Movies 2019
2020/06/14
all (?) the movies I watched in 2019. Cribbed from my notes. Thank you to the me of the past who decided to keep a diary in pure html.
all movies 2019
roughly in order
- Mr Nice Guy (1997)
- Project A 2 (1987)
- Project A (1983) - really fun and ambitious Jackie Chan movie, a little confusing, but with extraordinary sequences, including an incredible bike sequence and a nod to Charles Lloyd hanging from a clock's hand. Also it's set at a time / setting in which there were very few guns, which is essential I think. After a certain point in Jackie's career the incredible frenetic sequences give way to huge explosions or destructive sequences ala American blockbusters, and the movies are less fun. I think Project A and and the sequel (Project A2) are the sweet spot.
- Thunderbolt (1995)
- Drunken Master 2 (1994)
- Drunk Master (1978)
- Armor of God (1987) - lesser Jackie Chan movie in an action vein, more explosions and car chases than choreography. The best parts were those little moments he always throws in, of like, eating gum in a cool way.
- The Band Wagon (1953) - Great Fred Astaire movie, I think this is from after his first retirement, and the storyline is like, an old song-and-dance man struggles to make a comeback with contemporary flourishes and fails, then goes back to good old hoofin it. I'm sure at the time this was either a masterful return to form or an instance of "why are you still doing this" but to me, at this time, it's just "more good stuff". Cyd Charisse co-stars. I love Fred Astaire, so natural and elegant. Sakiko said it's like he's not Doing The Thing, he Is The Thing.
- You Never Looked Lovelier (1942) - Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth, with Xavier Cugat. Set in Buenos Aires, in Palermo. Palermo is where Jorge Luis Borges is from, so as a location it has a certain interest. I didn't really get any insight either way (into Borges from this or into this via Borges) but it's fun to think of these worlds meeting at this particular point in time and space. Rita Hayworth looks like she's working hard and having fun, Astaire as always is just a shape on the face of the water.
- Notting Hill (1999)- romantic movie with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant that is good and somehow at this perfect level of being good but not feeling important, well made but not really a "display of craft" or a "showcase". I liked it.
- Tales From Earthsea (Gedo Senki) (2006) -- Studio Ghibli LeGuin adaptation/riff. This is Miyazaki's son Gorō's first, and it's OK but nowhere near his father's output. LeGuin wrote a blog post about how this movie isn't "bad" but is a huge disappointment. The story is that Miyazaki Sr wrote her asking about a possible collab, she didn't know who he was and said nah. Years later she saw My Neighbor Totoro and loved it, wrote him back. He was busy with Howl's Moving Castle, and Ghibli head Toshio Suzuki tasked Gorō with it, to no one's delight. The movie's honestly OK but what a collosal bummer the whole situation is, it's like the cartoon version of Jodorowski's Dune-- what would the planet be like if we got a series of Earthsea movies with peak Ghibli energy? I can't even remember Howl's Moving Castle.
- The Witch (2015) -- great horror movie set in New England of the 1600's, with dialogue mostly from period sources (according to the end credits). Like Valhalla Rising (2009), they really nailed "old American light". I guess growing up in New England I always felt it was kind of spooky, this movie makes me feel like maybe it's Transylvania-grade spooky. The woods look great, despite being what I would call regular shitty woods. Of course what the woods really looked like before or concurrent to English settlers is probably very different? I told Sakiko this movie has a "Penderecki-ass soundtrack" and I stand by that, with the addendum "I like it".
- The Shoplifters - a family drama from Hirokazu Kore-eda about a non-traditional family unit of a couple people living together in poverty. Kind of frustrating end where everyone's being strong for each other in a way that makes it seem like they don't like each other, when I felt they should just all, like, hug. Anyway I liked it. Incredible cast.
- Solo - why did people not like this? I had fun. I guess I also had zero requirements. I thought the cast was good. The prequel is a bizarre format, it knows you know what's going to happen, so that tension is removed, replaced with an "ohhh, so thiiiiiis is how it happened" chuckle.
- Police Story - good but not great Jackie Chan movie, still trying to find more movies of his where the stunts are at a personal level and not just a bunch of explosions. Project A and Project A 2 were both so good but that doesn't mean everything in between is as good.
- Police Story 2 - decent Jackie Chan movie, the huge explosions are just things that happen. More elements of great choreography, but still nothing like Project A & A2.
