^ I enjoyed that movie too. It was only about half-way through that I realised that Churchill was being played by Gary Newman, so in that sense his performance was pretty good.
Right now I'm watching "WWII In Colour", but as that's a series, not a movie, I mustn't mention it here.

You know a lot more about Brian Cox than I do, ando! Many thanks for the link as that should be an interesting series.

Maybe if he were in a car he'd have felt safest of all. :o:

I zipped though WWII In Color last year or maybe 2020, then got hooked and watched a few others, like The Battle of Midway, WWII IC Road to Victory, The World at War, and then some WWI docs too.

^ oops! :laughing:

Yep, I've watched most of those war documentaries you mention too. What happened during the course of the Battle of Midway was just extraordinary; the twists and turns, the strokes of luck, the bad decisions. And of course it's all played out at the cost of human lives.

True dat

Fear of a Black Hat - Spinal Tap but about 90s hip hop and it's ****ing side-splitting.



Tokyo Story - Insanely gorgeous visuals. Strong plot that nails the slice of life approach but I felt like it could've been stronger.

Teorema - Thought the ending was wild and loved the soliloquy on artistry. There were a lot of mid points though. Idk, maybe seducing a whole family was more provocative at the time, I feel like these days people have a D.E.N.N.I.S. system about it.

Synecdoche, New York - Much funnier than I expected, honestly. The main theme of confrontation of life and death messaging is well-done, but I was mostly thinking about what Kaufman's writing process must be like. I think it goes like this

Step 1: Sincerely write the sentimental, seminal, semen-filled Important Work you want to with no worry about self-indulgence or cliche.
Step 2: Merciless mock what you wrote in step 1.
Step 3: Rewrite step 1 to subvert what step 2 mocked it for.
Step 4: Merciless mock the outcome of step 3.
Step 5: Feed the scripts from steps 3 and 4 to your ouroboros.
Step 6: Write a script mocking the ouroboros feces.
Step 7: Take the most important moments from all of the above steps and combine them without sacrificing what you were going for in step 1 then send it to the director.

La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques? (Can Dialectics Break Bricks?) - A kung-fu movie dubbed in French, turning it into a story about anticapitalist revolution. The overarching joke has surprisingly long staying power and it made my reading list even more annoyingly long and dense. Good **** and has a bunch of good non-theory-based zingers to boot.

I've yet to watch Black Hat. In my queue. Thanks.

https://i.postimg.cc/Z51zWcXQ/lillies.jpg

Lillies of the Field (1963, Ralph Nelson)
One of Sidney's best.

WR: Secrets of the Organism - ****ing wild sensory overload.

Surprised it doesn't get more recognition. I just got criterion, so post up those hidden gems up in here, especially if they're leaving soon.

Why not post cool discoveries here?
I keep wanting to resuscitate it but there doesn’t seem to be many who subscribe.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/RIwAA...6qQ/s-l400.jpg

Ad Astra

Oh my God, has anybody else seen this trash? I want to talk about how bad it is. Please, somebody tell me you've seen this. I can't even go into how bad it was without a partner here.

Yeah I've seen it.

What'd you think?

I thought it was great. What was your issue?

Well, there's the hackneyed beginning...

https://i.postimg.cc/tT2ytvVb/ad1.jpg

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Drivel amiright?

Hope floats. I'm sticking with it. :)

The screenplay is awful. No question. But the cinematography is stunning. No question...



Making a second attempt to get through it tonight.

Finished and would venture a review but this guy covers almost all the problems I had with the film -

A cool little bitter Irish independent movie called The Limit Of. Guy working in a bank gets pissed off with the heartlessness and hacks the system so that all loans declined in the last five years are now approved and the bank he works at will be seriously out of pocket. His best line in the movie - "Tomorrow three things will happen: the banks will discover they're not invincible..." (won't complete the quote as it's a spoiler). Very dark, a bit shocking, interesting ending. Really enjoyed it. #fuckthebanks

Finally watched Spoorloos/The Vanishing. It was pretty good, although watching acting in Dutch is still off-putting to me. Somehow it sounds a bit unnatural, I don't know if Dutch actors are just not that great or if it's something universal that you only hear in your native language. But anyway the film did a good job at really creeping me out. And the girl who plays Saskia is gorgeous

Do the Dutch smoke dutches or do they consider that like wearing a band shirt of the band you're going to see?

