I didn't write as much as I would have like to these past two weeks, but I don't have nearly as much time as I would like either, so the hobby has to suffer a little. It's a shame though, because I watched a lot of cracking good movies, and it's always harder to talk about greats and classics than it is any other kind; I suppose I'll have to lean more on the ratings this time, unfortunately. As always, follow the IMDb links in the titles to get a plot synopsis.
190. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) - July 10th
- 8.5/10
191. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - July 10th
- 8/10
With more time I'd talk about the merits of the each individual film, because there are many. I would particularly love to talk about allegory versus coding in its relation the original and the unintended expressions and takeaways thereof (seriously, the fact that people were seeing things both for and against both communism and McCarthyism and the director and writers of both the film and the source text intended none of it is so damn interesting all on its own, a great reminder of just how subjective all of film is), but unfortunately I'm stretched and I want to say something about both, so I'll do a quick comparison of the films as original and re-make. Both films exemplify their respective time periods so thoroughly in terms of approach to so many aspects of the film, and it is because both films show awareness of how to express story beats effectively in their own time frames that I love the two films together for their differences as much as their similarities. The first is fast and initially innocuous, casually strolling through its story beats with an air of mystery before the first real big moment. It's a reminder of how often blandness was used specifically to contrast with big moments so that those moments would hit even harder, keeping things even and unsuspecting with only the slightest sense of paranoia before the plant comes alive. Contrast this to the second, which uses its opening to more thoroughly establish character while also visually expressing everything we need to know about the aliens. There's no pretense of normalcy here, it's aware of what it is as a re-make and attempts to use that fact to tell the story in its own unique way which focuses even more on character than the original and pretends, at least for a moment, to be more hopeful. These are both great films in their own right, but each has its own thing going on and does what they each set out to do so well that it's worth watching them both just to compare and contrast them.
192. Insidious (2010) - July 11th
I was hoping for more from James Wan and Leigh Whannell, but this is a significant step down compared to their other work. It's like the worst aspects of their filmmaking are put front and centre with this, with a constant stream of tactless and weightless jump scares that fail to evoke even a basic sense of fear, and seemingly endless tired nonsense exposition. On the plus side, the performances of most of the cast are pretty great, with Patrick Wilson never failing to deliver appropriate work, and Byrne working well with typically annoying material. There's also the Further itself; the last twenty minutes of the movie actually remember to be creepy, and for a few brief shining moments there are glimpses of a much better (if derivative) horror movie beneath the surface of constant pointlessness. If this movie had spent more time being as creepy as it was in the further and less time trying to get by on cheap jumps, I might've really enjoyed it. - 5/10
193. Skyscraper (2018) - July 12th
This was just okay. Nothing about it stands out, good or bad, it just toes the line of mediocrity from start to finish. My full review can be found here. - 5/10
194. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) - July 13th
This was joyfully absurd. Alec Guinness is a master and steals every scene that he's in, and with a whole eight characters to play that's no small feat.
