Weekly Watches
Wow, it has been SO long since I did one of these. Well, this was the perfect week for it. I had some time off work to start packing for my move in two months and during this time I watched a TON of movies. Almost too many to recount here. As I have mentioned on Instagram a few times before, I am doing several challenges this year such as “At Least 52 Films Directed By Women” “Around the World in 80 Films” and “A Year of Film History Challenge” (for that last one, by the way, I’m sticking with a horror theme and it has been interesting so far). With such a broad range of topics to cover and a genuine interest in films unrelated to the challenges, I found myself swinging from one movie extreme to another. The biggest jump was probably from Louis Malle’s Black Moon to this reeeally cheesy rom-com from 2000 called Down To You. There are almost 20 movies on this list for the week so I won’t write quite as much as Weekly Watches normally dictate but if you want a more in-depth look at the films you can go to my Letterboxd Diary and click on each one.
The Uninvited (1944)
This was one that I watched for the Film History Challenge. A mystery and family drama that takes place in a haunted house and slowly racks up the tension. I liked it pretty well, but I wouldn’t call it horror exactly; maybe a family haunted house thriller with some jumpy moments. It’s worth seeking out and watching though, if only for the historical elements and the beautiful lighting.
Intermission (2003)
I watched this one for the Personal Favorites Challenge. It’s a Colin Farrell movie and he was my “favorite” for the month of April. I only got 4/5 of his movies last month but I was finally able to find this one and watch it. It’s about a bunch of petty criminals in small-town Ireland and how they intersect. It’s pretty good and has that classic Irish movie sarcasm that I love. Otherwise, it’s nothing to write home about.
Strike (1925)
Originally this Russian classic about labor was not on my World challenge. However, I needed to replace the original Russian film I had chosen because it is impossible to find anywhere with subtitles. I searched high and low and even on a website I discovered (it’s called Rarefilmm we’ll talk about it later) and still nothing. I think Letterboxd is lying to me and it isn’t actually real. Anyway, with that little obstacle in the back of my mind, I was scrolling through The Criterion Channel and happened across this one. It was very good, as those early Soviet films often were. And yes, I am aware that they were usually propaganda BUT effective propaganda is effective because it’s good filmmaking; this one latches on to you and doesn’t ever let you off the hook. The USSR may make you uncomfortable, but damn they knew how to make a movie. Watch this, give it a fair shake, and tackle that discomfort. When it comes to getting its message across it is clear, concise, and very “effective.” This one is definitely historically worth watching, and also worth considering the current world while you do. I plan on exploring more films by Sergei Eisenstein when I get the chance.
Visioneers (2008)
This one…not good. It revolves around a guy who works for a company that pressures its workers so hard they literally explode from stress. It’s Drake Bell’s directorial debut (and his only effort so far) and I can’t decide if he is solely the problem here. It’s trying to be funny in a dark and satirical way but it falls really flat. I think about the stone-cold expert satirists like Stanley Kubrick, and more recently Yorgos Lanthimos or Bong Joon-ho and wonder why it is that movies like Lolita, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and Parasite work SO well but yet movies like this one and In The Company of Men (which feels very similar in some of its tonal and pacing elements) fall apart quickly. The best conclusion I can come to is that movies like this one are 1) beating us over the head, loudly and violently, with an obvious statement and 2) think that’s enough to hold your interest. Skip this movie and watch something like The Lobster or Office Space instead (depending on which type of satire you prefer). I only watched this because it’s been on my list for a while and I was seeing if there was room for it on the decade list. Spoiler alert: there wasn’t.
Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)
I actually didn’t watch this one start to finish this time, though I have seen it before. I was more so refreshing my memory of it than actually sitting down to watch it. So I don’t know if it counts, but I did log it. Anyway if you’re interested in LA as a city OR you think that it sucks and Hollywood and LA are synonymous and both horrible and plastic…well then watch this. It’s a cool documentary about a rad city and what the movies have done both to its image and the city itself. A native Angelino made it too, so that’s cool. (PS LA is a great city, not just because of the movies, and you haters are wrong.)
