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Midweek Movie Free Talk
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
Also, we should be getting news about who's hosting the Oscar's in a few weeks. What's everyone's bets? I think the most likely thing to happen is that Kimmel hosts again. He's ABC property and is non-controversial enough that no one will pay any mind.
Although I do hope they get a different host if they get one at all. I haven't been happy with the last three broadcasts for differing reasons (2021 was boring, 2022 the bits from the hosts were largely cringe inducing, 2023 Kimmel was fine but low energy and clearly over all of it by that point). Though I will admit the 2023 ceremony has been the best ceremony post-pandemic. And I'm not happy that negotiations for the Only Murders in the Building trio to host the 2022 ceremony fell through.
If I had to make a list from most likely to least likely to happen it'd be something like:
Haven't seen any new releases. But I did go ahead and watched two John Ford movies. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Quiet Man. Both brilliant. The Quiet Man in particular is such a gorgeous looking film. Ever since the Maestro teaser dropped I've been looking for films that look similar and this is definitely one of them. It embodies the beauty of old Hollywood.
It still blows me away that Ford filmed and survived the Japanese assault on Midway as well as the D-Day landings. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is definitely one of his best films.
This week we watch Mad God (2021 stop motion horror) and Won't You Be My Neighbor (2018 Mr. Rogers doc)
Mad God wasn't what I was expecting as I had only seen the trailer and heard it as a recommendation. Phil Tippett's (effects Star Wars, Jurassic Park) "magnus opus" created over 30 years on a budget of ~$70k. A monument to practical effects, models, and stop motion animation. Reminded me of Eraserhead (1977) and Stalker (1979) except nearly every scene is gore or violence. A coworker asked me what it was about and all I could offer is the fundamental violence of existence and inevitability of decay. A film I'll be thinking about a lot but don't see myself rewatching unless a friend is interested in seeing it. (9/10)
Won't You Be My Neighbor like everything Mr. Rogers related was filled with love and care. Many immediate family members, friends, and original cast were involved. We've all heard the "urban lore" about who this man was and it is wonderful to see a fullthroated confirmation that Mr. Rogers was as authentic a person as has existed. We know the impact he's had on generations of children. To see how his messages were internalized by those closest to him is an affirmation of his mission. (7/10)
I don't typically watch new releases, so my watches this week were a re-watch of Return of the Living Dead (one of my all-time faves) chased with a first-time watch of Bride of Re-Animator. It's more or less the same as the first film (also a big fave), and Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott and David Gale all return to the same roles. It takes a while to get to the titular "Bride" but it felt like a fun homage to Bride of Frankenstein in terms of execution.
Saw Suspiria from 1977 last night. Horror isn't really isn't a genre I do much, but this hooked me from the start. The music, the colors, the atmosphere and the whole style is unlike anything. In a weird way, reminds me of spaghetti westerns. What it may lack in acting skills and dubbing qualities, it makes up for it with pure style. The music especially has the same importance to the experience as Morricone's music had for his westerns.
It is just shy of the absolute high mark for me, even though practical everything here is amazing. It lacks some character depth and with some notable exceptions (the maggots and the barbed wire) felt more cool than scary. Suzy has practically no personality and is mostly there to drive the mystery plot forward, which does keep things interesting all the way through. I also appreciated how it often surprised me by doing something completely different than what I would have expected. Like the maggots in the ceiling that actually turned out to be real and happening in the real world, and not just some horror vision in her mind - which we have seen a thousand times before in other movies.
Did I mention the score? Anyways, it deserves all the praise.
I love Suspira. I saw it after watching Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho. If you haven’t seen that I’d recommend it. It’s highly inspired by Giallo films like Suspira.
We saw Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall in theaters off of the extremely strong reviews (I feel like any movie near the 90 mark on Metacritic is doing something right) and the casting of Sandra Hüller, who sparkled in Toni Erdmann. A great, humanistic piece of cinema attached to the engine of a courtroom drama! We are still talking about it.
Killers of the Flower Moon had a great story, but I suspect the book will be better than the film (three bathroom breaks between the two of us). Whether it was the pacing, the acting, or the editing, the movie felt flat. It is hard to root for a couple of dum-dums, and the movie definitely made the protagonists feel like dum-dums.