Films you have seen at the cinema 2024

[furluxor]

Film 10
Bird
View attachment 449691
Andrea Arnold’s new one, starring Nykiya Adams as a 12-year-old reluctantly growing up too soon, surrounded by adults who themselves are in a state of impoverished arrested development. Reminiscent of David Almond’s YA classic Skellig (perhaps deliberately so?).
I love Andrea Arnold.
She’s so good with young actors.
Love Robbie Ryan’s camerawork too Gravesend’s never looked so unappealing. The needledrops of 90s’ dadrock, unwelcome at any other time, are perfect here - never thought I’d hear Coldplay’s Yellow used to coax hallucinogenic slime from a vexed South American toad before. Pretty sure you can just buy it bottled online, from Goop.
There are elements of the film I want to talk about that involve spoilers, but that shall have to wait.
5 mephed-up-dads-snotsinging-Lucky-Man out of 5

Really hope to be able to go to this tomorrow! I loved Fish Bowl (I think it was Arnold's film).

 

[Orang Utan]

It’s a marathon not a sprint OU!

Indeed. I need to be reminded.

 

[Elpenor]

Yesterday was the last day of the film noir festival.

First up was the 4k restoration of Gilda. I had watched this before but hadn’t really liked it for some reason (possibly finding the gambling scenes boring). Got more from it this time round but I was certainly getting fed up with Glenn Ford. Rita Hayworth is dangerous with a capital D though as the love triangle shifts, resets and then closes in again.

Next was the second Mexican offering I took in this weekend - Take Me In Your Arms. This was the story of the daughter of a fisherman who has to leave her village and her lover (a Union leader at a sugar plant) to work for a wealthy man in order to pay off debts. From there a political candidate enters the fray and the former lover reacquaints. Not as good as yesterday’s one but some superb pouting from the lead actress and this one had something to show from a social perspective.

After lunch was Blackmail - the silent version. The sound version had been on yesterday, this was with a piano accompaniment. Apparently it’s shorter than the sound version according to someone who saw both. I’m afraid I was flagging at this point and nodded off briefly.

There was an exclusive preview of a forthcoming Bogart documentary which I passed on as I preferred to see Double Indemnity. Simply a masterpiece, the Raymond Chandler script really shows, and the direction is top notch.


Finally it was The Last Seduction. Linda Fiorentino plays an ice cold femme fatale who dupes both her husband and the hayseed small towner she hooks up with when she’s on the lam. Hadn’t seen this or even heard of it before and loved it.

I passed on the early Sunday evening choice of either Key Largo or Scarlet Street as I wanted a few hours to relax at my digs. I had seen both and would have happily seen Key Largo again, didn’t really rate Scarlet Street much. But in all I managed 13/14 films.

The theme next year is “heist” so perhaps we will see The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing among others.

 

[Elpenor]

Known as Build My Gallows High in the UK. US does like its literal, non-poetic titles. Great film whatever its title.

Yes, and as a line Mitchum delivers at a key moment would have been ideal

 

[redsquirrel]

Anora at the Leeds International films festival - excellent, another one of target from Sean Baker. Just over two hours but a modern film that did not feel too long. Mikey Madison deserves all her plaudits she is excellent in the role. Some genuine laugh out loud moments but also with characters with some depth. I don't know if it is quite up there with Starlet and The Florida Project. But well worth seeing.

 

[oryx]

Has anyone else seen Steve McQueen's Blitz? Saw it last Friday and while it was absorbing (and at moments genuinely terrifying) I wasn't quite sure how it stood up as a film. It had a feel of Oliver! crossed with Call The Midwife and didn't know whether to be realist or melodramatic. A gripping story of a young evacuee from the East End who decides to 'escape' while on the way to his destination, which may have been better in the hands of a different director.

I'd still recommend seeing it, though.

