Maybe it's because 30 minutes earlier I watched something brand new that I adored, but this dragged a bit for me. It's been on my watchlist forever. A very free-form documentary made in 1960 in France where the directors set out to just simply ask people, "Are you happy?". It ends up following a few central interviewees, and gets somewhat political with the Algerian war and other African Colony conflicts of the time. I think I'll re-try this sometime.

cowboys and aliens. starts out great, and i like the general premise. but after a while it becomes ridiculous in a bad way, and then tedious.
5

butch cassidy and the sundance kid. a classic. parts of this were ridiculous in the best possible way. what a gret way to set the premise of the movie: the protagonists just running away from a posse.
8

Since I know a bunch of people here love Valhalla Rising, people should also check out The First King on Amazon Prime. The fact all of the dialog is in Old Latin and everything seems period accurate makes it feel much more authentic than most films that tap into an imagined past. It's also gorgeous to look at, and the few battles are brutal and visceral and directly antithetical to The 300 cheese that many modern historical movies crib from. It's not a "fun" movie at all, but if you're looking for something with the same hit as Valhalla Rising or The Revanent, it's just what you've been looking for.

Damn, that sounds dope. I'll have to watch it.

My Man Godfrey
Classic 30's Hollywood. Razor-sharp dialogue, I actually LOL'd about 6 times by myself. I'm a sucker for these mid-30's huge hollywood productions.

The Big Sleep
I surprisingly had never seen it. I know it's considered a huge classic (and the pairing of Bogart and Becall is considered legendary), but I find the narrative super muddy and hard to follow. It moves so quickly, and you are introduced to so many characters (many times, just their names without seeing them), that the payoffs/twists get somewhat lost.

You're not alone in finding the plot incomprehensible. Famously, there was one incident during the screenwriting process where they had to call the author of the original novel, Raymond Chandler, to clarify something about who killed the chauffeur character. Chandler was affronted by this question and yelled that it's in the text, and that they just need to pay attention, and then slammed the phone down. About a day later, Chandler called back and meekly admitted that after re-reading what he wrote down, he couldn't figure out who killed the chauffeur either.

Defenders of the film say that The Big Sleep's charm is its charisma and not its comprehensibility, and while it's not one of my all time favorites, I'm okay with not being able to follow its plot.

It's nice to hear so many others were confused, as well, because I just thought I was having a bad day focus-wise yesterday. I actually had to open the Wikipedia page and follow along, and even then, I was getting lost. But I agree, it has it's charm despite all that.

Last night, I finally set three hours aside to watch La Dolce Vita. I've seen so many Fellini films, I have no idea how this one hadn't been checked off the list yet. Of course, it's incredible. Mastroianni is effortlessly cool and smooth. For a three hour film, it didn't drag at all. It looks absolutely stunning (I highly recommend watching it in 4K if you can. I have the Criterion Blu Ray, and it is ridiculously creamy). I always knew "The Great Beauty" was very much inspired by this. Having seen that film numerous times, it was interesting to cross reference it in reverse order. (The Great Beauty is one of my top 3 favourite non-English films of the last 10 years)

Hereditary. I liked it; well acted and didn't resort to jump scares. I didn't find it particularly scary though, just tense. It's a slow burn but I thought it was worth it.

Ugh, I STILL Haven't watched it or Midsommar because I am such a pansy when it comes to horror films. I want to see it so badly.

I liked both of these but found neither really scary.

Hereditary is certainly a horror movie, although it starts as a family drama, but like I said, no jump scares, it's not super gory. The camera angles made many scenes more tense, but they never go for the cheap "sudden loud sound during a tense scene" that I'm tired of. But, on the other hand, my girlfriend was absolutely terrified by it.

