Media itt: movie/film discussion - Beware Spoilers

[Eagle4]

!! loving all these write-ups, seems like everyone's had a very cinephilic year

fave first-watches this year:

Adieu Philippine (Jacques Rozier, 1962) - plotless by design, a sprawl of shaggydogs and blind alleys, as if the narrative itself can't decide what it wants to be, held together through thrilling musicality, through rozier's bravura, through the weight of all there is yet to come. takes on an enormous degree of potency knowing this time that he captures has passed: everything is so real, so fierce in its realness, and so transient, too.

Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat, 2001) - possibly the most intense, stomach-churning film i've ever seen. ridiculously visceral, unapologetic examination of male entitlement, sisterhood dynamics, the desire to be liberated and the revulsion regarding how exactly to go about that. off-kilter in all the right ways, from the incongruous music cue to the dread-inducing drive back to that seemingly outta-nowhere ending. no straight answers: just brutal, glorious finality. horror film through and through.

(also went on a bit of a breillat kick w/ this year's LAST SUMMER and her debut A REAL YOUNG GIRL, the latter being barnstormingly brilliant)

Baxter, Vera Baxter (Marguerite Duras, 1977) - maybe my favourite use of non-diegetic music in a film ever: the backing track to centuries of stolen agency. boxy compositions of a mansion stripped of its decadence, now a home for apparitions to wander around in. silhouettes glowing against a pale sky, or caught in reflections. cuts to landscapes so empty and lonely that they can only compound the oppressive interiority. this film is extremely my shit --- the dialogue is often impenetrable but i don't think duras minds, she applies such a rhythm to what is essentially two extended conversations that i felt *everything* regardless. also, bit of a tangent but this film reminds me of when i was couchsurfing round a friend's in brussels last november and she insisted on playing the same song on repeat at 2am as she worked on her uni project while i was trying to sleep. anyway.

Other great non-2023 releases i've seen this year have been An Autumn Tale (Rohmer, 1998), Tropical Malady (Weerasethakul, 2004), and Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2001)

In terms of 2023 releases, I'd put my current top 10 as this (yes i'm very aware most of these aren't 2023 releases but hey life has been hectic):

1. De Humani Corporis Fabrica
2. Saint Omer
3. The Girl and the Spider
4. Unrest
5. Falcon Lake
6. Skinamarink
7. Rotting in the Sun
8. MI7: Dead Reckoning Part 1 (glad to see everyone here is a fan of this one)
9. Godland
10. Asteroid City

other films i liked this year: Last Summer, Anatomy of a Fall, Club Zero, Killers of the Flower Moon, Bottoms
films i thought were just fine: Oppenheimer, They Cloned Tyrone, Spiderverse 2, Dungeons and Dragons, John Wick 4, Afire, Passages
films that were uhh not great: The Royal Hotel, Barbie, GotG 3, Knock at the Cabin
films that kinda sucked: No One Will Save You, Haunting in Venice, No Hard Feelings, Indiana Jones 5, Beau is Afraid, Past Lives, Infinity Pool

also not sure too much has changed w/ this list but here's my top 20 all time (changes every day though)

Hide

1. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Schrader, 1985)
2. A Summer's Tale (Rohmer, 1996)
3. Playtime (Tati, 1967)
4. I Knew Her Well (Pietrangeli, 1965)
5. Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (Akerman, 1978)
6. Man With a Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929)
7. House of Tolerance (Bonello, 2011)
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
9. Ratcatcher (Ramsay, 1999)
10. Adieu Philippine (Rozier, 1962)
11. The Aviator's Wife (Rohmer 1981)
12. 35 Rhums (Denis, 2008)
13. Dillinger is Dead (Ferreri, 1969)
14. Red Desert (Antonioni, 1964)
15. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (Greenaway, 1989)
16. Woman in the Dunes (Teshigahara, 1964)
17. Inherent Vice (PTA, 2014)
18. Airplane! (Various, 1980)
19. The Naked Island (Shindo, 1960)
20. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928)

 

[chimp]

It's November 1st! My favorite month is finally here! And thus, so is another round of our yearly movie round-ups!!!

Of course, before I get to that, I must link this post about my own adventures in making a movie...please do check it out: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/i-made-a-movie-kinda.3730604/#post-9842728

ANYWAY, I didn't have much as much of a Hooptober this time around--I wound up with less than half of last year's total, though I did see some great stuff of course--so I'll skip the "writeups" of last year in favor of a sparser approach. Also, I did start the month with a rewatch of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Ya gotta. Classic Leatherface and his wacky shenanigans. I still have a few Hoopers I gotta get to (Mortuary, Poltergeist, Night Terrors)...but he's really become a favorite of mine.

1. Djinn (2013, Hooper) - had some characteristically great Hooper ideas--the midpoint is generally solid--but overall the whole thing is too TV movie-drenched. Much better than it would've been in anyone else's hands but still not exactly good
2. Salem's Lot (1980, Hooper) - watched the full miniseries cut, surprised by how much it dragged, and I ultimately found it to lack bite (ha)
3. The Damned Thing (2006, Hooper) - now this was more like it! Genuinely unsettling and nasty all the way through
4. Sleepaway Camp (1983, Hiltzik) - speaking of nasty, this was surprising in that regard with how cruel all the kids were. Pretty decent
5. Shocker (1989, Craven) - liked a lot! This is far too underrated, Craven was really in the zone here
6. Ravenous (1999, Bird) - tonally strange, ultimately liked it decently enough, though it took a while to catch on to what it was doing (less horrifying than you'd expect, more snowy and atmospheric than you'd expect)
7. Body Parts (1991, Red) - liked a lot, very fun slasher riff on Cronenberg or something
8. Murder Party (2007, Saulnier) - not great but ultimately charming in its heart
9. The Undertaker (1988, Steffanino) - liked a lot, grimy slasher in the vein of Maniac and such
10. Loft (2005, K. Kurosawa) - the best horror I saw all month, Kiyoshi masterfully doing what he does best and really dragging out the pace to wonderful effect, everything is firing on all cylinders here
11. The Scary of Sixty-First (2021, Nekrasova) - wonderful 16mm cinematography in an exploitation horror riff on Eyes Wide Shut, very fun
12. The Love Witch (2016, Biller) - liked the ideas, less so the bloated execution of everything beyond how it looked
13. Knife + Heart (2018, Gonzalez) - very solid modern giallo with a much more personal impact than most in the genre, the ending is particularly excellent and the whole thing looks incredible
14. Train to Busan (2016, Yeon) - a blast! I'm not normally a fast zombie guy but this brings the intensity so nicely I didn't mind
15. Kill List (2011, Wheatley) - had to cleanse Meg 2 from my system somehow...anyway I'm not sure about how the ending fits (though in and of itself it is good) but overall this is quite good and takes a really interesting approach throughout
16. Aenigma (1987, Fulci) - started stronger than it finished so overall just decent, but has some really great atmosphere and camerawork going on
17. Def by Temptation (1990, Bond III) - feverish mix of joyous fun and devilish intensity, also looks absolutely amazing
18. The Howling (1981, Dante) - this was really great, and I think I prefer it to its most common point of comparison, An American Werewolf in London. Should be much more well-regarded!

So now, since for many of us, our top 40/50/whatever isn't changing (that much, anyway, and if anything it's just growing more and more--though maybe I'm just speaking for myself), I once again invite everyone to post their favorite things they've seen over the past year! Of course, if you want to post your top (insert number here), I have no objections.

Personally, I limited myself to that which I gave a 9 or 10 out of 10--assigning numbers to this stuff can of course be incredibly silly (and I easily could've added MANY more films which I loved similarly), but is basically my necessary arbitrary cutoff so I don't list literally hundreds more things I really enjoyed...I have seen a lot (too much) since last November 1st. I also did more director binges than I've done in the past, hence why a lot of names appear repeatedly and in close proximity! For my own sake/time, I had to stop myself from writing about all of these...though maybe I will come back to them and describe (some of) the impact they've had on me.

1. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974, Peckinpah)
2. Le bonheur (1965, Varda)
3. Shallow Grave (1994, Boyle)
4. Mean Streets (1973, Scorsese)
5. All That Jazz (1979, Fosse)
6. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939, Mizoguchi)
7. White Material (2009, Denis)
8. Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018, Bi)
9. The Searchers (1956, Ford)
10. Coach to Vienna (1966, Kachyňa)
11. Bad Lieutenant (1992, Ferrara)
12. The Battle of Algiers (1966, Pontecorvo)
13. A City of Sadness (1989, Hou)
14. Flowers of Shanghai (1998, Hou)
15. The Assassin (2015, Hou)
16. Millennium Mambo (2001, Hou)
17. My Heart Is That Eternal Rose (1989, Tam)
18. Lifeforce (1985, Hooper)
19. The Last Wave (1977, Weir)
20. The Headless Woman (2008, Martel)
21. La ciénaga (2001, Martel)
22. Diary of a Country Priest (1951, Bresson)
23. The Parallax View (1974, Pakula)
24. Koyaanisqatsi (1982, Reggio)
25. A Short Film About Love (1988, Kieslowski)
26. A Short Film About Killing (1988, Kieslowski)
27. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972, Fassbinder)
28. Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974, Rivette)
29. Amsterdamned (1988, Maas)
30. Sunset Blvd (1950, Wilder)
31. India Song (1975, Duras)
32. Vive l'amour (1994, Tsai)
33. Kagemusha (1980, A. Kurosawa)
34. Abhijan (1962, Ray)
35. Skinamarink (2022, Bell)
36. Toute une nuit (1982, Akerman)
37. The Last Days of Disco (1998, Stillman)
38. The Leopard (1963, Visconti)
39. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971, Altman)
40. Le deuxieme souffle (1966, Melville)
41. Dersu Uzala (1975, A. Kurosawa)
42. Kiss Me Deadly (1955, Aldrich)
43. Vampyr (1932, Dreyer)
44. In a Lonely Place (1950, N. Ray)
45. The Murder of Mr. Devil (1970, Krumbachová)
46. Canal (1957, Wajda)
47. Tokyo Sonata (2008, K. Kurosawa)
48. Scenes from a Marriage (1974, Bergman)
49. Rififi (1955, Dassin)
50. Le cercle rouge (1970, Melville)
51. Landscape in the Mist (1988, Angelopoulos)
52. Stray Dogs (2013, Tsai)
53. The Piano Teacher (2001, Haneke)
54. Army of Shadows (1969, Melville)
55. Tár (2022, Field)
56. Rear Window (1954, Hitchcock)
57. Play It As It Lays (1972, Perry)
58. Short Cuts (1993, Altman)
59. Lilja 4-ever (2002, Moodysson)
60. Once Upon a Time in America (1984, Leone)
61. Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2002, Wang)
62. Angel Dust (1994, Ishii)
63. Earth (1930, Dovzhenko)
64. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989, Greenaway)
65. Fires on the Plain (1959, Ichikawa)
66. La captive (2000, Akerman)
67. Wings (1966, Shepitko)
68. Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees (1975, Shinoda)
69. Pale Flower (1964, Shinoda)
70. Ulysses' Gaze (1995, Angelopoulos)
71. Barry Lyndon (1975, Kubrick)
72. A Spring for the Thirsty (1965, Illienko)
73. Salto (1965, Konwicki)
74. Badlands (1973, Malick)
75. A Page of Madness (1926, Kenosuga)
76. A Touch of Zen (1971, King)
77. Himiko (1974, Shinoda)
78. Black God, White Devil (1964, Rocha)
79. Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974, Terayama)
80. This Transient Life (1970, Jissoji)
81. Across 110th Street (1972, Shear)
82. Eureka (2000, Aoyama)
83. Ganja & Hess (1973, Gunn)
84. Songs from the Second Floor (2000, Andersson)
85. L'intrus (2004, Denis)
86. Platform (2000, Zhangke)
87. Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999, Jann)
88. Variety (1983, Gordon)
89. Goyokin (1969, Gosha)
90. Samurai Assassin (1965, Okamoto)
91. Patlabor 2 (1993, Oshii)
92. Take Out (2004, Baker / Tsou)
93. In a Year with 13 Moons (1978, Fassbinder)
94. The Wages of Fear (1953, Clouzot)
95. Diabolique (1955, Clouzot)
96. The Mother and the Whore (1973, Eustache)
97. The Amazonian Angel (1992, Klonaris / Thomadaki)
98. Until the End of the World (1991, Wenders)
99. Perfect Days (2023, Wenders)
100. Mandala (1971, Jissoji)
101. Ordet (1955, Dreyer)
102. Face to Face (1976, Bergman) - I had to make an exception for this, which stands head and shoulders above as the single best film I've seen all year. Cinema at its most powerful and harrowing. I genuinely felt indecent watching Liv Ullman go to the horrible places she went--I can't recall anything else in recent memory that provoked anything close to resembling the reaction this one got out of me. I can only attribute its lack of regard as among Bergman's best due to its relative obscurity--it is quite difficult to find--but I cannot emphasize enough how incredible it is. Please seek it out, and just as you would with Scenes from a Marriage/Fanny & Alexander, the extended TV cut is the only way to go, especially since it's still only in the ballpark of three hours.
103. tokyo.sora (2002, Ishikawa)
104. Fanny and Alexander (1982, Bergman)
105. World on a Wire (1973, Fassbinder)
106. Devi (1960, S. Ray)
107. Su-ki-da (2006, Ishikawa)
108. Soleil Ô (1970, Hondo)
109. Night and the City (1950, Dassin)
110. The Girls (1968, Zetterling)
111. Taipei Story (1985, Yang)
112. Places in Cities (1998, Schanelec)
113. Petite maman (2021, Sciamma)
114. La vérité (1960, Clouzot)
115. La prisonnière (1968, Clouzot)
116. The Days Between (2001, Speth)
117. Z (1969, Costa-Gavras)
118. The Sun in a Net (1962, Uher)
119. Dragon's Return (1968, Grečner)
120. The Holy Girl (2004, Martel)
121. The Wind Will Carry Us (1999, Kiarostami)
122. Out of the Past (1947, Tourneur)
123. Nostos: The Return (1989, Piavoli)
124. A Day Off (1968, Lee)
125. Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980, Fassbinder)
126. The Weeping Meadow (2004, Angelopoulos)
127. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970, Petri)
128. No Home Movie (2015, Akerman)
129. Dreams (1955, Bergman)
130. Summer Interlude (1951, Bergman)
131. They Live By Night (1948, N. Ray)
132. Pickup on South Street (1953, Fuller)
133. Our Daily Bread (1970, Kaul)
134. Deep Cover (1992, Duke)
135. At the First Breath of Wind (2002, Piavoli)
136. The War is Over (1966, Resnais)
137. Devil in a Blue Dress (1995, Franklin)
138. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023, Scorsese)
139. Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962, Varda)
140. Bigger Than Life (1956, N. Ray)
141. Underworld USA (1961, Fuller)
142. My Night at Maud's (1969, Rohmer)
143. A Face in the Crowd (1957, Kazan)

As for 2023 releases, Perfect Days is my favorite so far--utterly sublime stuff, Wenders really is amazing--and Killers of the Flower Moon is not far behind. I was utterly absorbed to the point where I would've watched another hour, easily. I can't praise it enough, but I want to highlight the ending as particularly astonishing.

I also very much enjoyed Anatomy of a Fall, Kore-eda's Monster, and the new Mission Impossible, which I think is the best in the series. As a huge fan of Under the Skin/Glazer in general, I cannot wait to see The Zone of Interest.

col49 trc BIHI Tomahawk mathsman 5imian Eagle4 ryo yamada2001 and of course anyone else who feels like posting--please share your favorites of the past year, this October, all-time, whatever. I love reading these and, as always, adding to my never-ending watchlist!

CINEMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ayo, I also watched Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia this year. I have a friend who is into westerns like that, and I have a soft-spot for 'unconventional' movie titles. Like 'Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives'. How can you pass up watching a movie with a title like that?

Also, anyone else excited for Ridley Scott's Napoleon? Finally a film for us short kings.

 

[Local Dog]

I watched The Boy and the Heron today. It was very nice. I see a lot of people being confused by the movie and overwhelmed by the variety of topics it covers, but I think when you approach the movie as more of an experience instead of a conventional story, it works very wonderfully. It just makes intuitive sense, even if it's logically rather difficult to break down

Not my favorite Miyazaki movie, but very well made

 

[ZippyDoo200]

Godzilla Minus One was really overrated in my opinion. The acting of the male lead, story, cinematography, and presence of Godzilla was fantastic, but I have serious issues with how the character's progression was written.

The female love interest has LITERALLY NO personality or character. The way the whole family dynamic comes together while still maintaining the female protag's "purity" was so typical of Japanese stories. It's bad character writing even separate from it's gross reflection of reality.

spoiler

Also finally in the end, the male Protag can live happily ever after and "claim" the girl since she's still alive. If this trope doesn't bother you then more power to you.

Still an alright movie though. But the characters are way way too weak to make it anything but alright. In my opinion.


The only other movie I watched in 2023 was "Leave the World Behind." Which is really the ONLY movie you need to watch, ever. Not that it was "perfect" but it was meaningful and potentially prophetic.

