06.22

Jurassic World (Colin Trevorrow, 2015) (theatrical)

It's hard to go wrong with yours truly when you put a bunch of shit that's inevitably gonna hit the fan in a tight place and just let it roll, but what uninspired fan-hitting.  Some of the shit that made it in here's just unbelievable; basically a USC thesis film with a $150 million budget.

06.21

Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971)

I think I missed a chunk of the beginning, though I definitely saw the MGM lion, so I'm not quite sure what happened to the recording.  But what I saw is top tier nihilistic revenge thriller tearing through a series of alternately gorgeous and ugly Antonioniesque cityscapes.  Michael Caine kills it with this quiet storm angel of death type character and Hodges milks the environment for all its worth.  A distinct product of its time, but this is what neonoir should be.

Mystery Street (John Sturges, 1950)

Not as sordid or bleak as I'd hoped for a movie about the mystery behind the skeletal remains of a pregnant b-girl, but at least we're treated to Ricardo Montalban's disconcertingly charming grin whenever he uncovers some new unpleasant detail about his corpse.  He does a subtle job transitioning his character from indefatigable optimist to at least a somewhat more drained and cynical detective.  Other than Alton's underexposed cinematography Montalban's charisma was the biggest attraction to me, though most people point to Elsa Lancaster's performance as the standout.  Like many procedural noirs it gets less interesting as it nears its inevitable ending but it's not a bad entry in the catalogue.

06.19

Lava (James Ford Murphy, 2014) (theatrical)

Dull and facile, easily one of the worst Pixar shorts; and as much as I like their features those are not hallowed grounds.

Inside Out (Pete Doctor, 2015) (theatrical)

The only Pixar movie I think I liked more was WALL-E, but while that matches the novelty and ingenuity, I don't think it has the level of insight or the emotional force of Inside Out.  Certainly the most gorgeous and mature film to come out of Hollywood in recent memory, and probably hit too close to home, even down to the real-world protagonist moving to San Francisco.  I'm not even that hot on the animation style, but this blew me away.

Forbidden Planet (Fred Wilcox, 1956)

I'd had a number of false starts with this, and expected it to be a slog, but after the first 15 minutes or so it's non-stop entertainment.  Groovy special effects, some dated in a bad way, mostly still awesome.  The storyline isn't anything better than the average TOS episode, which this was obviously a huge influence on, but somehow the overall quality is a lot higher than that.  50s scifi divides pretty decisively for me into great and awful categories, and this fits cleanly into the former.

Miami Vice (Michael Mann, 2006) (rewatch)

Boy, think how much more exciting going to the movies would be if any other mainstream director filmed things like Mann.  I'm glad I came back to this; I can certainly understand why I found it offputting when I saw it as a kid in theaters, but this is great directing.  Pretty weak story, only the most cursory nods at the Crockett/Tubs relationship, but based entirely on style and on the Farrell/Li relationship this is quality neonoir.  I've been sleeping on Gong Li too, great femme fatale performance.

06.17

Magnificent Obsession (Douglas Sirk, 1954)

Easy on the eyes and consistently entertaining, but difficult for me to get involved in at the emotional or spiritual level at which it apparently wants to engage its audience.  Between this and Written on the Wind I'm thinking prime melodrama-era Sirk isn't so much my cup of tea, but I'm still cautiously looking forward to Imitation of Life.

Jupiter Ascending (Andy and Lana Wachowski, 2015)

At first it seems like way too large a universe to be condensed into a 2-hour film, but despite a glut of tightly packed exposition it soon becomes evident that for all its would-be grandeur it's quite a small story, and I think it mostly succeeds in its modest ambitions.  I was surprised to learn afterwards how critically reviled it was; it seems like something that would get lukewarm reviews but a lot of hate on places like IMDb.  Nothing to write home about but I generally like movies where everyone involved seems to be having a lot of fun, and this qualifies for that criterion if nothing else.