- sci fi movie marathon (with times)
- 12:00pm Innerspace (1987) - I remember really liking this as a kid, so I was super happy to find that it's really really good! Great cast (Martin Short, Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Kevin McCarthy), and great practical special effects. Joe Dante directs, so naturally there's a great role in there for Dick Miller. Quaid and Ryan met on set and then got IRL married! Dante describes the early stages of this movie as "what would happen if we shrank Dean Martin down and injected him inside Jerry Lewis?".
- 14:15pm Dr. Cyclops (1940) - Another "people get shrunk" movie, from 1949 and in magnificent Technicolor. It's based on the part in the Odyssey with the island of the Cyclops. My only wish is that they didn't mention the Odyssey at all. It would've been fun to see it all play out, and besides, everyone that could've cared about the reference would be able to pick it out. Saying the name of the original in the riff is a cornball move that benefits no one. Compare with Forbidden Planet (1956)-- no one in that movie says "wow, this is just like The Tempest by William Shakespeare!". They played it cool.
- 15:40pm Rollerball (1975) - Super violent future sports movie. James Caan stars as someone so good at sports that Something Must Be Done. I liked the story line but the game itself was so gnarly I had a hard time accepting the good guy as a good guy. Nice futuristic buildings and furniture.
- 18:30pm Woman In The Moon (1929) - long Fritz Lang movie with live organ accompaniment. I thought I might nap through this but I got hooked on the performances, and the live accompaniment was dazzling and inspiring. The main guy, the love interest, the best friend, the villain, the kooky scientist, and the kid, all the main characters, were all extraordinary. I don't know if I can recommend this, as it's a very long silent movie, but I really liked it
- 21:55pm Star Trek VI (1991) - shown in 70mm! David The Projectionist had an incredible spiel on the forum, about the print they got of this and how there was (all caps in the original) "NO BETTER SOUND IN CINEMA HISTORY THAN MAG WITH SR NR" and how this print would "ALTER YOUR LIFE". It did look and sound great. The Trek movies famously swing from good to bad with such regularity that the good ones (2, 4, 6) are even and the bad ones (1, 3, 5) are odd. I really enjoyed seeing my desk lamp in one of the conference halls.
- 00:10am Annihilation (2018) - "not as good as the book" goes without saying but I found this fun and visually imaginative. Also I didn't read the book. It's hard to show a completely non-human intelligence, and something I liked about this was that they weren't sure if it was even "an intelligence" in the same way we can think about it. "What does it want?" "I don't think it wants anything". Garish colors and weird blobs growing everywhere reminded me of living in the mills and using Great Stuff in the drafty spots.
- 02:10am The Andromeda Strain (1971) - I booed when Michael Crighton's name showed up on screen (due to his climate change denialism) and then fell asleep. This is one of those movies for people that love elaborate procedure. A surprising amount of the movie was just "check out our cool facility". If you like this, God bless. As stated, I fell asleep.
- 04:25am The Outer Limits "Soldier" (1964) - dull episode of this ersatz Twilight Zone, written by Harlan Ellison, who I also hate. A soldier from the future comes back to our time, which was enough for Ellison to sue James Cameron over. As a result, Ellison gets an "inspired by" mention in the credits for Terminator. Builds up to nothing and goes nowhere. Harlan Ellison sucks, fuck him.
- 05:20am Destination Moon (1950) - fun rocket movie from George Pal. Need I say more? George Pal movies are always kind of corny, bright, and fun. He's your pal. No problem.
- 07:00am Source Code (2011) - Groundhog Day set up in an action movie "find the bomb" set up, I liked it a lot!
- 08:35am Sunshine (2007) - most space movies focus on how cold it is, but if you're near a star, it's super hot. This movie is about the sun, and has some cool parts and an Alien-style ensemble cast, but suddenly turns into an unfun slasher movie in the last third.
- 10:40am Escape From New York (1981)- great movie but I was in and out of sleep and also sort of nauseous from chugging lousy coffee all night.
end sci-fi marathon
- The Rules Of The Game (1939) - I had never heard of this until I saw Tom talking about it, so I downloaded it. I guess it's one of the best movies ever made! Extremely enjoyable comedy of manners, set and filmed just at the onset of WWII. The camera swings around a ton and there's massive depth of focus in a lot of the shots, which movie heads love, but more than that it's beautifully done and all the characters are so light and wonderful.
