littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I think you started with his best film tbh (while I do still think Satantango is worth a go). The Man From London is also a test of patience.
Films you have seen at the cinema 2024
- Thread starter metalguru
- Start date
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Werckmeister Harmonies is the Tarr film I would warmly recommend. It is worth the effort, and it isn't really that much effort compared to, say, Turin Horse. It's a film that has really stayed with me.
Sue's reaction to Turin Horse is entirely understandable tbh. If you start with that, you'll probably end with that as well. It has also kind of stayed with me, mind.
Only thing I would say about Bela Tarr's films is that you may sometimes need to sleep on them to properly gauge what you think. It is possible Sue may wake up tomorrow feeling even angrier about sitting through Turin Horse than she does now.
Sue's reaction to Turin Horse is entirely understandable tbh. If you start with that, you'll probably end with that as well. It has also kind of stayed with me, mind.
Only thing I would say about Bela Tarr's films is that you may sometimes need to sleep on them to properly gauge what you think. It is possible Sue may wake up tomorrow feeling even angrier about sitting through Turin Horse than she does now.
2.5 hours of my life I'll never get back.Werckmeister Harmonies is the Tarr film I would warmly recommend. It is worth the effort, and it isn't really that much effort compared to, say, Turin Horse. It's a film that has really stayed with me.
Sue's reaction to Turin Horse is entirely understandable tbh. If you start with that, you'll probably end with that as well. It has also kind of stayed with me, mind.
Only thing I would say about Bela Tarr's films is that you may sometimes need to sleep on them to properly gauge what you think. It is possible Sue may wake up tomorrow feeling even angrier about sitting through Turin Horse than she does now.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Throbbing Angel
this is no longer a place of honour
I've booked to see Pulp Fiction
Have they done a new version
Have they done a new version
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
That’s what happens if you tell all of the stories in the correct order
Elpenor
Dancing as fast as I can
Only the river flows - wet Chinese neo-noir set in the mid 90s, an original idea for a plot as a cop with a challenging home life 
investigates a murder. Still some traces of revolutionary niceties “hello comrade detective” etc. Didn’t get that much from this, but quite enjoyed the scenes where he scolded his junior colleague.
Cinema Paradiso - I had watched the directors cut with my ex some years ago, it was one of her favourite films. So interesting to rewatch the shorter international cut at the local arts centre tonight which I thought was better. Don’t care much for the scenes when the protagonist is a teenager in love, but the first hour or so with the instinctive acting of the lad playing young Toto are a joy. And of course a brilliant Morricone score.
investigates a murder. Still some traces of revolutionary niceties “hello comrade detective” etc. Didn’t get that much from this, but quite enjoyed the scenes where he scolded his junior colleague.Cinema Paradiso - I had watched the directors cut with my ex some years ago, it was one of her favourite films. So interesting to rewatch the shorter international cut at the local arts centre tonight which I thought was better. Don’t care much for the scenes when the protagonist is a teenager in love, but the first hour or so with the instinctive acting of the lad playing young Toto are a joy. And of course a brilliant Morricone score.
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Only the River Flows. I think I liked this more than Elpenor did. The China in the 90s stuff was interesting and the cinematography was v good I thought.
Kneecap. The dubious origin story of an Irish language rap group. Fun (if not exactly subtle).
The Cockettes. Documentary about an LSD-fueled group of San Francisco dragged-up hippy performers from the late 60s/early 70s. Really enjoyed this -- very funny, with lots of contemporary photos and footage and interviews with some of the surviving members. Also interesting stuff about communes in SF at that time. The director was there in person and did a great Q&A.
Kneecap. The dubious origin story of an Irish language rap group. Fun (if not exactly subtle).
The Cockettes. Documentary about an LSD-fueled group of San Francisco dragged-up hippy performers from the late 60s/early 70s. Really enjoyed this -- very funny, with lots of contemporary photos and footage and interviews with some of the surviving members. Also interesting stuff about communes in SF at that time. The director was there in person and did a great Q&A.
Elpenor
Dancing as fast as I can
Lee
at first glance a fairly generic biopic - with flashbacks naturally - of Lee Miller, an American photographer who fights to be the only female war correspondent during the invasion of Normandy and beyond. With that said it has some interesting things to say about the female experience of war, and Kate Winslet gives an enjoyable and spirited performance as the hard drinking Miller that the academy voters will probably like.
On balance more of a Woolton pie with
rare moments of fillet steak
at first glance a fairly generic biopic - with flashbacks naturally - of Lee Miller, an American photographer who fights to be the only female war correspondent during the invasion of Normandy and beyond. With that said it has some interesting things to say about the female experience of war, and Kate Winslet gives an enjoyable and spirited performance as the hard drinking Miller that the academy voters will probably like.
