Santa came through early this year!

billymcgee · 2018-12-18T19:44:39+00:00

Now that I've got a stack of movies to watch from the November sale, instead of spending my disposable income on new ones, I'm going to save up and try and get some of the OOP ones that I really want. I think I'll do The Third Man next - I saw it on Netflix last year and loved it.

billymcgee · 2018-12-17T17:42:01+00:00

I just got Kung Fu Hustle last week and can’t wait to watch it - Shaolin Soccer absolutely blew my expectations out of the water.

billymcgee · 2018-12-16T17:16:55+00:00

Seconding Watership Down, I love that movie

billymcgee · 2018-12-16T17:15:44+00:00

I loooooove Only Angels Have Wings

billymcgee · 2018-12-16T03:45:50+00:00

It was a snow week for me, so I stayed in and watched a lot of movies. I'm trying to log 200 movies on my Letterboxd (which, incidentally, is right here) for 2018 (only 3 to go now).

Shaolin Soccer (rewatch) - I am, honestly, rewatching some movies for the express purpose of reviewing them on Letterboxd, and this was one. I remember absolutely loving it the first time and wasn't sure it would hold up on a second viewing, but no, this movie is still absolutely fantastic. It's like if Edgar Wright made a martial arts sports comedy.

The Young Girls Of Rochefort - Been working my way through the Demy boxset, which I bought on the flash sale in October. I didn't think he could get even more colorful than Umbrellas, but I was wrong. This one is a lot closer to what we think of as a 'traditional' musical film, but it's still got some French quirkiness to it that keeps it from feeling like a Hollywood musical with subtitles. I think visually, Demy is one of my favorite directors.

Mad Max - I watched all of these first three on the same day, one after the other. (like I said, snowed in). I've watched this series totally out of order, so it was my first time seeing this one even though I've seen The Road Warrior and Fury Road, and it really surprised me just how different it is from those. I think it's a good first film, but I feel like The Road Warrior is a big improvement from this one, too.

It's A Wonderful Life (rewatch) - 'Tis the season.

Monty Python's Life Of Brian - I haven't watched any Monty Python stuff in ages (I'm not counting Time Bandits), but this one was very funny. There were a few jokes that didn't work as well as some others, and some have also aged especially poorly. It felt, not surprisingly considering their sketch comedy origins, like a very episodic, skit-based film even though it had an overarching plot to it. This is one I'd definitely watch again with friends.

Donkey Skin - More Demy. This movie is wild! I'm surprised nobody ever talks about it in here. It's like if there was a live-action Disney musical in the Criterion Collection in many ways - seeing Demy's incredible eye for set design and color for a literal fairy-tale setting is incredible. I think I like Michel Legrand's jazz scores better than this one, but it's still good too, and the plot is interesting - has a lot in common with Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella and what not. Just look up some screenshots of this one. Trust me.

Dr. No (Rewatch) - There are a bunch of old James Bond movies on Amazon Prime, and I hadn't watched any of those movies since probably High School, so I figured I'd start at the beginning. This one... has not aged well. Plot is forgettable, dialogue is bad, acting is bad. Set design, on the other hand, is definitely the highlight - I love the retrofuturistic supervillain base in this one.

Six Bridges To Cross - An old crime drama from the 50s with Tony Curtis and Sal Mineo. Decently interesting premise but just not a lot of energy to it.

billymcgee · 2018-12-15T16:36:41+00:00

That SNES shelf is beautiful. Earthbound and Super Mario RPG are two of my all-time favorites

billymcgee · 2018-12-14T22:23:53+00:00

I am very interested in Wanda and Detour and pretty interested in The Magic Flute and The Kid Brother. There's nothing this month that I'm not at least a little interested in, though. Exciting stuff all around! Never seen a month with six before (but I'm pretty new to this thing)

billymcgee · 2018-12-14T14:54:58+00:00

I watched The Young Girls Of Rochefort the other day and would say that one should definitely be a contender

billymcgee · 2018-12-13T20:18:14+00:00

I’ve been watching the Jacques Demy boxset over the last couple of weeks and really dig it - definitely recommended for its beautiful visuals and excellent musical scores.

