He hardly put a foot wrong during that period but, while not as iconic as his performances in Taxi Driver or Raging Bull, the sheer range of his acting in The Deer Hunter puts that at the top for me.

Cleverly managed to post this in the football thread by mistake ...



Only God Forgives

Watched in the light of Neon Demon you can see they're from the same director but where Neon Demon seems to go deeper than its glossy surface I'm not sure OGF does.

Anyone recommend anything coming out soon or out now to go check out? I was pretty struck by Moonlight, even if it dragged in the third act. So far I've got Silence, Jackie, Elle and Manchester by the Sea on the list

I'm not sure it does either.

Which isn't to say I didn't like it... or that I definitely liked it. But I loved parts of it. How about that fight scene? With the big build up and the Street Fighter music. "You wanna fight?" Haha. Guess he did.

That was unexpected and ballsy, for whatever it's worth. Even if it's worth nothing. When people wanted Drive 2, he gave them the anti-Drive.

I hope he stops swinging for fences that might not even exist and just makes another great film at some point though. He's definitely got style and the ability to serve up stylized substance. I'd like to see what he's capable of in the realm of more traditional cinema. Not super traditional. Just... y'know... like Drive.

Have I mentioned that I really love Drive? Not sure I have. Don't want to leave you in the dark. I really love Drive. ;)

He's definitely doing interesting stuff but I almost don't wanna rewatch any of his movies, incase the initial spell is broken. It's not that I crave depth but I do worry that his films will offer less the more I watch them. He seems to be moving closer to Gasper Noe, in terms of style and theme, but Noe's films affect me more after I've seen them, whereas NWR's are more instant gratification. Even Neon Demon, which when I watched it blew me away but the more I think about it, the more unsure I am.

am I the only one that thinks Drive is boring? maybe I need to re-watch it.

Like me, did you wonder where the hell that house featured in the finale is? Looked it up. Interesting history. Fantastic view and probably the perfect LA house.

My fave of the year, some possible suggestions:

1. Arrival
2. La La Land
3. Silence
4. Mustang
5. The Handmaiden
6. O.J. Made In America
7. Valley of Love
8. Indignation
9. The Nice Guys
10. Sweet Bean

Haha, I just looked it up. Can only find stuff on the house with the empty pool but not the final scene.

I re-watched HEAT and The DEPARTED. seen both numerous times.

HEAT is slow paced 90's crime drama. The Departed was directed by Martin "gimme shelter" Scorsese. i love the intro to "gimme shelter". could you repeat it again? that other movie your directing? could u use "gimme shelter"?

Wait... Huh? I can't read the message in your brain's Alphebet Soup this time around.

Are you:
a.) Giving Scorsese shit for using a Stones song in The Departed, a movie that came out 2 years before his Rolling Stones doc (which was called "Shine A Light," not "Gimme Shelter") because you think it's shameless self-cross-promotion?
Or
b.) Under the impression that that one drama about teen pregnancy or whatever that is called Gimme Shelter is a Marty joint? (It's not. Neither is the Altamont film from 1970.)
Or
c.) Just a really big fan of the song, and like hearing it in the movie?
Or
d.) Saying it's lame to use the song in a move... perhaps because it's been used in so, so many?

Not sure what to say if a or b is the case.
If it's c, then ... well, who can blame you really? It's a great song, one that is perhaps SO great, and SO linked to the era in which in was made, that it's almost better as a soundtrack joint than it is as a Stones track (kind of like CCR's "Fortunate Son"). It's just tremendous.

If d is yr poison, then, to be fair, Scorsese has a long history of using anthemic rock tracks in his films. The Departed actually forced me to adapt my position on the Dropkick Murphys, such that now, when I talk about how awful they are, I have to make allowances for the excellence of "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" in the context of that film. Talk about a song that works better with a movie than on its own. Yowza. (They are a really boring, awful band though.)

If you'll recall, Marty also used "Gimme Shelter" (and "Monkey Man," (!) which is awesome, and a surprisingly deep cut for such a big film) in GoodFellas. Oh, and he found room for both live AND studio versions of the song ("Gimme Shelter") in Casino, which also features "Satisfaction" and another one I can't immediately think of.

Anyhoo, I've long since lost sight of whatever it was that you were saying, or I was responding to when I first started this post, so I hope you remember. Mentioning "Gimme Shelter" got me in the mood to listen to Stones records and I'm taking a break from crate-digging to find my LP of Let it Bleed to finish this post up.

Yep. I have major, MAJOR attention issues.

