What movies and TV shows are you watching?
What’re you watching now?
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Does anyone have thoughts regarding the ideal romantic film? I want something nice to watch.
Roman Holiday.
No, forget that. The best answer would be The Princess Bride.
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Yeah it’s weird. I think I never realized it was literally a child, more like you can sometimes call a 20 yo a child.
I never, ever, took Marion’s statement to mean she was actually a child; more like she was a naive young (but legal) woman in love with a (slightly) older, more worldly and experienced man.
I also find it hard to imagine that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg would casually make reference to their hero taking sexual advantage of a child; get your collective heads out of the gutter, you pervs!
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I don’t think I’ve seen Roman Holiday.
The Princess Bride is delightful. Really good script for a kissing book.
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Does anyone have thoughts regarding the ideal romantic film? I want something nice to watch.
I always liked True Romance.
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Does anyone have thoughts regarding the ideal romantic film? I want something nice to watch.
I always liked True Romance.
I love True Romance.
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Does anyone have thoughts regarding the ideal romantic film? I want something nice to watch.
Oh I completely forgot to reply to this: Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amelie Poulain… or I guess it was just called Amelie in english… I dunno… anyways, that’s pretty much the perfect romantic film, as far as I’m concerned.
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If you want a romantic film that involves a donkey and frequent discussions about going ass to mouth, how about Clerks 2?
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I watched Rocketman last night, or at least parts of it(it was on late and I fell asleep). Egerton was amazing. Can’t believe the man who played Eggsy also played Elton. He has a great deal of dramatic range
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Does anyone have thoughts regarding the ideal romantic film? I want something nice to watch.
Oh I completely forgot to reply to this: Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amelie Poulain… or I guess it was just called Amelie in english… I dunno… anyways, that’s pretty much the perfect romantic film, as far as I’m concerned.
Amelie is lovely. I haven’t watched it in years. I should give it another look.
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Amélie is a whimsical delight. It’s like stepping into an eccentric, charm-filled picture book view of Paris.
Eternal Sunshine is one of my all-time favourite films.
Ta for all the recommendations. Mark Kermode was waxing lyrical about Portrait of a Lady on Fire last month.
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Yes. The cinematography and costume designs are exquisite. It is hard to watch. All pent-up emotions and regret and snide condemnation from society.
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Just watched Red Dwarf: The Promised Land and thought it was lots of fun. A longer runtime than usual and a slightly more cinematic scope, but still pretty much the same show as it ever was, with plenty of laughs, some fun ideas and some nice character moments. If this is the last hurrah then it’s not a bad way to go out.
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Ponyo
What the hell was that?
I know things get lost in translation but I got very lost here. Randomly transforming fish-girl with a weird sea wizard dad, a lot of shoggoth-like wave-fish-monsters, a giant sea-goddess, some dysfunctional marriage comedy, a (somehow) candle-powered boat and some old folks who feel like they should be in ‘Cocoon”?
Well… it was different….
It’s Little Mermaid filtered through a Japanese lens.
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I watched Rocketman last night, or at least parts of it
somethingsomething..boost in the fanjo..somethingsomething…
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I recently (finally) saw Eddie the Eagle, and it was fun seeing Eggerton in another biopic role. He’s really good.
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I saw Eddie the Eagle a few weeks back too. It’s quite fun and doesn’t take that many liberties with the real story, just a couple of small embellishments (I knew it growing up and Eddie became quite a celebrity in the UK).
Egerton has taken a very interesting path with his career, he has leading man looks but looks more interested in showing his acting chops, which’ll likely serve him better in the long term.
Of course that’s him singing without autotune though – he’s Welsh!
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Watched The Incredibles 2 yesterday. It was alright. The action scenes were quite amazing, and Jack-Jack was a lot of fun. Mr. Incredible’s stay-at-home plight was a bit of a slog, really, and felt a bit out of place – like something that should’ve been in a script fifty years ago or so.
