Category: Movie Pass Adventures

Originally I planned to go to a showing of Hundreds of Beavers tonight. When that fell through, I sorted my Letterboxd watchlist by length to find a shorter film and chose Daisies. Less than a minute into the credits I realized I wasn’t up for a 1960’s surrealist art film, and switched to Attack the Block, the story of lower class London teenagers simultaneously fighting off an alien invasion, the police, and a drug dealer.

I keep saying “these aren’t the kinds of movies I normally like,” then watching them and liking them. I think I may have been lying to myself about what I like.

Also: John Boyega is made of charisma.

I don’t really remember exactly what I thought of this when it came out, but I’m sure my sophisticated fourteen year old brain thought “this lacks the subtlety and nuance of The Empire Strikes Back- it’s leaning too hard into the fantasy action tropes that Star wars so deftly homages.” Except I probably condensed that to “this is dumb.”

I watched it last night, and my main thought was “OH YEAH! THIS IS RAD!” Sure, I could expand on that and talk about the wholehearted embrace of serial archetypes, the intricate costume and set design, and of course the roaring score by Queen, but I’m old enough to know my original response is the most honest.

And every shot of blessed Brian Blessed is pure gold.

If you’ve got an hour and a quarter and want to see an old boxer have a brutal fight while being betrayed by nearly everyone, this is the movie for you! Lots of snappy dialogue, tons of deep sharp shadows, a story that starts at miserable and goes down from there- classic film noir stuff.

This didn’t do much for me.

Maybe it’s because I worked as a sort-of projectionist at Beatlefest in Los Angeles for a few years, showing tenth generation copies of obscure footage that the promoter had loaded onto home-grade Betamax tapes, so I’ve already seen a lot of rare Beatles stuff. Maybe it’s because I just saw a DEVO documentary that was more energetic and more directly connected to my world. Or maybe there’s been so much Beatles content in general that I’m approaching my Beatles saturation point.

Sure, there were some fascinating moments- The Miracles covering “Yesterday,” David Lynch talking about attending their first concert in the United States- but very little of The Beatles themselves felt fresh or surprising.

I found a list on Letterboxd of 100 overlooked films directed by women. I hadn’t seen any of them, and I decided I should. This is the first.

My thoughts while watching:

• “Hey, this looks a lot like Go Fish.”
• “Hey, they just referenced a book about making Go Fish.”
• “Hey, that’s the lead from Go Fish.”

The Watermelon Woman has all of the strengths and weaknesses of Go Fish. It’s about fascinating subjects that are under-represented, and it uses natural settings and performances that sometimes increase the feel of reality. It also struggles to stretch its tiny budget, and the less polished performances can be distracting. It also has the bonus issue of being shot in color. It makes sense to use color to separate current events from the old films and photos, but it’s a lot harder to get color right.

One movie down, 99 to go!

Apparently I’m in Silent Movie Mode. This one came out within two months of The General, but it feels much more dated (well, except for The General’s heavily implied pro-racism stance). The story is whisper-thin. It’s a movie where people meet one day, and by the end of the next day they’re engaged. The main reason it still holds up at all is Clara Bow; she makes even the most nonsensical plot point watchable.

I did not expect to hear Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” in a movie about a lonely gay man in post World War II Mexico, but that’s actually pretty tame for a Luca Guadagnino movie based on a William S. Burroughs novel. There’s a little too little story to sustain a movie this long, and the tonal shift in the third act is jarring, but it mostly works.

Also features significant discussion of telepathy.

This movie is nearly a century old, and it’s still engaging. It’s full of incredible stunts that would never be attempted today. Keaton’s expressions tell more than most actors can do with words. A great film… except for the whole “hooray for the Confederacy” thing. If you can manage to turn off the part of your brain that knows he’s fighting in favor of slavery, it’s a great ride.

As for the unclear date: most places say it was released in December of 1926, but a lot (including Amazon, where I watched it) say 1927. Release dates weren’t as locked in then, so that’s not surprising.

“Lighthearted fun” sounds dismissive, but making lighthearted fun that’s actually lighthearted and fun is an impressive skill. This is the best movie about Japanese schoolgirls (and a boy) accidentally causing food poisoning and then being forced to join a jazz band I’ve ever seen.

Well worth the subtitles.