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Spring Season: Weeks 71/72
Still cold. Still smoky. Still almost unbearably tired. But I bear! For just two more days. And then I can rest again. Two more days.
Two more days.
FILMS
Abouna (2002): Sweet but very sad but also never unbearably so? Very... likeable.
Archangel (1990): War is hell but love is worse and so is this. In a good way!
Black Widow (2021): I feel like this actually benefited a lot from the pandemic delay? It's very much one that could be easily lost in the shuffle of the constant MCU content churn just as Disney has started to really ramp it up, so that extra boost of long-gestating anticipation is gonna make it a lot stickier to my mind. Seems like a lot of people are underwhelmed? Not sure what they were expecting, this was never gonna be a big important lore movie, just a fun character exploration. The stakes were low and the plot was very workmanlike and unengaging, so how much I liked this is a real testament to how far an extremely charming cast with tons of chemistry can take a film. Good shit! Loved those opening credits. I hope they go full Tokyo Drift and just make a bunch of sequels still set in this nebulous 'she's not dead yet because family' period. Leshia's Pick of the Week Runner-Up, mostly based on the fact that only NOW does the world feel like it can start turning again, the MCU content desert is finally firmly behind us~
California Split (1974): The thumbnail for this thing had Elliott Gould with his nose bandaged and bruised, and so I spent the whole movie waiting for him to get his face fucked up when it didn't happen until the last half hour or so, but it was worth the wait. I actually liked this a lot? A fun buddy comedy, but the scaffolding holding it up is just the bleakness of gambling addiction.
Darling, How Could You! (1951): Low-key one of the funniest things I've seen this month? So many understated little one-liners that only hit me several seconds later, so I was constantly laughing on some weird delay. The parents were so hilarious and weirdly relatable with all their little insecurities about the kids they practically abandoned, John Lund making a little handkerchief bunny and being so proud of it is gonna live in my head rent-free for a while. Also: the rare 'father goes after the guy he thinks is involved with his daughter' plotline where his actions are totally reasonable and justified and not gross at all! Actually, everyone except the teenage daughter (who needs to be ridiculous to keep things moving) acts SO normally, like real people with normal reactions to things just got plunked into a wacky screwball plot and have to just DEAL with it and it gives the whole thing SUCH a different vibe. Leshia's Pick of the Week, rising above even the return of Marvel to theaters based mostly on the way it's got like 200 logged views on Letterboxd to Black Widow's 184k, I gotta back the little guy.
Death Takes a Holiday (1934): Death just being some socially awkward lonely dude is such a fun choice, man. And the central romance was actually pretty affecting, in a goth as fuck kind of way. So good and weird!
Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972): I feel like I understand this movie even less than I did the first time I saw it.
Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002): It's Dracula, it's ballet, it's Guy Maddin's usual bullshit, what more do you want? I loved this.
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021): Dumb and bad and poorly acted and way too bogged down in its lore that is both completely nonsensical and boring (did not need to borrow THAT part from the Saw sequels), but once it gets to the actual escape room stuff, it's breakneck-paced puzzle-solving action and a generally pretty good time. Nicely tense in places, hilariously obvious in others. I will gladly take another one of these stupid movies, as long as it also has a terrible Suicide Squad-style title drop within the first few scenes.
Gloria (1980): I still hope her cat's okay.
The Green-Eyed Blonde (1957): Not much in the way of a moral here, just a schlocky little yarn about kids doing their best in shitty circumstances. An easy way to kill an hour.
He Ran All the Way (1951): Everyone in this movie is still very dumb, but it's much easier to appreciate when you're expecting it and not banging your head against the wall at every turn. Lets the sadness of it all shine through much better.
The Last Unicorn (1982): If I'd seen this at a more formative age, it might've been enough to make a horse girl out of me, god damn.
Il gattopardo (1963): Shockingly engaging considering the runtime (THREE HOURS) and my lack of knowledge/interest in the subject matter (social upheavals amidst Italian unification??). The last half hour is perfect extreme heat wave viewing, with everyone just sweating and dancing and feeling deep existential dread.