It was also a bit of a shame that the villain was basically a rehash of the first one – inventive tech genius with a hatred for supers because they supposedly keep the normal guy down. And as with the first part, this part reads to me as a Randian obsession with how the banal, non-special people hate the special, gifted, noble ones and try to tear them down. In the first part, it was even more obvious because the villain’s plan was to give everybody super-powers and the evil of it was that nobody would be special anymore then; in this one, the villain had an added motive and everything, but the central paradox is still there, especially if you consider: the Incredibles were all just born with their powers. The villain, on the other hand, Tony-Starked herself into being able to fight them. It’s the far more impressive feat really, but it’s seen as despicable, because she isn’t really special.
Anyway, I kinda wish it’d been just a super-powered villain and not another story about someone trying to erase super-heroes in general. Not just because I don’t like the philosophy of it, but also because it’s too much of a rehash of the first one because it it. And the first one was a bit better.
Yeah, but anyway. Many fun scenes. Great action sequences. I still think it was a big mis-step on Disney’s part not to give Star Wars to Bird. It’d be right up his alley thematically, too.
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Watched the original Jurassic Park with my daughter for the first time last night. I hadn’t watched it in a few years and she loved it – at 9 she’s the perfect age for both the scares and the sense of wonder.
I always forget just what a perfectly-judged thrill ride it is and how the whole thing builds from an anticipation-generating first 45 minutes or so to the dino action and adventure of the second half.
It’s much more of an unashamed “theme park ride” than the MCU movies (with apologies to Martin Scorsese) and does what it sets out to do perfectly.
She watched it really closely too and picked up on a connection that I’d always missed in the past (between the final shots of the pelicans and Grant’s earlier line about never looking at birds in the same way again). I love it when these classics still give up something new on a rewatch.
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Watched The Incredibles 2 yesterday. It was alright. The action scenes were quite amazing, and Jack-Jack was a lot of fun. Mr. Incredible’s stay-at-home plight was a bit of a slog, really, and felt a bit out of place – like something that should’ve been in a script fifty years ago or so.
It’s probably notable that I saw it in the cinema with the kids and can’t remember anything about it other than the Mr Incredible at home bits that seemed so antiquated. Can’t comment on the villain as I have forgotten who it was or why they were doing anything.
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Birds notice all the little details.
Grant is flying in a bird as he says it so the other predators go the way of the dinosaurs.
You should get her to watch The Birds next.
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I watched The Pink Panther (1963) last night. It’s still funny as hell. You can see how Peter Sellers basically stole the movie, and the franchise, from David Niven. I can’t imagine Peter Ustinov as Clouseau, as he was originally cast for the role. Sellers jumped in with both feet and ended up cutting into Niven’s screen time. Blake Edwards had the perfect cast for the movie.
And Henry Mancini was a musical genius.
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Where did Indiana go?
Last night was Temple of Doom, the night before was Raiders. I switched on the telly and he’s not there.
Now I’m going to have to find something else to watch. Too much effort.
Come back Indy. I was only messing: you’re way cooler than Ferris.
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I’m watching ‘The Tiger King and I’, the after-show with Joel McHale interviewing (remotely) a lot of the participants of the documentary.
Halfway through and it’s very entertaining, but it’s all interviews, not extra footage (unless that’s later).
I’m enjoying it.
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I watched the first ep of Tales from the Loop. Felt like a six page 2000ad Future Shock (short story with a twist ending) stretched out over a whole (beautifully shot) hour. I wasnt bored as such but it did feel long and I was very aware of the deliberate glacial pacing.
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Watched Black Panther for the first time last night on Disney +. I don’t get why so many people lost their minds over it and called for a best picture Oscar nomination. Dont get me wrong, it was good and I enjoyed it, but it was good like a good like a Marvel movie is good or fast food is good. Impressive spectacle but ultimately empty calories.
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I agree, it was an entertaining movie and probably in the top half of the MCU movies but at the same time it didn’t transcend that in the way that a Dark Knight or Avengers did.
