Help! This evening I am meeting my pals from our local film club to decide which seven movies we will be screening this autumn. Are there any movies you have seen in the last 12 months that would bring delight to the southern suburbs of Stockholm?
Almost anything goes, but our mission is to screen stuff that won’t get much of an airing at the local multiplex. I would be particularly keen to hear about some good comedies.
Our cinephiles do tend to like glum films. The five most popular screenings in the last two years were:
I, Daniel Blake, Das schweigende Klassenzimmer, Human Flow, Insyriated and Utøya.
All fine films but not many laughs. That last one, a reconstruction of the Norwegian massacre is a particularly grim evening at the cinema.
Some of my personal favourites from recent years were Happy as Lazzaro, Roma, On Body and Soul, Paterson and Le Sens de la Fete.
All suggestions gratefully received!
Given your location, Stockholm might interest you. It’s “based on an absurd but true story” of the 1973 bank heist and hostage crisis at the Kreditbanken, at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm, that gave birth to the term “Stockholm Syndrome”. I liked it very much, but it’s not the sort of film that would have large commercial success and I was thinking as I watched it how good Ethan Hawke is, how he never just phones in a performance but always gives it 100%, even in small independent movies like this.
I also recently enjoyed two Matt Smith films. Mapplethorpe and Charlie Says. In the former he plays Robert Mapplethorpe and in the latter he plays Charles Manson. Both impressive performances. An actress I’d never heard of, Marianne Rendón, is also in both films (as, respectively, Patti Smith and Susan Atkins). Charlie Says was the better of the two.
Other than those, my personal absolute favourite film of recent years is Mike Leigh’s Peterloo.
Lots of interesting things there. Thanks Gary! I don’t think Peterloo has been released here yet.
But when it is, we will definitely show it. Very much a Bio Reflexen film.
Matt Smith as Charles Manson! Crikey!
KFD – Peterloo finally gets a cinema release in Sweden on 9 August.
Thanks Duke! That does sound like a really crap release date. Reflexen is closed until September and the received wisdom in the cinema branch in Sweden seems to be that in June, July and August, very few people want to to the movies.
I tend to indulge in a few summer blockbusters with my son and hair when we are down on Öland. I actually enjoyed the Fast and the Furious 8!!!
“My son and hair” – I hope that was intentional and not a typo, cos it’s an excellent joke. Made me chuckle.
Last year, someone on here reviewed Annihilation, a Netflix release, and I loved it. It’s superficially a horror movie in the Alien mould, but it’s a visual feast, with a dense, suffocating atmosphere and soundtrack. Hugely imaginative – and apocalyptic – it seems perfect for our times.
I usually have nothing to say about modern cinéma (a lot about the old movies) but this time, my sister invited me at a local movie theater in Pouvourville , there I got to see that pearl with hints of a modern Woody Allen and Rossellini Ingrid Bergma-cinématographic fiasco. Sibyl (2019)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9173264/
If you can get the rights then Roma is the one I would feel.
To our enormous surprise, we did get the rights for a screening and it was an enormous success.
Incidentally, I really enjoyed your recent John Wick review, Mr M. Now there is a film we would NEVER show. Our genteel, Austenesque audience gets a bit upset if a character stubs his toe or has a nosebleed.
I have been looking through Mark Kermode’s Best of 2019 for ideas. He is a persuasive chap and certainly dares to go his own way. Some of the movies that he thinks highly of get a very poor score on IMDB (if that proves anything!) I always find it a useful pace to start when trying to get an idea about a film. But it is very Anglophone.
How about, You Were Never Really Here – may be too old?
Only just out over here but Birds Of Passage by the director of Embrace Of The Serpent sounds very interesting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birds_of_Passage_(film)
I absolutely loathed YWNRH. Really dull. Mind you, I hated most of the films on Kermode’s list.
Mikethep was very enthusiastic about Birds of Passage and we screened it at Reflexen. Sadly I had a clash and it was Pajaros vs Peters that evening and Gretchen won.
Stockholm has a mini Latino Film Festival every year. Some interesting stuff gets shown.
not 2019, but 1998, I recommand the Six Strings Samuraï, a rockn’roll dystopia with Buddy Holly as a hero :
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118736/
I never go to the cinema anymore (for lots of reasons) but I buy quite a few DVDs, which I rarely have time to actually watch. This is why I’ve planned to have my own film festival for one, during my vacation (which started yesterday) to finally get through some of those DVDs.