The Living End (1992): The climax of this movie really comes close to souring me on the whole ridiculous thing, but it's still a trip.
Meeting People is Easy (1998): Are the '90s the worst decade to have overwhelming nostalgia for, or are they all terrible? Don't care, this desperately just made me want to go back there and yes I immediately had to go and listen to OK Computer in its entirety the instant I finished this, I'm only human.
The Men (1950): Almost feels like more of an educational film than a proper drama, but a well-meaning and important one for the time, with refreshingly few cop-outs. I was totally expecting Brando to be the long shot who overcomes the odds and is able to walk again, the protagonist is ALWAYS the long shot who overcomes the odds and is able to walk again in these movies, but nope! He's just probably paralyzed for life and it's a thing they'll continue to deal with!
Midnight (1939): Flirty and breezy and charming and fun. Pure cinematic cotton candy, a total delight, even if the finale relies a bit too much on the fucked up awful divorce laws of the time. The breakfast scene made me cackle like a loon.
Minnie and Moskowitz (1971): Every man in this is so depressing, but at least the main one has Kim Wexler hair.
No Man of Her Own (1950): Every part of this movie fucks so hard and never lets up. Interesting plot that you want to see through, compelling characters, all of whom save the last-minute villain are entirely sympathetic throughout all their conflicts, convincing romance (at first I was like 'people are way too cool with the idea of her immediately hooking up with her dead husband's brother', but man, he went the distance to earn it before long), just good shit all around.
The Set-Up (1949): Nice and tight little sports noir. Hits hard and gets out, no fat to trim. Would be absolutely nothing without that rock steady central performance.
A Story of Children and Film (2013): Interesting little essay, covering a nice variety of films, even if they are all very much of a certain canon. Starts to drag in the last hour.
Tempest (1982): What if The Tempest, but just a tedious white guy's mid-life crisis? Less of that, more Raul Julia dancing with goats, please.
To Each His Own (1946): Leisen just out here quietly becoming one of my new favourite directors this month, huh? Sure, okay. So much of this movie would have been solved with better communication and fewer idiotic societal norms, but god damn, did that final line get me good.
Year of the Horse (1997): Crunchy.
SHORTS
I Am Somebody (1970): It's still so nice to see a civil rights/labour rights movie where the good guys win in the end...
Integration Report 1 (1960): ...because sometimes they are still just super depressingly relevant instead!
Tina Barney: Social Studies (2005): Take a drink every time someone says the word 'milieu' in the most hilariously pretentious way for a good time! Jesus christ, the bit where she's all affronted that someone would dare to ask her to photograph POOR PEOPLE of all things, what a piece of work.
A Tribute to Malcolm X (1967): More of a quick TV special than a film proper, but most of the value here comes from when it was made, so close to the man's life, possessing so much more immediacy and grief than the sanitized retrospectives I mostly know him by!
TELEVISION
Loki 1x05/1x06: Fuck, I really loved this series a lot. I don't like to get bogged down in the endless ranking of things that so often plagues fans of these big franchises, but this is really up there for me in terms of my favourite things to come out of the MCU. The general premise had me really hesitant (one timeline is a boring place to start at!), but the methods behind the time travel underpinnings and the way the end of the series opens things up to a full, rich multiverse pretty much instantly is very cool. Glad the way Black Widow ended right before the finale got me back on board #TeamKang just in time for that reveal, it was very satisfying (if infodumpy) and I cannot WAIT to see more of that dude. Not particularly on board with Loki/Sylvie (it's weeeeeeeeird), but it makes perfect sense for them and was more earned than pretty much every other romance in the history of the MCU, so I can't complain too much. MOBIUS GETS A JET SKI IN SEASON 2 OR I RIOT.
Marvel Studios: Legends 1x09: Black Widow hype! Not that it really needed it when it was breaking the longest stretch between MCU movies since the franchise started, but I still dig these li'l clip shows.
Rick and Morty 5x04/5x05: Pretty good. Basically animated Loki with no season-long romance ark.
