Adventures in Film: March 2024

Persona (1966)

I was prompted to revisit this masterpiece after Denis Villeneuve cited it as an influence on his filmmaking in Dune. I've probably seen it five or six times now, and every time I experience the film it leaves a different impression on me, like it's a prism reflecting back whatever light I pass through it. Having not seen it since embarking on my journey through the Criterion Collection boxed set, it was wonderful seeing it again with a much more contextual understanding of its place amongst the rest of his body of work. Even though the boxed set is filled with masterful films, Persona still stands out to me as not just being Bergman's crowning achievement, but probably one of the greatest films ever made.

The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)

It feels unfair to compare everything that Mike Flanagan does to Midnight Mass, because nothing will ever come close to touching the absolute perfection of that limited series. But nevertheless, as another entry into longform horror television, The Fall of the House of Usher is frequently excellent but never quite as masterful as Midnight Mass. I'm a fan of the source material, and I think it is a smart choice to weave together a number of other Poe stories across the episode list. It's also surprisingly nasty and cynical in its violence, something that Flanagan has largely avoided up until this point in his career.

Andrei Rublev (1966)

I upgraded my shitty DVD to the Criterion Blu-ray, completing my Blu-ray collection of Andrei Tarkovsky's feature films, and it was a joy to revisit Andrei Rublev. In a cinematic landscape that is dominated with huge, sweeping computer generated imagery, this film reminds me of just how incredible some of the epic filmmaking was in the 1960s. I watch sequences like that of the belltower and actually struggle to comprehend how they were achieved entirely in camera. Andrei Rublev has the scale and grandeur of a film like Lawrence of Arabia but with an extra layer of edge and mysticism that makes this endlessly rewatchable for me.

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

The Nightmare on Elm Street series is one of the last major horror franchises that I have to check off my list. Having gone through Friday the 13th, Saw, Paranormal Activity, Scream and Insidious, it felt time to let Freddy Krueger into my dreams. Having seen the first film a number of times since probably the age of 14, Part 2 was exactly what I was fearing it would be. A largely beat-for-beat rehashing of the first film without any of the charm or filmmaking skill of its predecessor. It hasn't yet embraced the campy, surreal comedy element that the later sequels pick up on, and as a result Freddy's Revenge just feels boring. There are a couple of good moments, though.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

Now we're talking.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master (1988)

3 and 4 are exactly what I wanted to get out of a sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street. They embrace the silliness and camp of the original and push those elements to their extremes, but crucially they retain a genuine sense of uncanny horror.

Thirst (1949)

A rare miss for me in the Bergman back catalogue. There are glimpses of the masterful direction we so warmly recognise, but for the most part I just found this a bit dull.

Peeping Tom (1960)

I couldn't quite shake the feeling that this wasn't nearly as transgressive as it thinks it is. I guess my viewing experience was a victim of its time - if I had seen this in the 1960s I'm sure it would have knocked my block off, but from my vantage point this film is walking so Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer could later run. It's still walking a razor thin tightrope between sleaze and thrills rather well, though, and despite my initial feelings it does still pack a punch.

Port of Call (1948)

This was an interesting change from what I had so far experienced with early Bergman, being closer in style and execution to Italian neorealism.

Asteroid City (2023)

After a very lukewarm experience with The French Dispatch, I was ready to fall in love with another Wes Anderson film. I was so thrilled, then, to discover that Asteroid City possesses the same melancholic tone that I resonated so deeply with in some of his earlier work like The Royal Tenenbaums. This is possibly the most I have connected with a Wes Anderson film on an emotional level, something that I was desperate to see in his films again as his signature style began threatening to swallow him whole and come out the other side as parody of parody.

Spaceman (2024)

I was curious to see this Netflix release as a potential addition to the "Adam-Sandler-turns-in-a-great-performance-in-a-film-made-by-a-real-filmmaker" oeuvre. Unfortunately, this is no Punch-Drunk Love or Uncut Gems. I could listen to Paul Dano ASMR for hours, but that isn't enough to carry the film through an undercooked script and inconsistent performance from Sandler.

The Lost Boys (1987)

Holy camp! I was not expecting that.

Close (2022)

I have conflicting feelings about the ethical framework at the heart of Close. As a piece of narrative filmmaking I think this is tremendous and incredibly efficient in its vocabulary, and is a film that I culd very easily see myself revisiting over the years. But there is something hidden deep within the film's subtext that is just bothering me - I haven't quite figured it out just yet, but it's in there somewhere.

How to Have Sex (2024)

It takes a pretty special piece of filmmaking to make me care about the sorts of characters I wouldn't go near with a ten-foot-pole in real life, and How to Have Sex achieves that incredibly effectively. A nuanced and well-rounded piece about the complexities and murky areas of consent and sex, How to Have Sex is challenging in just how objective and even-handed it is inits lack of moral condemnation towards its characters.

