This one is one of the last of Wes Craven’s films I feel like I need to see. I had put it off for so long (mainly due to availability), but it is probably my least favorite of his films. I wasn’t as experimental as LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT or as smart as SCREAM. A lot of stuff is neither here nor there for me. I’m not used to seeing a young Dee Wallace (I mainly know her as the Mom in E.T.) so that was interesting. Some of the traps that are set are really cool like the matchbox and the door. The dogs ultimately end up being the real heroes in this, which made it hard for me to really root for the people.
Quarantine Watch #86: L'Atalante (1934)
While I am stuck in quarantine I have been trying to watch really great films that I just haven’t seen. Since starting this my favorites have been WENDY & LUCY, THE HALF OF IT, DAY FOR NIGHT, BRIEF ENCOUNTER, THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, BANANAS, CAPERNAUM, WHAT’S UP DOC?, and I DANEIL BLAKE. I put this on expecting to be another one for me to fall in love with. I’m not sure why I just couldn’t connect with it. People say it’s great and I go in wanting to fall in love, but I just felt so bored by most of the film. I don’t know if it is because I am looking at it through 2020 eyes, but I feel broken that I can’t see why this film is a beauty. I feel like I should, but I don’t know. It’s such a simple film and the second half brought me in more than the first, but this is something I genuinely wished I loved. However the scene when the first mate thinks he is playing the record with his finger is just so charming and magical I can’t help but love it. Same goes for the water dance.
Quarantine Watch #85: Salesman (1969)
I first heard about this when DOCUMENTARY NOW! spoofed it and then was reminded of it again during Yorgos Lanthimos’s Criterion Closet picks. These guys just don’t give up. No is not an answer for them. There are some parts in here that you just get sucked into like when one of the salesman is driving around Florida looking for a specific house and is lost. They are selling high-end bibles and it feels like this is something that only could have happened in the 20th century. It’s an art form that has died out. They don’t care about God or religion, they just care about winning and making the sale. I just know David Mamet had to have seen this before writing GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS. There’s so much of that in this.
Quarantine Watch #84: Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019)
I’m a sucker for documentaries about film and this one was particularly fun. It’s not the best documentary on horror films (I think that’s TERROR IN RED WHITE AND BLUE) but it is seriously eye opening to watch so many people speak about watching and making movies through a lens I can never understand. Framing everything around NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD to GET OUT is also particularly smart. I only wish they had more people interviewed in this.
Quarantine Watch #83: Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1983)
First thing: if it weren’t for RZA, The Wu Tang Clan and Quentin Tarantino, I would not know what this movie was. I know it may be a little controversial, but these Shaw Brothers Kung Fu films from the 70s and 80s are best watched with the English Dub. It just feels like I’m watching it back when they came out. The fight scenes and choreography is astounding. There’s no other way to describe the way they dance and fight with these long staffs and spears. The production design is also grand especially for being on a stage. There’s a lot of silly stuff in here, but that is just part-and-parcel with this genre of filmmaking.
Quarantine Watch #82: Circus of Books (2020)
This documentary is shocking and crazy, but not for the reasons you’d think. Rachel Mason shows such an honest portrayal of her parents and their lives. These two people really lived and the amount of work they did wether it was journalism, inventing, or selling pornography to a community that needed it. Larry Flint’s interviews really shocked me as I didn’t expect to see him. This is not only a film about the history of obscenity laws and gay rights from the ‘70s to the present, but it’s really about a family and how the parents provide for their kids.
Quarantine Watch #81: The Wretched (2020)
My roommate rented this horror movie so I decided to check it out with him. The characters here make terrible decisions throughout (as in most horror films) as they deal with a witch-like/skinwalking creature. There is a moment in this towards the end that was actually very expertly handled and that I didn’t see coming, but other than that, it was hard to stay interested.
Quarantine Watch #80: A Secret Love (2020)
This is just a touching romance that warms you as you watch these two people who just love each other that it has encompassed their entire lives. The really interesting stuff here though is their past in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and how they came up in the world as not only women but as lovers.
