Quarantine Filmz

[putneyswipe]

Drowning by Numbers - Is Greenaway the closest thing cinema has to Pynchon? He’s like the dictionary definition of “postmodernism” - the filmic equivalent of like a Michael Graves or James Stirling building. Baroque and beautiful, and suprisingly warm by his standards

[jenkins]

he hasn't had anywhere near the weight of Pynchon, who, by the way, wouldn't have had anywhere near his weight if not for that goddamn adaptation, but at any rate i'd say he's more ilke cinema's John Ashbery, except he hasn't had quite the weight of Ashbery either, so really he's just Greenaway imo

[putneyswipe]

Yeah not sure Pynchon is right, his work seems to come out of the very 80s postmodern obsession with syntax and linguistics, from people like Derrida & Chomsky.

[jenkins]

he definitely seems acutely aware that he is following thousands of years of human culture, and he is definitely an intellectual artist who works in abstraction

such a rare bird type and it's good to appreciate everybody but i'm mentioning that it's good to appreciate him

[putneyswipe]

Makhmalbaf - The Silence - still need to see A Moment of Innocence but this is my fav from what I’ve seen from him, rarely has a movie approximated poetry as well as this.

Johnnie To - Office - I missed this in theaters and now regret it terribly. Some of the best staging and mise-en-scene I’ve ever seen, To is one of the few working that can probably go head to head with the old Hollywood masters. Streaming on Prime, watch it if you missed it please watch it.

[jenkins]

His Girl Friday -- TCM is doing that Cary Grant thing so people keep talking about Cary Grant and i thought to myself, okay, let me bring out my copy of His Girl Friday. this is my second time watching the movie and i watched it in two installments. i didn't previously think highly of this movie and now i think about the same, but i didn't see that coming. what happened was the first installment was, naturally, the first part of the movie, and i like the frantic energy. there's the country bumpkin who's too slow for city people and that's pretty funny. classic dis track material. i liked the high-energy and looked forward to finishing the movie, thinking i might like it better this time, except uhoh latter half of the movie and never mind

[jenkins]

Diamantino — if Sean Baker and James Ransone had been european. i think Abrantes/Schmidt and Carloto Cotta bring it. it’s basically a flawless movie because at any point it’s exactly like Diamantino. anybody can adore Diamantino and nobody wants to be one of the sisters. although props to the sisters for being who they are. his own face on the pillows. his mini-motorcycle. this guy. asexual. what a character. is it that in the end they’re dead and that’s heaven i couldn’t really tell or wasn’t paying enough attention

Wild Strawberries — Victor Sjöström as the lead. you guys, Bergman is “acing it.” and it’s so richly human. so tender and fragile and poetic and musical, which is spoken about. it’s both classic and contemporary which is the sweet spot. i rewatched it twice in a row because i really wanted to savor it. two dream sequences. he goes to sleep alone, that’s how the movie ends (although her door is open if he needs anything lol). released the same year as The Seventh Seal, this follows Smiles of a Summer Night, Sawdust and Tinsel, and Summer with Monika. it’s different than the darker and more serious Bergman, this the Bergman who reappears in Fanny and Alexander. he’s always utterly human but sometimes warmth and magic are involved. this movie deeply touches me and is a top-shelf old-man movie, alongside The Last Laugh, Umberto D. and Ikiru

Buffet Froid -- it's an example of the kind of thing in which to be better it'd have to be a different movie. it's perfectly what it is. so it's a situation in which to like it more i'd have to be in its mood, like with Shirley. my reaction depends on my level of bleakness, and right now my bleakness isn't so low. if so this movie would be hilarious. it's deadpan, macabre, and lightly nihilistic. nihilism as nbd. nihilism as the normal. the whole urbanization leads to alienation leads to a detached sense of feeling alive thing. they want the sound of birds and i want more elastic narrative and aesthetic possibilities. but all the notes it hits are properly tuned, you know. his own father as a lead actor, so sweet

[jenkins]

Kills on Wheels -- in terms of cinematic inclusion, usa seems a bit behind on the matter of ableism. i'm discussing this movie, and others might remember, from two years prior, The Tribe. this is a cool movie because it treats disabilities in a realistic manner while maintaining a realistic plot. this movie possesses both coherence and character. there's an emphasis on the art of graphic novels but that's fine. it's just a component in the movie and that's fine. i'm not really into graphic novels but also i am, just like i'm not really into crime movies and yet wait, this is a movie about criminals