 

[Myzozoa]

It's been too long since I posted itt.

The main reason is that I have now reached the point in my life where I fall asleep if I try to watch movies a lot of times. So take all of these reviews w a grain of salt.

Leave the World Behind 7/10

The premise is basically that Julia Roberts' character takes her NYC-rooted family out to the suburbs to an Airbnb one weekend, at the same time America is attacked in such a way that all communications get cut and maybe power gets lost idr. That same night, a man and his daighter arrive claiming to be the owners of the house and asking for shelter as America has been attacked and cities are in chaos. There is survival and psychological drama between the 2 families and survivalist themes as the characters observe signs (planes falling out of the sky) that the current economic order is collapsing. Often times the narrative of an attack on America comes through in dialogues espousing what are essentially paranoid fantasies of a foreign attack on America, a country w military installations in 100s of countries, by China and Iran supposedly. By the end of the film, the main characters speculate that it is actually a domestic coup aimed at replacing the American government, with leaflets being dropped from the sky in arabic and chinese being meant to confuse people and cause chaos in order to create a new order out of it. At the very end, as NYC is seen w multiple mushroom clouds, the young daughter of Roberts' character just wanders off to watch the last episode of friends. I recommend this movie pretty highly even though it doesn't sound that exciting because it has a meaningful commentary on how people compartmentalize and try to escape into denial or paranoia as our world crumbles from climate change and our society becomes more brutal and divided. We just watch more netflix like the little girl at the end.

The Innocents 8/10

This is a movie about children developing telepathic powers in the Scandinavian 24 hour sun time of year. They do really horrifying things with these powers hence the term 'The Innocents' the movie calls into question how innocent children really are. Do they really not understand? Really? I have to warn you this movie depicts very disturbing things and is a wildly successful psychological horror. Interesting horror setting with the 24 hour sun, isn't that quite horrifying in some ways, to never have day turn to night? Definitely recommend if this genre is your jam and you don't mind subtitles.



No One Will Save You (6/10)

Kind of a weird one. Basically this girl is a pariah in the town because she killed her friend as a child. Aliens invade the town and she tries to defend herself. Eventually the aliens use their powers to take control of all the townspeople, using them to attack the protagonist. Eventually they catch her but after probing her memories they decide to release her and she resumes her life in the town w the aliens controlling the townspeople and making them be nice to her. Some weird shit for a plot, but this one is worth watching if ur a nerd because there is no dialogue and because it is p scary and because it is a p good set-up.


It Follows (9/10)
This one will fuck you up. The premise is that a stalker haunts this world, following one person to kill them at a time. The only way to escape it once it comes after you is to have sex with someone, who it will then go after. If it kills that person, it will then go after you again. So basically if you get it going after you gotta have sex with someone and then get them to have sex w another person asap too. Really good set-up, super scary and just all around good film. Don't wanna get too into it cause it's not v fresh in my mind, this was my Halloween movie this year <3.


Bottoms (8/10)

A movie about high school lesbians starting a fight club to try to get w more girls. It's pretty slick and self aware, but why is it called Bottoms? No one will ever know or remember. Not very fresh in my mind so again not going to get into the weeds about it, just a very funny movie.


Talk to Me 8/10

Another horror film that succeeds on a psychological level by depicting the innocence of children as vicious. It has many other elements.The basic premise is that kids get a hold of an artifact that lets you communicate w the dead, but if you use it for too long they'll come to take you away with them. One of the main characters obsesses w using the artifact to communicate with her dead mother causing the spirits to come for her and others around her.

 

[chimp]

Hijacking this thread for the

92nd Annual Chimpcademy Awards!!!​

As you can see, all the greatest stars are out on the red carpet.

Presenting the awards tonight we have special guest.....

Nicole Kidman!

We come to the Chimpcademy Awards to laugh, to cry, to care. Because we need that, all of us. That indescribable feeling we get as the lights begin to dim and we go somewhere we've never been before. Not just entertained, but somehow reborn together. Dazzling images on a huge silver screen, sound that I can feel. Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this. Our heroes feel like the best part of us, and stories feel perfect and powerful.

Because here...

They are.

Without further ado, let's present the Chimpcademy's nominees and winners for this 2023. (See the ranking below for all the eligible films)

and the award goes to....

ROBERT DE NIRO!!!

and the award goes to....

LILY GLADSTONE!!

This award spans the whole animal kingdom, from primates to felines to avians. But which will come out on top of the food chain?
The award goes to....

Lylla!!! (the Chimpcademy had to beat the monkey bias allegations)

This category is a little out there, it's for things that are cool and made the Chimpcademy go "woah! cool!" ranging from decapitated heads to allegories for the universality of death and cool CGI.

And the award goes to.....

THE PUSS IN BOOTS WOLF

Our last award for the night!!! We have many great directors, including two Palme d'Or winners! Our nominees range from ol' Marty for bringing the story of the Osage murders to the big screen to Julia Ducournau for bringing the story of the sex with a car to the big screen.

And the award goes to....

Martin Scorcese!!!!!

Anyway here is my 2023 rankings from most favorite to least favorite ok bye hope you enjoyed the show

Skinamarink

Manchester By the Sea

The Blair Witch Project

Nope

The Boy and the Heron

Spirited Away

Reservoir Dogs

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Raging Bull

Grave of Fireflies

Killers of the Flower Moon

Hoop Dreams

Breaking Bad

Barton Fink

The Big Lebowski

The Shawshank Redemption

Gladiator

Middleditch & Schwartz

Little Miss Sunshine

Asteroid City

Glass Onion

12 Angry Men

Inside Out

Howl's Moving Castle

Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

1917

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

I Think You Should Leave

The Whale

Titane

Guardians of the Galaxy v.3

The Princess Bride

Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves

My Neighbor Totoro

Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers

Another Round

Fight Club

Psycho

Ocean's 11

Zootopia

The Hunger Games: A Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

Five Nights at Freddy's

Clue

The Dark Crystal

Napoleon

Knock at the Cabin

Missing Link

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Barbie in the Nutcracker

Joy Ride

V For Vendetta

Cocaine Bear

 

[BKC]

The Innocents 8/10

This is a movie about children developing telepathic powers in the Scandinavian 24 hour sun time of year. ... Interesting horror setting with the 24 hour sun, isn't that quite horrifying in some ways, to never have day turn to night?

Insomnia (1997) uses this setting incredibly well, and is excellent in its own right!

 

[Redless]

Due to my own poor (?) choices, I now live with my parents, which is mostly bad but it means that I consume a lot more films. Here are the films I saw recently that I thought were notable:

The Thing: Completely genius premise. I wish it emphasized the psychological horror that comes with not trusting your teammates rather than having the rubbery monster pop up every 15 minutes. Still amazing. 3/5.

Alien: After watching and being impressed by The Thing, I was excited to see how the other classic horror film, "Alien" held up. I thought it was ass. It made me laugh with how stupid and absurd it was. 1/5.

Sunshine: This film from Danny Boyle (Trainspotting guy) does both Alien and Interstellar better than each of those films does themself. It probably overtakes 2001 as my favorite "space" film. It's very good at evoking the inherent lovecraftian horror of the sun while still having characters that act like astronauts. Super underrated. 5/5.

The Graduate: I loved this film. The first half dozen scenes are among the funniest things I've ever watched -- shoutout to the shot of Benjamin in the pool. A deserved classic. 4/5.

Memento: This film is probably top 5 OAT for me. I'm a sucker for any piece of fiction that plays with the idea of memory, and Memento does it excellently. My other favorite "memory" fiction is "There is no Antimemetics Division" which you can read here: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub. 5/5.

The World's End: This is the third film in the trilogy that starts with "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz". I thought it was the best of the three, although all three are amazing. I feel it's a film that needs to be watched without knowing what it's about. 5/5.

Coraline: More suited to animation than maybe any other film I've ever watched. It's a film about a child but meant to be enjoyed by adults. 4/5.

My Dinner With Andre: Andre is "improvisational" in his worldview, and yet he insists on monologuing that worldview rather than having a conversation with Wallace, which is the least improvisational thing imaginable. 3/5.

 

[Maia]

Sorry for the necrobump @ mods

For the past few months, a group of friends and I have gathered every Saturday night at 7 PM to watch a movie or a show together. It's one of the highlights of my week, every week. Someone different picks the movie every week and that's led to an interesting variety of stuff, most of which I have never seen before. We watched our tenth tonight, so here's my opinion of all ten of our past movie night watches. There's definitely going to be spoilers in here so tread carefully etc.

1. A Silent Voice - 1/13/24 - Recommended by TPP

I cannot lie, we spent most of the runtime of this incredibly serious movie shitposting about bread. It was a good movie with an important message about redemption and forgiveness that has a lot of serious moments, like the scene where Shoko tries to commit suicide, but they just eat so much fucking bread in that movie that I literally cannot focus on anything else. 10/10 would watch again.

2. Your Name - 1/20/24 - Recommended by TPP

I honestly didn't have high expectations for this movie after reading the synopsis. I figured it would just be a "haha, they switched bodies and now they're going to have a meet-cute." To say this movie blew my expectations out of the water would be an understatement. The first half was about what I expected, very meet-cute with a bunch of "boy explores having a girl's body"-type beats, but when you get to the twist of the movie and find out that she lives in the past and is dead, well that hit me like a fucking freight train. And the scene where their timelines cross and they meet for the first time drove me to tears. I loved this movie a lot, it's definitely one of my favorites we've watched.

3. One Piece Live Action - 1/27/24-2/17/24 - Group Recommendation

This is technically not a movie but it is the next thing we watched. I've never seen or read One Piece but my good pal teal6 is a huge One Piece fan, and, after watching this, it's not hard to see why. The theme of found family is one that is near and dear to my heart and Luffy is just such a genuine and kind character. Most of the characters in general are very loveable and interesting, with my favorites among the Straw Hats so far being Luffy and Zoro. I have also been reliably informed (by teal) that Luffy is canonically asexual, which is some of the best representation we could ask for. I think the character that took the show for me was Buggy. His actor was excellent and really sold the character for me, I was excited every time he was on screen. I cannot stand Koby though, I think he's a sniveling useless nerd and I pray he gets killed soon (I know he doesn't but still.) I cannot wait for Season Two to come out.

4. The Princess Bride - 2/24/24 - Recommended by get backer

The first and only movie on this list that I had seen prior to movie night. We ended up watching this one because teal had never seen it before and that is for sure a crime. This movie is perhaps the most quotable movie ever made, and packs a lot of humor and genuine feelings into its 98 minute runtime. I'm extremely biased towards this movie because I watched it like 100 times as a child, but it's so genuinely difficult not to like this movie. All of the characters have a ton of personality and there's some really well-choreographed fight scenes on top of a romance plot, so there's really something for everyone. If you have not seen this movie, go watch it.

5. A Whisker Away - 3/2/24 - Recommended by Leru

Leru is banned from picking movies for movie night after this.

6. The Truman Show - 3/9/24 - Recommended by teal

A classic I'd heard about in passing but never seen before. This movie's premise is really interesting and Jim Carrey gives an excellent performance as Truman. I was riveted throughout as we followed Truman's slow descent into hysteria as the carefully constructed world around him starts to crumble, culminating in an excellent scene where his wife breaks character and has a breakdown in the face of Truman's unraveling grip on the world around him. The final scene of Truman in the boat talking to the show's producer is powerful if on-the-nose man vs God moment, and the way Truman decides to leave the set is a testament to the will of man, a cinematic theme which teal and I share a love for. Perhaps improbable, but another great recommendation from the denizens of the Orthworm Cult.

7. House (1977) - 3/16/24 - Recommended by col49

Of the regular attendees of movie night, col is probably the one with the most knowledge and experience in movie watching. His pick for this was House (1977). I think there are other Houses, col specified (1977) when he picked the movie so I have been doing the same since. I have never done acid, but if I were to do acid, I imagine it would be similar to this movie. I don't really like horror, but the combination of goofiness of the movie and good company on movie night meant it wasn't a big deal. I'm not sure how to explain the plot of this movie, other than it should probably be called Cat (1977) and there's a character named Kung-Fu whose whole personality is that she kung-fus ghosts. She's the best character by far. I think it's an interesting approach by the director to a message about how time takes us all eventually and the ways in which we need to cherish the life we are given. Definitely a good watch if you don't mind some nastiness.

8. Interstellar - 3/23/24 - Recommended by scionicle

Another one of the Big Movies that I never saw, it was at this point that we threw the rule of "pick a movie that isn't too long" out the window. In short, Interstellar is another one of my favorites that we've watched. I cannot speak at all to the scientific accuracy of this movie because I do not science, but as for the emotions evoked, it's unparalleled, even by Your Name. The soundtrack for this movie is also excellent and insanely well done. Did I cry? Yes. I cried a lot. The scenes of the crew receiving the video messages from their families after losing 23 years on the water planet and having to watch their kids grow up after what only felt like a few hours to them were genuinely heart-wrenching, and the scene of Cooper in the bookshelf dimension watching his past self leave Murph and begging her to make him stay and not go on the doomed mission was another one that moved me to tears. This is another great film that follows the theme of the Will of Man and the lengths we will go to in order to survive and I recommend it highly if you ever have three hours to kill.

9. Barbie - 3/30/24 - Recommended by ken

Like Interstellar, I have a lot of thoughts on this movie. Unlike Interstellar, most of those thoughts aren't happy ones. To get the good out of the way, the soundtrack for this movie slaps and there are some genuinely funny moments in it. For the rest, rant warning. Barbie is a movie that is packaged as a self-aware feminist comedy. It's not. What it is is two hours of you being beaten over the head with what basically sounds like someone's vaguely unhinged Twitter where they tweet about how much they hate men seventeen times a day. There is zero subtlety, zero exploration of actual feminist issues, and zero efforts made to actually say anything. It's trying not to take itself too seriously while conveying opinions on serious topics and it doesn't really do either well. It's a blatant attempt to profit off the fact that social justice sells while just being a big commercial for the Barbie brand, and is heavy-handed and clumsy to the point that you wonder if they even fucking tried at all. It comes off as a parody, as the kind of batshit crazy strawman constructions of misandrist feminism that right-wingers come up to discredit the movement. It's virtue signaling of the highest order, "oh look a main character called Barbie a fascist, look how woke we are." It's fake, commercialized, and disappointing in every way. I hate this movie so much, not because it's a bad movie, but because of how completely underwhelming it was for what I had genuinely hoped would be a movie about female empowerment and how lazily the writers incorporated any sense of feminism. Disappointing, the first movie night movie that did not hit for me. Would not recommend.

10. Oppenheimer - 4/6/24 - Group Recommendation

Since we watched Barbie last week, we obviously had to complete the duo and watch Oppenheimer this week. Unlike Barbie, I really enjoyed this movie, even though I missed bits and pieces of it to deal with some personal issues. Another movie where the soundtrack is fantastic and does an excellent job of conveying tension in scenes. The actors were all excellent and conveyed so much emotion in basically every seen, it was hard not to be captivated by the movie. It's a bit fragmented, jumping back and forth between following Oppenheimer's life up until the bombs are completed and dropped, a kangaroo court hearing meant to strip him of his security clearance and credibility, and the confirmation hearing of Lewis Strauss as the Secretary of Commerce. This makes it a bit hard to follow at first, but you get a good feel for who everyone is eventually. The last act of the movie, after the bombs are dropped, is my favorite part of the movie, though I know get backer disagrees with me here. The science stuff is cool and all but I really enjoy the way Nolan portrays Oppenheimer's struggle after the bombs are dropped, the way in which he's haunted by the blood on his hands and how those moral conflicts end up being his ultimate downfall as his opposition to further weapons development results in political opponents trying to bury him. Oppenheimer's insistence that we don't need weapons and that the existence of the bombs will deter all future conflicts are poignant in today's political climate and a stark reminder of the horrors that we as humans are capable of. Again, if you have three hours to kill, this is a good one to kill them with.

---------------------------

I am by no means a writer, movie reviewer, or anything close to a cinephile. I just really enjoy the weekly movie night ritual, getting to spend time with friends sharing an experience, and getting to see new films and shows. I might be way off base about some things here and that's fine. You might not agree and that's fine. I'll try to write these after we watch them next time, instead of trying to remember all ten of the movies, so I can give better reviews, since you can definitely see some recency bias here.

This was more of a ramble than anything, I just wanted to talk about stuff, so thanks for reading if you did.

 

[Karxrida]

Theia if you don't mind another recommendation with a classic twist, I suggest The Court Jester. Very underrated comedy from the 50s that takes place in medieval times. Lots of good wordplay that still lives rent free in my head even though I haven't watched the movie in like a decade.

Damn, need to dig up my copy and see what other good classic movies we own. My older sister was super into those in high school and we have a decent collection of DVDs.

 

[Vivaan12]

I recently watched All Quiet on the western front and I gotta say it was a really good movie.

