It was a busy week up this way, leaving me with very little time to watch anything. It was so busy in fact, that I didn’t step foot in a cinema at all. For those of you keeping score at home, this is the first time since August that I’ve gone one week with a trip to the theatre! I have plans to see at least two in theatres this week coming, so a new streak can begin tomorrow.

With Oscar on its way, my watchlist is getting very nomination heavy. I find myself pulling past winners down off the shelf, and of course chasing down the big nominees from this year that I haven’t yet seen. As if that’s not bad enough, my PVR is stating to work overtime thanks to TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar” series.

At the same time, I’m really enjoying making use of a new movie geek website called Letterboxd.com. In actual fact, I think my playing around with it and compulsively adding films and making lists is what has decreased my watching! If you join up, be sure to follow me.

Here’s The Week at Hand…

Blu-Rays/DVD’s I’ve Never Seen
MARGIN CALL – Sort of a GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS/WALL STREET for the era of the recession era. Watched for it’s Best Original Screenplay nomination, and totally found deserving.

Blu-Rays/DVD’s I’ve Watched Before
MONEYBALL – Guess who watched it again? And guess who still doesn’t like it?
THE DEPARTED – Perhaps we’ll soon be referring to this film as the first of Scorsese’s two Oscar films?
MILLION DOLLAR BABY – I know this has soured in many people’s opinions, but I still dig it.
SOME LIKE IT HOT – I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I’d give my right arm to write half as good as Billy Wilder.
O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? – “Oh George, not the livestock.”

Boxscore for The Year
17 First-Timers, 24 Re-Watched
7 Screenings
41 Movies in Total

How’s about you – seen anything good?

25 Replies to “Days of The Week (Films Watched Jan 28 – Feb 3)”

  1. I haven’t seen The Departed since it came out. I loved it back then, but I’ve got this feeling that if I rewatched it I might be disappointed. I don’t know why. Only one way to find out.

  2. I’ve had quite a week.

    Firsts: City of God– Scary and brilliant.
    Bringing Up Baby– Almost perfect. Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn were adorable.
    It Happened One Night– Makes sense why this was the first film to win the Big 5 at the Oscars.
    Kiss Kiss Bang Bang– Enjoyable and RDJ rulesss!
    The original Star Wars trilogy– Yes, I had not seen this. I liked them (loved Han).
    We’ll Take Manhattan– BBC film about David Bailey and Jean Shrimpton’s trip to New York in the 60s which changed fashion forever.
    Leon The Professional– Quite amazing. Natalie Portman gave me chills.
    Day for Night– I missed Truffaut. Loved it.
    Withnail and I– It’s a but too mundane at times, but I predict it will eventually become one of my favourites.
    Blowup– Oh how I love the 60s. Why wasn’t I there?!!! :'(
    The Thin Man– Delightful. Loved it.

    Rewatched: Super 8– I really enjoyed this one. Had one of the best casts of this year, though people seem to forget that.
    Hot Fuzz– I love this gang so much. Watched all of Spaced after that.

    1. Your watchlists always make me so envious, because you get to experience so many wonderful films for the first time. LEON THE PROFESSIONAL is one that I particularly dig, and also makes me a little sad since Besson didn’t have any others like it left in him after it was done.

      I think it’s been too long since I watched HOT FUZZ, perhaps I’ll be listing it on next week’s post!

  3. Still hitting about 10 per week, although I don’t know how much longer I can maintain that pace.

    New to me:
    The Unknown: Surprisingly weird and disturbing for a silent film, but Lon Chaney is underrated as an actor.
    Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces: On the same disc as The Unknown. Worth tracking down.
    A Very Long Engagement: I do so love Jeunet.
    Shark Attack 3: Megalodon: When you eat steak and lobster, sometimes you just want a cheap burger. It’s tasty, but indigestion is still a worry.
    The Pianist: Good. Maybe great with another viewing.
    The Bird with the Crystal Plumage: If it weren’t for the next one, it would be my favorite new-to-me film of the week.
    Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters: Brilliant from stem to stern. Find this.
    Reds: Too long, but well done.

    Rewatches
    Alien: Film for class. Gets better every time I see it.
    Repo: The Genetic Opera: Yeah, I watched it again.

    1. I love ten movie weeks now. Weeks like this where I only got in six make me feel like a slacker.

      I only saw A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT once, and I don’t seem to remember it all that well. Something tells me my love of Marion Cotillard makes it an essential re-watch.

      As mentioned already about THE PIANIST, I vote that it is in fact “great”

  5. Hahaha, Moneyball is out in cinemas here in about two weeks. I really do need to get out of NZ, or something.

    Anyway, slow-ish week for me.

    First-timers:
    Spider – Interesting little Cronenberg flick with a great performance from Ralph Fiennes.
    Texas Killing Fields – Just for Jessica Chastain, and she was the only good thing about it.
    Footloose (2011) – Like the original, just with iPods and hip-hop music. I weep for remakes like this.
    Red Riding trilogy – Pure brilliance, from start to finish.
    Perfect Sense – An underrated romance/horror that would work as a nice companion piece to Contagion.