Midsommar is barely a horror movie. It has horrific moments to be sure, but it has little in common with the usual horror movie DNA. I'd say start with this one. It's more suspenseful/atmospheric with a few gut punches. If you like it and are ready for something a bit worse, then watch Hereditary. It's a bit similar in that it spends a lot of time to establish things and build suspense and characters, but IMO the gut punches were far worse in Hereditary.

And if Midsommar is too much, then I'd really advise against watching Hereditary.

Tenet was atrocious to see and hear. Nolan has been a mess for a while, but this one takes the cake.

I disagree a little, to me Hereditary is obviously a folk horror film. It's mostly an artsy version of The Wicker Man. As a matter of fact, both films could be essentially considered remakes of other films, like them or not (loved Hereditary, hated Midsommar).

^
Heh? Midsommar was the one that was clearly an homage to Wicker Man, not Hereditary, which I'd sooner compare to something like Rosemary's Baby. Anyway, I loved both but would give Hereditary the edge. Midsommar's more of a slow burn that you just kind of seep into and get lost in. I honestly felt slightly delirious upon leaving the theatre because I'd become so immersed, like I was waking up from a disorienting dream. I think you'd be able to handle that one, jimbies; it isn't nearly as visceral or fucked up as Hereditary, at least to my mind.

The 13th Warrior- The staple for every all-dude sleepover from 2000-2006 (then 300 took over) still has a big cult following, and the top rated user reviews on IMDB would have you think it's some sort of overlooked masterpiece.

It's not. In fact, it's easily the worst movie I've seen so far this year, if not years. It's not that the actors are horribly miscast and all look identical, with frequently unintelligible dialog thanks to diffuse European accents. It's not that the writers had no conception of geography and history and linguistics. It's not that Jerry Goldsmith's score sounds like the left over tracks from one of his Star Trek OSTs. It's not that most of the battle scenes are shrouded in rain or darkness so you can barely see what the fuck's going on. It's not even that large stretches of the movie are rendered pointless later (e.g., the lengthy cave raid and boss fight against the "queen"--which mortally wounded key characters--actually served the heroes no purpose whatsoever.) All of these are true but they don't land the killing blow. What does is the fact there is no reason to care about anything that happens to anyone at all at any point in the entire movie. It's just random idiots fighting other random idiots who are only worse because they're invaders and cannibals who wear bear suits. The movie makers managed to take the premise of a multiracial coalition of viking badasses fighting mystical cave cannibals on a $100mil+ budget well before vikings became a cliche, and turn it into the longest, dullest 100 minutes I've sat through in a long time.

I'm really struggling to understand why anyone could like the movie. Besides some impressive gore effects, there was nothing worth even a passing glance anywhere in the movie. That this is some people's favorite film is bewildering. Pathfinder was also terrible, but compared to this it was... well, still pretty bad but watchable.

I doubt there was ever a good movie here. Graeme Revell's score was probably less generic than Goldsmith and the original ending probably didn't invalidate 1/4th of the movie, but the impetus of a kooky oracle sending 12 vikings, and one wild card with a pointless and irrelevant backgrounds with embarrassing narration, to go protect a kingdom we're never given a reason to care about, makes producing a good movie out of it impossible. Michael Crichton sucks when he's allowed free reign, and The 13th Warrior proves it.

Side note: do you think a possible explanation for the ludicrously high budget was because McTeirnan was using it to pay for people to do wiretaps?

I remember my teen self kinda liking 13th warrior, but I haven't thought much about the movie, apart from mocking periodically Antonio Banderas's uncanny ability to learn tos peak just by listening. Which was the only memorable part. The fights I remember being blurry and lacking any semblance of choreography. I thought the story was OK, but that was a long time ago, at a time I was far less critical. I know some people who loved the movie and when asked why would probably say because the Vikings are badasses (some people are just easier to please). I also remember being disappointed that there wasn't any more overtly fantastical elements.

Yeah, I mixed the names. Midsommar = The Wicker Man and Hereditary = Paranormal Activity 1-4.