The movie is emotional rollercoaster of mostly sadness, the tiniest bit of happiness, action and more sadness. The movie takes place during WW1 and shown from the perspective of a German soldier on Western front during the last years of the war. The movie shows how brutal war is, with graphic and heartbreaking deaths, a sense of fear from war. The movie was released in 2022 and got 4 Oscars. Original language is German and is available on Netflix. Personally the movie was very good at a 9.5/10. Would recommend for people looking for a war, historical or depressing movie.

Edit: What makes the movie different from other movies in the war genre is that it's just not brutal, but also sad and painfully real. There is no plot armour, no good guy bad guy, no skill, just war and the brutality of it. This movie really showed that there is no good side or bad side in war and both sides suffer. This movie also did not glorify war but discouraged it.

 

[Adeleine]

Saw Transformers One yday. Was very curious to see it because everyone said it was good, but I was very skeptical–Transformers franchise aside, I thought the trailers looked really bad. And well, I'll be damned, I thought it was quite good. ★★★☆, don't feel a need to watch again but I wouldn't be opposed if someone else wanted to see it. Scattered takeaways:

1) Has that nice extra touch of quality compared to some other mainstream movies. Some great attention to detail in sculpting the interior of Cybertron, for example, that works great in 3D.

2) Has interesting things to say about multi-front wars and fascism, which is cool and commits to their character development

3) Mixed review on the comedy. Willing to be a step ahead of the curve on committing to jokes and pacing sometimes, but man, B starts rough.

4) A bit uneven development as a movie. Characters have rushed development, and the climax feels like it needed more time to play out. This comment isn't super hostile – they tried and had some definite successes, and I think they could've done even more with more runtime.

5) These things are a touchy function of arbitrary parameters like genre experience and paying attention-ness, but the specific nature of the twist was hinted at just subtly enough that I felt clever for figuring it out ahead of time, and that was cute.

5b) I wonder how someone would feel if they caught the (less subtle) general twist but not the specific twist. Maybe the film could be good at twisting the knife in for these people who didn't realize the extent of the betrayal. Maybe it'd be too abstract for that. Something for me to think about for a broader critical perspective.

6) I'm really happy with how they handled the matrix of leadership. I assumed it would've been a macguffin, but I saw consistent through lines in them developing pax as a leader. The movie lays its values on its sleeve–hope, and self-assurance–and I like those.

7) "End of the Primes" versus "The Miracle Last Prime" was really interesting thematic ground I wish they did more with. Maybe a sequel will?

8) Sentinel's great. Put him on a shirt

 

[chimp]

I desire to make a pilgrimage to my local filmhall so to engage in a nightly affair of appreciating the medium of the motion pictures.

However I am torn on which movie to spend my time viewing. I am between the Wild Robot and Megalopolis. The Wild Robot seems infinitely better in every regard than Megalopolis however with all the shenanigans surrounding Megalopolis and its twisted path to even being made and Francis Ford Coppola in general I am tempted to see what its like.

Any advice?

Also Howl’s Moving Castle is back in theatres so maybe I should do that instead only Ive seen it like 30 times already recently

Theres also Beetlejuice which is good for the season but i havent seen the first one and it seems pretty reference heavy

 

[BKC]

I haven't seen Megalopolis because it doesn't release here for a few more weeks, but as soon as it does, I'm there. 21st century Coppola has been making some strange, interesting work (Youth Without Youth is good, and seems like an inspiration/precursor to Twin Peaks The Return). I have no doubt it will be flawed, but I also am sure it will have some great moments, and either way I would much rather see an ambitious, original, director-driven film for adults, even if the ambition overextends itself. Seeing this kind of divisive film--I sure hope the Southland Tales comparisons hold water--made with such a massive budget and level of artistic control is utterly ridiculous, especially in today's landscape. I'm sure The Wild Robot is fine, but I think we are also too eager to watch movies made for kids that are safe bets for a pleasant time rather than take a chance on something like this. Go with Megalopolis.

Speaking of Coppola, not long ago I had the chance to see The Conversation in a theater, and it reaffirmed its place as my favorite of his films. Strongest recommendation to anyone who hasn't seen and liked Godfather/Apocalypse, it was made in that same time period where he was just touched by God

 

[chimp]

OK you convinced me to see Megalopolis and now you must suffer through my review of it. (No spoilers)

I was convinced pretty early on into the film that you have to approach it like you'd approach a piece of poetry; now, I am not saying that the film is very poetic, per se, but rather, trying to parse out a cohesive narrative is simply not possible, it would be like trying to approach a poem like you would a novel, and doing so would just be straight folly. Square peg, round hole, etc. So I can already see why so many people would be turned off from this, but fortunately I have a stomach for esoteric. I can see why so many people refer to it as pretentious but I do not care much for subtlety as it goes, which is also fortunate since this movie has none.

Obviously I am no where near as prolific of a creator as Coppola but I can relate, to some degree, the great difficulty that comes from working on a piece of art for a long time. I myself have been working on a novel, for more than a two years now, and it in its current state is so, so wildly different from the first versions that they are near incomparable. However, there are elements from that first draft still present in their base form- aspects of the setting and characters, vestiges that are leftover. I have considered scrapping it and starting anew, creating a draft that does not have any DNA of the first versions, but I think this would be impossible because the product in its current state would not exist without that first version. What it is now s so entangled with what it once was. Where am I going with this? Well, I am sort of guessing that is what happened here, as well. I can only imagine what it would be like to work on something for so long. There are elements of this movie; characters, plot-points, that go no where, that do not resolve nor have any purpose. I think so many ideas just sort of got caught in the etheral spider web that has to be woven after 40 years on the drawing board. As a result, the whole thing is just so garish and ambling that I feel it distracts from its strengths, from the message Coppola was trying to convey.

So, in the end, its a movie that feels like it is trying so hard to say something, without actually saying anything at all. It feels like the equivalent of going to a protest with a "Stop Hate" sign: just so vague and noncommittal that it barely counts. It's not enough to just state that there are problems with a given system, its not enough to point out that problems exist in some vague capacity. Like, there are riots throughout the movie- riots that Wikipedia says are "fascist." But I did not think they were particularly fascist inclined, and there is quite a notable difference between *riots* and *fascist riots.* The facist-ness is only conveyed through surface-level symbols: a character stands on a tree stump carved into a swastika, while another holds a "Make Rome Great Again" sign. This is in obvious appeal to make the riots "feel" facist, without actually making the riots grounded in any actual true-to-form fascism. As a result, any attempt at making a point about the nature of facism, or America's troubling descent into it, comes across as just merely, well, surface-level.

The movie is content with the idea that "getting people to talk about problems" (as close as a almost verbatim quote as I can get) is a far enough step in of itself, and this is an ideal I do not entirely agree with. I am left with a sense of wanting the movie to take an actual stand on... something concrete, which it so desperately seems to want to do.

Costume design was great though.

 

[Maia]

Alright besties I said I was gonna review every ten movie nights but I lied because I'm a liar. Here's 10ish (idk I'll see how far I get) that we've watched since April.

11. The Terminal - 4/13/24 - Recommended by Vertigo

Maybe the first true comedy we've watched for movie night and I believe our first Spielberg, Tom Hanks puts on a super enjoyable performance in this very accurate parody of American bureaucracy. It's a movie with a lot of loveable characters and silly moments combined with a surprisingly personal and heartwarming ending, and my only real complaint about it is the romance subplot and the fairly contrived conflict that comes with it, but I'm a big romance subplot hater in general. There is something distressing about this movie that I can't quite put my finger on, I think it's the abject refusal of everyone around the main character to put even the barest minimum of effort into helping him, but I think that's more of a byproduct of my own anxiety than the movie itself. This is a good watch if you're looking for something generally lighthearted and fun, not my favorite movie night movie but certainly not a bad one by any means.

12. Violet Evergarden - 4/20/24-5/25/24 - Picked by Maia

Once all of our regular attendees got a chance to pick a movie, we circled back and did another show and ended up going with this one to further the Cult's weebification of myself. TPP is a huge fan of this show and I was assured me that I would cry big ugly tears and they were right. This show is, loosely, about the growth of a character from a deeply traumatized war orphan trained to be an emotionless tool to a "Doll," who is tasked with taking other people's emotions and writing letters on their behalf. I love love love a good personal growth story (don't get me started on My Happy Marriage I'll go on for hours) and this is a good one. This one had me crying by the OVA and crying harder by episode 8. In addition to being a fantastic narrative, this show is visually stunning. Genuinely cannot recommend this one enough.

As far as the movies go, I wasn't a huge fan of either, particularly the second one. Felt like the show resolved fine and didn't need add-ons, but they were nothing egregious, just not my favorite.

13. Farewell My Concubine - 6/1/24 - Recommended by col49

Fitting for June, we had a surprise Pride movie this time around. This is a Chinese movie set in the 20th century, revolving around a boy, Douzi, and his journey from abandoned son of a prostitute to an opera star performing famed opera "Farewell My Concubine." He is trained from a young age to perform female roles, specifically that of said concubine, while his childhood friend, Shitou, plays the king in the opera. The movie is set against the backdrop of the Japanese invasion of China during World War II and the Chinese Civil War, and deals with both the political upheaval of the time and the internal upheaval of Douzi, who has some very strong and very obvious unrequited feelings for Shitou as his stage persona and his real-life self begin to blur together. I don't want to spoil the plot too much in case people are inclined to watch it, but it is a really excellent film that deals with a lot of very heavy topics, including love, betrayal, and political ideologies and violence in 20th century China. I recommend this one highly, but for those who do want to check this one out, heed trigger warnings for: child abuse, suicide, and sexual assault.

14. The Room - 6/29/24 - Recommended by get backer

I'd heard of this movie but never seen it. This movie is t e r r i b l e but it's definitely funny terrible instead of painful terrible. Things are inexplicably brought up, then dropped and never talked about again, the acting is fairly questionable, and the entire movie appears to have had about three total set pieces. That said, I highly recommend this one as a groupwatch but heed a trigger warning for suicide. If you want to make it an extra fun night, I recommend the following drinking game: Take a shot whenever 1) there's a random scene of characters throwing a football around, 2) two women talk about real estate, or 3) someone enters a room or building, exchanges a conversation with another character, then promptly leaves.

15. Arrival (2016) - 7/20/24 - Recommended by scionicle

Like House (1977), I assume there are other Arrival movies and this is why 2016 was specified. This is a weird movie. It's not like bad, it's just not what I was expecting going into an alien movie. It's a lot of linguistics talk and very little alien talk. I'm a STEM major, linguistics bore me. I also didn't love the ending but that's because I think it's selfish to have a child when you know for a fact that child is going to live a painful and miserable life with an incurable illness and die young, bringing pain not just to them but also to your partner when you knew full well this would happen. But I'm not a parent, what do I know. This is a good movie for people who like their sci-fi movies to have less exploding things with laser cannons and more trying to actually talk to the aliens. 5/10 the music was really good.

16. (500) Days of Summer - 9/7/24 - Recommended by the one and only teal6

As noted above, I am a romance hater. You may be asking by this point: "Maia, what movies do you actually like" and the answer is musicals and Dead Poets Society. Anyways, I like this movie. This is fun because it's a purposeful subversion of usual meet-cute love-at-first-sight romance shit. If you like Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel and hate movies that have a romance plot centered between two characters whose whole personalities are "one of them is hot, down on their luck, and just a little bit creepy about trying to find love" and "the other is hot, nice, and new in town," then you will also enjoy this movie.

17. Spy (2015) - 9/14/24 - Recommended by TPP

As with House (1977) and Arrival (2016), I'm willing to bet there are other Spy movies out there. This one is a comedy, starring Melissa McCarthy, who I enjoy a lot in this. I don't have much negative to say about this one, 8/10 fun movie if you like goofy spy movie shenanigans.

18. Mean Girls - 10/5/24 - Recommended by Vertigo

I wasn't actually present for this one but I've seen it before and had to review it because I love it. This movie is iconic. I realize that there are people who are COPPA legal on this site who may have never seen the original Mean Girls and only the 2024 film adaptation of the 2018 Broadway adaptation of the 2004 original film, and that thought makes me sad. This movie definitely isn't Not Problematic, as one can guess since it came out in 2004, but it still holds up as being an enjoyable watch all around, with Lindsay Lohan absolutely killing it as the lead role and every character being a fairly believable caricature of people at least I definitely knew during high school. Additionally, like Princess Bride, this is one of the most quotable movies ever made and the cultural impact of this movie cannot be understated. If you have not seen it, go watch it.

Other things we watched that I didn't type up a review for for one reason or another include:
her (2013) - 6/8/24 - Recommended by teal6
21 Jump Street and 22 Jump Street - 6/15/24 and 6/22/24 - Recommended by TPP
Everything Everywhere All At Once - 7/6/24 - Recommended by Vertigo
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time - 7/13/24 - Recommended by Leru
Frieren - 7/27/24 - 8/31/24 - Picked out by myself
The Royal Tenenbaums - 9/21/24 - Recommended by get backer
Crazy Rich Asians - 9/28/24 - Recommended by ken

Like I said last time, I'm not a cinephile or anyone who knows anything about anything, so these reviews are based pretty much on my enjoyment of the movies and not much else. Weekly movie nights with my friends is by far one of my favorite rituals I get to participate in, and it has let me see a bunch of movies I would likely otherwise never have watched, several of which I have ended up liking.

Thanks for reading another ramble if you did, movie recommendations are always appreciated.

 

[RainWaiv]

Last weekend I went out to theaters with my parents to watch Look Back. I'm no cinephile or anything, and Look Back is nowhere close to my favorite Fujimoto work (Goodbye Eri will forever be my top 1) but everything about that movie was done perfectly. The highlight of the movie for me is definitely the scene where Fujino is asked why she draws manga. The movie does very little animation for this part, but every part of the scene does such a perfect job of expressing the emotion the scene is meant to carry. I was also curious to see how the movie handled the scene of Fujino going home after delivering kyomoto's certificate. In the original manga, all of the emotion is carried in a single 2-page spread, but in the movie it's substituted for a ~3 minute scene that has by far the most animation in the show.

If you haven't watched it, you really should. Fujimoto is a genius writer and it's a real shame most people don't recognize it.

 

[BKC]

Welcome back to our yearly movie round-up! Tagging col49 trc Eagle4 crow crumbs BIHI ryo yamada2001 mathsman ambivalencecrimes MegaRodriXD chimp Myzozoa 5imian Dave Tomahawk but of course anyone is welcome to join in and I very much hope they do! I love reading others' thoughts on what they've seen, and if nothing else grabbing from their lists for my own viewing.

I had a bunch of promising horror movies lined up for Hooptober this year, and then wound up watching just about none of them (except for Poltergeist, finally in which I most enjoyed how the Spielbergian gave way to a wild extended climax that was clearly all Hooper's). However, I did get to fulfill the dream of seeing The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, on the big screen (yesterday, on Halloween!). Maybe I'll do my Hooptober after the fact.

I've purposefully watched much less this year, since I was really overdoing it in '23. That isn't to say I haven't still seen a lot, because lol, of course I have, but I've managed to find a much better balance, and have been appreciating things much, much more as a result, which leads me to get even more excited to see and branch out further still!

So, here are my favorites I've seen since last November 1st. I didn't restrict it by rating or anything this time (which I got stricter with / put less stock in anyway), just went with things I've thought of positively.

