Current music: Jessie Mae Hemphill - "She-Wolf"
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Ok, I've been better about it. Watching some much better movies lately. Go team.
It dawned on me that it's a lot more fun to post when I've seen a couple of movies. It means I'll probably forget some stuff, and it means that I'm only going to post once or twice a week, but I'm not doing better than that as it stands.
I'm liking this site a lot, by the way. The production values are low, but the content's mostly protein. - Bright Lights Film
THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980) - d. David Lynch
Oh, Jesus. I gotta blame my parents for this one. Specifically, for not caring what I watched. They'd protect my little brother sometimes, but, either through sadism or pragmatism (it was not easy to get my ass in bed when I was wee), figured I could take it. Anyways, we watched this cinematic wonder when I was about 7. It freaked the living shit out of me, but I sat it out. Hadn't seen it since.
Movies about deformed people tend to make stain-the-sheets style cameos in my dreams. I'm thinking of 'Batman Returns,' 'Mask' (which is a lot like 'The Elephant Man' except starring Cher in hot pants), definitely the Ark of the Covenant scene in 'Raiders.' Even now, I can't look at the Penguin with his black bile or midgets - I hate you, Tod Browning - without a late night 'Fire Walk With Me'-redux. I ain't hatin'. I'm not good with burn victims, either.
Very not cool. Bad visual pun, too.
I didn't take a lot away from my original viewing. Other than being in on the joke back when 'I'm not an animal' was a catchphrase, anything else from this movie was basically keeping the 'No, Uncle, Stop!' memories company in my deepest darkest recesses.
Jesus, this movie is good. I could go on and on about it, but it's more fun to write long missives about bad movies. So here's what I'm taking away from 'The Elephant Man': I think 'Dune' ruined David Lynch. I don't care that 'Blue Velvet' and 'Twin Peaks' came later. 'Dune' ruined the guy. The quality of filmmaking in this and 'Eraserhead' are untouchable. I'm not saying Lynch isn't still vital and important and a major artist, I'm just saying he lost a step, lost some of his verve after 'Dune' turned out to be so incredibly dull. Oh, it also confirms that black and white is not only beautiful, it also makes prosthetics look better. Yay. There's not much in the way of DVD extras, but what's there is good.
THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM (1988) - d. Ken Russell
I have a friend who'd told me over and over that Ken Russell was more than 'Altered States.' As Russell is the man who also brought us 'Whore,' I totally ignored him. I was wrong. Friend who knows everything was right again.
'The Lair of the White Worm' is based on a Bram Stoker book. Always a good place to start. It has a super-young Hugh Grant acting like a super-big pecker, some amazing caves, and Amanda Donahoe as a total fucking nutter. The whole thing is absolutely insane.
This may be the best movie I've ever seen. Seriously. It knows how fucking bad it is. It actually has its scary moments. Every time it's too far off the map, lost in genre convention, someone shows up with a giant metal dildo.
Best movie ever. Seriously. Weed or no weed.
VICTORY (1981) - d. John Huston
Pelé, Stallone and Michael Caine. What a great fucking movie. I'm surprised the IMDb rating is as low as it is, but whatever. Now that I've seen the original, 'Mean Machine' officially sucks all balls. 'Victory' is officially the bomb. The soccer's really well shot, too.
JACK THE GIANT KILLER (1962) - d. Nathan Juran
This was on. I watched it.
It's fun for the whole family - a good thing. Some nifty special effects - a good thing. It has some Harryhauseny monsters - a good thing. The way they actually animate the Harryhauseny monsters, not such a good thing.
Really, it reminded me a lot of the Herbie movies, except with a guy with a sword and a cockney leprechaun (?) in a bottle and a witch with yellow eyes who's actually a hot princess rather than Buddy Hackett and a sentient Volkswagen.
Anyway, it's fun. See 'Pete's Dragon' instead.*
* You may notice that the family friendly movie earns the family friendly review. I didn't say "fuck" once.
PERSONA (1966) - d. Ingmar Bergman
I have this thing where I avoid certain filmmaker's movies because I worry that I'm going to run out of really great movies to see. Maybe not literally, but in terms of a generally accepted canon of 'really great movies,' I am going to run out someday. That means I've avoided a chunk of movies I expect I'll really like - Lubitsch, David Lean, a good chunk of Hitchcock, '2001' - on the principle that virgin viewings are commodities and I need to parse that stuff out over time. In terms of Bergman's output, I've seen 'The Seventh Seal' and 'Persona' and that's it. After freaking out over how good 'Persona' is for like the 37th time, that's going to have to change.
What an awesome movie. You can read all about the 'plot' on someone else's thing; I don't have much to say. Just that it's really good. And beautifully shot. And you should see it.
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