I guess Marty has kind of driven "Gimme Shelter" into the ground, using it with almost inexcusable frequency. I mean, fuck's sake... THREE movies by the same guy, about the same general thing use the same song FOUR times between them. Then, inexplicably, there's no trace of it in "Shine a Light." Weird. But, y'know, whatever.

after 20 or so years of "don't feed the trolls", at this point in the history of the internet people just troll themselves

SMALL TIME CROOKS



not woody's best, but good and funny and full of memorable jokes

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sm...me-crooks-2000

in glorious, grainy vhs

DRESSED TO KILL



what a great stylish motherfucker brian de palma is. what a great spectacle he puts together. what incredible visuals.

the story is a bit shit though, particulary in light of our trans-friendly decade, but not really because of that which can be understood and forgiven historically, but primarily because as a murder mystery it's solveable in the first 20 minutes and from then on it's just things unfolding in super-predictable ways.

fabulous cinematography and editing, derivative and meh writing. some great cast and performances.

watch the unrated version in the criterion bluray for maximum spectacle. amazing visual language & technical fireworks. while the writing is hitchcock diminished, the visuals are hitchcock on 'roids. the last shot of the scene before last would make a magnificent baroque painting.

yep, that's it. gimme shelter plays not even a quarter way through, then the song repeats itself. this happens with two or three songs in the Departed.

so what you're saying is, a storm is not really threatening?

and here i thought rape, murder, it's just a shot away.

war, children?

Mighty Aphrodite

Well I could've done without the Greek chorus bits but the rest of it's pretty enjoyable. Still yet to be really impressed by this period of his career though.



Rosemary's Baby

Still freaks me out. For all its mainstream gloss it's still one of the scariest films I've seen.

Really liked this one at the time. Haven't seen it in years. I think I saw it listed on HBO GO today, so I'm in.

Other good'uns from or pretty close to this period:
Radio Days (quite a bit earlier I guess, but still... underrated)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (already mentioned this, but it's one of the best)
Manhattan Murder Mystery
Bullets Over Broadway



Ok, STOP. LISTEN TO ME...
Rosemary's Baby is fucking terrifying and extremely fucked up, and I know it's more "Hollywood" than the other "Apartment" films, but I would not call it mainstream. Anyone who is sane is deeply unsettled by this film, and if you said you weren't, I'd think you were either a liar or a sociopath.

Rosemary's Baby is. Fucked. Up.

This is the truth. Great movie, but fucked as all hell. You are right to be scared by it. Don't let anybody ever tell you otherwise. If they do, they'll have to deal with me, understand?!

All I meant by mainstream is it was a major Hollywood studio film dealing with a subject traditionally only touched (in a quite cartoonish fashion) by Hammer, Corman, etc.

Either way, it's disturbing as fuck

So we basically agree.

The Searchers - One of my absolute favorite films of all time and there's always something new to find each time I watch it. Some of the humor bits kind of get in the way of making me say it's a "perfect" film, but there really is something truly special about it. John Ford is one of my heroes, even though he has impulses I shouldn't like (bawdy humor in unwarranted places, over sentiment, sometimes flirting with old-fashioned racism). But he always makes me feel something when I watch a film of his.

No argument from me. He's as good as it gets, imo.

I've been reading the Bogdanovich book. He seems larger than life. I recently got into an argument with someone who called Ford a "one-trick pony." No one is going to get away with that in front of me

i love ford as a master of the epic western and awesome old-timey action but in the end i have to reject some of his stuff on an ideological basis, in that i don't share his love of the empire and what wsome of his movies stand for.

in the case of the searchers, to me, it's saying that in order to protect the frontier home and save the white princess from the savages you need some sort of atrocious asshole, warts and all. a bit like "a few good men" but from the other side of the fence. "everything he's done, it's worth it"

today he'd be a trump voter.

---

anyway, just finished SLEEPER



speaking of homages the other day-- this is an homage to charlie chaplin above all, closely followed by truffaut (farehneit 451) and a distant godard (alphaville). i'm sure i'm missing a ton of other references.

i love this movie. hilarious physical comedy, tons of jokes and an anarchic romp through early 70s culture.

last, a very minor note: roger ebert's review of small time crooks laughs at the (i think frenchy's while she was learning the dictionary) use of the expression "in agreeance"

in sleeper, while conducting the cloning operation, miles uses the expression "in agreeance" in front of the doctors

that was a little funny. i wonder if frenchy winkler is woody himself-- starts as a standup joker, ends up restoring venice, gets took at some point.

I hope you hit them, or at least forced them to watch My Darling Clementine.

I'm glad you guys are discovering Woody Allen.

I used to worship Woody. Then he made a bunch of bad movies and I stopped. When he made MATCH POINT and had a resurgence, I was too pissed off to enjoy it.