I think it’s fair to acknowledge that a certain amount of the fuss around it was to do with the representation element of offering a largely black cast and African setting, which is not a negligible aspect and is totally worthy of recognition – but which Marvel also played on fairly cynically as part of the hype around it.
In the end I think it was difficult to untangle the merits of the film in its own right (like you say, it’s a good, fun movie) with the larger cultural conversation, which probably amplified those strengths to some extent and led to all the Oscar stuff (at a time when the Oscars were also seeking to deal with their own diversity issues).
It’s difficult to write a post like this without it seeming like I’m trying to diminish the film’s achievements, which I’m not trying to do. Sometimes though these films become bigger than just a movie and become emblematic of wider social issues, and I think that’s what happened with Black Panther and helped it to make such a huge impact.
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Eh, I don’t mind diminishing the film’s achievements: it’s rather mediocre… not as bad as Captain Marvel (at least BP had good villains), but both are just good examples of the Disney hype machine cashing into trendy social issues.
I’m glad black people enjoyed it on a more social/cultural level (same for CM I guess), not shitting on their enjoyment, which is very valid, but in terms of movies and even SH movies specifically, they are both kinda crappy… but hey, they really marketed the shit out of those 2 movies and turned them into some sort of corporate-designed cultural revolution… and surprisingly people bought it hook, line and sinker…
It’s really weird when something that was very fringe 15 years ago is the most basic mainstream shit there is these days.
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I agree, it was an entertaining movie and probably in the top half of the MCU movies but at the same time it didn’t transcend that in the way that a Dark Knight or Avengers did.
I think it’s fair to acknowledge that a certain amount of the fuss around it was to do with the representation element of offering a largely black cast and African setting, which is not a negligible aspect and is totally worthy of recognition – but which Marvel also played on fairly cynically as part of the hype around it.
In the end I think it was difficult to untangle the merits of the film in its own right (like you say, it’s a good, fun movie) with the larger cultural conversation, which probably amplified those strengths to some extent and led to all the Oscar stuff (at a time when the Oscars were also seeking to deal with their own diversity issues).
It’s difficult to write a post like this without it seeming like I’m trying to diminish the film’s achievements, which I’m not trying to do. Sometimes though these films become bigger than just a movie and become emblematic of wider social issues, and I think that’s what happened with Black Panther and helped it to make such a huge impact.
Yeah. That’s put my thoughts into words better than I could have. There are lots of hugely positive things to take from the film in terms of social impact but, when viewed purely as a blockbuster, it’s still just (very enjoyable) popcorn fodder. I felt I should feel a bit of guilt being a white male from a comfortable socioeconomic background (in fact I nearly didn’t make the original post because of that) but I definitely think the points are all valid.
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‘Life of Brian’
As an Easter choice, it had a lot going for it and we really enjoyed seeing it again. The satirical bits of the film really hold up.
Which is a shame because it means that people still do dumb stuff because of political or religious ideologies.
There are also a lot of scenes that use some excellent slapstick, wordplay, and jokes you can tell came from the Python’s experiences at public school
‘Holy Grail’ is funnier, but this is a better film.
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‘Holy Grail’ is funnier, but this is a better film.
Yeah I think that’s fair. I still remember laughing so hard at Life of Brian when I first saw it that I almost literally split my sides (I was recovering from an operation, so it also literally had me in stitches), but it has its more serious moments too, which are conveyed well. Holy Grail in comparison is more of a loose bunch of sketches on a theme.
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In the end I think it was difficult to untangle the merits of the film in its own right (like you say, it’s a good, fun movie) with the larger cultural conversation, which probably amplified those strengths to some extent and led to all the Oscar stuff (at a time when the Oscars were also seeking to deal with their own diversity issues).