 

[Orang Utan]

Film 11: Rumours

Faintly amusing satire on a G7 conference in which seven worryingly fallible world leaders bicker like they’re in an Aykborn play, while events get stranger and stranger.
Probably the most straightforward film Guy Maddin has made, but this is not to the film’s credit.
2 hatchback-sized pulsating brains out of 5

 

[Orang Utan]

Film 12: Anora

Sean Baker does it again. Not quite as perfect as The Florida Project, mind, but it’s such an enjoyable ride that I’m keen to see it again
4 Armenian De Niro lookalikes out of 5

 

[Orang Utan]

Film 13: A Real Pain

Jesse Eisenberg directs Kieran Culkin in a glib Holocaust comedy. Culkin and Eisenberg lean into type and do their usual awkward/brash/shy bullshit stolen from their other films.
2 uncomfortable train journeys out of 5

 

[Sue]

Not really the place to put this (though couldn't see a better one) but good for Mubi:

Turkish film festival scrapped over Daniel Craig gay drama censorship

Mubi cancels four-day event in protest as local government blocks screening of Luca Guadagnino-directed movie Queer

www.theguardian.com

 

[Sue]

The Room Next Door. A bit uneven (the third act doesn't feel quite right) but very good exposition of friendship and death. Moore and Swinton are both excellent (as ever) and I liked the slightly menacing swirly music. That and the colours feel quite Sirkian (if that's a word).

 

[Sue]

Film 10
Bird
View attachment 449691
Andrea Arnold’s new one, starring Nykiya Adams as a 12-year-old reluctantly growing up too soon, surrounded by adults who themselves are in a state of impoverished arrested development. Reminiscent of David Almond’s YA classic Skellig (perhaps deliberately so?).
I love Andrea Arnold.
She’s so good with young actors.
Love Robbie Ryan’s camerawork too Gravesend’s never looked so unappealing. The needledrops of 90s’ dadrock, unwelcome at any other time, are perfect here - never thought I’d hear Coldplay’s Yellow used to coax hallucinogenic slime from a vexed South American toad before. Pretty sure you can just buy it bottled online, from Goop.
There are elements of the film I want to talk about that involve spoilers, but that shall have to wait.
5 mephed-up-dads-snotsinging-Lucky-Man out of 5

I just saw this and pretty much hated it, from the horrible wobbly camera to Fran Rogowski's really annoying character.

Do dysfunctional, chaotic families exist? Of course but this depiction of one just didn't feel genuine. I couldn't wait for it to end.

Spoiler

And the turning into a bird bit. I can't remember the last time i rolled my eyes quite that much.

 

[Orang Utan]

Film 14
Grand Theft Hamlet

Hilarious and unexpextedly moving documentary on three out of work actor/directeos who put on a full production of Hamlet in the beautiful and dangerous world of GTA Online. So funny watching GTA avatars in absurd fancy dress performing sombre soliloquys only to be randomly murdered by passers by.
4 wasted actors out of 5

 

[Orang Utan]

Film 15
No Other Land

Blood-boiling doc on the Israeli Occupation of Masafer Yatta in the West Bank. Much of the footage is take by young residents, and it’s hard not to feel utter despair at their situation.


This screening was picketed by people silently holding up photographs of Israelis kidnapped in October 2023. Not sure why to be honest - they clearly haven’t seen the film.

4 bulldozed schools out of 5

 

[PR1Berske]

Film 14
Grand Theft Hamlet
View attachment 450243
Hilarious and unexpextedly moving documentary on three out of work actor/directeos who put on a full production of Hamlet in the beautiful and dangerous world of GTA Online. So funny watching GTA avatars in absurd fancy dress performing sombre soliloquys only to be randomly murdered by passers by.
4 wasted actors out of 5

I've been looking forward to this. Hope it's an easy to seek out release.

 

[redsquirrel]

Christmas Eve in Miller's Point - Orang Utan well ahead of me, this is only film number 2 from LIFF, indie ensemble comedy of an extended family get together, it deliberately keeps a very loose narrative, dipping in and out of interactions of family members. If there is a main character it is Emily, a young woman who wants to be with her friends rather than family, and has a strained relationship with her mum.

There are some nice moments in the family drama, interesting hints of backstories. It is so very very American indie, the time/place/reality of the setting is deliberately (well I think so) off, it is as much about a film homage to US family Christmas films as Christmas itself. That works sometimes and does not work others, like a lot os US Indies it is rather in love with itself and that scene. So we have the the inclusion of Spielberg and Scorsese family members, tbf Francesca Scorsese is good in her role, but Spielberg's son turning up is just sycophancy. Likewise Micheal Cera's role as one of two cops who turn up repeatedly, talking with the sort of terrible dialouge that US indie films find deep and/or funny but it just shite (the removal of the all of cop scenes would have improved the film).