On balance more of a Woolton pie with
rare moments of fillet steak
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Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
Trap - I watched this because the trailer makes it look like entertaining dumb fun. Unfortunately, whilst is was indeed dumb (indeed, much dumber than even the trailer would suggest), it was not as fun as I'd hoped. The first half - set at a pop concert - is entertaining enough and the concert itself is really well done, it feels authentic. But it all goes south after the concert. The 'plot' (or lack thereof), the dialogue and the set pieces (other than the concert itself) are just terrible. Feels like its written by 13 year olds who've done no research into what they're writing about.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
Starve Acre has all the makings of a decent folk horror, in fact its got the makings of half a dozen.
Is it worth watching? One for a quiet night in, you won't miss anything if you catch it on Netflix instead of the cinema. Just don't expect it to blow you away.
Which is kind of the problem really, it does nothing you've not seen before and it does it competently but not well. The parents losing a child is fairly common cliche by now and we get that over with promptly and discreetly. The couple not talking to each other in grief is again a well worn pathway as are the sins of the Father.
The hare slowly pulling itself together by flesh and sinew is probably the most interesting part of the film, theres a level of viscreal reality in there that does work well. There are some good performances from Morfydd Clark and Sean Gilder but the material they are working with isn't really there. Matt Smith slowly starts to dominate the screentime over the film and he's decent enough but let down by an accent that slips a bit to often.
The film is let down by its reluctance to go either fully weird and surreal or to go full exposition. If the film had been brave enough for Matt Smith to brain a different person in the last five minutes we might have got somewhere interesting.
We learn a few hints about Richards (Matt Smiths) father in dribs and drabs but much of the early work and explanation is blink and you'll miss it hand written text from a journal before we get a kind of rushed explanation towards the end of a film... from one character who reads a large journal front to back and then explains things in seemingly five minutes.
Theres no strange dreams or imagery similar to In The Earth or even the bizaree surrealness of the original Wicker Man. Only Matt Smith deals with the oddity of a skeleton clothing itself and even the effects of this transition are done very down to earth and solidly. This again is under examined, he does seem to struggle with explaining it to himself as he's the solidly rational one in the house but does he ever mention it to his wife? Does he struggle with strange dreams due to it? No, he leaves it gestating overnight in a box after taking measurements.
The characters all fully ramp up and jump aboard the Jack/Hare train in a sudden about face towards the end of the run time and we suddenly discover the kindly neighbours aren't kindly at all (also a well worn cliche).
Overall theres moments there where the film is interesting but the characters are a mix of the unfleshed out and the underused, we don't really see Richard and Juliettes child become ensared by Jack before he exits the film, we don't really get to know Juliette well at all aside from her grief, Harrie is there solely to provide some sort of straight man to the rapidly detoriating couple and an extra body. Mrs Forde drifts in and is gone in a breeze before a brief cameo in the finale, Steven is briefly in and out as both a friend and usurper of Richards position but its barely fleshed out, mostly as Richard spends most of the film digging a hole in his back garden. Gordon has probably the most impact in the film, striding in to chivvy characters along and keep the plot moving.
The hare is going to provoke a lot of mixed feelings, once its up and about it moves in a sort of stop motion jerking way that the director says is inspired by stop motion (particularly the Czech version of Alice in Wonderland) - mostly however the hare just stands around, staring, looking, and finally bidding the characters murder people. Its supposed to look unsettling and eerie but mostly it just looks uncanny valley.
The hare slowly pulling itself together by flesh and sinew is probably the most interesting part of the film, theres a level of viscreal reality in there that does work well. There are some good performances from Morfydd Clark and Sean Gilder but the material they are working with isn't really there. Matt Smith slowly starts to dominate the screentime over the film and he's decent enough but let down by an accent that slips a bit to often.
The film is let down by its reluctance to go either fully weird and surreal or to go full exposition. If the film had been brave enough for Matt Smith to brain a different person in the last five minutes we might have got somewhere interesting.
We learn a few hints about Richards (Matt Smiths) father in dribs and drabs but much of the early work and explanation is blink and you'll miss it hand written text from a journal before we get a kind of rushed explanation towards the end of a film... from one character who reads a large journal front to back and then explains things in seemingly five minutes.
Theres no strange dreams or imagery similar to In The Earth or even the bizaree surrealness of the original Wicker Man. Only Matt Smith deals with the oddity of a skeleton clothing itself and even the effects of this transition are done very down to earth and solidly. This again is under examined, he does seem to struggle with explaining it to himself as he's the solidly rational one in the house but does he ever mention it to his wife? Does he struggle with strange dreams due to it? No, he leaves it gestating overnight in a box after taking measurements.
