#or watch an orson welles movie

[whyberealistic]

i'm watching the dark knight for the first time in ?? years and i love how surprised i always am when things that are good.......are good

[talesfromthecrypts]

We realized why Deborah and I have such extraordinary telepathy and why people treat us and look at us the way they do. It is because we are mad. We are both stark raving mad!

Heavenly Creatures (1994) dir. Peter Jackson

[oldhollywoodniall]

citizen kane really is one of the best movies of all time sorry to all the haters and losers

[amartworks]

Rainmaker cast bits, some older some newer, of the four-ish main characters, at least in this iteration. Could probably find more in one of my sketchbooks but can't be bothered

[sequencer987]

“Citizen Kane is overrated” is honestly a much more pretentious thing to say than “Citizen Kane is the best film of all time.” It’s basically the equivalent of that one Twitter post that said High School English classes should teach YA novels instead of Shakespeare. It’s the cool kid’s way of saying “No I will not eat my broccoli.”

As if the film somehow has been held up as a landmark in narrative filmmaking because everyone who studies film is a big idiot who wants to feel cool. Especially irksome when you ask them what film they think should take it’s place and they say something like “Ghostbusters” or “Iron Man 2.”

[sirbogarde]

whatever. adding to the evidence. why are you as a man jealously looking at another man when he as a girl in his lap. is it because you want to be in her place? tell me will-

[aliveandfullofjoy]

Well, it may be a few days late, but it's here! One of my favorite new year traditions: my ten favorite new-to-me films of 2022!

This year was particularly challenging for me, but we made it through, and thanks in no small part to these beautiful films. They're wildly different, but they all moved me and got under my skin in ways I couldn't shake, so please consider this a strong endorsement for each of them!

The same rules as always: no movies from this past year (2022) or the year prior (2021). Every other year is fair game.

01. After Life (dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, 1998; Japan; 119 mins.) “I was part of someone else’s happiness.”

It starts with a great premise: After death, people get one week to select one memory from their lives to hold onto for the rest of time. I knew I was always going to love After Life because I tend to love Kore-eda’s films. This is almost certainly his most compassionate film (which is saying something, considering compassion is pretty much his whole deal), and, as usual for him, the actors all give terrific performances. What I wasn’t anticipating was how much After Life ends up being, of all things, a love letter to dramaturgy. It goes back to the film’s very premise. The memory people keep forever isn’t really their memory – not exactly anyway. It’s a performance, a reenactment painstakingly crafted and filmed by the people who work in this bardo. When the client selects their memory, the storytellers begin building it as a narrative, as something with a script and a clear arc. I can imagine some people finding this to be depressing, but it almost sounds like my dream job. 

Side note: I watched this film about a week before my birthday, and at the time I was also playing a lot of the gorgeous video game Spiritfarer on Nintendo Switch, which is all about ferrying wayward souls to the other side. Turns out my capacity for cosmic yearning and spiritual angst knows no bounds.

After Life is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

02. Jackie Brown (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 1997; USA; 154 mins.)

“I’ll send you a postcard.”

Tarantino is a hit-or-miss filmmaker like no other for me, but holy cow, y’all, when he hits, he hits. Everything about Jackie Brown comes together as gracefully as possible, and it’s stunning, frankly, that it was only Tarantino’s third feature. It’s pulpy, it’s twisty, it climaxes with as thrilling a sting as I’ve ever seen, and every scene – every second, really – feels effortless. To watch Jackie Brown is to feel safe in the hands of a storyteller at the top of their craft. Since I’m a sap, it helps that this is most likely his most tender film: every character is so well-drawn and well-realized, and every actor is doing great work (Bridget Fonda, Micheal Keaton, a weirdly against-type Robert De Niro), but the film’s three leads turn in career-best performances. Pam Grier makes Jackie a heroine for the ages, Samuel L. Jackson is a terrifying and magnetic tour de force, and Robert Forster, the heart of the film, is breathtakingly decent in a typhoon of violence and crime. The three performances, rich enough on their own, are at their best when they’re sharing the screen. It’s nothing short of electrifying.

Jackie Brown is currently available on demand.

03. Barry Lyndon (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1975; UK/USA; 185 mins.)

“Good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now.”