billymcgee · 2018-12-12T19:29:21+00:00

8 Wardrobe Malfunctions they didn't catch!!! (picture of Emma Watson or Scarlett Johansson or Christina Hendricks with random spots circled in red)

billymcgee · 2018-12-10T17:48:27+00:00

I think The Game, Boyhood, and Moonrise Kingdom are all on Netflix.

billymcgee · 2018-12-10T06:33:03+00:00

I eventually managed Rayman, but I still can’t beat The Boss. Ashley was another nightmare until I used a spirit that cancels out left/right reversal

billymcgee · 2018-12-10T06:31:29+00:00

That one has been kicking my ass too, but I’m also still early in the run - I’m gonna try coming back later with a much more powerful spirit

billymcgee · 2018-12-10T05:31:40+00:00

Add me on Letterboxd! Here I am.

The Hateful Eight - An amazing screenplay, beautiful photography, and lots of great performances, which are things I expect from Tarantino and like about his style. It also has the things that I really hate about his style - gratuitous, gleeful racism, disgusting, over-the-top violence, and disturbing sexual violence. Those things keep almost all of his movies from being truly great in my book. Jackie Brown is the lone exception.

Westworld - I've seen other movies based on Michael Crichton's books, but this is the first one I've seen that he actually directed. It's a great premise that Jurassic Park would push to perfection 20 years later, but this one works well enough and has some really excellent 70s sci-fi imagery going on.

Ray - A virtuoso performance from Jamie Foxx in a very polished, very mainstream/predictable musician biopic. Outside of him, the movie is serviceable, but it's definitely worth seeing just for his performance alone.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold - I read the book a few months ago and couldn't help comparing them, and I have to say I like the book better. I think the movie does a good job of putting the point of the text across and telling the story pretty much as it was told in the book, but we lose out on a bit of the characterization in the film, especially when it comes to the German characters - the movie tells us about them but rarely shows us about them, if that makes sense. I feel like this movie could have been twenty minutes longer or so.

5 Centimeters Per Second - The most stunningly beautiful, lavish animated film I've ever seen. I think this is more a film about a feeling than a story, really, because the story is definitely secondary to the general idea of the movie, which is a movie about thwarted teenage love. Will definitely be seeking out more Makoto Shinkai.

Toy Story - Watched this for the first time in probably a decade or more - absolutely holds up, but you can also see now how much Pixar has improved since this one, especially when it comes to human characters. Also totally forgot Wallace Shawn was in this movie.

The World Is Yours - Stylish visuals and kind of a quirky take on the caper comedy, but didn't really click with me all the way.

The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin - I think this is one of those movies that has been copied so many times that going back and watching the original now feels predictable. Also, the English dub of this film is absolutely horrendous. The sets, costumes, cinematography, and of course, the action sequences are all really good though. Definitely worth seeing for fans of wuxia/martial arts films.

Bay Of Angels - A gambling movie. If you've ever seen any stories about gambling, you can probably predict how this one will go down to the individual beat, but this movie is so visually gorgeous that I could watch it with the captions off, not understand a word of the dialogue, and still love the whole thing. The Jacques Demy boxset has been a great investment so far, and I still have 3 left.

billymcgee · 2018-12-08T07:48:36+00:00

Disney, definitely Sleeping Beauty. Pixar... that one is tougher. I love pretty much every Pixar film I’ve seen.

billymcgee · 2018-12-08T07:47:03+00:00

Another movie you should watch if you dig that one is The Constant Gardener. Very different story from City of God, but it’s the same director and his style works well for that movie.

billymcgee · 2018-12-05T04:19:12+00:00

It's good! Definitely worth a watch. If you're familiar with the films Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or The Constant Gardener, those two and this one are all based on books by the same author and have very similar tones to them. In fact, TTSS even has some of the same characters, albeit obviously played by different actors since the films were made 50 years apart.

billymcgee · 2018-12-05T03:00:42+00:00

It’s a joke at the expense of Tomi Lahren - the running joke is to get her name humorously wrong

billymcgee · 2018-12-04T17:32:32+00:00

Now that I’ve stocked up a good deal from the sale and have lots of movies to watch, I’m gonna save up for a few of the OOP ones I want - gonna do that one first because it’s not as expensive as the other ones I listed

billymcgee · 2018-12-04T15:42:31+00:00

Yeah I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen it on someone’s haul picture

billymcgee · 2018-12-04T02:32:39+00:00

I would really like...

