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While living alone this week, I've been watching a lot of movies. I mean, I guess I watch a fair amount of DVDs on any given week, its just usually a large portion of these are whatever television show we're currently consuming. We finished up BSG right before she left and didn't start anything new, so I filled up the queue with random things only I would probably want to see. Then last Saturday, when hanging out with Liza, we watched the 1983 and 1983 Oscars (she found a vhs tape at a thrift store, and by the way, they were awesome) and I realized, wow, maybe not all movies made in the 1980s sucked.1 So then I promptly went home and filled up my house with movies that I either a) totally missed or b) I watched but I was so young I barely remember and/or I've forgotten most of them. I also went to the library this week and picked up more random movies. The result is a sort of mish-mash of titles. Here's what I've watched in the past week:
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Ultimatum
Pittsburgh
The Number 23
28 Weeks Later
Hysterical Blindess
It Happened One Night
Ordinary People
The weakest link in this chain was The Number 23, and it wasn't bad, it was just not that scary nor that twisty. It was about on par with an episode of Medium, really. 28 Weeks Later was not quite as good as the original, BUT, I appreciated that it tried to do something different and be its own movie.
It Happened One Night was filling in a gap of my film education, and its funny to watch old movies and suddenly realize, oooooh, THAT is what that reference is from. Its also sad to realize your brain is referencing an episode of "Who's the Boss?" This movie is sort of the original romantic comedy, the first one made after the institution of the Hayes code, and I must say, it still somewhat racy, all things considered. It made me go find a bunch of pre-Hayes Code movies and put them on my queue. I have several movie geek friends who have gone through their "watching a bunch of pre-code movies" phases and I wondered if I would have one. This might be it.
Hysterical Blindness is like a kinda fcked up short story that you don't necessarily love but can't stop thinking about the character afterwards. The Bourne movies endeared me, actually, though I couldn't tell if they were subverting gender psychological stereotypes or replicating them in a way that people think they are subversive when really they aren't. I'm probably overthinking it, because mostly I just enjoyed them and I must agree, Matt Damon does a good job creating and being that character. Because I don't really even notice Matt Damon in movies usually, but he carried the whole thing off well.
Pittsburgh was the sleeper of the bunch. If you find Jeff Goldblum remotely entertaining, and you like the Christopher Guest movies, you need to see this. This movie is what For Your Consideration should have been, as far as satirizing actors and hollywood. If Ocean's 11 et. al. is the pet project that all of the popular kids in Hollywood made while hanging out, this movie is the pet project of all the geeky art kids. Also, its about The Music Man, which I've never even seen, and I suspect if I had some past link to it, I would have loved the movie more.
Ordinary People. So Liza said to me, you HAVE seen Ordinary People, right? And I said, of course. And its true, I did, but I think I was maybe 10 and all I really remember about the movie is that my mom wasn't too fond of it. She preferred Terms of Endearment, which we probably watched both of them together at the same time, or maybe my brain just stored those memories in files next to each other. Maybe I'm even wrong about my mom disliking it, but in a way, it would make absolutely perfect sense that she did. Watching the movie now as an adult, I think it holds up pretty well, and its still pretty devastatingly awesome. I think I even had an epiphany or two. I definitely cried. Oh, the deep psychological trauma of middle class white people. It speaks to my upbringing, what can I say?
Tonight its either The Last King of Scotland or Stephanie Daley. I was really hoping The World According to Garp would have arrived, but it didn't come in the mail yet. I might need to up my horror fix too.
1: I don't totally think this, its mostly a reference that only![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thebrownhornet might remember, to a conversation/argument at a party YEARS AGO with his red-haired journalist friend where she tried to argue that "lots" of cinematic contributions were made in the 1980s and I argued that there wasn't more than 10. (I got an extra leg-up when I convinced her that movies released in 1980 didn't count, because they were made in the 70s.)
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Ultimatum
Pittsburgh
The Number 23
28 Weeks Later
Hysterical Blindess
It Happened One Night
Ordinary People
The weakest link in this chain was The Number 23, and it wasn't bad, it was just not that scary nor that twisty. It was about on par with an episode of Medium, really. 28 Weeks Later was not quite as good as the original, BUT, I appreciated that it tried to do something different and be its own movie.
It Happened One Night was filling in a gap of my film education, and its funny to watch old movies and suddenly realize, oooooh, THAT is what that reference is from. Its also sad to realize your brain is referencing an episode of "Who's the Boss?" This movie is sort of the original romantic comedy, the first one made after the institution of the Hayes code, and I must say, it still somewhat racy, all things considered. It made me go find a bunch of pre-Hayes Code movies and put them on my queue. I have several movie geek friends who have gone through their "watching a bunch of pre-code movies" phases and I wondered if I would have one. This might be it.
Hysterical Blindness is like a kinda fcked up short story that you don't necessarily love but can't stop thinking about the character afterwards. The Bourne movies endeared me, actually, though I couldn't tell if they were subverting gender psychological stereotypes or replicating them in a way that people think they are subversive when really they aren't. I'm probably overthinking it, because mostly I just enjoyed them and I must agree, Matt Damon does a good job creating and being that character. Because I don't really even notice Matt Damon in movies usually, but he carried the whole thing off well.
Pittsburgh was the sleeper of the bunch. If you find Jeff Goldblum remotely entertaining, and you like the Christopher Guest movies, you need to see this. This movie is what For Your Consideration should have been, as far as satirizing actors and hollywood. If Ocean's 11 et. al. is the pet project that all of the popular kids in Hollywood made while hanging out, this movie is the pet project of all the geeky art kids. Also, its about The Music Man, which I've never even seen, and I suspect if I had some past link to it, I would have loved the movie more.
Ordinary People. So Liza said to me, you HAVE seen Ordinary People, right? And I said, of course. And its true, I did, but I think I was maybe 10 and all I really remember about the movie is that my mom wasn't too fond of it. She preferred Terms of Endearment, which we probably watched both of them together at the same time, or maybe my brain just stored those memories in files next to each other. Maybe I'm even wrong about my mom disliking it, but in a way, it would make absolutely perfect sense that she did. Watching the movie now as an adult, I think it holds up pretty well, and its still pretty devastatingly awesome. I think I even had an epiphany or two. I definitely cried. Oh, the deep psychological trauma of middle class white people. It speaks to my upbringing, what can I say?
Tonight its either The Last King of Scotland or Stephanie Daley. I was really hoping The World According to Garp would have arrived, but it didn't come in the mail yet. I might need to up my horror fix too.
1: I don't totally think this, its mostly a reference that only
thebrownhornet might remember, to a conversation/argument at a party YEARS AGO with his red-haired journalist friend where she tried to argue that "lots" of cinematic contributions were made in the 1980s and I argued that there wasn't more than 10. (I got an extra leg-up when I convinced her that movies released in 1980 didn't count, because they were made in the 70s.)
