Onscreen text, echoey voice clips, gentle electro music with handclap percussion, poetry, research – all presented as weirdly as possible. Focused primarily on being weird, secondarily on moths. Takes a long sidetrack to make fun of a Poe story, and another to discuss the dumbass scientist who imported the mega-destructive spongy (nee-gypsy) moths from Europe.
Silent stop-motion silhouette adventure movie on 35mm with live music from Anvil Orchestra at the National Gallery, it truly doesn’t get any better.
K’s dad was in town.
The Great Muppet Caper (1981, Jim Henson)
Our biggest failure of a group movie choice in ages, the hostile viewing environment not helping the experience. Too bad, since it’s got great songs and the best puppetry, taking the characters into natural environments and action scenes and making you ask “how’d they do that” every few minutes.
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Race to Witch Mountain (2009, Andy Fickman)
The Rock pals around with a couple of misunderstood aliens, one of whom is the girl who helped out Mid-Sized Sedan in Rebel Ridge. Semi-remake of a couple Disney movies from the director of Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. The pd187 writeup of this is better (and possibly longer) than the movie.
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Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003, Joe Dante)
I’ve seen this before, great movie, nothing to add.
Julianne Nicholson (La Doctora in Monos) has a weird daughter, tries dating Will Patton (last seen as a religious nut in Minari) then Sophie Okonedo (oscar nominee, had hands-for-feet in Aeon Flux) then Elias Koteas (pride of Canada, last and probably next seen in Crash). Janet breaks up with the first two, Elias vanishes mid-picnic. The writer/director was the daughter’s age in 1991 when the movie is set, what a coincidence.
Watched the miniseries version, which lived up to its high reputation. Kids grow up in wealthy theater household, where everyone’s got their eccentricities and all the husbands are sleeping with the maids. Theater owner dad (Allan Edwall, who bought a theater after appearing in this) has an episode during a rehearsal and dies, then after a year, mom Ewa Fröling marries bishop Jan Malmsjö (Scenes from a Marriage) and moves the kids into his severe, forbidding household.
Family members have been pathetic or horrible, but mostly in an entertaining way, while the new stepdad is horrible in a horrible way. Knowing how Bergman loves mixing religion and punishment, I figured this would be the bulk of the movie and lead to everyone’s ruin, but the kids’ grandmother and her friend Isak (Erland Josephson, Hour of the Wolf baron and Nostalghia madman) plot a successful rescue operation.
L-R: the bishop, uncle Jarl Kulle (guy who loves dueling in Smiles of a Summer Night), uncle Börje Ahlstedt (I Am Curious x2)
“I don’t understand why I always have to see dead people,” says Alexander, ahead of his time. In addition to theater, there are ghosts and dreams and stories and magic in every episode. In the last half hour, instead of simply wrapping up, the movie introduces trans psychic Ismael, giving the sense that the kids’ lives will stay richly weird for a while longer.
Mustache Man/Land Baron Francisco spots hot girl Gloria during foot-fetish church and chases her relentlessly, firing everyone in his path, breaking up her engagement with construction guy Raul, winning the girl through sheer force.
Soon he’s going off on Gloria in jealous rages, while fighting for some property he claims was stolen from his ancestors. When they meet hunky Ricardo on their honeymoon he goes insane and attacks the guy. Back home, he gets a conspiracy against his wife between her mother and servant and priest, then shoots her with blanks as a threat to stop talking. She finds Raul and flashbacks half the movie, while Francisco finally loses his mind completely in public.
I’m surprised Bunuel worked with this cinematographer again – he appears to have lit the scenes with a searchlight positioned behind the camera, so everyone has a shadow right behind them. Also surprised the letterboxd crowd hasn’t declared this and The River and Death and Archibaldo de la Cruz a trilogy since Carlos Baena plays priests in all three. Don F is best known for The Skeleton of Mrs. Morales, Gloria was an Argentine film star, and the servant was a work boss in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Sisters Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet are very cute but not rich, and after ditching fake friend Greg Wise they end up happily with Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman, respectively. Beautiful movie, if not quite as thrilling as Gemini Man.
Really is a doc about artworks being repatriated from France to Benin. The conceit of having the ancient artworks do the narration and the responses from modern museum attendees made this more interesting than it might’ve been.
Besides Jimmy Stewart the main thing I love about this movie is that they kept the Hungarian character names and signage when adapting for Hollywood. The boss thinks Jimmy is sleeping with his wife and fires him, but fellow salesman Joseph Schildkraut was the cheater, and the boss’s suicide is foiled by the errand boy. This all leads to some holiday season personnel-shuffling in the shop, and in the final couple seconds, romantic penpals Margaret Sullavan and Jimmy finally get together. The boss was the actual Wizard of Oz the year before, the cheater won an oscar for The Life of Emile Zola, and the errand boy followed-up with Ford and Hitchcock movies.