08.15

The World of Apu (Satyajit Ray, 1959)

Head and shoulders above the first two, although I remember liking Pather Panchali a lot at the time.  The scenes with Aparna are some of the most romantic in film.  Beautifully shot across a variety of locations too.

Three Crowns of the Sailor (Raul Ruiz, 1983)

Seems like a precursor to stuff like Mysteries of Lisbon and Big Fish.  Not entirely my cup of tea but it's hard not to like a seafaring adventure.

08.14

A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbjin, 2014) (theatrical)

Pretty generic movie with a great ending.  Phillip Seymour Hoffman is great too.

Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975) (theatrical rewatch)

Maybe doesn't speak to me quite like it did in high school, but still gorgeous and otherworldly.  The last ten minutes or so really bring it all together.

08.13

Return of the Boom Bap (KRS-One, 1993)

What KRS lacks in musicality he more than makes up for in energy and imagination.  I don't think he'll ever be one of my favorite MCs, but every song on here is good and many of them are great.

Choice cuts: Outta Here, I Can't Wake Up, Sound of Da Police

08.09

OG Original Gangster (Ice-T, 1991)

I take back everything I've said about Ice-T being overrated.  One of the most ambitious and fully realized albums I've heard from any genre.  Everything on here is fantastic.

Choice cuts: Mind Over Matter, Straight up Nigga, Midnight

4, 5, 6 (Kool G Rap, 1995)

Dang, pretty bad.  I can't believe he just recycled material for two songs in an 11-track album.  He also somehow just has no presence, especially in the first half.  Still some great rhyming of course.

Choice cuts: Blown' Up in the World, It's a Shame (Da Butcher's Mix), Money on My Brain

The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)

How does so much beauty exist in the world, let alone a film?

Free Radicals (Len Lye, 1958)

Bubbly and vivacious in the best possible way.  I love how the doodles seemed so three dimensional at times.  Would be way up there for me at about an hour long.

Arabesque for Kenneth Anger (Marie Menken, 1961)

Such a distinct field of avant garde and so distasteful to me.  Redeems itself somewhat with an ecstatic finale.

Motion Painting I (Oskar Fischinger, 1947)

At first I was like pretty I guess?  But it actually has a sense of progress that really appeals to me, especially since it never even purportedly leaves its one frame.  Great flow and again a nice orgasmic ending.

08.08

Victim of the Joke? An Opera (David Porter, 1973)

Two songs on here formed the basis of two of my favorite Ghostface tracks, so I wanted to give it a shot especially when I found out it's a soul opera.  Which is better in concept than execution, but still a pretty cool concept.  Not too many of the songs are all that inspired either but none of them are bad and a couple are great.

Choice cuts: Help, I'm Afraid the Masquerade Is Over, Storm in the Summertime

08.07

Yeelen (Souleymane Cisse, 1987)

Not quite a favorite -- a little on the kitsch side maybe? -- but goddamn some of it's beautiful.  Super tight tracking shots.

Flesh+Blood (Paul Verhoeven, 1985)

Best title ever, also best characters ever and best director ever.  The only shortcoming is that godawful 80s film stock ruining beautiful settings because it's impossible to make it look good unless you're Blade Runner.  Little bit sentimental towards the end maybe but utterly spectacular nonetheless.

08.06

Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn, 2014)

Ugh, everything about it's just so bland and predictable.  Everyone who's calling it edgy has to be woefully out of touch with pop culture.  I'm pretty stoked for when this ironic/self-aware everything phase of popular entertainment becomes passe; I think the most unpredictable movie at this point would be an entirely earnest one.  I also hate to be one of those people, but I'm starting to think the CGI everything aesthetic isn't so much my cup of tea either.  On the whole it's pretty fun, but not that funny, and nothing that hasn't been done better a bunch of other times.

08.05

The Pilgrimage (Cappadonna, 2010)

Cappadonna seems to have matured significantly over the years, with some exceptions like Friendemies.  I'm not sure I prefer it to his younger content, but I love when artists do different things, so I'm down.  Stylistically he's remained awesomely the same, maybe a few more complicated rhymes.  I love how even on his weaker songs he'll have at least a few spectacular lines that redeem the whole thing.  More than anyone else in rap I'm always stoked to hear a Cappadonna verse and this has some of his best.