?? Dutches as in 'pass the dutchie'? We definitely don't call it that in Dutch, if that's what you mean

Dutch Masters is a brand of cigar used only for rolling blunts, just like White Owls and Swisher Sweets.

One of the most traumatizing movies I've ever seen. The ending has scarred me permanently. But the rest of the movie is a masterclass in tension building. Didn't notice anything off in the acting.

Yeah she's the kind of girl you take with you on a journey even though she doesn't speak French!

I kinda have a similar thing with Russian where I'm not capable of watching anything that came out during the past 30 years, the sounds of the language embarrass me somehow. But that's also cause everything I've seen sucked, with the exception of 2-3 masterworks. Don't have this reaction to Soviet-era cinema.

What are the 2-3 masterworks?

Khrustalyov, My Car! and How I Ended This Summer are the first ones that come to mind but I'm sure there are many more. I haven't seen Leviathan or any of Sokurov's films or probably any highly rated Russian films from recent years, so it's based on the narrowest of samples from someone who is already kinda prejudiced against them (in more or less the sense Marie described).

I haven't seen Leviathan either but was deeply impacted by Vozvrashcheniye. It's one of my all time favorites, was lucky enough to see it in the cinema and it blew me away.

Speaking of soviet era masterpieces, one that may not be very widely known (I think) and that also blew me away: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_(1977_film)

These look great, thanks!

Haven't even seen Come and See yet, the famous WW2 film by Shepitko's husband. Looking forward to seeing all three.

Never heard of it, I don't know if that's because people don't smoke them or if I'm just sheltered
Her attempts at speaking French are hilariously cute

That's interesting, about soviet era films. The acting in old films is different of course, but I guess that can't explain everything because it's not really true for films from the 70s

Come and see is good but so overblown and relentless it can be exhausting. I like her film much more, more subtle and finely observed. You don't need much spectacle to show the horrors of war. The scene in the barn is still imprinted in my mind. Super tense and powerful.

Well congratulations now you know why they call it a dutchie.

As far as I'm aware, Europeans don't smoke blunts, that's an American invention.

The European joint is tobacco sprinkled with pot. Rolled in normal rolling papers (Rizla).

#culturalexchange

I was a bit put-off when a German dude put my hash in his cigarette. Wtf. Eww. I even smoked cigarettes at the time. Nicotine ruins the flavor and gives you a headache while you're just trying to catch a buzz. No thanks.

I can't stand blunts either. Blehhhh.

No they do smoke blunts too, but they're just called blunts afaik

Thunder Road was pretty good

https://pics.filmaffinity.com/Nomadl...7105-large.jpg

Nomadland - Cloe Zhao (2020)

Best American film I've seen in years. Blown away by the naturalistic performances she got out of non-actors. Great soundtrack, great cinematography, totally controlled, precise and effective. Subdued yet very emotional.

Don't look up. It was fine.

Salo or 120 Days of Sodom - Damn powerful people suck

Bestiaire - Tons of gorgeous shots that really put you into the mindset of an animal.

Beyond the Black Rainbow - Scifi dude and his daughter do hella drugs and attain upper consciousness n ****. Her not by choice. Pretty trippy and rad but defo had corny and unnecessarily slow points.

I liked it. The satire seemed accurate to me. I'm sure climate scientists and the like can relate.

I've been kinda wanting to watch this, but not really, for years. Still haven't seen it.

I did read the synopsis of the Marquis De Sade story that Salo is based on.. which seems even worse than the movie. He was a corny mofo.

Joints was mostly just hash (hand rolled with tobacco) where I grew up. I've smoked pot like.. once, I think. Compared to hash, it seemed rare to me.