1. Bay of Angels (1963, Jacques Demy) - what a rocket of an opening shot!
2. Slaughter in the Snow (1973, Kazuo Ikehiro) - could only find this by ordering the DVD, fully worth it
3. A Gentle Woman (1969, Robert Bresson)
4. Cross of Iron (1977, Sam Peckinpah)
5. Lola (1961, Jacques Demy)
6. The Sweet Hereafter (1997, Atom Egoyan)
7. The Adjuster (1991, Atom Egoyan) - this and the above beat out Exotica for me, and I love Exotica. This one has tinges of Lynch
8. Le tempestaire (1947, Jean Epstein)
9. Limite (1931, Mário Peixoto) - earliest example of proto-slow cinema I've found
10. Daddy, Father Frost is Dead (1991, Yevgeny Yufit)
11. Bullet in the Head (1990, John Woo) - I've never been too crazy about Woo, but this one really did it for me
12. The Set-Up (1949, Robert Wise) - I think this has beaten out Kiss Me Deadly as my favorite noir, the camera is perfect and Robert Ryan makes you feel every hit
13. Enthusiasm: The Donbass Symphony (1931, Dziga Vertov) - astonishing use of sound
14. Arsenal (1929, Oleksandr Dovzhenko)
15. Hong Kong, Hong Kong (1983, Clifford Choi)
16. Up, Down, Fragile (1995, Jacques Rivette)
17. Rosa la Rose, Public Girl (1986, Paul Vecchiali) - contains among the most emotional scenes I've seen and it's done with zero dialogue
18. The Brown Bunny (2003, Vincent Gallo)
19. An Actor's Revenge (1963, Kon Ichikawa)
20. I Live In Fear (1955, Akira Kurosawa) - overlooked but superb prime-era Kurosawa where Mifune plays a man terrified of nuclear war
21. Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1969, Nagisa Oshima)
22. JFK (1991, Oliver Stone) - I don't like Stone's movies but this one is really special, Pakula paranoiac buildup woven right into its fabric
23. Portrait of Hell (1969, Shiro Toyoda) - also had to order this on DVD, Nakadai rules
24. Love Under the Crucifix (1962, Kinuyo Tanaka)
25. The Eve of Ivan Kupalo (1968, Yuri Ilienko)
26. From the Life of the Marionettes (1980, Ingmar Bergman) - grim even by his standards (complimentary)
27. Fort Graveyard (1965, Kihachi Okamoto) - a farce about a Mifune leading an inept war band, hilarious until it's devastating
28. Suzaku (1997, Naomi Kawase)
29. The Ballad of Narayama (1958, Keisuke Kinoshita)
30. Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974, John Hough)
31. Rolling Thunder (1977, John Flynn)
32. The Scandalous Adventures of Buraikan (1970, Masahiro Shinoda)
33. Ace in the Hole (1951, Billy Wilder) - incredible final shot
34. √964 Pinocchio (1991, Shozin Fukui)
35. Rubber's Lover (1996, Shozin Fukui)
36. Affair in the Snow (1968, Yoshishige Yoshida)
37. Labyrinth of Dreams (1997, Gakuryu Ishii)
38. Rocco & His Brothers (1960, Luchino Visconti) - along with The Set-Up, forms the second half of the clearest influences on Raging Bull
39. The Crucified Lovers / A Story from Chikamatsu (1954, Kenji Mizoguchi) - here's where Mizoguchi really clicked for me, you'll see him a lot on this list, he's become one of my very favorites
40. Umberto D. (1952, Vittorio De Sica)
41. Flic (2005, Masahiro Kobayashi) - a slow cinema police procedural with an almost Resnaisian approach to memory
42. A Drama of Jealousy (and Other Things) / The Pizza Triangle (1970, Ettore Scola) - Monica Vitti is very, very funny
43. Certain Women (2016, Kelly Reichardt)
44. Cold Water (1994, Olivier Assayas) - best Assayas
45. Nashville (1975, Robert Altman)
46. Ju Dou (1990, Zhang Yimou)
47. The Lonely Human Voice (1987, Alexander Sokurov)
48. The Mirror (1997, Jafar Panahi)
49. Rome, Open City (1945, Roberto Rossellini)
50. Days of Eclipse (1988, Alexander Sokurov)
51. The Great Dictator (1940, Charlie Chaplin)
52. Children of Paradise (1945, Marcel Carné)
53. I Knew Her Well (1965, Antonio Pietrangeli)
54. All That Heaven Allows (1955, Douglas Sirk)
55. One Way or Another (1976, Elio Petri)
56. The Hunt (1966, Carlos Saura) - big influence on Peckinpah
57. The Life of Oharu (1952, Kenji Mizoguchi)
58. Journey to Italy (1954, Roberto Rossellini)
59. The Easy Life (1962, Dino Risi)
60. We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974, Ettore Scola)
61. Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958, Mario Monicelli)
62. The Wind (1928, Victor Sjöström)
63. The Spirit of the Beehive (1973, Víctor Erice) - the best thing I've seen all year. First saw it beginning of January--it immediately affected me like little else ever has, and has stayed with me like since. Got to see it in August on 35mm and it was even better...like seeing the face of God. Cannot praise it enough. If you watch one film from this list that you haven't yet seen, let it be this one. One of the greatest films. Many a day when I think it's the greatest, full stop.
64. El sur (1983, Víctor Erice) - similarly gorgeous and affecting. Perfect (day)dream / (twilight) reverie descriptor (think Double Life of Veronique).
65. The Quince Tree Sun (1992, Víctor Erice)
66. Close Your Eyes (2023, Víctor Erice) - "No miracles since Dreyer."
67. Cría cuervos (1976, Carlos Saura)
68. The Zone of Interest (2023, Jonathan Glazer) - the best film of 2023
69. Sword of the Beast (1965, Hideo Gosha)
70. Three Outlaw Samurai (1964, Hideo Gosha)
71. Kill! (1968, Kihachi Okamoto) - he's not generally known for it but I adore Okamoto's funny side (also seen in other movies of his on this list)
72. Youth of the Beast (1963, Seijun Suzuki) - he was just in such a groove during that 60s streak, I think this surpasses even Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill. Writing this has doubled to see my excitement to see Gate of Flesh...
73. Cruel Gun Story (1964, Takumi Furukawa)
74. The Second Circle (1990, Alexander Sokurov)
75. Massacre Gun (1967, Yasuharu Hasebe) - superb climactic setpiece
76. Fox & His Friends (1975, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
77. Memories of Underdevelopment (1968, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea) - novelistic in the best way
78. Stone (1992, Alexander Sokurov)
79. Heatwave (1991, Hideo Gosha)
80. Noisy Requiem (1988, Yoshihiko Matsui) - all over the place but it works in its own abrasive quasi-experimental way
81. Mikey & Nicky (1976, Elaine May) - I love Cassavetes' style in his own films, but I think May took his style and did it even better
82. Revenge (1964, Tadashi Imai)
83. Whispering Pages (1994, Alexander Sokurov)
84. Mother & Son (1997, Alexander Sokurov) - painterly and deeply moving
85. Dead End Drive-In (1986, Brian Trenchard-Smith) - the car leap at the end is life-affirming
86. Ashik Kerib (1988, Sergei Parajanov) - Parajanov is so utterly singular, an inspirational experience that also features incredible music
87. Gone in 60 Seconds (1974, H. B. Halicki) - the 40-minute (yes, forty) car chase is life-affirming
88. Passing Summer (2001, Angela Schanelec) - Schanelec can do no wrong
89. The God Crippled With One Leg (1994, Jun Kurosawa) - can't wait to tell people that um, actually, Jun is the best Kurosawa
90. The North Bridge (1981, Jacques Rivette) - proto-Mulholland Drive
91. Komitas (1988, Don Askarian)
92. Too Early, Too Late (1981, Danièle Huillet / Jean-Marie Straub) - I'm not sure where to go next in their catalogue but I really loved this
93. Dead Slow Ahead (2015, Mauro Herce)
94. Poor Things (2023, Yorgos Lanthimos)
95. Antonio Gaudí (1984, Hiroshi Teshigahara)
96. Le dormeur (1974, Pascal Aubier)
97. Yeast (2008, Mary Bronstein) - a furious attempt at one-upping Frownland
98. Daughters of the Dust (1991, Julie Dash)
99. À nos amours (1983, Maurice Pialat) - "French Cassavetes" does him a disservice, this is another one of the very best discoveries of my year. Sandrine Bonnaire is incredible.
100. Post tenebras lux (2012, Carlos Reygadas) - stupefying (positive!) and uniquely shot but that opening scene especially is some kind of magic
101. La Chinoise (1967, Jean-Luc Godard)
102. The Dirties (2013, Matt Johnson)
103. I, the Executioner (1968, Tai Kato)
104. Eleven Samurai (1967, Eiichi Kudo)
105. Avetik (1992, Don Askarian)
106. The White Meadows (2009, Mohammad Rasoulof)
107. Hospital Massacre (1981, Boaz Davidson) - way more reputable than you'd expect from a movie with such a title!
108. Queen of Diamonds (1991, Nina Menkes) - utterly deflating
109. Wax, or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees (1991, David Blair) - still not sure what to make of this but I had a blast
110. Portrait of Jennie (1948, William Dieterle) - proto-Vertigo, tremendous ending
111. My Little Loves (1974, Jean Eustache) - gently beautiful
112. Welcome, or No Trespassing (1964, Elem Klimov)
113. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968, William Greaves) - also not sure what to make of this but I also had a blast!
114. Onimasa (1982, Hideo Gosha)
115. Night Moves (1975, Arthur Penn) - New Hollywood neo-noir with Gene Hackman, ultimate recipe for success and it delivers
116. Wendy & Lucy (2008, Kelly Reichardt) - extraordinary stuff, Michelle Williams is especially superb here
117. Escape from LA (1996, John Carpenter) - I watched this at a very dark time and Kurt Russell's "call me Snake" was just what I needed.
118. Farewell (1983, Elem Klimov)
119. Tokyo Twilight (1957, Yasujiro Ozu) - also watched during that dark time. Took me a while to really get him but I had been thinking about Ozu and here his style finally clicked for me...now I can't get enough of it. This still remains my favorite of his I've seen.
120. Clean, Shaven (1993, Lodge Kerrigan) - this doesn't get under your skin so much as your fingernails
121. An Autumn Afternoon (1962, Yasujiro Ozu)
122. Oh, Bomb (1964, Kihachi Okamoto)
123. Lost, Lost, Lost (1976, Jonas Mekas)
124. Versus (2000, Ryuhei Kitamura) - sheer delight
125. Street of Shame (1956, Kenji Mizoguchi)
126. Starship Troopers (1997, Paul Verhoeven)
127. Antenna (2004, Kazuyoshi Kumakiri) - Kiyoshi Kurosawa-esque!
128. Kiki's Delivery Service (1989, Hayao Miyazaki)
129. Cash Calls Hell (1966, Hideo Gosha)
130. The Age of Assassins / Epoch of Murder Madness (1967, Kihachi Okamoto)
131. Sombre (1998, Philippe Grandrieux)
132. Un lac (2008, Philippe Grandrieux)
133. Odds Against Tomorrow (1959, Robert Wise) - similarly excellent to The Set-Up, with another great turn by Robert Ryan and all
134. The Suspended Step of the Stork (1991, Theo Angelopoulos) - even by his skyscraper standards the camerawork here is just tremendous
135. The Cloud-Capped Star (1960, Ritwik Ghatak)
136. Demon Pond (1979, Masahiro Shinoda) - rivals Kwaidan
137. The Beast Shall Die (1959, Eizo Sugawa) - urgent and stinging throughout, spurred by an incredible Nakadai performance
138. A Difficult Life (1961, Dino Risi)
139. The Castle of Sand (1974, Yoshitaro Nomura)
140. A Geisha (1953, Kenji Mizoguchi)
141. The Demon (1978, Yoshitaro Nomura) - throws you right into the fire from the very beginning
142. Lancelot of the Lake (1974, Robert Bresson) - can't say I ever expected a beheading in a Bresson film, much less at the very beginning, but I really liked it for its unique, strangely over-the-top moments creating an unusual contrast with his usual "detached" / distant / clinical style
143. The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962, Robert Bresson)
144. Landscape Suicide (1986, James Benning) - nigh-peerless compositional sense
145. AKA Serial Killer (1975, Masao Adachi) - my favorite documentary
146. Go (1999, Doug Liman) - lots of fun, the first act is by far the best thanks to the center Sarah Polley gives it but this is a very likable good time
147. Bamboozled (2000, Spike Lee) - love how wildly confrontational this is
148. Last Night (1998, Don McKellar) - this one's really stuck with me, gotta see more Toronto New Wave
149. Massacre at Central High (1976, Rene Daalder) - another "massacre" movie that's far better than you'd expect from the title! (see also Sorority House Massacre)
150. Something Different (1963, Véra Chytilová) - you wouldn't expect the director of Daisies to do something this grounded but man is it hard-hitting
151. Living Water (1957, Larisa Shepitko)
152. D'est (1993, Chantal Akerman) - one of her very, very best
153. Boat People (1982, Ann Hui)
154. American Movie (1999, Chris Smith)
155. Japón (2002, Carlos Reygadas) - a pastoral, serene existential crisis
156. Camera Buff (1979, Krzysztof Kieślowski)
157. Blind Chance (1987, Krzysztof Kieślowski)
158. The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
159, Chinese Roulette (1975, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) - as you can probably see, along with Mizoguchi, Fassbinder has been my other main director obsession this year. This one has settled into my top 3 of his, and in my view features his most virtuosic use of the camera, rivaled only by Bitter Tears.
160. Women of the Night (1948, Kenji Mizoguchi)
161. Sisters of the Gion (1936, Kenji Mizoguchi)
162. Sud (1999, Chantal Akerman)
163. Woman of Fire (1979, Kim Ki-young) - anyone who likes modern South Korean thrillers like Parasite should check out this director's The Handmaid (1960) and then this
164. A Special Day (1977, Ettore Scola) - the towering way this apartment complex is shot is just superb
165. Ugly, Dirty & Bad (1976, Ettore Scola) - like John Waters in the Italian countryside or something, barbed with venom
166. ↔ / Back and Forth (1969, Michael Snow) - you really get in that groove after a while, favorite Snow
167. Serene Velocity (1970, Ernie Gehr)
168. Léon Morin, Priest (1961, Jean-Pierre Melville)
169. Fear of Fear (1975, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
170. Lilith (1964, Robert Rossen) - fans of Breathless will be delighted with how mesmerizing Jean Seberg is here
171. Eva (1962, Joseph Losey)
172. Tenchu! (1969, Hideo Gosha) - the scene where the guy runs through the house, fighting off enemy after enemy, and yelling his name about a million times, only to be asked in the next scene if he managed to keep his name a secret is some of the hardest I've laughed this year
173. Japan's Longest Day (1967, Kihachi Okamoto)
174. The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean (1966, Juleen Compton) - so strange--bouncy, yet ominous
175. The Third Generation (1979, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) - acidic, caustic, ferocious, top 5 Fass
176. Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted (1990, David Lynch)
177. In Cold Blood (1967, Richard Brooks)
178. A Man and a Woman (1966, Claude Lelouch) - the scenes of connection are so naturalistic and touching, Anouk Aimée was really wonderful
179. Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (1974, Kazuo Hara)
180. Kopalnia (1947, Natalia Brzozowska)
181. A Woman Kills (1968, Jean-Denis Bonan) - I wrote this when I first saw it: "excellent, inspired by Psycho but too charged and frenetically inventive to just be a ripoff, probing, affective, tremendous camerawork, proto-giallo"
182. How to Be Loved (1963, Wojciech Jerzy Has)
183. Two Women (1960, Vittorio De Sica)
184. The Codes (1966, Wojciech Jerzy Has) - flashback scenes in particular possess spectral, haunting sound and a fittingly roving camera
185. Godzilla: Final Wars (2004, Ryuhei Kitamura)
186. The Prowler (1951, Joseph Losey)
187. The Woman in the Window (1944, Fritz Lang)
188. The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978, Ermanno Olmi)
189. Permanent Vacation (1980, Jim Jarmusch)
190. Point Blank (1967, John Boorman)
191. Get Carter (1971, Mike Hodges)
192. The Servant (1963, Joseph Losey)
193. Secret Ceremony (1968, Joseph Losey) - this and the above are winding psycho-surreal labyrinths
194. The Cars That Ate Paris (1974, Peter Weir)
195. The Plumber (1979, Peter Weir)
196. Pigs and Battleships (1961, Shohei Imamura) - what if a noir culminated in a bunch of pigs being released into the streets? The answer may surprise you.
197. Mr. Klein (1976, Joseph Losey)
198. The Last Seduction (1994, John Dahl) - Linda Fiorentino is the femme fatale
199. You Are Not I (1981, Sara Driver) - an eerie psychodrama hypnodrone to match the best of them
200. The Doll (1968, Wojciech Jerzy Has)
201. Vanishing Point (1971, Richard C. Sarafian)
202. Both Sides of the Blade (2022, Claire Denis)
203. Duelle (1976, Jacques Rivette)
204. La dolce vita (1960, Federico Fellini) - felt very blessed that my first time with this was in a theater
205. Fallen Leaves (2023, Aki Kaurismäki) - utterly delightful time, cannot wait to binge the rest of his stuff
206. The Presence (1965, Miklós Jancsó)
207. The Second Presence (1978, Miklós Jancsó)
208. The Third Presence (1986, Miklós Jancsó) - I recently went to Budapest and seeing St. Stephen's Basilica inspired similar feelings as this trilogy
209. Tale of Cinema (2005, Hong Sang-soo)
210. La collectionneuse (1967, Éric Rohmer) - beautiful and thoughtful, really top-tier, makes me want to binge Rohmer
211. The Hidden Fortress (1958, Akira Kurosawa) - the blocking, framing and movement in this is just ridiculous
212. The Loneliest Planet (2011, Julia Loktev) - this film hinges on a downright brutal "you can never go back" moment
213. That Day, on the Beach (1983, Edward Yang) - got to see it in a theater, loved it from frame one, it's become my favorite Yang
214. Minnie & Moskowitz (1971, John Cassavetes) - Gena Rowlands really was special, this one's also very funny. I like the guy at the beginning who says he doesn't get cinema because it's just a bunch of people looking up.
215. Any Number Can Win (1963, Henri Verneuil) - Delon too, he's on fire here alongside Jean Gabin, phenomenally taut and what an ending
216. Frost (1997, Fred Kelemen) - soul-crushing slow cinema, Kelemen would go on to shoot Turin Horse for Tarr
217. The Comedy (2012, Rick Alverson) - necessary viewing for anyone who grew up on the internet
218. Entertainment (2015, Rick Alverson)
219. Eyes of the Spider (1998, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
220. Shoeshine (1946, Vittorio De Sica)
221. Morvern Callar (2002, Lynne Ramsay)
222. Pickpocket (1997, Jia Zhangke) - a really special texture to this
223. Hunger (1966, Henning Carlsen)
224. The Banishment (2007, Andrey Zvyagintsev) - grounded drama with Tarkovsky influence made his own, superb
225. The Beguiled (2017, Sofia Coppola) - brings out the full beauty of dusk
226. Burial Ground (1981, Andrea Bianchi) - doing Fulci things just as well if not better (and if nothing else this one certainly gets...stranger)
227. The Return (2003, Andrey Zvyagintsev)
228. Welcome Home (1995, Makoto Shinozaki)
229. The Mad Fox (1962, Tomu Uchida)
230. Hymn to a Tired Man (1968, Masaki Kobayashi) - not much seen but up there with Kobayashi's best and very unique among his filmography
231. Japanese Girls at the Harbor (1933, Hiroshi Shimizu)
232. Baal (1970, Volker Schlöndorff) - superb handheld 16mm cinematography with color bursting through grime, perfectly illustrating the weary nastiness on display
233. The Calm (1980, Krzysztof Kieślowski)
234. The Scar (1976, Krzysztof Kieślowski) - as you can see from this fourth entry of his on this list, I really like early Kieślowski
235. Death of a Cyclist (1955, Juan Antonio Bardem) - wonderfully corrosive
236. To Be or Not to Be (1942, Ernst Lubitsch) - enormous smile on my face the entire time. When I went to see Akira in Berlin two years ago, above the entrance to the theater was written "How would Lubitsch do it?" and now I understand.
237. The Executioner (1963, Luis García Berlanga) - bites, hard
238. Peppermint Frappé (1967, Carlos Saura) - Buñuel does Vertigo
239. Courage for Every Day (1964, Evald Schorm)
240. Return of the Prodigal Son (1967, Evald Schorm)
241. The Fear (1966, Kostas Manoussakis)
242. Intentions of Murder (1964, Shohei Imamura) - you wouldn't expect this kind of film to be somewhat of an epic but it turns into a kind of grand achievement
243. The Insect Woman (1963, Shohei Imamura)
244. Profound Desires of the Gods (1968, Shohei Imamura)
245. By a Man's Face Shall You Know Him (1966, Tai Kato)
246. Death of a Bureaucrat (166, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea)
247. American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince (1978, Martin Scorsese)
248. Live Today, Die Tomorrow! (1970, Kaneto Shindo)
249. Floating Clouds (1955, Mikio Naruse) - transcendent performance from Hideko Takamine
250. Floating Weeds (1959, Yasujiro Ozu)
251. Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself With Tea (1977, Jindřich Polák) - amazing title befitting a time travel farce wherein a group of former Nazis conspire to provide Hitler with a hydrogen bomb
252. The Ear (1970, Karel Kachyňa) - if you like conspiracy thrillers, you'll eat this up
253. Princess Yang Kwei Fei (1955, Kenji Mizoguchi) - I wasn't sure how Mizoguchi would be in color. Turns out, it's among the best things he ever did.
254. Utamaro & His Five Women (1946, Kenji Mizoguchi)
255. Miss Oyu (1951, Kenji Mizoguchi)
256. Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji (1955, Tomu Uchida) - expected a lighthearted fun adventure and got something way more hard-hitting
257. How Far, How Near (1972, Tadeusz Konwicki) - Salto is a favorite of mine, and this reaches similar surrealist psychodrama highs
258. The Lynx (1982, Stanisław Różewicz)
259. The Sword (1964, Kenji Misumi)
260. Meantime (1983, Mike Leigh)
261. Il demonio (1963, Brunello Rondi) - this was a big influence on The Exorcist, folk horror done right
262. Time of Indifference (1964, Francesco Maselli)
263. The Son (2002, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
264. Satan's Brew (1976, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
265. Elisa, vida mía (1977, Carlos Saura)
266. Cosmopolis (2012, David Cronenberg) - stilted, glassy, absurd, off-kilter solipsistic grotesquerie, knew I would love it from the first shot of Pattinson flatly announcing his intention to get a haircut