Choice cuts: A-Alike B-Alike C-Alike, Dart Imports, Cuban Link Kings

08.04

Priesthood (Killah Priest, 2001)

One of the best parts of Heavy Mental is the feeling that it's only the tip of an iceberg of unlimited dope imagery.  Unfortunately that actually seems to have been most of the iceberg cuz at least in his two follow-ups he's repeating the same kind of stuff.  He still definitely gives his unique touch to his street narratives and other stuff that otherwise would've been less interesting, and he's still experimenting with new stuff (I really dug that kid's chorus on Heat of the Moment and George Clinton's features), but I found this much less gripping than I'd hoped.  This and View from Masada seem to be regarded as some of his weaker work, so I'm still stoked for The Offering.

Choice cuts: Come Wit Me, Heat of the Moment, CU When I Get There

08.02

Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013) (theatrical)

It hues a bit close to contemporary artsy thriller cliches for my taste, but I still very much enjoyed it.  Beautifully shot, and even though it moves through a lot of different settings they all feel like pieces of a whole.  Scarlett Johansson never had an otherworldly vibe to me, but she really impressed me, she must have a ton of untapped range.

Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2014) (theatrical)

Different than I expected in some ways but Jarmusch's best at least since Dead Man.  Weirdly structured and both hazy and sharp if that's at all helpful.  Some of the best actors working from a few generations just going in without showing off.

Le village de Namo - Panorama pris d'une chaise a porteurs (Gabriel Veyre, 1900)

Beautiful organic choreography; I love shots that show people moving this way, so one of them was plenty for a good short.

Leaving Jerusalem by Railway (Auguste and Louis Lumiere, 1897)

I don't know why the above is considered the first reverse tracking shot when this came three years earlier, I'm guessing it has something to do with it being taken from a train.  Anyhow, you can't go wrong with trains, especially when you're watching reverse entropy with the backwards progress of the train -- at least it's backwards from this perspective...deep shit.

07.31

Dr. Octagonecologyst (Dr. Octogon, 1996)

I kind of liked it, but there's a sameyness to it, and the beats and the rapping are samey in the same way (so there definitely is a coheherence), and I guess I wouldn't be too thrilled about what's the same in it even if it had only been for a few songs.  And this free-association vaguely scientific stuff seems right in my wheelhouse (except for the peepee doodoo stuff, whose appeal to anyone has always gone over my head), but I guess not.  I can see why Dan the Automator might've made a splash at the time; few of the beats do too much for me but I can see his later work being pretty great if he built on this.  Blue Flowers is far and away the best song, though A Visit to the Gynecologist is an interlude for the ages.

Choice cuts: Blue Flowers, A Visit to the Gynecologist, Halfsharkalligatorhalfman

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)

While I was watching this I was thinking that I understood better this time around why people think this is one of Ford's best but when I'm writing this I'm not so sure.  I like that it juggles that Main Street USA feel with a serious commentary about the evolution of the modern west so effortlessly, but in a lot of ways it feels like a paler imitation of his harder-hitting stuff.

07.26

Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho, 2014)

Very BioShock and so very good.  Bong hasn't done a feature yet that wasn't great.

Livin' Proof (Group Home, 1995)

The beats are more or less as good as everyone says, the rapping more or less as mediocre.

07.25

La bete lumineuse (Pierre Perrault, 1982)

This was wild, I've never watched a movie and felt less like I was watching a movie. To me this succeeds in capturing the discomfort bordering on insanity that often underlies our interactions in the way Girls strains itself trying to do. I love that there's no catharsis either in the hunting thread or in the micropolitical dramas (in fact I wish Perrault hadn't shown the moose they killed near the beginning, it would've emphasized the Zoneishness of the hunt). I like the idea of Stephane-Albert as a fictionalizing aspect but I wonder how different it would've been if he hadn't been there. Of course we wouldn't have had the poem and my personal favorite scene the gutting of the rabbits but I think it would've been apocalyptically nutty even so.