Good Movies, October 2020
Holy crap did I watch a lot of movies this month. This was mostly brought on by Criterion’s horror lineup, but, still. Wow.
- In This Corner of the World, 2016 - ★★★★. My wife watched this alone and then snuck it into every conversation about movies I need to see for the next six months. By the end I was exactly as destroyed as this movie wanted me to be.
- Peppermint Frappe, 1967 - ★. Don’t do what Donny Don’t does.
- Nosferatu the Vampyre, 1979 - ★★★★ (contains spoilers). The most haunting scene is where an entire group of people are dancing in a public square because they’ve all caught the plague and are about to die so they might as well have a party. And they don’t know that the plague is actually just a rich asshole.
Later, Van Helsing murders the rich asshole. Someone tries to arrest him for it, but the police have been defunded (they are all dead from the plague).
No, no reason why that’s apt now.
- Hereditary, 2018 - ★★★. Is the lesson of this movie don’t have kids, or don’t have dead grandmas?
- The Vampire Lovers, 1970 - ★★½. 5318008
- Sapphire, 1959 - ★★★★. I’m knocking it one star because they never actually show Michael Craig in lingerie.
- Daughters of Darkness, 1971 - ★★★★. The least believable part was when a woman did not want to hear all the gory details about a series of mysterious deaths.
- The Witch Who Came from the Sea, 1976 - ½. Hey Criterion, no bud.
- Carnival of Souls, 1962 - ★★. Cool ideas but it drags.
- To Live and Die in L.A., 1985 - ★★★. I didn’t know I needed a different narrative font every ten minutes, a cameo by Lesbian Daphne Moon, David Hasslehoff’s wardrobe knockoffs, Shipwreck Joey’s topless cabaret, improper use of “amigo”, Robert Downey Jr’s dad, an endless supply of cocaine-thin blonde exposition tools, interpretive dancers, the guy from Quantum Leap, two solid minutes of male nudity, an endless and bleak industrial landscape, copious Riker leans, Appleton Wisconsin’s finest Willem Dafoe, metaphorical and literal one-legged bungee jumping, and a soundtrack by Wang Chun that’ll melt your brain. But I did.
- Peeping Tom, 1960 - ★★★★. I love pretty movies about the movies.
- Shivers, 1975 - ★★★. Like a slightly hornier, slightly gorier, slightly Canadian version of the Tingler.
- The Quiet Family, 1998 - ★★★½. When you want to just be a nice family with a B&B but you’re so unbelievably good at so many kinds of murder.
- The Nightcomers, 1971 - ★★½. “Ecstatic love affairs are boring”
- The Velvet Vampire, 1971 - ★. Meh!
- The Good German, 2006 - ★★★ (contains spoilers). I liked the part where Tobey Maguire wasn’t in the movie anymore.
- Theatre of Blood, 1973 - ★★★★ (contains spoilers). I think I was happiest when Vincent Price fought in a fencing duel while on a trampoline, but it’s honestly hard to pick a favourite part.
- Suburbia, 1983 - ★. Gave up after 15 minutes. Why any of this?
- Save the Green Planet!, 2003 - ★★★½. Scully, you’re not gonna believe this.gif
- Portrait of a Lady on Fire, 2019 - ★★★½. Can’t tell if intense yearning or tight corset.