Jake Gittes

What?

Possibly the funniest opening credits ever. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djKPvXDwXcs

Yeah I heard plenty about the middle of the second season, but I'll force my way through it regardless. I've also been persuaded to watch Fire Walk With Me not after the 2nd season finale, but immediately following its 9th episode. I might just do that.

Just watched the pilot. Marvelous. This is going to be a good weekend.

Oh, my bad. But you know which one I'm talking about.

Subers' most recent tweet also indicates there's trouble.

Granted I haven't seen a single Fury trailer, but I never understood why it was in the race in the first place. It's David Ayer. I mean I liked End of Watch but knowing the guy's overall filmography I could never imagine him chasing Oscars or even unintentionally helming a potential Best Picture nominee.

Anderson is absolutely out based on the reactions I've been seeing.

J. K. Simmons - Whiplash Ethan Hawke - Boyhood Edward Norton - Birdman Mark Ruffalo - Foxcatcher Can't decide on the fifth guy. Could be Waltz, Wilkinson, or Roth. Can't see anyone from Gone Girl here, though - both Perry and NPH are very good but the parts themselves don't really go beyond functional.

I do believe there's a small chance it could pull a Winter's Bone / Kids Are All Right and get a Best Picture nod, plus maybe Original Screenplay. It's an excellent movie all around and the ending will make people float out of the theater. And yes, Simmons has as much of a chance to win as anyone else.

Nah.

Saw Whiplash yesterday and J. K. Simmons is fucking fantastic in it. Pretty sure a well-deserved nomination is coming his way.

I now want Carrie Coon to get a nomination here.

Casino Royale is one of the better films revealed so far

The first 100 minutes or so and the ending are basically flawless. Most of the third hour I'm not so sure about - it certainly became less sharp and coherent, and could have used another 10 or 15 minutes to help put things into focus. But at its best I thought this was an epic on both a grand and a human scale, a film as tremendously passionate as it was technically grand; it had me glued to my seat for the entirety of its runtime. The three-way juxtaposition of the happiness of marriage, the devastation of war, and the ruined life afterwards may not be subtle, but it hits hard. (On a human scale, I honestly think that cut from the characters quietly sitting in the bar, one of them playing a beautiful melody, to the explosions and killings in Vietnam rivals the bone-to-spaceship cut in 2001 in its power, except the effect is directly opposite). The final scene got tears out of me. Will see it again for sure.

Those seen (the masterpiece collection): 1. Vertigo 2. Shadow of a Doubt 3-4. Psycho / Rear Window 5. Frenzy 6. Rope 7. Family Plot 8. Marnie 9. Saboteur 10. The Trouble with Harry 11-13. Topaz / Torn Curtain / The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) 14. The Birds 1-4 are great, 5-9 go from pretty good to average, 10-13 are below average, 14 is completely terrible.

On the one hand, it's packed with great, interesting stuff. On the other hand, it's SO packed with great and interesting stuff that at a certain point it really starts bursting at the seams and becomes pretty damn exhausting to watch. I admire the hell out of it, but with one viewing behind me, I don't really love it.

Like, 90 spots too low.

A great sentence to type, incidentally.

I actually read that most people left by the time the fire extinguisher scene ended. (Before the screening they'd managed to catch word about the rape scene, but nothing about what happens in The Rectum). The French DVD apparently proudly states that 200 out of 2400 people bailed on the movie in Cannes. It wouldn't surprise me if there were more. Your point still stands, anyway. If I were the jury that year I would've given it the Palme d'Or. Can't wait for Noe's new film next year. It's kinda hard not to love it already. I mean, it's called LOVE. And it's described as a "joyous celebration of sex... that will give guys a hard-on and make girls cry". Yes. Fucking. Please. I'm not being ironic or sarcastic.

I saw it for the second time last night - first time was in 2010 - and was even more convinced it's kind of incredible. It's as subtle as a fire extinguisher to the face (I'm deeply sorry, I couldn't resist), but it's also just as powerful; a terrifying and heartbreaking film about how quickly, mercilessly and completely a peaceful, blissful life can be destroyed. (In some ways it's one of the most effective horror films ever made, because it literally makes you want to never leave your house again). Everyone's always talking about the first 40 minutes or so, but as horrifying and uncomfortable as they are, Irreversible is a great film largely thanks to its second half, which makes Noé's full intentions clear, turns the film into a full-on tragedy (while perversely getting happier and happier) and features a trio of superb performances by Bellucci, Cassel, and Dupontel.

In the early '80s, a maverick Polish director going through a hellish divorce could decide to put it on the screen as a feverish two-hour allegory involving the Berlin wall, gritty east-euro atmosphere, tentacled monsters, Cronenbergian body horror, surreal logic, a sustained paranoid vibe, explosions, car chases, pink socks, doppelgangers, what might or might not be a nuclear apocalypse, and a pair of heroic, spectacular lead performances from Sam Neill and (especially) Isabelle Adjani. Andrzej Zulawski's Possession is truly unlike any other film I've ever seen, and in this case that's the highest compliment I can give. Thematically it fits in with other films that depict a dissolution of a marriage using genre elements, films like The Brood, Antichrist, and (supposedly, as I haven't seen it) Don't Look Now. But all these films, while united by this one theme, come from such uniquely personal places they can't help but differ in their approach, and Possession stands out from the pack in all of its own nightmarish glory. Words really don't do it justice, not unless I go far and deep into spoiler territory, which I don't really want to do - it's a movie that really needs to be discovered, and then either repulsed or (hopefully) amazed by. (It's impossible to be neutral about it). I fall into the latter category. Watched it for the first time five days ago and I can't get it out of my head and I don't want to. A bugfuck masterpiece.

As for the film, I dug it. Engaging characters and a simple-on-the-surface, yet tense story. Don't wanna go back to it though.

Carnage, for sure. But if we're only talking about his classics, probably not.

Speaking of Polanski... this gets my vote as his second-best film after Chinatown. A true adaptation: respectful without being slavish, and beautifully cinematic all the way through; this is as far from filmed theater territory as it could possibly be. Bold, bloody, dynamic (the 140 minutes fly by), gorgeously shot, and acted with both fury and subtlety. Really a film that needs to be much more widely seen; now that Criterion has put out a Blu-ray, hopefully it will be.