burn

So as I mentioned yesterday, we took a little family field trip to the movies last night. Dad, younger bro, and a dear family friend who’s pretty much an additional younger bro. The object of our affection? BULLITT, starring Steve McQueen.

As I soaked up BULLITT for the second or third time, and basked in its quiet beauty, I couldn’t help but feel like I was witnessing something of an echo. My father, of course, would have seen this film in a theatre…so watching it in a theatre again sitting next to him seemed like I was going back in time somewhat. Hanging out with a sixteen-year-old version of my dad. What’s more, the theatre we watched it in is a 100 year old venue that isn’t terribly far from the neighbourhood in the city where my dad grew up. While he didn’t make specific mention of it, it’s entirely likely that he watched it in this very spot.

So while I’m usually one for the sanctity of the filmgoing experience, I shrugged off my dad speaking a little louder than a whisper once or twice…most notably “Here we go…” as Steve McQueen climbed into his Mustang and the car chase slowly began. I mean, a more dickish filmgoer might have shushed him…but this is a film that seemingly everyone gathered had already seen, and my father at least kept his comments very few and very far between.

Completing the effect of the echo was the fact that the other three were all drinking “irish” coffees (I’d bought a popcorn and didn’t feel like the coffee would go). So here you have three jokers sitting in the balcony of an old theatre, drinking and watching Steve McQueen act cool as he ever does.

What year was it last night?

One last thing – Can I just close by saying that I love when you drop the word “Bullitt” into Google Image, 75% of the results for the first few pages are cars?

 

Here’s Three Weeks at Hand…

 

Screenings
THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU – Why do I feel like one of the few people who actually liked this movie?
BULLITT – I’ll always love seeing classics on a big screen.

Blu-Rays/DVD’s I’ve Never Seen
THE ONE I LOVE – And here was me thinking I was settling in for one more piece of angsty mumblecore.
HOUSE OF WAX (1953) – Great pulpy fun.
SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL – I wanted to watch Zodiac, somehow I ended up watching this instead.

Blu-Rays/DVD’s I’ve Seen Before
FIGHT CLUB – As I pass, do I give you the ass or the crotch?
PANIC ROOM – I was about to ask if this was Fincher’s Fredo, then I realized I still have yet to watch Alien 3
AWAY WE GO – There are a few films that remind me what it means to be a good spouse. This is one of them.
NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST – It was a very “2009” sorta night on Thursday.

Boxscore for The Year
212 First-Timers, 146 Re-Watched
79 Screenings
358 Movies in Total
How’s about you – seen anything good?

6 Replies to “Days of The Week (Films Watched September 20 – September 26)”

  1. That screening of Bullitt sounds fun. Love the thoughts you had about “going back in time” with your Dad.

    First time:
    The Grapes of Wrath – Blind Spot
    Shockproof – fun Douglas Sirk B-movie with a Sam Fuller script
    Rise of the Planet of the Apes – surprised how much I liked this

    And I re-watched:
    Batman Forever – for podcasting purposes
    Batman & Robin – for podcasting purposes

  2. I haven’t had much time to watch movies with school starting, apart from the ones I had to watch for my classes. First I had to watch this silly Katherine Hepburn comedy called Desk Set where she plays a reference department manager who freaks out because Spencer Tracy wants to give them a computer and she’s afraid she and all her colleagues are going to lose their jobs. It’s done as a romantic comedy because the makers of the film wanted to appeal to women and apparently romantic comedies are the only things they will go to the theater to see.

    Then we watched a bunch of early films for another class. I saw The Lonedale Operator for the second time. It was a pretty good film with a likeable and resourceful female lead.

    Then on Thursday I saw The Maltese Falcon for the third time. Still a great movie. I was considering doing a profile on Sam Spade but he turned out to be too complicated a character for me to work with. Next week I’ll have to watch From Russia With Love, which I’m not looking forward to, and the 1925 version of Phantom of the Opera.

    I still have not seen Bullitt in full, but I looked up the famous car chase scene for the purposes of an assignment and I was kinda disappointed. There were two guys chasing each other on a road with no real stakes or obstacles or spectacles or anything to make the scene actually seem tense. Really? This was the car chase everybody remembers? I hope the rest of the movie is better than that.

  3. First-Timers: Breaking the Huddle: The Integration of College Football, my Blind Spot assignment in Playtime, Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow, The Food Guide to Love, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, and later tonight, Contempt.

    Re-Watches: Lost in Translation and Licence to Kill.

  4. I thought the first 3/4thsof The One I Love was brilliant but then it became too unnecessarily sci-fi for me :/

    Firsts:The Maze Runner– I actually liked it. V. entertaining. Plus Dylan O’Brien in a tight t-shirt *insert Leonard Cohen’s backup singers singing*
    The Adventures of Huck Finn– College made us watch it. I’ve never hated a movie that everyone else in the audience seemed to love more.
    What If?– Loved it. Cute and smart and sweet.
    The Commitments– Heyyyyou watched my favourite music-related movie this week and I watched yours 🙂 I loved it!

    Rewatched:The Lunchbox– In-flight movie. Still excellent.

  5. Well, last week I finally finished Breaking Bad. It was intense but I quite liked the tidy finish. And the films I watched (I was sick in bed this week so I did a marathon of films):
    What If – Didn’t like it that much. It had some funny moments but I felt it didn’t do much with the friendzone theme.
    Obvious Child – Very funny.
    The Homesman – Hillary Swank is very good in this. However, things take a sudden turn in the last act. It might be about strong women’s state in the 1800’s.
    Little Women (1994) – This was really good, very well acted.
    The Brothers Bloom – A fun film, a classy caper film. By the way, I’ve been to Penelope’s castle. It’s here in Romania.
    Maps to the Stars – Great acting. Twisted story. A dark Hollywood story, thank God it’s just a satire.
    The Purge Anarchy – It’s better than the first one. It has intense moments and the lead is great. But it has flaws. It was manipulative.
    X-Men: Days of Future Past – I wasn’t overly impressed with it, but it was alright.
    The Normal Heart – Very sad film, I almost wept.
    Jodorowsky’s Dune – Interesting doc. I wonder why they gave up so easily with the funding.

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