I ranked it three stars at the end (LIFF ask viewers to rank films out of 5 so they can award a people's choice), it has some good moments, and interesting ideas but needed a strong critical editor and producer keep the director in check.

Next up Universal Language new film from the director of The Twentieth Century, which I know Reno really liked, and I did not.

 

[Orang Utan]

Film 16
Toxic

Impressive debut from Lithuanian director Saulé Bliuvaité. Set in a declining industrial town that looks like a Lithuanian version of Middlesborough, it’s about two young teens who join a modelling school and put themselves through various grotesque ordeals to conform with exacting beauty standards.
4 dark web tapeworms out of 5

 

[Orang Utan]

Film 17 Else

(first film from today’s Day Of The Dead!)
Another hugely impressive debut from French director, Thibault Emin, about a pandemic in which people start fusing with their surroundings. The beautfully disgusting visual effects and excellent sound design instantly places Emin amongst giants such as Lynch and Cronenburg
5 pulsating meta-arseholes out of 5

 

[Orang Utan]

Film 18 The Weekend

Horribly tense Nigerian shocker that plays on the horror of family dynamics. Somewhat let down by muddy sound. Or maybe it’s just my hearing/neurotype - I couldn’t make out a lot of the dialogue
3 overbearing stifling in-laws out of 5 (would have got 4 if not for the sound)

 

[redsquirrel]

Universal Language - Not an easy film to describe. The director, Matthew Rankin, has tried to make a film homage to the Iranian new wave set in his own Canada. So you have a setting that it quite clearly Canada but with Persian (well what I presume is Persian) signs etc, and with Canadian icon Tim Horton's made into a mock Iranian tea house. The plot has Rankin moving back from Quebec to Winnipeg, and trying to meet up with his mother again. Only with other plots weaving in and out, in the style of the films he's trying to capture.

It's very well made and imaginative, the more deliberately wacky elements are mostly kept in check and the characters and plot is much better drawn than Twentieth Century. That said, while I think it is better than Christmas Eve in Miller's Point, it is still very much a film about film, and for me did not quite connect as it should have.

 

[Sue]

Documentary double bill, both from 1976 and both excellent.

Union Maids. Oral history from three working class women involved in union organising in the 30s. This was absolutely fascinating, especially as much of their original workplace organising was spontaneous and outside formal unions (most unions in the US at that point were apparently for skilled labour only). The intercut contemporary footage/photos and labour movement songs were also great. Interesting that many of the things one of the women saw as being wrong with unions in the 70s are still true today.

Harlan County, USA. Follows a 13 month strike by miners in rural Kentucky in the early 70s as they try to get the mine owners to recognise their union and give them a union contract (which would improve safety in the mine and give them access to health benefits etc). There's mention by some of the older locals of bloody strikes in the 30s and the conditions people are living in -- essentially shacks owned by the company without running water or utilities -- are terrible, with many people ill with pneumoconiosis. Violence against the miners escalates but they and their wives continue to protest on picket lines.

There's some recent history of their union in there too -- including gangsterism and murder -- which is quite jawdropping. I remembered hearing something about Harlan County before so I looked it up after the screening. It's currently one of the poorest counties in the USA so it seems sadly little has changed in the last 50 years.

Anyway, if you get a chance to see either of these, do -- there are apparently poor quality illegal downloads available somewhere.

 

[Orang Utan]

Sue I’ve got an unwatched VHS of that Harlan County USA somewhere that I got for 99p in a charity shop. Should find a way to upload it. I think discokermit recommended it to me.

 

[Orang Utan]

It was Day Of The Dead yesterday - a regular LIFF event of new horror films from around the world. I think they’ve got new programmers as there has been a marked improvement in quality. In previous years, there was a plethora of unimaginative shonky low-budget zombie films and the like, but this year we had a French pandemic-based romantic body-horror, a Nigerian domestic horror, a Taiwanese satire set in the afterlife and the first 80s-set American detective thriller about abducted analogue synthesizer engineers that I’ve ever seen.
It cheered me up after a week of the festival that had been slightly marred by dental woes.

