06.26

Crowning Glory (Alee Peoples, 2008)

Pretty awesome.  Verges on being one of those things that's both too obvious and too obscure, but it's imminently watchable.

Heavy Mental (Killah Priest, 1998)

Killah Priest is an interesting figure, he's got so much fantastic mysticism and imagery that seems to both evolve from and be limited by his overattention to rhyme scheme.  A very long album but doesn't feel like it due to his variety of styles and guest verses.  Pretty experimental too.  BIBLE's such a slept-on song, tosser knows what's up

Choice cuts: Heavy Mental, BIBLE, Almost There

The Last Sunset (Robert Aldrich, 1961)

A multi-day slog for whatever reason, with the highlights being the ruined walls and arches where they always rested.  But damn, what an ending!  I should've seen the reveal coming but I totally did not.

06.21

Octopussy (John Glen, 1983) (rewatch)

One of the few I'd only seen once.  It holds up pretty well, but boy, the Roger Moore years were nutty.  I love this line from Wikipedia: "Some reviewers disliked Bond's clown costume, gorilla outfit, and Tarzan yell during a jungle chase."

06.19

8 Diagrams (Wu Tang Clan, 2007)

Ooh, terrible cover but awesome album.  I was so disappointed by Iron Flag, but this more than makes up for it.  Some of RZA's best beats, and also consistently good on that end.  Most of the rappers went in too.  I don't think I've ever heard GZA rap about a woman before, that was pretty tight.  Only three Ghostface verses though?

Choice cuts: Campfire, The Heart Gently Weeps, Sunlight

06.18

22 Jump Street (Phil Lord and Chris Miller, 2014) (theatrical)

I actually really liked the first one, but this one seemed much less funny.  Ice Cube is the best part.

The Godfather, Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974) (rewatch)

The first time I saw this I didn't care for it, but the second time I liked it a lot, and I liked it maybe even more this time.  It's a strange one, less conventional than the first and somewhat underdeveloped, but as engrossing, and with an equally strong sense of time and place.  The Vito stuff is fantastic, I wish they had more of it.  The weak spot is the three climactic deaths: I think they really shouldn't have cut between them like that, because it's obviously harking back to the baptism in the first film, but it's so much less dramatic on the whole.  Fredo's death is the only impactful one, and that's too intimate a moment to be spliced up.

06.16

Iron Flag (Wu Tang Clan, 2001)

Also a huge disappointment after being positively surprised at how fantastic The W was.  Most of the verses are phoned in at best, at worst just lame.  I think a big factor in the overall drabness is the beats.  Wikipedia has a whole thing about how different the beats are from each other, but they sound as similar as those on 36 Chambers and Wu Tang Forever to me, they all share certain smallness and lack of inspiration.  Ghostface's verse on Rules is the highlight of the album for me, it's short but had me laughing historically.  Ghost and The GZA both go in on Babies too.  But overall very disheartening.

Choice cuts: Rules, Y'all Been Warned, Babies

06.15

Live and Let Die (Kool G Rap & DJ Polo, 1992)

Huge step down from Wanted Dead or Alive.  The beats sound like they were done by someone with no ear for music, which is a shame since I really like Sir Jinx's work on 40 Dayz & 40 Nightz.  But the rapping too is far from G Rap's best, though often his most psychotic.   As much as I'm a sucker for stories, I think his best work lyrically is on the battle raps.  Big Daddy Kane absolutely owns his feature/

Choice cuts: Train Robbery, Operation CB, Nuff Said

06.14

Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman, 2014) (theatrical)

Pretty weak, plays out in the blandest way possible.

06.11

The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) (rewatch)

I wanted to watch a movie the other night but wasn't in a mood for any particular one I could think of so I popped this in again figuring it's a good one to revisit every few years.  Still one of the best no doubt.  I don't think there's any American film set in the last century that feels so mythic and huge.  I was thinking I must have exaggerated in my mind how awful that score after Michael shoots Hayden and the drug guy is but nope, it's that bad.

06.08

X-Men: Days of Future Past (Brian Singer, 2014) (theatrical)

One of the better X-Men movies, but even at their best they all feel kind of undercooked.  There are just so many characters, and few of them except Wolverine (who's had two solo movies and is the lead in all the group ones) are at all developed.  But it's a lot of fun and holy shit it's got a lot of great actors in one place.

06.06

Bend of the River (Anthony Mann, 1952)

Arthur Kennnnedy!  The Naked Spur's still probably my favorite Mann/Stewart collaboration, but this and The Far Country really speak to me.  This one has by far the most sweep of any of them and a nice Boetticheresque relationship between the leads.  Actually maybe this is my favorite of the collabs.

06.05

A Hard Day's Night (Richard Lester, 1964)

Damn, Richard Lester put in his work.  Not surprised it's one of Bama's favorite movies, even more surprised he doesn't love stuff like The Lady from Shanghai.  Also makes me want to listen to more of the Beatles' early work.

06.03

Carnival in Flanders (Jacques Feyder, 1935)

I don't know how shots can ever really be inspired by paintings when they only last a few seconds.  Some beautiful stuff marred by impatience.  My favorite shot is a high angle with the Spanish soldiers marching in through fields.  Storywise it takes a while to get going but it gets pretty good by the end.  I really like the monk.

05.31

Impact (Arthur Lubin, 1949)

Epic blurb from Bosley Crowther riffing on the opening and closing supposed dictionary definition of impact: "If anyone seeing this picture is willing to string along with that as a fair definition of 'impact,' we can't vouch for the film's appeal to him.  For it seems fairly obvious that the authors have geared their intellect to the suppositional level of that phony lexicon.  And everything which happens in the picture is as cheaply opportunist and contrived as that arbitrary definition.  You either swallow it whole -- or you don't.  Frankly, your correspondent doesn't."  Needless to say, I don't have that problem with it, but it feels like a wasted opportunity.  Great beginning, and I always liked the idea of a movie that starts off as something and then turns into something entirely else, like a guy running away from his murderous wife turns into a movie about his idyllic life in small town USA.  But of course there's the need to tie everything back together, and when it becomes courtroom drama / procedural it really goes downhill.