Movies Watched -- Quo Vadis, Aida? (2020)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

In Bosnian. 101 minute running time… movie about the war in Yugoslavia and how incompetent and ineffective the “UN Peacekeepers” were there … a real indictment … I didn’t realize there were mass murders of Bosnian Muslim men and boys in cold blood by Bosnian Serbs … awful stuff and only 25 years ago or so … the ending is a real kick in the teeth as you see Aida still lives among the men who committed atrocities (no spoilers) as the years go by … it reminded me of how in China the people who persecuted the intellectuals and others during the Cultural Revolution still live side by side with their victims to this day … depressing. This was a John Farr reco.

Put them on the list

Movies Watched -- Nitram (2021)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

112 minute running time and I surely could have cut out 12 minutes to tighten it up … this was a horror movie, just very hard to watch … the backstory of a mass shooting in Tasmania in 1996 … the mentally ill man (three years younger than me), his screwed-up parents, the Mikado-loving heiress who took him in … it’s all just awful to watch… the movie is well-made, but it’s just a horrible, horrible story. This was a John Farr reco and a major downer.

Laughing at my pain.

Movies Watched -- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

165 minute running time, that’s right, TWO HOURS AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES long … so it’s an epic of sorts. It’s a cute gimmick, the man born old and ages in reverse … it wasn’t terrible, his life, his loves, but you’d really have to be in the mood to watch something that long. Not a green-go, boring in a way, no idea why the nearly-always-correct Rex Reed thought it was one of the greatest movies ever made.

Nothing lasts

Movies Watched -- Kimi (2022)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

89 minute running time so the perfect length, but I paid $6 to stream this and sorely regret it. It’s a modern tech “thriller” with texting bubbles and various other gimmicks which annoyed me … kind of a dumb boring story in the end … the girl who plays the lead has a very interesting face, her Mom is black in the movie so I assume she’s a mulatto (“the daughter of singer/actor Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet” … ah, that explains things, including how she got the part) … briefly touches on contemporary issues of homeless encampments in Seattle and rape/sexual assault/MeToo stuff and COVID and isolation and mental health, but who cares. Not recommended, John Farr did me dirty on this one:

Kimi, turn off the bad movie

Movies Watched -- The Worst Person in the World (2022)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

In Norwegian. 128 minute running time so probably 30 minutes too long, but this was a talk, talk, talk movie … the life of a Millennial Norwegian girl and her relationships … this was made by Joachim Trier, a handsome bastard who also made Thelma (which I liked) and Reprise (which I wasn’t thrilled about). This movie is pretty intense at times, it’s about as un-Hollywood a movie as you can imagine (you know, sensitive, intelligent, etc.)

The lead actress is beautiful and Norway is so rich that even if you are a clerk in a bookstore or a barista, you are able to live in a comfortable, light-filled apartment in central Oslo, it seems. I think Millennial women will really love this one, maybe women of all ages, and thoughtful gentlemen like me. I can’t give it a green-go because of the length. Would be a challenge to cut out a full 30 minutes to make it right, the filmmakers should have been less self-indulgent and tried to make it tighter.

John Farr liked it too: “Will Julie ever figure herself out?”

Ha det!

Movies Watched -- The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

102 minute running time so the right length. Gritty low-level crime life in Boston during the grim early 1970s … George V. Higgins was a prosecutor who had a good ear for how these petty criminals talked and was able to write a book based on it … the dialogue is great as a result … loved Mitchum since Night of the Hunter and many say this many be his best performance ever … score is very early 70s, sounds like all the TV shows I grew up with … the bleakness of this one sets it apart (although bleak was par for the course in the early 70s).

This is a green-go, recommended movie. The dialogue, Mitchum, the supporting actors, the location shooting in Boston, crime doesn’t pay … it all works to make a winner. Also I was glad to see in the bonus material that several scenes had been cut out, which is of course almost always a blessing. Yates talks in the commentary about the necessity of having an editor outside oneself (the director), who can see what’s unnecessary and make those much-needed cuts.

Get the man a beer

Tell Me Real, Do You Feel Anything?

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Only six years late to seeing this … she’s Australian of Maltese descent (born 1995. a Millennial) … has mastered the technology enough to create a one man band … I like her feral energy and appreciate the time she has spent perfecting her act:

50 Documentaries You Need To See (listed chronologically)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

I sorted the Guardian’s list for them:

  1. Man with a Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov, 1929

  2. Le Sang des Bêtes, Georges Franju, 1949

  3. Night and Fog, Alain Resnais, 1955

  4. Le Joli Mai, Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme, 1963

  5. Up series, Michael Apted, 1964

  6. The War Game, Peter Watkins, 1965

  7. The Hour of the Furnaces, Octavia Getino and Fernando e Solanas, 1968

  8. Gimme Shelter, Albert and David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin 1970

  9. Primate, Frederick Wiseman, 1974

  10. The Battle of Chile, Patricio Guzmán, 1975, 1976, 1979

  11. Gates of Heaven, Errol Morris, 1978

  12. Global Report, Peter Armstrong, 1981

  13. Streetwise, Martin Bell, 1984

  14. Shoah, Claude Lanzmann, 1985

  15. Sherman’s March, Ross McElwee, 1986

  16. The Thin Blue Line, Errol Morris, 1988

  17. Close Up, Abbas Kiarostami, 1990

  18. Loss Is to Be Expected, Ulrich Seidl, 1992

  19. Pandora’s Box, Adam Curtis, 1992

  20. Hoop Dreams, Steve James, 1994

  21. China: Beyond the Clouds, Phil Agland, 1994

  22. Salaam Cinema, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1995

  23. Lessons of Darkness, Werner Herzog, 1995

  24. When We Were Kings , Leon Gast, 1996

  25. Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Werner Herzog, 1998

  26. Buena Vista Social Club, Wim Wenders, 1999

  27. The Gleaners and I, Agnès Varda, 2000

  28. Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore, 2002

  29. The Five Obstructions, Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth, 2003

  30. Capturing the Friedmans, Andrew Jarecki, 2003

  31. Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, Nick Broomfield And Joan Churchill, 2003

  32. Some Kind of Monster, Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky, 2004

  33. The 3 Rooms of Melancholia, Pirjo Honkasalo, 2004

  34. The Power of Nightmares, Adam Curtis, 2004

  35. Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog, 2005

  36. Iraq in Fragments, James Longley, 2006

  37. When the Levees Broke, Spike Lee, 2006

  38. Sisters in Law, Kim Longinotto, 2006

  39. Waltz With Bashir , Ari Folman, 2008

  40. Man on Wire, James Marsh, 2008

  41. Into Eternity, Michael Madsen, 2010

  42. Five Broken Cameras, Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi, 2011

  43. Pina, Wim Wenders, 2011

  44. Stories We Tell, Sarah Polley, 2012

  45. Solar Mamas, Jehane Noujaim and Mona Eldaief, 2012

  46. The Queen of Versailles, Lauren Greenfield, 2012

  47. Blackfish, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, 2013

  48. Tales of the Grim Sleeper, Nick Broomfield, 2014

  49. Virunga, Orlando von Einsiedel, 2014

  50. Amy, Asif Kapadia, 2015

Movies Watched -- Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

101 minute running time so the right length but I disliked the main rich kid brat so much that it was hard to watch this one … I like the idea of hiding the Jewish kids in a Catholic school, but I wasn’t thrilled in the end with this movie.

“Malle … age eleven … watched a Gestapo official enter the classroom of his Fontainebleau school and summon a fellow pupil by an unfamiliar, Jewish name.“

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