Blow The Man Down (2019)
I watched this both for my directed by women challenge and for the 2020 Ranked list I am making. As far as most of us are concerned this is a 2020 movie. The festival release was last year but only now available for the general population to see it. It centers around two girls living a small Maine fishing community and its tight circle of crime. I don’t want to spoil it or anything so I won’t say much more except go log on to someone’s Amazon Prime and watch it because it is really good. A special shoutout to American Treasure Character Actress Margot Martindale as well.
An Education (2009)
This was another “directed by a woman” challenge movie, as well as scratching off my watchlist in time to make my Top 100 of the 2000s list. It made it! It’s a story focusing on a young woman who falls for an older man and comes of age. I am sure my mom and dad will roll their eyes when they read this but I have started to notice a pattern when it comes to coming of age films: with the very notable exception of Stand By Me women are better at writing and directing these movies. They just are. I don’t know why except for maybe we have more profound experiences in this part of life (that’s just me spitballing) but the best movies of this genre (again, with some exceptions) are often made by women.
Osama (2003)
Another notable exception on that topic is this Afghanistan picture that I watched for my Around the World challenge. This movie is notable for a few reasons, not the least of which is that it was one of the first movies made in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime. It centers around a girl who, to help her struggling family and widowed mother, dresses as a boy and calls herself Osama in order to get a job. This isn’t a coming of age movie in the way American audiences are used to seeing, obviously. However, it’s a wonderfully made film, and it’s heartbreaking, and if you can find it I highly recommend it.
Fearless (1993)
I watched this early to see if it will fit on my Top 100 of the 1990s list (probably not) but it is also on my favorites list (Jeff Bridges is the man). The movie is about a guy, played by Bridges, who survives a plane crash. Most of the runtime is spent watching him cope with his PTSD and try and push his limits to challenge death. It’s a perfectly okay movie but there is so much better Bridges out there I would say skip it unless you really, really love his work and want to complete his filmography.
Someone Great (2019)
I saw a lot of people call this Netflix movie a “rom-com” and that’s not really true. It’s a break-up movie and it’s pretty clear from the beginning that they are not getting back together and that it is Gina Rodgriguez’s arc to get over Lakeith Stanfield and move into the next part of her life. This is a movie that I watched for Rosario Dawson (she’s only in it briefly, but I didn’t know that) as she is my May Favorite, and it fits under directed by women, too. Which leads me back to my statement about making movies about a character’s next life phase: women do it well. This movie isn’t GREAT but it is good. And there’s a lot for a young woman in her late 20s/entering her 30s to relate to here. I’m not really a party girl, honestly I never really was, but there is something about the “one last big night before you grow up and go to a farmer’s market on Saturday mornings” movie that I find really fun and relatable. And I love how this film balances Rodriguez’s break up with the fun that she and her friends are having, and the realization that they are growing in their careers and in life. Our priorities change as we grow, hopefully, and seeing the different characters be close to where I am in different ways was cool. Plus I love a good female friendship movie, we don’t get a lot of good girl buddy movies.
Mary Jane’s Not A Virgin Anymore (1996)
Okay here is where I started to float down the weird and forgotten territory. I was browsing lists on Letterboxd and looking for 1990s movies I hadn’t seen, or in some cases heard of, that I may include on the upcoming Top 100. This particular movie was one I found on a bunch of “weirdo” lists and a bunch of “90s DIY” compilations. Every review mentioned how it was a tragedy that Clerks got picked up and Kevin Smith got super famous and this one and its director went nowhere and how it was basically a female Clerks. That piqued my interest since Clerks is my favorite movie and while I see why so many people made those comparisons…well, I don’t think it’s accurate. They’re QUITE different movies. This one is probably more akin to Kids, which was also referenced by one particularly astute review. I liked this movie for its DIY 90s charm and for its blunt approach to the topic at hand (oh and it’s really rad soundtrack) but I probably won’t revisit it. You’ll have to read my upcoming 90s list to see if it makes the Top 100 though.
