Off Topic thread about movies

This is a great offer--Mosfilm's YT channel has a HD upload of Karen Shahnazarov's 1988 Zero City--English subtitles under the CC tab--

Gorod Zero

An absurd/surrealist tragicomedy about the USSR. Fans of Roy Andersson are likely to love it.

Otar Iosseliani's beautiful 1988 film about five French Dominican monks in a monastery in Tuscany near Montalcino--all sound is treated as ambient, no subs necessary:

Un petit monastère en Toscane

His idea was to juxtapose the scenes from the monastic life with those of life around it--so much gorgeous imagery.

Not quite in the same league as Un jour, le Nil, but if you’re looking for Egyptian craziness, there’s a certain amount in Ahmad Abdalla’s Ext. Night (2018), which I’ve just been watching on Mubi. A softy westernised liberal film director, a kneejerk-conservative taxi-driver and a strong-minded, resourceful prostitute get into all kinds of trouble during a long night in Cairo. The taxi-driver has a presumably-gay nephew who drives a motorcycle combination with a great big dog in the sidecar.

Heyyy, you are here! Cool! I just linked something that might interest you--all the info in the post--expires on the 29th!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/326683

#3

I've seen a review of that somewhere... made me a little apprehensive about the woman although I dare say it sounded true-to-Egypt...

Yes, it’s decidedly uncomfortable to watch at times: an odd mixture of comedy with some really nasty (presumably) real-life-in-Egypt scenes.

I was struck by the film-within-a-film bits, which are about a refugee crossing the Mediterranean, but keep coming back to a scene where the young man is setting off on a boat down the Nile and his girl is watching from the bank — looked almost like a quotation from Un jour..., but perhaps that’s just in my mind because it’s the only other Egyptian film I’ve seen recently, and in fact all Egyptian films have young men setting off on boats.

This is so addictive--short (about 3-4 minutes) videos of film directors and actors picking movies out of the Criterion Collection at Criterion's studio--they get a bag and fill it up--and now I have this irrational plan that goes 1. direct films/act in films, whatever 2. become famous enough that Criterion will invite me over 3. SO I CAN GRAB AN UNLIMITED AMOUNT OF THEIR DVDS FOR FREEEEE AHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Shopping just pales in comparison.

Here's the whole playlist:

Criterion Closet Picks

And here are a few of my faves (still haven't seen all, and would it really kill the dudes to pick occasionally a movie by a woman--only Guy Maddin went for a Lina Wertmuller so far):

Agnès Varda’s Closet Picks--delightful

Barry Jenkins’s Closet Picks--kid in a candy shop

Kim Cattrall's Closet Picks--really lovely how much she loves cinema! So many actors are like, ugh, movies, never watch the stuff!

Slavoj Žižek - DVD Picks--indescribable :)

etc. etc. etc.

Otar Iosseliani's 1968 short from Georgia (USSR), with the only soundtrack of old Georgian songs.

Vieilles chansons géorgiennes
ძველი ქართული სიმღერა Dzveli kartuli simgera

From the page: "I think that to simply show, without commenting, is the best method to convey the strangeness of any phenomenon that carries within itself an unspeakable secret. And as soon as you try to cram your work, also called documentary, with oral testimonies and particular points of view, these particularities, especially if they are uttered, deprive us from the overall picture." (Otar Iosseliani)"

Criterion are offering some of their "originals" for free everywhere, I took in this, highly recommended:

Queersighted: The Gay Best Friend

Oh, this is great too...! Imogen Sara Smith (my intellectual crush ever since I read her beautiful essay on Keaton) on the post-war British noir:

Introducing British Noir

>9 LolaWalser:

Nostalgia trip! It's a shame, years ago I used to see lots of these films on telly (British telly), especially in the afternoons. I suppose they were an easy way to fill the schedules. Now, there are umpteen times more channels yet there seem to be very few of them on. I've pretty much forgotten most of these—if I've seen them at all I haven't seen them in decades. I must hunt up some of them.

>8 LolaWalser:

Can't get 'Queersighted' to play, for some reason ... I'll work it out ...

>9 LolaWalser:

Now memories are coming back a bit, I think I (at least subconsciously) felt US noir as more exotic and thus escapist, and thus 'more fun' (off-hand I can't think of a better way of putting that) than Brit noir. I think I'd probably now appreciate the Brit product much more than I did first time around.

>11 alaudacorax:

Recently Kino Lorber issued three sets of British noir, and I have a Hammer collection too (six films) but that seems to be just a fraction of what's out there. So far I've really enjoyed them (not to mention such well-known hits like Green for danger or The third man), not least for those differences to the Americans that Smith talks about.

>11 alaudacorax: - I think I'd probably now appreciate the Brit product much more than I did first time around.

Now I'm almost a grown-up ...