I know this is just some school project Lena Dunham did and probably never thought anyone would see. At least that’s how it feels since it was included on the TINY FURNITURE Criterion release and that’s the only way I think you can see it. It feels like JACKASS prank (not that I have a problem with them) than a real movie. There are some things Dunham does her that she’ll eventually extrapolate on in both TINY FURNITURE and GIRLS, but it just didn’t do it for me.
Quarantine Watch #205: Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958)
I watched this because Desiree Akhavan spoke about it on her Criterion Closet video. Honestly I loved moments of this — like when the two guys come out of the water and the subsequent dance sequence. I didn’t pick up on any of the subtext about immigration until I read up on the film later. I think that speaks more to me not knowing what it feels like to be a newly arrived immigrant. I appreciate what it’s trying to do, but still just didn’t enjoy it overall. It’s also interesting to watch Polanski in his early years pre-Sharon Tate’s death/all the child sex stuff because after that he really loses me both as a human being but also with the films he would make (except for THE GHOST WRITER). I think a lot of it has to do with it being one of his first attempts at filmmaking though.
Quarantine Watch #204: Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)
This was way better than it had any right to be. The songs are out of this word good (even the ones that are intentionally bad are great). The final song in particular is so emotional. The real standout here is Dan Stevens. He is amazing in this role, which subtly comments on the issues with Russia and Chechnya and the LGBT community. I think the thing that helps make this film really work is that Will Ferrell’s wife is Icelandic and he is so imbued with that culture. Also when you start looking into real life Eurovision this is the perfect love letter/satire of it. The villain is so easy to see from minute one, but that doesn’t matter. The point is to have fun and go on the emotional ride with Ferrell and Rachel McAdams.
Quarantine Watch #203: Scoob! (2020)
I went over to see my sister and she was with some friends. They wanted to watch something fun and easy so we put this on. The animation was really good and the voice work was great — specifically Will Forte as Shaggy. It’s so weird, he sounds just like Casey Kasem's Shaggy, but also like Will Forte at the same time. Mark Whalberg as the Blue Falcon was also so great. At first I thought he was Ryan Reynolds, because he brought that energy to the role. Ken Jeong was also the perfect person to voice Dynomutt. I loved that he was so sardonic. The jokes were a little obvious or were trying to be too meta, which didn’t really do it for me, but the overall theme of the story and characters were enough to keep me into it. All the Simon Cowell stuff was also so dated it pulls you out of the film. It's the same joke from Scary Movie 3 and that came out in 2003 when that joke was relevant. I liked how they brought in so many different Hanna Barabara characters into it like Dick Dastardly and Muttley (gotta love Wacky Races) and Captain Caveman. Hands down though — the meeting of Shaggy and Scooby as little kids was the best part of the film. The ending was also a real cop out and didn’t let the characters have any consequences for their actions.
Quarantine Watch #202: Branded to Kill (1967)
This is a hyper unique film. The fetish Hanada has with smelling boiled rice in order to climax is so insane and unique and almost Lynchian. In fact, I feel like David Lynch was inspired by this for Dennis Hopper’s character in BLUE VELVET. The cinematography here is the real star here. Everything looks so beautiful, which really compliments the absurdity of what happens in the film. The entire conceit of the ranked hitmen is so cool and feels like it inspired AFRO-SAMURAI as well.
Quarantine Watch #201: The Mirror (1975)
I’m trying to make my way through all of the major Tarkovsky films since I’ve only seen STALKER. Usually their run times scare me into picking something else. Since this was a reasonable running time and I’ve been hyped up about it. I’m not that into the experimental films, but parts of this were interesting. Specifically the part where the woman disappears. It really does make you feel like you are coasting through fleeting memories. Margarita Terekhova was really good in this and stood out. Her performance really compliments the mediative feel of the narrative.
Quarantine Watch #200: Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
This was one of my favorite movies growing up and I’ll always try to find time to rewatch it every now and again. It never gets old. The action is amazing, and even the subtle bits are genius (for instance John uses Spanish sayings like, “Hasta la vista baby,” and, "No problemo," because of him growing up around his Mom’s boyfriend/friend/gun provider Enrique in the South). Arnold Schwarzenegger brings so much life to a character who has no life. I also miss seeing Linda Hamilton in things — I wish did more films.
