Letterboxd

[TM2YC]

It's taken just over 2-months to complete my last 5x5 list (https://letterboxd.com/tm2yc/list/5-actors-5-films-part-xxi/detail/) which was a highly enjoyable selection overall.

I did not like Steve Martin's 'The Jerk' but his others were a joy to watch again. In the 80s, when he was hot, he was red hot. Although the five featuring Robert Duvall were a mixed bag, the rewatch reminded me that 'Falling Down' was a masterpiece and introduced me to another masterpiece 'Open Range'. Daniel Day-Lewis' five just confirmed why he's so respected and 'The Last of the Mohicans' went way up in my estimation. I'm starting to think I don't really like Paul Newman's acting style for some reason ('The Sting' not withstanding) but 'Hombre' was fantastic. It plays to his stoic minimal style. I had forgotten just how utterly brilliant 'Being John Malkovich' was and 'Say Anything...' was good but again there is something about Cusack that I don't sometimes warm to. I like him best when he's being unlikeable .

---

On to another 5x5: https://letterboxd.com/tm2yc/list/5-directors-5-films-part-xxii-temp/ coincidentally featuring two Taiwanese Directors.

Steven Soderbergh - To keep up, I better watch another set of five Soderbergh films I've not seen yet before he directs five more!
The Limey 1999
The Good German 2006
Magic Mike 2012
Magic Mike XXL 2015
Magic Mike’s Last Dance 2023

Christopher Nolan - Before his new one comes out, I want to complete my rewatch and review of his other films. Plus I've not seen his no-budget debut feature before.
Following 1998
Insomnia 2002
Inception 2010
Dunkirk 2017
Oppenheimer 2023

Lars von Trier - I've not seen these five before but judging from his other films, I'll either love them, or hate them.
The Kingdom 1994
The Kingdom II 1997
The Idiots 1998
Melancholia 2011
The Kingdom: Exodus 2022

Ang Lee - Two to rewatch and three which are new to me.
The Ice Storm 1997
The Wedding Banquet 1993
Ride with the Devil 1999
Brokeback Mountain 2005
Gemini Man 2019

Hou Hsiao-hsien - I've owned 'The Assassin' on blu-ray since it first came out but I've never finished it, or watched anything else by the director.
The Time to Live and the Time to Die 1985
Dust in the Wind 1986
A City of Sadness 1989
The Puppetmaster 1993
The Assassin 2015

I've seen 'Insomnia', 'Inception', 'Dunkirk' and 'The Ice Storm' before. 7 films are included in the 1001 films list I'm also watching through.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Steven Soderbergh -
The Limey 1999
The Good German 2006
Magic Mike 2012
Magic Mike XXL 2015
Magic Mike’s Last Dance 2023

Christopher Nolan -
Following 1998

Well...you've got one good Soderbergh film to watch at least.

Following is such an underrated gem. Amazing dirt cheap indie, up there with the best of the micro-budgets.

 

[TM2YC]

Well...you've got one good Soderbergh film to watch at least.

Two and the other three weren't terrible... well maybe the latest Magic Mike was.

Following is such an underrated gem. Amazing dirt cheap indie, up there with the best of the micro-budgets.

Definitely impressive in it's class. Nolan is better with a (giant) budget in my opinion but it proves he doesn't need any money to make something good.

---

I've got through my last 5x5 list in 2-months (https://letterboxd.com/tm2yc/list/5-directors-5-films-part-xxii/). Half of it was delightful, half of it was a pain to get through. Partly due to one Taiwanese Director being great and one Taiwanese Director being dull as dishwater.

Soderbergh's Magic Mike trilogy was passable but I loved his 'The Limey' and 'The Good German'. Nolan's five were predictably great to watch/rewatch. I've watched a few of Lars von Trier's heavier films but by accident I really tapped into his humour with these five. The Kingdom trilogy is a work of wonderful madness. Ang Lee's five were very watchable, sometimes exceptional but his 'The Wedding Banquet' is one of my new favourite movies. Hou Hsiao-hsien's five were torture, long, oblique and pretentious but they did give me a new insight in Taiwanese history across the last century. So they weren't entirely worthless.

My big takeaway is WATCH 'THE WEDDING BANQUET' GUYS!

---

For my next 5x5: https://letterboxd.com/tm2yc/list/5-directors-5-films-part-xxiii/

I've seen 'Shutter Island', 'Hugo', 'The Irishman', 'The Abyss', True Lies', Avatar: The Way of Water', all five Spielberg films and 'Secrets & Lies' before. After the bad time I had with Hou Hsiao-hsien in the last list, I've stacked this one with films I know I'll love, to offset the five art-house Iranian films by Abbas Kiarostami (but fingers crossed they're good too!).