I also think that it is a strength of the movie that it is deliberately and openly political; apart from it working well enough as a good, but not great, popcorn Marvel movie, there were a few things that were excellently done: the way they portrayed very strong female characters without making a big deal of it, painting Wakanda as a convincingly futuristic, confident African country and society; the villain’s strong motivation and calling out social injustic with that motivation. I think all of those went beyond mere vapid entertainment and elevated the film. Somewhat.
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In the end I think it was difficult to untangle the merits of the film in its own right (like you say, it’s a good, fun movie) with the larger cultural conversation, which probably amplified those strengths to some extent and led to all the Oscar stuff (at a time when the Oscars were also seeking to deal with their own diversity issues).
I also think that it is a strength of the movie that it is deliberately and openly political; apart from it working well enough as a good, but not great, popcorn Marvel movie, there were a few things that were excellently done: the way they portrayed very strong female characters without making a big deal of it, painting Wakanda as a convincingly futuristic, confident African country and society; the villain’s strong motivation and calling out social injustic with that motivation. I think all of those went beyond mere vapid entertainment and elevated the film. Somewhat.
I agree. It dealt with ideas that were more interesting than standard superhero fare.
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I watched four Michael Haneke movies recently and he’s become one of my favorite directors.
Cache – The best of the four. A French TV host receives a series of videotapes from an unknown sender that show his house from the street. Over time the videos become more and more intrusive, pointing him toward an unresolved act of callousness from his childhood. A mystery thriller on its surface, the story morphs into something more unsettling, delving into issues of memory, colonialism, racism, and the medium of film itself.
The Piano Teacher – Not for the faint of heart. Isabelle Huppert, in one of the most courageous and layered performances I’ve ever seen, plays a sexually repressed piano teacher who enters into a sadomasochistic relationship with one of her students. But as disturbing as their relationship is, it’s the relationship between Huppert and her overbearing, manipulative mother that will linger with you afterwards.
Like Cache, The Piano Teacher opens up more questions than it answers. Haneke’s work is most obsessed with subjectivity, most of all the subjective viewpoints of his audience. How thoroughly can aberrant behavior really be explained? How much do any of us actually know about each other?
Benny’s Video – This one isn’t for the faint of heart, either. The film follows Benny, a high school student obsessed with making videos. The video he’s proudest of is one of a pig being killed–this killing opens the film and sets the tone for what’s to come. While his parents are away for the weekend, Benny invites a girl home and kills her with the same bolt gun used to kill the pig. He then shows the video he made of the killing to his parents and they’re forced to decide whether to turn their son in to the police or help him cover up the crime.
This movie may be the most fascinating look at a serial killer I’ve ever seen (Benny only kills one person in the movie but it’s clear he’s the type who’ll kill again). Not least because, again, it refuses to give us pat answers. And like Cache, Benny’s Video examines cinema as a medium, asking whether an art form, even one that catches the world in such vivid detail, can ever deliver objective truths.
The White Ribbon – Set in Northern Germany in the year before WWI, The White Ribbon is the story of a town suffering in silence under the vice grips of capitalism and puritanical religion, and of the generation that would go on to birth Nazism. A series of brutal attacks, the culprits unclear, unsettle the townsfolk and threaten the institutions that rule their lives. Although a story of evil at its core, there are also scenes of genuine warmth and community, that make the evil all the more heartbreaking.
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‘Holy Grail’ is funnier, but this is a better film.
Yeah I think that’s fair. I still remember laughing so hard at Life of Brian when I first saw it that I almost literally split my sides (I was recovering from an operation, so it also literally had me in stitches), but it has its more serious moments too, which are conveyed well. Holy Grail in comparison is more of a loose bunch of sketches on a theme.
That’s because it originally was going to be a sketch movie, flipping between an Arthurian quest and modern-day ones with themes and characters linked to the quest. The modern-day sketches weren’t great and they decided to concentrate on the Holy Grail side of things instead. A few great bits got cut during writing though – originally Arthur and the knights were going to suffer through the song and dance routine at Calemot, after which Arthur was going to declare that this was no time for amateur dramatics, only for one of the singers to say “semi-pro…”
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Of course that’s him singing without autotune though – he’s Welsh!
