I finally watched Knives Out, Matthew ran to Wal Mart for some reason and came home with it. I really liked it I need to watch the features that came with it and then watch it again.

I was just thinking how I should watch that again.

I remember being underwhelmed with Knives Out, which at the time disappointed me because I knew so many here liked it. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood and should try again some day.

The poster is still up at my local independent theater and it makes me sad every time I notice it!

I'm reading a murder mystery and the initial set up with the paterfamilias's will making all his heirs unhappy and sparking chaos made me want to watch Knives Out again (not that that is uncommon). The last two times I watched I intended to pay attention to, like foreshadowing and clues since I knew the ending but I kept getting absorbed in what seemed to be happening now anyway...

Oh Goddammit. Goddammit, Goddammit, Goddammit.

GODDAMMIT 2020.

Chadwick Boseman has passed away from colon cancer.

Heartbreaking

Taken so young. My heart goes out to his family.

I recall seeing a frankly alarming sequence of photos depicting the progression of his physical state the past few years, and hoping it was just increasingly bad cherrypicked images. Suddenly it makes a very sad kind of sense.

A medium-length (~60) Criterion expiring list this month.

Collection-wise, it looks to be most of Herschell Gordon Lewis, Maurice Pialat, and Western Noir (as I had anticipated). That's about half of the list and then everything else is pretty scattered.

My personal September "Get Them Before They're Gone" list:

First and foremost, the rest of Western Noir. I can't recommend this collection enough. The Math Greek and I have watched about half of these and there hasn't been a bad one in the bunch. Lots of interesting female characters to boot.

My personal faves were Day of the Outlaw (Tarantino without the Tarantino, if that makes sense), Blood on the Moon (baby Barbara Bel Geddes!), and Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious with Marlene Dietrich. I also have a fondness for Station West that I can't really explain. The plot is absolutely bonkers but it stars Dick Powell, Jane Greer, Agnes Moorehead, Raymond Burr, and Burl Ives, so, you know, just go with it.

After what's left of Western Noir, I'm prioritizing The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles), A Scandal in Paris (Sirk), Le Vieil Homme et l'enfant (The Two of Us) (Berri), A Dry White Season (Palcy), and The Future (July). Except for the Welles, which I tried to watch in my younger days and never made it all the way through, they are all new to me. I don't consider any of them to be must-sees, so we'll see what happens. After all, I didn't get through that much on last month's priority list, only Kramer vs. Kramer, Day of the Outlaw, My Beautiful Laundrette, and Stop Making Sense.

I did watch a bunch of other good movies, including The Old Guard, on Netflix, Palm Springs, on Hulu, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, on HBO Max, and Thoroughly Modern Millie, which the MG streamed for his weekly Movie Night gang. (He has basically written his own app so they can have a Netflix Party session without relying only on Netflix content.)

I also watched some great silents for my Century Plus project including Stella Maris (1918), Male and Female (1919), The Lost World (1925), and Wings (1927).

But overall I watched fewer movies than usual this past month, partly because of work, but also because the MG and I started watching Le Bureau des légendes (aka The Bureau on Sundance), a fantastic series about French spies starring Mathieu Kassovitz. We've just finished with Season 2 and have 3 more to go so I imagine this month will be similarly slow movie-wise. Pas de regrets, as they say.

How did MY Beautiful Launderette age? I was blown away by it when it was in theaters. Saw it several times.