Films seen from mid-January until today, 12th August 2021 hello! long time no film review. this is a very erratic and terrible collection of thoughts i’ve had tonight about all the films i’ve seen. a lot of them i do not remember watching that well. this May i finished my degree and went, for a short time, a little mad. relative sanity restored i write this introduction. you will enjoy reading it if you’d like to read the film thoughts that a relentlessly hopeful and confused golden retriever might have. hope my mum enjoys reading this.
January
It's a Sin Not a film but a very good and sad TV show. cried loads. felt like it was interested, naturally, in showing certain things and that meant the women in it e.g. Jill could be a bit naff. but she wasn’t totally naff.
El Pepe, A Supreme Life This is a documentary about Uruguay’s former president, José Mujica, who was imprisoned for 12 years during the dictatorship and then became president and then retired and now he is a farmer and do-gooder. My flatmate did her year abroad in Uruguay so its global significance has magnified in my head. I think he seems like a lovely man.
February Sorry to Bother You what I remember of this film: weird. some good bits. tried to do a lot and did some of it, but not sure whether all of it worked.
Black Panthers honestly remember nothing. i think this is the Agnes Varda doc. February was a long time ago.
To All the Boys: Always and Forever same old same old
March The Wolfpack really interesting documentary about a group of brothers who were brought up in a tiny flat in New York and never really went outside - they just watched films instead. They are all so articulate and well-adjusted considering their childhoods!
Toxi Boring and quite racist German film I had to watch for a module at uni.
Searching Z’s dream film - a found footage thriller. quite enjoyed it although the found footage/facetime videos etc way of filming really started coming and then it didn’t stop coming. also apparently the only film of its kind to have an Asian lead?
Walking on Sunshine watched this with the flat. a jukebox musical rom-com with no plot and Emma Thompson’s husband in it. I hope Greg used the money to take Emma on a nice holiday.
Maria's Days Stendali (Still They Toll) Being Women I watched all of these as part of Another Screen which is really good and worth watching/giving money to. they were short films. one had a lot of crying in which i liked at the time.
Two Shots Fired Argentinian film i think? remember it being quite cool and kind of unsettling in a way you don’t expect. a lot more baroque flute than i expected too but overall i liked it a lot.
April Crazy Rich Asians Crossing Delancey
Love, Rosie worse the second time round.
Rules Don't Apply remember this film like huh ? eh? ok? alright then.
Transit like a little fool i wrote my very bad short dissertation on the book that this film is based on. Both the book, by Anna Seghers, and the film, by Christian Petzold, are very good and worth watching or reading. my dissertation was bad and not worth reading. for what it’s worth i found this to be a really intelligent and interesting adaptation of a book i once liked and now have ruined for myself.
Matthias & Maxime really enjoyed this - possibly the most out of all the Xavier Dolan films that I’ve seen?
Mommy G and I got into a really Xavier Dolan kick and watched these two films in one day. First time I’d seen Mommy all the way through and found it quite emotionally devastating.
Little Women Palm Springs
Saving Private Ryan For a film that everyone has gone on about for basically my entire life this was kind of better than I thought it would be. The framing - Private Ryan as an old man in a military cemetery - was crap but the actual story was ok and I can see how lots of other films have nicked the plot e.g. 1917. found the battle scenes absorbing but this is coming from someone whose favourite LOTR film is the final one with all the skeletons fighting orcs.
Empire of the Sun another Spielberg film that I enjoyed. who am I becoming? Young Christian Bale is excellent and I really liked John Malkovich in it too. During my final year exams/essays etc in May I became obsessed with the welsh hymn they sing at the beginning - Suo Gân - and listened to it at least 2 times a day for several weeks. Looking back it was perhaps not the best way to handle the stress I was experiencing. beautiful song tho. occasionally I rewatch the scene when he climbs to the top of the camp and shouts about P-51s being the Cadillacs of the sky.
The Wind Rises From Up on Poppy Hill Shrek
Donnie Darko G, N & I went to a trendy place round the corner from us that does pizza, had 2 pints, and then came home to eat babka and watch Donnie Darko for the first time. It was the perfect way to watch it. I got spooked in a nice way. I found the music good. I loved that Carter from ER was in it (big crush- me and my mum watched 10 seasons of ER together over winter lockdown).
May Fifty Shades of Grey Fifty Shades Darker Fifty Shades Freed As a house we watched the trilogy over one weekend. what can i say i think we’re all a bit repressed. it was fun!
Where Hands Touch had to watch for uni in order to criticise it in an essay - not very successfully - because it’s a truly terrible film that does a disservice to the people whose stories it is trying to tell.
Shrek 2 just great. also good fact - shrek comes from the yiddish - shreklekh which means terrible/frightening. beautiful language for a beautiful ogre!
June Alice in Wonderland
The Nun My first foray into the Conjuring Cinematic Universe. it was ok, got a bit silly. enjoyed the ending.
Chungking Express watched with G and loved it! my favourite kind of films are where people do weird things and boy did this film deliver. couldn’t get California Dreaming out of my head for a few weeks afterwards.
Coco rewatched this really hungover and had a good cry.
In the Heights (accidentally saw this twice) Anthony Ramos = handsome. good fun. cried at least once - both times that i saw it!!
The Son's Room Really like every Nanni Moretti film I’ve seen so far but watched this with G and said oh don’t worry it’ll be funny because Aprile was very funny. this film is not a comedy it is just devastatingly sad. I do remember thinking wow i love all the ceramics in this film and I would like to live in Italy in such a nice flat.
Shiva Baby so stressful! funny and stressful! good.
July La Haine Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban C and I have been rewatching all the Harry Potters. some of the actors are shockingly bad. but my childhood nostalgia is so strong!!
Night of the Kings Film set/from Ivory Coast - it had a few things in common with Arabian Nights. felt like a play but in a way that worked for the film. people did interesting things with their bodies and physical movements. I also really liked the singing.
August Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
C and I refer to this HP film as the teen sex rompathon. everyone is non-stop chirpsing!
Corpse Bride needed to really sob and I knew that this film would do the trick.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe Came home from climbing last night to discover Z and N watching this - they love, in no particular order: slashers, creature features, any bad horror film you can think of. this was alright. didn’t hate it and at times, i’ll admit, i was spooked. do think dead women need to be less of a feature or plot point in major films. there were 2 female characters in this film and they both either started or ended up dead. what does that say about women’s scientific propensity to outlive men. i want to see a horror film about old women who keep living and men who maybe die.
