2023 was a big year in movies for me, partially because of losing the Harmony Club: I still hang out with one of the guys, but since we’re in a private apartment instead of a bar/clubhouse open to random dropbys and tourists, now we do movie nights. I watched 67 movies in 2023, of varying quality and origin. In chronological order, with favorites in bold, with my immediate reaction/summaries following:

Dazed and Confused. A tribute to the seventies, following the day of high school and a party thereof. Great music.   Matthew McConaughay. 

Hairspray,  a 2nd John Waters film that I was lured into watching on the promise that I’d like the music. Yes, yes I did.  The movie itself was quite interesting, being inspired by The Buddy Deane Show, a  1950s teenage dance thing.

The Girl Can’t Help It. My introduction to Jayne Mansfield, who plays the girlfriend of an aging mobster who wants to get married, but since he can’t marry just anyone, he wants to make her a successful movie star so his other mob buddies don’t rib him for marrying beneath him.  

Five Easy Pieces.  An odd movie following Jack Nicholson, who appears to be an oil rigger but who is actually a child of privilege. 

Falling Down, 1993. Kirk Douglas plays a frustrated man who slips over the edge and tries to get ‘home’ to his ex-wife and child,  taking out his frustrations with modernity along the way.  Instant favorite, and one to rewatch. 

Saturday Night Fever.   If there was a plot, I didn’t pay attention to it. Lots of entertaining dancing and music, and that’s what I signed on for. I fell asleep toward the end. 

The Long Trailer, Rickie and Lucy buy a house-trailer and try to drive across the mountains. Drama  and hilarity ensue. 

Clerks II.   Randall and Dante are working at Mooby’s (a restaurant chain belonging to a Disneyesque megacorporation whose boardmembers  two errant angels assassinated in Dogma),  Jay and Silent Bob are doing their thing outside (selling unlicensed natural pharmaceuticals), and Dante is on the verge of getting married and getting a real job.  But then, Rosario Dawson dances to the Jackson 5’s ‘ABC” and things go awry.

Clerks III.  Can’t say much without spoiling Clerks II, but suffice it to say Randall has a heart attack and realizes he should really be doing something with his life other than watching movies and hazing customers as at a c-store,   and decides to make a movie. The movie…is Clerks.  However, as amusing and meta as that sounds, it proves to have serious emotional drama to it when it connects to the events of Clerks II and the in-between. 

The Evil Dead.  Six kids airbnb a cabin in the woods and it turns out they really should have checked the owner reviews.  Very effective horror movie.  The character who survives is not the character I would have picked going in . 

Muholland Drive.  I…don’t know what to tell you. It begins with a woman surviving a hit and a car crash and limping her way into a residence, where she’s discovered the next day by another woman moving in.  Things get progressively weirder and the only reason I kept watching is because Laura Elena Harring is very striking.  Possibly replaces The Tenant as the weirdest movie I’ve ever seen,   in part because The Tenant has a story one can follow. 

Nashville.Country music, relationship drama, and politics. Mmmmm-mmm.

The Pink Panther (2005).   One of my favorite mindless comedies, starring Steve Martin and Beyonce. Martin is Inspector Closeau,   a bumbling nonentity who is tasked with solving a crime before an international audience  (and distracting the public) so his boss can actually  solve the crime without attention.  Lots of physical humor, absurd acting & lines, etc.  A re-watch for me after a long week. 

The Pink Panther II.  Another rewatch, this time with a larger ensemble cast. Entertaining enough but not a patch on the original.  One of Closeau’s rivals & teammates, Alfred Molina, is worth watching, but there’s a decided poverty of Beyonce. 

Mr.  Right, Anna Kendricks.   Watched for Anna Kendricks.   Anna stumbles upon her boyfriend doing the tango with another woman and has a meltdown, but then meets a clown-assassin. It’s hilarious and it has Anna Kendricks. 

Cry-Baby, 1990.    Another John Waters film, this  one resembling a low-budget Grease.   The nice square/soc girl fall and the drape/greaser boy fall for each other.  The soundtrack has a lot of rockabilly, and has cameos from Iggy Pop and David “Yes, Ozzie and Harriet’s Son, David” Nelson.   