Charli XCX: Alone Together (2021)

I'm a huge Charli fan, and I was super happy to catch this after missing it in its very limited cinematic release in 2021.

Grizzly Man (2005)

An all-timer from Werner Herzog.

Oppenheimer (2023)

Watching this at home for the first time was an interesting experience. It didn't quite have the same stranglehold that a giant 70mm projection does, but the editing pace is so relentless that it propels you through the three-hour runtime with electrifying urgency. I do think that this will be a film that we talk about in 50 years if we haven't obliterated ourselves in the meantime.

Lone Survivor (2013)

I really struggled with this. As I said on my Letterboxd, I can't see anything in this film that suggests that it is anything other than blatant war propaganda. Hard pass.

Dark Water (2002)

I love this film, and every time I revisit it I come to appreciate it more. The Japanese ghost films of the 1960s hold a very special place in my heart, but to be quite honest the late-90s/early-2000s movement of J-horror is starting to reach a similar level of importance for me.

Pulse (2001)

Ditto.

Heck (2020)

I found 2023's Skinamarink to be intensely scary, and it is fascinating to go back and see where Kyle Edward Ball began working on the ideas that would later congeal into Skinamarink. Heck is a 20-minute short that basically serves as a proof-of-concept for Skinamarink, but it also stands on its own as an intensely eerie and unsettling horror short. What both of these films do so well is capture the heartbreaking powerlessness associated with being a young kid awake at home in the absolute dead of night. Tremendous stuff.

Skinamarinky-doo Part II (2023)

I thought this YouTube parody of Skinamarink was worth mentioning, purely for the skill with which it references and plays with the language of a film that the maker so clearly loves and respects.

The Uninvited (1944)

Lewis Allen's classic ghost story is like comfort food for me. It's not particularly scary, but it revels in an atmosphere of dread, camp, and movie artifice. I felt a lot better after rewatching this.

Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

Loved it - full review coming soon!

Inside (2023)

Not even a committed Willem Dafoe could save this absolute snoozefest. At no point was there any tension introduced, which makes the vast majority of the film almost impossible to get through without succumbing to the urge to look at your phone. Even the most menial bullshit on Instagram kept my attention longer than this not-so-thrilling thriller.

Violated (1953)

This was a bit of fun! Someone passed on to me a YouTube channel that uploads forgotten or underseen schlock films from the 1950s and '60s, and this was the first title that had been uploaded that grabbed my attention. It's obviously and unashamedly ripping off Hitchcock, but I think that it immitates and references Hitchcock's work in a way that is slick and technically proficient enough sustain 70 minutes.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child (1989)

Even when this franchise isn't firing on all cylinders, it's still bursting with imagination and memorable set pieces. Where other iconic 80s horror franchises are built around kills and brutality, I appreciate that the Nightmare films are more focussed on plasticity, surrealism and uncanny chills.

Holy Spider (2022)

This is the best true crime thriller I've seen since Zodiac. One of the things I loved the most about Holy Spider is the way it never once stoops to the level of reminding the audience who the good guys and bad guys are; it maintains a posture of truth-telling that leaves room for the audience's own conscience to fill the gaps in morality. That is an incredibly rare thing to see in a movie of this nature, and it reminded me a lot of films like Zodiac and Memories of Murder in the process. Highly highly recommend this one if you can get your hands on it; I saw it on the Mubi Blu-ray release.

The Brood (1979)

It was a real joy to go back and fill in one of my gaps in the David Cronenberg back-catalogue. Like the best of Cronenberg's work, it's a very simple film to understand conceptually, but it is projected through the wonderful and diverse lens of genre, giving the audience visions and images that far outlast any TED Talk or sociology lecture. My partner walked into the room during one such iconic moment of Cronenbergian imagery and instantly regretted it. All the more reason to go and see this one if you haven't already!

Transfer (1966), From the Drain (1967), Stereo (1969), & Crimes of the Future (1971)

After The Brood I went back and saw Cronenberg's early works through the Arrow Video Blu-ray collection. While there is a fair amount of unformed edge that would come to be refined in his feature-length filmmaking, it's fascinating to see that singular and instantly recognisable voice shine through the work even at this early stage in his career.

Blow Out (1981)

I rewatched this to show it to my partner for the first time - she loved it! The more I see of de Palma's films the more I know I need to go back and see more of them. Blow Out is a killer conspiracy thriller with an amazing central performance from John Travolta. If you're into Blow Out and other films with the same conspiracy vibe, I can also strongly recommend both The Conversation (1973) and The Parallax View (1974).

Mean Streets (1973)

Finally got around to seeing this one courtesy of the Criterion Collection Blu-ray. I think my preconception of Mean Streets was that it was Goodfellas-lite; while there are certainly elements of his later gangster capers to be found in Mean Streets, Scorsese's young, passionate and energetic voice is present in so many other, more nuanced and tender, ways. Mean Streets has as much in common with something like Italianamerican (1974) than it does Goodfellas (1990) or Casino (1995). As with a lot Scorsese's work, there is beauty, life and revelation to be found amidst the violence and chaos.