[jenkins]

Big City Blues — fucking jackpot here. such a succinct portrayal of a country boy entering the city at the end of the prohibition era, gin parties in hotel rooms. early bogart. directed by mervyn leroy. this one movie showcases so much

[WorldForgot]

CitizenFour and Risk. Purportedly free, trapped indoors. Counterpoints of free data iconography. A double feature for considering the sort of 'stage' and 'players' that free information has developed, in the early bit of this century. Poitras' latter film iz almost more of a personal essay than a true Assange biopic - too much gets in the way, particularly from the subject and his team itself - and that complicates its arc, gives it its own tinge.

[jenkins]

My Twentieth Century -- in a cinephilic sense i'm late to this party, although of course most people still have no idea. well i was missing out before, and this is a movie that most people would like too. it's gorgeously crafted and impressively triumphant. i kept waiting to see the cracks at the seams but they never appeared. the vast majority of filmmakers will never make a film this good, it's plain true. the female protagonists have layers of complexity expertly portrayed by the female filmmaker, it's grounded in a sharp sense of reality, while existing in a dreamlike state. i watched it once and i'd watch it again and again, taking notes the whole while. if i haven't by now expressed profuse admiration i'll have to further elaborate

[jenkins]

A Trip to the Moon — it’s simply still an astonishing movie from 1902. fucking 1902

Un Chien Andalou — showed this to somebody and called it the most famous short film ever and that was what resulted in our watching A Trip to the Moon actually. this has the slit eye the ants from the hand the hand on the street the moth i mean still a stunner

Belle de Jour — he was fucking retirement age when he made this movie. what a fucking accomplishment. and this movie slamdunks itself, fully delivers a portrait of the human condition

[jenkins]

The Sunlit Night — somebody else picked this movie that was largely chosen for Jenny Slate, which was helpful because the biggest problem is the “romantic other” sucks. a slight narrative redeemed only by the force of Slate, it’s also the American debut of a European filmmaker and thus from my perspective all its problems are forgiven

The Beaches of Agnès — there i go falling asleep during a perfectly good movie yet again, here is an autobiographical movie which thus appeals to all of my personal interests, although i might go ahead and say i prefer Heart of a Dog actually, as a movie, while the force of Varda’s imagination and personality is indisputable

[jenkins]

A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III — it’s not a little better than CQ. do you know where this is headed? correct: it’s a lot better than CQ in basically every way, because it takes those ingredients shakes them up and removes the David Holzman’s Diary bologna. it replaces that bologna with some Lenny knockoff but that’s less distressing. look: he’s older and wiser, and his tastes have grown, referring to writer/director Roman Coppola. it’s rich people stuff but it’s wildly imaginative. this follows Roman writing with Wes Anderson, you know. they wrote The Darjeeling Limited together, and that’s pure rich people stuff. Charlie Sheen is indeed perfectly cast. the part does sing to him. if this same movie was made for a not-rich-person/not-womanizer it would be a big deal. there’re too many imaginative juices for it to not be appreciated, and it was not only worth going back to but like i said, it’s worth returning to more than CQ is

[csage97]

I'd like to watch this documentary about my favourite photographer, Jay Maisel, but I don't subscribe to any of the streaming services it's on. It's about his move out of his massive home called "The Bank" in the Bowery area of Manhattan.

From wikipedia:
For almost 50 years Maisel lived with his family in the historic Germania Bank Building on the Bowery in lower Manhattan. Built in 1898, the 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m2) building contains 72 rooms over six floors. Maisel purchased the building in 1966 for $102,000 when the neighborhood was in severe decline. He used it as a single-family residence and studio. The building's value was estimated at $30 to $50 million in 2008. New York magazine called it "maybe the greatest real-estate coup of all time".[9] It cost $300,000 annually to maintain, including heat and taxes.[10] In February 2015, the building was sold for $55 million to developer Aby Rosen.[11] A 2019 film, Jay Myself, documents Maisel's life and his move from the building.