Undercover Brother.  A man stuck in 1970s funkytown puts his fly skills to work to combat the declining influence of black culture, caused directly by The Man.   A spy movie parody, I suppose?  Good music, some entertaining scenes, some eye candy.  Not one I’d rewatch. 

The New Guy. More funk!   The story of a high school loser (who is in a “awkward white kids playing funk” band), humiliated on the first day of his senior year, ending up in juvie where he meets someone who inspires him to reinvent himself – sort of like Grease 2, but without the immediate romance.   Taking his new persona to a new school,  the zero becomes a hero – but  the charade is challenged when his old school and new meet on the field of (football) battle.  

A Man Called Otto.  Based on the Swedish novel, Otto is about a widower named (spoiler alert)  Otto  whose punctiliousness and despair at the world has led him to trying to destroy himself.   Connections with new neighbors keep preventing this.

Bruce Almighty.   Jim Carrey plays a generally good reporter with a strong selfish streak who is given some of God’s powers for a few weeks and learns to love Jennifer Anniston.   No one should need God’s powers to love Jennifer Anniston’s character in this.  Another rewatch.

Animal House.  A party-house frat goes to war against the WASP frat.  Lots of comedy.   I was distracted by Mozart and the detective from The Mask both playing frat brothers. 

Pitch Perfect.  Anna Kendricks plays a reluctant college girl who joins an all-female a capella group after being stalked in a shower by one of its members, and her creative remixing helps take the girls all the way. 

The Untouchables. Robert de Niro plays Al Capone in this 1920s cop drama about young Elliot Ness (Kevin Cosner) and his gruff Irish mentor Sean O’Connery’s attempt to take down the king of Cicero.  I found it very difficult to root for revenuers (at least until the baseball bat scene), but good overall.  My third Brian de Palma film, following Scarface and Carrie. 

Stranger than Paradise, 1984.  An interesting film directed by Jim Jarmusch, shot in black and white and consisting of 67 shots in which the camera is still.  If that sounds minimalist, the plot is even more so: essentially, a poker hustler is asked to host his immigrant cousin Ava (arriving from Hungary) for a few days. He resents her at first, but grows fond of her – enough that when he and his buddy have to leave town after being exposed at a poker match, they decide to visit her in Cleveland, and then the three of them go to Florida.   

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, 2005.  A largely faithful adaptation of Lewis’ fantasy novel,  in which a group of brothers and sisters sent into the country to get away from the German bombing of London discover a wardrobe that takes them into a magical land, where they encounter cruelty and nobility and adventure.  Douglas Gresham had some oversight here, so I am not surprised that it mostly stuck to the text.  Great voice talent, especially Liam Neeson as Aslan & Dawn French as Mrs. Beaver.  

Uncle Buck, 1989.   When a young mother’s father is hospitalized in the middle of the night, she’s hard-pressed for a babysitter and has to bring in her husband’s slacker brother, Buck.  A rewatch for me, and as fun as I remember it – -though watching it as someone close to Buck’s age is an altogether different experience than watching this as a kid! 

Stand by Me,  1985. A coming of age story about four young boys who hike into the woods trying to find the body of a kid their age who had gone missing.   Interesting relationship between Will and Gordie, reminiscent of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s characters in  Good Will Hunting –    in that the ‘dumb, tough’ friend is extremely supportive of his friend’s intellectual/creative gifts and urges him to look for a life beyond where they grew up.  There’s a lot of emotion in the boys’ relationships, which is unusual –  I don’t know of many movies in which children, especially boys, get their souls plumbed the way we see here. 

Hook, 1991.   20+ years after Peter Pan fell in love with the Wendy-lady’s granddaughter and decided to grow up so he could marry her,  Captain Hook kidnaps Pan’s kids to force an epic final duel between himself and Pan the Man.  Unfortunately,   Peter has forgotten everything – including his identity.   As wonderful as I remember. (“Dark and sinister man, have at thee!”)

Liar, Liar.  1997.  Jim Carrey plays a divorced lawyer whose  obsession with work (and his lack of scruples in succeeding there) so often disappoint his son that said son makes a birthday wish that dad can’t lie for 24 hours.  Still funny after all these years.  (“I JUST WANT TO GET FROM MY CAR TO THE OFFICE WITHOUT BEING CONFRONTED BY THE DECAY OF WESTERN SOCIETY!!”)

