scarr

these are the movies I loved except for the ones I didn’t love

2024 releases

I am perpetually behind with new releases – but here are some 2024 films I loved:

• Between the Temples, dir. Nathan Silver
  Fran Heopfner wrote it best: “What a relief, for instance, after a run of crummy films about ‘age gap relationships’ (see: A Family Affair, The Idea of You) to have a film in which its maybe-lovers seem to be overwhelmed by their affection for one another.”
• Queer, dir. Luca Guadagnino (at The Hollywood)
  Come as you are, as you were
  as I want you to be
  Daniel Craig was perfect; Jason Schwartzman is my favorite guy.
• I Saw the TV Glow, dir. Jane Schoenbrun
• Megalopolis, dir. Francis Ford Coppola (at Cinema 16)
  I don’t think it’s surprising the director of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Peggy Sue Got Married would also make this film. Did I like it? wrong question, loser: I think about it, I dream about it!
• The Substance, dir. Coralie Fargeat (at The Hollywood)
  yes, the movie’s “point” or whatever gets lost in the shrimp cocktail sauce at times, but the final 30 minutes are such disgusting fun I do not mind – people in the theater were covering their eyes!
• Love Lies Bleeding, dir. Rose Glass
  I loved this romantic thriller but more importantly, I have always loved Kristen Stewart.
• Babygirl, dir. Halina Reijn (at The Laurelhurst)
  That’s all I wanted
  Something special, something sacred
  In your eyes
  For just one moment
  To be bold and naked
  At your side
  Similar to my feelings about The Substance, there are some “universal truths” the movie clumsily espouses when it never needed to; and some the girlboss stuff lacked depth, and yet! There I was, sobbing, my heart made tender.
• Castration Film, dir. Louise Weard
  I am a subscriber to Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Patreon and I got to watch this movie with The Deadlights Theater. Please consider supporting Weard’s project!

Rewatches – seated at the repertory cinema

The Academy Theater:

• The Shining, 1980 dir. Stanley Kubrick
  Shelly Duval’s performance is outstanding.
• Moonstruck, 1987 dir. Norman Jewison
  when this screening ended, I walked out of the auditorium and screamed MOVIES!!
• The Dark Crystal, 1982 dir. Jim Henson
  I hate to always be this person (okay lol maybe not), but “they” took everything from us! Movies used to look good! The imaginations that created this movie? Murdered and we’re never getting back what we lost.
• Alien, 1979 dir. Ridley Scott
  I was so frightened during this entire movie I had stomach aches for days. brilliant.
• My Own Private Idaho, 1991 dir. Gus Van Sant
  River Phoenix was one of the best to ever do it.
• Scream, 1996 dir. Wes Craven
  Deeply, viscerally upsetting (complimentary). I was deep-gulps-of-air crying by the end of the first scene. This was one of my favorite movies when I was a tween because of all the film references in the dialogue and in visual cues. Watching this at 40, however, was a completely different experience: Casey gutted and hanging from a tree for her parents to find, Billy pressuring Sidney for sex, so much blood, all the stabbing – the sexual violence of it all! I did not understand any of this when I was younger because I let myself be distracted by the comedy (the movie is very funny). But I didn’t laugh this time when Tatum goes to the garage to get Stu another beer but doesn’t return to the party.

The Hollywood Theatre:

• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy 2001, 2002, 2003 dir. Peter Jackson
  “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!”
  sobbing in a crowd of 400 strangers is my kink.
• Seven Samurai 35MM, 1954 dir. Akira Kurosawa
  amazing to see this on film. bring back intermissions, you cowards!
• Jaws 35MM, 1975 dir. Stephen Spielberg
  Robert fucking Shaw.

