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Once again... the Netflix queue is down to just a few.
Here is the basket, please throw in whatever you recently liked. Some of you know my taste.
Pleeeeeeese.....
Follow Ups:
.
Stranger Than Paradise - One of Jarmusch's most enjoyable.
Happiness - Dark, dark comedy. Pulp Fiction meets The Royal Tenenbaums. Unflinching. Very fine stuff from Todd Solondz, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ben Gazzara, Dylan Baker, Jane Adams, Camryn Mannheim and Rufus Reid (GREAT kid performance).
Three Times - Three varieties of love from Chinese director Hsiao-hsien Ho.
Cafe Lumiere - Another from Ho. This time with Tadanobu Asano and Yo Hitoto
El Bola - A stark, unsensationalized look at child abuse and the inherent ambiguity of how one should respond.
Insomnia - Another fine and complex thriller from Scandanavia.
The Widow of St. Pierre - Murder, redemption and punishment turned inside out
Noi The Albino - Iceland is a very remote place.
Platform - fresh view of China.
Blind Shaft - Ditto, with more grit.
Kitchen Stories - Another Norwegian gem.
Dark City - Smart sci -fi.
A Man Escaped - Bresson. Absolutely engrossing and believable story of escape from Nazi prison. Made two years before Pickpocket, displaying the same meticulous method.
Owning Mahoney - Another with P. S. Hoffman. It's great to watch him work.
Il Grido - Antonioni. One which still sticks in my mind after months. So beautiful and sad.
dafg
Breach: the always worthwhile Chris Cooper plays real-life FBI super sleuth who is suspected of being a Russian mole. Very well done, with several good performances from the younger agent and Cooper. A very clever cat-and-mouse piece with none of the obvious Hollywood crapola which DeNiro's similar film about the CIA was chock-full of (Matt Damon as a nerd and a wife like Jolie? C'mon!).
Hollywoodland: seems one either loves or hates it.
Affleck shocked me with his nuanced, Camus-like performance. This is existential man portrayed unflinchingly; the best male performance I've seen in years. The guy from The Piano terribly was miscast as a hard-boiled detective but Affleck overcomes all the film's shortcomings.
Men with Guns: I second the other poster's opinion; it's an older John Sayle film but just as good as his under-appreciated classic, Lone Star.
The Bird People in China (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzKwr8L3Khg)
Takeshi Miike, as you might know, is most famous in our hemisphere for movies like Ichi the Killer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrpMrSvIOpE)
Ichi is insanely, some say beautifully, violent. But it's nothing like the Hollywood sado-horror, sadism for the sake of sadism. Saw I couldn't stomach watching. Miike's the Charlie Chaplin of Japanese cinema.
for me.
Rainy Dog and Audition were fantastic and probably good starting points before an "Ichi" try-out.
I am not going to remind my wife of those, as she screens the list! :(
Ichi wasn't so much a recommendation. But it is one of the movies most people in our part of the world associate with Miike.
Provisionally added! :) Pending list screening by Boss.
last night. The Good Shepherd might have been a better work as a six hour mini series like Smiley's People but while generally interesting i felt was much too predictable, maybe the result of DeNiro's directing. Skipping back and forth thru time with the flashbacks was also disjointed leaving far too little development for my liking. Hollywoodland was a dead end. the lead Actor Affleck seems like he was fresh from his High School Drama class... and much like Zodiac simply explores several possible answers to the questionable death of Superman. So Maybe you can save time by passing these up,lol.. I have just a couple in my queue again too
BTW - Volver was a disappointment.
Men with Guns: John Sayles, *dreadful title* but a v. good film
Sexy Beast: director? Ben Kingsley, Ray Winstone I usually can't stand Kingsley; but he's great in this British gangster film
Volver: Pedro Almodovar
Penelope Cruz stars in this and she's so good I can't believe it's the same actress
Grins
The Painted Veil: Naomi Watts regrettably takes a proper doctor, Edward Norton as husband due to family pressure. Norton then takes a government assignment in China where he tackles an epidemic. 'Pygmy' co-stars as a career Brit foreign service official that service the infected area.
The Lives of Others: Get that down-home feeling as the Stasi takes a keen interest in a film writer. Quite frightening for a Westerner to absorb yet reminds one we are nowhere close to that.
The Dancer Upstairs: Bardem plays a police inspector who let a prime terrorist slip through his hands years ago--now the terrorist is wrecking his country.
The White Countess: Pre-rape Shanghai finds Ralph Fiennes becoming enamored of a Russian countess (Natasha Richardson) who fled the old country.
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Complicit Constapo Talibangelical since MMIII
Mr Grits
Did you really like this movie?
I found it the most turgid piece of dross I've seen in ages. I actually fell asleep not once, but twice, during it (perhaps the good bits occurred when I was asleep). It was like watching paint dry. It had no plot that I could discern. Ralph Fiennes had the charisma of a used tissue. I wanted the Japs to bayonet him just so I wouldn't have to put up with his cutesy, vulnerable blind geezer persona.
Regards. Doug
of the Japanese guy planning the invasion.
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Complicit Constapo Talibangelical since MMIII
Here's a hodgepodge some of which I'm already praised here:
Damnation: yes, it's Tarr and it's not cheery but I can't get a lot of its images out of my head six months later. The opening scene is a brilliant one.
Late Spring by Ozu: I'd bet you've seen it but how often is too often for this gem?
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, by Naruse: an unrelenting but not too black look at the life of postwar women--- the star is a Japanese Audrey Hepburn-like beauty--- in Japan.
Cria Cuervos: a sensational performance by the same young girl that made Spirit of the Beehive such a classic. NOT TO BE MISSED.
The Cow: certainly belongs in anyone's top 50 list.
Tristram Shandy, a Cock and Bull Story: no fan of English film should miss this. Hilarious and intelligent as only the Brits can be.
Thank you, I see three or four titles I will investigate tomorrow.
BTW - did you see Woman in the Dunes?
but it's on my list.
Yep, same here... worth revisiting...
Croupier
Station Agent
Stranger than Fiction
Heaven (Cate Blanchett)
The Lives of Others
Black Book
Knocked Up -- just kidding
"The Straight Story"
"Mrs. Palfrey at the Clarement"
"Half Nelson"
"Quiz Show"
"Tampopo"
"Ju Dou"
Thank you rico, most I know, I added Mrs. Palfrey.
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