Week of Movies: 6/16-6/22

 

Sunday 6/16: Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004)

You know how I spent Saturday dumping all my DVDs on the floor to sort them by year? Well I decided to do that with my CDs too. In the depths of my Firefox windows, Ginger Snaps Back had been waiting for too long, so I finally pulled the trigger and watched it in the middle of my organizing mania.

    I rarely watch sequels of movies I like because of the likely chance they'll be bad. Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004) is an anomaly. It may be less of a movie, but its self-confidence and lack of exposition makes it a lot more fun. Ginger Snaps Back decided that actually, the first movie didn't have enough exposition, and pull an Evil Dead 2 if Raimi hadn't learned anything in his six year reprieve. The action is boring because it's interspersed with so much filler. The charm of the first two is that you feel for everyone on screen, even if they objectively kind of suck; here, you don't even feel for the sisters. I'd say the writers need to go back to the drawing board, but that's what gave us this lukewarm straight-to-DVD shitfest to begin with. Let dead dogs (ha) lie. / ★★½

 

Sunday 6/16: Hit Man (2023)

My dad chose this one. I had no intention of watching it, even expected to dislike it, but he asked and I relented--the bar for movies my dad chooses is pretty low. Despite the opening, it was surprisingly good (for a Netflix Original). Glen Powell was much more compelling than I expected, and the supporting cast managed to dance the line of "peanut gallery" without getting grating. There are only two things I would have done differently, but they're pretty big swings.

    Firstly: the voice overs. Has no one heard of show, don't tell? They work in noir, when the exposition is dense enough that any conversation containing it would feel unnatural, but Linklater is just trying to convey how lonely and pathetic Gary is. Show me him feeding his birds, and I'm already there! They needed to take a step into his world, instead of guiding us out of it.

    My other HUGE problem is the time jump. The whole movie feels like a natural extension of the 90s/00s fantastical nihilism movement. You know the one; it spawned To Die For (1995), Cruel Intentions (1999), and basically anything else with a hint of lesbianism. Then Powell and his stupid romcom tendencies have to go and ruin the sex appeal. The ending should be open; do they keep killing people? Maybe! Instead, they get the blandest possible ending that overwrites the (negative) character development present throughout the film. People don't have to be good to be interesting. / ★★★½

Monday 6/17: Toy Machine - Live! (1994)

Yes, I watched this out of a weird sense of kinship with Jackass, and to keep my mind off seeing my mother later that day. It served it's purpose, and managed to be teeming with personality, which is the easiest and hardest thing to do as a skate video. Skating is probably the most charismatic and explosive sport, but most VHS tapes from this era are focused on sharing new moves, not being fun to watch. Live! didn't have skits like CKY or Big Brother, but there are glimpses of what each skater is like. Overall, a great first release, and I'm optimistic about Toy Machine's other tapes. / n/a

 

Monday 6/17: Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

My mother thought the best time to bring up very personal and emotionally fraught topics was five minutes before the film was about to begin, and ignored me for the rest of our evening together when I told her something she didn't like. Some may say this ruined my perception of the movie, but I think it enhanced it. What says French New Wave more than mommy issues?

    Every actor is a delight. The film is broken into three interwoven sections, and at times they feel like three separate films. Florence waxes poetic while searching the streets for her lover, Louis and Véronique live out a childish Shakespearean fantasy, and Julien traps himself in a hell of his own creation (we have that in common). Despite their tonal and stylistic differences, the sections fit together perfectly. It's a movie you watch knowing everything is begging to fall into place. I'm glad I saw it in theaters, so I could appreciate it without the barrier of divided attention. / ★★★★

 

Tuesday 6/18: A Bucket of Blood (1959)

Roger, you've done it again. Or, more aptly, you've done it for the first time ever. Everything is perfectly campy, from the props, to the line deliveries, to the way Walter sits on his throne after rising to the top. It may be an auto-biography, but Roger's hidden genuine feelings under enough layers of irony that it can be enjoyed on a surface-level viewing.

