My Tedious and Asinine 2014 Movie Diary

This film is a true masterpiece, like I'm scarred for life but it's so worth it. I'm saying real shit when I tell you that Come and See is a piece of art that stands above all others and is a triumph of cinema that actually confronts the horrors of war without making some cheesy Saving Private Ryan-esque bullshit propaganda.

Mikhail Kalatozov's camera work is just dazzling omg. I can see so many visual similarities between I Am Cuba and The Cranes Are Flying; he just has this extremely distinct totally-Soviet-but-very-dreamy sensibility about his directing style.

So this is 2 hr 30 min film about a man and a woman living in a sand dune together. Lol seriously. BUT IT'S NOT BORING TRUST ME. It's a truly hypnotic and mystifying film. I'm basically in love with Hiroshi Teshigahara now b/c his films creep me out and impress me at the same time. Also I now have a fear of sand after watching this movie -__-

Bogey was fantastic in this, but I think Gloria Grahame stole the show. I reallyy have to see more of her work some time. It's such a shame that she ruined her career by getting weird plastic surgeries on her upper lip and cheated on Nicholas Ray with his underage son. That's just too cray lol.

There's something about this film that's really haunting, mysterious, gloomy, puzzling and disturbing. It's a film that stays in your mind long after you watch it, and you try to mentally decipher it but you just can't.

Ingmar Bergman, the original emo!

Leila Hatami has such an attractive face and presence idk how to explain it but I love watching her act.

This is not so much a movie as it is a combination of great fashion aesthetics. I live for the quality cinematography and direction of great outfits/hairdo/makeup combos I'm srs. Ah anyway...

Arth is a melodramatic story about a director who is cheating on his wife and boning a famous actresses who is slowly losing her mind, and guess what, it's a semi-autobiographical biopic about the director Mahesh Bhatt's own tragic relationship with Parveen Babi, the former it girl of India in the 70s.



The sad thing is she was already spiraling into a state of severe schizophrenia, but this movie only served to exacerbate her condition. Parveen saw it and freaked out b.c it was a huge invasion of her privacy, as Mahesh pretty much hung her out to dry and made her seem like a "crazy whore." He exploited their tale of twisted romance for financial and personal gain, and the film turned out to be his first huge hit. Parveen, on the other hand, became super paranoid and left her acting career and became a reclusive pariah figure who never left her house. She died of starvation/gangrene at the premature age of 55. Her body rotted for 3 days until they found out she was dead.

So yeah I pretty much blame this fucking movie for largely contributing to Parveen's mental downfall, like when I was watching it I was thinking "lol this film mentally annihilated a human being awkwaaard." I kinda wanna kill Mahesh for making Arth but then again it's a pretty good movie so idk?? I like how he didn't demonize the wife and glorify the cheating husband. There was no "oh the bitch drove me to it" type of shit, he actually assigned blame to the philandering protagonist and gave the wife an interesting narrative.

To end off I mean yeah Arth caused Parveen to lose it and shows what a selfish piece of trash Mahesh is but it's a DAMN GOOD FILM WTF ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This movie made me laugh so hard haha. That's why I give it a 4, because we all need a giggle or two sometimes.

What does it mean to be an Iranian woman? This film explores that question in 3 short narratives put together to make 1 masterpiece of a movie. It's so riveting though I can't even describee!

What a disgusting movie lol! Not baad. I especially like the disturbing ending cuz I was getting some Laura Palmer-esque vibes from Barbara Crampton.

First off...wOw. I should have been watching Abbas Kiarostami's films a LONG time ago. Close-Up is a marvelous docufiction that is electrifying in so many different ways. I would call it "pure cinema," as in, a film that has been created purely to move the viewer artistically and emotionally, above all. The story is a true but strange tale about a guy named Hossain Sabzian who impersonates the director Mohsen Makhmalbaf for no reason other than to ingratiate himself with a well-to-do family that has a deep interest in cinema. His odd facade eventually unravels, and he is imprisoned and put on trial for fraud, and this film follows that experience.

I couldn't help but became totally enraptured with Hossain's words and thoughts on cinema, and his raw and honest dedication to it. Kiarostami's penetrating camera captures every feeling and inflection in Hossain's face and speech, and despite his bizarre and illegal behavior one can sympathize with him and understand him completely. I was deeply moved by this film, much to my surprise, and I can see that it is definitely a piece of cinema that is meant for the mind and heart, and to provoke thought and feeling. That is the true essence and purpose of film, in my opinion at least, and Kiarostami's Close-Up is a huge success in doing just that.

So this is like a retelling of Macbeth, except with brown people and set in modern day Mumbai and about the Indian gangsta underworld. God knows how much I hate Shakespeare but I like retellings of his work that bear absolutely no resemblance to the original. This film is like a Godfather-esque masterpiece featuring ah-may-zingg performances from the heavy eyebags virtuoso Irrfan Khan and my girlcrush Tabu. Loove it.

Solid movie and all but can someone tell me why Franco Nero is playing an Arab??? It's FRANCO NERO with an ITALIAN ACCENT!!!

This movie is sooo funny lol I laughed 2 hard. I didn't know Jerry Lewis was this hilarious, I thought he was just Dean Martin's bitch! Also I love how he goes from this:



To this:



The bottom line is that the man was finee.