Yar, I first saw The 13th Warrior more than a decade ago and thought it was merely okay. That opinion has changed.

Enai Noki Paayum Thota- I watch a lot of Indian films; I don't write about most of them here because I assume no one is interested. This one's different. It has the firey, quasi hipster vibe that I wanted from Baby Driver but didn't get. It's really hard to convey what I loved so much about the film without making it sound generic and du jour. The plot is one you've seen before but the devil is in the details and this is a richly textured tapestry. It's a movie that doesn't so much narrate a story as it does immerse you into its world with immaculate photography, riveting performances, short but brilliantly choreographed fight sequences and an alluring soundscape.

I dunno, it's really hard to talk about it without ruining part of what makes the movie so great: its unpredictability, sometimes by being predictable right when you're expecting a plot twist. It's streaming on Amazon Prime in 4K, so if you're not turned off by a slightly overlong action/thriller with a pretty lengthy romance plot line, what do you have to lose?

The Usual Suspects 1995. A decent film but why is this considered an all time great film? Yes the ending is unpredictable and crafty and the acting is first class but other then that???

At the time its shock-twist ending that recontextualizes the whole film wasn't seen too often. And the cast was loaded with people who were either rising stars like Kevin Spacey or people who thought they were rising stars, like Stephen Baldwin. So the movie became something of a phenomenon.

I wasn't too hot on it either but it was definitely one of Bryan Singer's least bad movies.

I remember renting a VHS copy of 13th Warrior when it came out and I was 16 years old. I was not impressed and never revisited it. It was a boring mess for sure... And Antonio Banderas as an arab? Haha

...I mean, I'm not really a fan of it, but it was a stylish pseudo-noir with, as you said, an unpredictable ending and first class acting. What else do you really want in a movie?

You make a decent point. I just wouldn't put it in my "all time great".

That's fair, as I wouldn't either, but it struck me as odd that you'd applaud the high quality of the work and then wonder why other people applauded also.

Last few for me:

Adam's Rib: I've been trying to knock more classics off my list lately. This film is quite progressive for its time, being released in 1949, and loaded with arguments for equality for women. I believe I read Spencer Tracy had issues with the billing on the promotion for it, claiming his name MUST be listed first, which is hilarious considering the picture he just worked on. I can see how a lot of this could be considered problematic now, due to the development of the two main characters and how the third act plays out. Aside from that, both Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn are incredible. All of the tense argument scenes are pretty gripping.

All About Eve: I know I had seen most of this back in like, 1995 in my grandmothers basement on a VHS taped off a cable television movie channel, complete with commercials. Another female driven story from 1950. I enjoyed this, but not as much as I thought I would. The acting and writing are both good, and the deception and turns the story takes in the last portion of the film are mostly unexpected. Interesting to see Marilyn Monroe before she had really blown into the megastar she would eventually be.

Murder By Death: SPEAKING OF PROBLEMATIC. Yikes. Let me say, I do NOT get offended by art, especially things that were made almost 50 years ago. Peter Sellers being cast as a Chinese man, Peter Falk's racist jokes. Everything about this is wacky and out of control. Was it entertaining? Yes. Do I think it's actually really good? No. A lot of the schtick/gags become predictable after the first 5-10 minutes.

Insiaga: A film from the Philippines from the 70's. I saw this as part of Martin Scorsese's' world Cinema Project. Apparently, the audio for the film was near destroyed by having a metallic hiss throughout the entire track. While Criterion did what they do best at cleaning it up, the audio for the film was still hard to listen to. The film itself is really quite good (although terribly depressing). I always love seeing films from countries I haven't seen much cinema from, so this was nice. I can't recall the last film I was from this particular nation.

Master 2021 was a delight. I personally couldn't stand the mind-numbingly pretentious and self-indulgent P.T. Anderson Master, so it's nice to have a movie with the same title that has more to it than nice cinematography. Vijay Sethupathi may have delivered one of the best villains in recent memory.