    Walter, more than anything, wants to be wanted. As a waiter in a beatnik cafe, he sees artists being wanted by their adoring hoards of groupies, so he assumes that that's what he has to do to get the girl. Sure, he may have killed a cat, but it was an accident, and if it makes people want him, what's the issue? Everything else was self defense. Maybe not against physical harm, but they were going to take away the adoration, and that's ten times worse. He couldn't have done any differently. Even at the end, he was the thing threatening his popularity, so he was the thing that had to go. The art (news coverage) makes them all immortal. / ★★★★½

 

 Wednesday 6/19: Graveyard Alive: A Zombie Nurse in Love (2003)

As I outlined in this post, finding a way to watch this movie was quite a task. I can't stop thinking of what its screening was like in 2005--in recent years, every BUFF feature is sold out or close to it. What moments did people laugh at? Were there any awkward pauses? What films were shown that we have no records of, that didn't win awards? Regardless, it was a fun watch. Most reviewers on Letterboxd don't agree, so I think it's a case of you have to love b-movies. She's a sex kitten that pops a rat in her mouth like a grape. That's a pretty accurate reading of the tone. I watched it on my laptop in the middle of a heatwave, which is a pretty close second to at a film fest. / ★★★★

Thursday 6/20: World Industries - Rubbish Heap (1989)

Where Live! was pure personality, Rubbish Heap is pure skill. There are no skits, except for at the end, blending together with the credits. Big Brother may have had something to do with it, but seeing this makes me think CKY had a much bigger influence on Jackass' format than I've realized. This was made by skaters, for skaters, to share and advance the medium. I won't pretend to know the subculture, or say that it was a fun watch. At least the Fairman's tapes had good music to lessen the blow--this has nothing, no fat. It's a lean, mean skating machine, and it's not meant for me. Maybe I should pick my longboard back up. / n/a

 

Thursday 6/20: Hot Rod (2007)

I wish I could articulate why some shitty 00s comedies are good and some are mind-numbingly bad. I can't blame it on the cast this time--I think stacked casts are fun when it's SNL alums, or something like the Kevin James-CU where it's obvious everyone is doing it for a love of the game. Perhaps it's too brash. I like my cash grabs to be meek and pitiful.

    I think the level of mediocrity it achieves is what makes me hate it. Take bigger swings--make it better or worse. Middle-of-the-road is the worst place to be when it comes to entertainment. It can sort of be forgiven when you realize how early into Samberg's theatrical career it was made, but come on. I think this may be the proof I need that I just don't like The Lonely Island (sorry). / ★★½

 

Friday 6/21: Run Lola Run (1998)

It isn't often that you watch a movie that feels new. Johnathon Rose-Lyon's video on building vs. inventing comes to mind; Run Lola Run is as close as you can get to "inventing" without alienating mainstream audiences. Although movies have played with similar tropes before, Tykwer makes it punk and edgy instead of tragic and understated. Not that those are bad things for a movie to be, sometimes you just want something you haven't seen (or felt) before.

    Because of the film's inovation, I'm willing to overlook a lot of its faults. Moments that seem redundant or tawdry are excusable. There's no guide for what they were trying to do. More than a story, the movie creates an energy that is easy to identify and enjoy--it feels like the culmination of a subculture and the lives of everyone who came into contact with the production process. Is every frame a masterpiece? No. But they don't have to be. / ★★★★

Saturday 6/22: Werewolves on Wheels (1971)

As the owner of 2 Mill Creek/Treeline DVD packs, I feel confident in saying that I've seen more than my fair share of shitty monster movies. This isn't that. From the start, before the bikers even encounter the supernatural, there is a sense of grandiosity from the camera. The color grading is beautiful and vibrant, something mainstream counterculture films of the era, such as Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Easy Rider (1969), fall short of. The camera films from deep angles, closeups, and wide shots, giving a variety that would dominate the decades to come. It feels before its time, yet it wouldn't be able to exist any later, in a world devoid of drive-ins and grindhouses. Get low, get horny, get monstrous, and enjoy a pile of pure sleazy fun (with a hint of something more). / ★★★★½

Saturday 6/22: Microwave Massacre (1979)

My plans for the night were simple: get off work, watch a 90 minute movie on Tubi, toil away at my latest library book, and go to bed. For that purpose, it was a fine movie, I just wish it had something more to give. The opening scene is fun (they had to squeeze (no pun intended) those tits in somewhere), but after that it becomes a slog. The only reprieve is the visual gags sprinkled in throughout. Props to the prop team--they were definitely having more fun than me.

    The pure hatred I have for the protagonist probably doesn't help matters. He sucks, belittles his wife, and bores me. As strange as this is to say about a movie where a man talks to his dead wife's head living in the fridge, the least they could have done was been a little more extreme. It would have been fun if he had a little sidekick or someone to bounce jokes off--maybe he could have kept his wife alive and realized that serial killing was exactly what their marriage needed. / ★½