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Last Active 02-16-11 5:19 am
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| Criterion Collection Haul (Part II)
Made my second, probably final B&N run before January and filled out the ranks a bit more. Then again, there's technically still another couple of days yet to go, so we'll see if impulse strikes between now and then. List is some recent digs. | | 1 |  | Memory Tapes
Seek Magic
City Lights: Feel a little pretentious grabbing this one, since I'm no film historian or scholar, and certainly tend to have a wide and prevailing preference for the talkies. But, this seems pretty widely regarded as one of Chaplin's finest, so figure it's a pretty solid place to start, and under 90 minutes to boot.
Album notes: Revisiting this bad boy for the first time in what is probably plural years. Holds up pretty well, and a great mood-lifter. | | 2 |  | Alice in Chains
Jar of Flies
Darjeeling Limited: Arguably Wes Anderson's last truly great film (at least, y'know, by me). Haven't seen it in a minute, but if memory serves, it seemed like a poetic cap on the parental failure theme that clearly flows throughout his entire body of work, but is especially crystallized by the mini-trilogy of Royal Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic, and this one.
Album notes: An unadulterated classic, and one that I'm revisiting after far too long of a break. "Nutshell" is at least a top five song from their discography. | | 3 |  | Katatonia
Night Is the New Day
Day for Night: Another highly regarded film I've consistently slept on, which is especially shameful since I typically eat up metatextual movies-about-movies like this (looking at you, Adaptation, with some side-eye towards Tristram Shandy).
Album notes: Borderline laughable (or, hopefully, tongue-in-cheek) title aside, really good stuff. Been on kind of kick re-running through their discography of late, and I feel like this is where latter-day Katatonia's sound really came most vividly into focus. | | 4 |  | Katatonia
Dead End Kings
George Washington: My exposure to David Gordon Greene has come chiefly via his collaborations with Danny McBride (up to and including their very-good-not-great take on Halloween), and this seems to be a pretty sizable tonal/stylistic departure (though calling it that isn't accurate, given the timeline; whatever). And again, all of 90 minutes, so a nice double-feature with 1, really covering the cinematic spectrum.
Album notes: Basically, if you like 3, you're gonna like this. I certainly see the argument that they've stagnated slightly since, and while that certainly has some merit, it's a damn good and distinct sonic niche they carved out for themselves, best typified by these albums' one-two punch of gloomy yet ethereal prog. | | 5 |  | Midwife (USA)
Forever
His Girl Friday: Screwball ALL DAY. Though, truthfully, another film I feel guilty having not seen, but am looking to remedy and assuage my impostor syndrome. In my defense and/or to my embarrassment, I love Bringing Up Baby, so if Hawks' brings half his skill with a razor-sharp volley of banter, should be a blast. (I also mentioned as an aside back in Part I that I've finally been working my way through the backhalf of BoJack's final season, which coincidentally has Paget Brewster and Max Greenfield's artful/skillful homage to this, so there's yet another log for the fire.)
Album notes: Been in solid rotation since it dropped earlier in the year, though my vinyl copy only arrived recently. The despairing counterbalance to Memory Tapes' sunniness, but equally mesmerizing. | | 6 |  | Movements
Feel Something
The Ice Storm: First of all, hot damn, what a cast. This is one of those movies I put off for far too long, especially considering college-freshman me's love for its obvious acolytes American Beauty and Little Children. Can't attest to how well those progenitors have aged (and for some reason don't see myself revisiting the former anytime in the foreseeable future), but I've already watched this twice, and boy, what a masterful blend of bitter satire and blindsiding glimpses of truly moving pathos and unexpected empathy.
Album notes: Got this one back in rotation in honor of the long-overdue announcement of their follow-up record. And this time, it wasn't even just me misreading a headline about the band Monuments! | | 7 |  | Planning for Burial
Below the House
Marriage Story: Baumbach has a pretty staggering track record (particularly his other Criterion-collected pieces Kicking and Screaming, The Squid and the Whale, and Frances Ha). I'll be honest and cop to having stopped this midway through on Netflix, but that was more due to my partner's disinterest than the film itself, and I liked enough of what I saw to warrant the purchase. Should be yet another solid addition to his uncomfortably autobiographical and self-lacerating roster of queasily personal yet relatable works.
Album notes: Speaking of self-lacerating and long-overdue things, would love a follow-up from this creative mind anytime now. Still, gotta give this credit for remaining so listenable, as well as turning me onto the entire Flenser label and roster (including, incidentally, 5). | | 8 |  | Planning for Burial
Matawan - Collected Works 2010-2014
Matewan: A total impulse buy, but a vague familiarity with the title, coupled with the plot synopsis and cast listing on the back, all served to make this a no-brainer.
Album notes: Complete coincidence, but very nearly title twins, baby! | | 9 |  | Inter Arma
Garbers Days Revisited
Scorsese Shorts: I'll confess to not having awareness, let alone exposure to any of Scorsese's short-form work, but in light of a career that's become increasingly, semi-inaccurately defined by three-hour-plus epics, and particularly after the slog that was The Irishman (which I did purposefully turn off without external pressure), this'll hopefully be a nice reminder of what a brisk and energetic filmmaker my boy Marty can be.
Album notes: Vinyl for this just came in, and while I haven't spun it yet, if the rest of the songs are up to the standard set by the early previews "Southern Man" and "March of the Pigs," should be an absolute banger. | | 10 |  | Katie Malco
Failures
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold: Another shameful gap in my cinematic history, especially given how much I love virtually everything else I've seen from the mind of John Le Carré (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, A Most Wanted Man, Our Kind of Traitor...and that's all just counting the last decade). Still, should be interesting seeing something so formative in the wake of so much else that's come since.
Album notes: Been playing this almost daily on Bandcamp in the meantime, but another record that just arrived. Speaking of shameful gaps, hopefully this makes like an old-timey bulldozer and gains some steam and traction on the site by the time the year-thru-Q3 best-of lists start materializing. | |
hel9000
07.31.20 | love The Ice Storm. | thecheatisnotdead
07.31.20 | It's so good. And the score is haunting, as well. | Uzumaki
08.01.20 | Scooped up Police Story I and II, The Human Condition, Hara-Kiri and Come and See on my B&N binge. I’ll be good until their next sale... | Uzumaki
05.07.21 | Am now wishing for their next half off sale because I REALLY FUCKING WANT THAT WONG KAR-WAI BOXSET RIGHT NOW, DAMMIT. |
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