Quarantine Watch #199: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE are two of my favorite horror films. Every horror fan usually puts this one in the upper echelon of the series as well, but I had issues with it. My main beef with the film is that it was super light on Freddy. He just shows up and kills. I’d appreciate more of his personality here than the kids he is killing. I like that they brought back Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy, but she feels like she is really phoning it in. This could also be due to her dialogue. While I liked a lot of the actors: particularly Patrica Arquette, Laurence Fishburne, and Jennifer Rubin and the kills were interesting (particularly the veins as puppet strings and the caterpillar thing) it wasn’t enough for me to really dig this. I also didn’t think the “Dream powers” the kids had really worked or fit into the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET world.
Quarantine Watch #198: Machete Kills (2013)
Okay… this is one of my favorite movies ever. It’s insane and so much fun. It goes even more crazier than it’s predecessor in some of the most creative ways. There is an energy that only films directed by Robert Rodriguez distinctly have. I watched it years ago and I had to show it to my parents. The best part of it is a character named the Chameleon, an assassin who kills everyone who sees him and once his identify has been broken, just pulls off a mask revealing a new identity straight outta SCOOBY-DOO. Danny Trejo is so great in the role and while I think he's a garbage human being, Mel Gibson is perfectly cast as a future seeing terrorist. Demián Bichir is also such a good actor as showcased here in playing a warlord with multiple personalities. He really doesn’t get enough credit and should be a bigger star than he is. I really want them to make MACHETE KILLS AGAIN or MACHETE KILLS IN SPACE or whatever the next one will be called. We NEED the trilogy.
Quarantine Watch #197: Casino (1995)
This film reminds me of his grandfather. He’s a Jewish guy who wears gold chains and wishes he was born Italian so he could either be in THE GODFATHER or a Scorsese flick. I know a lot of people think this film is superficial or rips off stuff we saw in GOODFELLAS, but I just love it. I think the part that really draws me in, is the relationship between De Niro and Sharon Stone. It’s what I call junkfood love. He loves her so much, but because of that he has a hard time walking away and is more lenient of her destructive parts than he should be. The true tragedy is that she doesn’t really love him even though they have a child together. Eventually it is Rothstien’s love of that child that supersedes his love of Stone’s character. There’s a lot of great performances here from not only De Niro and Stone, but from Joe Pesci and Frank Vincent. It also has that trademark Scorsese soundtrack to boot.
Quarantine Watch #196: Band of Outsiders (1964)
Most of Godard’s films are leaving Criterion at the end of the month so I’m planning on watching as much as I can. I started with BANDE À PART. This had it’s moments. I loved the dance scene. The editing in particular is so spectacular. Anna Karina is so freaking beautiful. It’s no wonder she became Godard’s Muse. Overall the film didn’t really move me, but had enough moments to keep my interest. There’s a lot of JULES AND JIM in here too (which came out 2 years prior so it had to have inspired Godard).
Quarantine Watch #195: Hamilton (2020)
I had missed the initial excitement over HAMILTON when it first came out. I ended up missing a flight to the Bay area and drove up there instead for Thanksgiving. On the way back I decided to listen to it start to finish and was really taken by both the story and the construction of songs. I caught it when it came to LA. While I did like it better when I saw it on stage, I was very excited to watch it with the original cast. This was really well directed in terms of the shots and the way the film makes it more subjective with it’s editing and close-ups than could ever be done just sitting in the audience in a theater. I also never noticed Leslie Odom Jr.’s way of speaking. He like speaks through his teeth a bit. It doesn’t come through on the album and that took me back a bit during this production. It was very nice to revisit though, especially with July 4th coming up.
Quarantine Watch #194: Good Will Hunting (1997)
This is a movie I absolutely adore. It’s one of those movies that I’ll watch whenever I’m flipping channels and it comes on — and that’s exactly what happened in this situation. I feel like as I’ve aged, whenever I return to this film I notice different things. This time I really zeroed in on the childhood abuse Will suffered, which, for some reason, I always glossed over.