I googled him after the movie and when I found out that fact, I knew that if I mentioned him you would make that sort of statement.
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I rewatched Battle Royale during the week, and yeah, that movie holds up. It’s 21 years old though! It doesn’t have the same emotional weight it did when I first saw it – half my life ago – but it’s a lean, exceptional piece of storytelling where everything moves the plot forward or adds depth in a really economic way, even the special edition adding in the basketball match framing device, the flashback to Mitsuko’s childhood, and extending the classroom/briefing scene a bit. Oh, and adding a cubic gigabyte of additional CGI blood. This time around, I was drawn more to the excessive melodrama. Most of the actors were younger than 17 at the time, and it adds a level of naturalism to their behaviour when they are going over the top with reactions and movement.
Also, Beat Takeshi is fantastic, because he always is. And it always amuses me that the girl on the video who tells the kids about the rules of Battle Royale is played by Yuko Miyamura, who played Asuka in Evangelion. This is one of only a handful of live-action acting appearances she has.
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I’ve finally started watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, which I’ve owned on DVD since 2005. It’s good so far!
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I’ve finally started watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, which I’ve owned on DVD since 2005. It’s good so far!
Just in time for the prequel to hit Netflix next week!
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Saw the Tiger King.
There are certainly a lot of interesting people in the exotic animal scene.
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I read the summary of the follow up interview show. Interesting they misgendered Saff all the way through. He says he’s not hugely sensitive about it but as a trans man should not have been referred to as ‘she’.
I liked that Joshua, the only normal one, when asked to review the show was the only one who said it was pretty fair and accurate about everyone involved, all the others claiming they were stitched up.
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I couldn’t sleep last night, and wound up putting Stripes on on Netflix. I remember liking it when I was a teenager but… yeah, no. I don’t think I laughed once at any of the jokes, a bunch of the actors – most notably Warren Oates and John Larroquette as Captain Stillman have this weird timing to so many of their lines, Oates especially doing this weird smile thing during almost every reaction shot that just kills the flow of the dialogue over and over again.
While it’s definitely an artefact of the Animal House school of comedy Stripes belongs to, there’s also these periodical cuts away to naked women – Bill Murray’s character’s girlfriend walks out of the bathroom only wearing briefs at the start of the movie, Stillman peeps on female soldiers taking a shower about a half-hour in, and the recruits end up in a topless bar with a mud wrestling ring about a half-hour later. And it’s just there to have tits in the movie a few times. Also, John Candy’s character just starts hassling one of the black recruits towards the end, and there’s no plot reason for it, making him seem pretty racist?
Ultimately, it’s one of those movies that doesn’t really have a plot for the most part, the first hour is just jokes with a handful of linking scenes, followed by the whole thing where Murray and Harold Ramis’ character steal the mobile home/urban assault vehicle to bring their girlfriends to a hotel (who they literally meet twice in the movie and then sleep with them on the third encounter), their platoon goes to find them, accidentally drives into Czechoslovakia, get captured by Russians somehow, and then rescued by Murray et al. And it just doesn’t work. This is like… a thing occupying the husk of a movie it’s killed and skinned. Why does Murray respect Sergeant Hulka at the end? I know it’s because it’s the end of the movie and that’s what happens in these movies, but there’s no development on-screen, and there’s no point to having the scene in the movie at all.
Ugh.
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I read the summary of the follow up interview show. Interesting they misgendered Saff all the way through. He says he’s not hugely sensitive about it but as a trans man should not have been referred to as ‘she’.
I liked that Joshua, the only normal one, when asked to review the show was the only one who said it was pretty fair and accurate about everyone involved, all the others claiming they were stitched up.
It was probably fair and accurate to him then.
