TV Tuesdays Free Talk

I'm still not sure if we should talk about movies here. If I remember correctly last time I asked there was no definite answer. So I'll be talking about movies I watched on the television.

In preparation to write about Wes Craven's Scream (I wrote about it before), I'm watching some relevant references in the genre. I used to really like all Scream movies, but this rewatch opened my eyes. The sequels are not very good, and fail to capture the referential freshness of the original. I had to push myself to watch them, especially the fourth. Incidentally, the MTV series is pretty good.

Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) is, at times, dreadful, at times ridiculous. The psychological aspect of it is haunting and sophisticated, but sometimes Freddy Krueger is more laughable than scary. My tagline for it: "Freddy Krueger leaves Inception in the dust".

Some of 1978's Halloween scenes approach masterpiece status. The movie has defects, things I can nitpick, but the power and beauty of its mise-en-scène are inescapable -- the images pierce us through the screen and lodges themselves in the depth of our subconscious.

Today I'll watch 1980's Friday the 13th.

I'm open to suggestions of movies that influenced the Scream franchise! Wish me luck...

I watched those three yesterday. I usually stay away from horror movies at all because of my night terrors, but that's required for a project I'm involved in. I'm using a breathing/meditation technique so I can actually sit through them. According to my girlfriend, at night I was possessed by a demon that spoke through my clenched teeth. A film analyst's occupational hazard, I suppose.

This week we watched Tina, a documentary about Tina Turner’s life. It was pretty good. If you have any interest in her music I definitely recommend it.

We also watched Huge in France. It stars French comedian Gad Elmaleh and he plays a version of himself much like Jerry Seinfeld did in the Seinfeld TV show. It’s quite subtle and pretty funny. He is apparently a very popular and well-known comedian in France. In the show his character has decided to give up comedy and move to LA (where nobody knows who he is) to be closer to his estranged teenage son who is trying to get started in modeling. It may seem at first like a not-too-funny sitcom, but if you stick with it, it’s pretty rewarding. (Though the ending is very very dark.)