Life Itself: First movie of 2015 for me. Yup, had to wipe my eyes a little bit.
Vanishing Point & Dog Day Afternoon: Probably been over 10 years since the first time I saw these and didn’t care for them. But lo and behold, both are pretty great. Especially the latter.
Milano Calibro 9: Pretty interesting Italian crime film from the seventies.
Serpico: I didn’t even realize this also was a Sidney Lumet film until I put it on. Not one of his best works but still enjoyable.
Better Off Dead: Another rewatch. Pretty hilarious but runs out of steam towards the end.
Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia – It took a while for me to warm to the film, but I really ended up digging it, and feeling absolutely destroyed by its unrelenting darkness.
Harakiri – Wonderful film. It’s funny to hear about a film for so long and when you watch it you realize almost instantly that you don’t really know anything about it. It’s so much more suspenseful and intriguing than you expect from something billed as a samurai movie.
Le million – It’s fun and interesting to see the movie musical in its infancy and there’s a lot of fun stuff here, but it hasn’t really stuck with me honestly.
Two-Lane Blacktop – Wanted more Warren Oates after Alfredo Garcia, and this movie really delivered on another great Oates performance. It takes too long for him to show, but when he does – amazing.
Divorzio all’italiana – Marcello Mastrianni is an amazing sleazeball. And the movie is just really funny and quick. It holds up.
Wake in Fright – It feels like this Australian movie from the seventies has suddenly gotten a weird sort of buzz these past few years. Apparently it had been lost for a while. It’s really incredible. It reminds of Alfredo Garcia in that it just shows humans stripped from civilization falling apart in a booze-fueled trip down the drain. It’s incredibly effective and disturbing.
Foxcatcher – It’s okay. It’s good even. Channing Tatum is really great here. It felt like a movie that would’ve been serviced by really pushing into dreamlike fuzziness a little more than it does. The movie in its look and characters really has that feel about it, but I would’ve just liked a little more of it.
Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance – It’s okay. The actors are all really good, but I found the characters a little too one note. Every character has their central conflict presented a little too black and white. “Oh hi, I’m Edward Norton and I’m playing a great actor who cannot transfer my realness to real life. Let me only speak in metaphors that relate to this.” Also, the ending felt like a cop out.
A two-hour movie journal? Hell yes.
Seriously, I’m so glad you’ve started doing these and almost immediately gotten carried away with them in classic BP fashion.
Life Itself: First movie of 2015 for me. Yup, had to wipe my eyes a little bit.
Vanishing Point & Dog Day Afternoon: Probably been over 10 years since the first time I saw these and didn’t care for them. But lo and behold, both are pretty great. Especially the latter.
Milano Calibro 9: Pretty interesting Italian crime film from the seventies.
Serpico: I didn’t even realize this also was a Sidney Lumet film until I put it on. Not one of his best works but still enjoyable.
Better Off Dead: Another rewatch. Pretty hilarious but runs out of steam towards the end.
Here we go:
Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia – It took a while for me to warm to the film, but I really ended up digging it, and feeling absolutely destroyed by its unrelenting darkness.
Harakiri – Wonderful film. It’s funny to hear about a film for so long and when you watch it you realize almost instantly that you don’t really know anything about it. It’s so much more suspenseful and intriguing than you expect from something billed as a samurai movie.
Le million – It’s fun and interesting to see the movie musical in its infancy and there’s a lot of fun stuff here, but it hasn’t really stuck with me honestly.
Two-Lane Blacktop – Wanted more Warren Oates after Alfredo Garcia, and this movie really delivered on another great Oates performance. It takes too long for him to show, but when he does – amazing.
Divorzio all’italiana – Marcello Mastrianni is an amazing sleazeball. And the movie is just really funny and quick. It holds up.
Wake in Fright – It feels like this Australian movie from the seventies has suddenly gotten a weird sort of buzz these past few years. Apparently it had been lost for a while. It’s really incredible. It reminds of Alfredo Garcia in that it just shows humans stripped from civilization falling apart in a booze-fueled trip down the drain. It’s incredibly effective and disturbing.
Foxcatcher – It’s okay. It’s good even. Channing Tatum is really great here. It felt like a movie that would’ve been serviced by really pushing into dreamlike fuzziness a little more than it does. The movie in its look and characters really has that feel about it, but I would’ve just liked a little more of it.
Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance – It’s okay. The actors are all really good, but I found the characters a little too one note. Every character has their central conflict presented a little too black and white. “Oh hi, I’m Edward Norton and I’m playing a great actor who cannot transfer my realness to real life. Let me only speak in metaphors that relate to this.” Also, the ending felt like a cop out.