Return of the RECENT VIEWING

[Jimbly]

I'm not a fan, but PW was such a mainstay of my childhood pop-cultural experience that I thought it might be worthwhile to see what this documentary had to offer, or just have a weird ride down memory lane.

On the plus side, Williams is bright, clever and down to earth - a great subject for a doc. The downside is the guy who made the movie (Kessler) puts himself in it to such a degree (and he's really an unpleasant pest) that he nearly sinks the thing.

The backstory is that the Paul Williams was Kessler's childhood idol - which doesn't go far to explaining why he assumed Williams was dead at the beginning of the picture. A Google search could have straightened that out.

Williams is clearly pissed off with Kessler (as are we) throughout most of the proceedings, but he manages to rise above it with admirable aplomb. The needling questions about Williams' reduced circumstances (no longer the celeb he was) (but 20 years sober and at peace with himself) betray Kessler's utter lack of sensitivity/empathy for his subject. Before too long, you realize the movie is really more about the filmmaker than the subject and it's only enjoyable at all despite that.

In the end, Williams' redemption, hard-earned life lessons and humanity are the takeaway. Well, that and the wardrobe howlers in the generous amount of archival TV footage included.

Jesus, I hadn't thought about PW for years, he was over everything back in the 70s like rash. Guess will probably have to wait for this to come on BBC4 or Netflix to find out where it all went wrong*.

* Would imagine shedloads of coke and booze would be involved somewhere

He was on the last Daft Punk album

[echolalia]

The unloved Topaz. Its only fault is it lacks the obsession factor of Vertigo and Psycho etc. It’s Hitchcock at the top of his game – excellent stuff. A French spy finds himself dans une situation where his loyautés are seriously divisées – and maybe the international spy intrigue is a metaphor for much homelier things. Lots of venetian blinds.



Good Lord I loved this film. It’s funny as fuck – not in the dialogue but in the actual pictures. The tunnel scene just after they interrupt “Roma’s Got Talent” to announce the Allies have invaded Sicily is one of the most memorable parts. And the underground and motorway bits. With cameos from Gore Vidal (talking shite) and Anna Magnani.

[Matt Wilson]

Complete Jacques Tati

Superb little box of all of Tati's films plus the shorts. The first four essential pictures (Jour de Fete, Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, Mon Oncle, and PlayTime) and then the lesser works (Traffic, and Parade). The classic pictures are all enjoyable of course (I'd never seen Jour de Fete before), but for some reason I don't put Tati on the same level as Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, etc. I don't laugh at him for one, the pacing is rather slow for another, and the lack of traditional plot doesn't really help either. PlayTime is the acknowledged high point, yet I prefer Mon Oncle. He spent so much money on PlayTime, that when it bombed he was, in effect, financially ruined and never really recovered. Pity.

[joels344]

A mesmerizing, intense, compelling, and physically driven piece of war cinema with an atmospheric soundtrack just as harsh as the unrelenting landscape the characters suffer through. Absolutely devastating and brilliantly crafted from beginning to end. People often compare this film to the work of Tarkovsky, while there are similarities, I would say it's more of a precursor to the work of Béla Tarr with how Shepitko utilizes a more contemplative approach to capture austere and bleak black and white imagery. Same can be said of Tarkovsky, but I'd say this film is more stylistically similar to (even though she came first) Tarr (a la The Turin Horse). Unfortunately, The Ascent seems to be a criminally unacknowledged film, but thanks to the Criterion Collection, we have an excellent restoration of two Larisa Shepitko films.

[Minnie the Minx]

Saw 'Play it Again Sam' for the first time last night and was crying with laughter. Gorgeous view of San Francisco too.

[Matt Wilson]

The Freshman

Great Harold Lloyd film from the mid '20s with a college football theme. You could remake it today with a few tweaks and it would still do well.

[Darkness_Fish]

So-so mid 70s conspiracy thriller, with Warren Beatty doing the downtrodden newspaper hack who gets on the trail of a murderous corporation. Very earnest and straight, a bit too po-faced to be really successful.

[Matt Wilson]

So-so mid 70s conspiracy thriller, with Warren Beatty doing the downtrodden newspaper hack who gets on the trail of a murderous corporation. Very earnest and straight, a bit too po-faced to be really successful.

It's not great, no - but I always kinda liked it. Another one of those '70s conspiracy thrillers along with 3 Days of the Condor & The Conversation. Not in the same league, mind...

[Snarfyguy]

Jim Jarmuch's latest, an ode to routine and simplicity in (very) uneventful daily life, with some musings on the nature of poetic inspiration tossed in. It's really a visual poem, with repeating motifs and patterns, about the forbearance and endurance of its protagonist (and by extension the working class) as an art in itself.