Wrestling:
AEW Dark 3x28/3x29
AEW Dark: Elevation 1x17/1x18
AEW Dynamite 3x27/3x28
IMPACT! Wrestling 18x27/18x28
IMPACT! Slammiversary 2021
New Japan Pro-Wrestling 1x31/1x32
NJPW Strong 2x27/2x28
NWA Powerrr 5x05
NWA PowerrrSurge 1x04
ROH Wrestling 13x27/13x28
ROH Best in the World 2021
We are STARDOM!! 1x07-1x13
TJPW Don't Miss the Signs
TJPW Go Girl
TJPW Go Girl 2
Two more days. Then rest. And warm. And rest.
Two more days.
FILMS
Abouna (2002): Sweet but very sad but also never unbearably so? Very... likeable.
Archangel (1990): War is hell but love is worse and so is this. In a good way!
Black Widow (2021): I feel like this actually benefited a lot from the pandemic delay? It's very much one that could be easily lost in the shuffle of the constant MCU content churn just as Disney has started to really ramp it up, so that extra boost of long-gestating anticipation is gonna make it a lot stickier to my mind. Seems like a lot of people are underwhelmed? Not sure what they were expecting, this was never gonna be a big important lore movie, just a fun character exploration. The stakes were low and the plot was very workmanlike and unengaging, so how much I liked this is a real testament to how far an extremely charming cast with tons of chemistry can take a film. Good shit! Loved those opening credits. I hope they go full Tokyo Drift and just make a bunch of sequels still set in this nebulous 'she's not dead yet because family' period. Leshia's Pick of the Week Runner-Up, mostly based on the fact that only NOW does the world feel like it can start turning again, the MCU content desert is finally firmly behind us~
California Split (1974): The thumbnail for this thing had Elliott Gould with his nose bandaged and bruised, and so I spent the whole movie waiting for him to get his face fucked up when it didn't happen until the last half hour or so, but it was worth the wait. I actually liked this a lot? A fun buddy comedy, but the scaffolding holding it up is just the bleakness of gambling addiction.
Darling, How Could You! (1951): Low-key one of the funniest things I've seen this month? So many understated little one-liners that only hit me several seconds later, so I was constantly laughing on some weird delay. The parents were so hilarious and weirdly relatable with all their little insecurities about the kids they practically abandoned, John Lund making a little handkerchief bunny and being so proud of it is gonna live in my head rent-free for a while. Also: the rare 'father goes after the guy he thinks is involved with his daughter' plotline where his actions are totally reasonable and justified and not gross at all! Actually, everyone except the teenage daughter (who needs to be ridiculous to keep things moving) acts SO normally, like real people with normal reactions to things just got plunked into a wacky screwball plot and have to just DEAL with it and it gives the whole thing SUCH a different vibe. Leshia's Pick of the Week, rising above even the return of Marvel to theaters based mostly on the way it's got like 200 logged views on Letterboxd to Black Widow's 184k, I gotta back the little guy.
Death Takes a Holiday (1934): Death just being some socially awkward lonely dude is such a fun choice, man. And the central romance was actually pretty affecting, in a goth as fuck kind of way. So good and weird!
Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972): I feel like I understand this movie even less than I did the first time I saw it.
Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002): It's Dracula, it's ballet, it's Guy Maddin's usual bullshit, what more do you want? I loved this.
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021): Dumb and bad and poorly acted and way too bogged down in its lore that is both completely nonsensical and boring (did not need to borrow THAT part from the Saw sequels), but once it gets to the actual escape room stuff, it's breakneck-paced puzzle-solving action and a generally pretty good time. Nicely tense in places, hilariously obvious in others. I will gladly take another one of these stupid movies, as long as it also has a terrible Suicide Squad-style title drop within the first few scenes.
Gloria (1980): I still hope her cat's okay.
The Green-Eyed Blonde (1957): Not much in the way of a moral here, just a schlocky little yarn about kids doing their best in shitty circumstances. An easy way to kill an hour.
He Ran All the Way (1951): Everyone in this movie is still very dumb, but it's much easier to appreciate when you're expecting it and not banging your head against the wall at every turn. Lets the sadness of it all shine through much better.
The Last Unicorn (1982): If I'd seen this at a more formative age, it might've been enough to make a horse girl out of me, god damn.
