Weeks 27-29 of 2023

Twelve Angry Barbies

It’s summer camp season, so you know what that means! I’m sleepy!

Here are some movies:

185) TWELVE ANGRY MEN~ (1957)
I just directed a staged reading of this, so I was incredibly eager to watch it again. One of my absolute favorites. Fonda! Cobb! Klugman! Balsam! Everybody else! A pitch perfect, sweaty movie about white male rage and/or compassion. What a ride. Jack Warden 4ever.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Source: Criterion DVD (so fancy)

186) ASTEROID CITY* (2023)
I'm not the biggest Wes Anderson fan, but I really loved this! Theater! Science fiction! Adrien Brody in a tight t-shirt! There are some very sweet moments and some very funny things that I was the only one laughing at in the theater. Really excited to watch this one again.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Source: Music Box Theater

187) JAWS~ (1975)
A belated happy 4th of Jaws-ly to one and all! It's a great movie. A very good motion picture. I still think the guy getting chomped in the pond is the scariest fucking moment. But then so is Alex Kitner. And the beginning. And the end. And parts of the middle. I love everything about this movie, especially Mayor Vaughn's suits. Robot shark that constantly broke down, I love you most of all.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Source: DVD

188) THE KARATE KID~ (1984)
Rocky for kids doing karate! But really this was a great rewatch. I laughed, I cried, I rooted for the good guys and booed the bad guys. Pat Morita does such a great job here and really grounds the entire film. The Rocky comp is so obvious, but John Avildsen steals from the best (himself). A great movie that deserves its reputation.
Source: Netflix
⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

189) FAT CITY (1972)
A boxing movie with the grit of John Huston. I really liked this! I did not anticipate where the story would go, and I liked following both these guys through the rollercoaster of amateur fighting. Stacy Keatch is fantastic, the real standout here. But Susan Tyrrell gives a pretty wonderful performance, so fearlessly unlikable and devastated. Jeff Bridges is so young and fresh-faced, so open and guileless. It's a great boxing movie and feels like almost the antithesis of Rocky.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.25
Source: YouTube

190) SAVE THE TIGER (1973)
This was always in my head as a career Oscar win for Jack Lemmon, but it's a great performance! It's not an incredibly compelling movie, but he's just so great in that he keeps it afloat. One of the more effective Vietnam-era portrayals of PTSD, though textually he's a WW2 vet. Some really heartbreaking moments. John Avildsen directed this work a pretty deft hand, although less visually scrappy than his later work.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Source: ☠️

191) JOHN G. AVILDSEN: KING OF THE UNDERDOGS (2017)
A very standard talking head documentary where guys come out and say hey what a great guy. But it's a charming, respectful look at a career that isn't celebrated enough as a whole. There's a sadness to it all too, as people talk of "getting him back to work," when Avildsen would pass away before the documentary's end. Overall, it's a valuable artifact to have of a terrific director who seemed to deserve more chances than he got.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Source: Amazon (rented)

192) JURY DUTY: SEASON ONE (2023)
Dang, I really did love this. Even knowing concept and having seen a ton of clips online, I had a great time. Obvs I am in love with Ronald, very scared to find out that he's secretly a bad person or a puppy kicker. But it's a whole heck of a lot of fun. James Marsden is dialed all the way in, I love it. It's a very joyful endeavor and I don't know how they would ever do it again, but I sure would love to see more.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.25
Source: Amazon Prime

193) LOONEY TUNES (1930+)
For my birthday, I went to the Music Box Theater to watch an hour and a half block of Looney Tunes and thank zod I did! What a good reminder of where my sense of humor comes from. The stupid stuff, the metatextualism, the voice acting! All things I loved. I got to see Duck Amok and the classic Wabbit Season/Duck Season cartoon, among many other fun ones. A great way to start the day!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Source: Music Box Theater

194) INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY*~ (2023)
It's. ALWAYS. Fun. To watch. And Indiana Jones movie. I had a good time the second time through. Lots of great pals joined me and we celebrated my birthday by cheering and hollering for my main man. It's a good time. Big ups to the chasing someone through a parade scene (I see you The Fugitive homage!!).
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Source: Regal

195) THE THIRD MAN~ (1949)
My birthday gift to myself was buying this out of print Criterion from a stranger on the internet. It arrived on my actual birthday and that's how I closed out the day. What a thrill! An incredible film, I love swimming around in it. Joseph Cotten is great. Just a very underrated leading man. I'll once again be thinking about that final shot for the rest of the month.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Source: My very own DVD!!!

196) SKULL ISLAND: SEASON ONE (2023)
Oh heck yeah. Take me back to Skull Island, babyyyyy! I love Kong, I love Dog, I love all my chompers and stompers. Can't wait for Season 2.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.75
Source: Netflix

197) ROCKY~ (1976)
First movie for the Summer Film Club! A great one. It's not so utterly complex, but damn it really got me. Again! The love story between Adrian and Rocky is so awkward and charming. Gotta love those turtles. The filmmaking is so scrappy and inventive. And good goddamn the score. Bill Conti, u up?
⭐️⭐️⭐️.75
Source: Netflix

198) SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY (1971)
A pretty jarring, interesting work. John Schlesinger post-Midnight Cowboy and Peter Finch pre-Network in a pansexual British drama. I didn't love love it, but a pretty fascinating movie.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Source: Chicago Public Library

199) HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET (2012)
Early JLaw and it's pretty rote, although I still say the third act got me pretty good. Fun to yell at the screen! Elisabeth Shue!
⭐️⭐️
Source: Amazon Prime