My one other note is that I've seen Mulholland Drive three times this year. My vote for Lynch's best previously fluctuated between Blue Velvet and Fire Walk With Me, but it finally hit me how emotionally charged Mulholland is and I had some of the most overwhelming viewing experiences of my life. Naomi Watts breathing "I'm in love with you" grabs me by the intestines. Badalementi's love theme is unreal. When I haven't been thinking Spirit of the Beehive is the best film ever, I've been thinking Mulholland. It almost feels like the end of cinema.

As for 2024 releases, I'll try to see everything else that's caught my eye and do a big round-up at the end of the year. So far, though, I loved Furiosa (even better than Fury Road!), Dune 2 (colossal, clearly Villeneuve's second best), I Saw the TV Glow (Paul Schrader called Schoenbrun the most original voice today and I agree, even if you can spot the influences this film, like other great cinema, is very much its own), Chime (weaponizing sterility, overwhelmingly atmospheric sound, Kurosawa is too good) and The Substance (the most fun theater experience in a long time, the crash zooms on the crowd at the end unlock a sense of joy and a desire to yell in delight).

I look forward to everyone else's posts!!!

Cinema

 

[col49]

ok ok

Been a nice year for me as film goes, watched less and loved more. Too many factors to effectively draw that correlation, but I'm happy with what's been going on. I've been making a point of cutting off on any given director's work for the year if and when I hit one I truly love, which for me does loads for helping me not only appreciate their work more, but also press me to expand my tastes while I feel most receptive to it. Some really satisfying breakthroughs for me this year in appreciating the works of Satyajit Ray, Bresson, Mizoguchi, Rivette, Mann (not listed but I rewatched Thief and am definitely more 'getting it' than not rn), hell I even got into some joints from Tony Scott and Kitano and I was so sure I just was always gonna dislike their ouvre. On the flip side, I am finding my conversational movie talk absolutely nosediving as with each film from them I find myself more and more convinced the works of Nolan, Villeneuve, Iñárritu and more to simply not be my bag, so none of this will ever get to be water cooler talk for me I'm afraid. Still haven't hit a bunch of their respective 'big ones' though, so I'll keep pushing.

As for Hooptober, I did that (roughly), after becoming deeply superstitious when I didn't last year and had a no good, very bad month. The criteria for this year's suited me fairly well as someone who has yet to find themselves fulling sipping the giallo koolaid, as well as indian cinema really having a banner year for me relatively speaking. I will profess that in composing my list I did go over to 33 entries rather than 31, somehow missing two films in the Critters franchise (my choice of franchise for both covering that and the New Line Cinema req, 2 was my fave and a good ol' time), but am quite confident I hit all the beats in 31 somewhere and was simply too lazy to recall which ones were superfluous. Not to rattle off every entry, I would just say that my top five for this challenge were Singapore Sling / Evil Dead 2 (genuinely a first watch for me, oops) / Amer / The Iron Rose (another awesome ah-ha moment for me having not really gotten much from Fascination) / What Have You Done to Solange?, with Amer and ED2 feeling a bit like shoe-ins for me that delivered and the rest all being very pleasant surprises. As for sad misses, I watched Special Effects and sadly still do not really 'get' what there's to be got from Larry Cohen and I am so sorry but I was honestly taken aback by how much Last Night in Soho missed, cannot point to a thing done well in that and as a simp for Wright for however long I take no joy in it. Compliment sandwich though, I continued to watch some extra-extracurricular horror joints throughout the month and really founding myself digging on Night of the Demon, The Passing, Popcorn, Rubber's Lover, The Bride from Hades, and I Saw the TV Glow.

That out the way, here are all the films I first watched this year that I would recommend a person, in order of my own personal enjoyment

Spoiler

1. Soleil Ô (1970, Med Hondo)
2. The Last Picture Show (1971, Peter Bogdanovich)
3. Topos (1985, Antoinetta Angelidi)
4. The Swimmer (1968, Frank Perry)
5. Exotica (1994, Atom Egoyan)
6. Nowhere (1997, Gregg Araki)
7. The Shape of Night (1964, Noboru Nakamaru)
8. Nainsukh (2010, Amit Dutta)
9. Point Blank (1967, John Boorman)
10. Anantaram (1987, Adoor Gopalakrishnan)
11. Singapore Sling (1990, Nikos Nikolaidis)
12. Phoenix (2014, Christian Petzold)
13. Twilight (1990, György Fehér)
14. Wanda (1970, Barbara Loden)
15. The Seduction of Mimi (1972, Lina Wertmüller)
16. Woman of the Dunes (1964, Hiroshi Teshigahara)
17. Gonin (1995, Takashi Ishii)
18. Vitalina Varela (2019, Pedro Costa)
19. Dark Days (2000, Marc Singer)
20. Nothing but a Man (1964, Michael Roemer)
21. I vitelloni (1953, Federico Fellini)
22. Entre Nous (1983, Diane Kurys)
23. Drowning By Numbers (1988, Peter Greenaway)
24. Angel’s Egg (1984, Mamoru Oshii)
25. Murder, My Sweet (1944, Edward Dmytryk)
26. Paths of Glory (1957, Stanley Kubrick)
27. La Roue (1923, Abel Gance)
28. The Long Goodbye (1973, Robert Altman)
29. Strike (1925, Sergei Eisenstein)
30. Band of Outsiders (1964, Jean-Luc Goddard)
31. Chronicle of a Summer (1961, Edgar Morin/Jean Rouch)
32. Street Angel (1937, Muzhi Yuan)
33. Bang Bang (1971, Andrea Tonacci)
34. Chess of the Wind (1976 Mohammad Reza Aslani)
35. Poetry (2010, Lee Chang-Dong)
36. Beijing Watermelon (1989, Nobujiko Obayashi)
37. Evil Dead II (1987, Sam Raimi)
38. Silence has no Wings (1966, Kazuo Kiruki)
39. The Valley of the Bees (1968, František Vláčil)
40. Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962, Ralph Nelson)
41. A Burning Star (1995, Kenji Onishi)
42. Pickpocket (1959, Robert Bresson)
43. Hearts and Minds (1974, Peter Davis)
44. The Son (2002, Luc Dardenne/Jean-Pierre Dardenne)
45. The Music Room (1958, Satyajit Ray)
46. The Lovers on the Bridge (1991, Leos Carax)
47. The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola)
48. Prefab Story (1981, Věra Chytilová)
49. If Beale Street Could Talk (2018, Barry Jenkins)
50. Sweet Smell of Success (1957, Alexander Mackendrick)
51. Repeated Absences (1972, Guy Gilles)
52. Bandits of Orgosolo (1961, Vittorio de Seta)
53. We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974, Ettore Scola)
54. Some Kind of Heaven (2020, Lance Oppenheim)
55. Le Notti Bianche (1957, Luchino Visconti)
56. Man Who Causes a Storm (1957, Umetsugu Inoue)
57. Birds, Orphans, and Fools (1969, Juraj Jakubisko)
58. Drylongso (1998, Cauleen Smith)
59. Pépé le Moko (1937, Julien Duvivier)
60. Documenteur (1981, Agnès Varda)
61. Take Out (2004, Sean Baker/Shea-Ching Tsou)
62. My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999, Isao Takahata)
63. After the Curfew (1954, Usmar Ismail)
64. The Hudsucker Proxy (1994, Joel Coen)
65. Dreams Money Can Buy (1947, Hans Richter)
66. Os Fuzis (1964, Ray Guerra)
67. All Through the Night (1952, Vincent Sherman)
68. L’Amour Fou (1969, Jacques Rivette)
69. Golgo 13: The Professional (1983, Osamu Dezaki)
70. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974, Joseph Sargent)
71. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939, Kenji Mizoguchi)
72. Typhoon Club (1985, Shinji Sōmai)
73. Days of ‘36 (1972, Theo Angelopolous)
74. The Passing (1984, John Huckert)
75. The War Room (1993, D.A Pennebaker/Chris Hedegus)
76. El Escapulario (1968, Servando Gonzàlez)
77. Young Soul Rebels (1991, Isaac Julien)
78. I Saw the TV Glow (2024, Jane Schoenbrun)
79. Putney Swope (1969, Robert Downey Sr.)
80. Imburnal (2008, Sherad Anthony Sanchez)
81. The Lighthouse (2006, Mariya Saakyan)
82. A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino (1965, Lamberto V. Avellana)
83. Los Hermanos del Tierro (1961, Ismail Rodríguez)
84. The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961, Val Guest)
85. Blue Sunshine (1977, Jeff Lieberman)
86. We Can’t Go Home Again (1973, Nicholas Ray)
87. Mayor (2020, David Osit)
88. Anticipation of the Night (1958, Stan Brakhage)
89. Sugar & Spice (2001, Francine McDougall)
90. Allegro Non Troppo (1976, Bruno Bozzetto)
91. Trenque Lauquen (2022, Laura Citarella)
92. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965, Martin Ritt)
93. Burst City (1982, Gakuryu Ishii)
94. Fear X (2003, Nicolas Winding Refn)
95. Anatahan (1953, Josef von Sternberg)
96. The Blue Planet (1982, Franco Piavoli)
97. Anatomy of Time (2021, Jakrawal Nilthamrong)
98. Zatoichi in Desperation (1972, Shintarō Katsu)
99. L’Inferno (1911, Giuseppe de Liguoro)
100. Crisis Jung (2018, Jérèmie Périn/Baptiste Gaubert)
101. Official Competition (2021, Mariano Cohn/Gastón Duprat)
102. Imagens (1972, Luis Rosemberg Filho)
103. In this Corner of the World (2016, Sunao Katabuchi)
104. Chinese Odyssey 2002 (2002, Jeff Lau Chun-Wai)
105. Diferente (1961, Luis María Delgado)
106. The Hunger (1983, Tony Scott)
107. Ivan’s Childhood (1962, Andrei Tarkovsky)
108. Emitaï (1971, Ousmane Sembène)
109. Ninja Scroll (1993, Yoshiaki Kawajiri)
110. A Sun-Tribe Myth from the Bakumatsu Era (1957, Yūzō Kawashima)
111. Lenny Cooke (2013, Josh Safdie/Benny Safdie)
112. Amer (2009, Hélène Cattet/Bruno Forzani)
113. Oslo, August 31st (2011, Joachim Trier)
114. Boys State (2020, Jesse Moss/Amanda McBaine)
115. The Third Lover (1962, Claude Chabrol)
116. Penguin Highway (2018, Hiroyasu Ishida)
117. Deranged (1974, Jeff Gillen/Alan Ormsby)
118. Exiled (2006, Johnnie To)
119. Violated Angels (1967, Kōji Wakamatsu)
120. Clean, Shaven (1993, Lodge Kerrigan)
121. Woman in Chains (1968, Henri-Georges Clouzot)
122. Méditarranée (1963, Jean-Daniel Pollet)
123. Barravento (1962, Glauber Rocha)
124. Revanche (2008, Göetz Spielmann)
125. Don’t Cry, Pretty Girls! (1970, Márta Mészáros)
126. Fists in the Pockets (1965, Marco Bellocchio)
127. Haru (1996, Yoshimitsu Morita)
128. The Parallel Street (1962, Ferdinand Khittl)
129. Funny Face (1957, Stanley Donen)
130. Mermaid Legend (1984, Toshiharu Ikeda)
131. Fallen Angels (1995, Wong Kar-Wai)
132. A Wife Confesses (1961, Yasuzō Masumura)
133. sex, lies, and videotape (1989, Steven Soderbergh)
134. Compartment No.6 (2021, Juho Kuosmanen)
135. A Bullet for the General (1967, Damiano Damiani)
136. Pennies from Heaven (1981, Herbert Ross)
137. Ladyworld (2018, Amanda Kramer)
138. This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006, Kirby Dick)
139. Salesman (1969, Albert Maysles/David Maysles/Charlotte Zwerin)
140. Titicut Follies (1967, Frederick Wiseman)
141. The White Meadows (2009, Mohammad Rasoulof)
142. Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937, Sadao Yamanakq)
143. The Cat in the Bag (1964, Gilles Groulx)
144. The Telephone Book (1971, Nelson Lyon)
145. On Sundays (1961, Bruce Baillie)
146. Gates of Heaven (1978, Errol Morris)
147. El Sur (1983, Víctor Erice)
148. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986, John McNaughton)
149. Bringing up Baby (1938, Howard Hawks)
150. Field N***** (2015, Khalik Allah)
151. Ikarie XB 1 (1963, Jindrich Polák)
152. Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder)
153. Karaoke Girl (2013, Visra Vichit-Vadakan)
154. The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter (1984, Lau Kar-leung)
155. The Circus (1928, Charlie Chaplin)
156. A Face in the Crowd (1957, Elia Kazan)
157. Shock Corridor (1963, Samuel Fuller)
158. Diva (1981, Jean-Jacques Beineix)
159. American Fiction (2023, Cord Jefferson)
160. Cartel Land (2015, Matthew Heineman)
161. ‘Round Midnight (1986, Betrand Tavernier)
162. Papicha (2019, Mounia Meddour)
163. Outrage (1950, Ida Lupino)
164. Popcorn (1991, Mark Herrier)
165. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985, Woody Allen)
166. The Banshees of Inisherin (2022, Martin McDonough)
167. Eternity (2011, Sivaroj Kongsakul)
168. Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold (1964, Kazuo Ikehiro)
169. Save the Tiger (1973, John G. Avildsen)
170. A Taxing Woman’s Return (1988, Jūzō Itami)
171. Taking Off (1971, Miloš Forman)
172. Port of Memory (2010, Kamal Aljafari)
173. The Cat (1992, Lam Ngai Kai)
174. Emitai (1971, Ousmane Sembene)
175. Meantime (1983, Mike Leigh)
176. Rubber’s Lover (1996, Shozin Fukui)
177. Rom (2019, Trân Thanh Huy)
178. White Heat (1949, Raoul Walsh)
179. Maurice (1987, James Ivory)
180. The Little Mermaid (1976, Karen Kachyňa)
181. Wendigo (2001, Larry Fessenden)
182. Dorian Grey in the Mirror of the Yellow Press (1984, Ulrike Ottinger)
183. Project A (1983, Jackie Chan)
184. Two-Lane Blacktop (1971, Monte Hellman)
185. Welcome, or No Trespassing (1964, Elem Klimov)
186. The Bride From Hades (1968, Satsuo Yamamoto)
187. Green for Danger (1946, Sydney Gilliat)
188. Murder by Contract (1958, Irving Lerner)
189. Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982, Alan Parker)
190. Espejismo (1972, Armando Robles Godoy)
191. The Train (1964, John Frankenheimer)
192. Pickpocket (1997, Jia Zhangke)
193. The White Reindeer (1952, Erik Blomberg)
194. The Bad and the Beautiful (1952, Vincenti Minnelli)
195. What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984, Pedro Almodovar)
196. All that Breathes (2022, Shaunak Sen)
197. Muddy River (1981, Kōhei Oguri)
198. Tony Manero (2008, Pablo Lorraín)
199. The Muse (2008, Yutaka Ikejima)
200. Happening (2021, Audrey Diwan)
201. Fools’ Parade (1971, Andrew V. McLaglen)
202. The Laughing Woman (1969, Piero Schivazappa)
203. What have you Done to Solange? (1972, Massimo Dallamano)
204. Jesus’ Son (1998, Alison Maclean)
205. Quick Gun Murugan (2009, Shashanka Grosh)
206. How to Steal a Million (1966, William Wyler)
207. Fight Club (1999, David Fincher)
208. The King of the Street Sweepers (1977, Zeki Ökten)
209. Lascars (2009, Emmanuel Klotz/Albert Pereira-Lazaro)
210. Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts (2007, Scott Hicks)
211. A Kind of Loving (1962, John Schlesinger)
212. Song Lang (2018, Leon Le)
213. Sweet Charity (1969, Bob Fosse)
214. Kids Return (1996, Takeshi Kitano)
215. Up the Yangtze (2007, Yung Chang)
216. Edward II (1991, Derek Jarman)
217. People’s Republic of Desire (2018, Hao Wu)
218. Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural (1973, Richard Blackburn)
219. Bait (2019, Mark Jenkin)
220. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017, Yorgos Lanthimos)
221. PTU (2003, Johnie To)
222. Plastic Jesus (1971, Lazar Stojanović)
223. Mo’ Better Blues (1990, Spike Lee)
224. The Demon (1978, Yoshitaro Nomura)
225. A Big Hand for a Little Lady (1966, Fielder Cook)
226. Zatoichi the Outlaw (1967, Satsuo Matsumoto)
227. Little Odessa (1994, James Gray)
228. 20 Fingers (2004, Mania Akbari)
229. Corpo Celeste (2011, Alice Rohrwacher)
230. Shadowboxer (2005, Lee Daniels)
231. We are Little Zombies (2018, Makoto Nagahisa)
232. Dick Tracy (1990, Warren Beatty)
233. Jamon Jamon (1992, Bigas Luna)
234. The Straight Story (1999, David Lynch)
235. Drugstore Cowboy (1989, Gus Van Sant)
236. Fireworks (1947, Kenneth Anger)
237. Marina’s Fantastic Tale (2019, Anca Damian)
238. No Man’s Land (2001, Danis Tanović)
239. Fate of a Man (1959, Sergey Bondarchuck)
240. When the Wind Blows (1986, Jimmy T. Murakami)
241. A (2017, Mitchell Stafiej)
242. The Hidden (1987, Jack Sholder)
243. Whistle Down the Wind (1961, Bryan Forbes)
244. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005, Nick Park/Steve Box)
245. Door (1988, Banmei Takahashi)
246. The Silk Tree Ballad (1974, Mariko Miyagi)
247. Memento Mori (1999, Min Kyu-Dong/Kim Tae-Yung)
248. Maestro (2003, Josell Ramos)
249. Blue Bayou (2021, Justin Chon)
250. Samba Traoré (1992, Idrissa Ouedraogo)
251. Hollywood 90028 (1973, Christina Hornisher)
252. The Chase (1946, Arthur Ripley)
253. Vicenta (2020, Dario Doria)
254. Mix-up (1986 Francoise Romand)
255. Mystery Train (1989, Jim Jarmusch)
256. The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016, André Øvredal)
257. Growing Up (1983, Chen Kun-Hou)
258. Better than Something: Jay Reatard (2012, Alex Hammond/Ian Markiewicz)
259. Devil De Story (1983, Mitsutetsu Natsuki)
260. It is not the homosexual who is perverse, but the society in which he lives (1971, Rosa von Praunheim)
261. State and Main (2000, David Mamet)
262. The Gay Deceivers (1969, Bruce Kessler)
263. The Third Wife (2018, Ash Mayfair)
264. Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998, Michel Ocelot)
265. The Conference (2023, Patrick Eklund)
266. Paperhouse (1988, Bernard Rose)
267. Story Ave (2023, Aristotle Torres)
268. Revenge of the Ninja (1983, Sam Firstenberg)
269. Phobe: The Xenophobic Experiments (1995, Erica Benedikty)
270. Space Trucker Bruce (2014, Anton Doiron)
271. Fatal Deviation (1998, Shay Casserley/Simon Linscheid)