06.15

Deadline at Dawn (Harold Clurman, 1946)

It's hard to miss with Woolrich adaptations, and this is in the upper echelons of that privileged bunch.  It's pretty much a dead body, a group of well-scripted tropes, a few locations, and the titular deadline, and we sit back and let the entertainment unfold.  This was apparently Clurman's only foray into film directing and it is a bit stagey, but we also get deliciously cinematic stuff like the first closeup of the movie being a sleeping face with a fly walking around on it.  The dialogue and interactions are the highlights but it's also got one of the most unusual killers in noir whose ultimate revelation is just slightly too well hinted at.

06.12

I Want You (Marvin Gaye, 1976)

I tend to enjoy Gaye's albums more the more time I spend with them, so having as of yet given it only one close listen all the way through I'm hesitant to come to too decisive a verdict, but so far I'll say I like it a lot but it lacks on one hand the variety or on the other the depth to elevate it to the level of my favorites of his.

At Folsom Prison (Johnny Cash, 1968)

Another one I need to spend more time listening to, especially since it's in a genre I'm not too familiar with.  But regardless of the quality of the music it's brilliant from a conceptual standpoint, and the joy of the experience he captures never wears itself out, due I'm sure in no small part to the brevity of all of the songs and proportionally large amount of time Cash dedicates to interacting with his audience.

06.07

Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) (rewatch)

I'm glad I gave the original another shot, since I rewatched Redux recently with disappointing results.  I'm in agreement with the majority that this is undoubtedly the superior cut, and a magnificent and otherworldly film experience.  Someone the ending doesn't quite have the power I feel it should.  Maybe it's setting itself up for failure by being so fantastic up to that point but the whole Kurtz situation never feels like a satisfyingly apocalyptic climax to the journey.  Regardless, rightfully regarded as one of the great American movies.

Spy (Paul Feig, 2015) (theatrical)

Fun, and moreso in retrospect.  Pretty weird that it has the same percentage as The Godfather or whatever on Rotten Tomatoes but I guess that's an inherent shortcoming of that system.

06.06

LA Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997) (rewatch)

Seeing this again I'm even more astonished it made the splash it did, it seems like a wholly mediocre neonoir to me.  Rushed pacing, underdeveloped relationships, well-trodden plot and themes...Who Framed Roger Rabbit covers the same territory with at least equal insight and ten times the entertainment value.

06.05

The Blue Carpet Treatment (Snoop Dogg, 2006)

I mean it's Snoop and a lot of the beats are good so it's a pretty fun album to listen to but it's sad to think this is considered his best post-Doggystyle work.  When it comes down to it I think he just lacks the organizational skills to build a strong album on his own.  There's a stretch with 5 songs about bitches in a row, it's beyond belief.

The Art of Storytelling (Slick Rick, 1999)

As with The Ruler's Back, the mix is continually infuriating, but one I got used to a lot of quiet indeterminate mumbling with lovely cadence I started enjoying myself quite a bit.  There's surprisingly little storytelling, the features from folks like Nas and Raekwon are huge letdowns, and the run of the mill beats often rely on recycled samples, but for all that it's more than a solid album that's a nice return to Rick's headspace.  Adults Only sticks out like a sore thumb, nasty and unpleasant.  When Kool G Rap or Ghostface include rape in their stories it's at least in the context of consciously over the top gangster narratives, whereas since his first album Rick continually relishes in the trope of consensual sex turned nonconsensual in a disturbingly giddy way.  Pretty fucking upsetting.

06.03

Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978) (theatrical rewatch)

Figured this would be a good way to celebrate leaving my job and breaking a long revival house hiatus, only to learn my old friend digital projection was gonna be leaving its shitstain all over it.  Anyhow for a movie I don't really like this was my 3rd time seeing it in theaters and I liked it about as well as the 2nd.  In any case I think I've reached some kind of homeostasis between unreasonable expectations and unreasonable backlash in regards to Malick's style.

