Days of The Week (Films Watched January 28 – February 3)

 

 

There were a lot of rewatches last week…specifically, there were a lot of rewatches of hard copies last week.

 

With Lady Hatter away, I decided to rest off some truly brutal weeks at the office with works that I had seen before…give the part of my brain that processes new information a tiny break.

Specifically, I started pulling blu-rays from my shelves that had scored themselves Best Picture nominations. Sorta my own little slant on TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar. Besides wanting the comfort of the familiar, I also found myself wanting to get back to my blu-ray shelves and engaging with the library I’ve built for myself. Night after night now, I flip about through Netflix and On-Demand looking for something to put on, something to keep me company.

Meantime I ignore the collection I’ve built, and still enjoy – even as we drift away from physical media into an increasingly cloud-y world. Thought I’d pull myself out of the clouds for a minute, I guess. It was comforting…like taking a book down from the shelf and re-reading it for the first time in years.

I also got over to Toronto’s documentary cinema to see THE BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED, a doc about Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along”. It’s a really loving look at the way time affects so very much. The show itself was a failure in its time, and like most failures, nobody involved seemed to recognize that they were about to fail. And yet, as time went on, the failure was embraced – adored even. It came to be warmly loved as the ground beneath it settled and its place in the art form became clearer. Time does that.

 

Everyone involved with it are consumed with how time has affected them too. Some have gone on to great things, some have gone on to good things. All of them were crucial parts of a show about kids pretending to be the adults they will become, and looking back on the kids they once were.

It’s got its flaws, but it’s a beautiful portrait. It considers the way perspective changes with time, and how something can still be quite beautiful even if it wasn’t what we hoped for. Sort of a cathartic watch, if I’m being honest.

So I guess the lesson from my films this week was to look for fresh perspective, and cling a little tighter to that which comforts us most.

Not such a bad lesson!

 

Here’s the week at hand…

 

Screenings
THE BEST WORST TING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED… – There’s a book of Sondheim lyrics that lives on my coffee table…gonna have to start flipping through it now.

 

Streaming/Blu-Rays/DVD’s I’ve Never Seen
SECONDS – I’m gonna have to see the final entry in the Paranoia Trilogy now. Anyone got a copy of SEVEN DAYS IN MAY?
POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE – It’s a goddamned delight to watch Shirley MacLaine do her best Debbie Reynolds.

 

Streaming/Blu-Rays/DVD’s I’ve Seen Before
MYSTIC RIVER –Oh Clint, how come you can’t make ’em like this anymore?
TRAFFIC –My God, do I ever love this movie…
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY –Pretty sure I’m overdue to revisit this in 70mm.
BLACK SWAN – I will never forget seeing this premiere at TIFF with a rush line that snaked around the theatre.
FARGO –Every time I watch this, I think about my friend Corey Atad’s point that if a studio made this picture, they’d probably cut the Mike Yanagita scene.
THE WORLD’S END – Just got curious about what Wright is doing next, and learned about BABY DRIVER. Not sure whether to be intrigued or VERY worried.

 

Boxscore for The Year
21 First-Timers, 18 Re-Watched
5 Screenings
39 Movies in Total

How’s about you – seen anything good?