[Matt Wilson]

Panic in the Streets

Pretty good Kazan picture which was Jack Palance's first movie. Not a top tier noir, but I'd never seen it before and it didn't disappoint.

[joels344]

Wow, this was fucking brilliant. I love Polish cinema so much.

[Darkness_Fish]

Off work to look after my son today, he's feeling a bit run-down, and I haven't slept for two nights, so the plan to go swimming or have a bike ride went out the window. Watched this instead, with some doritos:



I gather it doesn't have a particularly good reputation, even amongst people with a high tolerance for superhero films (not me). It seemed like a bit of a confused mess to start with, and I can't think of much worse casting than Frasier play a hairy blue monster-hero-thing. However, it had lots of action set-pieces, and not much dialogue, so it did the job of keeping the little 'un entertained. Special effects are remarkably ropey, even for the CGI era. Still, it has the bravery to kill off some of its main characters.

[Matt Wilson]

Death Wish 2

First of the Death Wish sequels and the only one with a Jimmy Page soundtrack. Dumber, sleazier, but almost as fun as the original. Bronson is too old for the role but it doesn't really seem to matter. By this point it's all just a right wing fantasy anyway. There's not one, but two rape scenes, the first of which goes on forever in the unrated version. A very grimy picture, indeed.

[BARON CORNY DOG]

So-so mid 70s conspiracy thriller, with Warren Beatty doing the downtrodden newspaper hack who gets on the trail of a murderous corporation. Very earnest and straight, a bit too po-faced to be really successful.

It's not great, no - but I always kinda liked it. Another one of those '70s conspiracy thrillers along with 3 Days of the Condor & The Conversation. Not in the same league, mind...

I loved it. It's got that ineffable magic 70s shit.

[Goat Boy]

The Night of the Hunter

It is a great film and its themes (corruption of childhood innocence and its consequences) resonate more and more as I get older. It touches on other things too like linking sexual repression to violence which seems quite ahead of its time. It looks wonderful, the music is great and it has the strange, haunting quality of a fairy tale. The whole riverboat sequence, in particular, is stunning but the shot of Winters body under water is also strange and beautiful. I do have a minor quibble with Shelly Winters performance which isn’t the most convincing and the slightly stagey acting although the movie isn’t really concerned with realism per se (the scene where Mitchum kills Winters is very stylised for example) so it doesn't really bother me.

[Darkness_Fish]

So-so mid 70s conspiracy thriller, with Warren Beatty doing the downtrodden newspaper hack who gets on the trail of a murderous corporation. Very earnest and straight, a bit too po-faced to be really successful.

It's not great, no - but I always kinda liked it. Another one of those '70s conspiracy thrillers along with 3 Days of the Condor & The Conversation. Not in the same league, mind...

I loved it. It's got that ineffable magic 70s shit.

It looked good, and it looked ineffably 70s, I'll give it that. I just thought Beatty was a weak lead, and this ultra-mysterious company seemed to be a bit free with giving out flyers to dumb shits like the local sheriff. That scene near the dam is awesome though, more fitting to a Bond film than the otherwise claustrophobic nature of the film.

[Matt Wilson]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

I've always enjoyed it, and though I think it misses the nuances (the political overtones, for one) of the book, I don't think we're going to ever get a better filmic adaptation of a Hunter Thompson novel. I met both Thompson and Depp when I went to Book Soup on Sunset Blvd in 1998 to get Thompson's signature on a book of his letters. Hunter was a giant, over six foot, while 'lil Johnny couldn't have been more than 5'6", maybe 130 lbs. Only in Hollywood would they think to get Johnny Depp to play Hunter Thompson... Alex Cox was originally going to do the picture so when Gilliam came onboard he was basically a director for hire.

[Darkness_Fish]

Cheap and cheerful horror-sex-comedy that's low on laughs, sex, and horror. It was watchable rubbish, basically, though the central performance of the geeky journalism student by Alison Scagliotti was remarkably good amidst the crappy supporting ensemble.

[Snarfyguy]

Strong cast (esp. Cranston, who's very good in a kind of reverse Walter White role), good yarn, production values on point, etc, yet this somehow fails to fully engage because it can't overcome the inherent familiarity of the premise. We've seen this movie so many times that it's impossible not to be fatigued by its predictable deployment of the usual tropes, no matter how well done it is.

I'll give it a B+ though. It's really pretty good.

[Matt Wilson]

Complete Billy Jack Collection

All four Billy Jack movies. Born Losers is actually a pretty good biker flick. Billy Jack, the best of the lot, is a counter culture classic. The Trial of Billy Jack, at three hours, tries to pile on everything from American Indian issues, abused kids, college campuses like Kent State, and much more. Shout Factory didn't use the correct aspect ration for this film, by the way. The weakest of the films, Billy Jack Goes to Washington, was originally three hours long, and the version here cuts out about 40 minutes.