    1. If you want a short bit of entertainment, dig up Matineecast 43 where Lindsay and I have a pretty brief and entertaining conversation about FOOTLOOSE.

      And spider FOR ME WILL ALWAYS BRING BACK WARM MEMORIES OF MY FIRST FULL RUN AT TIFF

  6. First-Time:
    A Separation – This will probably win the Oscar.
    The Great Space Voyage – Left me dumbfounded. Was enough to make me give up on the Bell Lightbox’s Soviet Sci-Fi series after only seeing two films.
    Man on the Ledge – A straight-forward film with a very simple story, but it was quite entertaining.

    Re-Watches:
    E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial – Watching many 1982 films this year to coincide with my 30th birthday. Started with one of my favourites.
    Drive – Even though I have to exchange my Blu-Ray for a new one (it freezes on one of the chapter changes), I still very much enjoyed the film.
    The Rock – Saw it theatrically for the first time as part of the Bell Lightbox’s Nic Cage series. The film is great(er) with a crowd.

    1. I wanted to go to that ROCK screening really badly, but had a work function to attend. As for your 1982 series, I’ll be curious to read your post on BLADE RUNNER when you get there.

    1. Howdy Mette – haven’t seen you round these parts in a little while! I had a ball with CARNAGE, it was the perfect topper to the year that I really discovered Polanski. I’m finding it really curious that it seems to be diving audiences so much.

  9. First Time:
    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – loved it even more than the Swedish version
    The Innkeepers – lots of fun
    Tyrannosaur – Beautiful but depressing.
    In Time – Disappointing despite having a great concept
    Cold Weather – Decent, but did not see what everyone was raving about.

    Rewatch:
    The Shining – Still holds up well.
    I’m Gonna Git You Sucka – see above

    1. Something tells me I might not get to INNKEEPERS before it leaves Lightbox, but here’s hoping. What prompted you to put on THE SHINING (which I finally got to watch in widescreen a few months back)

      1. The Innkeepers is not one that you really need to see on the big screen. I can see it playing just as well on DVD. The film will divide people though. I hope to have my thoughts about it up by the end of the week.

        As for The Shining, two things made me watch it again: 1) It is the movie of the month film over at The Lamb. 2) It was one of the five dvds I got during the blogger pub night dvd swap (only had the film on VHS).

  10. The Departed hasn’t really held up for me. In fact, it’s probably one of my three or four least favorite Scorseses at this point, though that still puts me in the range of liking it. I think it’s Marty’s least stylish stylistic exercise; it’s fine for me that he dumped just about all his themes into it, because he likes to do that every now and then. It just lacks the frenzy of After Hours, Shutter Island or the severely underrated (even masterful) Bringing Out the Dead. Plus, The Departed exerts the least amount of control over the actors. Marty’s an underrated actor’s director, but it looked like he just let everyone do whatever they wanted here.

    1. Part of what I like about THE DEPARTED (which is admittedly messy), is how it signaled a return to Scorsese “making movies”. He spent a good six or seven years buddy’ing up with Harvey and trying to win an Oscar that somehow what he did best was being forgotten about.

      I don’t think its a co-incidence that from THE DEPARTED forward, his films have felt a little less like swings for the fences, and a bit more like inclusions in the cannon.

      1. I think The Departed is by far the most Oscar-y movie he’s ever made. The immaculate design of both GANGS and THE AVIATOR are also buoyed by his passion for their subjects. GANGS is held back by all Weinstein’s forced additions, esp. the tacked-on love story that distracts from what is otherwise one of Marty’s deepest films. THE AVIATOR suffers for Scorsese’s omission of so many of Hughes’ demons in order to make him thinly sympathetic, but it’s up there with Taxi Driver and Bringing Out the Dead as one of his best forays into someone’s headspace, even if that space is noticeably limited from the true darkness of Hughes’ soul. The Departed is just surfaces. Well-made surfaces, but one that makes for a more digestible pleasure than the challenging aspects of his other two Oscar grab movies. I don’t feel any humanity at all in The Departed, which is so unlike Marty. Typically, you can feel that even in his darkest work.

        1. GANGS and AVIATOR are both handsome films that fit within Scorsese’s cannon rather well…there was just an intangible prestige that came with them that muddied the waters. I actually think there was a better film buried within GANGS that some restructuring would bring out.

          I think where we agree is that they were both grand and ambitious, where THE DEPARTED is something Scorsese could do with one arm tied. To be clear – I like them all. It’s possible that I’m letting my judgement get clouded by the way in which Harvey Weinstein tried so hard to win Scorsese’s Oscar for him.

  11. Hi Ryan, I didn’t go to the cinema for nearly a whole month of February. I finally went to see The Descendants last weekend which was very good. I might try to do a dual Clooney review as I rented Ides of March just a week prior.

    I rented Margin Call because of that nomination (and the cast) and yeah, I think it deserved it. I wouldn’t mind even seeing Spacey amongst Best Supporting Actor nominees.

    Billy Wilder… I’ve been hearing his name a lot lately, I should start watching his films!

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