Be careful with US versions of the BBC adaptation, which is apparently shorter and messes around with the sequencing. Not sure how much all the (ahem) tinkering affects the basic plot but you'll need the original 7 episode version from the UK if you want to see it how it was originally intended, rather than the US's 6 episode 'remix'.

not online to rent unfortunately! online disc/vhs tape/something

maybe i’ll find it on youtube like yes minister...

I always tell myself I'm a fan but if I'm brutally honest I'd say that's based solely on that one sequence in his underground lair, which as great as it is does only last about 15 minutes. Meanwhile the rest of the film is almost unwatchably boring.

scorsese’s “cape fear”


yes yes, this is a remake, but why is it so rarely mentioned among his best worlk? holy shit i just rewatched it after ages and wow. cmon. fucking masterpiece.

Watched the director's cut tonight.

It is an underrated film but I suppose it just suffers a bit from not really feeling like 'a Scorsese film', in terms of certain key ingredients he's associated with. I'd rank it above certain films (like The Irishman) which are more readily identifiable as Scorsese-type films, but while I'd fall short of calling it a masterpiece, regardless of who made it, I suspect it'd get more recognition if it had been directed by someone else.

the man is an artist not a stereotype and yeah the movie ends up heavily underrated—forgotten, even, under the shadow of the mafioso movies.

for one thing the cinematography is fucking spectacular. sure this is not an epic like goodfellas with tracking shots all over new york but the lighting and lens and shot choices and angles fit the claustrophobia and paranoia. glorious editing.

it’s an extremely intense movie and very hard for me to watch. i can watch joe pesci shooting some innocent kid no problem, but the thing with the clerk is just... way to open the fucking movie man. sheesh. marty really knows how to disturb.

then the performances, holy shit. that. wow.

deniro as max cady blows deniro as travis bickle out of the water. sure, bickle is more iconic, but performance wise, jeezus fucking christ, a virtuoso in his prime.

nick nolte apparently had to lose a ton of weight for the role and is just so good in it. i think generally he’s a very underrated actor and very good. he can be like a bully who carries a lot of pain. did you ever see him in “affliction”? or that other once with barbara streisand... prince of tides or something... it’s a bad movie based on a good book, but his performance is great in it.

jessica lange, i mean, she’s such a woman, but besides that, she’s such a tremendous actress, her ability to display emotion flickering under the surface is extraordinary. here or the postman rings twice or anywhere basically. i’m still looking for one she did with tommy lee jones in the 90s that i missed... BLUE SKY. but here, in the fight scenes with her husband, when she challenges and taunts him and mocks him... and later later with cady when she tries protect her daughter... she’s just fucking incredible.

and little juliette lewis at the start of her 90s fame was also brilliant. one moment acting like an idiotic 10 year old (“is she supposed to be 16?” you wonder) and then she’s exploding as this sharp tongued raging adult. works to a great effect. like a kitten that suddenly scratches your eyes out and bites your jugular.

plus the cameos of robert mitchum and gregory peck, hahahaha! wow.

anyway i think it’s a flawless piece. it’s not a symphony, it’s not opera—it’s insane gut wrenching chamber music, and deniro in the violin is just fucking maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. mad!

seriously deserving of a rewatch. for me really now one of his top ones in terms of intensity and performances and everything really. wow!

camera & light: flawless
editing: flawless
screenplay: tight
performances: supremo

anyway i just watched marriage story. very fucking good! i mean great story. and wow, darth vader can really act, and he sings too.

also was nice to see glorious scarlett outside of a superhero movie and not as a bombshell. i mean she’s hot as fuck, but with that haircut and crying at times looked like thurston lololollolol.

Yeah, well, it’s just a nihilistic fucking nightmare and ends appropriately considering that fact.

My dad asked if it was any good. I likened it to Dunkirk, except with anxiety and people screaming in New York instead of war and bombs and shit. And with absolutely no sense of hopefulness or camaraderie.

Useless, fucking masturbatory ego-stroke of a movie. The overbearing score is the best part by far

This was extremely good.
Both of them can act like crazy. And this was a tough scenario. Lots of up-close shots and earnestness and so on. I thought I saw the illusion break a bit during one of Scarlett’s monologues, but otherwise they both did magnificently

Pretty heartbreaking film, too.
Again, Noah B. — like Wes Anderson, minus the omnipresent absurdity — comes close to hitting Salingeresque notes of genius family dynamics.

are... oh i think you’re quoting the wrong quote, but this is about uncut gems yeah?

i read the plot synopsis lol glad to be done with it.

bit of a disappointment for me because while adam sandler’s comedies are fucking stupid he does well in dramatic roles like that pta one about the yogurt guy.

and i thought his performance was good here too except he was portraying an asshole :D

laura dern was fucking brilliant too. and ray liotta haaaahaahaa his character was something...

I feel much the same way about The Colo(u)r of Money. It's a sequel, very low key, with a cast that no one would ever associate with Scorsese, and yet I still rank it right up there with his very best work. which would also include the equally un-Scorsese-like Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

As an aside on Cape Fear, did you pick up on Scorsese's regular little nods to The Creature From the Black Lagoon?

I'm a huge Nick Nolte fan, ever since seeing him in 48 Hours. I know that's the film that broke Eddie Murphy but Nolte was absolutely fantastic in it. In many ways he's my ultimate tough-guy lead. The epitome of 'solid'. But with the range for pretty much anything.

