Watching my collection diary from late 2024 to 2 hrs before i die

On this December 27, 2024 i wish to begin to watch my film collection properly, my hope is to make this a long running thread that allows me to come up with a definitive numerical amount of what i have that matters. So the films will be numbered, and other things will go by another numbering system.

My recent participation here has turned me onto my love circa 2004/5, i cannot abandon it just because some guy made a video about a company choosing not to make players anymore, if i need to i'll get a few extra players in '25, but the end is still a ways off, as there's still amazing releases.

When i listen to audiobooks too much, my head can hurt, a film is another dimension, oh the reasons to fit cinephilia into my daily nightly life just keep on adding up.

I just want to in a sense share my films with other film lovers, i will always specifiy what kind it is, so as to not glory in better releases than what i actually have, so that all the more to glory in those sweet releases i am blessed with.

The state of the world i guess reflects my own relation to my collection, it's been very rocky, and there's this too, this exercise will help me realize better what i love, and what i can't stand, for example i can do without excessive swearing in films, not just because i live with a square religious zealot, but i really don't like that kind of thing, i think of Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street movie and sure it's top notch stuff and funny as heck in parts, but every other phrase is ... you know, same thing with the HBO shows.

Quality is quality though whether it's crass or not, and if you stick with me for the long haul, i think you'll see that some of my tastes reflect not too kindly on me, but maybe not, i'm such a sheltered individual, film to a large extent has been my mind expanding travel.

1. Charade -- great music, chic 60's tone, master of suspense style chills, i don't have the Criterion release, it's just a Universal DVD, underplayed,overdue for a play. It's a film that's exciting, and getting back to watching is just that. Great comedic elements.

Well alrighty then, Charade went well, fell a little flat though, the script felt a lil funny, and rushed. So film #2 has to be about earrings, it has to be directed by a Max

Max's film was wonderful, and as a follow up 3. Don't Touch the White Woman by Marco Ferreri, it is such a hoot to see these European stars being so goofy, probably offensive in today's world, but you can't take a film like this seriously, have to nap before finishing it, but oh boy it's been awhile, the scene where Custer and Deneuve is talking while a country song is being sung behind them just cracks me up!!

Finally, after all of these years, someone else actually watches Don't Touch the White Woman.


Now I can start complaining to someone who understands the pain of.......wait.....you like it?

So funny man, ... would i be right in seeing these guys in it as having career lows in it? I haven't seen their work extensively. It's bad stuff, agreed, it just tickles my funny bone. Do you like La grande bouffe? That was an inspired film imo. Lunacy and desperation wedded together.

I haven't laughed this much all year!!

There's something about the voice of Marcello Mastrioanni that sounds so comic and epic at the same time.

Michel Piccoli as Buffulo Bill is a revelation, i can imagine some witty film columnist in the 70's saying that in a sardonic way.

I love the real current day setting for events based before those kinds of things existed.

Was there supposed to be serious social commentary in it? I'm not sure, there is a lot of political yapping, the social climate at the time, and the "cutting edge" art films were usually political, and of the Left persuasion.

I don't find everything funny, and it's intentionally ugly, with food reamining stuck to faces that look like faded magazine color photos.

My copy of Don't Touch the White Woman is from a Koch Lorber set, i wonder if it's a collectible thing, but i have the discs in a big binder that holds 400 discs. The best films in it are La grande bouffe, La concechita (spelling wrong) and Seed of Man, but eventually i shall be putting them on, so i can relive all the magic.

Marco was of the provocateur type, along with Pasolini, overall from what i've seen he's not nearly as impressing as PPP, but he does have something to give the film historian/lover. Along with La grande bouffe i highly recommend the one Criterion released Dillinger is Dead, Piccoli is awesome in there, most of it is just him alone, the elongated scene where he's watching home movies is one of the best scenes i've ever seen.