- 9/10
195. The Stepford Wives (1975) - July 14th
Man, I really want to like this one more than I do. With all the parallels to Rosemary's Baby this has a lot of the same potential as a story, but the film's arctic pace makes things far less interesting than they could be. I can see the value in spending more time simply connecting Joanna with Bobbie; it makes the contrast between Bobbie's humanity and then erasure have a more personal impact. At the same time, that impact is largely dulled by the time the film takes to get to that reveal. That's essentially a microcosm of the film's issues; all that it has is good, it just takes forever to get from one good thing to the next, and by the time it makes it to the awesome final reveal, it's a little dull. It's a shame, too, because the gender politics at play are simple, focused and biting, and if the film had kept pace enough for the to be ever in the spotlight this could have been a far more cracking experience, but none of it runs long enough to be deep. - 5.5/10
196. The Stepford Wives (2004) - July 14th
I'm not entirely sure what the intention was with this remake. While cutting down the running does help significantly with the pacing issues of the first, the choice to take the film that much further over the top while significantly changing the story makes the film's satire far less focused and obscured by a lot of camp. This film is funnier, but in no way that actually improves the overall story, so while I appreciate every well-written barb of dialogue that gets thrown about and find the excessive nature of it all pretty entertaining, it all feels so fake, and in trying to re-frame the metaphor for the erasure of independent feminine identity with a happier ending that also requires multiple twists that don't work with the original story's intentions, the whole thing falls apart as it deviates. I appreciate the ambition, but the changes just all feel off from one another enough that none of it quite fits, both thematically and structurally (to say nothing of the re-write that makes the whole thing not only not work but also not make sense) and all the clever jokes can't save it. That's not to say this idea couldn't work; updating The Stepford Wives with a modern dynamic is a neat idea that with more concise metaphor could be really good, but this doesn't accomplish that. - 4/10
197. The Great Dictator (1940) - July 16th
I still prefer Modern Times, but damn if Chaplin's speech isn't absolutely sterling. The politics at play here are at once important but also intriguingly messy by way of Chaplin's own regret over this movie when he learned the extent of the brutality of the Nazi concentration camps (which I don't think makes the movie any less valuable; satire shows our pain as much as it does our humour and level of understanding). Aside from that, the comedy is great, but I've seen Chaplin do better, so while this is his most significant film (seriously, let me just re-iterate how powerful that speech is even today), I don't think of it has his 'best'.
- 9/10
198. Holiday Inn (1942) - July 18th
Another classic, another reminder that some don't age as well as others. The use of blackface is thankfully brief and given how it's written probably seemed pretty clever at the time, but there's a reason that it's the biggest omission from edited versions of the film. Still, aside from that unfortunate aspect, I found this to be pretty great. The music is definitive Christmas stuff (White Christmas was popularised by this movie, though personally I preferred Be Careful, It's My Heart, if only for the visual juxtaposition of the scene in which it is used) and it's the bulk of what the film's about, supported by the strength of the lead performances; the story isn't anything spectacular in presentation, obvious and easy stuff that leads to some great set-ups but doesn't add up to much on its own. The film is great holiday fair, but not one that blew me away. - 7.5/10
199. Live a Little, Love a Little (1968) - July 20th
I know these Elvis movies are just vehicles for his music, but where Jailhouse Rock started well and fell apart as the movie went on, this is all over the place from the start.
This could easily be re-written as a horror; the movie is about newspaper photographer Nolan, whose life is wrecked by lonely woman Bernice when she leaves him with no recourse but to live with her and put up with her behaviour. She literally drugs him in to a coma and in the mean time gets him fired from his job and kicked out of his apartment, and this apparently not an uncommon occurrence. The film is a tonal mess with these actions, at once treating it as horrifying and as a joke and as some sort of acid trip, Elvis' music can't save all of it.