Fuck it, I wanna go on a Nolte marathon now

well well, i checked his filmography, turns out he got oscar nominations from the 2 flicks i mentioned: prince of tides and affliction. who knew?

check them. affliction is—wow. only complaint is soundtrack sounds a bit dated now. but still... oh and the james coburn cameo, holy fuck.

It’s horrible,
Have you seen the Meyerwitz Stories? Pretty good. Sandler doing drama
(genius-family-drama a la, y’know, Salinger. It’s a Netflix movie too.)

oh yeah i saw his mug there with pacino or was it hoffman i always mix them up lol

it’s in my queue for one of these days

The Net, from 1995

Probably following up with Cabin Boy.

yesterday i saw a couple movies made by women

BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER (JAMIE BABBIT, 1999)

funny satire with a bit john waters influence (even with connie marble in a supporting role.) natasha lyonne in 1999, i had no idea! fun soundtrack too. i’d recommend. the director went on to a prolific tv career after this.

FRIENDS WITH MONEY (NICOLE HOLOFCENER 2006)

this one is more of an ordinary indie drama about rich white people with a good cast and some hbo episode flavor but nothing to write home about really.... except for jennifer aniston in a french maid outfit?

this is not the best view of her legs but oh yeah they make an appearance :D

maybe i am a little disappointed with the story i guess. felt kinda meh. like a pilot for a tv show that got canceled. yes there are some social observations in it, but ultimately they don’t matter.

i recently watched Back To The Future and How To Train Your Dragon

BRITANNIA HOSPITAL (LINDSAY ANDERSON, 1982)



at times very funny, other times it falls flat; i’m not sure if it’s serious or trashy, but i prefer the trashy parts

ho-leee-sheeeeeeeeeeeettt what a movie

great credits too



blew my fucking mind

Finally watched Gangs of New York!
Good, but not my favorite. Could have used some more editing and Cameron Diaz wasn’t really up to the role. Some great set design (that intro scene, wow!), but I think Daniel Day Lewis basically owns the film.

I felt like the contrast was overdone, too. Looked more like a Tarantino movie than a Scorsese joint aesthetically. I would have preferred a softer tone to go with the lush scenery and sets, but it was still good, if a little meandering.

Messages about power dynamics and the rich getting the poor to kill one another were kind of lost in a very basic narrative about revenge with a bit of Stockholm Syndrome thrown in. All things Scorsese would put those themes to better use, with The Departed.

Still, quite good. Though I could have ABSOLUTELY done without the U2 song blaring at the end. Ugh.

Also watched Capote, finally, a few weeks ago.
Bennet Miller is now one of my favorite filmmakers, I think. Damn good movie. Catherine Keener as Harper Lee, too... you kidding me?!

Oh and I watched the Superman: Red Son feature length animated film and it was decidedly uninspired. Can that square-jaw animation style go away, please?

I'll see your Jennifer Aniston and raise you a Colleen Camp from Clue

i just came here quickly to say: watch this!

https://youtu.be/Z6_awUgbUJs

I watched a movie called Mikey and Nicky yesterday. Starring Peter Falk and John Cassavetes. I thought it was fantastic, highly recommend it. Then I watched Crawl, a fun creature feature horror movie.

speaking of which, this is what I saw:





it's quite dull though, perhaps because it's the second time I watched it.
But as I couldn't recall that I watched it the first time, I watched it again.
Possibly I didn't recall because it's dull and especially lousy music score.

And last night I watched this one:





very good movie, but also very disturbing.
not one to watch if you want to end up with a happy mind

This is on Netflix now!


It's cool, but the first one was still better.

breakfast club

GRAND PRIX (JOHN FRANKENHEIMER, 1966)



thrilling and visually brilliant movie with spectacular split screen montages supervised by saul bass. great cast too and story, plus a lot of documentary footage of the era. at almost 3h long including musical overture and intermission, an epic film really. wow.

previously:

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM (OTTO PREMINGER, 1955)



loved this one. the story twisted me up inside for the duration.

(yes, criterion was having a saul bass retrospective)

I watched Romeo Is Bleeding last night, with Gary Oldman and Lena Olin. I quite liked it, and Lena Olin has always been beautiful, as a fan of the television series Alias, that woman has aged like fine wine.

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE (JEAN LUC GODARD, 2014)



in which godard again reads bits of books at us, but made watchable by the frequent sight of a naked lady.

naked lady aside, it’s genuinely interesting at times, but i think best grasped in short bits rather than the 69+ minutes this drags on

early in the movie it seemed to me some sort of anarchist manifesto and i found myself thinking that atsonicpark would have liked this.

late in the movie, i don’t know, i just got tired of it.

this was supposed to be in 3D but i saw the 2D version.

i paused the movie a few times to read about it and write bits of this.

now it’s done.

it had good moments.

a couple of days ago the TV gave me the choice between Look Who's Talking on one channel, and Godfather Part II on another. Obviously, I choose for the best masterpiece of all times:




Then over the weekend:












and also started watching the next one, but I fell asleep, and it was only 9PM .... don't think I'll finish it. It's more lame than funny









According to imdb there will be a new one in 2021:
Ghostbusters: Legacy featuring some of the original cast members (e.g. Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver). The trailer looks promising.

Real Genius and Kill Your Darlings.

Good film, little derivative of Wes Anderson, which is surprising since Waititi has his own aesthetic, but still. Good. Occasionally really sad.

Weird to laugh at a comedic Hitler. Weird mix of tones, but good film, no question.