Lot there, movies sick as hell. Going into next year I'd really like to be giving more time to shows, challenge some biases there and probably knock out Twin Peaks since that feels like something a guy like me is supposed to do. I've also felt acutely aware that my awareness of Kieślowski, Fassbinder, and Wenders is entirely abysmal and that I have seen not a single Naruse, so with any luck that gets straightened out moving forward. Otherwise pretty good year, see what we can't do to have another.

 

[ryo yamada2001]

the lists above me are super cool and inspirational, they look like very fulfilling journeys thru 2023-24! comparatively i haven't watched as much as i really should've (focused on other endeavors more) and certainly not as diverse as i was hoping, sticking between mostly recent films from the US & Japan. nevertheless, here's what I watched between my last post in nov 1 2023 and now:

Hide

*bold = watched in theaters

• Blackkklansman (2018, Spike Lee) - boots riley's commentary on this is essential and further highlights this instantly outdated relic as the copaganda (as funded by the NYPD) that it is. hated it
• The Visit (2015, M. Night Shyamalan) - empathetic processing of trauma in the way only Shyamalan can realize, but need to rewatch it to really connect w/ it
• The Exorcist (1973, William Friedkin) - incredible, stone cold filmmaking. watched this with two other people in their living room and i felt less immersed. i think you really need to watch it on your own to really feel how cold it is
• *Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) - this really struck me at a time i became more convinced of animation and the power that each individual illustration holds, so by the end where the girl changes a drawing a little -- and thereby basically reframes reality to process extensive grief -- i was rly convinced. loved it!
• John Wick 2, 3, 4 (2017-2023, Chad Stahelski) - 4 is somehow a greater leap over 2&3 than those were over 1. the most exciting action cinema since the matrix, albeit the middle films and their lore drops being somewhat exhausting
• May December (2023, Todd Haynes) - reminds me of my own family; webs of lies so deeply entangled that it becomes impossible to grasp for those within it, let alone those who interrogate it from outside. it's very easy to draw conclusions, but how can you do so when nobody even knows where it starts or ends?
• Jackass Forever & 4.5 (2022, Jeff Tremaine) - the indomitable human spirit. final scene in 4.5, where a hardened man from Compton in his mid-50s is made to jump out of a plane despite his fear of heights (w/ Knoxville pretending the plane's crashing) is the funniest thing ever, but when his son talks about how his dad appeared a more positive and thankful person afterwards it is the most life-affirming thing. that's kind of what Jackass has always been about
• Birds of Prey (2020, Cathy Yan) - anticipated a sort of alienating and normative girlboss movie, instead really adored Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn. has rly good action direction by Chad Stahelski too
• Babylon (2022, Damien Chazelle) - sort of as corny as its detractors say.. but it's a good thing! sprawling epic wherein narrative highs and lows mirror the film's own; laden with stunning montage, a phenomenal Robbie performance, and enthralling hedonism just as much as it succumbs to a sort of juvenile teary-eyed adulation for movies... and fuck it i love that enough
• Elvis (2022, Baz Luhrmann) - pure kineticism until just like the titular Great Man it burns out in exhaustion; every movement laborious yet enthralling to the public. montage masterpiece, eternal performance from Butler. one of my favorite movies this year
• Zeroes and Ones (2021, Abel Ferrara) - obtuse covid-era movie with the most beautiful digital cinematography by Sean Price Williams (1, 2, 3, 4); spiritual successor to New Rosel Hotel -- opaque information warfare parsed thru screens, as ghosts drift thru abandoned locales & a crisis of faith overwhelms us all at the end of the world
• The Suicide Squad (2021, James Gunn) - rancid opening but Margot Robbie is once more fantastic and the other performances bring together a tighter emotional core than i'd ever expected. very nice compositions as well; enjoyed this way more than anyone with 'cinephile cred' should but it is what it is
• Suicide Squad (2016, David Ayer) - loved Robbie so much in these past few films that I'd even tried this infamous piece of history and lowkey like good film if you ignore the bad parts (those which are so clearly poorly montaged and of studio interference that you can pick them out as soon as they happen)
• *Ferrari (2023, Michael Mann) - not sure why this is touted as a minor Mann when it fits so neatly in his filmography of grandiose (anti-)heroes and their small personal lives which they try to escape thru action on the verge of death. this temporary suspension of what holds us together, or, "for me, the action is the juice.". most beautiful racing scenes ever shot, also the scariest racing scenes ever shot
• Million Dollar Baby (2004, Clint Eastwood) - had to watch it after i heard this was the only movie my grandpa ever cried at. it helps me understand him better
• The Virgin Suicides (1999, Sofia Coppola)
• There Will Be Blood (2007, Paul Thomas Anderson) - thought PWS' filmbro reputation would put me off but this is every bit as tectonic as people say it is
• Exiled (2006, Johnnie To) - blood squibs exploding like clouds... a certain dreaminess and intangible connection/brotherhood connects this film as to by the very end I was wondering whether it was the best film I'd ever seen. don't think it is, but it surely is one of the most elegiac
• Dangerous Game (1993, Abel Ferrara) - unpleasant exorcism of trauma thru the form of a ponytail wearing Harvey Keitel... but this exact tendency for Ferrara to unapologetically examine his own wounds and scars makes him such a compelling director for me that this has only got better the more I got to think about it
• Die Hard (1988, John McTiernan) - other US action greats (the matrix, terminator 2, john wick etc) are heavily indebted to sci-fi speculation and cinematic language from hong kong. but this gotta be the real Great American action film: bald gun-toting cop with explosions and cheesy oneliners fighting foreign terrorists in a skyscraper, all because he tried to win his estranged wife's heart back on christmas. goddamnit this is good
• The Killer (2023, David Fincher) - french new wave in an online era. impossibly detached, very hard work to put my finger on. loved it
• *Dune: Part Two (2024, Denis Villenueve) - hated it. didn't see part one, no interest, nor any interest in part 3. will only go if my friends drag me along but this is a pure cinema and charisma vacuum for me
• *Evil Does Not Exist (2023, Ryuusuke Hamaguchi) - unique in its meditative yet quietly storming rage; hypnotic and spiritual work about upsetting the equilibrium. another opaque but immensely rewarding experience
• *The Boy and the Heron (2023, Hayao Miyazaki) - cried 100000000000 tears and do genuinely feel this could be the best movie I've ever seen
• *Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024, Adam Wingard) - fucking awesome lol. i'm not even into kaiju and still i felt like cheering when the gorgeous Mothra appears. the little monkey is so cool in this too
• *Monkey Man (2024, Dev Patel) - felt much more impressed when I walked out of the cinemas than I do now, but Patel's debut outing still shows a furious messaging and filmmaking (intro is fantastic, the fighting is as good as it'll get from non-Wick action films) that is really encouraging
• Poor Things (2023, Yorgos Lanthimos) - i hate Lanthimos maybe even more than I expected I would
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (2011, David Bowers) - i had a bit of a traumatic experience in a 14-hour flight that had me sleep deprived, nauseous, and unable to eat, so I was very nervous for my flight back... thankfully I was better prepared and although still a bit nauseous, watching this alongside my friend was a sort of respite and relief/comfort that helped me process my extremely unpleasant experience. so i'm very grateful for this film
• Challengers (2024, Luca Guadagnino) - insane fujoshi delight. montagemaxxed masterpiece
• *The Watchers (2024, Ishana Night Shyamalan) - promising setup ruined by underconfident, overexpository scriptwriting making this film feel twice as long as it is
• Hostel (2005, Eli Roth) - gnarly post-9/11 anxiety film whose ideas I appreciate more than I enjoy the film
• Terrifier 2 (2022, Damien Leone) - like a less good version of Rob Zombie's Halloween II (one of the greatest films ever) but still an incredible leap that makes me excited for what they'll do with Terrifier 3 (seeing it tomorrow!)
• *Trap (2024, M. Night Shyamalan) - unbelievable genre work by the master and maybe the best living filmmaker right now. the performance Hartnett gives here is generational imo, matched by very few in what i know of cinema history
• Hostel 2 (2007, Eli Roth) - . . .that's it? this feels like getting by on its ideas or, what we want hostel 2 to be, more than what hostel 2 truly is
• Anaconda (1997, Luis Llosa) - the very humid, clammy night I watched this on was the perfect setting for this ultimate atrocious good vibe movie; doldrums of deliberately restricted movement (slow) so nothing really happens yet danger always looms (if you don't die earlier by getting stuck on a tree branch or being eaten by leeches or so). beautifully shot movie btw
• Best of the Best (1989, Robert Radler) - first movie that made me cry when i was like 7 yrs old or so? extremely janky and corny but so disarming that i'd rather let myself go and cry to its ending again than to scrutinize it
• In the Realm of the Senses (1976, Nagisa Oshima) - the legend of Sada Abe as rebellion against the systems of oppression / the respite before Japan descended into hell. naturally this became a popular story, because who wouldn't want to be so madly in love with another to do the things she did, especially in a trying time where patriarchal systems enacted extremely callous violence upon women; in the stringent interbellum; in a culture still marked by repression? impossibly beautiful movie
• 'R Xmas (2001, Abel Ferrara) - already shows what would be Ferrara's late editing style. very straightforward construction that nevertheless finds so many strange, layered pockets of storytelling as to reveal a certain truth about these people (drea de matteo reminds me of my mom in this) and the city wherein this can happen... it's as confusing as people are, really
• Ms. 45 (1981, Abel Ferrara)
• The Driller Killer (1979, Abel Ferrara) - though my cis upbringing did not subject me to the violences that are cathartically undermined in Ms. 45--which i felt less connected to--i do very much sympathize with going insane from noise. watching this in a period where every day i woke up to construction sounds that went on for hours at a time, i can't lie sometimes i felt like becoming the driller killer as well. insane cinematography & editing as well

most of my year and my writing has been focused on anime (sorry cinephiles) and that will likely follow next year, but i still love da movies every single day. they will always be very important to me and i'm happy this year i watched so many things that i ended up loving and so few that i ended up hating. hopefully i can share another interesting list with y'all again next year :)

 

[chimp]

I too shall post the movies. Here is my list of movies I watched for the first time this year ordered chronologically by watch order. And also the star rating I'd give to them:

