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User
Reviews 123
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Last Active 09-26-19 3:01 pm
Joined 01-26-17
Review Comments 9,464
| American Movies..
that I've been digging lately.. | | 1 |  | The Fall
Perverted By Language
Affliction (1997) - Paul Schrader is perhaps the greatest unsung icon of American moviemaking. The man (co)wrote some of Scorsese's best and most enduring work, including Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Bringing Out the Dead. As a director of his own pictures, Schrader has always stuck to the indie spectrum, crafting pastoral noir films about addiction, restlessness and self-doubt. He's been enjoying a slight revival on the festival circuit with his last year's First Reformed. But his work throughout the 90's was his most affecting, including the tense Sleep Walker, and Affliction, a slow burner thriller about a cop who investigates a murder, all the while dealing with his abusive father now near death, as well as his own spiral into madness.. Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek and the legend that is James Coburn in one of his final great roles. | | 2 |  | Bad Brains
Bad Brains
Altered States (1980) - a psychopathologist who's seemingly standing on the brink of great discovery in consciousness, hyperbaric chambers, insomnia, tribal drug-induced catatonia and much much more is pictured in this viscerally hypnotic take on the human mind and its compulsive tendencies towards atrophying and devolving.. Based on the only novel by Paddy Chayefsky, a fantastic playwright.. | | 3 |  | The Jesus Lizard
Liar
Kicks (2016) - A simple enough, but incredibly soulful movie. An inner city kid from Richmond snags a new pair of sneakers, only to have them stolen by a drug dealer. And so he goes off to get them back. Slow for long stretches that then get interrupted by burst of intense violence, Kicks is also spliced seamlessly with strange and ultra-short dream sequences that work like magic. Plus, it sports a great cameo from the phenomenal Mahershala Ali (of Moonlight, and the upcoming third season of True Detective) | | 4 |  | Iggy Pop
Roadkill Rising...The Bootleg Collection
Smoke (1995) - I love the visual and dialogue aesthetics of American movies in the 90's. Grainy resolution and secretly nuanced screenwriting was lending everything a sort of artful grimness. And it gave some damn good actors a chance to play around with characters. Smoke was written by Paul Auster, one of the last standing great New York writers, and is essentially a novella about the day-to-day of working class people in a neighbourhood in Brooklyn, whose timelines all coalesce on a small smoke shop where they all buy cigarettes. William Hurt and Harvey Keitel being great at what they do.. | | 5 |  | Einsturzende Neubauten
Haus Der Lüge
The House that Jack Built (2018) - I'm not Lars Von Trier`s biggest fan. His work too often looks and sounds like a flat-headed formula of what extreme art is to conservatives. Small shocks and long deliberate pauses that miss more often than they hit. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised by how visceral and thoughtful Jack turned out to be, a blood-soaked celebration of all things cynical and lost, that through all of its keen incisions into the psyche of a madman, managed to stay nihilistic and free of platitudes.. technically not American, but it was a US production with a US actor in the lead, so piss the fuck off.. | | 6 |  | The Sound
Jeopardy
Bloody Mama (1970) - a supremely low-budget biopic of Ma Baker, the famed outlaw, tracing her life, through her horrid childhood (that included being raped by her father and brothers), to her criminal life, heading a gang made up of her sons, who indulge in everything from robbery to rape. Shelley Winters is incredible in the lead role, and the film also features an early appearance by Robert De Niro, playing Ma Baker`s youngest son. Directed by Roger Corman, perhaps the finest exploitation director in history. | | 7 |  | Death (MI)
...For the Whole World to See
Get on the Bus (1996) - An oft-forgotten film in Spike Lee`s body of work, which is a shame, for how patient and heavy it is. A group of black men board a bus headed for the Million Man March. Conversations and interactions ensue, as the men contend with their differing backgrounds (ranging from gangsters turnt Nation of Islam, a gay couple and an unscrupulous businessman who plans to use the March to strike up connections), and the outside world, as the bus leaves the East Coast and enters the Bible Belt. Lee is back in the critics' good graces after this year's fantastic BlacKkKlansman, which will hopefully give him some steam to make something great again.. | | 8 |  | Television
Marquee Moon
Runaway Train (1985) - half thriller/half escape room film set onboard a train. Jon Voight and Eric Roberts play two convicts who break out of prison and try to stay free. A fairly well-known cult film made by Andrei Konchalovsky, whose involvement and collaborations in Russian cinema span everything from the cream of the crop (Tarkovsky) to neutered propaganda opportunists (Nikita Mikhalkov). His next film, also American, called Duet for One is also phenomenal. | | 9 |  | The Slits
Cut
Five Easy Pieces (1970) - I mean, this is a stone-cold classic, and one of Jack Nicholson's best roles. Former piano virtuoso, now oil rigger, goes back to see his dying father, along with his working class girl, stirring up all the unresolved shit that got buried long ago. Check it. | |
butcherboy
12.03.18 | (don't) enjoy.. | Source
12.03.18 | Only seen 8 | butcherboy
12.03.18 | watch 1-7 and 9, then! | Divaman
12.03.18 | 2 is a weird-ass flick. | J() Alexander
12.03.18 | The House that Jack Built looks like another Von Trier miss to me tbh. | butcherboy
12.03.18 | give it a go.. I liked it.
Diva, weird, but pretty grand | Papa Universe
12.03.18 | "The House that Jack Built looks like another Von Trier miss to me"
to me that's just called a Lars Von Trier film | Winesburgohio
12.03.18 | great list! regarding 9, Criterion (SORRY) put out a boxset called America Lost and Found with heaps of early 1970s gems, the pinnacles of which are Five Easy Pieces and The Last Picture Show (one of my favourite films of all time, and also a pretty darn good novel) but which also features some previously lost gems. would strongly recommend checking it out ( : | Winesburgohio
12.03.18 | also so good to see Smoke getting repped!!! i love the kind of slice-of-lifey americana stuff too so if you want to discuss the issue further i would be... willing to help you with that comrade *smokes a cigarette like a joint in the Russian fashion* | butcherboy
12.03.18 | have you seen Chinese Coffee, wines? | J() Alexander
12.03.18 | @Papa
No. | butcherboy
12.03.18 | give it a go, Alex.. never know, it hit me in the right spot | Chortles
12.03.18 | Schrader is the man. I haven't seen Affliction but I just picked up a copy of the Mishima Criterion the other week... gorgeous. Gonna check some of the rest for sure, Smoke in particular sounds lovely | Winesburgohio
12.04.18 | haven't had the pleasure of consuming the beverage or the film or the play, will rectify
@chort oh MAN is it good? should i bump it up my wishlist so i can watch it this year sometime or | J() Alexander
12.04.18 | Alright, I do plan to watch it, Von Trier has made some of my favorite films. | EyesWideShut
12.11.18 | List is full of clossics and yea Schrader is the mon.. Blue Collar is my fav joint from him. |
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