Films Recently Watched

[Enthusiast]

Wasp Network. Good director, great cast. Enjoyable until it lost its way and fizzled out. 

[Taupe Beats]

13 minutes ago, Enthusiast said:

Wasp Network. Good director, great cast. Enjoyable until it lost its way and fizzled out. 

If you haven't already, check out Carlos. Same director/star in a miniseries about Carlos the Jackal. It's excellent.

[Taupe Beats]

Watched the Dardenne brothers "Young Ahmed" last night. Tend to agree with the critics that the climax is "unearned" compared to their other films. It's beautiful nonetheless (the lead is amazing in his role). The brothers are usually good at adding *just* enough exposition for the viewer to have an emotional engagement with the protagonist(s) and their situation.

This film tries a trick making the main plot itself suspenseful enough where they try to withhold even some basic exposition (background of the cousin and father, to start). Doesn't really work in the context of the Dardennes' style but they've honed their visual style to a point where even their failures are worth seeing.

Spoiler

This is now the 2nd time the Dardennes' have used non-diegetic music in their films. I found it extremely out of place with The Kid With a Bike. The usage here was fascinating. This time it was Schubert over the end credits after a particularly brutal end-cut (even for the Dardenne brothers). IMO, the musical selection implies a somewhat dark fate. That's a first for a Dardenne brothers movie and this was an odd (and questionable) film to make that choice.

 

[Enthusiast]

15 hours ago, Taupe Beats said:

If you haven't already, check out Carlos. Same director/star in a miniseries about Carlos the Jackal. It's excellent.

Yeah it's good. Personal Shopper is also a good one. 

[Nebraska]

still terrible 8 yrs after, but the buzzkill of a "slasher film in space" never fails to disappoint

[markedone]

26 minutes ago, Nebraska said:

but the buzzkill of a "slasher film in space" never fails to disappoint

imo if it embraced being a slasher film in space, it wouldnt be half bad.  its the god-awful exposition/story that ruined both that and covenant for me

[IDEM]

41 minutes ago, markedone said:

imo if it embraced being a slasher film in space, it wouldnt be half bad.  its the god-awful exposition/story that ruined both that and covenant for me

I had completely forgotten about Covenant, which is probably not a good sign. Prometheus was at least visually appealing IMO. And no, I'm not talking about Michael Fassbender, ladies.

[markedone]

yeah i could at least finish prometheus for that reason.  covenant half way through goes full 'robed druids in caves talking about nonsensical babble' and it just completely lost my attention.

[cruising for burgers]

 

Edited July 14, 2020 by Tim_J

[dingformung]

When Father Was Away on Business (1985)

Full movie (subtitles available in English, Spanish and Portuguese):

 

[Limo]

1 hour ago, dingformung said:

When Father Was Away on Business (1985)

Full movie (subtitles available in English, Spanish and Portuguese):

 

Haven’t seen that one. Is it any good?

[dingformung]

It's a beautiful film. Dark with subtle humour. I have difficulties finding Emir Kusturica films in original language. All places that I know where you can stream films only offer them in either German or English dubbing, which I hate. Fucking country restrictions. Probably have to pirate them

[cwmbrancity]

2 hours ago, dingformung said:

When Father Was Away on Business (1985)

Full movie (subtitles available in English, Spanish and Portuguese):

 

Quality filem, Kusturica hit a golden streak for a while. Underground is mental & Time of the Gypsies (sp?) is one of my favourite filems of all. Pirated them all for the subs, I can’t imagine dubbed versions. That’d really crack their magic.

[dr lopez]

prometheus is good

[Limo]

Underground is mental, indeed. Kusturica was accused of being a Serbian apologist for it, though. Something to do with suggesting it was Yugoslavians in general that were to blame for the civil war and not just Serbians.

In response Kusturica became a Serbian nationalist.

Weird.

Black cat / white cat was also hilarious - and, like Underground, had great music (“I’m a ... Pitbull! Terrier!”)

Will pirate “when father was away on business” ASAP. Thanks for the recommendation, WATMM!

[TRiP]

Just watched Black Cat, White Cat recently! Loved it, such imagination and great characters - a joy to watch.

Looking forward to checking out more - have been meaning to watch Arizona Dream for a while now, I'm guessing its quite different to his non-english work

[dingformung]

1 hour ago, rhmilo said:

Underground is mental, indeed. Kusturica was accused of being a Serbian apologist for it, though. Something to do with suggesting it was Yugoslavians in general that were to blame for the civil war and not just Serbians.