This film's title asks "what makes Albert Pinto angry?" and throughout the film, it seems like every little thing pisses him off. Naseeruddin Shah plays the irritable protagonist, who is a Christian mechanic living Bombay AKA Mumbai and who is extremely discontented with his life but blames his discontent on the wrong things. His brother is a thuggish deadbeat who leeches off of the rest of his family, his father is a poorly paid blue collar worker who is preparing to go on strike, and his disabled yet fab sister is played by the gorgeous Smita Patil.



Albert constantly berates and pesters his girlfriend (also played by another superbabe, Shabana Azmi) for being a "slut" and tells his father he is a fool for wanting to go on strike. His chauvinism and conformistic values are exacerbated and encouraged by the rantings of the rich and pompous people whose cars he repairs, and the viewer can clearly see that his rage is misplaced.

The director Saeed Akhtar Mirza portrays Mumbai through a realistic and careful eye, taking in the full breadth of the complex cityscape and painting an illuminating portrait of blue collar Christian-Indian life. The film is obviously a communist/socialist commentary on the corruption and manipulation of India's capitalistic system, and it's comedic and bemusing yet fascinating and thoughtful at the same time. I reallyy love this film and I think it's a key entry in the brilliant cannon of parallel cinema.

This is the first Iranian film I've ever seen and it's top notch. A stressful viewing experience for sure, but the acting is otherworldly.

Marlon Brando dons a sombrero and slathers on some brownface in this "biopic" about Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata...a very historically inaccurate "biopic" that is conspicuously absent of any Latino actors whatsoever and doesn't mention at all that the U.S. literally backed the fascist dictator that Zapata and his rebels were fighting against. Lol these Hollywood movies are giving me a strokee!

So like after watching 4 documentaries in a row about U.S. imperialism in Latin America, well, I'm feeling kinda bitter to say the least. This doc highlights some of the worst crimes, such as the C.I.A. backed overthrows of democratically elected leaders like Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala and Chile's Salvator Allende, and also the attemps to topple Castro and Chavez. America's funding and training of death squads like the Contras and El Salvador's brutal military forces are also featured, and a lot of other horrible shit. But now I know the true face of America, and hell is it ugly.

This doc sheds a light on the USA's pathetic attempt to fund Venezuelan oligarchs to overthrow a compassionate socialist leader who wouldn't share his oil with them...and they failed ahahaha! R.I.P. Hugo Chavez, the man was like, a god.

Is this pro-Castro propaganda? Ya. And I also love it too!

This is basically blatant commie propaganda and I love it! Oliver Stone's a bit of a lunatic, but he's spot on with this documentary and its scathing take on US imperialism in Latin America.

The thing I found most outstanding about this movie is Freida Pinto's cheekbones. They are so sharp they could cut a bitch!

Long, long ago in India, there was this resplendent realism movement called Parallel Cinema. It was beautiful. Instead of just mass producing tacky Bollywood shallowness (which is pretty great too, don't get me wrong), some Indian directors started making down to earth humanistic intellectual films that touched the lives of everyday people. Ah, what a time.

Anyways, Shyam Benegal is one of the best directors of that movement and Mandi is a funny and thoughtful satire of prostitution, politics and $$. It stars the queens of the Parallel, Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil, and man do they look glam!

I also like how Mandi critiques crusading right-wing feminists who think they are doing prostitutes a favor by trying to shut them down. Exhibit A:

This film is soo sad and amazing because it's about poor brown people in India being poor. No seriously though, this film is like something Vittorio De Sica would have made if he were Indian. Such good acting from the child actors btw.

I love the cinematography and lighting in this film because, hello, it's Orson Welles directing it and he knows how to make a film visually tantalizing. However the storyline is, how can I put it...mundane? And the scene above in the screencap has the WEAKEST strangling I've seen in my life seriously smdh.

Babs Stanwyck goes on slut level 100 in this movie, it's so great! Baby Face is basically shitty pre-code nonsense but it's entertaining nonetheless.

A movie that's extremely boring + racist + has the most annoying music known to mankind that IS NOT jazz music at all even though it's supposed to be jazz wtf = an excruciating turd of a movie that I completely detest and loathe.

My first Satyajit Ray movie! Prettyy goodd. The sets are seriously blinged out and the acting is oustanding, especially Sanjeev Kumar and Amjad Khan's performances.

Oh Saddam, he was so quirky and eccentric! He's actually pretty charming once you get past all the Shi'ite and Kurd massacres. In this sarcastic documentary, you get to see all of his bizarre oddities in detail, combined with his demented cruelty that even his own family members weren't safe from.

What annoys me about this documentary though is that it's American propaganda to justify the US war against Iraq. Hell nooo! Btw, when the hell are Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld gonna be executed for war crimes too?

They are like "haha this movie is really funny...now lets go kill some Iraqi vilagers."

This movie is hilarious! ToOoO funny!

The FBI's murder of the 21 year old Black Panther Party revolutionary Fred Hampton has got to be one of the grossest events in modern history.

Could anyone whiter than Dennis Hopper have directed a movie about some pigs arresting black and Latino gang members? I think not!