I’m glad I finally crossed Barry Lyndon off my watchlist, even if it’s clearly the kind of film that rewards multiple viewings. Kubrick’s meticulous world-building has rarely been more accomplished or authentic than it is here. The sprawling world of Barry Lyndon stretches beyond the edges of the screen, with a huge cast of great character actors giving superb performances. The film’s legendary design work is every bit as staggering as its reputation suggests: John Alcott’s jaw-dropping cinematography, Ken Adam and Roy Walker’s extravagant art direction, and Milena Canonero and Ulla-Britt Söderlund’s gorgeous costumes. It’s also surprisingly funny! A genuinely magnificent piece of work from a master filmmaker.

Barry Lyndon is currently streaming on HBO Max.

04. F for Fake (dir. Orson Welles, 1973; France/Iran/West Germany)

“Our songs will all be silenced. But what of it? Go on singing.”

At least 80% of F for Fake is footage of Orson Welles stream-of-consciousness monologuing about art and culture and history and making himself chuckle in different fields and parks and cafés while wearing little hats and jackets. Naturally, I loved it. A strange, poetic, and fascinating magic trick of a film, further proof that Welles was truly in a class of his own as a storyteller, a filmmaker, an illusionist, and a self-made myth. What a gift.

F for Fake is currently streaming on HBO Max and the Criterion Channel.

05. There Was a Father (dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1942; Japan)

“There’s nothing to be sad about.”

Yasujiro Ozu is rightly regarded as one of the world’s greatest filmmakers, but I’ve long had a pet theory that he was one of the great dramatists of the 20th century. All of his films play out as carefully plotted chamber dramas, their enormous emotional power hidden in the smallest, most subdued interactions between its characters. There Was a Father is as bleak and beautiful as any of Ozu’s films, and maybe the most gutting. At the heart is frequent Ozu collaborator Chishu Ryu, who gives a stoic, honest, and shattering performance as a man whose worldview left him detached from his family and emotionally numb. It’s hard to imagine this being approved by the Japanese national censors during World War II, but thank goodness we have it.

There Was a Father is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

06. Betty Tells Her Story (dir. Liane Brandon, 1972; USA; 20 mins.)

“I guess I still haven’t solved the way I felt about that. The uncomfortableness of being praised for a prettiness I never had, but, you know, kind of excitement about feeling very special suddenly. And it’s gone.”

A short masterpiece of solo storytelling. Liane Brandon fixes her camera on Betty, who recounts a story about buying and losing an expensive dress to wear to a gala. She tells the same story twice – once for the factual sequence of events and once to describe the way she felt as it was happening – and the contrast is amazing to watch. Wherever Betty went after telling Brandon her story, I hope she was happy. Betty Tells Her Story was just inducted into the National Film Registry, ensuring this devastating, empathetic, monumental piece of filmmaking can be preserved forever. Thank God for that.

Betty Tells Her Story is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

07. Donkey Skin (dir. Jacques Demy, 1970; France; 90 mins.)

“Donkey Skin! What a beautiful name.”

What a treat. Donkey Skin easily stands alongside Jacques Demy’s earlier musicals The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort as some of the most blissful films in the genre. As with his other films, the production values are off the charts, including some truly outrageous costumes, and an exquisite score from Demy’s frequent collaborator Michel Legrand. The cast is great, too, including the always magnetic Catherine Deneuve, an endearingly goofy Jacques Perrin, a brooding Jean Marais, and high-camp MVP Delphine Seyrig. The humor is delightfully weird, it looks and sounds amazing, and there are a handful of truly inspired musical sequences. It’s a magical film.

Donkey Skin is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

08. Shoes (dir. Lois Weber, 1916; USA; 50 mins.)

“Whatever happened, life must go on. Whatever boats are wrecked, the river does not stop flowing to the sea.”

Lois Weber’s Shoes must be one of the most affecting melodramas in Hollywood history. Anchored by Weber’s beautiful direction and a haunting performance from twenty-year-old Mary MacLaren, the film becomes something of a neorealistic fable in its depiction of an impoverished young woman doing whatever she can to get enough money to buy a much-needed new pair of shoes. The characters feel authentic and Weber’s depiction of poverty is unflinchingly raw, but the simplicity and intimacy of the film are its strengths. A landmark American film.

Shoes is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

09. Edward II (dir. Derek Jarman, 1991; UK; 90 mins.)

“My father is deceased. Come Gaveston, and share the kingdom with thy dearest friend.”