But this film here, a madcap take on Americana by Europeans, possibly making bad jokes over and over might be too much for the average viewer to stomach. Only check this out after seeing Dillinger and bouffe.

p.s. -- Catherine Deneuve has a hilarious line in a love scene with Marcello she says something about her heart is racing like a poor pony's heartbeat, and then she picks him up and plops him onto the bed, stuff like that are LOL material, and i'm probably not all right in the head, it also feels like the kind of entertainment made in a terrible time period, when all hope is gone, .... look at the news these days, and think --- where's the apocalyptic silly movies nowadays??!! Don't we need that kind of laughter, the kind Franz Biberkopf has at the end of his journey before the epilogue begins?

I need to end my wake period on a serious note, so it'll be 4. Women of the Night -- Mizoguchi's bleakest film, inspired by the gritty neorealism coming out of Italy, and about his great theme the plight of women, there are very few films that actually made me sob, this is one of them. Oh the raw emotions, especially towards the end, the shrieking and absolute despair!! A part of the Eclipse set btw Mizoguchi's Fallen Women

When that slimeball forces that girl to drink, i have to pause and consider watching it another time. This is brutal and harsh in an old timey way that i feel can be more unsettling than visceral violent scary stuff, it depicts hell on earth, a society, an environment that is all too real, the ugly side of human nature, we have become perhaps desensitized to this component of things, we always have recourse to things that divert our attention, we can go to our happy place in no time, but that is like a band aid to an inner disease. Oh i do tend to gravitate to the depressing films but this film doesn't have the kind of lyricism i like to latch onto, like opera in Schroeter, music like that are hooks i can grab onto and are soothing, this though is as i said harsh, and brutal in the environment is hell kind of way. It forces you to face what surrounds. One may criticize it for being too hopeless, his other masterpieces have qualities this lacks because it's aiming at an unvarnsihed depiction of reality But life is even now precious, in these dark times, we can still find hidden gems in experience that make living worthwhile in a Proustian sense, i think Kenji was merely experimenting with telling his eternal theme in a harsh manner, it is like Germany Year Zero without any Handel music that gives a Westerner like me something to grasp onto.

There is not one Mizoguchi i have that isn't precious, Street of Shame is perhpas the one i should've put on tonight as that is the one i haven't appreciated enough so far.

Yes, i've said my piece for now, and my neck, shoulders and back are aching, time for resting, and tomorrow night, i hope to talk about more films here, it's the only thing i feel i can talk at length about, not in conversation with anyone as i suck at that, i grew and was noursihed all the way in my film journey without comaraderie, and when i got the internet finally in 2011 my traits were settled, and anyways real conversation online is even harder than in reality.

I feel i could spill my guts here, i have no shame, and a tiny part in me says it could serve some purpose, and i trust i won't get on anyone's nerves too much, if how i talk about things irks you just don't click on this thread anymore, and i shall for the most part stick to just this part and my other ongoing thread which is mostly to do with audible.

Plot twist ... i stuck with it, now i had digested it better on previous viewings, my mind is all muddy, but the gist is pretty clear, the world is shitty, unfair, and ********* filthy. Always been so, and there's no easy fix, there's a thousand platitudes you could veer into which then would triviliaze the lesson depressing films can teach. To see things as they really are, and stop making stupid judgement calls on matters you don't know the half of in real life. It is to teach compassion, and understanding for our fellow earth dwellers, comprehending that we're in this shithole together, and it'll always be getting worse if not the same for each until there's inner work done, a person who has done inner work, and has made even just a little bit of progress can be of service to others.

As i was viewing the stunning finale the story of the Buddha came to me too, which is what i'm talking about on a grander level, the very air we breathe is corrupted, and there is no escape, no real escape that is except from inward alteration, and then that branches out.

Then i think of Lilya 4 Ever the film i was raving about in Movie Forums before my 5 month break, how that gives a more shattering take on the same subject matter.