First Timers

• The Wedding Night, 1935 dir. King Vidor
  there is a scene where Anna Sten holds up Gary Cooper’s pajama bottoms and they are almost as tall as she is and it’s very funny but also extremely sexy (he’s so tall! and handsome! she’s wearing his pajamas in his bed!)
• War & Peace Part I: Andrei Bolkosnky, 1966 dir. Sergei Bondarchuk
  Gretchen Felker-Martin wrote about the Austerlitz scene from Part I: “rather than kinetic headlong momentum Bondarchuk chooses to elicit a sensation of confusion, frequently tilting his shots up at the vast bowl of the sky where ragged clouds scud across bottomless pale blue, like the eye of God staring down without affection” Her writing inspired me to finally watch the four-part movie and now I’m reading the book.
• Exotica, 1994 dir. Atom Egoyan
  the shifts in scenes from night to day rewired something in me.
• Deep Cover, 1992 dir. Bill Duke
  probably my favorite neonoir and Jeff Goldblum is a real asshole
• Orlando, 1992 dir. Sally Porter
• Cure, 1997 dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa (at The Academy)
  first Kiyoshi Kurosawa!! Cure has probably the most memorable sound design and mixing of any film I’ve watched in a long while.
• Le Samouraï, 1967 dir. Jean-Pierre Melville (at The Hollywood)
• Bones & All, 2022 dir. Luca Guadagnino
  I read Bones & All by Camille DeAngelis after seeing bayleyreads tweet about it which led to me watching the movie three times in a row. I am drawn to beautiful, sad things and people who want to be known. I do think Chloë Sevigny’s talents were underutilized here.
• Assault on Precinct 13, 1976 dir. John Carpenter (at The Academy)
  There is a scene from this film that I think about every day: prisoners being transported are forced into holding cells at the precinct, then chained inside the cells, helpless during the siege. two weeks before I saw Assault on Precinct 13, I saw Dirty Harry, a movie I fucking hate for all kinds of reasons, but especially because the pacing is shit and the movie thinks I’m stupid which, as an Aquarius, is an offense I cannot stand. I don’t know if I would have liked Assault as much as I did, or if it would have stayed with me as long as it did, if I hadn’t watched – and hated – Dirty Harry first.
• Thief, 1981 dir. Michael Mann (at The Academy)
  The Academy’s programmer dedicated this screening to everyone who has ever had a job and to anyone who hates their boss.
• The Thing, 1982 dir. John Carpenter
  I screamed oh lord I screamed so loud my cats jumped off the bed.
• Ran, 1985 dir. Akira Kurosawa (at The Academy)
  this is where I was when 45 was shot at but did not die.
• Foxy Brown, 1974 dir. Jack Hill (at The Hollywood, with Pam Grier Q&A!!!)
• The Iron Claw, 2023 dir. Sean Durkin (at The Laurelhurst)
  The Academy (not the theater, THE INSTITUTION) will pay for their many crimes against Zac Efron. I cried so hard while watching this and then sobbed the entire bus ride home. 10/10 no fucking notes.

The Favorite: The Mad Fox/Love, They Name Be Sorrow, 1962 dir. Tomu Uchida

Love is empty.
I don’t think I’ve seen a more beautiful, feel-bad film in 2024.

Meh

I just wasn’t into it!

• The Family Stone, 2005 dir. Thomas Bezucha
  Claire Danes was method acting here.
• Emma., 2020 dir. Autumn de Wilde
  I liked Mia Goth’s performance.
• The Lady Vanishes, 1938 dir. Alfred Hitchcock
  I had to shut this off twice because I was so irritated by everything happening in this film. Loving an artist means also hating something (lol or several things) they’ve made.
• An Affair to Remember, 1957 dir. Leo McCarey
  I loved this when I was 8 and I had the unfortunate expectation that, at 40, I’d feel the same. I wish there was an actual affair, Cary Grant is so handsome.
• Persuasion, 1995 dir. Roger Michell
  a bad year for me and Austen adaptations (minus the Clueless rewatch, which has always been a perfect movie).
• Dirty Harry, 1971 dir. Don Siegel (at The Academy)
  Clint Eastwood does the “Well do you, punk?” shtick TWICE and it is asinine. why did the director think I needed to hear this line more than once?
• The Idea of You, 2024 dir. Michael Showalter
  Nothing against Anne Hathaway but I hated how bland everything about this movie was.