Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)

7/10
(Final Cut version)
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't slightly disappointed. The technology and visuals wear extremely well, but I think other elements suffer - particularly Rutger Hauer's performance and Vangelis' score, both of which constantly teeter on the brink of ridiculous. The pacing in this movie is very...jarring, I guess? I felt like it never really found a rhythm. I don't know if there are a lot of differences between this version at the theatrical/original one (this was my first experience with the film in any form) but it felt like a movie that had undergone quite a few edits/revisions. I think this is a movie that if I saw growing up, I would love and overlook its flaws, but I find it harder to do so now. It's still fun and I'd watch it again at some point, for sure.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (Robert Zemeckis & Richard Williams, 1988)

6/10
I'd actually never seen this before, at least not recently and in full. Its achievement in blending live-action and animation is still impressive and pretty seamlessly done, especially considering it was 1988. It's also far riskier than anything that would be allowed in a similar film made today, especially one that has Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse making appearances. But it's not a particularly good movie per se - Roger Rabbit is an overwhelmingly irritating main character to be saddled with for 90 minutes and Bob Hoskins, for most of the movie, displays the charisma of a brick. Considering those two dominate the screen time, I was left desperately searching for something likeable (Jessica Rabbit, anyone?) The plot is more muddled than it has to be, but the set pieces entertain well enough.

Satantango (Bela Tarr, 1994)

10/10
When you spend almost 7 and a half hours in a theatre co-existing with a piece of art (okay call it "watching a movie" if you like), it's pretty hard not to at least force yourself to give it a perfect score, if not for justification that you didn't just waste a perfectly good Sunday on the thing. But that's not the case here as this movie fully deserves a perfect score. Unlike a movie that has so much plot it can't afford to lose a second off its running time (Erich von Stroheim's original cut of Greed, for example), Satantago could easily be compressed into 2 hours, possibly less. The plot is such: a broken-down, poor Hungarian town with a population of about 15 has come to the end of their harvest season - the villagers wait to collect their year's worth of wages and depart, but hold off when they hear that an ex-villager presumed dead, Irimias, is returning to town. The villagers have a shared fear and respect of Irimias, cautiously optimistic that he has a plan to lead them and the village.
That's pretty much it. Roughly the first four and a half hours is dedicated to the villagers anticipating Irimias' arrival. We see events in the village through their eyes, often with overlapping points of view. The shots are brutally long (some lasting up to 10 minutes in length, unbroken) and the sequeces are longer - we spend about 45 minutes, if not more, following the town doctor on his journey to get more brandy. Then at least half an hour with a young girl who, ignored by her mother and exploited by her mother, abuses and poisons her pet cat. A good half hour watching the townspeople get drunk, dance, and sing, as they await Irimias. And so on. By the movie's end you feel like you've been forced to live with these people, and in a way you have.
In the end it's impossible to say what the movie is "about". Without being too cliché, life. Moreso than any movie I've ever seen. This is a movie filled with nothingness but one that ruminates on everything. I encourage anyone with any kind of appreciation for cinema as art to go and see it if you have a chance (or buy the 3-disc DVD). It's something that's going to stay with me for the rest of my life, undoubtably.

Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003)

9/10
I really didn't know anything about Dogville going in except that it starred Nicole Kidman as a woman on the run in a town called Dogville...so I was quite startled by the way the movie is presented, which is on a large soundstage with buildings, scenery, even the town dog outlined in paint (see here). At first I thought it was a bit gimmicky but by the end I thought it was brilliant, as was the story, which surely has to be the pinnacle of Lars von Trier's writing abilities. And the acting is fantastic all around, because it has to be - there's not much else on the screen to look at if you're not looking at the actors. The movie itself has to be one of the harshest takes on "Americana" as there ever has been, and the end credits featuring David Bowie's "Young Americans", while as subtle as a sledgehammer, work perfectly.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (Nicolas Gessner, 1976)