Mon Oncle,  1958. An interesting French film about a young boy being raised in a brutalistic modern house by materialistic parents, who much prefers time spent with his uncle, a shabby-looking chap who is obviously enjoying life, cycling through the old town of a French city.  Loved the “modernity is inhumane” theme, as we frequently switch between the flawed but lovely to the perfect, clean, and brutal. 

Duel,  1971. Spielberg’s first film, a kind of horror film in which an American businessman is stalked by a homicidal truck(er?).

The Social Network,  2010. A partisan movie about the rise of facebook.  Enjoyable acting – I’ll never complain about anything Rashida Jones appears  in – and I dug the look back at mid/late 2000s tech.

Shampoo, 1975. This was sold to me as being ‘a great period piece’.  Filmed in ‘75,  set during the  ‘68 election campaign.  A male hairdresser with three paramours is trying to get money to open his own shop.  My buddy and I  were both underwhelmed:   halfway through my friend commented that the film was a lot less interesting than he remembered.    It was Carrie Fisher’s first non-TV movie, and she appears much younger than in Star Wars despite there only being two years’ difference . (She was 19 in Shampoo, and 21 in Star Wars.) 

Black Test Car, 1962. A Japanese film about corporate espionage, in which one man (Asahina) has a crisis of confidence. Although he begins the film so dedicated to his Corporation that he’s willing to ask his girlfriend to seduce a rival for information, as the trade/espionage war grows deeper stakes he’s forced to choose what  really matters: profit or honor? 

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, 1988.   An unforgettable Spanish film about a woman who has just been unceremoniously ghosted by her steady fella and has something critical she needs to tell him, while at the same time his ex-wife who fooled her way out of a looney bin is now hunting for him with dos pistoles, annnnd the woman’s best friend is panicking because she was dating a terrorist without knowing, and now she fears the police will pick her up as an accomplice.  WONDERFUL use of color in the backgrounds, costumes, and props.

Annie Hall, 1977. Woody Allen has relationship problems. Christopher Walken and Jeff Godlum appear. 

Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday. 1955. A French proto-Mr Bean goes on vacation. Hijinks ensue. Nice music but preferred  Mon Oncle. Same core character, though.

Breathless, 1960. A French New Wave film starring some dude alongside Jean Seberg, who plays the dude’s American girlfriend. The dude is French and a petty gangster who models his tough-guy persona after Bogie’s Sam Spade, but in reality he’s just scum in a suit with enough charisma to seduce the character played by Seberg.  I enjoyed this chiefly for the music and for my introduction to Seberg.

The Exorcist, 1982.  A young girl is possessed by a demon, and we watch in horror as her body comes progressively more grotesque. When medical science throws up its arms,   the priests are called in.  This is definitely one of the most disturbing movies I’ve ever watched.

The Women, 1939.    I kept falling asleep during this one. Women talking about relationships and divorce for two hours.  

American Graffiti, 1978.  It’s like Dazed and Confused, but set in the 1960s. GREAT soundtrack, solid acting from Richard Dreyfuss and co. Enjoyed seeing Harrison Ford as a singing hick with a penchant for drag-racing.  

Mr. Holland’s Opus, 1995. I’ve been wanting to watch this for ages, and knew I’d love it because I’ve watched clips from it on youtube so often.  MHO begins with an aspiring composer taking a gig as a high school music teacher to keep bologna in the fridge while he’s pursuing his dreams.  Instead, he finds Time and Responsibilities growing around him, in addition to the enormous challenge of raising a son who is hearing impaired. The challenge is both practical and emotional, as Mr. Holland is at a loss with how to relate to someone who can’t hear the music that so possesses his own soul.  Very emotionally-laden film that ends with an appropriate crescendo.

The Incredibles, 2004.   In a world where superheroes have been made to retire by the government, an enterprising superhero turned supervillain creates a robotic monster so he can swoop in and save the day.  

