April 3, 2012

The Last Ten Movies I Saw

1. Ghosts of Mars (Carpenter)
2. Singin’ in the Rain (Donen/Kelly)
3. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (Mizoguchi)
4. The Extraordinary Voyage (Bromberg/Lange)
5. Punk’s Not Dead (Blazevski)
6. The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best (O’Nan)
7. Onibaba (Shindo)
8. The Girls in the Band (Chaikin)
9. Irvine Welsh’s Ecstasy (Heydon)
10. Nowhere to Hide (Lee)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012 at 7:01 pm and posted in The Last Ten Movies I Saw. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

12 Responses to “The Last Ten Movies I Saw”

Bherz
April 4th, 2012 at 10:16 am

My last five:

1) Au Hasard Balthusur (sic? Bresson)
2) Hunger Games (Ross)
3) Primary Colors (Nichols)
4) Heartburn (Nichols)
5) The Good the Bad and the Ugly (Leone)

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michaelgloversmith
April 4th, 2012 at 11:26 am

What did you think of Balthazar? That and GBU are personal favorites. I’ve never thought very much of Nichols and I’ll take a pass on Hunger Games.

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Bherz
April 4th, 2012 at 12:47 pm

Haha, I give the Hunger Games a B/B+, mostly because of Jennifer Lawrence’s stoicism, duty to her fellow gamers, and her aplomb under pressure. The worst part of the movie was the fact that all participants from the 12 districts are picked at random, yet (surprisingly!) they are all good looking and by chance have ninja-like skills; and, after hunting each other for several days, they all remain perfectly groomed.

I need to watch Balthazar 1 or 2 more times to get a sense of it; I found this one more difficult to stay with than Pickpocket or Mouchette.

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- michaelgloversmith
  April 4th, 2012 at 4:49 pm
  
  I like Jennifer Lawrence as an actress. She was great in Winter’s Bone and that last X-Men movie. I’ve heard Hunger Games is essentially a rip-off of the Japanese film Battle Royale, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
  
  Balthazar is definitely one of Bresson’s more “difficult” films but it is also one of the best. Godard said the best thing about it, which is that it is “the world in an hour and a half.” It’s best to think of the human characters as representing the sins and vices of mankind and to think of the donkey as representing purity and innocence. Balthazar is the blank slate upon which the sins of man are imprinted.
  
  Reply
david
April 5th, 2012 at 12:19 am

Onibaba is the only one I’ve seen besides Singin’ in the Rain.I love the film and the MOC cover,but the image transfer is so poor…

Talking about GBU,did you check the new commentary in the blu-ray?

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david
April 5th, 2012 at 12:20 am

Oh,I got it wrong,I love the CC cover,but I got the MOC disc.

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- michaelgloversmith
  April 5th, 2012 at 8:26 am
  
  Yeah, those early Criterion transfers can be surprisingly poor. I did check the audio commentary on the GBU blu. It was just okay.
  
  The reason why there are a bunch of obscure titles on my list this week is that I was viewing a bunch of screeners for a local film festival. I will be offering short reviews of a bunch of them on Monday.
  
  Reply
Patrick Altonaga
April 6th, 2012 at 9:15 pm

I know some like it hot is not on your last ten movies you saw, but just wanted to say that I was on yahoo and it had an article of 100 funniest movies to see before you die and some like it hot was one of them, along with the movie you mentioned called the apartment was on there also. I must see the apartment before I die hahaha.

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- michaelgloversmith
  April 6th, 2012 at 9:38 pm
  
  Hey, look at the date of when I posted the list; it was BEFORE we watched Some Like It Hot (which will be on the next list of the Last Ten Movies I Saw)!
  
  The Apartment is essential viewing.
  
  Reply
Zach Olmstead
April 7th, 2012 at 5:04 pm

The Hunger Games is really only for people who’ve read the book, but it’s a well-made film regardless. I was actually surprised at how good it turned out, and Jennifer Lawrence and director Gary Ross were the main reasons it worked. The author claims she didn’t hear of Battle Royale until after publication, but either way, it’s one of those cases where two things are very similar but also very different, so the film shouldn’t be judged solely on that comparison. I have doubts as to how good the next two will be but this one is fun viewing nontheless.

Also, have you read a memoir called The Film Club? It’s written by former film critic David Gilmour, and is a truly spectacular read. When you get the chane, I highly recommend it. And are you familiar with the 1001 Films series and the 101 sub-series?

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- michaelgloversmith
  April 7th, 2012 at 7:49 pm
  
  I haven’t read The Film Club. In fact, I hadn’t heard of it until just now but I looked it up on Amazon and it sounds interesting. Is the 1001 Film Series the same thing as the 1001 Movies You Need to See Before You Die?
  
  Reply
  - Zach Olmstead
    April 7th, 2012 at 10:19 pm
    
    Yeah, it is. There’s at least four editions of it. And the 101 series is stuff like 101 Horror Films, 101 Cult Films, etc. There’s some good stuff in those.