Just an all-around awesome ride for commercial cinema, that literally kicks the living shit out of commercial cinema in every other country. And like most Tamil films, it has perfect politics.

does it have a shitload of singing and dancing?

2 major songs, only 1 with lyrics and they're integrated well. If you're worried about item bellydancers singing traditional music or wannabe Trey Songz crooning over 2000's MTV aesthetics, there's none of that. And the actual soundtrack is straight fire:


I wouldn't recommend it all in one sitting though, and DEFINITELY wouldn't recommend it if you're not a fan of people beating the everloving shit out of eachother. This has got to have broken some kind of world record for the most punches in a single movie...

That looks interesting.

What did you watch it on?

It's in 4K for free on Amazon Prime. Just make sure to watch it in Tamil with English subs.

I watched The Shining tonight. After all those years, the soundtrack is still very unsettling and don't get me started about that creep in a bear suit... Probably one of the only horror movies that still do it for me

The Trial of The Chicago 7:
Well, I didn't really know anything about this case, or the incident that lead to it, so I can't really comment on the authenticity of it, or really speak to it's political alignment (since I am not from the United States), but I will say, strictly in terms of a film, it was well acted, well cast and I really liked that the film was autonomous - that everything was explained within the 2 hours. I never needed to pause it and reference anything online. Very interesting to see Sasha Baron Cohen in a role like this.

Mysterious Object At Noon:
Continuing on with Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project boxset. This is an abstract, experimental film from Indonesia, and as much as I like avant garde filmmaking, this one lost me. It's an original idea, but I think the quality of the picture, coupled with the experimental nature of it was very hard to focus on.

Limite:
Another abstract film, this time from Brazil in the 1930's. This film truly doesn't have much of a story, and the entire feature was inspired by a still photograph the director saw while on vacation in Paris. It's the only film the director ever made (I believe he was around 22 when it was filmed). I enjoyed this more than the previous film mentioned, but still found my attention waning during it.

Law Of The Border:
60's film from Turkey. In many ways, this is a classic American western adjusted to Turkey. Deal with people trying to smuggle sheep across the border (if you dropped this in the west and made it about cattle runners, it would fit alongside films like Red River). It has a very spaghetti-western ending to it.

Taipei Story:
By far my favourite of the World Cinema collection. Taiwanese film about lovers torn apart by their past (and future). Very spare, wonderful acting, beautiful cinematography. Really has a lot of the same vibes as Wong Kar-Wai's films (visually and context wise). Most of the extreme wide shots are quite interesting, in the way that the director chose to use some extreme wides when people are having incredibly intimate conversations.

Heavenly Creatures:
Yeah, I guess I'm just not that into Peter Jackson's films. at all.

what's wrong with heavenly creatures? i liked it.
a good lesbian drama is hard to find.

I saw the ending of Heavenly Creatures by chance at a very young age while channel surfing and I wouldn't be surpised if I have latent psychological trauma because of it.

The Little Things - Doesn't really bring much new to the table for the Cop vs Killer genre, and there are some moments that are just smack-your-head level of stupid. But on the plus side - acting is strong across the board. Leto makes a fine creep, Denzel is always worth watching - his character reminded me of Jack Nicholson in The Pledge. Malek did fine as well, I list him last of the 3 mainly because his character was the least intriguing to me. And there's a couple supporting roles played by folks from The Wire.

White Line Fever - Jan-Michael Vincent is a truck driver who doesn't take kindly when his boss tries to get him to start hauling contraband. Mayhem ensues. It's only rated PG, but it came out in the mid 70s, so it would easily be PG-13 nowadays if only for the variety of racial slurs. There's a guy getting pulverized by a semi, Martin Kove as one of the evil racist truckers, and a couple of awesome vehicle stunts that wouldn't look anywhere near as good if they were done with CGI. Plus the ending is so stupid, you pretty much have to laugh.