Playtime, 1967. My third Jacques Tati movie, and also featuring Mssr Hulot – though he plays a relatively minor role in this movie. As with the other Tati movie, there’s not a strict plot, but things happen and we observe them with merriment.    In this one. Hulot arrives at an ultramodern office building for an appointment with someone, but in investigating a curious room he finds himself trapped on an elevator and soon thoroughly lost. As with Mon Oncle, there’s a strong reflection on the inhumanity of ‘modernity’ –    glass, steel, and chrome dominate the scene, as do switches, harsh buzzes, and strange gurgling sounds.    A nearby restaurant has also been renovated – so close to opening night that workers are scrambling to get their tools out of the way of the first customers –   and it is here that humanity breaks through. As one thing after another goes wrong at the hotel,  opening night turns into a fiasco – but it’s the kind of fiasco This American Life did an episode on, the kind that’s failing so spectacularly that it’s actually enjoyable.

Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964.  A beautiful French musical about young love, heartbreak, and human resilience.  Everything is sung.  

Yesterday, 2019. A struggling singer-songwriter is hit by a bus and wakes up in a world  in which the Beatles didn’t exist. Though performing their music shoots him into fame, he struggles with  being a fraud and his feelings for those whom he left behind.   Lovely film. 

Bringing up Baby, 1938. Kathryn Hepburn steals Cary Grant’s golf ball. A leopard becomes involved.

Eagle Shooting Heroes, 1993.  Quote me, 30 minutes in: “Is this a movie or an acid trip?”.  It’s a spoof of kung-fu movies. There’s magic and floating heads and fetch quests. Subtitles don’t make it any less bizaare.

The Long Goodbye, 1973. A ‘modernized’ version of the Raymond Chandler story in which the main character played by Elliot Gould acts like a Chandler detective from the ‘30s, out of place in ‘73.   Eh.

Beyond Valley of the Dolls, 1970.   An all-girl rock group goes to LA to try and hit the big time, and they do by attracting the attention of some creep who one of the girls finds attractive, for some reason. The girls fall into the party life and leave their old manager (who looks like Greg Brady but with eyeliner) heartbroken and vulnerable to a man-eating  ex-porn star. Then there’s….mass murder, apparently inspired by the Manson murders which involved someone who featured in the original Valley of the Dolls.   Its’ a weird movie.  The music and slang are fun, (“This is my happening and it freaks me out!”)  and because of the director all of the female characters are bombshells, but frankly it’s obscene. 

The Founder, 2016. A story about the origin and expansion of McDonalds, fueled by Ray Croc. I think he’s meant to be the villain. Great acting, loved the classic cars. Nick Offerman’s presence is an automatic 4 stars. Michael Keaton is also a dashed good Ray Croc.

The Last Detail, 1973. Jack Nicholson is a Shore Patrol Navy man sent on an escort mission: he and another fellow have to escort a prisoner to prison. Said prisoner is being sent away for eight years largely for BS reasons, and Jack and the boys have a wild weekend together. 

Sean Bean on Waterloo, 2015. This isn’t really a movie, but a two-part miniseries in which Sean Bean (who played rifleman Richard Sharpe in a Napoleonic war series) tours the battleground at Waterloo, handles and fires real arms from the day (yes, including the Baker rifle – not a replica) and studies aspects of the battle in detail with experts – how the sludgy ground made moving artillery a challenge, the effect of black powder muskets firing en masse, etc. Soldiers’ memoirs play a heavy role in the retelling. 

Manhattan, 1979. Woody Allen has relationship problems. Diane Keaton and Ernest Hemingway’s granddaughter appear, but not the Twin Towers. WHERE ARE THE TWIN TOWERS, WOODY?  THEY WERE OPENED IN 1973. 

The Glamourous World of the Hotel Adlon, 1996.  Interesting oral history of a prestige hotel that once stood in Berlin, near the Brandenberg Gate. It was destroyed in ‘45 and later ‘rebuilt’. 

Traffic (1971). Mssr Hulot works for a French auto manufacturer and is in charge of getting the “Camper Car” to an auto show in Amsterdam. Things go…..awry.  

