What Movies Have You Watched Recently?

[cwsiggy]

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What do you guys think of it? The other Altman films I’ve watched (M*A*S*H, Prairie Companion, and The Company) have left me hugely disappointed. (the Company, uggh )


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Love that movie - own it and watch it all the time. I like how it's a movie within a movie and everything they talk about in the film winds up happening in the main film and the one they produce.

Just saw Grindhouse - I thought this was excellent if you go in with the right attitude. Thought they could have done more with Death Proof - Tarantino should have developed Kurt Russell's character more, but instead tried to replicate the Pulp Fiction "long hip dialogue thingy" and that failed.

The fake preview of "Machete" was worth the price of admission alone - whole theatre was cracking up.

Eli Roth's fake preview for "Thanksgiving" and Rob Zombie's for "Werewolf Women of the S.S." were great too.

[Blarg]

Try McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Katie. Also, The Long Goodbye. I think Carter reviewed both of them and they're probably linked in the film repository thread up top of the forum.

[fyodor]

Just after Altman died I watched a bunch of his flicks including The Player, Nashville, McCabe & Mrs Miller and The Long Goodbye. All great, great films. The Long Goodbye has one of the best endings ever.

[Blarg]

Yeah, loved that ending. That flick is one of the ones that made me realize why people ever liked Elliot Gould.

[Enrique]

Saw "The Cranes are Flying" yesterday.
A russian movie that won the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 1958.
The movie is the normal storyline, boy loves girl, boy goes to war, girl waits and marries someone else but keeps hoping boy will come back.
Eventhough the story is kind of a cliche (although it might not have been in 1957), the movie works. The emotions spill through. It is also interesting that Veronica's character is not black and white, she has vulnerabilities.
There are two scenes that made this movie worth it, one of them is a soldier screaming out "pamagitie" (Help!) and the other one has Mark repeating to Veronica "lublu!" ("I love", although in the context it meant "I love you"). The scenes were amazing.

[fyodor]

Knife in the Water (1962)



Watched this for the first time the night before last. Roman Polanski's first feature length film. Done while Poland was still under communist rule and the entire film industry was state run. Was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film but lost to Fellini's 8 1/2.

There are only 3 actors for the entire film. The older guy was an acomplished actor. The younger guy was very new. The girl had never acted in her life and Polanski picked her out at a swimming pool.

With only three actors and not a lot of action, it gets deep into character and conflict. Everything comes across as very real. You see what personality the people want to reflect, and you see the warts beneath. The girl comes across as the most sympathetic of the three, and she gets more and more beautiful as the film progresses. She drops her glasses, then her clothes, and then her hair.

You can look at this film and say, well nothing really happens; it's just 24 hours in their lives. In that 24 hours though, their lives are revealed, and so by extension are ours.

[Enrique]

I am watching this in two weeks (it is going to be shown in a local movie theater). Looking forward to it. I loved Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby.

[diebitter]

Did you like it though? (Knife on the Water).


I recently watched Cul-De-Sac, which was pretty good (but not near his best).

[fyodor]

Yeah I liked it. A lot of what I liked about it was what it wasn't, or where it didn't go. I don't want to ruin it for Enrique who is about to view it so I think I'll say the rest in white. <font color="white"> There could have been actual violence instead of just the tension. It could have ended a lot differently, for instance with the girl going off with the young guy or at least leaving her husband. (Actually not sure that they were married. I would need another view to confirm that. I thought at one point it was inferred that she was his mistress and he was cheating on his wife.) Either of those things would have just cheapened it.</font> Anyhow I would watch again.

[fyodor]

Double feature day. I'll do separate posts just to make it easy on myself. This morning I watched The Double Life of Veronique (1991)



Hadn't seen it before and knew nothing about it going in. I had a copy kicking around and having just watched a Polish film made during Communist rule (Knife in the Water) I thought it would be interesting to see one done since.

I was fairly confused while watching. Started to figure things out though as it went along. Even though I had seen the two Veronicas at the same time in the square, it wasn't till the first one died and the language switched to French that I got a big clue.

I think this would be a film better viewed twice. Even more than most subtitled offerings. Knowing what's going on right from the beginning, and knowing especially what's going to happen, would have helped me a lot.

With just the one viewing I wasn't all that impressed.