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I started off the month right, slipping those two movies into a narrow window of time I had available to me. Sadly, it meant I had to leave during the credits of both (I wanted to honor the craftmen of Ochi and enjoy more Sinners music, but regardless: I like credits.)
UPDATE: I apparently missed a post-credits scene in Sinners. Boo.
Also worth mentioning: this is the month I begin my Writing About Film class. So some curated goodies in here. That probably I'll say nothing about because I'm all talked out.
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| THEATER Cinemark Century Hilltop 16 |
I really liked this movie even though it has a bunch of flaws of the type I associate with "family" movies. But the creatures are so cool and the actors are good and the scenery is incredible and the beats are so familiar that who even cares about the flaws? We're having a freaking blast. So who cares if Finn Wolfhard's character is an afterthought and Emily Watson looks like a hobbit?
This is the sort of movie that would have terrified me as a kid while all the other kids loved it and couldn't believed I hadn't seen it yet. Related, I wanted to take the 8yrold but I had a chance now, it was the only showing all day, and I was the only one in the theater. I'll betcha this was my only chance.
Plus, she's like me. I'm not sure I'm a good dad if I make her sit through the scary/gross parts.
Incidentally, some of the aesthetics are less 80s-kid-movie and more Willy Wonka vs Wes Anderson. But my favorite stuff is the outdoors stuff.
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| THEATER Cinemark Century Hilltop 16 |
I loved this movie. It's so well written and beautifully paced. It takes its time to build out the place and the people so when the vampires finally show up, the stakes are real. I suppose there are a couple possible inconsistencies in terms of how the vampires work, but the innovative aspects are terrific. These are new and interesting vampires, yall.
But more than that, the twins are terrific creations, the epilogues definitely add to the story. Hailee Steinberg is great in her first true adult role (that I've seen). The music is awesome. The details are consistently evocative and true. Everything about this movie feels honest. Even though it's a vampire movie, a pure piece of popular entertainment.
I haven't enjoyed a movie this much in a while. If you still have a chance, try and see it with a packed house. I'll wish I was with you.
And don't walk out during the closing credits. The music's too good.
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| ELSEWHERE our dvd |
The parallels to Julius Caesar are more and more the more you look (here's someone to start you off). I'm trying to turn it into a writing assignment this time.
What I'm thinking about now though it how so much the movie is told through Cady's point of view. The animals, the hit-by-bus moments. Much of what occurs in the film is entirely filtered through her memory, as emphasized by the occasional narration. Which raises questions about how much of the film is in her p-o-v. When the camera suddenly tilts as she confesses to Aaron, is that Cady? When we see moments where she is not present, is that her recreations or are the some additional source of narrative besides her own mind?
It'll probably be years before I watch it again, but I hope I think of these questions before hitting play.
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| HOME friend's dvd |
I remember when this movie came out. It appeared at the Albany Twin (rip) and played forever, like a Woody Allen movie. (Ah, those were the days.)
Anyway, only finally getting around to seeing it now. It's everything I assumed: the tale of a great craftsman, excellently staged visuals of food. But it's hard to watch without thinking about all the unintended consequences. Luckily we decided to watch it on our friend's dvd rather than Kanopy because there's about as much footage in the film once again, including expansive discussions filling in some of the gaps about training and overfishing and the various masters (tuna, rice) Jiro works with. I've watched about half that extra footage and intend to watch the other half.
As someone who has never been impressed by sushi (admittedly, I've never had Jiro-level sushi) I'm not persuaded to spend real money to see if I can come around, but I did enjoy seeing someone with true passion excel at a true craft.
We need more stories like that. I'm not sure we remember excellence is possible
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| ELSEWHERE our dvd |
It's that wonderful time of the year where I teach film. This is the first feature for the earlier class. And it's a terrific way to start because it is provocative thematically and aesthetically. And, darn it, provocation is exactly what we need.
(And yes, I do skip a certain 90 seconds.)
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| ELSEWHERE our dvd |
It's always great to introduce students to the new favorite thing. Whether it's a book or a movie, to see someone actively take something into their heart and make it their own—it's just beautiful.
It's also great to watch someone dismiss something as an old thing they suffered through as a kid only to discover a new version of themselves through a revisitation.
I like both those.
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| THEATER Cinemark Century Hilltop 16 |
I liked this movie more than any Marvel movie since at least Captain Marvel six years ago. Spoilers, many irritatingly vague, from here on out.
I'm so glad that they didn't kill the supervillain. And although it wasn't that deep, I'm glad they explored the issues with him that they did. And I like where it seems to be headed.
Geraldine Viswanathan looked so different than she did in Drive-Away Dolls, but her facial expressions are unmistakable.
I hadn't read a lot about the movie before going in, but I did hear that most of the cast was great and Julia Louis-Dreyfus was lazy and bad. I'm not sure was people mean. The cast did range from good to great, but Julia Louis-Dreyfus got almost nothing to work with. I wonder if people just wanted something amazing from her. I'm not sure we can blame this on her.
I'm intrigued by competing Avengers teams. I have low expectations, but the ceiling's high here.
I really want to know if Bucky's still in Congress. It doesn't see like it but I think it's strange if he is not. I mean—Congree and Avenger are both big jobs and I don't know how you do both, but these are the movies, man.
I wish Marvel luck at maintaining their mojo.
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| ELSEWHERE our dvd |
Gen Z strikes again! Our conversation about this movie ended up being almost half about Max trying to kiss Miss Cross and thus the need to cancel him and doubt any personal growth he may yet experience in life. When I called this out they denied that's what they were doing, but I wonder.
I've always done Rushmore because I think it's maybe the best Wes Anderson movie to see first. But I wonder. It's been almost thirty years since it drops which means we've had two generations of filmmakers who have been, to a greater or lesser extent, whether delightedly or through deliberate rejection, Wesified.
In other words, I wonder if I would be better off picking one of his later films. Moonrise Kingdom is still accessible but much more stylized. Asteroid City is superweird but something I would show in school. But . . . the more stylized they get, the harder they are to get (especially for a rookie audience) on just one viewing.
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| ELSEWHERE Hoopla |
I think I'm taking this off the list. The problem is that it's playing with same set of tools that students are used to movies using. It's an older and nicer Mean Girls. My accompanying readings are more conceptual thanfilmmakery which doesn't help. That was intentional because even young women tend to assume things about young women are de facto less important. But if I want movies about high-school girls it's easier to talk about them AS A FILM if I'm choosing Heathers or Lady Bird because the filmmaking itself is less obviously pure–pop culture and sometimes even flashy. So that's the way to go.
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| THEATER our dvd littlehill theater |
We have a state-of-the-art theater at the high school; professional ballet troupes have used it, for instance. But the movie screen, given the setting, is comically small. Still way bigger than anything I can do in my classroom but it feels smaller than it is. Anyway, I could only get the theater for two days and so one class is doing this film and another 2001. (The top choice was very clear in both votes.
But if I get the theater back, Crouching Tiger will not be back. Apparently the fire code doesn't allow all the lights to be off during the school day with students inside and so . . . it was not as dark as one might like. And, therefore, the night scenes, expecially the fight scenes, were nearly impossible to read. Which was upsetting, to be sure.
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| THEATER our dvd littlehill theater |
Always nervous showing this to students and even thought there are (and will be) some who hate it, overall everyone had a real experience and for many that experience was excellent.
The nature of the school day forced us to split the viewing in half but it sounds like that might be a net positive. Day one they're bored and confused but day two they come in knowing what to expect.
Even though I don't embrase all of Kubrick's catalogue, I do love this movie.
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| HOME Wikipedia |
The Ten Commandments (1923)
This is a really cool and pretty dumb and very silly movie. Although it dragged, I loved the Mosaic prologue. (Yes! In DeMille's first version, Moses is only the prologue!) The sets and effects were very cool. The use of color was fun. It was great.
Then it transitions to the modern melodrama that took up the bulk of the runtime. It's, um, very obvious. The bad guys say things like
Clearly, this man is a sinner.
Anyway, can we talk about those cool letterforms? This has all my favorites except capital W, but just imagine that lower-case w could be even cooler and you'll get the idea.
Anyway, this is the sort of movie that allows you to tut-tut the wicked while simultaneously getting to see the wicked's beautiful flesh. Isn't that just how the wicked are, showing off their beautiful flesh. How horrible that we get to see it in all its sexy glory. Tut tut.
I also learned from this movie that most lepers are beautiful women with excellent hair and that it's easy to get psychosomatic leprosy if you develop a conscience.
Also, using crappy cement when building nineteen-story cathedrals will bring the wrath of God upon in the form of your mom dying.
Oh, that's another thing. It's bad to be a sinner but it's also bad to have sourpuss piety. Don't do that either.
In short, this is a ridiculous movie and more often dumb than not. But hugely entertaining. No wonder it was a huge hit.
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| ELSEWHERE our dvd |
Who knows how many times I've seen this movie now. That I adore showing it to high-school seniors means I'm piling on the views, but the film is so strange and beautiful there is always more to discover.
This time I discovered something not new to me per se, but I discovered how large an elements of the film it actually is. I didn't start thinking about it on minute one so perhaps I missed something, but there is zero foley work in this movie. Or, rather, all the foley is performed by the orchestra. Besides vocalizations, the only other sounds are made my instruments. And it's so truthful to this film that it took me this long to realize that it is exclusively so. Amazing.
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| ELSEWHERE our dvd |
Is there any greater pleasure than listening to teenagers laughing at (with) something older than their grandparents?
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| THEATER Cinemark Century Hilltop 16 |
Just checked and I basically made this joke at the last one, but I have to wonder if this film set a new record for number of macguffins.
Lady Steed and I disagree as to which of these films has the worst technobabble (I say the previous one) and Luther is essentially a Marvel-movie genius and almost any piece of these story falls apart if you look at it too long, etc etc, but I loved it. It's exciting and fun and it let us know what happened to a fellow we've been worried about for thirty years.
I know they advertized this like it's the last one but I'm curious what the betting markets have to say about that.
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| HOME Disney+ |
It's pretty clear that my memories of watching Anastasia in the theater and confused with my memories of watching Ferngully in the theater. Although the memory still has inaccuracies built into it as I remember watching it three years before either of them arrived. So much for my credibility on the witness stand.
From a visual perspective, it's interesting how it's employing some digital techniques much as Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin did, but it's also quite obviously rotoscoped. It's a mix of animation styles from perhaps a fifty-year period.
My memory is that Rasputin was scarier than he needed to me and that was about it. I did not remember that we knew Anastasia was Anastasia all along, for instance. I am happy, however, that this revisiting led to me liking the movie much more, as opposed to my recent viewing of The Secret of NIMH, which didn't really lead to a happier experience. Which isn't a claim that Anastasia is some kind of masterwork—I have my complaints—just that it was much better than my memories (lousy as they are) suggested.
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| HOME library dvd |
Because of the film unit, a student who watched this film got excited about a scene transition and recommended the movie to me based on that cut. It was certainly the most interesting cut in the movie but of itself, perhaps not enough to watch the movie.
Luckily, the movie was good. This sort of family drama isn't a usual part of my film diet and it was nice to watch one for a change. It's good to see people be good, to grow together, to earn a happy ending.
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| ELSEWHERE our dvd |
Almost no laughs this time.
Concluding in stunned silence.
All reactions appropriate, thank you.
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| ELSEWHERE YouTube |
Do to me being dumb, I failed to play the ragtimey soundtrack and we had absolute silence. It won them over eventually but we had more complaining upfront.
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| THEATER Premier Theater at One Letterman |
Our neighbor invited us to this early showing which was followed by her interviewing Roman Coppola, Wes Anderson's longtime writing partner. Obviously we were planning to see this in theaters when it arrived (and will again regardless), but pretty fun to see it early and get some dirt on the side. But in some ways the real thrill was being inside Lucasfilm's theater. When people spoke without a microphone it was almost as if they weren't speaking at all. Their voice was perfectly clear but with zero echo which made it feel disappearingly small. I touched the walls on the way out and whatever that funky fabric they carpeted them in really works.
This was the biggest screen I've ever seen Wes Anderson on and that was lovely as well. I did feel slightly stressed, trying to read all the text I feared i would never get to read again.
The sound thing makes me hopeful that one element of my experience was simply wrong: It felt like, once again, Lady Steed and i were the only people laughing in the theater. Gosh I hope that was not so. Surely this crowd gets it!
Anyway, I don't want to spoil anything. I will say the structure is straightforward compared to the delicious madness of French Dispatch or Asteroid City. Michael Cera fits in well. Benedict Cumberbatch's hair (by which I mean beard and brow) is insane. The production design is perfect as always. Those are the actual paintings you see on the walls. And while I already cannot remember whether the scheme worked or not, the film has a happy ending. Not one I saw coming but one I was glad to experience.
I'll see you in a lesser theater two weeks from now.
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| ELSEWHERE our dvd |
I was really locked in on Ilsa this time. Totally changed when I cried and how I cried.
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| ELSEWHERE SOURCERY |
I have to make this an option every year. Not just because everyone loves it and because it's a blast to watch in a rool full of friends, but because once you start looking, the film is PACKED with new stuff to see. Everytime there's something new. Did you know the gazebo Rose walkes Chris to is black with a white cupola? I didn't until a student noticed and pointed it out.