Quarantine Watch #79: The Half of It (2020)
This is easily one of my favorite movies of the year so far. Every single one of the actors and characters in the film are wholesome, lovable, and charming in their own unique ways. With a plot similar to CYRANO DE BERGERAC, follows a hard working, disillusioned, daughter of an immigrant who helps manage a train switch station while writing papers for money for the rich kids at her school until one day she asked to write a love letter. Leah Lewis is a STAR as the shy, overworked, outsider - Ellie; Daniel Diemer plays one of the best dummies ever as the sausage obsessed lovestruck lug - Paul; and Alexxis Lemire really shines as the misunderstood girl as the object of affection. The script has the scenes waltzing with each other in an elegant way. The subplot with Ellie and her father and his history is also very compelling. It does so many things that really are stand-outs in this genre so way: the small town, the unrequited love, the finding yourself, and almost any other trope you can think of. Everything about this is so bright and life inspiring. Easily one of the best coming-of-age teen films ever.
Quarantine Watch #78: God's Own Country (2017)
I remember wanting to see this when it came out as it was hyped by a bunch of people. I loved the setting of this story. It’s small and quiet, but also vast. It’s such a quiet film. Even when the cast speaks (which is very little) it is soft. All of the characters communicate more with looks than anything else. It’s hard to root for Johnny at times — he’s such a dick — in this romance. We want him to just “get it” because he seems to be so stuck in his ways and is afraid more than anything else. Sadly it takes so long for him to reach that moment of clarity. It’s hard not to see the other gay romance films like BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and WEEKEND's influence in this.
Quarantine Watch #77: Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
I had put this off for a long time, mainly because I had heard it was only okay, compared to other Academy Award Best Picture winners. I get that, especially since films like FORREST GUMP and GREEN BOOK followed in Miss Daisy’s footprints. This may be the best acting Dan Aykroyd has ever done -- like I didn’t know he had it in him. The hair and make-up, especially for the time, is top notch. It is a well deserved Oscar for the hair and make-up team of Manlio Rocchetti, Lynn Barber and Kevin Haney.
Quarantine Watch #76: The Craft (1996)
I feel like if I saw this when I was in high school I would love it as much as I love other teen movies of that era like CLUELESS and CAN’T HARDLY WAIT. Neve Campbell is my favorite here. Her performance as the physically scared, hair in the face, teen is great. I wonder if her and Skeet Ulrich were just like super tight due to both this and SCREAM. Rachel True is also really good in this and I’m surprised she didn’t do more. Her bullies though are so racist that I’m shocked it played in the mid-90s. I am also a huge fan of the story of The Money’s Paw and this is in a way playing on the whole “be careful what you wish for” moral.
Quarantine Watch #75: Nate Bargatze: The Tennessee Kid (2019)
I hadn’t gotten into Nate Bargatze really before, he is just been a blindspot for me for recent stand-ups. I had started to hear him on some comedy radio stations and additionally some youtube videos I like so I finally checked out his Netflix special. I found myself laughing so much during this. His cadence reminds me of an old roommate I had and it’s that underplaying of the situation that makes it sound like you are just talking to a guy in a bar. He also has great takes on pointing out the way people speak in society.
Quarantine Watch #74: The Harder They Come (1972)
There’s a lot going on here. First the music — it’s so good and it’s no wonder why this injected Reggae into the culture. There’s so many great songs in here. The parts of the film that follow Ivan trying to break into the music scene are the most compelling. There is also a great social commentary on play about poverty and trying to get out of it, but people with money controlling everything. Once Ivan starts descending into madness in an almost CITY OF GOD like fashion things start to unravel a bit. His final standoff is great, but everything leading up to it is just tragic because we know how this has to end for him. Despite his talent — his station in life and attitude dooms him to a life of tragedy.
Quarantine Watch #73: 7:35 de la Mañana (2003)
After watching WASP I noticed that the class of directors who were nominated for the Academy Award for best short film that year was great. I love Nacho Vigalondo’s film TIMECRIMES and I enjoyed COLOSSAL. I had no idea he made this. It’s so unique and fun despite it’s content. A musical comedy about loving a woman you see everyday at a cafe mixed with a hostage film. The song is also SUPER catchy and Nacho (who stars in the film) is so charming as the singer. The look on the woman’s face at the end is also fantastic as she takes the whole situation in.