8/10
A local film centre (a loft space with a projection screen, really) was showing a 16mm print of this 1976 Canadian thriller and I decided to check it out...and was very glad I did. This is a movie that, for all its weirdness, is a lot better than anyone should expect it to be. Jodie Foster plays a 13-year old girl named Rynn who just moved in to a new house with her perpetually absent father, and she quickly becomes terrorizes by the neighborhood pervert Frank, played by Martin Sheen, clearly relishing the role.
Given the premise, one might expect a typical "girl in peril" movie involving lots of chase scenes, disturbing phone calls and powerlines being cut, but it's actually not like that at all. The film is very theatrical, with the living room of Rynn's house being centre stage, and much of the action (consisting of chilling conversations face-to-face between Rynn and Frank) taking place therein. The movie takes an unexpected detour into the relationship Rynn forms with a slightly older teenage magician, and while this would have been a distraction in many other similar movies, it actually works really well here. Their budding relationship is dealt with far more respectfully and with more maturity than any number of 70's camp horror flicks would have done.
It's not a perfect movie - there is some laugh-out-loud cheese, some bizarre editing, and an ill-fitting soundtrack, and anyone expecting bravura shocks and scares will be left bored, but I found it very entertaining.
Apparently Foster isn't quite as big a fan of it (she was given a rough time in production, from what I read) which may explain why it was buried for so many years, but I think it's finally out on DVD now. Worth investigating if you're a horror fan into something a bit different.

In a Better World (Susanne Bier, 2010)

6.5/10
It's strange how a movie can ask strong, interesting questions and challenge a viewer's opinion and preconceived notions...but then take the easy way out in every way when it comes to concluding things. The acting is solid and the movie is beautifully shot (and never boring) but this is a movie that had me and then lost me by the end. Way too "shiny and happy" for me, and for the material too - I thought it was a little ill-fitting and inappropriate to end a movie that asks tough questions about the nature of violence and reaction with such a Disney-ish conclusion. Disappointing.

Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969)

9/10
Finally got around to watching this the other day; it definitely delivered. Probably one of the best depictions of male friendship on screen that I've ever seen...both Hoffmann and Voight are incredible, especially Voight. I'd never really cared for him (or seen much of his stuff) but in this movie he conveys an amazing amount of emotion, even when he isn't saying anything.

Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)

8.5/10
Not much to say that hasn't already been said - the movie is absolutely, almost unfathomable, gorgeous. Every scene is eye candy and some of them you never want the camera to break away. The story is simple and understated (though the narration is a bit heavy-handed and unnecessary at times) and the acting is great. It was really lovely, another movie I look forward to revisiting.

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)

9/10
The more I think about it, the more I like it, and the more I want to return to its dank, seedy portrayal of New York. I didn't find Travis Bickle to be quite as fascinating a character as he's hyped up to be (although he's been copied and parodied and watered down so many times since 1976 that it's not the movie's fault) but everything around him - the other characters and especially the city - was tremendous.

Chandmani Sum (Rowan Lee Hartsuiker, 2009)

7/10
This was a short (half-hour) created by a user on a movie torrent website I visit, and it was a ratio-free download, so I grabbed it. It was nice enough to look at, shot in extremely sharp digital black and white, and featuring a Herzogian soundtrack of throat-singing which I'm always a fan of. Couldn't tell you what the hell the point of it was, but it was pretty.

Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951)

7/10
I haven't seen a whole lot of Hitchcock (just this, Psycho, Vertigo and Rear Window, I think) but this was the first one that failed to really blow me away. Unfair considering its competition, perhaps. I thought the premise was very interesting (two men committing each other's murders) but the execution didn't really stir me. There were some absolutely classic scenes though - the murder of Guy's wife shown as a reflection in the lens of her fallen eyeglasses, the climatic showdown on a merry-go-round, etc, but I was a bit underwhelmed on the whole.