It gets worse as it drops all pretense of horror and leans in to this idea that Nolan owes Bernice something while continuing to up the uncomfortable nature of her actions and playing Nolan for a sap trying to keep up with her. It's so strange, the movie seems to be saying one thing but showing something else with every single scene, it's not even out of date social attitudes at play (Nolan is aware of how ridiculous it all is even if that gets confused from one scene to the next), it's just a mess of ideas that go against one another while Elvis' music plays as the only good part of it (and of course the incidental fact that Elvis being in it means that we get to hear him talk). Admittedly, the gag of him working two jobs is pretty funny and cheesy, but the set-up for the gag makes it all feel so off. - 4/10
200. Iron Monkey (1993) - July 20th
Wire fu is great specifically because it's silly; that statement has never been more true than in Iron Monkey. This was a ridiculous delight. - 8/10
201. Platoon (1986) - July 21st
I wish I had found the time to talk properly about this one, because it's not just a reminder of how much the Vietnam War shaped the American consciousness and how much that impacted their art, it's also incredibly personal, right in the thick of things, and becomes one of the best of the Vietnam movies in the process, highlighting in its own way what many have tried to capture. - 9/10
202. Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015) - July 22nd
Filmmakers talk for eighty minutes about one of the greatest filmmakers of all time and another who proved that to the world. This was so great to see just how many great filmmakers were inspired not just by Hitchcock's work, but through Truffaut's own passion for Hitchcock's work. - 8/10
Re-watches
44. Back to the Future (1985) - July 9th
Sometimes you have to go back and watch a movie that reminds you why you love movies. Back to the Future is one of the greatest movies of all time, a veritable joy of film and pop culture that grabs you within the first five minutes and never lets go. It's exciting, it's hilarious, it's sometimes beautiful, and it does all of these things better than just about every movie that tries the same; it's a perfect roller coaster of cinema that I could never tire of, from its music to its action to its corny acting and dialogue to its heart-achingly sweet and spine-tinglingly awesome ending. I love it, and it's hard to get better than it. - 10/10
45. Singin' in the Rain (1952) - July 9th
That said, it's not impossible. Singin' in the Rain is basically an eternal 'f*ck you' to anyone who doesn't like musicals, because it's so damn fantastic that even the most hardened musical hater would have to be dead to not love this movie. The movie is a brilliant musical that's also a film about making a brilliant musical that satirises stardom and Hollywood glamour while also making the most out of the fact that the film exists within that archetype. From the moment Lockwood starts telling a very different story to the one shown it's as close to perfection as a musical has gotten, and the film leans on the nature of its own greatness as meta narrative without obtruding on the rest of what its got. Perhaps its because I'm aware of the history of this film's production, done in the way that it is because Kelly was spiteful towards MGM for forcing him to keep contract, so he made the film a satire of the studio, but this sort of excess of meta is the sort that I love, to say nothing of how perfect every musical number is (the titular being the most popular, but Make 'Em Laugh being my personal favourite) or the performances (Reynolds and O'Connor are immortalised in this movie, and this was the movie that made me realise that Gene Kelly is perfect). - 10/10
46. Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) - July 9th
It's a little less special now with a new Star Wars movie coming out every year, but seeing this on premiere night, after a decade without Star Wars, was a truly mesmerising experience. No amount of re-watches can capture that same feeling, but every now and then, when you start talking with a friend about how much you love Star Wars, you can get pretty close, which is how I ended up watching The Force Awakens for what I believe is the fifth time. It's indulgent, it never breathes, it relies all too heavily on its own existence, but all that also means that it's filled to the brim with nostalgic moments, moves at a breakneck pace, and reminds us all why we fell in love with Star Wars in the first place. It's especially important in the meta-narrative of it all, interestingly enough reminding me of the Godzilla franchise: where the Heisei era used its narrative to express a meta-narrative about the cultural impact of the Showa era and Godzilla overall, The Force Awakens (and The Last Jedi) seems bent on being at least in part about the cultural impact of Star Wars, ie. the new movies don't just remind us why we love Star Wars with easy nostalgia moments like the Millenium Falcon reveal, the love of Star Wars is built in to the narrative. It's something I love about the new movies, from the way Rey fangirls over Luke Skywalker, the Resistance, Han Solo, etc. to the roots of Kylo Ren's motivation, to the fact that this is all playing out like a combination of 'what if' ideas (essentially Kylo's arc is like a combination 'what if Luke had fallen' and 'what if Vader had killed Sidious, and the movie is using that both narratively and meta-narratively, he's both effectively a stand-in for a new Vader and literally a Vader fanboy). There's a lot of contextual things that aren't flaws in the movie so much as stories that I'd wish they'd told here first, but throwing us straight in to the new conflict and hoping for the best was demonstrably (at least financially) the right idea and managed to cover for a lot of other aspects of the film (pacing is a notable issue, one that seems to permeate through all the new Star Wars films) that weren't as polished. This is really good blockbuster stuff and a worthy entry in to the Star Wars franchise (although that bar is a lot lower than it once was), and if nothing else it's inspired me to try to find the time to watch them all again. - 7.5/10
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