These kinds of films all of them, i have to pick them out in my collection that is scattered all over the home, they are the wheat, and are to be immersed into, but not to be made into a parodic display, no way, they all must retain their devastating meaningfulness, and i must try and try again to verbally explore the reasons for their merit, their heart wrenching purpose, and not just as a way to talk about my own small pititufl circumstances, but as a launching pad for ever evolving thoughts that merge with my books, and the sensations music gives, the triune interest field to be fully functional, and to learn in an excruciating trial and error way to verbalize these elusive things that i find so hauntingly alluring.

The most obvious thing is what can be what we're most blind to, it's actually the way things are, and it's not pretty, and there is much to say about it, to process, to sift through, endless variations of conclusions one can come to, but if one settles on one only interpretation, that to me is a sign of of the most egregious error, the error of obliviousness.

Just attempts to talk about it.

I love both La Grade Bouffe and Dillinger is Dead. The one with Roberto Benigni as a teacher is...alright. I've seen a couple of others, that were inoffensively eccentric, but have no real recollection of them. Then there is White Woman, which I found nearly unwatchably stupid.

#5 Viridiana -- when listing my top 20 directors what the hell was i thinking not nudging in this brilliant man Luis Bunuel??!! This one is pure irreverent goodness. CC DVD, cc means Criterion Collection, i'll just put the initials to keep my fingers from cramping up.

What i love the most about Viridiana is the finale, with the poor people having a party, and just letting it all out, that old timey way of going crazy, it feels like just desserts, but this time i had to get to my audiobooks, so i've got the film playing as i listen to them.

I hope to see a boutique release of Nazarin some day.

6. Flowers -- from Unearthed Films, easily the best artsy extreme horror flick i've seen, no dialogue as i recall, and just all out sombre kind of gruesomeness, one of a handful i rescued from the war zone downstairs, the state of some of my dvd's is horrifying!! Dirty and some busted up!!, i shall be audiblizing the experience, and that's ok!!

7. The Body Beneath by Andy Milligan, an extra on the BFI release of Nightbirds. Andy's an interesting fella to me, and if they're still around for a decent price, i should get the Severin set when i can. He's one of those bad directors that's mean spirited, an angry guy, like if Ed Wood was a nihilist.

And it should be noted that i shall only be looking at it, and be listening to Les Miserables.

8. Edvard Munch by Peter Watkins -- the alert and aware peruser will see that i couldn't have finished the previous film by now, and i simply point out that i'm doing with my collection what JeanLuc and Anna Karina did when they were together, watching just the beginning of films, i recall her saying that in an interview, so if i'm wrong, i blame my memory. But sometimes it's what you gotta do. At the speed of sitcoms this way i can give a quicker overview of my collection, laying the groundwork for what i call layering, i go over again the same things, in different orderings, and it must be admitted that i'm not a settled individual, like the name of the first ep. of Fassbinders magnum opus, or the 2nd or so about how one feels in their own skin, not feeling at home in it, a stranger to oneself, full of complex rage, not being able to express what must be the most stinging jeremiad ever if successful. But now let me try out this Watkins masterpiece, last time i had it on, (a different player) there was playback issues. 2 of his other i have that i never finished yet, Culloden and The Freethinker, which is about Strindberg, i remember trying it out, and it felt too unfocused, like an untalented guy trying to make another Edvard Munch!!

From a New Yorker DVD 2 discs, it's a long one!!

Just out of curiosity, when are your last two hours anyhow?

I hope it's sometime in the 2040's

That sounds nice, makes the thread seem less like a ticking clock.

song for the Munch film

9. The Hunters by Theo Angelopoulos, along with The Travelling Players is my faves from the Greek master, this one especially has an elusive quality that the wintery outdoors part in The Death of Maria Malibran has, it seduces me, but beyond that, this has a grand scope, of folk trying to live but the government always getting in the way. All the political stuff goes over my head besides the message that life is beautiful and thrilling whenever you're left the F*CK ALONE!!!!