I’ve put together a program of sorts, grouping films together in threesomes with some kind of common theme. Not at all particularly new films in most cases, but new to me – plus one group of films that meant a lot to me when I first saw them in my teens and haven’t dared to revisit for fear of being disappointed…but planning to finally rewatch them now! I have lots of possible groups of films written down – more than I’ll have time to watch this time around – but these are the ones I’m planning to start with:
Gräns (Border)
The Lobster
Annihilation
A Trip to the Moon
Metropolis (I think I saw this on TV as a child, but can’t remember much)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
Blade Runner (I’ve seen this one, of course, but not the Director’s Cut, and it’ll lead into…)
Blade Runner 2049
The Fifth Element
And the huge favourites I haven’t seen since I was a teenager are:
Miracle in Milan
Aguirre – The Wrath of God
Paradistorg/Paradise Place
Also – but I do this every summer (especially when there’s a heatwave going on) – I will revisit my favourite original monster films: The Mummy/King Kong/Frankenstein.
All on a small screen of course, but a comfortable seat, good food, bathroom breaks anytime I want, and if a film turns out to be a stinker I can end the agony half-way through and watch something else, so that’s a pretty good trade-off. And, most important: no audience there to see me cry my eyes out for pretty much any film ever made… 🙂
This thread was worth it, just to hear about the Locust Film Festival, an event which puts Cannes to shame. I love the idea of your themed threesomes and you seem to have some fine films lined up.
I had never heard of Paradistorg.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076524/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1
So that got me digging a bit. It was produced by Ingmar Bergman and the director., Gunnel Lindblom, worked together a lot with the great man.
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/a/0E8je0/gunnel-lindblom-86-om-ingmar-bergman-och-metoo-han-hade-val-fatt
That was interesting!
As regards having a good sniffle, there is something to be said for experiencing a film together with others.
Making use of Kleenex in a large cinema just adds to the pleasure.
One of my most powerful cinema experiences in recent months was watching a Norwegian teen romcom in a cinema full of teenagers. The screams of laughter and embarrassment were something else.
.
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The film version of What We Do in the Dark, made and set in Wellington, New Zealand. Simpler and less ‘knowing’ than the new L.A. based, I think, series. Quite delightful once you settle in past the first few introductory sillinesses.
You are a man of taste, Retro, The original is directed by NZ director, Taika Waititi, who has a whole bunch of fine films to his name.
Boy, Flight of the Conchords, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Thor: Ragnarok…
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0169806/?ref_=tt_ov_dr#director
A very amusing chap!
More Darryl weirdness.
I haven’t seen it yet, but Booksmart comes highly recommended by both thep offspring.
Woman at War was brilliant – Icelandic movie about a determined ecowarrior. Very funny.
Wild Rose is another I haven’t seen, but sounds good.
I saw Booksmart this week.
A reasonable effort, I suppose, but I don’t think their target audience was 57-year-old males. Watching it, I felt … rather old.
A good comedy ought to be able to transcend generation gaps but perhaps a really good comedy does aim for a particular age group. Then again, maybe not.
Avengers: Endgame, a movie which had great appeal for a young audience had me in stitches at times. Some brilliant one liners and very funny scenes. Thor as an alcoholic coach potato was hysterical.
I will give Booksmart a chance too, but probably on DVD:
You will be pleased to hear that Woman at War was one of our choices. My colleagues who had seen it at an info screening were also very impressed.
The other six films we went for were:
Sir – Rohena Gera (India)
The Journey – Nick Hamn (UK)
Queen of Hearts – May el Toukhy (Denmark)
Never look away – Florian Henckel von Donnersmark (Germany)
The Guilty – Gustav Möller (Denmark)
Another day of life – Raul de la Fuente
This is confidential, so please do not leak our choices to SVT!!
My favourite film so far this year is Peter Strickland’s comic-horror masterpiece “In Fabric”, his fourth film after Katalin Varga, Berberian Sound Studio & The Duke Of Burgundy (all great, if you’ve missed any of them). A cross between a Hammer horror and Are You Being Served?, but with Strickland’s unique sensibility, it is perhaps an acquired taste, a portmanteau with two linked stories and a great cast, but it’s a film I personally can’t wait to see again when it gets its proper UK opening on Friday this week.
Thanks @KDH! A completely new name for me and he sounds like a fascinating film-maker. I will keep my eyes peeled.
The only film I’ve been bothered to go to a cinema to watch this year;
Nothing else come comes close…
What a treat to see this on the big screen! (I did so myself many years ago – nowadays I’d be worried that at my age I might not make it through three hours without a wee break!)
THE film got THE book length study by THE expert this year
https://www.reelartpress.com/catalog/edition/118/once-upon-a-time-in-the-west