A transgressive, furious film that beautifully draws parallel lines between the late 80s and early 90s and Marlowe’s source material. Everything about Jarman’s Edward II is bleak as hell, boldly queer, and utterly fascinating: Tilda Swinton playing a spurned sociopathic queen in elaborate costumes! Men screaming in the pouring rain! The realm everyone fighting and dying for being a pitch-black labyrinth of concrete! What’s lasted for me, though, is the utterly stunning sequence where Annie Lennox(!) sings Cole Porter’s “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” while Edward and Gaveston part ways. A beautiful puzzle of a film.

Edward II is currently available on demand.

10. Detour (dir. Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945; USA; 66 mins.)

“That’s life. Whichever way you turn, Fate sticks out a foot to trip you.”

This is one lean, nasty noir. Clocking in at just over an hour, Detour is a relentlessly paced and relentlessly mean thriller, one that puts a fittingly mopey Tom Neal in a runaway car in the opening minutes and never, ever lets up. He’s joined (if not supported) by Ann Savage, who gives a truly venomous performance, practically spitting every lethal line she has. It’s bleak, it’s powerful, and it’s gorgeous in its own hellish way. I’ve never connected with film noir quite as much as I would like to, but this is as perfect an example of the genre as I’ve ever seen.

Detour is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel and Prime Video.

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): At Land (dir. Maya Deren, 1944); Bright Star (dir. Jane Campion, 2009); Brown Sugar (dir. Rick Famuyiwa, 2002); The Cameraman’s Revenge (dir. Ladislas Starevich, 1912); Cops (dir. Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline, 1922); Daybreak Express (dir. D.A. Pennebaker, 1953); The Dover Boys at Pimento University (dir. Chuck Jones, 1942); A Fish Called Wanda (dir. Charles Crichton, 1988); Full Metal Jacket (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1987); Inside Man (dir. Spike Lee, 2006); Inspiration (dir. Karel Zeman, 1949); Ivan’s Childhood (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1962); La Ciénaga (dir. Lucrecia Martel, 2001); The Last of Sheila (dir. Herbert Ross, 1973); Les Diaboliques (dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955); Les Vampires (dir. Louis Feuillade, 1915); McCabe & Mrs. Miller (dir. Robert Altman, 1971); The Meetings of Anna (dir. Chantal Akerman, 1976); Nitrate Kisses (dir. Barbara Hammer, 1992); Pépé le Moko (dir. Julien Duvivier, 1937); Police Story (dir. Jackie Chan, 1985); Portrait of Jason (dir. Shirley Clarke, 1967); Postcards from the Edge (dir. Mike Nichols, 1990); Pyaasa (dir. Guru Dutt, 1957); Reluctantly Queer (dir. Akosua Adoma Owusu, 2016); The River (dir. Jean Renoir, 1951); The Secret of Roan Inish (dir. John Sayles, 1994); The Slumber Party Massacre (dir. Amy Holden Jones, 1982); Speed (dir. Jan de Bont, 1994); The Story of a Three-Day Pass (dir. Melvin Van Peebles, 1967); 13th (dir. Ava DuVernay, 2016); Wasp (dir. Andrea Arnold, 2003); You Were Never Really Here (dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2017)

And finally, some miscellaneous viewing stats:

First movie watched in 2022: Bright Star (dir. Jane Campion, 2009)

Final movie watched in 2022: The Thin Man (dir. W. S. Van Dyke, 1934)

Least favorite movie: Garden State (dir. Zach Braff, 2004)

Oldest movie: Cinderella (dir. Georges Méliès, 1899)

Longest movie: Les Vampires (dir. Louis Feuillade, 1915 – 422 mins.)

Shortest movie: Western Spaghetti (dir. PES, 2008 – 2 mins.)

Month with most movies: December (26)

Month with fewest movies: April (8)

First movie from 2022 seen: Turning Red (dir. Domee Shi, 2022)

Total movies: 190

Yay! Movies are good sometimes! Good stuff!

[ehgood-enough]

I first saw citizen Kane back when I was in high school because of all things the kids in the hall. I just had to watch it after the skit with Kevin and Dave. I think it was the first non-wizard of oz old movie I saw.

It’s a damn good movie. I haven’t seen it in awhile so when I spotted it at the library trying to avoid the crowding jerk I grabbed it.