A show like that is hundreds of hours cut down to just a few. I’m sure any of them could point to things that were left out which they think give a more accurate impression of who they are?
Saff has done a few interviews, he seems entirely uninterested in the gender pronouns. Not that he doesn’t understand why it matters generally, it just doesn’t matter to him.
So there’s a lot of reports right now saying that you were misgendered throughout the series and I wanted to see if you wanted to address all of that.
I think the reason that I stay pretty neutral on it all is I’ve never been one to tell people what to be or what to say or how to handle anything. It’s a big community out there so I don’t want to pick a side either way. If people are asking me what I prefer, it’s very obvious what I prefer, and that’s he. But I’m not going to tell anyone what they need to or should call me. I think that everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, and I’m obviously as easygoing in that department as I can get.
I don’t think that I personally get offended I think others do. I think everyone should stand up for what they believe in. I just — it’s literally one of the last things that I really considered worrying about.
There were also some reports that identified you as a trans man.
No, I, I can honestly say no. I don’t know that that describes me. You know, nothing was done. I really just have lived this lifestyle. And, you know, my family knows this. And obviously, people closest to me know. This is how I’ve lived my entire life. I don’t know anything else.
https://www.out.com/television/2020/4/01/tiger-kings-saff-still-wants-best-animals
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I thought Saff was very likeable, too. I mean, he doesn’t care about any of the shit that everybody is up to; he just wants to be left alone and take care of the animals. He’s completely no-nonsense all the way through whenever he talks.
I also thought that Reinke seemed pretty normal. I mean, I’m saying this about a guy without legs who drives around with a skeleton in his car and lives in a trailer, but… he really was just a pretty nice guy doing his job throughout.
And everybody else – Joe, Doc Ankel, Mike, Allen, Carol, fucking Jeff and James… – they were all lying through their teeth and working their own cons, so I’m not surprised they’d claim to be misrepresented.
(And to be fair, they did use some polemic camera tricks that I didn’t like – stuff like leaving a silence in the conversation and filming people looking awkward while they are waiting for the next question; everybody looks nervous and suspect when there’s a camera on you and you’re just waiting for the next question. Or like having John sit half-naked the entire time.
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Yesterday I rewatched:
Interstellar – This is probably as good as space opera ever gets. It’s much better than the rather disappointing (but beautiful) Ad Astra. The music, the effects, are staggeringly good. Don’t think this movie would’ve worked half as well without that very uncharacteristic Zimmer score. No time for caution. Also: I love TARS. There is no way a robot with that kind of design would work in this setting but for some reason, I don’t care. I just love him. I’ve read about some of the script revisions they’ve done of this movie, and I’m really really glad they kept Thorne on the movie to balance out some of the more outlandish ideas that Nolan put forth. This is an awesome movie. The only thing I really don’t like about it is the bullshit about love. Love is a quantifiable universal constant? Eat my ass. 8/10
3:10 to Yuma – A very good western, with an uncharacteristically honest villain. I like the team that Crowe and Bale makes, and their relationship developing throughout the movie. I don’t like the ending chase, it’s just a little too much, but the ending itself is okay, if a bit sad. The tension between Bale and his son is good, and I like that they get to reconcile by the end. The most enjoyable thing though, was seeing that barn-burning son of a bitch get stabbed with a fork in the throat about twenty times. Go Ben Wade, Go! 7/10
Also hopped on the first two episodes of Devs. This series shows real promise. I went in blind and while I do think it may be a little on the slow side, I don’t want that to stop anyone from giving it a chance. Mysteries kind of need to be slow for the tension to work. I won’t be saying more about it than that, as I benefited a lot from going in blind. And so might you. ?/10
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there’s also these periodical cuts away to naked women
That film came on British TV when I was around 13 or so. The naked women are all I can remember about and really all I was interested in at that time. How times have changed where today’s generation can just type in a search for it.
It was probably fair and accurate to him then.