200) ORPHAN (2009)
I wish I'd gone into this without knowing the twist, but that still made for a fascinating watch. Vera Farmiga scream queen. Some very weird shit going on here! Peter Sarsgaard hot, unfortunately (for him). Sufficiently scary.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.25
Source: Max

201) JENNIFER'S BODY~ (2009)
A masterpiece. Lol not really but definitely deserves a reassessment. 2009 was a rough year for Megan Fox, for women in general, for the economy! Tough times. This is a much more fun rewatch than I thought, toeing the line between camp and knowing knowingness. It's not always effective! But it's gross, it's silly, and it's a wild artifact of post-9/11 pre-Me Too Hollywood.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Source: Max

202) PROM NIGHT (2008)
Bad, boring. Idris Elba is at least trying.
⭐️.5
Source: Netflix

203) MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: DEAD RECKONING: PART 1* (2023)
Electrifying. Lots of moments where I went "oh hell yeah!" in a crowded theater. Tom Cruise sucks, but he's great. Hayley Atwell is fantastic. All the women in this movie are gorgeous, it's pretty ridiculous. There's some funky narrative things going on and it's very much a "filmed during covid" movie, but it's overall a lot of fun in the theater.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.25
Source: Regal

204) DE PALMA~ (2015)
I appreciate this more than when I first watched it, but it's still just a tad insufferable. We only get De Palma's voice and perspective, as well as his version of history. Still is a really interesting portrayal of one of our most obsessive and perverse filmmakers.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Source: Chicago Public Library

205) SIX DAYS, SEVEN NIGHTS (1998)
The things I do for my husband. This is one of his worst movies and I'm including The Expendables 3!!! I did not like so many things about this movie. David Schwimmer. David Schwimmer eating voraciously while getting horny. Harrison Ford smelling his fingers after pulling a snake out of Anne Heche's shorts. This movie is a LOT. I do think my man is hunky as hell. Han Solo fights Boba Fett are you kidding me? Danny Trejo is here! There's a It Happened One Night meets Swiss Family Robinson vibe that I'm almost into. But it's too doofy romcom for me. Not my style and not my husband's!!! He did start getting into flying planes for this movie, so good for him, bad for planes.
⭐️⭐️.5
Source: Chicago Public Library

206) CARRIE~ (1976)
Such an interesting film to revisit after all this time. It's scary and sick and twisted. I wish I could watch it without the ominous foreshadowing already in my head, but it's still a wild ride. Brian DePalma is a great moviemaker, but also a weird pervert. Piper Laurie is so great. Sissy Spacek really is the MVP here. Her performance is so fragile and frightening. What an incredible talent. Somehow a great Mother's Day film? Maybe next year.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.25
Source: Pluto TV

207) MISSION IMPOSSIBLE~ (1996)
A huuuuuge pop culture touchstone. This movie was *such* a big deal and it still slaps/honks. The assembly and disposing of the team is still crazy. As a kid, watching Emilio Estevez get splatted was shocking (Mighty Ducks). Still is!! I wish we had a more substantial female lead, but both the actress and the role are subpar and the movie just doesn't want her to be very interesting. Jean Reno, great villain. Ving Rhames is great from the jump. Fuck Jon Voight! Tom Cruise is just never better, xenu be damned. That lowering from the ceiling thing...edge of my seat.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.75
Source: Paramount+

208) ORCA (1977)
I was so disappointed that this sucked hard. Some executives saw Jaws 4 and went back in time to make this dumb movie. Bad fish!
⭐️.25
Source: Hulu

209/210) BARBIE* (2023)
I did not expect to fall in love with this movie. Decidedly not a Barbie girl growing up and the icky corporate aspect to it all seemed to much to bear. And while the latter is still present, Greta Gerwig has fucking done it again. An incredible capitalistic feat, but also an artistic one. I was laughing, screaming, and sobbing by the end both times I saw this over the weekend. Ryan Gosling is doing an amazing job. The Gene Wilder-ness popped out. He's *distractingly* hot, but is giving the performance of a lifetime. The whole supporting cast is killing it. But Issa Rae is maybe the most beautiful woman in the world right now? And Kingsley Ben-Adir is channeling Peter Falk in The Great Race in a way that I will dream about tonight and for all time. Margot Robbie is...as they say...sublime. I was absolutely delighted by the whole thing, but also sobbed existentially.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Source: Regal Theater/Davis Theater

211) WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS: SEASONS 1-4 (2019)
What have I been doing with my life? So much wasted time. For years, I could've been dying of thirst for Kayvan Novak, YEARS wasted. Luckily, I'm parched to death now. For real, this show is a fucking delight. Just a weird, sexy, silly time. I'm so happy I watched the entire thing over the course of mere days. Matt Berry has been in my life since the IT Crowd and I'm so tickled that more of the world gets to experience him. Jim Jarmusch cameo had me absolutely screaming. Guillermo, I <3 U!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Source: Hulu

212) LOGAN'S RUN~ (1976)
There are things I really like about this: the little model city monorail, the sincerity of Michael York, all those cats hanging out with Peter Ustinov, Roscoe Lee Brown as a robot. But it just doesn't quite get there for me. It's not clever enough to be as little fun as it is. But I'm intrigued! There's a cult, religion, Matrix kind of story here that I'm interested in. But I think the movie can't quite give me what I want from it. We had a great discussion about it though (#IsThisFilmClub), touching on themes of youth, complacency, and Cold War propaganda.
⭐️⭐️.25
Source: Internet Archive

Next week, Is This Film Club? talks about Taxi Driver, so I obviously want to watch everything in relation to Taxi Driver. We’ll see how far I get.