The Voyeurs (2021)

I saw this in preparation for Immaculate (2024) coming out in cinemas, it being another Sydney Sweeney-starring film directed by Michael Mohan. It's surprisingly and pleasingly (not like that) frank and stylistic in its depiction of sexuality and voyeurism, and actually reminded me a lot of some of the more transgressive films that can be found in the filmography of the late great Alfred Hitchcock. Where Hitchcock was censored by the time and studios he worked in, Mohan takes his audience to places that Hitchcock may have only been able to go were he alive to see the freedoms of the 1980s. That being said, explicit nudity and sex isn't a substitute for tension or real transgression. It flirts at the edges of something like Rear Window (1954) or Vertigo (1957), but doesn't have the style or impact that Hitch commanded so effortlessly.

Eastern Promises (2007)

This is a real late-career masterpiece for David Cronenberg. It substitutes the goopy body horror for more grounded, brutal mobster violence, but maintains Cronenberg's central obsession with identity. Viggo Mortensen is unbelievably good as always, and the fight scene in the showers is one for the ages. Unforgettable.

Cars (2006)

Kachow.

Immaculate (2024)

Review on the way.

The Others (2001)

I really enjoyed this; it has a real 1940s feel to it that makes the experience of watching it akin to snuggling in under a nice warm blanket in winter. The twist hits like a freight train, and all of the performances completely sell the internal logic of the film that makes the events feel almost inevitable.

Burn After Reading (2008)

Even mid-tier Coen Brothers filmmaking is annoyingly great. I will always be able to picture Brad Pitt's concentrating face in this film, and so for that alone I must commend Burn After Reading.

Notorious (1946)

This was a lot of fun! Having seen just about all of the films in the Hitchcock box set that I own, I've wanted to go back and see more of the films that he crafted before he ascended to the position of the Master of Suspense. I've got to say, though, even back here he knew exactly what he was doing in manipulating an audience and wringing every last drop of available tension out of a scene. Lovely stuff.

Suspicion (1941)

This Hitchcock film was recommended by Quentin Tarantino on an episode of 2 Bears, One Cave with Tom Segura as a great, underrated Alfred Hitchcock thriller. As Tarantino says on the episode, you can clearly tell that this is a film that wanted to go one way whilst the censors clearly wanted to go another way. That's what makes that final hand on the shoulder in the final moments of the film so much more chilling; it is Hitchcock sneaking his bleak, nihilistic and "true" ending of the film through the censorship board without them noticing. Masterful as always.

Sisu (2022)

It annoys me that this movie is so boring. How on earth can you make a movie like this boring?? There are some cool moments of carnage, but overall Sisu is a disappointing (if occasionally bloody) snoozefest.

Watership Down (1978)

To me this was always the film that they watch in class in Donnie Darko (2001). There's just something so magical and timeless about this film that made me feel like a kid again. I was also very pleasantly taken aback by how dark and violent this film is; it carries the weight and punch that seemed to inhabit everything you saw as a young child, something that I wish I experienced more often at the movies.

Small Axe: Red, White & Blue (2020)

I am continuing to make my way through Steve McQueen's Small Axe anthology on DVD, and I was particularly taken by this exploration into the police force through the eyes of the wonderful John Boyega. I feel like we might have been robbed of a lot of Boyega's potential early-career gold as a result of his involvement with the Star Wars franchise, and his appearance in this makes me really feel like he should be significantly more well regarded than he is. I hope we get to see more of Boyega in roles like this, because from start to finish he is a force to be reckoned with and an absolutely magnetic presence on the screen.

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 (2024)

I parted ways with my own money to see an early screening of this follow up to the abysmal and embarrassingly bad Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey from last year. It is an interesting film to talk about, because on the one hand it is a significant step up in quality from its predecessor in almost every way, but it's also still a big dumb slasher movie exploiting a property's transition into the public domain. The most noticeable thing that stops this from elevating to the gory B-movie delights of something like Terrifier 2 is the distractingly bad performance from Scott Chambers as Christopher Robin, taking over the role from Nikolai Leon. Through the surprisingly physical and fleshy gore and vastly improved creature design and costuming (Pooh's costume here cost the production over $20K, as opposed to the $700 "costume" in the first film), Chambers sucks all attention towards his baffling lack of charisma or personality on screen. I will admit that while I bought a ticket to this in the same way you slow down to see a car crash, I actually ended up having a surprisingly good time through long stretches of it. If the rest of the planned "Twisted Childhood Universe" is as self-aware and fun as this (as opposed to the thuddingly dull self-seriousness of the first film) then I'll happily continue to support low-budget exploitation horror films.