Out of the Blue (Dennis Hopper, 1980) (theatrical rewatch)

I remember being bummed to show up to a sold out screening of this in LA a few years ago; my tolerance for wallowing in ugliness must have been shot to shit since then cuz I debated walking out of this one (in 35 no less!) a couple times out of sheer disinterest.  I'm glad I stayed though, it's still a very powerful film even if it doesn't do as much for me as it did in my Hopper torrenting days.

06.02

Force of Evil (Abraham Polonsky, 1948)

Gangster noir that more or less succeeds in attaining the biblical proportions it's striving for.  The story's a bit meh but dialogue, direction, and cinematography are among noir's most striking.

05.31

The Listening (Little Brother, 2003)

Yeah solid beats and lyrics and shit but for fuck's sake, when will underground hip hop ever pull its head out of its ass and stop eternally regurgitating the same shit.

05.29

Bringing It All Back Home (Bob Dylan, 1965)

One of my favorite ways of discovering new music is hearing artists I like say "I was in the same mindframe making this that she was in making that," but this is the first time I can recall an album making a similar impression on me.  I'm headed toward the final stretch of my new mixtape, which I think is a big artistic step forward for me, and listening to this I feel like Dylan was at a similar place in his mental life.  Totally conjecture of course, especially since I'm working back from his future albums and haven't heard any of his prior ones all the way through, but just looking at the progression of songs and at what he was trying to get across, something really connected.  One of the most inspiring and exciting experiences I've had with music.

05.28

Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter (1999)

I forget which publication listed this as Jay-Z's best album but the rest of their list seemed pretty legit so I figured it was a good next move after the big 3 given how much I've been enjoying The Black Album lately.  But I wasn't really feeling it; like Kanye, one of Jay's biggest strengths is that it seems like he always has something to say (off the top I can't think of a more substantive personal album than The Black Album), but I can't recall a single lyric of note here.  Alright I was kinda high and I only listened to it once but that hasn't stopped me from loving the hell out of a lot of albums that have become favorites.  I'll give it another shot one of these days, I was enjoying the flow and it's worth a listen for Big Pimpin alone.

05.26

Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2015) (theatrical)

More deserving of the description than most "though-provoking sci-fi," but I wasn't surprised to learn it was a screenwriter's first foray into directing.  Once you get a general idea of where it's going there are only really a few plausible outcomes, but I like that it offsets its inherent predictability with scenes that anticipate the audience's guesses, e.g. Caleb cutting himself open to make sure he's not a robot.  The dance scene is pretty great despite definitely fitting way too cleanly into a certain indie movie trope.  Other than the ideas and stuff the main draw for me was Oscar Isaac, seems like he's becoming a major player in the industry.

05.22

17 Deutsche Tänze (Rotfront, 2014)

Knowingly minor and occasionally too kitsch for me, but overall incredibly fun and funny.  The variety of instrumental styles is the obvious draw, but the lyric-writing is on point too in its own way.  It's a kind of music that's easy to typecast, but doing so would be overlooking a lot of what it has to offer.

05.20

Blonde on Blonde (Bob Dylan, 1966)

I'm not surprised Dylan considered this aesthetically closest to what he heard in his head, there's something ethereal and otherworldly about the instrumentation that compliments his lyricism.  I didn't warm to this as quickly as Highway 61 Revisited or Blood on the Tracks but its replay value exceeds both of those and it's certainly one of my favorite albums at this point.  I think I gave it a cursory listen years ago and didn't like it because I felt it traded Dylan's tongue in cheek cynicism for sentiment, but now I feel like those two aspects are the dual strengths of the album, building on each other in unexpected ways and making for a richer experience than either would in a vacuum.

05.19

Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015) (theatrical)

Pretty fun and at times genuinely inspired.  The action is so good throughout that the final sequence is slightly disappointing.