Catch Me If You Can (Spielberg, 2002) ★☆☆☆☆
About Time (Curtis, 2013) ★★☆☆☆ - Can't believe in a movie with Rachel McAdams and Margot Robbie the hottest person is Bill Nighy
On the Beach at Night Alone (Sang-soo, 2017) ★☆☆☆☆ - Wasn't for me
The Holdovers (Payne, 2023) ★★★★☆
Full Metal Jacket (Kubrick, 1987) ★★★★★
The Northman (Eggers, 2022) ★★★☆☆
Train to Busan (Sang-ho, 2016) ★★★☆☆
The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1957) ★★★★☆
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (Lynch, 1992) ★★★★☆
Dune: Part Two (Villeneuve, 2024) ★★★★☆ - I wasn't a fan of Part 1 but Part 2 somehow pulled it all off
Glengarry Glen Ross (Foley, 1992) ★★★★☆
Come and See (Klimov, 1985) ★★★★★
Parasite (Joon-ho, 2019) ★★★☆☆
Perfect Days (Wenders, 2023) ★★★☆☆
La Haine (Kassovitz, 1996) ★★★★★
The French Connection (Friedkin, 1971) ★★★☆☆ A couple of scenes I enjoyed but the entire affair was kind of whatever for me
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Chbosky, 2012) ★★☆☆☆ - Blunt-forced induced cringe, but it's important to who watched it as teens and I get why
Tickled (Farrier & Reeve, 2016) ★★☆☆☆ - Exhausts its interesting premise too quickly
Paranormal Activity 4 (Schulman & Joost, 2012) ★☆☆☆☆ - Watched these at a scary movie-watching party which was probs the best way to do so
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (Landon, 2014) ★☆☆☆☆
Nomadland (Zhao, 2021) ★★☆☆☆ - The only parts I liked really were the real stories of actual nomads, so I think I'd prefer the book tbh
Challengers (Guadagnino, 2024) ★★★☆☆
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Miller, 2024) ★★★☆☆
There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2007) ★★★★★
What We Do in the Shadows (Waikiki & Clemont, 2014) ★★★☆☆ - Good for some chuckles
Inside Out 2 (Mann, 2024) ★★☆☆☆
Paris is Burning (Livingston, 1990) ★★★★★ - There is definitely an art in just "capturing" moments of time, and this movie is That.
Last Night in Soho (Wright, 2021) ★★☆☆☆
The Lighthouse (Eggers, 2019) ★★★☆☆
The Green Knight (Lowery, 2021) ★★☆☆☆
Deadpool & Wolverine (Levy, 2024) ★★☆☆☆
Fargo (Coen, 1996) ★★★★★
Drive (Refn, 2011) ★☆☆☆☆ - OK this might be my HOTTEST take but I did not like this film at all tbqh
Princess Mononoke (Miyazai, 1997) ★★★★★
The Naked Gun: From the Files of the Police Squad (Zucker, 1991) ★★★★☆
Megalopolis (Coppola, 2024) ★★☆☆☆
Hereditary (Aster, 2018) ★★☆☆☆
The Godfather (Coppola, 1972) ★★★★★
The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973) ★★★★★
Kiki's Delivery Service (Miyazaki, 1990) ★★★☆☆ - Something about Ghibli movies just stay in my headspace permanently
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1999) ★★★☆☆
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (Hughes, 1987) ★★☆☆☆
The Thing (Carpenter, 1982) ★★★★★

As for television shows- I watched Severance which I thought was dope and started Twin Peaks: The Return, which I should definitely finish. I'm bad at watching TV shows though, my attention span too brittle.

 

[bruno]

but of course anyone is welcome to join in and I very much hope they do! I love reading others' thoughts on what they've seen, and if nothing else grabbing from their lists for my own viewing.

for the boss

I am a big fan of this thread.

I used to only watch movies at the theatre until around the covid era, but since then, I've always enjoyed reading this thread and taking some suggestions here and there.

I've wanted to share my own thoughts for a long time but always felt like I hadn't seen enough stuff, in fact I still feel this way, but at least there's a solid amount built up at this point. My personal taste is constantly changing though.

I think I've scrolled through nearly every post in this 12 year old thread. It's aged surprisingly well to me, yet it still carries a strong sense of soulfulness and nostalgia to it. Most of the posts are just people saying how much they like something, which may seem a little bland, but you get to see some of the old-school internet dialogue without the edgy or I guess overly harsh tone that used to be so common tbh. Every time I watch a movie I try to know as little of it as possible and I just really like to go with an open mind, but I will say there's still plenty of stuff(Stalker and Vertigo being the first ones to come to mind) that I still feel like i don't quite "get". I do wanna try and revisit a lot of these in the future.

Then we more recently had the great Logan takeover which wasn't a bad thing but man these mfs watch movies. Should I even post with 10% of the same knowledge on the subject? Why not I suppose.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread - it almost feels like stepping into a museum. Sometimes we forget what we share online influences others, for good and bad.

Spoiler

These are my personal favorites in order. I couldn't begin to explain to you what my personal criterias are, but I guess the main thing I appreciate is a movie that impacts my life in some way, even though I don't exactly hunt for the feeling per say. Look forward to seeing how this change in a couple of years.

Most of these are pretty popular, and I definitely want to branch out a bit in the future. Still want to finish going through most of the classics though.

- "personal favorite": Fight Club - The only movie I constantly rewatch ever since I was a teenager. Younger me definitely loved it because I was just like “ohmagod whatafurk” at the ending, then I rewatched it a couple years later and I just loved everything. The older I get the more it resonates with me, I love the dialogue and themes of this movie so much.

- "true greatest": No Country for Old Men – While I think Fight Club is my favorite movie, No Country feels like The Best movie. It definitely has the best movie character and some of my favorite scenes ever. It feels like the Breaking Bad of movies, idk how else to explain it.

- "most powerful": Whiplash - This one hit me really, really hard and it’s been so long since I’ve watched it lmao but it is absolutely at the right spot. It is an absolute masterpiece on what it means to try and hit excellence. I don’t think it’s a better movie than the other two but it is the one that touches my emotions the most for sure.

- "life experience": Enter the Void – There’s huge recency bias here as I watched it earlier this year with teal and sadlysius, but right now this has to be around the right spot. Funny story: I had heard about this movie somewhere, then I looked it up online and I saw a picture of a girl who used to be myzozoa's profile picture, which ended up making me wanna watch it because I always thought of myzozoa as a very distinctive, unique user on Smogon.
Anyway, this movie destroyed my sleep the night I watched it and it wouldn't leave my mind. It still hasn't.

Enter the void isn't a movie, it's an experience. It doesn't try to be smart, and it doesn't try to be enjoyable either, it is just something entirely different. It has made me reflect on what it is to be, and has changed some of how I feel while doing things in life. I could easily see it mean nothing to many people too honestly, but it has left quite a lasting impact on me so far.
Will definitely re-watch it eventually as well as check more from the director, but not for now lol(I watched some of Irreversible and, holy fuck).

- “world parody”: American Psycho - I love American Psycho. It is so fun. But it’s also such a good parody of society to this day. This is also definitely the movie I’ve done the most research of. I remember being scared of watching it because I saw it had the horror genre(I can’t handle horror) which in retrospect made it a lot better for me since I was shitting pants waiting for the scary moments all the time. I think about this movie all the time.

- "time for reflection": Taxi Driver – Another fat banger, this movie also hits really hard. So much to unpack here. Existentialism, loneliness, mascunility, why even do anything, why not do certain things. What is your next action.

- "most beautiful": The Intouchables – Easily the most I’ve cried watching a movie. Funny while also touching your heart in a meaningful way. Love it a lot

- "trynna be Ryan Gosling frfr": Bladerunner 2049 – Has a little bit of everything. Enjoyable story, music, characters, interesting things to think about, and my favorite visuals out of any movie ever. I think out of any movie in this list, it’s probably the most “standard” movie, but it stands a bit above the rest of those to me.

- "A good time": Baby Driver – This is just the most fun I’ve had watching a movie honestly. I still listen to the soundtrack frequently, everything is just enjoyable. It’s really just a good time and doesn’t need to be more than that.

- “lol": The Big Lebrowski - Also watched with gang, not sure what to say about this one other than, its the freaking lebrowski. Iconic, reminded me to enjoy life for what it is

11. Raging Bull
12. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
13. Dead Poets Society
14. Departures
15. Vanilla Sky
16. Into The Wild
17. Oldboy
18. The Godfather Movies
19. Under the Skin
20. Interstellar
21. Reservoir Dogs
22. The Judge

also very recently watched perfect days, which i absolutely loved. i am not sure where I'd put it, but I do think it's a movie that would add a little bit to anyone's life, can't recommend it enough.

 

[Eagle4]

Welcome back to our yearly movie round-up! Tagging col49 trc Eagle4 crow crumbs BIHI ryo yamada2001 mathsman ambivalencecrimes MegaRodriXD chimp Myzozoa 5imian Dave Tomahawk but of course anyone is welcome to join in and I very much hope they do! I love reading others' thoughts on what they've seen, and if nothing else grabbing from their lists for my own viewing.

I had a bunch of promising horror movies lined up for Hooptober this year, and then wound up watching just about none of them (except for Poltergeist, finally in which I most enjoyed how the Spielbergian gave way to a wild extended climax that was clearly all Hooper's). However, I did get to fulfill the dream of seeing The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, on the big screen (yesterday, on Halloween!). Maybe I'll do my Hooptober after the fact.

I've purposefully watched much less this year, since I was really overdoing it in '23. That isn't to say I haven't still seen a lot, because lol, of course I have, but I've managed to find a much better balance, and have been appreciating things much, much more as a result, which leads me to get even more excited to see and branch out further still!

So, here are my favorites I've seen since last November 1st. I didn't restrict it by rating or anything this time (which I got stricter with / put less stock in anyway), just went with things I've thought of positively.