- Peanut Butter Solution (1985) - I saw this on TV as a kid and remember it as being fractured and nightmarish, with the most nightmarish part about it being its casual tone. Well I watched it again and I was spot-on. It's a bit like a Canadian Twin Peaks, for kids-- lots of weird little moments and strange details that the characters just roll with, as what else can one do? Even the soundtrack is a bit Badalamentesque-- same hazy keyboards, but with less bass response, and a young Celine Dion instead of Julee Cruise. Recommended.
- Paddington 2 (2017) - absolutely delightful. My viewing party was delighted to see not one but two members of the cast of Notting Hill in this, another tidy "one London street as a village" movie. Great casting, funny parts, heartwarming. I never once thought about the special effects. I loved it!
- Notting Hill (1999) - Sakiko was having tooth pain so I rewatched this movie with her for the third time (I didn't make a note of the second time). Julia Roberts plays an incredibly famous actress who sort of stumbles into a relationship with a handsome tongue-tied nobody played by Hugh Grant. Neither Hugh nor anyone in his tight circle of pleasant underachievers can believe it the entire time. This time around the thing that struck me is that Julia Roberts outclasses everyone else in the movie by such an incredible degree that it makes the story seem meta. Like the movie itself can't believe that Julia Roberts is in it.
- Paddington (2014) - OK, not as good as Paddington 2 but still good! Nicole Kidman's villain is a liiiiittle too bloodthirsty for this level of movie, but I still had a great time.
- Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) - in my mind this movie is about "main character loses identity in New York City, has to be rescued by friends", which is true, but a bit reductive. Contains an absolutely disgusting Muppet Babies inset. Something classic about the Muppets is that their backstories change to fit the storyline, and it's never any sort of trouble because the characters and relationships are so solid. In some ways it makes them seem more real, they're more than just characters, they're actors.
- Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) - extremely good movie that I rewatch when I or anyone I'm near is feeling low. If you don't like this movie you need to get your goddamn head examined. Last time I watched this I edited the subtitles to say my name instead of Kiki.
- Whisper of the Heart (1995) - whimsical and romantic but not magical or fantastic Studio Ghibli movie about young teens who fall in love. It's great how much of a rollercoaster the main teen is. Great vibe, and I'm pretty sure the youtube "lo fi beats to study to" image that youtube keeps trying to get me to listen to, I think that's from this movie.
- Shazaam (2019) - went to the mall with Davey and Nick Holstrom because Davey had a hunch this movie was going to be really fun, and he was totally right. Set in Philadelphia for maximum effect. Sometimes I see a movie that has an intended audience of kids, and I think "is this going to make kids more annoying?". Didn't feel that way here. We all had a great time.
- Laputa: Castle In The Sky (1986) - another great Miyazaki movie about flying machines. "La Puta" means "The Bitch" in Spanish, a tidbit I masterfully kept to myself while watching this.
- Uncle Drew (2018) - a pretty enjoyable "getting the band back together" movie but it's basketball, with current NBA players wearing old guy makeup. Based on a Pepsi commercial. What can I say, I love it when there's magic and I love it when that magic gets recaptured!
- Neon Maniacs (1986) - a perfect specimen of 80s goofball horror-- some weird looking guys kill teens in America, some of the teens fight back, and a single boob is shown. There's no explanation, backstory, ending, or arc, and it's not really a problem. Mild romance, battle of the bands. Watched this for Mr Mittens' birthday.
- a long plane ride:
- Saturday Night Fever (1977) - a classic movie I previously only saw the iconic part of. For a movie in which the main character is a great dancer, there isn't really a lot of great dancing in this. Maybe because disco really is democratic, and all you need to do is just get out there and move and have fun? Some actors are so chimeric they seem brand new every movie, and some actors are sort of always the same, but some are in a sweet spot where you feel like all their characters are phoenix-like continuations of the same spirit slowly spinning through space, learning lessons and overcorrecting from past mistakes. Travolta's one of these. Also John Travolta's brother in this is a priest in the process of quitting the church, and I convinced myself that he's the same priest as in the Exorcist, which takes place immediately after events pictured in this movie.
- Fast 7 or whatever (2015) - Me and Mori watched this on the plane at the same time on adjacent screens, syncronizing our start times. This franchise definitely suffers from character creep, in which a strong guy gets absurdly strong because they have to be stronger than the previous movie. In the first movie Vin Diesel mentions nearly killing a guy by hitting him with a wrench, and this guilt almost destroys his life. By the seventh movie, Diesel is trading off hits in the face with enourmous wrenches, and it's not a problem. This is really underlined by a teary montage at the end (Paul Walker RIP) where you see bits of all previous movies and they look like Little Archie. I enjoy every movie in this frachise although there are certainly attitudes in it I would not want to pass on to the next generation and there's like, 1 poor word choice per movie.
- Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) - A comforting movie that I watched on a plane. Interesting to rewatch this after seeing Paddington 2, another whimsical movie in which a loveable main character goes to jail and makes friends. My notes from this say "Ralph Fiennes' birth name was Puke Charge", but Lala says that joke's not valid because you say "RAYF" not "RALF". Honestly I thought that "RALF" Fiennes and "RAY" Fiennes were different people, one who made serious movies I have not seen, and one who made goofball romps, which I have seen.
- The Favorite (2018) - great period piece, great interiors. I've never seen a movie with this much fish-eye lens, and never with multiple fish-eye tracking shots that weren't like, views through a security camera or something. From the very beginning, my question was "is this the lesbian Barry Lyndon?" and having watched it I feel fairly certain that that was the elevator pitch. It felt rare to see a love affair between two supporting characters, which the main character interferes with for her own advancement. I liked it.
- Moving Cities Or Whatever (2018) - I only watched the first 15 minutes of this, I couldn't really get over the premise. (it's called Mortal Engines, I looked it up)
- Infinity War (2018) - I put off watching this because everyone told me it was bad, and I hate that idea that there are some "Movie events" that everyone watches. But I sort of like those comic book mega-events, so I watched it. These events in the comic book world, where there's a massive battle and some major characters get unwritten somehow, are really helpful in comics, and happen periodically. In addition to spurring book sales, they serve a practical function of making room for new characters and storylines. In comics you have hundreds of writers that enrich a pretty complicated fictional world over a long period of time and eventually make any big movement basically impossible. Infinity War is not only one of these but is even about this process- the main bad guy wants to erase half of all sentient beings in a bid for "balance". From a movie franchise angle, I can see that it's helpful to have an excuse for inventing a new Spider Man, or giving an actor a graceful exit. Anyway yeah this movie is neither good nor essential. My notes from this say "space doors close mad slow".
- Whiplash (2014) - watched this towards the end of the flight, and I had to pick something that I'd be ok with not being able to finish. I didn't like any of these characters or their idea of what good music is. It's about a teacher that's really abusive, but like, he cares a lot? The real problem I had with it was that so much of the abuse was just homophobia, and like, sure, nearly everyone who grew up as a boy in America in the late 20th century has been called a fag in a bullying situation, so I guess it's "authentic", but the harm is asymmetric- if you're not gay then "fag" is a mean word someone used at you, if you are than it's an entire narrative declaring you worthless. Pass.
- another long plane ride:
- Wreck It Ralph (2012) - a fun animated movie about behind the scenes at video games. There were a lot of references to other (mostly older) video games, but it wasn't like that was the whole movie, and it didn't feel like they were just mentioning things you knew about- if you didn't know these characters you could still get into it. One of the voice actors was doing a great Ed Wynn impersonation. Wynn was the Mad Hatter in Alice In Wonderland (1951) (I had to look up his name).
- Glass (2019) - someone in a seat ahead of me was watching this on the flight in, and I saw little bits of it. But when I started to watch it myself I got about 5 minutes in and then bailed. Seemed stupid.
- Girl In The Spider's Web (2018)- a cool spy movie that I didn't realize was the third in a series, but that didn't throw me off. I think the main thing I didn't like in this was that right before the main battle the titular Girl spikes her utilitarian / lesbian signifying bowl cut into a faux hawk. That seemed greatly against character. I've known a lot of mohican hairdos in my life but I can't think of a single faux hawk that was a real person.
- Ralph Breaks The Internet (2018) - I purposefully saved this to watch after another movie about hackers, I think I made the right move. It was fun. For fans of the other one.
- Tag (2018) - really fun. Hannibal Burress is great, everyone was great. end plane ride
- Tora-san 44: Tora-san Confesses (1991) - After a long search I finally downloaded all the Tora San movies! For a while some of them were on youtube but then they kept getting taken down, and then they'd get edited to beat the copyright spider, then taken down, then some new editing approach. Slowly they got less and less watchable then finally disappeared. Anyway I finally found them. This is a later one and not a great entry point to this series. It's more about Mitsuo and Izumi than Tora-san. Izumi runs away from home and lands in Tottori, where she runs into Tora. Mitsuo comes and finds her. Tora has a short rekindled romance with a restauranteur, Seiko. It seems like we should remember her storyline from a previous movie but I think this is the character's first apperance. Mitsuo is at his floppiest and best. This is a great one, good use of the Tottori dunes, a good example of the travelogue nature of this spectacular series.
- Tora-san 32: Tora-san Goes Religious (1983) - Tora goes to Okayama and stops at a temple to pay his respects to Hiroshi's dad, who was played with magnificent reserve by Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura in three previous movies, and died IRL earlier in the year. Tora gets along with the drunk priest of the temple, and falls in love with his daughter, who is also in love with him. After a night carousing, the priest is too sick to do a funeral so Tora fills in and has a great aptitude for the work. Despite everything going great, Tora feels like he can't marry her without first becoming a priest, which he tries to do and fails. It's a sad bummer, makes you want to reach out and shake him. I loved this one tho.
- Tora-san 24: Tora-san's Dream Of Spring (1979) - co-stars Herb Edelman, the guy who plays Dorothy's ex on Golden Girls, as a traveling salesman who's sort of the American version of Tora-san. His character's name in this is Micheal Jordan, which is a little unsettling. There's a lot of interesting Japanese ideas of Americans in this, most noteable is that Americans aren't good at figuring out other people's emotions, so they need everything said to them out loud. This leads to an uncomfortable couple moments where Micheal is in love with Sakura and thinks its reciprocated, then he tries to kiss her (yuck). But it also makes everyone think of him as sweet and thoughtful because he says "thank you" all the time. I didn't sympathize with this sad creep and I still liked this one.
- drive-in double feature:
- Godzilla: King Of The Monsters (2019) - a pretty confusing movie with cool parts. At a certain point our radio went out so we were listening to the audio for this from all the radios in all the cars nearby, that was mostly fine. Something I liked about this is that the "eco-terrorists" win-- the monsters are unleashed to cause destruction and thin the herd of humanity as it were. The movie sort of glides over this by putting that win in the middle of the movie, and making the end about something even worse, which can and does get averted. Cool.
- Detective Pikachu (2019) - By a hair's breadth I was too old for Pokemon when it hit America, so I never got into it the way seemingly everyone younger than me got into it. Also I hate gritty reboots, which despite being OK for kids, is what I would call this movie. The guy who plays Deadpool is the voice of Pikachu-- I absolutely hate that guy! So I wasn't going to see this, but then it was at the drive-in, so I went. I was pretty confused, but that's on me- I'm sure almost everyone else watching this has a pretty good idea of how the world works and who the characters are. Generally I think "you have to catch them all" is a poor thing to teach children.
- Paranoid Park (2007) - usually if I don't like a movie I'll say "it's not for me", but this time I felt a strong "this movie isn't very good". The cast is mostly amateurs but it's not like watching real kids, it's like watching real kids trying to act. At one point the main character says "guitar punks", that must've been a misreading of "gutter punks"? Skateboarding is a central feature of the movie and the skateboard parts look like the artsy parts of skate videos. This movie isn't very good.
- Us (2019) - a lite but well-made horror movie with a core concept that doesn't stand up to any sort of logical scrutiny, which I found refreshing in this instance. There were a lot of nods to other horror movies, but it didn't feel too clever, and I'm sure the compulsion to do this as a contemporary filmmaker is huge, and the payoff, of signifying to your ideal audience that you've done the required homework, is enormous.
- John Wick 3: Parabellum (2019) - some cool parts but overall this one felt like kind of a dud. I liked the first one but now the riff is established and the world is built. The best parts of this were the fight scenes that felt like speed chess, the worst parts were just like watching someone play a video game where you shoot people. Halle Berry co-stars, love her. At one point a guy says "parabellum" out loud, I guess that counts as a high point.
- CJ7 (2008) - sloppy kids / aliens movie from the creator of Kung Fu Hustle. I didn't like the complete lack of empathy any of these characters expressed towards the alien, even when they thought it was a toy robot. No one plays with toys like that.
- Airheads (1994) - very weird movie that has the wrong idea about what it is to rock. At the end the stupid band plays their one song and it's "Degenerated" by the Reagan Youth, which made me feel absolutely insane. Everyone plays their idea of a rock-adjacent person, it's terrible. I watched this as part of "Deathwatchers", an Adam Sandler movie-watching club I begrudgingly attend because I love my friends. The big advancement of this club is that we have a points system by which we add and subtract points from a movie's score based on a set of things we like to see in movies- eggs, a guy on fire, God, etc., and things we don't like to see in movies- homophobia, racism, sexism, transphobia, etc.. It's a good way to process and move on.
- The Wicker Man (2006) - I had put off seeing this for years, because I love the original Wicker Man. I was right to have done so- this one isn't good. The original gives you time to slowly develop the feeling "I hope the cop gets killed". With this one, the main character just isn't square enough, which makes the movie's villains less fun and more psycho. And with the matriarchal society of the island, the whole thing comes across as anti-feminist. People like Nic Cage movies because he's a weird actor but I can't think of an instance where I've enjoyed his performance in any movie after Raising Arizona. This isn't even fun to watch. Not good. Original Wicker Man is brilliant.
- Catching Mavericks (2012) - surf movie with weirdly low energy. Maybe because it's based on a true story, all the little things that could've been tweaked remained untweaked. The main actor is a sort of baby-faced dude I would categorize as "demon-aligned".
- Breaking All The Rules - classic 1980's teen sex comedy with "bumbling theives" as the B plot. I think I just went to youtube and searched "1985 full" because I wanted something on in the background. Someone came in the room as I was watching this and I felt embarassed but ultimately this worked for me, and for the job I had set for it.
- North Shore (1987) - delightful surf movie starring the quiet friend from Teen Wolf. There's no bad parts. I rewatched this movie about 7 times this year. Thank you Daniella for the suggestion!!
- Kung Fu Hustle (2004) - I balked initially at the Looney-Tunes-style special effects, but this movie was fun as hell and I very quickly fell in.
- Big Wednesday (1978) sort of a surfing Deerhunter that doesn't get as bleak, from John Milius. As with Milius' Conan the Barbarian, features a small part for pro-surf legend Gerry "Mr Pipeline" Lopez. Gary Busey plays a career-defining maniac.
- Step Into Liquid (2003) - surfing documentary from the son of the guy who made Endless Summer. There's definitely some cool parts, but a smirking fake-deep voiceover pervades. Sometimes the voiceover guy talks about himself and it's jarring. You can't pivot from omniscient voice to cool guy in the middle of the movie! I had fun watching it but it really feels like a famous person's son made this movie. Also the music is super terrible-- I think they scored it with like, u2, rage against the machine, sublime, etc., and then didn't want to pay the usage fees. So they hired a studio to get close enough to the vibe. What's that called, it's like an Audio Shemp? My friend ARoss had a job one year doing this for a documentary about civil rights.
- Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) - I don't have a favorite of these movies, maybe I like them all? This is one of them. Patricia Arquette stars. This is kind of an Exorcist 3 situation- Wes Craven made Nightmare 1, bowed out for Nightmare 2 because he didn't want to do a franchise, then came back for 3 because 2 was bad. Do any other franchises follow this pattern?
- Little Nicky (2000) - Adam Sandler movie I cannot recommend watching. featuring Patricia Arquette.
- An American Werewolf In London (1981) - perfect John Hughes werewolf movie. Great soundtrack, great special effects, two Frank Oz cameos (one as Miss Piggy). There's a movie in the movie where the main guy goes into a porno theatre, and the porno is needlessly absurd. Recommended.
- Baywatch (2018) - I think if anyone but the Rock starred in this I'd hate it. But he did star, and I liked it. The key quality of the Rock, to me, is that he's good at making other actors (and anyone around) feel good. I think that quality is at its apex here. Moments that anyone else would turn into a cruel joke or snide comment are here presented as moments for possible uplift.
- Hotel Artemis (2018) - Kind of like John Wick in that there's elaborate world-building around services geared towards assassins. Set in a near-future dystopic LA, where people riot against water privatization. I guess it's fun to write about assassins because they're rich, so they have agency, but unlike regular rich people they actually do something, rather than just sit around and accrue interest.
- Journey 2 The Mysterious Island (2012) - Passable family adventure in which Michael Caine is a despicable adventurer who doesn't even love Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson. Made for a 3D theatre experience, so there's a lot of stuff that shoots right out at you. The set up is that everything that Jules Verne wrote was true, so they pull from all the books. I don't know why but I love it when Captain Nemo comes up in a movie. Might rewatch 20,000 Leagues.