I'm not sure what happened, but nowadays even the crappy ones I find charming. (Need to re-watch CURSE OF JADE SCORPION and put that to the test.) I think it was when I watched CAFE SOCIETY and I said, "This isn't a great FILM but it's worth 90 minutes of my life," and when it was over I had a smile and I said, "Heck, that's all I wanted. I'm satisfied."

I mean, fuck it. Nearly every single film he's made is good enough.

-----

BIKINI CHAIN GANG

http://www.pornhub.com/view_video.ph...h5857966916d71

An innocent woman goes to prison. There, she meets lots of lesbians.

This is soft-corn porn. That means no genitals and certainly no jizz. No public hair even. The sex is hilariously simulated by people who it seems have never really had sex. Lots of breasts and butts, though.

Who's the audience for this stuff? People who like porn but don't enjoy all the fucking? Deeply disturbing. WARNING: if you click the link, you will NOT be turned on.

Yeah, I bought a boxset of his 90s-00s stuff, because it was the era that pretty much made me give up on him. So far I've not seen anything that's really blown me away but none of it's been exactly terrible either. Still quite a few films to though. The guy's prolific as fuck!

two that i really liked from that era were bullets over broadway and deconstructing harry

both are meditations about art/literature in a sea of hilarity.

mighty aphrodite was great too. i did enjoy the greek chorus and f. murray abraham in it and the hilarious deus ex machina--very clever.

sweet and lowdown was great. i can't remember every detail at this point but it felt great watching it and great cast

didn't like melinda & melinda-- too... eh. too... synthetic? like it was thought not felt. didn't work for me.

match point is really fucking great though. i'm not saying that just because scarlett. but he really was in fine form in that one.

Bullets over Broadway is in my top 5 woody films. Top 4-6.

Isn't that a movie you'd see on Skinimax? (Late Night Cinemax?) I don't use Pornhub, didn't know they show softcore late-night Skinmax stuff on there. Seems silly to have softcore stuff when there's the hardcore stuff available on the same site. But, I will say, there have been some attractive ladies in the late-night Skinmax stuff. Most of which have done Playboy or some form of nude modeling too.

Celebrity

So ... Woody Allen decides to do a take on La Dolce Vita and, well so what? What really bothered me though was Kenneth Branagh, who basically just impersonates Allen for the duration of the film. Really irritating. Small Time Crooks and Mighty Aphrodite didn't do much for me but I at least enjoyed bits of them. This one on the other hand actually annoyed me. So far this has to be the worst Woody Allen film I've seen, from any era. This boxset sucks, and I still have about 5 films to go!

i remember very little to nothing about "celebrity." only i think that it was in black and white. and a convertible?

what are the other 5 left? i could save you some suffering maybe ha ha

eta:

i haven't seen EVERY movie here and i disagree with some individual cases, but the general pattern in this list is not aberrant

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/w...-worst-movies/

Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

Taxi Driver - Not as perfect as I remember it being, but still incredible. Enough's bee said about it really but it ranks really high with me because it really makes you feel.

Jackie - Absolutely fantastic and much much better than I expected. Transcends the awful biopic genre. It reminded me almost of a mix between Kieslowski's Blue and a dash of Hiroshima mon amour. I think it helped having a non-American direct this and I think Aronofsky (who originally was going to direct) would have butchered it. There was no myth making, only meditation. Highly recommended and I hope other biopic filmmakers take note.

Sweet and lowdown is la Strada, and stardust memories is obviously 8.5. Three homages? Is that legal?

The remaining films are Bullets Over Broadway, Sweet and Lowdown, Everyone Says I love You, Deconstructing Harry and Wild Man Blues.

The Boxset should've been titled The Lost Years. Although after Celebrity, Small Time Crooks starts to look like a masterpiece.

His more recent films, though generally more throw-away than anything he'd done before, do seem to represent, if not quite a return to his 70s-80s form, a definite upturn - and Blue Jasmine (which isn't throwaway at all) actually wouldn't look that out of place alongside his very best comedy/dramas. Either way I do have a soft spot for stuff like Magic in the Moonlight, To Rome With Love and especially Midnight in Paris, without making any great claims for them - I'm actually quite looking forward to seeing Cafe Society.

That 90s stuff though ... so far not good. Unfortunately I'm one of those people who, when I buy a boxset, I have to watch it all, however bad, if only to get it out of the way.

Not trying to influence your opinions of the movies before you've watched them but Sweet & Lowdown might be my favorite Woody Allen movie, and I've seen most of the ones that are considered his best of his career.

That at least makes me curious, and I'll definitely watch it with an open mind. I'll put it on tonight. Thanks.

NO!

The secret to enjoying the last 20+ years of Woody is to go in thinking the film will suck. That way, when it's just okay, you won't be disappointed.

Assuming the new Woody will be great has led to years of sadness. But assuming the new Woody will suck shit has led to some pleasant surprises.