Martin Scorsese - 2 new ones and others I'd like to review.
Boxcar Bertha 1972
Kundun 1997
Shutter Island 2010
Hugo 2011
The Irishman 2019

James Cameron - I want to complete my reviews of his filmography and enjoy Avatar 2 again.
Piranha II: The Spawning 1982
Rambo: First Blood Part II 1985
The Abyss 1989
True Lies 1994
Avatar: The Way of Water 2022

Stephen Spielberg - My newly acquired Indy steelbooks need trying out and 2 more I haven't reviewed yet.
Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 1984
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 1989
The Lost World: Jurassic Park 1997
The Adventures of Tintin 2011

Abbas Kiarostami - I've not seen anything by him before. Four famous films and his last intriguingly odd effort.
Close-Up 1990
Through the Olive Trees 1994
Taste of Cherry 1997
The Wind Will Carry Us 1999
24 Frames 2017

Mike Leigh - I've only seen half of his acclaimed filmography, time to catch up in one go.
Nuts in May 1976
Abigail’s Party 1977
Life Is Sweet 1990
Naked 1993
Secrets & Lies 1996

 

[mnkykungfu]

I loved his 'The Limey' and 'The Good German'

Yeah, The Limey is the classic. Interesting that you really enjoyed the other! I remember The Good German having some decent ingredients (cinematography and score for sure) but being a real misfire. And yeah, looked it up now ...and it's sitting at 34% on RT and 33% audience score. Not a film most people connected with, but glad you did!

Hou Hsiao-hsien's five were torture

Yeah, I found The Assassin to be torture as well. For some reason, I always get him mixed up with Zhang Yimou, who has a similarly slow approach to narrative but gorgeous visuals. Yimou has a far superior filmography though.

James Cameron - I want to complete my reviews of his filmography and enjoy Avatar 2 again.
Rambo: First Blood Part II 1985

???

 

[TM2YC]

James Cameron - I want to complete my reviews of his filmography and enjoy Avatar 2 again.
Rambo: First Blood Part II 1985

???

I know. He wrote it between Terminator and Aliens. I think that, Alita and Strange Days are the only times he hasn't directed scripts he's written. I've seen the other two already. Cameron seems to be a genius at all levels of film production, he's at least as good a writer as a director, although a Rambo sequel might not be his most personal work .

 

[mnkykungfu]

I know. He wrote it between Terminator and Aliens. I think that, Alita and Strange Days are the only times he hasn't directed scripts he's written. I've seen the other two already. Cameron seems to be a genius at all levels of film production, he's at least as good a writer as a director, although a Rambo sequel might not be his most personal work .

Huh, yeah, I'd seen a doc on the making of Rambo, and I remembered that Stallone went to Kevin Jarre and they came up with the first pitch. And then Jarre wrote the treatment. And I remembered that Stallone did the final draft of the script, where he felt he needed to add in a "good" Vietnamese to balance the "bad" Vietnamese in the film. He added in more of the overt indictment of Right-Wing politics in the US military leadership too (something hard to imagine coming from Cameron in the '80s! haha) I somehow mentally skipped over the part between Treatment and Final Draft where Cameron wrote up the first script. I know Stallone has really fought for 'ownership' of that film and character, so maybe Cameron's involvement has gotten downplayed a bit over time...

 

[TM2YC]

With two films left to watch on my last 5x5 list, I excited to start another one:

5 Actors, 5 Films (Part XXIV)

A 24th list of 25-films by 5-Actors which I'm challenging myself to watch, mostly for the first time. I've seen 'Cop Land', 'Buffalo ’66' and 'The Wrestler' before.

Warren Oates - He's not the biggest star but he's worked with all greatest directors, like these five.
Major Dundee 1965
Two-Lane Blacktop 1971
Dillinger 1973
Badlands 1973
The Brink’s Job 1978

Harvey Keitel - Keitel goes up in my estimation each time I see him (from a high starting point) so I'm keen to see more.
Who’s That Knocking at My Door 1967
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore 1974
Smoke 1995
Blue in the Face 1995
Cop Land 1997

Stellan Skarsgard - I haven't seen too many of the films he was in before he was in everything.
Zero Kelvin 1995
Insomnia 1997
Signs & Wonders 2000
Exorcist: The Beginning 2004
Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist 2005

Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler might have been the first thing I saw him starring in and loved it. I'd like to revisit that and more from his earlier filmography.
Diner 1982
Johnny Handsome 1989
Buffalo ’66 1998
Man on Fire 2004
The Wrestler 2008

Daniel Radcliffe - He's built a filmography of smaller, interesting sounding projects but I've missed a lot of them.
Swiss Army Man 2016
Imperium 2016
Guns Akimbo 2019
Escape from Pretoria 2020
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story 2022

(7 films are included in the 1001 films list I'm also watching through)

 

[mnkykungfu]

Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler might have been the first thing I saw him starring in and loved it. I'd like to revisit that and more from his earlier filmography.
Diner 1982
Johnny Handsome 1989
Buffalo ’66 1998
Man on Fire 2004
The Wrestler 2008

Wow, I don't even remember him from Man On Fire. If you really want to see peak Rourke, drop that out and throw in Harley Davidson & The Marlboro Man for some excellent B-rate cheese. And instead of a Wrestler rewatch, put in Angel Heart. Diner is also a big ensemble movie, whereas in Rumble Fish, he's the show.

 

[TM2YC]

Wow, I don't even remember him from Man On Fire. If you really want to see peak Rourke, drop that out and throw in Harley Davidson & The Marlboro Man for some excellent B-rate cheese. And instead of a Wrestler rewatch, put in Angel Heart. Diner is also a big ensemble movie, whereas in Rumble Fish, he's the show.

Rumble Fish is great. I'm saving Angel Heart for an Alan Parkerthon at some point. The other hasn't really been on my radar.

 

[TM2YC]

With all Scorsese narrative films now watched, re-watched and reviewed. Here is my personal ranking: https://letterboxd.com/tm2yc/list/martin-scorsese-narrative-feature-films/ (although I love most of these films so I could change my mind the next time I rewatch them).

and I finished this list off: https://letterboxd.com/tm2yc/list/5-directors-5-films-part-xxiii/

I was not expecting Boxcar Bertha to be the pick of those 5 Scorsese films. The Cameron 5 were predictably brilliant, I want to watch Avatar 2 again already. It wasn't intended that way but the Spielberg 5 chronicled a drastic decline in "adventure film" quality over 3 decades (Raiders is still the best). I was not expecting to enjoy some of Abbas Kiarostami's films so much. Taste of Cherry would be my recommendation for a place to start in his filmography. Mike Leigh's 5 were all excellent but a couple had some edges that might not appeal to, or work for, everyone.

 

[mnkykungfu]

So I watched a crap-ton of Horror and Horror-adjacent films that have been on my Watchlist for a long time, trying to catch up on some big blind spots for Halloween season since I otherwise don't watch a ton of these. I wrote reviews for each one on Letterboxd, but here are my objective ratings in descending order.

Film ---- Stars (0 - 5)
Scanners - 4
Return of the Living Dead - 4
Invasion of the Body Snatchers - 4
A Nightmare on Elm Street * - 4
Freeway - 3.5
The Babysitter - 3.5
Legend * - 3.5
The Watcher in the Woods * - 3.5
Phantasm II - 3
Open Windows - 3
Foxcatcher - 3
Cursed - 3
Repulsion - 3
A Bucket of Blood - 3
When A Stranger Calls - 3
Hold the Dark - 2.5
[REC]⁴ Apocalypse - 2.5
Carrie - 2
A Tale of Two Sisters - 2
Scream V - 2
Unfriended - 2
You're Next - 1.5
Eraserhead - 1.5
Pulse - 1.5
The Conjuring - 1

*this viewing was a fanedit

Subjectively, I kind of loved The Babysitter and Freeway more than those ratings suggest. And for me, those 4 star movies are all bangers, even though I recognize there are issues where they might not work as well for others. Still got about twice this many Horror films on my list, but I'm pretty burnt out until next year!

 

[TM2YC]

It only took a month to complete my last 5x5 list (https://letterboxd.com/tm2yc/list/5-actors-5-films-part-xxiv/) because it was a generally excellent group of films, with me scoring 15 of them 4-stars or above.... and three of them less than 2-stars . 'Two-Lane Blacktop' is the best exhibition of Warren Oates' talent. Harvey Keitel's 'Smoke' needs to be seen by everybody! Ditto for Stellan Skarsgard's 'Zero Kelvin', except that's going to be a challenge because it's very out-of-print. I still didn't find a better Mickey Rourke movie than 'The Wrestler' but his other four were good too. Daniel Radcliffe has made some really distinctive films but I think 'Imperium' is the pick of those five.

---

Now onto another 5x5 list: 5 Directors, 5 Films (Part XXV)

A 25th list of 25-films by 5-Directors which I'm challenging myself to watch, mostly for the first time. Although I've seen 'Black Hawk Down', 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou' and 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' before.

Ben Wheatley - I keep meaning to catch up with his filmography but before I do he's got another one out.
Kill List 2011
Sightseers 2012
A Field in England 2013
High-Rise 2015
Free Fire 2016

Ridley Scott - These 5 will take me very near to completing his filmography.
1492: Conquest of Paradise 1992
White Squall 1996
G.I. Jane 1997
Black Hawk Down 2001
Napoleon 2023

Pier Paolo Pasolini - I'm worried I may hate these films, so it'll be a nice surprise if I don't. I've included a biopic that looks cool.
The Gospel According to St. Matthew 1964
Theorem 1968
The Canterbury Tales 1972
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom 1975
Pasolini 2014

John Waters - I love him for his personality but I've only seen one of his movies so far ('Pink Flamingos'). His one-man show is included for extra fun.
Hairspray 1988
Cry-Baby 1990
Pecker 1998
Cecil B. Demented 2000
This Filthy World 2006

Wes Anderson - These five should complete his filmography and my reviews of his movies.
Bottle Rocket 1996
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou 2004
The Grand Budapest Hotel 2014
Isle of Dogs 2018
Asteroid City 2023

(2 films are included in the 1001 films list I'm also watching through)

 

[mnkykungfu]

Ridley Scott - These 5 will take me very near to completing his filmography.
1492: Conquest of Paradise 1992
White Squall 1996
G.I. Jane 1997
Black Hawk Down 2001

Oh man, 4 underrated bangers imho. Scott used to be my fav working director (not a huge fan

John Waters - I love him for his personality but I've only seen one of his movies so far ('Pink Flamingos'). His one-man show is included for extra fun.
Hairspray 1988
Cry-Baby 1990
Pecker 1998
Cecil B. Demented 2000

I think I'm like you. These 4 probably give you the best shot at seeing and liking real FILMS (not just provocateur performances pieces)

Sounds like a good program.

 

[TM2YC]

I'm hooked on playing 'Ghost of Tsushima' (in Japanese) on the PS5, so naturally I'm hankering after revisting some classic Samurai cinema. There are 20+ samurai films in my DVD/Blu-Ray collection that I'd either like to re-watch and review, or I've never got round to watching. Including Criterion HD remasters of the 'Lone Wolf & Cub' series, 'Sword of Doom' and 'Kagemusha' and a fan reconstruction of the complete uncut 2010 '13 Assassins' (I've only seen the international cut at the cinema). Because I first watched most most of them years ago, I've only reviewed a few so far. I don't think the acclaimed 'The Ballad of Narayama' actually has any Samurai in it but it's a period piece.

My Samurai Film Collection Watchlist

The Sword of Doom 1966
Kagemusha 1980
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance 1972
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx 1972
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades 1972
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril 1972
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons 1973
Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell 1974
Shogun Assassin 1980
13 Assassins 1963
13 Assassins (Director's Cut) 2010
Harakiri 1962
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai 2011
Zatoichi 2003
Samurai Rebellion 1967
Three Outlaw Samurai 1964
The Last Samurai 2003
Lady Snowblood 1973
Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance 1974
Taboo 1999
Unforgiven 2013
The Ballad of Narayama 1983
Blade of the Immortal 2017

I'm looking forward to seeing this classic again!:

 

[mnkykungfu]

^Oooh, some great ones in there! A lot of great drama... I've always been less enthusiastic about the '60s style samurai battles, most of which barely have any resemblance to any Japanese sword fighting style. It's mostly striking a dramatic (inaccurate) pose and then yelling a lot and jumping around with wild swings. But that said, I don't think most people watch those films for authentic martial arts. It's more about the sort of deflation of the samurai mythos, usually. The only one I wasn't familiar with was "Taboo"...seems interesting! Ōshima didn't really direct samurai films, so that wasn't even on my radar. Added to my list!

 

[mnkykungfu]

I just watched a couple of these this August actually, when I do a big Japanese cinema marathon every year. A couple of thoughts I had the past few years:

-Unforgiven (better translated I think as "Things Which Cannot Be Forgiven", which has more poetry to me anyway): I honestly like this a lot more than the Eastwood version. There's a commentary on racism in Japan added in that makes it a much deeper film.

-Samurai Rebellion: I was bummed that the "rebellion" is very understated by Western standards. This was a much quieter film than I had expected, so I wished I hadn't gone in wanting big battles.

-Three Outlaw Samurai: otoh, I was surprised by what a rollicking good time this was. I loved the different approaches to character, fighting, acting, etc. that each of the 3 guys had. This has become a very rewatchable film for me, almost Tombstone for samurai.

-Lone Wolf & Cub: if you can track down the film that wraps up this series, I'd be super curious to see what you think. I haven't been able to find it anywhere. Made in '93 with a different cast, it's widely regarded as a much lesser movie, but I just really want to watch the ending to Ito and Daigoro's story!

 

[Gibichung]

My profile page

Link to my Letterboxd

It is filled with horny movie reviews. You've been warned. Follow on your own discretion (lol)

 

[Duragizer]

My annual watched/rewatched lists:

• https://letterboxd.com/duragizer/list/films-i-watched-for-the-first-time-2023/
• https://letterboxd.com/duragizer/list/films-i-rewatched-2023/

I watched comparatively fewer horror films this year than is my usual. I also decided to include shorts, 'cause why not?