Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

People should see She Dies Tomorrow. So I can talk about it with them. And have them remind me what happened in it.

Removes the idea of the zombie from any notion of the apocalypse or brain eating and places it in the context of a simple and ruminative piece about loneliness and mortality. This is not a movie built upon action, but on observations of a man whose world is slowly shrinking. The struggle of life itself for the unliving. The toll of just getting up to go to work when you are slowly decomposing. How helpless even human connection can be when no one can possibly understand what is happening to you.


Frequently wordless. Never forthcoming with explanations. We mostly just watch how a man copes with the understanding that he is dead and not coming back, even though he continues to live.


Very sad. But also, in the tradition of someone like Cronenberg, also still very icky.

Well, Halley certainly sounds interesting. I'll add it to my October watchlist. Or maybe as a September lead-in.


Your touting did finally prove to be the proverbial straw that got me to finally sign up for Mubi (well, the reduced annual fee made it seem economically viable to justify).


Peter Strickland's short on there, Blank Narcissis, I felt was very solid in its 11 minutes of reflection on growing old and losing touch with people.


Mileage may vary. But it's also only 11 minutes and presumably wouldn't be someone's first Peter Strickland.

I obviously love it. I think I watched 120 movies on it last year, most of which I never heard of before watching, and feel there were probably less than five that I didn't think were at least interesting.

I of course have the very low bar of just wanting a movie to be something, anything, and then I can easily fall in love with it. But....it should also be noted that most movies can't even do this.

So, for a lack of anything else, Mubi is really good at finding things that are interesting.

I know I haven't been around much recently, but this was a good recommendation.

On Mubi, I really liked the Buddhist trilogy. This Transient Life kind of blew me away.

I don't think I've even noticed that one there. Recently added? Or did you dig to find it

I can't remember how the first one (This Transient Life) ended up in my watchlist. I think it was one of the featured ones of the day shortly after I signed up, but Poem (the third part) was definitely a featured one of the day shortly after I signed up (it's possible I added the latter and then the former was a related movie) - but I feel like there were a few days This Transient Life was on my watchlist before I added Poem. The second one, Mandara, I had to search for.

ETA: checking emails, it looks like This Transient Life was featured late February. Poem was late March.

You can find This Transient Life under Festival Focus: Locarno film Festival

Don't feel like writing about it, but this is great.

Two towering greats dead today


Kenneth Anger
Tina Turner


Boo

Just saw this.
Still need to dig into Anger’s films. I wonder if Criterion will now do a retrospective on him like they did Godard when he passed away?

He was a miserable crank so it's possible he limited who could show them before his death.

Aw. That’s a bummer.

There is a DVD compilation that has all his major works that is good (not sure if still in print)


And YouTube frequently has rips of most of his work (Scorpio Rising generally being one of the harder ones to find, probably due to his use of music) And while this is unfortunate, since it is one of his best, he's no one trick pony. He's got a bunch of worthwhile shit.

It would be nice if I had more to say.



Wonderful is a good word to use though.

For reference, this is the Touke Bouke guy, which I didn't like much.


This is better.



Hey, that's almost a review!

Yes, so good. I really owe it a rewatch.

There is something about its tone that I can't quite figure out. There is a dreamy quality to everything, but it never feels anything but authentic, and I'm not sure how it manages this.



I've heard mention that the woman's offer of a hundred thousand million dollars is such a preposterous, almost made up sounding number, that it casts everything else in the light of the unreal. I think there is something to this theory, but its also in its imagery, all of this colorful life amongst this sand filled poverty. The scene at the amusement park in particular obviously owes some debt to surrealism.



It's kind of magic. And the actors are great.

I think that it's because it takes a fantasy notion (become a girl boss so that you can get everyone to turn on the guy who did you wrong) and then grounds it in very human-feeling interactions.