The characters all fully ramp up and jump aboard the Jack/Hare train in a sudden about face towards the end of the run time and we suddenly discover the kindly neighbours aren't kindly at all (also a well worn cliche).
Overall theres moments there where the film is interesting but the characters are a mix of the unfleshed out and the underused, we don't really see Richard and Juliettes child become ensared by Jack before he exits the film, we don't really get to know Juliette well at all aside from her grief, Harrie is there solely to provide some sort of straight man to the rapidly detoriating couple and an extra body. Mrs Forde drifts in and is gone in a breeze before a brief cameo in the finale, Steven is briefly in and out as both a friend and usurper of Richards position but its barely fleshed out, mostly as Richard spends most of the film digging a hole in his back garden. Gordon has probably the most impact in the film, striding in to chivvy characters along and keep the plot moving.
The hare is going to provoke a lot of mixed feelings, once its up and about it moves in a sort of stop motion jerking way that the director says is inspired by stop motion (particularly the Czech version of Alice in Wonderland) - mostly however the hare just stands around, staring, looking, and finally bidding the characters murder people. Its supposed to look unsettling and eerie but mostly it just looks uncanny valley.
Is it worth watching? One for a quiet night in, you won't miss anything if you catch it on Netflix instead of the cinema. Just don't expect it to blow you away.
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braindancer
not for long
Agreed - went with the fam on Saturday night. Was great fun - Michael Keaton was indeed on fine form - loved Willem Dafoe's character too....
Seems to have panned by the critics - but boo hiss to them - we all really enjoyed it....
Elpenor
Dancing as fast as I can
Girls Will be Girls - an impressive coming of age story set in a posh Indian boarding school in the Himalayas during the 90s. A lot to say about the difference between the female and male experience of being a teenager, and the differing expectations societies places on women, and in particular the male rape culture that pervade. The sexual awakening scenes felt realistic though I have no personal frame of reference. The director takes the time to build the characters up slowly and as the school year progresses, the tension mounts. it pays off with quite a moving ending.
A particular highlight was the ambient sound, bird song and the like.
A particular highlight was the ambient sound, bird song and the like.
May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. There were some things I liked about it, but ultimately not enough to overcome the disappointment.
Elpenor
Dancing as fast as I can
The Outrun
Powerful performance by Saiorse Ronan as Rhona, a woman returning from London to Orkney to deal with her alcoholism.
Orkney itself provides a brilliant supporting role, and the soundscape is absolutely incredible. You feel every gust of wind and crash or wave as Rhona anchors her recovery journey firmly to the place she is in.
Powerful performance by Saiorse Ronan as Rhona, a woman returning from London to Orkney to deal with her alcoholism.
Orkney itself provides a brilliant supporting role, and the soundscape is absolutely incredible. You feel every gust of wind and crash or wave as Rhona anchors her recovery journey firmly to the place she is in.
DJWrongspeed
radio eros
Gotta see this , have read the book.
Does it do Hackney parties well?
Saw Kneecap the other night. Highly recommend, I laughed a lot, great fun.
For those who don't know, it's a dramatisation of the founding of the Irish language hip hop band Kneecap. They started when one of them was arrested for graffitiing the Irish word for "rights" on a bus stop before an Irish language act demonstration and refused to speak English, forcing the police to find an Irish language schoolteacher to act as translator. When they asked him to translate the lad's notebook he was impressed to find his Irish language rap lyrics and helped him put them to music, donning a balaclava and the pseudonym "DJ Provai" to hide his identity from his students and his employer during shows.
They played themselves and I'd never seen DJ Provai without his balaclava before so I was surprised when watching to find out that DJ Provai was actually my Irish language teacher from when I attended a couple of classes at the Culturlann while living in Belfast! Mild mannered and slightly awkward fella, very unlike the two younger lads so I never suspected that. It also featured one of their concerts that I attended, which was in the same venue where Prince William and Kate had spoken the night before and caused controversy in the unionist press for leading a "fuck the queen fuck the royal family" chant. Great to see them getting a bit of recognition now outside of Ireland.
It's a dramatisation and exaggeration, but a lot more of the story is true than one might think. The introduction scene during Mo Chara's christening in the forest which is interrupted by an RUC helicopter who mistook the gathering for an IRA camp is true, as is the way the group was founded and the way DJ Provai got rumbled (his arse cheeks with "Brits Out" tattooed on them being recognised by a colleague at his school when footage of him displaying them during a show spread around). It is also true that their dad was a Republican paramilitary who taught them Irish, but him faking his death and going into hiding was artistic license, as was his Protestant girlfriend's policewoman aunt trying to hunt his dad down.