1. Bay of Angels (1963, Jacques Demy) - what a rocket of an opening shot!
2. Slaughter in the Snow (1973, Kazuo Ikehiro) - could only find this by ordering the DVD, fully worth it
3. A Gentle Woman (1969, Robert Bresson)
4. Cross of Iron (1977, Sam Peckinpah)
5. Lola (1961, Jacques Demy)
6. The Sweet Hereafter (1997, Atom Egoyan)
7. The Adjuster (1991, Atom Egoyan) - this and the above beat out Exotica for me, and I love Exotica. This one has tinges of Lynch
8. Le tempestaire (1947, Jean Epstein)
9. Limite (1931, Mário Peixoto) - earliest example of proto-slow cinema I've found
10. Daddy, Father Frost is Dead (1991, Yevgeny Yufit)
11. Bullet in the Head (1990, John Woo) - I've never been too crazy about Woo, but this one really did it for me
12. The Set-Up (1949, Robert Wise) - I think this has beaten out Kiss Me Deadly as my favorite noir, the camera is perfect and Robert Ryan makes you feel every hit
13. Enthusiasm: The Donbass Symphony (1931, Dziga Vertov) - astonishing use of sound
14. Arsenal (1929, Oleksandr Dovzhenko)
15. Hong Kong, Hong Kong (1983, Clifford Choi)
16. Up, Down, Fragile (1995, Jacques Rivette)
17. Rosa la Rose, Public Girl (1986, Paul Vecchiali) - contains among the most emotional scenes I've seen and it's done with zero dialogue
18. The Brown Bunny (2003, Vincent Gallo)
19. An Actor's Revenge (1963, Kon Ichikawa)
20. I Live In Fear (1955, Akira Kurosawa) - overlooked but superb prime-era Kurosawa where Mifune plays a man terrified of nuclear war
21. Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1969, Nagisa Oshima)
22. JFK (1991, Oliver Stone) - I don't like Stone's movies but this one is really special, Pakula paranoiac buildup woven right into its fabric
23. Portrait of Hell (1969, Shiro Toyoda) - also had to order this on DVD, Nakadai rules
24. Love Under the Crucifix (1962, Kinuyo Tanaka)
25. The Eve of Ivan Kupalo (1968, Yuri Ilienko)
26. From the Life of the Marionettes (1980, Ingmar Bergman) - grim even by his standards (complimentary)
27. Fort Graveyard (1965, Kihachi Okamoto) - a farce about a Mifune leading an inept war band, hilarious until it's devastating
28. Suzaku (1997, Naomi Kawase)
29. The Ballad of Narayama (1958, Keisuke Kinoshita)
30. Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974, John Hough)
31. Rolling Thunder (1977, John Flynn)
32. The Scandalous Adventures of Buraikan (1970, Masahiro Shinoda)
33. Ace in the Hole (1951, Billy Wilder) - incredible final shot
34. √964 Pinocchio (1991, Shozin Fukui)
35. Rubber's Lover (1996, Shozin Fukui)
36. Affair in the Snow (1968, Yoshishige Yoshida)
37. Labyrinth of Dreams (1997, Gakuryu Ishii)
38. Rocco & His Brothers (1960, Luchino Visconti) - along with The Set-Up, forms the second half of the clearest influences on Raging Bull
39. The Crucified Lovers / A Story from Chikamatsu (1954, Kenji Mizoguchi) - here's where Mizoguchi really clicked for me, you'll see him a lot on this list, he's become one of my very favorites
40. Umberto D. (1952, Vittorio De Sica)
41. Flic (2005, Masahiro Kobayashi) - a slow cinema police procedural with an almost Resnaisian approach to memory
42. A Drama of Jealousy (and Other Things) / The Pizza Triangle (1970, Ettore Scola) - Monica Vitti is very, very funny
43. Certain Women (2016, Kelly Reichardt)
44. Cold Water (1994, Olivier Assayas) - best Assayas
45. Nashville (1975, Robert Altman)
46. Ju Dou (1990, Zhang Yimou)
47. The Lonely Human Voice (1987, Alexander Sokurov)
48. The Mirror (1997, Jafar Panahi)
49. Rome, Open City (1945, Roberto Rossellini)
50. Days of Eclipse (1988, Alexander Sokurov)
51. The Great Dictator (1940, Charlie Chaplin)
52. Children of Paradise (1945, Marcel Carné)
53. I Knew Her Well (1965, Antonio Pietrangeli)
54. All That Heaven Allows (1955, Douglas Sirk)
55. One Way or Another (1976, Elio Petri)
56. The Hunt (1966, Carlos Saura) - big influence on Peckinpah
57. The Life of Oharu (1952, Kenji Mizoguchi)
58. Journey to Italy (1954, Roberto Rossellini)
59. The Easy Life (1962, Dino Risi)
60. We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974, Ettore Scola)
61. Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958, Mario Monicelli)
62. The Wind (1928, Victor Sjöström)
63. The Spirit of the Beehive (1973, Víctor Erice) - the best thing I've seen all year. First saw it beginning of January--it immediately affected me like little else ever has, and has stayed with me like since. Got to see it in August on 35mm and it was even better...like seeing the face of God. Cannot praise it enough. If you watch one film from this list that you haven't yet seen, let it be this one. One of the greatest films. Many a day when I think it's the greatest, full stop.
64. El sur (1983, Víctor Erice) - similarly gorgeous and affecting. Perfect (day)dream / (twilight) reverie descriptor (think Double Life of Veronique).
65. The Quince Tree Sun (1992, Víctor Erice)
66. Close Your Eyes (2023, Víctor Erice) - "No miracles since Dreyer."
67. Cría cuervos (1976, Carlos Saura)
68. The Zone of Interest (2023, Jonathan Glazer) - the best film of 2023
69. Sword of the Beast (1965, Hideo Gosha)
70. Three Outlaw Samurai (1964, Hideo Gosha)
71. Kill! (1968, Kihachi Okamoto) - he's not generally known for it but I adore Okamoto's funny side (also seen in other movies of his on this list)
72. Youth of the Beast (1963, Seijun Suzuki) - he was just in such a groove during that 60s streak, I think this surpasses even Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill. Writing this has doubled to see my excitement to see Gate of Flesh...
73. Cruel Gun Story (1964, Takumi Furukawa)
74. The Second Circle (1990, Alexander Sokurov)
75. Massacre Gun (1967, Yasuharu Hasebe) - superb climactic setpiece
76. Fox & His Friends (1975, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
77. Memories of Underdevelopment (1968, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea) - novelistic in the best way
78. Stone (1992, Alexander Sokurov)
79. Heatwave (1991, Hideo Gosha)
80. Noisy Requiem (1988, Yoshihiko Matsui) - all over the place but it works in its own abrasive quasi-experimental way
81. Mikey & Nicky (1976, Elaine May) - I love Cassavetes' style in his own films, but I think May took his style and did it even better
82. Revenge (1964, Tadashi Imai)
83. Whispering Pages (1994, Alexander Sokurov)
84. Mother & Son (1997, Alexander Sokurov) - painterly and deeply moving
85. Dead End Drive-In (1986, Brian Trenchard-Smith) - the car leap at the end is life-affirming
86. Ashik Kerib (1988, Sergei Parajanov) - Parajanov is so utterly singular, an inspirational experience that also features incredible music
87. Gone in 60 Seconds (1974, H. B. Halicki) - the 40-minute (yes, forty) car chase is life-affirming
88. Passing Summer (2001, Angela Schanelec) - Schanelec can do no wrong
89. The God Crippled With One Leg (1994, Jun Kurosawa) - can't wait to tell people that um, actually, Jun is the best Kurosawa
90. The North Bridge (1981, Jacques Rivette) - proto-Mulholland Drive
91. Komitas (1988, Don Askarian)
92. Too Early, Too Late (1981, Danièle Huillet / Jean-Marie Straub) - I'm not sure where to go next in their catalogue but I really loved this
93. Dead Slow Ahead (2015, Mauro Herce)
94. Poor Things (2023, Yorgos Lanthimos)
95. Antonio Gaudí (1984, Hiroshi Teshigahara)
96. Le dormeur (1974, Pascal Aubier)
97. Yeast (2008, Mary Bronstein) - a furious attempt at one-upping Frownland
98. Daughters of the Dust (1991, Julie Dash)
99. À nos amours (1983, Maurice Pialat) - "French Cassavetes" does him a disservice, this is another one of the very best discoveries of my year. Sandrine Bonnaire is incredible.
100. Post tenebras lux (2012, Carlos Reygadas) - stupefying (positive!) and uniquely shot but that opening scene especially is some kind of magic
101. La Chinoise (1967, Jean-Luc Godard)
102. The Dirties (2013, Matt Johnson)
103. I, the Executioner (1968, Tai Kato)
104. Eleven Samurai (1967, Eiichi Kudo)
105. Avetik (1992, Don Askarian)
106. The White Meadows (2009, Mohammad Rasoulof)
107. Hospital Massacre (1981, Boaz Davidson) - way more reputable than you'd expect from a movie with such a title!
108. Queen of Diamonds (1991, Nina Menkes) - utterly deflating
109. Wax, or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees (1991, David Blair) - still not sure what to make of this but I had a blast
110. Portrait of Jennie (1948, William Dieterle) - proto-Vertigo, tremendous ending
111. My Little Loves (1974, Jean Eustache) - gently beautiful
112. Welcome, or No Trespassing (1964, Elem Klimov)
113. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968, William Greaves) - also not sure what to make of this but I also had a blast!
114. Onimasa (1982, Hideo Gosha)
115. Night Moves (1975, Arthur Penn) - New Hollywood neo-noir with Gene Hackman, ultimate recipe for success and it delivers
116. Wendy & Lucy (2008, Kelly Reichardt) - extraordinary stuff, Michelle Williams is especially superb here
117. Escape from LA (1996, John Carpenter) - I watched this at a very dark time and Kurt Russell's "call me Snake" was just what I needed.
118. Farewell (1983, Elem Klimov)
119. Tokyo Twilight (1957, Yasujiro Ozu) - also watched during that dark time. Took me a while to really get him but I had been thinking about Ozu and here his style finally clicked for me...now I can't get enough of it. This still remains my favorite of his I've seen.
120. Clean, Shaven (1993, Lodge Kerrigan) - this doesn't get under your skin so much as your fingernails
121. An Autumn Afternoon (1962, Yasujiro Ozu)
122. Oh, Bomb (1964, Kihachi Okamoto)
123. Lost, Lost, Lost (1976, Jonas Mekas)
124. Versus (2000, Ryuhei Kitamura) - sheer delight
125. Street of Shame (1956, Kenji Mizoguchi)
126. Starship Troopers (1997, Paul Verhoeven)
127. Antenna (2004, Kazuyoshi Kumakiri) - Kiyoshi Kurosawa-esque!
128. Kiki's Delivery Service (1989, Hayao Miyazaki)
129. Cash Calls Hell (1966, Hideo Gosha)
130. The Age of Assassins / Epoch of Murder Madness (1967, Kihachi Okamoto)
131. Sombre (1998, Philippe Grandrieux)
132. Un lac (2008, Philippe Grandrieux)
133. Odds Against Tomorrow (1959, Robert Wise) - similarly excellent to The Set-Up, with another great turn by Robert Ryan and all
134. The Suspended Step of the Stork (1991, Theo Angelopoulos) - even by his skyscraper standards the camerawork here is just tremendous
135. The Cloud-Capped Star (1960, Ritwik Ghatak)
136. Demon Pond (1979, Masahiro Shinoda) - rivals Kwaidan
137. The Beast Shall Die (1959, Eizo Sugawa) - urgent and stinging throughout, spurred by an incredible Nakadai performance
138. A Difficult Life (1961, Dino Risi)
139. The Castle of Sand (1974, Yoshitaro Nomura)
140. A Geisha (1953, Kenji Mizoguchi)
141. The Demon (1978, Yoshitaro Nomura) - throws you right into the fire from the very beginning
142. Lancelot of the Lake (1974, Robert Bresson) - can't say I ever expected a beheading in a Bresson film, much less at the very beginning, but I really liked it for its unique, strangely over-the-top moments creating an unusual contrast with his usual "detached" / distant / clinical style
143. The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962, Robert Bresson)
144. Landscape Suicide (1986, James Benning) - nigh-peerless compositional sense
145. AKA Serial Killer (1975, Masao Adachi) - my favorite documentary
146. Go (1999, Doug Liman) - lots of fun, the first act is by far the best thanks to the center Sarah Polley gives it but this is a very likable good time
147. Bamboozled (2000, Spike Lee) - love how wildly confrontational this is
148. Last Night (1998, Don McKellar) - this one's really stuck with me, gotta see more Toronto New Wave
149. Massacre at Central High (1976, Rene Daalder) - another "massacre" movie that's far better than you'd expect from the title! (see also Sorority House Massacre)
150. Something Different (1963, Véra Chytilová) - you wouldn't expect the director of Daisies to do something this grounded but man is it hard-hitting
151. Living Water (1957, Larisa Shepitko)
152. D'est (1993, Chantal Akerman) - one of her very, very best
153. Boat People (1982, Ann Hui)
154. American Movie (1999, Chris Smith)
155. Japón (2002, Carlos Reygadas) - a pastoral, serene existential crisis
156. Camera Buff (1979, Krzysztof Kieślowski)
157. Blind Chance (1987, Krzysztof Kieślowski)
158. The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
159, Chinese Roulette (1975, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) - as you can probably see, along with Mizoguchi, Fassbinder has been my other main director obsession this year. This one has settled into my top 3 of his, and in my view features his most virtuosic use of the camera, rivaled only by Bitter Tears.
160. Women of the Night (1948, Kenji Mizoguchi)
161. Sisters of the Gion (1936, Kenji Mizoguchi)
162. Sud (1999, Chantal Akerman)
163. Woman of Fire (1979, Kim Ki-young) - anyone who likes modern South Korean thrillers like Parasite should check out this director's The Handmaid (1960) and then this
164. A Special Day (1977, Ettore Scola) - the towering way this apartment complex is shot is just superb
165. Ugly, Dirty & Bad (1976, Ettore Scola) - like John Waters in the Italian countryside or something, barbed with venom
166. ↔ / Back and Forth (1969, Michael Snow) - you really get in that groove after a while, favorite Snow
167. Serene Velocity (1970, Ernie Gehr)
168. Léon Morin, Priest (1961, Jean-Pierre Melville)
169. Fear of Fear (1975, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
170. Lilith (1964, Robert Rossen) - fans of Breathless will be delighted with how mesmerizing Jean Seberg is here
171. Eva (1962, Joseph Losey)
172. Tenchu! (1969, Hideo Gosha) - the scene where the guy runs through the house, fighting off enemy after enemy, and yelling his name about a million times, only to be asked in the next scene if he managed to keep his name a secret is some of the hardest I've laughed this year
173. Japan's Longest Day (1967, Kihachi Okamoto)
174. The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean (1966, Juleen Compton) - so strange--bouncy, yet ominous
175. The Third Generation (1979, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) - acidic, caustic, ferocious, top 5 Fass
176. Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted (1990, David Lynch)
177. In Cold Blood (1967, Richard Brooks)
178. A Man and a Woman (1966, Claude Lelouch) - the scenes of connection are so naturalistic and touching, Anouk Aimée was really wonderful
179. Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (1974, Kazuo Hara)
180. Kopalnia (1947, Natalia Brzozowska)
181. A Woman Kills (1968, Jean-Denis Bonan) - I wrote this when I first saw it: "excellent, inspired by Psycho but too charged and frenetically inventive to just be a ripoff, probing, affective, tremendous camerawork, proto-giallo"
182. How to Be Loved (1963, Wojciech Jerzy Has)
183. Two Women (1960, Vittorio De Sica)
184. The Codes (1966, Wojciech Jerzy Has) - flashback scenes in particular possess spectral, haunting sound and a fittingly roving camera
185. Godzilla: Final Wars (2004, Ryuhei Kitamura)
186. The Prowler (1951, Joseph Losey)
187. The Woman in the Window (1944, Fritz Lang)
188. The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978, Ermanno Olmi)
189. Permanent Vacation (1980, Jim Jarmusch)
190. Point Blank (1967, John Boorman)
191. Get Carter (1971, Mike Hodges)
192. The Servant (1963, Joseph Losey)
193. Secret Ceremony (1968, Joseph Losey) - this and the above are winding psycho-surreal labyrinths
194. The Cars That Ate Paris (1974, Peter Weir)
195. The Plumber (1979, Peter Weir)
196. Pigs and Battleships (1961, Shohei Imamura) - what if a noir culminated in a bunch of pigs being released into the streets? The answer may surprise you.
197. Mr. Klein (1976, Joseph Losey)
198. The Last Seduction (1994, John Dahl) - Linda Fiorentino is the femme fatale
199. You Are Not I (1981, Sara Driver) - an eerie psychodrama hypnodrone to match the best of them
200. The Doll (1968, Wojciech Jerzy Has)
201. Vanishing Point (1971, Richard C. Sarafian)
202. Both Sides of the Blade (2022, Claire Denis)
203. Duelle (1976, Jacques Rivette)
204. La dolce vita (1960, Federico Fellini) - felt very blessed that my first time with this was in a theater
205. Fallen Leaves (2023, Aki Kaurismäki) - utterly delightful time, cannot wait to binge the rest of his stuff
206. The Presence (1965, Miklós Jancsó)
207. The Second Presence (1978, Miklós Jancsó)
208. The Third Presence (1986, Miklós Jancsó) - I recently went to Budapest and seeing St. Stephen's Basilica inspired similar feelings as this trilogy
209. Tale of Cinema (2005, Hong Sang-soo)
210. La collectionneuse (1967, Éric Rohmer) - beautiful and thoughtful, really top-tier, makes me want to binge Rohmer
211. The Hidden Fortress (1958, Akira Kurosawa) - the blocking, framing and movement in this is just ridiculous
212. The Loneliest Planet (2011, Julia Loktev) - this film hinges on a downright brutal "you can never go back" moment
213. That Day, on the Beach (1983, Edward Yang) - got to see it in a theater, loved it from frame one, it's become my favorite Yang
214. Minnie & Moskowitz (1971, John Cassavetes) - Gena Rowlands really was special, this one's also very funny. I like the guy at the beginning who says he doesn't get cinema because it's just a bunch of people looking up.
215. Any Number Can Win (1963, Henri Verneuil) - Delon too, he's on fire here alongside Jean Gabin, phenomenally taut and what an ending
216. Frost (1997, Fred Kelemen) - soul-crushing slow cinema, Kelemen would go on to shoot Turin Horse for Tarr
217. The Comedy (2012, Rick Alverson) - necessary viewing for anyone who grew up on the internet
218. Entertainment (2015, Rick Alverson)
219. Eyes of the Spider (1998, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
220. Shoeshine (1946, Vittorio De Sica)
221. Morvern Callar (2002, Lynne Ramsay)
222. Pickpocket (1997, Jia Zhangke) - a really special texture to this
223. Hunger (1966, Henning Carlsen)
224. The Banishment (2007, Andrey Zvyagintsev) - grounded drama with Tarkovsky influence made his own, superb
225. The Beguiled (2017, Sofia Coppola) - brings out the full beauty of dusk
226. Burial Ground (1981, Andrea Bianchi) - doing Fulci things just as well if not better (and if nothing else this one certainly gets...stranger)
227. The Return (2003, Andrey Zvyagintsev)
228. Welcome Home (1995, Makoto Shinozaki)
229. The Mad Fox (1962, Tomu Uchida)
230. Hymn to a Tired Man (1968, Masaki Kobayashi) - not much seen but up there with Kobayashi's best and very unique among his filmography
231. Japanese Girls at the Harbor (1933, Hiroshi Shimizu)
232. Baal (1970, Volker Schlöndorff) - superb handheld 16mm cinematography with color bursting through grime, perfectly illustrating the weary nastiness on display
233. The Calm (1980, Krzysztof Kieślowski)
234. The Scar (1976, Krzysztof Kieślowski) - as you can see from this fourth entry of his on this list, I really like early Kieślowski
235. Death of a Cyclist (1955, Juan Antonio Bardem) - wonderfully corrosive
236. To Be or Not to Be (1942, Ernst Lubitsch) - enormous smile on my face the entire time. When I went to see Akira in Berlin two years ago, above the entrance to the theater was written "How would Lubitsch do it?" and now I understand.
237. The Executioner (1963, Luis García Berlanga) - bites, hard
238. Peppermint Frappé (1967, Carlos Saura) - Buñuel does Vertigo
239. Courage for Every Day (1964, Evald Schorm)
240. Return of the Prodigal Son (1967, Evald Schorm)
241. The Fear (1966, Kostas Manoussakis)
242. Intentions of Murder (1964, Shohei Imamura) - you wouldn't expect this kind of film to be somewhat of an epic but it turns into a kind of grand achievement
243. The Insect Woman (1963, Shohei Imamura)
244. Profound Desires of the Gods (1968, Shohei Imamura)
245. By a Man's Face Shall You Know Him (1966, Tai Kato)
246. Death of a Bureaucrat (166, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea)
247. American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince (1978, Martin Scorsese)
248. Live Today, Die Tomorrow! (1970, Kaneto Shindo)
249. Floating Clouds (1955, Mikio Naruse) - transcendent performance from Hideko Takamine
250. Floating Weeds (1959, Yasujiro Ozu)
251. Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself With Tea (1977, Jindřich Polák) - amazing title befitting a time travel farce wherein a group of former Nazis conspire to provide Hitler with a hydrogen bomb
252. The Ear (1970, Karel Kachyňa) - if you like conspiracy thrillers, you'll eat this up
253. Princess Yang Kwei Fei (1955, Kenji Mizoguchi) - I wasn't sure how Mizoguchi would be in color. Turns out, it's among the best things he ever did.
254. Utamaro & His Five Women (1946, Kenji Mizoguchi)
255. Miss Oyu (1951, Kenji Mizoguchi)
256. Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji (1955, Tomu Uchida) - expected a lighthearted fun adventure and got something way more hard-hitting
257. How Far, How Near (1972, Tadeusz Konwicki) - Salto is a favorite of mine, and this reaches similar surrealist psychodrama highs
258. The Lynx (1982, Stanisław Różewicz)
259. The Sword (1964, Kenji Misumi)
260. Meantime (1983, Mike Leigh)
261. Il demonio (1963, Brunello Rondi) - this was a big influence on The Exorcist, folk horror done right
262. Time of Indifference (1964, Francesco Maselli)
263. The Son (2002, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
264. Satan's Brew (1976, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
265. Elisa, vida mía (1977, Carlos Saura)
266. Cosmopolis (2012, David Cronenberg) - stilted, glassy, absurd, off-kilter solipsistic grotesquerie, knew I would love it from the first shot of Pattinson flatly announcing his intention to get a haircut

My one other note is that I've seen Mulholland Drive three times this year. My vote for Lynch's best previously fluctuated between Blue Velvet and Fire Walk With Me, but it finally hit me how emotionally charged Mulholland is and I had some of the most overwhelming viewing experiences of my life. Naomi Watts breathing "I'm in love with you" grabs me by the intestines. Badalementi's love theme is unreal. When I haven't been thinking Spirit of the Beehive is the best film ever, I've been thinking Mulholland. It almost feels like the end of cinema.

As for 2024 releases, I'll try to see everything else that's caught my eye and do a big round-up at the end of the year. So far, though, I loved Furiosa (even better than Fury Road!), Dune 2 (colossal, clearly Villeneuve's second best), I Saw the TV Glow (Paul Schrader called Schoenbrun the most original voice today and I agree, even if you can spot the influences this film, like other great cinema, is very much its own), Chime (weaponizing sterility, overwhelmingly atmospheric sound, Kurosawa is too good) and The Substance (the most fun theater experience in a long time, the crash zooms on the crowd at the end unlock a sense of joy and a desire to yell in delight).

I look forward to everyone else's posts!!!

Cinema

Oh my God, 266 films this year and these are just your favourites?? Incredible stuff / I worry for you / really enjoying your roundup.

Will post more in depth later but fave non-2024 releases I've seen this year:

The Strange Little Cat (Zurcher brothers, 2013)
Chocolat (Claire Denis, 1988)
Wanda (Barbara Loden, 1970)
Rendezvous (Claude Lelouch, 1976)
David Holzman's Diary (Jim McBride, 1967) - prob my fave film I've seen this year, absolutely incredible, anticipates so much of 21st century voyeuristic vlog practice.
The Dreamed Path (Angela Schanelec, 2016)
The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
Rosa la Rose, Public Girl (Paul Vecchiali, 1986)
A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1996) - has maybe the greatest closing shot of all time?
My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, 2007)

In terms of 2024(ish) releases, really digging

Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella)
Evil Does Not Exist (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
The Beast in the Jungle (Patric Chiha)
Music (Angela Schanelec)
The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
Chime (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
The Taste of Things (Tran Anh Hung)
I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)
Flow (Gints Zilbalodis)

with HMs to miyazaki's boy and the heron and miller's furiosa!