Maybe, or probably more likely all the other major players had some very dodgy aspects to their lives they weren’t overly happy being on screen. Those were the things referred to. Like many convictions, possible murder, meth addiction.
If he hid anything of that level away from the producers then hats off to him.
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I thought Covenant was ok, but not quite as good as Prometheus.
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And David… ugh. Terrible,
100% agree that this movie isn’t as good as any of the first 4 Alien movies, but it still holds a special place in my heart because of David. Come to think of it, I think he would look great twirling a moustache. But come on, cliched or not: he’s clearly the hero of the story.
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I kinda liked Walter
Not the way David did.
“I’ll do the fingering.”
I think the ending is my favourite part of the movie. It’s obvious that it’s David and while it sure would’ve felt fresh for it to be Walter it would’ve just fizzled out. Instead it ended… beautifully. I hope they make a sequel. Alien: David Kills – In Space!
Can’t shake the unmistakeable felling that… somehow… we’ve had conversations like this before. Was Alien: Covenant and Man of Steel still hot topics in my absence? Or have you gotten back into it just for me to feel at home? You know what? I’m going to do it.
Home sweet home.
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Jumanji: The Next Level is one of those sequels that’s almost-but-not-quite as good as the previous movie.
The returning actors do their thing again, and the newcomers – including The Hound as a cartoonish villain and a winning pairing of Dannys Devito and Glover – add a slightly different dynamic to things, but it’s mostly a fairly similar retread.
Having said that, the formula works and there are some solid laughs here as well as some decent action scenes. And at least two of the in-game cast do a terrific Danny Devito impression, providing some of the most fun moments in the movie.
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Funny Games (original Austrian version) – This famously hard to watch movie, which is about a pair of rich kids terrorizing a family on vacation at their lakeside summer home, wasn’t as difficult as I thought it’d be since most of the violence happens out of frame–but the emotional trauma of the family is always front and center and makes for a harrowing viewing experience all the same.
Haneke breaks the fourth wall a few times via the leader of the two torturers, commenting on audience expectations, the thrill of watching violence unfold on screen, and the nature of fiction. Maybe that sounds insufferable but I found it fascinating. It’d be one thing if Haneke were berating the audience for watching violent movies but instead he’s arguing that we should never dismiss fictional violence as meaningless. It does things for and to us that are worth considering.
After Hours – Seriously underrated Scorsese. His funniest after Goodfellas. Griffin Dunne plays a yuppie who spends a hellish night trying to make his way back home after a bad date. On his way, he loses all his money except 97 cents, finds out the subway fare was raised that night to $1.50, gets on the wrong side of a cabbie, encounters four more strange women, finds the body of a suicide victim, witnesses a murder, and gets chased by a vigilante mob that mistakes him for the burglar who’s been terrorizing their neighborhood. This movie’s like a proto-Safdie brothers film. Very intense and stressful but seriously funny.
The Double Life of Veronique – This is one of the most beautiful movies I’ve ever seen, up there with Andrei Rublev, In the Mood for Love, and The Spirit of the Beehive. Irene Jacob plays two women, Veronique and Weronika, one in France and the other in Poland, who are perfect doubles of each other, and who share an intense emotional bond even though neither is aware of the other’s existence.
The mechanism that links them is never explained but it doesn’t matter, because the movie is more focused on the connections we share with each other and with nature that are difficult, if not impossible, to put to words. We’ve all had moments where we’ve felt like we’ve glimpsed the bigger picture, only for that greater meaning to slip away the instant we begin to examine it. This is a movie about those moments. Even when the story doesn’t add up it’s speaking to you on an unconscious level, moving you with images and sounds and the wonder and lust for life of its two main characters.
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No, doing the updog will give you ligma.
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No, I believe you are both thinking of a henway
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Skipped last weeks National Theatre youtube release (didnt fancy three hours of Jane Eyer) but this weeks release of Treasure Island was a lot of fun. An impressive looking set and some good performances.
Available until next Thursday here:
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