Beltmann Posted January 1, 2023 Share Posted January 1, 2023 Happy New Year, everyone! What are your most anticipated movies for 2023? Me, I'm eager for the new Scorsese. Link to post Share on other sites
Roper.no.1 Posted January 1, 2023 Share Posted January 1, 2023 5 hours ago, Beltmann said: Happy New Year, everyone! What are your most anticipated movies for 2023? Me, I'm eager for the new Scorsese. Thinking I will make my first trip to the cinema since Covid to watch Tár (not out in the UK yet). That aside I've woken up my Netflix account from a 5 year slumber and so have quite the backlog of stuff I'm interested in! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Beltmann Posted January 2, 2023 Author Share Posted January 2, 2023 At the risk of recency bias, I’m going to declare Mohammad Reza Aslani’s Chess of the Wind one of the greatest movies ever made. Too bold? Maybe. Might the latest Sight & Sound poll have me overthinking what it means to belong to the canon? Perhaps. But my mind can’t stop replaying this forgotten Iranian marvel that now has an epic reclamation story to join its towering artistic ambition. Brazenly sabotaged by rivals upon its 1976 release, and then banned after the ‘79 Islamic revolution, the movie was believed lost forever. Then, in an impossibly Hollywood-like twist, Aslani’s son chanced upon the movie’s reels in a junk shop in 2014. After a long restoration process, the movie finally received international recognition in 2020. I saw it thanks to its inclusion on Criterion’s most recent installment of Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project. Set inside a sprawling mansion in 1920s Tehran, the story is easy to follow: After the estate’s matriarch dies, her oily husband Hadji believes he is the rightful heir to the family fortune. But her ailing daughter Aghdas, mourning from the confines of a large wooden wheelchair, rejects Hadji as both a member of the family and as the estate owner. What ensues is a series of usurping plots that involve Hadji, Aghdas, and several other schemers. The seductive drama--greed, parlor intrigue, secret lovers, murder--plays out like Shakespeare in miniature, but what elevates the melodrama is the way Aslani uses it all to forge a powerful, allegorical critique of the cultural hierarchies and collapsing values of Iran in the Seventies. Meanwhile, Aslani commands the medium like a master (think Kubrick, Visconti, Bresson, Bergman). The film is a stylistic triumph filled with gliding cameras, ravishing compositions, elegant symmetries, striking set designs, expressive aural choices and rigorous symbols--in particular, the mansion’s central staircases tell us who intends to ascend or destroy the hierarchy, and Aghdas’ wheelchair might be a throne that each character, in turn, longs to make their own. The luxurious beauty of the estate is depicted in familiar ways, including heavy candlelight, but there’s real shock when the movie leads viewers to the mansion’s dungeon-like lower levels and Aslani unleashes a fiery, hellish vision of reds and blacks, underscored by the same sinister music that had been warning viewers of impending calamity but now goes further, suggesting there are demons in the shadows. For a movie that has come back from the dead, speaking to us from beyond, this otherworldly metaphor could not be more fitting. Link to post Share on other sites
Albert Tatlock Posted January 6, 2023 Share Posted January 6, 2023 The Detectorists special - usual great low key stuff with a couple of nice twists. A treasure of itself. The Great Escape - from Boxing Day I think. What is Christmas without The Great Escape? Every time you think that Hilts just might make that jump over the wire. Link to post Share on other sites
calvino Posted January 6, 2023 Share Posted January 6, 2023 We watched the first two episodes of Somebody Somewhere on HBO Max ---- funny, interesting show. Nicely written. Looking forward to the rest of the season. Link to post Share on other sites
Analogman Posted January 6, 2023 Share Posted January 6, 2023 1 hour ago, Albert Tatlock said: The Great Escape - from Boxing Day I think. What is Christmas without The Great Escape? Every time you think that Hilts just might make that jump over the wire. That used to be a Saturday afternoon or late night movie back in the day. Link to post Share on other sites
Albert Tatlock Posted January 6, 2023 Share Posted January 6, 2023 1 hour ago, Analogman said: That used to be a Saturday afternoon or late night movie back in the day. Sunday afternoon here. Was very tempted to watch El Cid too. Maybe this weekend if it's still on iPlaver Link to post Share on other sites
Analogman Posted January 6, 2023 Share Posted January 6, 2023 Yea - Sunday afternoon also. Link to post Share on other sites
Albert Tatlock Posted January 8, 2023 Share Posted January 8, 2023 Half way through El Cid. Interrupted by pleasant sofa snoozes. Will finish next weekend. On a more gritty note: third and final series of Happy Valley. Link to post Share on other sites
Analogman Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 I did not know there was a 3rd series. I like that show she was in with Phil Davis - Rose and Maloney. Now if we could only get more of Whitechapel. I have watched that many times. Link to post Share on other sites
Boss_Tweedy Posted January 16, 2023 Share Posted January 16, 2023 An emotionally powerful movie. It's films like this that make me go to the theater. Brendan Fraser is incredible. Not sure what the competition will be but he's a serious contender for Best Actor. Great performances in the supporting roles, too. Link to post Share on other sites
uncool2pillow Posted January 16, 2023 Share Posted January 16, 2023 Paul T. Goldman on Peacock. So weird. So good! Link to post Share on other sites
calvino Posted January 17, 2023 Share Posted January 17, 2023 Two episodes into The English on Prime, definitely shot nicely. Interesting lead character - the whole Indian - US Soldier duality. Also started watching the sitcom The Inbetweeners (British) - nice way to unwind down from The English. Link to post Share on other sites