Written on the Wind (1956). Rock Hudson is a working-class boy turned geology specialist who owes his success, in part, to growing up with his boss’s son and being mentored by said boss  – so much so that he’s practically a member of the family, which is unfortunate because the boss’s daughter  really wants Rock Hudson to be her hubby, despite the whole “I Love you like a brother” thing and the fact that she’s a loose cannon. A very loose cannon.  She’s loose is what I’m saying.  Anyhoo, Rock Hudson introduces Bacall to the boss’s son, who is on the wagon fighting  secret demons, and  presently  the sister’s bitterness over Rock not returning her affections turns into her spreading rumors that Rock and Bacall are getting to know one another in the biblical way.   Very much the soap opera but I’ll watch anything with Bacall in it after witnessing her in The Big Sleep. 

American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince  (1978). A documentary shot by Martin Scorcerse about…one of his friends,  a roadie/backstage craftsman in the entertainment industry who  has a gift for telling stories. 

Italianamerican (1974). Martin Scorcese points a camera at his parents and listens to them tell stories and fuss over how to properly make Italian sauce for about an hour.  Entertaining, and Mrs Scorcese would later appear in Goodfellas as…an Italian mother. 

Toby Dammit (1968). Um….an English actor struggling with depression and alcoholism, haunted by tempting images of the Devil as a young girl inviting him to play ball with her, is asked to come to Rome for a film. Very odd visuals and a depressing/disturbing film on the whole.

Kingfish (1995): A drama based on the life of Governor Huey P Long of Louisiana, a left-wing populist who attacked Big Money and was shot for his trouble. An authoritarian, but a little part of me can’t help but admire him. Features cameos from at least two ST TNG actors, Brent Spiner and Bob Gunton.  My favorite line:  “God won’t take ol’ Huey. The Lord  hisself don’t want to be demoted.” 

All the King’s Men, (1949). A dramatization of the book, based on the rise and fall of Huey P. Long. Far more sympathetic than Goodman.

A Hard Day’s Night, (1964).   I think there is a plot about the Beatles trying to make it to a concert without being mobbed by screaming girls who are writhing in ecstasy at the mere sight of these mop-tops, and preventing Paul’s “grandfather” from getting into mischief.  I was mostly watching for the music, of course, though it was strange to see John Lennon at this phase, with shorter hair and without his glasses: my mental image of Lennon is always the “Jesus” look. 

All the King’s Men, (2006).   I expected to pan this, but Sean Penn is rather good – and the rest of the cast are no slouches. Anthony Hopkins plays Judge Irwin, for instance,  and Jim Gandolfini plays a good Tiny Duffy despite the weirdness of his Joisey-on-da-Mississippi accent. 

The Rules of the Game, (1939). French film about…a lot of love affairs colliding at a country party.  There’s a scene that’s basically a snuff sequence of quail and rabbits dying for the entertainment of rich people whose idea of ‘hunting’ is ‘standing around in one spot until peasants scare the animals towards them, and then shoot’.  The action climaxes with a hilarious party scene in which one man is chasing another with a gun, shooting wildly in a mansion, while some guests applaud the  ‘entertainment’ and the others surrender en masse. The French, surrender?! It’s unthink- (glances at film release date)…ehm, nevermind. 

Asteroid City, (2023). A….film within a film. Hard to explain. Visually VERY interesting, and loaded with stars. Scarlett Johannson plays a big part, though I didn’t recognize her because my Scarlett Johannson looks like Scarlett circa Lost in Translation. She does not look like a 39 year old  capital-A adult, which she is in this. (I also didn’t recognize Margeret Robbie, but to be fair I’ve only seen her in Wolf of Wall Street.)   Most of the movie is set during the movie-within-a-movie, which is about a small desert town like Winslow becoming quarantined when there’s a mass alien sighting at its only noteworthy attraction, the Crater.    There’s also black and white bits that frame the filming of this movie, in which people like Brian Cranston and Edward Norton appear. 

Man on Wire (2008).   A documentary of Phillipe Petit, who with a group of friends sneaked into the top floors of the World Trade Center towers,  fastened a cable between them overnight (with guylines), and then in the misty morning  not only walked across the cable but performed there for 45 minutes . Wonderful mix of period video, music, and dramatization.

The French Dispatch, (2021). An interesting film about an American newspaper in France,  in which its various columns are elaborated on in short films, concluding in the death of the editor, Bill Murray. I’m pretty sure I also saw Edward Norton and The Fonz at some point. Visually, very interesting, and I liked some of the short films.