Imitation of Life
Imitation of Life has been on my list for a while, as I’ve been working my way through Douglas Sirk’s oeuvre, but when I realized there was an earlier adaptation starring Claudette Colbert, I wanted to see them both. I did a double feature of the two films one night and compared and contrasted them. Each one has its own tenor, and I can understand vibing with one more than the other. I slightly preferred the ’34 version. Both films would have been somewhat progressive in their time, but were still working in a framework that limited them from looking much so today. Good dramas, both of them, and both made me uneasy.
Lola
Lola (1961) is a French New Wave picture written and directed by Jaques Demy. Evidently this was his first film, and it’s impressive how he managed to balance delight and whimsy with sadness and poignancy. This is the first Demy film I’ve seen, and based on it, I’ll gladly try more.
Lola (1981) on the other hand is a German film, by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The two films have nothing in common other than that they appear to have taken inspiration from The Blue Angel (1930), or its character Lola. This movie literal sense right up 'til the ending when you realize it can only be figurative. To wit: it’s a scathing metaphor for the corruption and moral abasement of the post-war rebuilding period in Germany. Can’t say I enjoyed this, but I can see how people affected by this history would be able to appreciate its unflinching airing of the country’s dirty laundry. Oof.
Based on a play
The Importance of Being Earnest is a delightful 1952 comedy based on the Oscar Wilde play. I hadn’t seen this version before and it had me smiling and laughing the whole time.
Ran is a 1985 epic by Akira Kurosawa, based on Shakespeare’s King Lear. Its music is haunting, but the real feast is visual, as Kurosawa renders scene after scene of beautifully composed shots and striking colors. On the downside, perhaps, are it’s length and melodrama.
New movies
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a follow-up to 2025's 28 Years Later. While last year's film seemed to offer three different kinds of movies, one in each act, its sequel braids together two different stories lengthwise. It features some very difficult violence, but also humor and heart. Ralph Fiennes and Jack O'Connell deliver a pair of memorable performances too.
Eddington, like all of Ari Aster's films, is a tough watch. This time the difficulty, in addition to it feeling like an anxiety-fueled nightmare, is that it feels like our anxiety-fueled reality. It feels like what the last—I'm surprised to say—ten years have felt like, in a way that no other film does. We are, of course, living in a techno-dystopia. Aster points his camera directly at the doomscrolling, the posturing, the conspiracy theories, manipulation, bullying, and extremism. Eddington is great and I may never watch it again—again like all of Aster's films.
Action/Thrillers
John Wick is an action film starring Keanu Reeves. I can ridicule movies like these up and down. That’s why I hadn’t seen it yet despite its acclaim. It’s another in a long line of pathetic fantasies where violence against an absurd amount of people is meted out by a single competent man, and oh boy is that violence as cool as it is justified. It’s an absolutely silly formula—and you know what?—great fun. I appreciated the stylized choreography and stylish cinematography. It’s a movie that is at its best when the dialogue is sparing, because that dialogue is cartoonish. The action is too, but you can forget about that until you hear people speak, and then the whole thing deflates a bit. I’ll probably watch all the John Wicks now.
The Fugitive is a 1993 action thriller starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones, based on the 60s television series of the same name. Great set pieces and characters bolster a propulsive plot. The conspiracy that besets Ford’s Dr. Kimble was difficult for me to understand on first watch, but then again, I was a kid then. This is a classic rewatchable I visit again and again.
Crime Stories
Mikey and Nicky is a smart "one crazy night" crime movie centered on the relationship between two friends played by Peter Faulk and John Cassettes. That relationship is so fraught and sad that it's funny. I was captivated by the chemistry between these men, and the state of suspense that director Elaine May crafted here.
Detour is a 1945 noir that feels like a parody of the genre. Blooms of mysterious fog shroud the figures of our characters as the narrator feeds us lines like “I knew I had to hit the hay and hit it hard”. It’s so corny you just have to lean into it. For fans of bleak crime tales this is a decent way to spend 68 minutes.
Stuff with my kids
My Hero Academia is an anime series I watched with my kids. Based on a shōnen, it's a little bit like Japan's answer to X-Men, and it was perfect for our little "boy house".
We also watched The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. It continues in the style of Lord and Miller who directed the first picture, which is to say it's fast-paced, densely packed with metatextual jokes, and critical but heartfelt. We loved it.
Old Hollywood
Only Angels Have Wings is a 1939 Howard Hawks picture starring Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. Rita Haworth and Thomas Mitchell (Uncle Billy in It’s A Wonderful Life) also star. I thought the first act was terrible, but afterward it took on new dimensions that quickly won me over. It’s a twisty drama, a high-stakes adventure and a charming romance, all rolled into one.
Picnic is a 50s melodrama with Kim Novak. It’s set in small-town Kansas which makes it the second movie I’ve seen where Novak is from Kansas (see Vertigo). It features a young Cliff Robertson whom I know better as Ben Parker in Spider-Man (2002). The old-fashioned America is really something, but the movie is mainly interested in getting William Holden out of his shirt.