Eternity and a Day (1998)
As I have written and posted about before I LOVE Theo Angelopoulos’s Landscape in the Mist. So much so that I went out of my way to watch THIS one, a follow up of sorts, through various clips across the internet. I live in America, as I’ve noted, and here it is really hard to get ahold of Angelopoulos films. Really, really hard. It also was frustrating piecing together one to nine-minute clips across various platforms to try and make a movie. Why? Well, I saw Landscape in the Mist because my library had a copy of the American DVD. I fell in love with it so I went to see where I could get this one and The Suspended Step of the Stork and everything else he’d made. Sadly, it turns out in America you really can’t get most of his work. So I bought a region free DVD player so I could get the European discs. But then the best and least sketchy ones I could find were spread across three different $70 box sets. So circling back to the top I have been watching clips to add up to the whole movie. Flash forward to me browsing Letterboxd lists with this movie on it I was enlightened. There is a website called Rarefilmm.com and it had THIS on it too! I was so excited and I watched it all in one smooth video and of course, I loved it. It’s a beautiful movie. I recommend it highly to anyone looking for a patient, loving movie about human connections. RIP Theo.
The Day the Ponies Come Back (2000)
Remember The Panic in Needle Park and Scarecrow? Those were directed by Jerry Schatzberg, a photographer turned film director. This is a mostly unavailable movie. It was on Filmstruck but once that was closed it disappeared. Including, by the way DVD. It was only ever released on VHS. Since I was already on Rarefilmm.com to watch Eternity and a Day I thought well I may as well search this one too. It was there! The Panic in Needle Park is one of my absolute favorite movies. It is beautiful and I am eager to read the book that it is based on. This movie I found to be a little disappointing. It is definitely charming, but it’s also naive and maybe a little dated. It centers on a French musician in New York on a business trip who is also trying to find his long lost father. It covers themes of domestic abuse and racism and poverty from the point of view of someone who is naive to all of those things. He basically inspires those around him to take control of their situations. If you’re interested in that give it a shot, but it isn’t one that you should drop everything to see. Scarecrow and The Panic in Needle Park are, though.
Putney Swope (1969)
When Robert Downey Jr was on Joe Rogan’s podcast he referenced this movie that his dad made in the 1960s. I put it on my watchlist but forgot about it soon after. Until I started looking through the weirdo lists and saw it on a couple. Since it’s free on Tubi I figured I would give it a shot. Centering on a newly promoted black man in the advertisement world and the changes he makes to his workplace once he gets power, it’s kind of slow for a 90-minute movie. But considering it was the original Do It Yourself political/workplace indie satire I can forgive it. It was controversial back in 1969, but by today’s standards, it’s pretty tame. I still say you should watch it though, for its historical cinema significance.
Black Moon (1975)
Yesterday afternoon I had reached the point in the week where I was like okay let’s do this—let’s dip into the weird-weird. I have done it before. I watched The Color of Pomegranates. I’ve seen Peter Jackson’s Meet the Feebles. I have seen Begotten, the world’s stupidest take on The Book of Genesis. I have seen and finished the ultra boring and chaotic Daisies. I have seen Salo and Cannibal Holocaust and The Human Centipede and conquered almost all of the other Titans of the “this is really messed up and I should turn it off” genre. (I refuse to watch Faces of Death though. I see no need.) I enjoy movies like Stalker, Solaris, Satantango, Bergman films, and Mulholland Drive—I am no stranger to surrealist narrative features that make you scratch your head. This one tested my patience though. I barely made it through. The filmed-at-home-on-a-ranch version of Alice in Wonderland with almost no talking and a lot of screaming pretty much is where my line is—no matter how beautifully it’s shot. I keep looking for the line, refining it, finding the one spot where avant-garde/arthouse becomes too much for me. I thought that was The Color of Pomegranates or Begotten but nope…for now, that belongs to Black Moon. Yikes. Don’t watch this.
Down to You (2000)
This was because Rosario Dawson is in it and I needed a palette cleanser after Black Moon. It also wasn’t good. It was cheesy. It was everything most people hate about romcoms. Skip it. Even if you love Freddie Prinze Jr. or Julia Stiles. Just skip it.
So that’s my very busy movie week folks! There were definitely some I think you should all watch, and certainly ones you should skip. Honestly if I HAD to pick a favorite it’s Eternity and a Day hands down, but I covered such a range that I think there’s a little something for everyone on this list. Also, my mom really liked Blow the Man Down, too, if that helps you choose one at all.