i feel like at times i really connected with Jeffrey’s character on the level of seeking out novel or potentially dangerous experiences to break out of the monotony and living death that was suburban American life.
and the mix of naivete and being a little too self-assured that means sometimes getting in way over your head and perhaps dealing with stuff that will ultimately prove traumatic
Was able to enjoy some recent remastered Max/Dave Fleischer Superman cartoons from the 1940s in a theatre this morning, along with a handful of Boop, Koko, Popeye and standalone cartoons from even earlier. And holy crap, those are some high-budget cartoons. You can sort of forget they aren’t like 80s throwbacks to a 40s-era Superman for how gorgeous they are. My favorite of them, The Bulleteers showcases the delicious technicolor with night-time Metropolis, dramatic mountain crag landscapes, and cutting beams of light and shining technological silver. Check these out sometime if you haven’t ever seen them, they’re fun shorts and a impressive examples from the history of American animation.
(edited so your post follows the blue velvet stuff isfet sorry 
)
I am with Roger Ebert and Mark Kermode in famous film critics that didn’t get Blue Velvet when they first saw it.
I bet I’d really enjoy it now. Like all of Lynch’s stuff it isn’t as simple as “there is something dark behind the white picket fences.” It is there is both beauty and darkness and to show both is to tell the truth. And the near sceizophrenia of society writ large saying “Everything is okay.”
I’d probably get too upset if I watched it now.
Yesterday I watched Junk Head, the Japanese stop motion film. Felt a little like what you get if you crossed Mad God with BLAME! by way of Plasmo. It’s pretty good with lots of imaginative set-pieces and weird monsters and characters.
Main problem with it for me was it feels like it just sort of ends… Like I think it does kind of provide some answers for most of what’s going to happen with the plot, but then just stops short of following them through. Not really a huge issue since it’s more about the atmosphere and whacky violent antics.
I sort of wonder if it would have worked better without the subtitles and less dialogue, I think most of the plot details could maybe be gleaned from the visuals so it could have been just like a dark and violent Pingu or Gogwana kind of thing
I loved Junkhead, but I watched it drunk off my ass after a day of drinking so i think I’d pick up more of it if I were sober.
I mean that’s probably one of the more ideal ways to experience it actually
Watched Threads (1984), a movie that focuses on a city in England during a nuclear exchange. It is framed like a documentary rather than a story. Utterly horrifying and unflinching, I liked it a lot.
perhaps the only honest post apocalyptic film
I don’t understand how every time I’m reminded of Threads, it’s always right before I head to bed. This is not something I need to be thinking about while going to sleep. I’ve never even actually seen it, just read about it and seen clips, which probably somehow makes it even worse.
watched both long kiss goodnight and last boy scout for the first time in years this month and came away with the unexpected opinion that Shane Black is actually a much better director than writer… his 90s stuff is weirdly both edgy and limp, like it moves from setpiece to setpiece kind of pointlessly and I think it was pretty oversold in its day. whereas everything he’s done since he started directing 20 years ago has been way tighter and more fun. I never mind a typical Shane Black script but they’re much more a means to an end than I previously realized
I think he has also gotten a lot better at writing!
I saw the Phoenecian Scheme and it’s some of the best Wes Anderson I’ve ever seen, aside from a couple really questionable casting decisions. It really leans into the unreality of everything. The setting is vaguely in the past. Grown ass Michael Cera is a pretty fun actor, and it’s great to see him do stuff here. The writing has an attention to tight plotting that rivals the Coen Bros, for better or worse. It’s very pretty, and very intentional, and I enjoyed it despite how early Wes Anderson films left me cold.
When I saw the trailer I was so worried that Phoenician Scheme would be a feature length version of that dire Paris 1968 sketch from his magazine movie, but the more I hear about this one the less it sounds like it’s that, so I guess I’ll probably go see it.
That movie is crazy because it has both the worst (that part) and the best thing Anderson has ever done (Jeffrey Wright 's part)
@digs and i are watching Jigarthanda Double X one hour a night, we’re two hours in now. it’s a baffling movie in many ways but basically it’s a gangster movie that’s a spiritual successor prequel to another gangster movie with which it shares zero characters but essentially the same plot separated by 30 years. the plot is more or less your typical gangster movie flair, except that the entire moral of the movie is explicitly that cinema will save the world and humanity. every single character in the movie is a film geek, either established budding or incipient. the main villain idolizes clint eastwood, the protagonist pretends to be a former assistant to satyajit ray to infiltrate the gang, the whole plotline is about turning the main villain into Tamil Nadu’s first dark-skinned movie hero. it’s kind of touching really - a world where art is equally capable of changing the hearts of innocent and blackguard alike. also for someone who’s more film educated than me i feel like there’s a lot of easter eggs as far as cinematography and dutch angles, color grading, one shot scenes, shot for shot remakes of famous films, all kinds of stuff? maybe.
finished the movie tonight, honestly would never have predicted the skill with which they pulled together what seemed like incredibly disparate plot threads. highly recommend Jigarthanda DoubleX
@digs: “it’s crazy cuz it had like three false bottoms - there’s like four endings in that movie. it’s like they had four beginnings and four endings in that movie, like they were closing all the parentheses”
not to sound like a tamil nationalist but goddamn how is tamil cinema consistently producing bangers of such different qualities and scope. i had never heard of karthik subburaj before this movie
check out the technical qualities of this scene
the image (1975) - many more shots of the eiffel tower than i was expecting. vive la france. does not have a camille 2000 level soundtrack but there’s a very funny moment when they choose to have the endless softcore funk noodling suddenly burst into psych guitar freakout… i liked that the main guy only ever makes the “white guy blinking meme” expression throughout, a level of no sell to whatever else is going on that makes the rest of the movie feel like one of those film school exercises where they put two incongruous shots together to see what happens. some good outfits and line readings. “nothing that i like is allowed, anne” will probably live in my head forever.
F1
Brad Pitt and Joseph Kosinsky succeeding where Sylvester stall(on)ed, a.k.a. what-if-Driven-was-done-by-someone-who-was-actually-good-at-his-job.
Felt like it was an hour shorter than it actually is, which is really good with a three hour runtime. Some Bruckheimer-ass shots in this, and Hans Zimmer is zimmering his Zimmerness on an epic scale.
It even made me almost tear up at one bit (and not where it tear-jerkingly should), so that was also cool.
Allround 
recc, surprisingly!
I thought the new Superman movie was really fun and sincere. Really enjoyed it.
There’s been a Nicolas Winding Refn retrospective here and I’ve seen the 3 Pusher / Only God Forgives / Neon Demon / Drive (in that order)
I was on a high after the first 5 fantastic movies but seeing Drive again was a huge letdown, funnily enough. The appeal to the male id is too transparent. The scorpion jacket, watch, leather gloves, toothpick - I can’t help but cringe. And I can’t see OGF as anything but a ruinous apology for Drive now. NWR has a penchant for risk and self sabotage that reminds me of Kojima - no wonder they’re close
I had always thought NWR was always gradually shifting from shakycam Pusher 1 to ultraglossy neon post-OGF, but Pusher 3 is a very weird curiosity in the middle of his cineatography, and I’m now curious about Bronson + Valhalla Rising (which I’ve never seen) and maybe even Fear X!