When the ending credits introducing the new actors were rolling…. Holy crap Agnes moorehead ! This is the 3rd thing I’ve watched with her in it in less than a month. Somehow I managed to only knw her as Endora in bewitched for my entire life and now all of a sudden I’m seeing her everywhere

[lifeiswhathappenstoyou]

The V.I.P.s (1963) dir. Anthony Asquith

Films I watched during quarantine #315

[astralbondpro]

“The most detestable habit in all modern cinema is the homage. I don't want to see another goddamn homage in anybody's movie, there are enough of them which are unconscious.”

- Orson Welles

[normanbased]

YIPPEE TONY IN THE WILD!!

[gaygerwig]

i WILL watch all the movies that i want to see that are leaving criterion this month! i will! watch me make this post and then not watch another single movie that i want to see that is leaving criterion this month

[michaelcoffeysthoughts]

Watched Today: Macbeth (1948)

[prosk8r]

I had a teacher in high school that got bored of watching the movie adaptations of books so we'd always watch one that was like, adjacent to what we were reading and honestly so fucking grateful bc at the time I thought it was lowkey pretty boring that we were watching old movies and stuff but otherwise I would know fuck all ab rebel without a cause and citizen Kane and godDAMN does EVERY FUCKING MOVIE reference one of those two

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Eartha Kitt (Anna Lucasta, St. Louis Blues)—My friend and I have a saying: NOBODY is Eartha Kitt. A thousand have tried, and they've all come up empty and will continue to do so. Everyone knows her for something: from "Santa Baby" to Yzma in Emperor's New Groove to Catwoman to making Lady Bird Johnson cry for the Vietnam War. She was a master of comedy and sex, an extremely vocal activist, and she aged like fine wine... I honestly don't know what I can say about her that hasn't already been said, so I'll stick to linking all my propaganda. Like what else do you want from me. She was iconic at everything she ever did. Literally name another. How can anyone even think of her and not want to absolutely drown?

Hedy Lamarr (Samson and Delilah, Ziegfeld Girl)—Look. I'm sure someone has already submitted Hedy Lamarr because she was spectacularly beautiful, and a very strong lady too: she fled both an abusive marriage AND nazi persecution at a very young age and rebuilt a life for herself pursuing her love for acting all on her own!! Her career as an actress was stellar; while she began acting outside of Hollywood (her very first movie, Ecstasy, won a prize at the Venice Film Festival), she conquered American hearts very quickly with her first movie in the US, Algiers, and then just kept getting better and better. If all this isn't enough, she was also an inventor: her invention of the frequency-hopping spread spectrum radio transmission technique forms the base of bluetooth and has a lot of applications in all kinds of communication technologies. I think that deserves a prize, don't you?

This is the final poll of the Hot & Vintage Movie Women Tournament. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

THIS POLL LASTS FOR 24 HOURS.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Eartha Kitt:

"A hot vintage woman who was not just known for her voice, beauty, poise, and presence, but also her unapologetic ways of speaking about how she was mistreated in the show business as a girl who grew up on cotton fields in South Carolina in the 1930s through the 1940s coming to Broadway first and then Hollywood."

"Have you watched her sing?? Have you seen her face?? Have you heard her talk?? How could you not fall instantly in love. She makes me incoherent with how hot she is."

"She can ACT she can SING she can speak FOUR LANGUAGES she is a GODDESS!!! Although she is (rightfully) remembered for her singing, TV appearances (Catwoman my beloved), and later film roles, her early appearances in film are no less impressive or noteworthy!! She’s an amazing actress with so much charisma in every role. She was also blacklisted from Hollywood for 10 years for criticizing the Johnson administration/Vietnam War, so. Iconic. Also Orson Welles apparently called her “the most exciting woman in the world.”

"She had such a stunning, remarkable appearance, like she could tear you to shreds with just a glance- but the most undeniable part of her hotness was her voice, and it makes sense that it's what most people nowadays know her for. Nothing encapsulates the sheer magnetism of her singing better than this clip of her and Nat King Cole in St. Louis Blues, she pops in at 2:49. Also I know it's post-1970 but her song that was cut from Emperor's New Groove is likely to make you feel Feelings."

"Even with as racist as Hollywood was in the 1950s and 60s, Eartha Kitt STILL managed to have a thriving career. She also once had a threesome with Paul Newman and James Dean, and called out LBJ over the Vietnam War so hard that it made First Lady Johnson cry. Eartha Kitt was talented, sexy, and a total badass activist."