chuckrh Posted January 17, 2023 Share Posted January 17, 2023 4 minutes ago, calvino said: Two episodes into The English on Prime, definitely shot nicely. Interesting lead character - the whole Indian - US Soldier duality. Also started watching the sitcom The Inbetweeners (British) - nice way to unwind down from The English. I thought The English was really good. I won't do any spoilers. Link to post Share on other sites
Albert Tatlock Posted January 27, 2023 Share Posted January 27, 2023 50 years ago today. Still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Best part is the lack of celebration on scoring. That's class for you. Barbars v All Blacks 1973 Link to post Share on other sites
Albert Tatlock Posted January 27, 2023 Share Posted January 27, 2023 On 1/17/2023 at 2:41 AM, calvino said: Also started watching the sitcom The Inbetweeners (British) LOL. The first coupdl eo series were good. Have you tried Friday Night Dinner? https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/may/26/farewell-friday-night-dinner-the-joyous-jewish-sitcom-that-became-a-national-treasure Link to post Share on other sites
calvino Posted January 27, 2023 Share Posted January 27, 2023 2 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said: LOL. The first coupdl eo series were good. Have you tried Friday Night Dinner? https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/may/26/farewell-friday-night-dinner-the-joyous-jewish-sitcom-that-became-a-national-treasure Never heard of "Friday Night Dinner" -- will check it out. Recently, we did watch the 1st two episodes of "We Are Lady Parts" --- pretty interesting. Link to post Share on other sites
gogo Posted January 27, 2023 Share Posted January 27, 2023 On 1/16/2023 at 6:41 PM, calvino said: Also started watching the sitcom The Inbetweeners (British) - nice way to unwind down from The English. 5 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said: LOL. The first coupdl eo series were good. My nephew said once that the four main characters on The Inbetweeners were just like him and his three best friends in high school. So I had to watch it, and I was horrified (and also, horrified at how much I enjoyed it ) 2 hours ago, calvino said: Recently, we did watch the 1st two episodes of "We Are Lady Parts" --- pretty interesting. I loved We Are Lady Parts! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Boss_Tweedy Posted February 1, 2023 Share Posted February 1, 2023 I'm not sure I understood a bit of it, but it was still quite an experience. As much as I want to be put off by it, I find myself loving it. 3 Link to post Share on other sites
Chez Posted February 1, 2023 Share Posted February 1, 2023 2 hours ago, Boss_Tweedy said: I'm not sure I understood a bit of it, but it was still quite an experience. As much as I want to be put off by it, I find myself loving it. I loved this movie. I wasn't sure why I did, so I read up on it the next day to confirm why I thought I loved it. And I still do. 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Boss_Tweedy Posted February 1, 2023 Share Posted February 1, 2023 44 minutes ago, Chez said: I loved this movie. I wasn't sure why I did, so I read up on it the next day to confirm why I thought I loved it. And I still do. I need to read a plot explanation or some form of "cliff notes" to gain an understanding of what I watched. But I can't stop thinking about how uniquely brilliant it is. Link to post Share on other sites
Beltmann Posted February 4, 2023 Author Share Posted February 4, 2023 After revisiting Everything Everywhere All at Once, I remain impressed, exhausted, and little unsure. It would be glib to say the movie heralds a new kind of leading-edge cinema, one that reflects the age of inexpensive technology, digital ingenuity, multitasking, gaming, the Internet, and short-burst content like TikTok videos liberated from the usual constraints of composition and narrative. After all, we’ve been headed down this path for 25 years; the forward march contains works as disparate as Run Lola Run, Jackass, Requiem for a Dream, Tarnation, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Unfriended, Athena and Bo Burnham: Inside. Unlike the advent of sound, this technical shift has been gradual rather than abrupt, but it has proven to be equally seismic. What might be new is the arrival of an entire generation of young creators for whom this rethinking of film grammar is no longer new. They were raised on it, so it’s how they are hard-wired. By speaking this new film language more eloquently than its predecessors--it locates substance in its style--Everything Everywhere All at Once may one day be recognized as a turning point, the moment when the new ways of thinking began to coalesce into a prevailing aesthetic. Will it prove to be a revolution or a devolution? Time will tell. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Beltmann Posted February 4, 2023 Author Share Posted February 4, 2023 Today I saw Knock at the Cabin Door. There's pleasure to be had in watching M. Night Shyamalan direct the heck out of this genre exercise--look at that rack focus!--but all that technical mastery is at the service of something both phony and overly simplistic. The changes made to the ending of the source novel signal just how far Shyamalan was willing to go to remove any kind of ambiguity, moral inquiry or philosophical wrangling. But it's worse than that. To keep this spoiler-free, I'll merely add that on an allegorical level, what this reactionary movie says about marginalized folks, obedience, faith, and sacrifice is risible, at least to these eyes. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
chuckrh Posted February 4, 2023 Share Posted February 4, 2023 Not bad. Mindless entertainment but pretty well done. Just the thing for a stormy day. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Beltmann Posted February 5, 2023 Author Share Posted February 5, 2023 29 minutes ago, chuckrh said: Not bad. Mindless entertainment but pretty well done. Just the thing for a stormy day. Listen, at one point while watching Plane I shouted "Holy BALLS!" with a big smile on my face except it wasn't "balls" it was something else and I don't know what more we need from a January action movie but now I'm mad that I didn't get more popcorn. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts