'Serenity'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
David Lynch's (G-rated!) The Straight Story is up on Disney+!
Oh man, one of my all-time favorite docs.
I had a HUGE crush on Brian Dennehy back in the day. It was nice to see him still working on The Blacklist and other guesting spots. Bless him and all his gruffness. May he rest.
In case anyone doesn't own it: The Princess Bride will be available to stream on Disney+ starting May 1st. [link]
...so I can clearly not choose the streaming service in front of you.
Josh Gad reunites the Goonies on Zoom, with some special guest stars. This is really fun.
Awww, bless. I do love Josh Gad.
Just binged Happy Death Day and Happy Death Day 2 U, they were surprisingly good, I really enjoyed them!
I wrote about something I watched today. [link]
I wrote about something I watched today.
Oooh, thanks for reminding me I wanted to see that one!
In what looks like may become my monthly Criterion report, I managed to see almost all 18 expiring films I had put on my watch list for April. Not all, because at some point, I realized I just didn't want to see
A Raisin in the Sun
or
Hollywood Shuffle.
Instead, I added
The Arbor, The Crimson Kimono
(rewatch),
Two Weeks in Another Town,
and
Some Like It Hot
to the "expiring" list. And I ended up watching six other Criterion films on top of that.
April Criterion Ranked:
The Defiant Ones
(1958)
Three Days of the Condor
(1975)
House of Games
(1987)
Klute
(1971)
Footlight Parade
(1933)
Some Like It Hot
(1959)
The Arbor
(2011)
Adaptation
(2002)
La Nuit américaine (Day for Night)
(1973)
Uptown Saturday Night
(1974)
Vanya on 42nd Street
(1994)
Shaft
(1970)
Gas Food Lodging
(1992)
Two Weeks in Another Town
(1962)
The Crimson Kimono
(1959)
Blackboard Jungle
(1955)
The Getaway
(1972)
My Dinner with Andre
(1981)
Near Dark
(1987)
Blithe Spirit
(1945)
The Hunger
(1983)
The Westerner
(1940)
Vera Cruz
(1954)
Thank God It's Friday
(1978)
The Squeaker
(1937)
Il Decameron (The Decameron)
(1970)
I'd say the top 7 and bottom 7 are stand-outs in the sense that I either thought they were really good, or was rather disappointed in them for one reason or another. Oddly enough, the 6 non-expiring films we ended up watching all fell near the bottom of the rankings. And Il Decameron I flat out hated. After watching it, even the Math Greek (who chose it) decided we didn't need to see the rest of that trilogy.
The middle ones were all ranked fairly close together and mostly fall into the "I'm glad I watched (or rewatched) it but feel no need to revisit it again" category. Except for Shaft. I'd watch Shaft again for the clothes alone. I'd also probably watch Thank God It's Friday again because, while in no way a "good" film, it was a lot of fun. The '70s Style Icons was really one of Criterion's most enjoyable collections. I still have Foxy Brown and Shampoo to watch in that one.
And of course, the 20 new "expiring" films I've added to my May watchlist...
Unlike my April list, I am much more sure of the films in my May list as being either "want to" or "have to" (re)watches.
For the record, they are:
From the Rita Hayworth collection:
Only Angels Have Wings, The Strawberry Blonde, You Were Never Lovelier, Cover Girl
Classics:
On the Waterfront, 3:10 to Yuma
"Going Nuclear" double feature:
Fail Safe, Dr. Strangelove
From the "Scores by Quincy Jones" collection:
The Pawnbroker, In Cold Blood, Cactus Flower, $
From the Catherine Deneuve collection:
Repulsion, Mississippi Mermaid
From the "Three by Peter Bogdanovich" collection:
Targets, The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon
Then also
Mauvais sang, Safe,
and
Meeks Cutoff.
On the Waterfront, 3:10 to Yuma, Dr. Strangelove, The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon, and Meeks Cutoff are all rewatches, but, except in the cases of 3:10 to Yuma and Meeks Cutoff, it has been decades. I watched those last two fairly recently, but I'm contemplating a westerns project so I want to have them fresh in my mind.
So many movies, so little time.
But at least my workload in May, especially after the first week or so, should be much lighter than it has been. And we're under shelter-in-place for at least another month so...