Hedy Lamarr:

"The only person you can find both on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in the Inventor's Hall of Fame--her radio-frequency-hopping technology forms the basis for cordless phones, wi-fi, and a dozen other aspects of modern life. She was also passionate in her efforts to aid the Allies in WWII (unsurprising for a Jewish-Austrian Emigree to America), and her name served as the backbone for one of the best running jokes in what is possibly Mel Brooks' best movie. Look, Louis B. Mayer apparently believed he could plausibly promote her as "The world's most beautiful woman". Is an entire website full of people going to be less audacious than one Louis B. Mayer? I didn't think so!"

"Described as "Hedy has the most incredible personal sophistication. She knows the peculiarly European art of being womanly; she knows what men want in a beautiful woman, what attracts them, and she forces herself to be these things. She has magnetism with warmth, something that neither Dietrich nor Garbo has managed to achieve" by Howard Sharpe, she managed to escape her controlling husband (and Nazi Germany) by a) Disguising as her maid and fleeing to Paris or b) Convincing the husband to let her wear all of her jewelry to a dinner, only to disappear afterwards. Also she was particularly clever and helped develop Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum (I can't really explain it but anyway...)"

"Her depiction of Delilah and Samson and Delilah just lives rent free in my head. The woman was gorgeous."

"One of the most beautiful women ever in film, spoken by many critics and fans. Beautiful shapely figure, deeper seductive voice, and often played femme fatale roles. She was also brilliant and an inventor. Mainly self-taught, she invested her spare time, including on set between takes, in designing and drafting inventions, which included an improved traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a flavored carbonated drink, and much more."

"Gorgeous and brilliant pioneer of modern technology and the middle part."

[sleepythug]

What are some movies that every aspiring cinephile should watch?

battleship potemkin (sergei eisenstein, 1926)

city lights (charlie chaplin, 1931)

M (fritz lang, 1931)

freaks (tod browning, 1932)

brief encounter (david lean, 1945)

out of the past (jacques tourneur, 1947)

the third man (carol reed, 1949)

late spring (yasijuro ozu, 1949)

kiss me deadly (robert aldrich, 1955)

a man escaped (robert bresson, 1956)

touch of evil (orson welles, 1958)

la dolce vita (federico fellini, 1960)

peeping tom (michael powell, 1960)

man who shot liberty valance (john ford, 1962)

the exterminating angel (luis buñuel, 1962)

shock corridor (samuel fuller, 1963)

kwaidan (masaki kobayashi, 1964)

dragon inn (king hu, 1967)

playtime (jacques tati, 1967)

once upon a time in the west (sergio leone, 1968)

two-lane blacktop (monte hellman, 1971)

aguirre, wrath of god (werner herzog, 1972)

touki bouki (djibril diop mambety, 1973)

the conversation (francis ford coppola, 1974)

the passenger (michelangelo antonioni, 1975)

nashville (robert altman, 1975)

the killing of a chinese bookie (john cassavetes, 1976)

mikey and nicky (elaine may, 1976)

sorcerer (william friedkin, 1977)

days of heaven (terrence malick, 1978)

blow out (brian de palma, 1981)

8 diagram pole fighter (lau kar-leung, 1984)

mishima: a life in four chapters (paul schrader, 1985)

tampopo (jūzō itami, 1985)

blue velvet (david lynch, 1986)

something wild (jonathan demme, 1986)

landscape in the mist (theo angelopoulos, 1988)

sonatine (takeshi kitano, 1993)

salaam cinema (mohsen makhmalbaf, 1995)

fallen angels (wong kar-wai, 1995)

taste of cherry (abbas kiarostami, 1997)

cure (kiyoshi kurosawa, 1997)

the thin red line (terrence malick, 1999)

beau travail (claire denis, 1999)

yi yi (edward yang, 2000)

all about lily chou chou (shunji iwai, 2001)

memories of murder (bong joon-ho, 2003)

dogville (lars von trier, 2003)

tropical malady (apichatpong weerasethakul, 2004)

silent light (carlos reygadas, 2007)

sparrow (johnnie to, 2008)

holy motors (leos carax, 2012)

phoenix (christian petzold, 2014)

personal shopper (oliver assayas, 2016)