Difficult topic. I suspect foreign secret services stirred the pot, too. Would be surprising if this wasn't the case. Don't wanna make up some conspiracy theory about something I know little about, but it would be totally surprising if the US wasn't involved at this time of history. It was a block free socialist state with one of the strongest armies in Europe. Do you really think the yanks and their CIA wouldn't try to break it apart, or at least nudge the country in that direction? Usually this kind of stuff only comes to light decades later. 

Here is an interview with Robert Baer, former CIA agent in Yugoslavia on heise.de: https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Der-Staat-Jugoslawien-stand-dem-strategischen-Entwurf-der-USA-im-Wege-3378506.html (German language, though). Heise.de is a legit source, not some conspiracy blog. Not sure if everything Baer says is true because he himself has an interest in selling scandalous disclosures in book form, but it is at least clear that the CIA was present in Yugoslavia during that time.

1 hour ago, rhmilo said:

Will pirate “when father was away on business” ASAP. Thanks for the recommendation, WATMM!

You can watch it in full on YT:

 

Edited July 15, 2020 by dingformung

[Limo]

41 minutes ago, dingformung said:

it would be totally surprising if the US wasn't involved at this time of history.

Yup.

IIRC the Germans *definitely* were involved, in the sense that they made it very clear they were going to recognize independent Croatia even while talks about restructuring the Yugoslav federation were still in progress, thereby pretty much derailing them.

But that’s neither here nor there. Kusturica’s films are hilarious and I’m pretty much certain they’re documentaries, too. The one time I visited Croatia I saw with my own eyes how a family dinner involving at least three generations devolved into a massive chaos involving setting off fireworks and dancing on the dinner table at 3:00 am.

[cwmbrancity]

With Kusturica’s filems, I love the anarchy and chaos. The geese everywhere. The brass bands. The mud. Brilliant characters, genius casting, so their worlds fully open up to a non Yugoslav. The Maradona thing is such a sideways look at a football icon too.

Gonna have to rewatch a few of these, thread has convinced it’s been far too long.

[Limo]

Ok, so I was bamboozled by @dingformung : “When father was away on business” was not funny and did not have any geese in it.

It was, however, a very good film and I did chuckle - once, when the girl tried to hang herself.

[Silent Member]

Encounters of the Spooky Kind

Super fun/10

[marf]

Duel 1971

 

very good

[cruising for burgers]

AI 101, even for an ignoramus like me... AI sexy robot gone rogue and does far than expected... its lover tries to save it and the bad guys try to kill it... far out man, far out...

 

another AI masterpiece... who the hell goes to a training mission with live ammo? beats me... browsed the interwebs and it turns out some do... anyway, don't think in this case makes much sense seeing that you're gonna destroy extremely expensive robots... again, robots get sentient and ignore their protocols and wanna rule the world... high praised for its great CGI for a low budget movie which honestly i think it looked like poop...

 

war against ghosts? at least that's what they think, but there's an incredible thick plot behind all this... anyway, they cast the common ghosts that are usually cast for other movies, the ones that can pass trough walls but stand on floors and instead of running they use roller skates... top of the crop...

Edited July 15, 2020 by Tim_J

[dingformung]

2 hours ago, rhmilo said:

Ok, so I was bamboozled by @dingformung : “When father was away on business” was not funny and did not have any geese in it.

It was, however, a very good film and I did chuckle - once, when the girl tried to hang herself.

Yeah, I think the film is full of little moments of surprise/humour e.g. when that girl was semi-con-sensually fucked in the barn and next scene you see the other woman with her big pregnant belly walk through the picture. Just the way it was cut and how chaotically everything plays out made me chuckle sometimes. The scene where she tries to hang herself on the toilet flushing and instead of dying causes the toilet to flush was funny and sad. It's a dark but embracing humour. Thank you for recommending this director to me in that other thread

Edited July 15, 2020 by dingformung

[cwmbrancity]

15 hours ago, rhmilo said:

Ok, so I was bamboozled by @dingformung : “When father was away on business” was not funny and did not have any geese in it.

It was, however, a very good film and I did chuckle - once, when the girl tried to hang herself.

Tag on, have you heard Goran Bregovic? Think Borat sampled pieces:

The geese and the mud feature in Time of the Gypsies. When the film opens to that wedding, the faces alone are a world in themselves.