Quarantine Watch #193: Underwater (2020)
I was really excited to see this. I really dug the trailer and the actors in the cast are all phenomenal. As I sat down to watch it, the story unfolded in a completely superficial way. It felt like ALIEN meets THE DESCENT with a little Cthulhu thrown in for good measure. Even Kristen Stewart feels like Ripley in ALIEN³ not only in hairstyle, but in personality too. Instead of finding something thematic to tie the film together it relied too much on the plot and less time developing any sort of character. I wish Mamoudou Athie had more screen time cause he’s such a good actor and just needs to be seen in more things.
Quarantine Watch #192: Welcome to Chechnya (2020)
Holy shit — this was brutal. Hard to watch at sometimes. It’s crazy to think torture, murder, and erasure is still going on in the modern era. The use of deep fake technology is revolutionary. I't changes the whole way documentaries can be presented. Additionally it is the first time I’ve seen deep fake tech used for an actual good purpose. It was a technology that I thought could never be used in such away -- it always felt insidious or a way for people to make false videos even easier. The entire doc is also so well constructed. It’s amazing they were able to even film it.
Quarantine Watch #191: Catch Me If You Can (2002)
This is always such a fun watch. This mostly due to the performances of Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, John William’s score, and Janusz Kamiński’s cinematography. I didn’t intend to rewatch the whole thing when I saw it was on, but that’s what ended up happening. Another thing I noticed, I think Tom Hanks agreed to do this not only because of the story and Spielberg, but because he could be around a lot of old typewriters.
Quarantine Watch #190: Songs My Brothers Taught To Me (2016)
Another ‘it was leaving Criterion after today so I had to watch it’ movie. I loved Chloé Zhao’s film THE RIDER so I was excited to check out her earlier work. The two leads just popped off the screen. I loved the cinematography as well. I also didn’t intend to watch two movies in one day that had Eleonore Hendricks (THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED) in it as well, but that happened too as a happy accident.
Quarantine Watch #189: The Count of Monte Cristo (1934)
This was my Great Grandpa’s favorite movie. My Dad always used to tell me that he would watch it over and over again. The 2002 version of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO is also a favorite film amongst my family. We love the story, so it was nice to sit down with my dad and watch this version. It was a lot of fun, although the 2002 film is vastly superior mostly due to technology and camera techniques. This film lacks editing, score, shot variations, and Elissa Landi’s performance is so over the top it feel operatic. All of that though is very much of it’s time. There are moments though where the dialogue is so piercing and smart. Lines like “When people die, we feel a grief because their minds are lost to us. How fortunate am I... I leave my mind behind in your possession; it is part of yours. Use it as an instrument for justice. My blessing... Edmond, if you could only see. Death is so beautiful,” are just great. They are pepped in throughout the story and are nice when they come up. I also wish they had amped up the swashbuckling elements. Due to the sets, time period, budget, etc. they weren’t able to show a lot of the action that other versions have been able to display.
Quarantine Watch #188: The Pleasure of Being Robbed (2009)
It is clear the Safdie Brothers get better and better after each of their films. I felt the same thing about this film as I did with DADDY LONGLEGS. It feels very mumblecorey and of the era it was made. The pacing was slow and I really didn’t care about the characters. It feels like nothing changes, which is supposed to be the point. It’s definitely telling that not only was this originally a short film, but it was also originally made to showcase handbags. A kleptomaniac is an interesting character and the real saving grace for the film is Eleonore Hendricks as the lead. She is so adorable and spontaneous. Her scenes with Josh Sadfie are also lovely and felt similar to the warm moments in DADDY LONGLEGS.
Quarantine Watch #187: Cracked Up: The Darrell Hammond Story (2018)
Wow wow wow wow wow. Holy shit. This was something else. I had no idea about Darrell Hammond’s life outside of seeing him on SNL. I expected this to be about him getting on SNL and about his career. This was so much more. As someone who deals with his own depression it’s insane to be thrust into Hammond’s life and childhood and see how bad it could be for some people. I high recommend this one. Highly.