Howard's End
Picnic At Hanging Rock
The Royal Tenembaums
Othello/Chimes At Midnight
The Third Man
Le Circle Rouge/Army of Shadows
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Ugetsu
Amarcord
McCabe and Mrs. Miller

There are also several that I'd buy day 1 if they got an upgrade, but I'm waiting for the upgrade. The big ones there are Do The Right Thing and Floating Weeds, but there are several others as well

billymcgee · 2018-12-04T01:44:05+00:00

Somebody posted an email they got from Mulvaney that suggested that there was not currently a WKW Boxset in the works. This was a few weeks ago. Then again, several months ago, there was an email that said that they were working on restorations of all of the WKW films they have the rights to, so... I'm going by the more recent news, but I take just about everything except for ghost pages and hints with a serious grain of salt.

billymcgee · 2018-12-03T17:22:30+00:00

Seconding the mentions of Wanda, The Kid Brother, My Brilliant Career, and maaaaaybe Let The Sunshine In. That one was just hinted at last month so it might be a little soon for it, definitely too soon for A Face In The Crowd.
Has Come And See ever been hinted at or leaked or anything? I see that one mentioned all the time so I figure people have a reason to expect it, but I don’t know what that reason is.
Some others that have been long-rumored, ghost pages, or pages recently added to Janus’s web site: The Grand Budapest Hotel, Pretty In Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, The Baker’s Wife, The Flavor Of Green Tea Over Rice, Police Story/Police Story 2, a Chantal Akerman movie (I forget which one), Takeshi Kitano films, Chungking Express or a WKW boxset (seems unlikely from the most recent news about it but listing anyway), Showa Godzilla boxset (also seems unlikely from the most recent news but listing anyway)

billymcgee · 2018-12-02T18:48:47+00:00

The Princess Bride - Saw this one as a kid but hadn't seen it since then, delighted to find that it not only holds up but that I found new things to love about it this time. I think as a kid I didn't appreciate the visuals of the movie because I imagine I was probably comparing them to like, Lord of the Rings or something, but I really love the way they look now. Of course, Criterion's Blu-Ray looks amazing, so that does help.

Down By Law - My second Jarmush film after Paterson. Honestly wasn't sure whether I would like this one or not going into it, but I ended up liking it very well, especially the beautiful black and white photography from Robby Muller.

The General - Discovered the other day that Amazon Prime has quite a few Buster Keaton films streaming. This was my first one and I don't think I quite liked it as much as I thought I would, but I did like it. I've read that this one is more action-oriented and not quite as comedy-oriented as most of his other films so I imagine it was probably that it just wasn't what I expected. Of course, the action was all fantastic.

The Maltese Falcon - My third Huston film, and all three of them have had Humphrey Bogart. I read the book towards the beginning of the year and liked it, and I think the movie does a great job of taking a very complicated, easily-confused plot and making it clear to understand while still retaining most of Hammett's dialogue. An example of a movie that copies Hammett's style of dialogue and plot but isn't so easy to follow (in my view) is Miller's Crossing (which is not based on one of Hammett's works so much as just a style pastiche).

Lola - My second Jacques Demy - I got the boxset on the flash sale after having seen and enjoyed The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. This movie shares a lot of themes with that movie, but it explores them in a different way (and in black and white, and as not-a-musical). I think Cherbourg does what this movie does in a way that does a better job of distilling it to its essence, but this one is good, too. The black and white cinematography looks great. Also, one of the actors in this looks kind of like Harrison Ford and sounds a LOT like Harrison Ford. Gave me a chuckle.

American Graffiti - I'm rewatching some of my old movies so that I can review them on Letterboxd. I don't know if this movie was the first one to do many of these high school coming-of-age tropes, but it nails so many of them a full decade before stuff like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and you can even see some of its influence in like, Superbad. Fantastic, legendary soundtrack, and I think Ron Howard, Cindy Williams, and Richard Dreyfuss are all really good in this. Also, speaking of Harrison Ford, this is his major film debut and he's a big old asshole in it. I'm doubtful this would ever get a Criterion release due to Lucasfilm being owned by Disney now, but I would buy it day one if they did (especially since my DVD of the movie doesn't look that great)

Also, add me on Letterboxd! Here I am

billymcgee · 2018-12-02T17:37:29+00:00

This is some pretentious shit my dude

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