Seen and not seen's, recommendations and queries on top films in general.

[Atrophist]

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I also went to see Terrifier 2 at the local movie festival. Everyone's praising it but it's boring as fuck. Art the Clown would be a great villain, but I feel it's wasted in this franchise. The comic book violence doesn't work very well because there is no build-up, no tension, no characters, shitty plot and overall bad direction and the movie is one hour too long.

There were many things that Terrifier 2 does right imo. Against all expectations Art’s character is great, and it has one of the best final girls in slasher movies in general. And there is a general sense of seediness and absurdity that very few horror movies manage to pull off. The deliberately (??) bad looking gore effects didn’t work for me.

I also enjoyed the band posters in the main character’s little brother’s room. Most of the members in the bands are old enough to have grandkids his age. :D

[Atrophist]

Watched Tár theother day. Went into it almost completely blind, the only thing I knew was that it dealt with classical music and Mahler (whose music I love) would be one of the composers featured. I was prepared for the usual tale of a woman effortlessly outdoing all those dumb white men on every front. Whatever this film is, it’s not that. The film is almost three hours long and I spent much of the first hour wondering, what the hell is going on in this movie? Even after the main plot emerges, there are still plenty of wtf moments. I rarely re-watch films so soon, but this one is going to have to be an exception. Not everything works, but in a film that is this long and ambitious that’s to be expected really. I’d recommend this to anyone in our milieu.

[impulse manslaughter]

Watched The Painted Bird on dvd yesterday. A long, slow, unpleasant and bleak movie in b/w about a boy wandering around in Eastern Europa during WW2, meeting one abusive character after the other. Sparse dialogue and beautiful shot. Never read the book but did like the movie, although sometimes it was hard to focus an not get distracted.

[AdamLehrerImageMaker]

Watched Tár theother day. Went into it almost completely blind, the only thing I knew was that it dealt with classical music and Mahler (whose music I love) would be one of the composers featured. I was prepared for the usual tale of a woman effortlessly outdoing all those dumb white men on every front. Whatever this film is, it’s not that. The film is almost three hours long and I spent much of the first hour wondering, what the hell is going on in this movie? Even after the main plot emerges, there are still plenty of wtf moments. I rarely re-watch films so soon, but this one is going to have to be an exception. Not everything works, but in a film that is this long and ambitious that’s to be expected really. I’d recommend this to anyone in our milieu.

It's incredible. The sequence of her absolutely eviscerating the leftoid comp student for refusing to listen to dead white composers is the best scene of the year. Watched it on repeat. Clearly the film is dealing with MeToo, and the way that MeToo and broader cancel culture is used to alleviate cultural enthusiasm for greatness. By making the lead a woman instead of a man Todd Field deftly got the film made at an appropriate budget, and I'm thrilled that it exists.

[Atrophist]

The sequence of her absolutely eviscerating the leftoid comp student for refusing to listen to dead white composers is the best scene of the year. Watched it on repeat.

It absolutely is an amazing scene. Not even lessened by the allegations of her own dubious behaviour that appear later (wonder if they would have dared to include something like that otherwise?)

I’ve seen discussion of the scene of her jogging in the park, and hearing screaming from somewhere nearby, without being able to figure out where it’s coming from exactly. But there’s also a scene of her walking up to her daughter calling out abd getting out of bed. There’s clearly a human figure sitting on a chair in the corner of the bedroom. The viewer in clearly meant to see it, but Tarr herself doesn’t. Like I said I need to watch this again.

The ending was jaw-droppingly hilarious. An absolute stroke of genius in my opinion.

[AdamLehrerImageMaker]

I believe what the film was saying was that this sort of literati approved greatness that Lydia enjoys is in many ways just as nebulous and fraudulent as the ideology of that young student. We come to associate her loss of status as the loss of greatness, but we never actually see her greatness in action we're just told about it by her cultural status. This is what I believe Todd Field communicated: can greatness be achieved in a culture that places so much priority on bland discourse? In any case, fascinatingly complex, slow burner of a film. One that I assume will shift in meanings and readings going forth. A great work of art.

I saw some Terrifier 2 earlier, I think it was also great. Seemed legitimately to be a very cruel work of art and one that could even possibly push psychos over the edge (which is cool.) I wrote about it here: https://compactmag.com/article/away-from-arthouse-horror

The sequence of her absolutely eviscerating the leftoid comp student for refusing to listen to dead white composers is the best scene of the year. Watched it on repeat.

It absolutely is an amazing scene. Not even lessened by the allegations of her own dubious behaviour that appear later (wonder if they would have dared to include something like that otherwise?)