 

[Orang Utan]

Film 19
Dead Talents Society

Taiwanese afterlife satire that goes more for the comedy than the horror, which is just as well, cos I’ve always found the concept of ghosts/the afterlife risible - Ringu? LOL
It gets an extra point for its sweet message that it’s ok to be ordinary
4 cuddly ghosts out of 5

 

[Orang Utan]

Film 20
Dead Mail

Truly unique 80s-set detective thriller about a weirdo who abducts a synth engineer to develop a woodwind patch for a prototype boutique synthesizer.
4 weirdly pronounced solder pastes out of 5

 

[redsquirrel]

Earth - absolutely stonkingly brilliant, best thing I've seen at the cinema this year, and possibly last. It is a Soviet/Ukranian silent feature from 1930 with the intention to be propaganda about the collectivisation of farming. But like Powell and Pressburger Dovzhenko adds subtleties and nuance. It looks absolutely gorgeous, the introducer described it as pure cinema, and more and that is a great summary.
This showing was particularly good as it was in the Howard Assembly Rooms (a great venue, although with less comfy seating) and better yet there was a new live score played to accompany the movie.

1930: Earth (Alexander Dovzhenko) – Senses of Cinema

www.sensesofcinema.com

Did you see this Orang Utan ?

 

[belboid]

Has anyone else seen Steve McQueen's Blitz? Saw it last Friday and while it was absorbing (and at moments genuinely terrifying) I wasn't quite sure how it stood up as a film. It had a feel of Oliver! crossed with Call The Midwife and didn't know whether to be realist or melodramatic. A gripping story of a young evacuee from the East End who decides to 'escape' while on the way to his destination, which may have been better in the hands of a different director.

I'd still recommend seeing it, though.

I've seen it tonight and I think thats a pretty good description (that I might have inadvertently ascribed to a guardian reviewer to my fellow viewers I now realise. Sorry). There were lots of great moments, some amazing cinematography, but I felt it kept starting stories and then not following them through. It highlights a lot of interesting pieces of, not quite forgotten, but by-passed, history, but doesn't string them together well enough.

I can't see any other director even attempting it. Someone else might have made it flow a little better, but wouldn't have carried the rest off any better.

Paul Weller was an odd and not particularly good, bit of casting.

 

[belboid]

Harlan County, USA. Follows a 13 month strike by miners in rural Kentucky in the early 70s as they try to get the mine owners to recognise their union and give them a union contract (which would improve safety in the mine and give them access to health benefits etc). There's mention by some of the older locals of bloody strikes in the 30s and the conditions people are living in -- essentially shacks owned by the company without running water or utilities -- are terrible, with many people ill with pneumoconiosis. Violence against the miners escalates but they and their wives continue to protest on picket lines.

There's some recent history of their union in there too -- including gangsterism and murder -- which is quite jawdropping. I remembered hearing something about Harlan County before so I looked it up after the screening. It's currently one of the poorest counties in the USA so it seems sadly little has changed in the last 50 years.

Haven't seen Harlan County for years, but it really is one hell of a film. One of the very best documentaries ever, without doubt.

 

[Sue]

Haven't seen Harlan County for years, but it really is one hell of a film. One of the very best documentaries ever, without doubt.

You'd like Union Maids too I'm sure if you ever get the chance.

 

[Orang Utan]

Earth - absolutely stonkingly brilliant, best thing I've seen at the cinema this year, and possibly last. It is a Soviet/Ukranian silent feature from 1930 with the intention to be propaganda about the collectivisation of farming. But like Powell and Pressburger Dovzhenko adds subtleties and nuance. It looks absolutely gorgeous, the introducer described it as pure cinema, and more and that is a great summary.
This showing was particularly good as it was in the Howard Assembly Rooms (a great venue, although with less comfy seating) and better yet there was a new live score played to accompany the movie.

1930: Earth (Alexander Dovzhenko) – Senses of Cinema

www.sensesofcinema.com

Did you see this Orang Utan ?

Nope, looks like something that wouldn’t hold my attention.