Apart from the dad in hiding subplot, their conflict with the "Radical Republicans Against Drugs" is definitely exaggerated (nobody fired a gun at their show for sure) but it would be surprising if they didn't receive at least a stern talking to and some threats from the real life "Republican Action Against Drugs" or some related paramilitaries, but the details of this will probably never be made public for obvious reasons. Other than those bits, it is pretty much a true story.
For those who don't know, it's a dramatisation of the founding of the Irish language hip hop band Kneecap. They started when one of them was arrested for graffitiing the Irish word for "rights" on a bus stop before an Irish language act demonstration and refused to speak English, forcing the police to find an Irish language schoolteacher to act as translator. When they asked him to translate the lad's notebook he was impressed to find his Irish language rap lyrics and helped him put them to music, donning a balaclava and the pseudonym "DJ Provai" to hide his identity from his students and his employer during shows.
They played themselves and I'd never seen DJ Provai without his balaclava before so I was surprised when watching to find out that DJ Provai was actually my Irish language teacher from when I attended a couple of classes at the Culturlann while living in Belfast! Mild mannered and slightly awkward fella, very unlike the two younger lads so I never suspected that. It also featured one of their concerts that I attended, which was in the same venue where Prince William and Kate had spoken the night before and caused controversy in the unionist press for leading a "fuck the queen fuck the royal family" chant. Great to see them getting a bit of recognition now outside of Ireland.
It's a dramatisation and exaggeration, but a lot more of the story is true than one might think. The introduction scene during Mo Chara's christening in the forest which is interrupted by an RUC helicopter who mistook the gathering for an IRA camp is true, as is the way the group was founded and the way DJ Provai got rumbled (his arse cheeks with "Brits Out" tattooed on them being recognised by a colleague at his school when footage of him displaying them during a show spread around). It is also true that their dad was a Republican paramilitary who taught them Irish, but him faking his death and going into hiding was artistic license, as was his Protestant girlfriend's policewoman aunt trying to hunt his dad down.
Apart from the dad in hiding subplot, their conflict with the "Radical Republicans Against Drugs" is definitely exaggerated (nobody fired a gun at their show for sure) but it would be surprising if they didn't receive at least a stern talking to and some threats from the real life "Republican Action Against Drugs" or some related paramilitaries, but the details of this will probably never be made public for obvious reasons. Other than those bits, it is pretty much a true story.
Elpenor
Dancing as fast as I can
I couldn’t say, London scenes are mainly her drinking in bars and clubs as far as I can tell.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I was really impressed by their performances. I saw this film "blind" at a preview and had no idea what it was about. I did not twig that they weren't professional actors. DJ Provai in particular I thought gave a very nuanced performance as the mild-mannered teacher with a secret. But then that is what he is!
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
The Substance
This film bashes you around the head with its main message for two and a quarter hours - that we're all obsessed with youth, particularly female youth. Its more interesting theme has to do with identity and how it can split.
The premise is preposterous, but that's ok. Every character is puddle-deep, but that's kind of the point. It's a bit too in love with its own special effects.
I'll echo Sue's common complaint on here with this film. Its relatively simple and crude message was ideally suited to a tight 90 minutes. It was three quarters of an hour too long and I really just wanted it to end by the time we got to the big finale (needed in case you missed the message somehow, maybe by sleeping through the first two hours).
This film bashes you around the head with its main message for two and a quarter hours - that we're all obsessed with youth, particularly female youth. Its more interesting theme has to do with identity and how it can split.
The premise is preposterous, but that's ok. Every character is puddle-deep, but that's kind of the point. It's a bit too in love with its own special effects.
I'll echo Sue's common complaint on here with this film. Its relatively simple and crude message was ideally suited to a tight 90 minutes. It was three quarters of an hour too long and I really just wanted it to end by the time we got to the big finale (needed in case you missed the message somehow, maybe by sleeping through the first two hours).
Not me -- haven't seen it yet!
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Sorry, just read the film name and saw the tag and thought you'd got me confused with someone else.
But yes, you're right -- I do moan a lot about films being too long!
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I never know whether to tag people or not. Probably shouldn't have. I wasn't being rude about you. 
It's rude to be rude about someone without tagging them, but perhaps rude to tag someone otherwise? Dunno.
It's rude to be rude about someone without tagging them, but perhaps rude to tag someone otherwise? Dunno.