I’ve seen discussion of the scene of her jogging in the park, and hearing screaming from somewhere nearby, without being able to figure out where it’s coming from exactly. But there’s also a scene of her walking up to her daughter calling out abd getting out of bed. There’s clearly a human figure sitting on a chair in the corner of the bedroom. The viewer in clearly meant to see it, but Tarr herself doesn’t. Like I said I need to watch this again.

The ending was jaw-droppingly hilarious. An absolute stroke of genius in my opinion.

[PSYWAR LTD]

My Christmas tradition includes watching Silent Night, Deadly Night. That has to be the most disturbing Christmas movie of all time.

[Bruitiste]

I enjoy that one but find it a bit silly.  Big fan of Black Christmas (1974), by Bob Clark.

[cr]

Didn't have much time to watch movies or series this year. So, any recommendations/must sees? Maybe something like best of 2022? Because now I have some days off and would like to watch something worthwhile.
Thanks!

[Balor/SS1535]

Didn't have much time to watch movies or series this year. So, any recommendations/must sees? Maybe something like best of 2022? Because now I have some days off and would like to watch something worthwhile.
Thanks!

The only new movie that I saw this year (though I really thought it was fascinating) was a documentary called The Most Beautiful Boy in the World.  It tells the life story of the boy who co-starred in Death in Venice and exposes the lifetime ramifications of the abuse/exploitation he encountered as a result.

[Atrophist]

Didn't have much time to watch movies or series this year. So, any recommendations/must sees? Maybe something like best of 2022? Because now I have some days off and would like to watch something worthwhile.
Thanks!

Besides Tarr discussed above, a film I really enjoyed this year was Emily the Criminal with Aubrey Plaza. I can also recommend You Won’t be Alone and Bodies Bodies Bodies with some (pretty minor) reservations. 

As for television, Severance was easily the best thing I saw this year. Also, the show based on Steve Jones’ memoirs, Pistol, was pretty decent, against all expectations.

[aububs]

i enjoyed emily the criminal too

didn't think tar was great tbh. confused script and a terrible performance from blanchett

skinamarink was my favourite of the year probably. or maybe RRR

[Atrophist]

didn't think tar was great tbh. confused script and a terrible performance from blanchett

There certainly seemed to be a histrionic element in Blanchett’s performance that I personally didn’t especially care for. Would I call it terrible, maybe not. Each to his own, ofc.

The more I think about it the more I recall great movies I saw in 2022. The Taiwanese horror movie The Sadness managed to actually achieve something new in the zombie genre, against all expectations. Zombies that can still think and even talk — except that they’re all murderous lunatics? Bring it on. A few extremely effective scenes, also a couple unfortunately goofy ones. Holds up fairly well till the end, nevertheless.

The Thai horror film The Medium I would rate even higher, except for the ending which falls somewhat flat.

Flux Gourmet is another film that anyone who tries to create experimental audio / live performances ought to appreciate. Like all of Peter Strickland’s films, it has a certain pretentious edge to it. But it didn’t prevent me from enjoying it.

Another film from 2022 I can recommend, with a few caveats, is Holy Spider (apparently also called Mashhad Nights in some territories), by Iranian director Ali Abbasi. The film deals with the real life case of a serial killer who targeted prostitutes in 2000-2001 in the Iranian city of Mashhad. Disappointingly, there’s a sort of Western contemporary ”all women good, all men bad” sensibility that emerges a few times in the film. Probably explained by the fact that the director lives in Denmark.

[Balor/SS1535]

Any thoughts on Nagisa Oshima?  I recently went through a phase of watching a lot of his movies (I ended up watching all of them except for about three, which I hope to catch up on shortly).  My favorites have been The Sun's Burial and The Ceremony.  He seemed to change his aesthetic sensibility as time went on, developing (whether that equates to improving is up for debate) from realism to abstract, New Wave experimentation, back to a more traditional---though visually lush---approach.

I still haven't worked out exactly how I feel about In the Realm of the Senses or its less graphic sequel Empire of Passions aside from recognizing that they are visually beautiful (especially the latter).

[Manhog_84]

Another film from 2022 I can recommend, with a few caveats, is Holy Spider (apparently also called Mashhad Nights in some territories), by Iranian director Ali Abbasi. The film deals with the real life case of a serial killer who targeted prostitutes in 2000-2001 in the Iranian city of Mashhad. Disappointingly, there’s a sort of Western contemporary ”all women good, all men bad” sensibility that emerges a few times in the film. Probably explained by the fact that the director lives in Denmark.

I was actually a bit hesitant because of this comment should I even see the film, but I'm glad I did. After all feminist bullshit movies like The Last Duel, Promising Young Woman and Men, this had zero of that western "all men are guilty" propaganda. Mainly because it was just focused on what kind of shit holes the Muslim societies are. Opening scene was great and I wished the same cold and disturbing atmosphere would have continued after that. Rest of the film is good drama with well written and believable characters. 4/5