Indiana Jones
Continuing our adventure from last month, my kids and I watched the rest of the Indiana Jones trilogy.
The Temple of Doom is the black sheep of the set. It has its weaknesses but also its strengths. The set designs are pretty rad, and from the secret passageway until the end, it's hard to look away. My kids loved Short Round.
They loved The Last Crusade from the beginning. And what a thrilling opening act it is! The ending makes it clear that Junior's ultimate quest is for his father, but my kids started to apprehend that from the start, saying they'd never seen a movie where the person that needed saved was the father. This movie is packed to the brim with action, humor, and heart, and that's why it is, for all three of us, the best Indiana Jones.
David Cronenberg
Videodrome puts a lot on the table; psychology, paranoia, sex, technology, body horror. Its in-camera effects are mesmerizing. I just didn't like watching it. It's offputting because it's meant to be offputting.
I think Cronenberg's ideas run deep but there are two that seem shallow. The first is that violent TV/movies makes people violent. The second is that too much TV/movies makes people have difficulty separating it from reality. Neither are true in the way that people feared they were in the 80s. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt though; he was clearly doing something more multifaceted than that.
I think Videodrome would fit neatly in a triptych between two Brian De Palma films. On one end Blow Out, given that both feature conspiracy and meta levels of technology. And on the other end Body Double due to, again, conspiracy, but also the lenses through which sex is viewed.
eXistenZ is to video games what Videodrome is to TV. But somehow, I liked watching this one more. I have a triple-feature suggestion here too. The Matrix, which came out the same year, and Inception.
Anime TV and film
Recently I've been thinking about what the biggest gaps are in my movie viewership. Two Japanese animated films came to mind. The Grave of the Fireflies and Ghost in the Shell.
The Grave of the Fireflies is a story of loving pathos, beautifully and terribly rendered by director Isao Takahata, and Studio Ghibli. I loved it in the way you love something that breaks your heart.
Ghost in the Shell, in setting and philosophy, resembles Blade Runner. It's often astonishing to look at, and the music is evocative. I found it difficult to follow though. Only at the end did I understand what the story was about. And afterwards, to better comprehend the plot, I had to think through its events in light of what I learned near the end. A confusing first watch, but I bet it's rewarding to return to. This was accidentally a plugging-things-into-your-body double feature for me, when I watched it with eXistenZ.
My kids and I watched all of the shōnen anime Jujutsu Kaisen that is currently available, and we can't wait for more.
Same goes for Solo Leveling. We were surprised just how good it was, and we impatiently await another season.
FLCL is an anime series that was popular when I was younger, and I was always curious about it. Ultimately it's not for me. Zany is the word. Breathless chaos, sans substance. I love being dropped into an unscruitable world and going along with the ride until things make sense. FLCL does ultimately gets there, but only at the very end. I think I might like it better on the rewatch.
Sharing the classics
I shared Sydney Lumet's 12 Angry Men with my 12-year-old and it was a success! I saw it when I was young too. One thing I enjoy about it is how it much it rewards an attentive audience. When I watch a movie I want to give it my full attention, and in return, I want it to utilize, well, my full attention. The case argumentation is fertile intellectual ground, as is the jurors' debate about how to discharge their duty. The group dymanics are engrossing too. Each personality is different, shaped by different life experiences and persepctives. All of this, plus the withering heat, is a tinderbox for the emotional element to explode into the fore. Another thing to appreciate is how the camera and actors move in lockstep, providing long flowing takes that nevertheless spotlight significant details. It's an all-time classic.
We also watched To Kill a Mockingbird, which similarly explores themes of racism and justice. He commented that this one was "deep". Atticus' emotional intelligence and capacity for empathy struck me as incredibly modern.
Hollywood classics
Sweet Smell of Success is a propulsive 1957 noir. Its shots are dense and dynamic thanks to cinematography by the brilliant James Wong Howe. It's wonderfully twisty and brilliantly acted by Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster. A new fave.
Last month I enjoyed 1937's screwball comedy The Awful Truth with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, and it seems to me that the pair wanted to repeat success of that film with 1940's My Favorite Wife; same genre, same leads, similar plot. I found Dunne's mirth infectious, and Grant's physical comedy a delight. One of the appeals of movies like this is its utter harmlessness; it's just for fun, and sometimes I need a movie to hold that space with me.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a Humphrey Bogart adventure flick, and on that basis alone, I've wanted to see it for a long time. It wasn't quite what I expected. It's dark; a harrowing tale. I guess I was hoping for something in the vein of Indiana Jones, but Sierra Madre does deliver engrossing adventure that I can recommend.
Foreign Language
Day for Night is meta François Truffaut. He casts himself as a director toiling to make a halfway decent film while production complexities beset him and his own cast and crew generate all manner of drama to throw the project into disarray. There's something endearing in how he portrays our human foibles through this emsemble, and the creative process is always fascinating to watch, even when fictitious. This is a fun one.
Somewhere between night and day, science and folklore—and even between movie and play—is 1979's Demon Pond. A strange Japanese fantasy with a unique visual style and effects. A curio for when you're in the mood for something novel.
Blow-Up is the first Michelangelo Antonioni film I've seen. I appreciated the images, but it's sparse on story and dialogue which is hard for me. I'm not a vibes person. There's one engrossing section in the middle where a mystery presents itself, but the movie isn't as concerned with it as it is with how the most stimulating culture can't overcome its unlikable protagonist's ennui. Watch this movie if you want to see an arrogant young guy be sick of 1960's London and treat women badly all while not solving a murder. It's not for me.
Misc
Before Sunrise is a sequel to Before Sunset. In it, Richard Linklater and company reproduced what worked so well about the first film. It's so romantic I could die. Real talk here, I've been avoiding this film because I feared it would have this effect on me. I often remind myself that "nostalgia is a seductive liar" and most of the time that works. Going into watching this, I bolstered myself: "It is natural that romance movies, like films of other genres, have the effect they do; they speak to something that is true. But that doesn't mean they are entirely true." Yet, in the moment after viewing this romance, I am entirely seduced by nostalgia.
The Parallax View is a political thriller with some grand set pieces. Sometimes I felt that its scenes—and even its shots—didn't give me enough to see or think about to justify their length. I kept feeling like "I got it, next." I appreciated the visual style, but wanted more substance.
TRON: Legacy is a film I've been wanting to share with my kids, and they loved it! Another hit! Dazling visuals, incredible soundtrack, interesting ideas. Yep, this one's a favorite flick of mine. Later this year we'll get TRON: Ares and I hope it has similar DNA.
