March 19, 2014

The Last Ten Movies I Saw

By michaelgloversmith

1. The Men Who Made the Movies: Howard Hawks (Schickel)
2. Macario (Gavaldon)
3. The Ghost Writer (Polanski)
4. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Anderson)
5. Parade (Tati)
6. Whatever Works (Allen)
7. The Lady Eve (Sturges)
8. Traffic (Tati)
9. The Lady from Shanghai (Welles)
10. The Mother and the Whore (Eustache)

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About michaelgloversmith

Filmmaker, author and Film Studies instructor. View all posts by michaelgloversmith
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2014 at 8:48 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”

  • Mitchell
    March 20th, 2014 at 5:33 am

    I’m curious to get your impressions of The Mother and The Whore. I’ve heard that it is either an enthralling Gallic talkfest or it is an excruciatingly boring Gallic talkfest. I do have fun watching J.P Leaud most of the time, though…………….Your thoughts

    Reply
    • michaelgloversmith
      March 20th, 2014 at 7:47 am

      I’m firmly on the “enthralling” side of the debate. I actually showed it in my French New Wave class at Oakton Community College (all 3 and a half hours!) and am having my students analyze it as representing the “death” of the French New Wave. I think it’s one of Leaud’s two greatest performances (the other being in Rivette’s even longer OUT 1). Here’s the “proof,” btw, that I showed it in class: https://twitter.com/whitecitycinema/status/444310431197184000/photo/1

      Reply
      • Mitchell
        March 21st, 2014 at 8:57 am

        Now, all you have to do is show Celine and Julie Go Boating to your class and you will truly have ascended to the Cinema Pantheon. When the hell will we ever get a Region 1 DVD of this masterpiece. I mean, Criterion just put out a 5 disc set of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, for pity’s sake!

        Also, I lost the info you sent me about your Region Free Blu Ray player. What’s the model, where did you get it and are you satisfied with it?

      • michaelgloversmith
        March 21st, 2014 at 9:54 am

        You’re right! I feel guilty about not showing any Rivette. I’m going to have to re-teach this class next year so I can fit him in. New Yorker Video has the rights to CELINE AND JULIE. Their website claims it’s coming to Blu-ray in “October 2013.” I emailed them and they said it would be out later this year. If it’s not out by next spring I’ll probably just break down and buy the BFI’s Region 2 DVD.

        I got my region-free player fro World Import in Franklin Park. I got an LG but they have a wide variety of options:

        http://www.world-import.com/region_free_blu_ray_DVD_players.htm

        I’m very satisfied with my player. I’ve had it for a year and a half and I use it all the time. If it died today, I would instantly buy another one.

        Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

  • John Charet
    March 20th, 2014 at 4:51 pm

    I have seen numbers 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9. I have not seen numbers 2 and 10, but they must sound interesting. I would give The Howard Hawks documentary either * * * 1/2 or * * * * stars. Either way, I love it. I gave numbers 3,4,7 and 9 * * * * stars out of * * * * and I gave number 8
    * * * 1/2 out of * * * * stars. I am also very well aware that number 8 is a Jacques Tati film that is in no way related to Stephen Soderbergh 2000 anti-drug drama. I gave numbers 5 and 6 * * * out of * * * * stars. Speaking of number 7, on my site http://www.cinematiccoffee.com I have a list of my favorite films by Preston Sturges, which is posted underneath my most recent entry which concerns my favorite Andrei Tarkovsky films. P.S. I do not know If you teach a class on Tuesday April 1, but If you do are you going to show (for fun) John Waters 1972 trash classic Pink Flamingos. 🙂 P.S. I use the word trash as a compliment:)

    Reply
  • Ben Fingard
    March 26th, 2014 at 3:32 pm

    Can we expect to see a review of The Grand Budapest Hotel, Michael? Big Wes Anderson fan over here.

    Reply
    • michaelgloversmith
      March 26th, 2014 at 3:41 pm

      Great to hear from you, Ben. Why, yes, you can expect a GRAND BUDAPEST review soon. It’s going to be a short one because I’m busy doing a bunch of other stuff (including reviewing films for the Chicago Latino Film Festival) but I’ll probably have it up the week after next. I’m happy to report it’s my favorite Wes Anderson movie!

      Reply
      • Ben Fingard
        March 27th, 2014 at 12:06 pm

        Looking forward to it! And that’s awesome! My favorite Anderson movie was The Darjeeling Limited, which probably isn’t the most popular opinion but I just loved that film. I’m excited to see Budapest.

      • michaelgloversmith
        March 27th, 2014 at 1:27 pm

        You should also see NYMPHOMANIAC VOL. 1, which I took a class to see on a field trip last night. Everyone loved it. In a weird way, it would make a great double feature with GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. They’re both movies whose true subjects are storytelling itself.

  • Jeremy Freeman
    March 30th, 2014 at 11:11 pm

    Is that Howard Hawks Doc. like the one you showed us on John Ford?? Maybe I gotta check it out, I wasnt a big fan on that one on John Ford but maybe I was missing something that day or somethin hahaha

    Reply
    • michaelgloversmith
      March 31st, 2014 at 6:50 am

      Ha! Well, it’s similar in the sense that it features a bunch of interviews with an old director who had been forced into premature retirement circa 1970, interspersed with a bunch of clips from his films. On the other hand, the Hawks doc was made for T.V. and is only an hour long. It also only features interviews with Hawks and not with any of his collaborators. I prefer the Ford doc because it’s more exhaustive and feels more like a real movie since it was directed by a real filmmaker (Peter Bogdanovich). But I don’t think you can study either filmmaker enough: they’re both on the Mount Rushmore of American cinema. (BTW, you can find the Hawks doc on the Blu-ray of Rio Bravo, which, incidentally, also has an audio commentary by John Carpenter.)

      Reply

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