Ryan McNeil
An at-home weekend did an awful lot for this week’s total, but at a glance I don’t see that trend repeating itself. Heck, it’s 8pm and I haven’t watched a darned thing today!
This week brought a little bit of everything; some old, some new, a renter and a screener. Across the board, i loved them all, and the fact that I own most of them shouldn’t matter in that respect.
I mentioned this yesterday, but since more tweaks were just worked, it bears repeating: Many thanks to the coding skills of Andrew “GMan” Robinson who was able to finesse some details of The Matinee that had been bugging me for some time now. I am in his debt.
I would write more, but I have a podcast to finish editing and a review to write, all before I go to bed because I’ll have no time to get to any of it tomorrow. To the list!
Here’s The Week at Hand…
Screenings
CAFE DE FLORE – Turns out Bob and Kurt were on to something.
Blu-Rays/DVD’s I’ve Never Seen
THE THING – My January entry for the blindspot series. Have you watched yours yet?
STALAG 17 – The last disc in a Billy Wilder box Lindsay gave me. Shades of THE GREAT ESCAPE (which came later), but a fun watch.
IN A BETTER WORLD – Not the best foreign film of 2010.
Blu-Rays/DVD’s I’ve Watched Before
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA – Thanks Tom.
THE FRENCH CONNECTION – After THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS last week I felt the desire for more Hackman.
TRUE GRIT– With only one dvd player in Casa del Hatter, those DVD/Blu combo packs come in handy sometimes.
I (heart) HUCKABEES – Was Jonah Hill always in this?
LARS AND THE REAL GIRL – Part of me thinks this is a real love-it-or-hate-it movie.
12 ANGRY MEN – Oh Mister Lumet, you genius you.
Boxscore for The Year
7 First-Timers, 10 Re-Watched
2 Screenings
17 Movies in Total
How’s about you – seen anything good?
New to me:
Wings of Desire: Wow. Just wow.
Travelling Players: A modern retelling of the Orestean Trilogy is not as good as the Orestean Trilogy.
Of Gods and Men: An interesting take on spirituality.
The Crowd: Overacted like most silent dramas, but a great theme.
Kundun: Less a biopic and more a beatification.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: For podcast.
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A dark comedy minus the comedy.
Rewatches
Modern Times: Shown for class. Hell of a film!
Fun fact: WINGS OF DESIRE was the first movie Lindsay and I saw when we started dating. Third date if memory serves. I needed to make sure she could handle something so arty.
Spoiler alert: She passed the test.
This whole week, I’ve been watching a trio of films by David Cronenberg in Dead Ringers, M. Butterfly, and Spider while I’m currently watching Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom as I have more episode to watch for tomorrow.
On TV that I’ve been rewatching, Major League, The King’s Speech, and X2: X-Men United.
If you didn’t listen to it as we were posting it this summer, you should listen to my conversation with Simon about Cronenberg on The Film Locker.
I really need to see The French Connection.
Firsts: Carnage– I actually loved it. It was very entertaining.
War Horse– So cheesy. I am getting more and more irritated with it as time goes by.
Brokeback Mountain– I have been meaning to see this since forever. Lovely film and led to an impromptu Jake Gyllenhaal marathon.
Love and Other Drugs– Such a confused film, but I was watching it for Gyllenhaal so I was sort of happy.
Rewatched- Zodiac– I really enjoy this one, even though I personally don’t think it is Fincher’s best.
There are several people I know who would actually say that ZODIAC is Fincher’s best! Your next Gyllenhaal watch needs to be the underrated JARHEAD.
Man on a Ledge
Tinkar Tailor Soldier Spy
Contraband
Joyful Noise
The Interrupters
Office Space
The Help
You know the greats in there my friend.
How’d you like THE INTERRUPTERS?
First time:
The Red Shoes – Great film but I would have love it more had I not watched Black Narcissus right before it.
Black Narcissus – Rarely does a film jump to my all-time favourite list after only one viewing but this film did.
The Apartment – Thought it was going to be a lot sillier (ala Some Like It Hot), but I liked how the more serious aspects balanced the film nicely.
Sailcloth – Already wrote about this short film during the week
Re-watch:
Wendy and Lucy – I love the film but I seem to fall asleep at the same spots ever time. Alway end up rewinding the film a couple of times to get through it.
I’m so glad you loved Black Narcissus Courtney! It’s truly gorgeous, but it’s also so much fun in all its broadly stated melodrama. I’m torn as to whether I love it or The Red Shoes more – so I’m not gonna choose.
I’m with Bob on this one. I expected nothing out of Black Narcissus and was watching it out of necessity. Boy, was I wrong to doubt. I’ve recommended that film more than a dozen times in the last year, and every time I do, people look at me like I’m crazy. And then, every now and again, someone will come back, smile knowingly, and say “You were right.”
I might as well call that shop now and have them put it aside for me…
The BMV up the street from me has had two copies of BLACK NARCISSUS on the shelf for two months, several times I’ve thought about buying it blind.
Your comment here only makes me want to do that all the more.
You’ve inspired me to keep track on my own site, but mine will be revealed monthly instead of weekly. For now, here’s a taste of what randomness ensues when there isn’t an RI star to catch up on:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Part of the “Shakespeare Re-Told” series I reviewed on Monday.
A Clockwork Orange – Check out RI for more on my history with this one.
Carriers – A harmless end-of-the-world scenario with Chris Pine
Lethal Weapon – I’m not sure I’ve ever really seen this one, unless it’s just been so long(20+ years) that I didn’t remember a thing about it.
Duck Soup – Love Groucho, but the rest was meh.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Finally both parts back-to-back. It was lovely!
Monthly? Why not weekly!
Start dropping it in to RRR instead of trailers, or if you wanted to keep trailers, you’d has one less day where you need to force yourself to come up with content.
Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, including what inspired you to pop it in.
Believe it or not, there is a method to my madness, and posting the watch list monthly fits that methodical madness best.
Sorry to disappoint, but as you’ve likely listened to the recent RI episode on your way to work this am, you’ll notice I didn’t exactly discuss Clockwork because at the time of the recording I hadn’t seen it. A slight defect I corrected within the following days.
Hooray for Methodical Madness! So what did you think of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE now that you’ve seen it in full?
It was pretty damn awesome. I really wasn’t anticipating like it so much, but I did. Debating on whether or not to read the book now.
The book makes much more sense with Malcolm’s voice and cadence in your head. I haven’t the foggiest clue how anyone can read it and understand it worth a damn without seeing the film first (though many have of course).
Hey, when did we agree to post the Blind spot posts? Wasn’t it like the last Thursday of each month or something?
Glad you liked Cafe De Flore – I kinda figured when you asked Vallee the first question during the Q&A (sorry we didn’t get a chance to chat afterwards – we got held up in the crowd). But the real question is: do you obsessively love it (the answer here should, of course, be YES)? I guess I’ll wait until your review to find out…
The blind spot posts are for the last Tuesday of the month – in this case, January 31.
As for my take on CAFE DE FLORE, the review is up – have at it!
Definite higlight of my week was WAR HORSE… finally posted the review today. It’s just brilliant. Love the scene in “no man’s land” and all that follows immediately after so much. When does that hit Blu Ray? Do I really have to wait till summer?
The “Red Riding” trilogy. Harrowing and brilliant. I would never have guessed it was a made-for-TV production.
In theaters, saw “The Adventures of Tintin”. The old-fashioned adventure story sensibility was a nice change of pace.
I still haven’t caught up with RED RIDING, though I’d wager that I’m going to want to watch it all in one day. Perhaps on the next rainy Saturday, I’ll take a walk up to the shop.