- Grown-ups 2 (2013) - extremely lazy Adam Sandler movie with a great many unsettling features. There's no plot or character development or anything that can be said to change- the first movie (presumably) solved everyone's problems, now they're just all living and doing their thing. There's no music so you really just feel set adrift, this is fucked.
- Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) - really enjoyable movie about early 80s New York, like a much nicer version of After Hours, which came out the same year. Tons of great cameos and small roles for people like Richard Hell, Arto Lindsay, John Lurie, Ann Magnuson, etc.. Watched this while I was doing a task and as soon as it was over I watched it again.
- Jailhouse Rock (1957) - I decided to watch this based on a youtube clip labeled "Elvis Discusses Atonality". That part was great, this movie is fun, I'm realizing I like Elvis and don't feel strongly about his movies either way. I'll leave the Elvis take to someone else. This movie was fun, I watched it while doing a task.
- 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954) - kind of a slow weird movie I guess but I love it for the ornate interiors of the submarine and for Captain Nemo's sad and sinister Dracula-like world-abnegating character. Kirk Russell plays the ukulele and gets drunk with a sea lion, it's great.
- The Howling (1981) - cool werewolf movie with many great cameos and bit parts (Dick Miller, Forrest J Ackerman, Roger Corman, Kevin McCarthy, John Carradine, Slim Pickens). Joe Dante directs. Same year as "American Werewolf In London"!
- Near Dark (1987) - Bill Paxton and Lance Henrikson star in this pretty good vampire movie which stands alone in the genre for existing in a world in which no one has ever heard of a vampire. The main guy gets bitten and develops an extreme sensitivity to sunlight and an insatiable thirst for blood, but all he can say about it is "I'm sick". I refined my mneumonic for remembering which one is Bill Paxton and which one is Bill Pullman- Bill Paxton packs a punch, Bill Pullman is just pulling your leg. This was my first experience watching a movie on a new tv with motion smoothing still enabled, and for a while I was like "how did they fuck up the lighting on this movie in such a weird way?". I would like to see this again, the regular way.
- Bulletproof (1996) - Adam Sandler and Damon Wayans star in this movie that, as far as data shows, was enjoyed by 8% of the people who saw it. I was in the 92%.
- Anna (2019) - another "beautiful assassin" movie from Luc Besson, with a lot of "let's look at that again"s. Not great, but fun enough.
- Tora-San's Runaway (1970) - the fifth in the series, Tora actually looks like he's settling down for a sec but instead he's jilted again by an alternate universe version of Sakura and Hiroshi, who live down the river from Shibatamata (where Tora floated while asleep on a rowboat). Magnificent ragdoll Noboru co-stars.
- Tora-San's Sunrise and Sunset (1976) - the 17th movie in the franchise, and maybe the best one?? There are two really good threads, with a painter that everyone thinks is a bum, and a geisha trying to get money back from a guy that swindled her. Opens with a Jaws riff. Extremely good but to get the most out of it I really think you need to watch a bunch of other Tora-San movies first. Ideal viewing order for this franchise is like, 1, 2, 3, then in any order.
- Paddington 2 - rewatch of this extremely comforting movie. The next day I kept comparing myself at different points in my life to different characters. At my worst I'm the dad, sometimes I'm the villainous actor, at my best I'm the mom, in eternity I'm Paddington.
- Tsarlag Halloween Horror Movie Marathon. All these movies were direct-to-video releases, shot on either video or super 8!!!! This marathon ran from 8pm to dawn, I was the first person there and the only person other than Tsarlag and Elody to ride it out to the end. I'm not going to write up every one, but if you like Tsarlag any of these are worth checking out, with Hallucinations (1986) being the standout I would recommend to any horror fan, and Space Zombies (1995) being the one that's the most demented, and most like a Tsarlag movie.
- Escape From the Insane Asylum (1985)
- Blood Lake (1987)
- Hallucinations (1986)
- Blood Massacre (1991)
- Long Island Cannibal Massacre (1980)
- Ogroff: The Mad Mutilator (1983)
- Space Zombies (aka Psycho Space Demons) (~1995) end marathon
- Babylon A.D. (2008) - completely nonsensical sci fi Vin Diesel movie with Michelle Yeoh, Gerard Depardieu, and Charlotte Rampling. It really feels like a movie that went crazy during production- probably everyone believe in it at the beginning and went on faith that the weird parts would get ironed out, but then the weird parts only snowballed.
- Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) - I went to the drive in in 2017 and this was playing on on another screen and I kept spinning around and looking at it, like "what is this movie that looks like 100% star wars cantina scene???". I watched in a few months later and then yes, I rewatched it again this year. I was doing a task and I wanted something with neat characters that I could zone out to. It's so twisted how non-sexy this movie is, it almost feels like it's someone's kink to make a sexfull but unsexy sci fi romp. Some real Burning Man vibes.
- Monster Club (1981) - goofball anthology movie with interstical segments at a night club for monsters, where Vincent Price tells stories to John Carradine and both listen to shitty bands. The monsters in the club are mostly just people in leotards with consumer-grade rubber monster masks on, it's bizarre.
- Linda Linda Linda (2005) - god, what a great movie. One of the best movies about being in a band-- being excited to practice, and play your song, finally playing a show... It would be a good movie with different songs, but the songs they play (by the Blue Hearts) are tremendous.
- Addams Family Values - technically a Thanksgiving movie? Way hornier than the first Addams family movie, so I liked it less, but everyone I was watching with liked it more. The writers mined fewer jokes from the comics for this one, but pulled out a few things from the TV show- there's a hypochondriac love interest for Wednesday that calls back to a flashback episode from when Gomez met Morticia, and he was a sniffling idiot.
- Charlie's Angel's: Full Throttle (2003) - weirdly perfect garbage movie. I would hardly call this essential viewing, but if any part of you is veering towards this I'd say go for it.
- Conan the Barbarian (1982) - both the best of its kind and the seminal example of the barbarian genre. John Millius directs. The editing is really great and very effective-- in more tha one occasion an incredible bit of action gets shown only at the very beginning and the aftermath, leaving you to complete it in your mind. But it doesn't feel cheap or like you got cheated, it feels rich. James Earl Jones turns into a snake with a minimum of effects, it's great. "Mr Pipeline" Gerry Mulligan co-stars.
- Star Wars day--
- 8:45am - Solo (2018) I missed the first 2/3rds. It was raining and Dan came over and picked me up. Motion smoothing was on on their nice new TV, making everything look cheap. when the movie was over I was like, can we turn that off? Danielle thought she did, and she did, but I looked it up online and in addition to turning motion smoothing off, you have to turn "cine-feel" ON. I think all that "cine-feel" does is keep the other image juicing stuff from automatically turning on. it's a real "are you sure you want to cancel? press yes to cancel press cancel to stop". Anyway we figured it out.
- 11:10am - Rogue One (2016) - this one is derived entirely from a line in Star Wars where they say "many people died to get this information [about the Death Star]". Prequels already have this weird weight where you know what's at the end (the starting conditions for the thing you know and like already), but this one felt even cleaner. There were a lot of little things in this that you'd only really catch if you were watching them like this, one after the other. But they aren't really "rich points", just little continuity things that they nailed. They Shemped in Peter Cushing and the digital Shemp looks bad. At the end they Shemp in Carrie Fisher and that looks bad too.
- 1:35pm - A New Hope (aka Star Wars) (1977) - we watched a "theatrical release" version that undoes all the extra garbage that Lucas put in after the fact, by deferring to the highest-definition source of whatever scene is required. so most of the time it's the blu-ray, some of the time it's from a dvd, some of the time i think it's from a laserdisk, and maybe some of the time it's from a very nice VHS. Whoever made it juiced it again in post to try and even out the lower-def parts, and there's a lot of moments where the sharpness is up too high and every single surface looks like it has little nicks and scratches. Something I noticed this time is that in this, the first one, pretty much no one gives a shit about the Jedi as a mystical force, and even Darth Vader is just another middle management type. Regular-ass Brits with bowl haircuts buck up against Darth Vader with zero damage and everyone else is like shut the fuck up with that Force shit. Later on it's a given, in this one it's like, I don't know, the early days of being gluten free.
- 3:50pm - Empire Strikes Back (1980) - good
- 6:10pm - Return of the Jedi (1983) - good. again we watched a special version that had the original Ewok music. Yub Yub!
- 9:30pm - Force Awakens (2015) - good. The main lady looks a lot like an old roommate (Clare), enough that's it's constantly distracting. All the little weird digital dudes look cool, good, or at least fine
end star wars day
