i am going to try and revive cinema roundup from the old blog. i will try and mention most films i watch. i probably won't ever say a ton about them, at least not in the roundup, and i will also use a slightly arbitrary and completely personal rating system based on a 0-100 scale. enjoy:
Tabloid by Errol Morris (70)
this was certainly a fun movie and worth a watch for people who like morris. i just felt like he didn't do much with the material and it felt incomplete in a way.
Black Moon by Louis Malle(82)
i enjoyed watching this and felt like i got at least some of what it was hitting at, but on a beat for beat level, much of this movie baffled me. feels like something to revisit later.
World on a Wire by Rainer Fassbinder(97)
this will likely tie with "in a year of 13 moons" as my favorite fassbinder film. somehow it takes ideas that i've seen dealt with before and makes you actually
feel them. it also is wonderful how his idiosyncrasies and maybe even faults are so congruent with the material that everything seems to click. i will hopefully write a more in depth reaction later.
a new print is currently touring. DONT MISS IT. or there is always hulu.
Essential Killing by Jerzy Skolimowski (91)
this is my first skolimowski film, so i mostly saw it through the eyes of a vincent gallo lover and what a treat it is. it's funny that a man who's breakout as an actor was the endless words of billy brown when he has proved amazing in near speechless roles in this, brown bunny, and trouble every day. in fact in this one gallo doesn't utter a word, but he is completely captivating the entire time. there is talk that his most recent film as writer/director/actor... (promises written on water) will never be publicly shown after the two fest appearances it had. apparently this is a choice gallo has made after the idiocy that brown bunny caused. i can't say i blame him, but i would love love love to see more work from him.
WR: Mysteries of the Organism by Dusan Makavejev (73)
after loving sweet movie to death i was a bit let down by this. whereas sweet somehow magically pulled together it's strands this just felt lumpy and not as melancholic. still some of the isolated moments were great.
