Apocalypse Now, which was…..different than I was expecting. Of course, I’ve seen Sheen’s son Charlie in Platoon and my Vietnam movie knowledge is very muddled.   Wonderful shots in the beginning, though:  as horrible as war is, they managed to make Hueys flying to deliver death beautiful. 

Mighty Aphrodite, 1995. Woody Allen is improbably married to Helena Bonham Carter, and they adopt a child who is so intelligent and charismatic that Woody feels compelled to seek out the mother. He finds that she divides her time between being a hooker and a porn actress, and — horrified for her and his son — befriends her with an eye toward helping her find a better life for herself. His growing emotional bond with the mother is happening at the same time that he’s increasingly alienated from his wife, who — again, improbably — is seduced by Peter Weller and focused solely on her career to the diminishment of everything else. (Woody is a sports writer, but is wholly focused on his family: we rarely see him on the job.) There is a recurring Greek chorus led by the singular talent that was F. Murray Abraham. My favorite Woody Allen movie to date, and I doubt it will be surpassed.

Trainspotting, 1996.
Friend: Hey, you like trains, right? And movies about trains?
Me: Oh, yeah! Loved Unstoppable. Great movie.
Friend: Let’s watch Trainspotting.
Me: Ok!
(an hour later)
Me: ….we’ve only seen like one train in this and it was a passenger car, not even an engine. This is just a bunch of Scottish dope fiends ruining each other’s lives. And there’s a dead baby!
Friend: (evil laugh)
Me: Let’s watch something funny tomorrow night. -_-

All the Boys Are Called Patrick, 1957.
A French horndog picks up two girls and makes weekend dates with them. They’re roommates. They find out.. Short film, an early Goddard.

The Thin Man, 1934. Oddly funny noir murder mystery. A young Cesar Romero shows up, looking more sinister than dashing. 

Love Lies Bleeding, 2024. Very violent thriller in which Kristen Stewart, whose father Ed Harris is a murderous criminal of some kind, falls in love with a female bodybuilder named Jackie. Their plans to visit a bodybuilder competition in Las Vegas are derailed after Stewart’s brother-in-law beats her sister up so badly that she’s hospitalized, and then Jackie — under the influence of steroids — absolutely destroys said brother-in-law’s skull in a graphic way. Stewart then makes the rash decision to dispose of the body in such a way as to draw attention to daddy dearest’s favorite dumping ground for bodies, which leads to lots of drama and casualties. Definitely riveting. My first time seeing Stewart: I know she caught a lot of flack for her acting in the Twilight movies, but she must have improved since. 

Dune, 2021. Beautiful interpretation of the first third of the book. My mental version of Paul was more like Christian Bale or young Keanu Reeves (Devil’s Advocate Reeves, specifically)

El Topo, 1970. I have no idea what this movie was about because it was in Spanish and had no subtitles, but a friend who was supposed to join me and a mutual friend to watch Dune was late, so we convinced him that this movie set in the desert with credible approximations to Paul and Lady Jessica was Dune. We spent the next hour spontaneously interpreting every scene in the context of Dune, like my pointing out the southwestern  fauna and emphasizing any mention of saguaro in the book,   It was hilarious.   I talked to our victim on Monday and he said he assumed since he was late, we’d started watching the original one first, and he had no idea what it was like so he just rolled with it.He’d figured it out by the time  the six-shooters and horses appeared.  (“Oh, well, yeah. In the seventies movie they were doing a space western setting, sort of like what they did with Firefly..”)

Dolemite, 1975.    Described to me as  hilariously bad, this one….was interesting. Our main character is a pimp and all around toughguy in LA, who is set up for an arrest so that his rival, a full-fledged criminal kingpin, can take over his club.   City cops are completely corrupted and in bed with the kingpin, but another party is interested in using Dolemite to expose them.  Dolemite is released and manages to get the baddies with help from his squad of karate-master club girls.   There’s a lot of great cars in this movie. Evidently, it was based off a character the main ‘actor” (he’s better than The Amazing Criswell but that’s as far as I can go) invented for his stand-up routines in which he tells stories in rhyming couplets.  Not a film to rewatch, but I enjoyed the cars, the music,  the frequently bad acting & directing, and that glorious mid-seventies fashion that could leave nothing to the imagination or absolutely boggle it. Why were so many people wearing mounds of furs in LOS ANGELES? 

What’s Up Doc, 1972. My introduction to the very striking Barbara Streisand. She plays a prototypical manic pixie dream girl who begins stalking a musicologist whose travel bag is the same as three other people’s — bags including lots of jewels, secret documents, and misc crap. Leads to a gloriously madcap comedy with an absolutely chaotic ending . Great writing, and SF was a wonderful city to stage auto chases in. 

Tremors, 1990. After I mentioned I’d watched Dune, a coworker said “I prefer the sand-worms in Tremors.” Upon learning that I’d never watched it, she gave me a 4-disc set with orders to watch at least the first one. Fun horror-comedy in which rednecks are the heroes. My country favorite Reba McEntire is a supporting character as part of a husband-wife prepper team. I never knew how much I needed to hear Reba talking about rifle and shotgun gauges. “BROKE INTO THE WRONG (GORRAM) REC ROOM, DIDN’TJA?!?!”

Sunset Boulevard, 1950.  Gloria Swanson, a movie star from the 1920s, plays Norma Desmond, an aging moving star from the 1920s who in 1949 has an idea to re-ignite her career: having a struggling writer edit her massive script for a personal biopic. Although he thinks it’s irredeemably awful,   working for her means living in a mansion with endless trinkets and clothes, and even though he’s at first offended by the notion of being kept like a pet,  his integrity is fighting a  hard battle against comfort. Ultimately, things don’t end well. The movie has one of the most famous lines in cinematic history.  Fascinating look into late ‘40s Hollywood, with a strong acting cast. 

Fannie Hill, 1964. The story of a sweet girl who gets connected to a brothel but somehow manages to survive two hours to the end of the movie without being deflowered until she’s married. Friend of mine wanted to watch this because it was Russ Myers, who he likes.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, 1965. Another Russ Myers film. Three crazy hotties who are into racing sports car murder a dude and then kidnap his girlfriend and drive into the boonies where they catch wind of an old handicapped man with a buried fortune and a mentally impaired son and decide hey, this guy is ripe for the plucking. Things do not go according to plan.  Beautiful cars, fun music.  Sleazy. 

Wilde, 1997. Stephen Fry plays Oscar Wilde in a biopic which also features Jude Law and Ioan Gruffud. I still prefer Jude Law in All the King’s Men, which has also monopolized my appreciation of Sean Penn.. He can only ever be Willie Stark.