Quarantine Watch #72: Wasp (2003)
I have been a champion of Andrea Arnold’s ever since I saw FISH TANK when it first came out. WASP, her Academy Award winning short film, does something that a lot of filmmakers do to make their first film. The style, look, and themes in a short end up translating very similarly to their first feature. Other examples include Martin McDonagh’s SIX SHOOTER (2004)/IN BRUGES (2008) and Taika Waititi’s TWO CARS, ONE NIGHT (2004)/BOY (2010). The camera work and the film stock really complements the grit and dirt of this world making everything feel even more real. You feel for everyone in the film, but at the same time you’re on edge about what will ultimately happen.
Quarantine Watch #71: Day for Night (1973)
The only one of François Truffaut’s films that I had seen prior to this was THE 400 BLOWS. Controversially I don’t love the film, but I think that is in part to being so far away from when it was initially released. That was why I was delightfully surprised about how much I loved this. The film presents such simple scenes, but they utilize big sets, a lot of people, and become so much more complex than you can imagine. There are so many moments where they are shooting the film that I could watch for hours. I could watch the kitten try to find the bowl and never be bored. The scene where Séverine has to keep doing a scene over because she doesn’t know her lines and then continually opens the wrong door is fantastic as well. There is a moment where you think she has finally gotten it right as she reaches for the right door that you are on the edge of your seat, only for her to open the wrong door at the last second. That sounds so low-stakes and boring, but it is palpable. I love that Truffaut also cast himself as the director. It not only comments well on the film as a whole, but he is also great in the role. His dream sequences/memories at night are also compelling despite how short and simple they are. The film was about 2 hours long and it flew by. This is the best film about making a movie that I have ever seen (that isn’t a documentary — the best is really HEARTS OF DARKNESS).
Quarantine Watch #70: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
This is one of my favorite movies and I’ve been trying to get my roommate to watch it for some time. The film is a perfect parody of the music industry in the modern era with people. Everything in the film feels like a parody of something from real life such as The Style Boys standing in for the Beastie Boys, Hunter the Hungry being a stand-in for Tyler the Creator or the song being released on everyone’s appliances linking to the time Apple gave that U2 album in everyone’s iTunes without asking. Everything is brilliant. Everyone is brilliant. A lot of credit goes not only to the Lonely Island’s humor and song writing (the soundtrack is AMAZING) but to Brandon Trost’s cinematography. He is the leading cinematographer in comedies these days and I love everything he shoots.
Quarantine Watch #69: The Defiant Ones (1958)
I am working on a project dealing with two people handcuffed together, so I had to watch this before it left Criterion Channel. I had known about it as THE SIMPSONS had did an episode based on it. Both actor’s did a really good job and the film worked out really nicely as a tale of friendship and tolerance. I can only imagine the impact of the film when it came out. The final scene where Cullen cradles Joker and sings to him while Joker smokes a cigarette is great. I also really dug Lon Chaney Jr. as a man who takes sympathy on the two men.
Quarantine Watch #68: Bad Education (2020)
I was excited to check this out cause I just loved the cast. Allison Janney gives another fantastic performance as Pam. The thing that she does that so few actors do is she seriously becomes her roles. She IS Pam. You don’t see Allison, you just see the character, unlike Frank who can only be seen as Hugh Jackman. Other actor that accomplish this time and again are people like Julianne Moore, Christian Bale, and Charlize Theron. The entire lynchpin of the film is a note Pam gives to Frank “You’re Not the Sociopath Here.” It really encapsulates the entire film about someone who is revealed to be an unethical sociopath only for us to realize she was tame by comparison to another sociopath. These tendencies reach out like tendrils that afflict everyone in the film. You constantly think, it can’t be this bad, but it just becomes a blueprint for people behaving so much worse as characters peel back the onion of Frank Tassone.