Il gattopardo (1963): Shockingly engaging considering the runtime (THREE HOURS) and my lack of knowledge/interest in the subject matter (social upheavals amidst Italian unification??). The last half hour is perfect extreme heat wave viewing, with everyone just sweating and dancing and feeling deep existential dread.
The Living End (1992): The climax of this movie really comes close to souring me on the whole ridiculous thing, but it's still a trip.
Meeting People is Easy (1998): Are the '90s the worst decade to have overwhelming nostalgia for, or are they all terrible? Don't care, this desperately just made me want to go back there and yes I immediately had to go and listen to OK Computer in its entirety the instant I finished this, I'm only human.
The Men (1950): Almost feels like more of an educational film than a proper drama, but a well-meaning and important one for the time, with refreshingly few cop-outs. I was totally expecting Brando to be the long shot who overcomes the odds and is able to walk again, the protagonist is ALWAYS the long shot who overcomes the odds and is able to walk again in these movies, but nope! He's just probably paralyzed for life and it's a thing they'll continue to deal with!
Midnight (1939): Flirty and breezy and charming and fun. Pure cinematic cotton candy, a total delight, even if the finale relies a bit too much on the fucked up awful divorce laws of the time. The breakfast scene made me cackle like a loon.
Minnie and Moskowitz (1971): Every man in this is so depressing, but at least the main one has Kim Wexler hair.
No Man of Her Own (1950): Every part of this movie fucks so hard and never lets up. Interesting plot that you want to see through, compelling characters, all of whom save the last-minute villain are entirely sympathetic throughout all their conflicts, convincing romance (at first I was like 'people are way too cool with the idea of her immediately hooking up with her dead husband's brother', but man, he went the distance to earn it before long), just good shit all around.
The Set-Up (1949): Nice and tight little sports noir. Hits hard and gets out, no fat to trim. Would be absolutely nothing without that rock steady central performance.
A Story of Children and Film (2013): Interesting little essay, covering a nice variety of films, even if they are all very much of a certain canon. Starts to drag in the last hour.
Tempest (1982): What if The Tempest, but just a tedious white guy's mid-life crisis? Less of that, more Raul Julia dancing with goats, please.
To Each His Own (1946): Leisen just out here quietly becoming one of my new favourite directors this month, huh? Sure, okay. So much of this movie would have been solved with better communication and fewer idiotic societal norms, but god damn, did that final line get me good.
Year of the Horse (1997): Crunchy.
SHORTS
I Am Somebody (1970): It's still so nice to see a civil rights/labour rights movie where the good guys win in the end...
Integration Report 1 (1960): ...because sometimes they are still just super depressingly relevant instead!
Tina Barney: Social Studies (2005): Take a drink every time someone says the word 'milieu' in the most hilariously pretentious way for a good time! Jesus christ, the bit where she's all affronted that someone would dare to ask her to photograph POOR PEOPLE of all things, what a piece of work.
A Tribute to Malcolm X (1967): More of a quick TV special than a film proper, but most of the value here comes from when it was made, so close to the man's life, possessing so much more immediacy and grief than the sanitized retrospectives I mostly know him by!
TELEVISION
Loki 1x05/1x06: Fuck, I really loved this series a lot. I don't like to get bogged down in the endless ranking of things that so often plagues fans of these big franchises, but this is really up there for me in terms of my favourite things to come out of the MCU. The general premise had me really hesitant (one timeline is a boring place to start at!), but the methods behind the time travel underpinnings and the way the end of the series opens things up to a full, rich multiverse pretty much instantly is very cool. Glad the way Black Widow ended right before the finale got me back on board #TeamKang just in time for that reveal, it was very satisfying (if infodumpy) and I cannot WAIT to see more of that dude. Not particularly on board with Loki/Sylvie (it's weeeeeeeeird), but it makes perfect sense for them and was more earned than pretty much every other romance in the history of the MCU, so I can't complain too much. MOBIUS GETS A JET SKI IN SEASON 2 OR I RIOT.
Marvel Studios: Legends 1x09: Black Widow hype! Not that it really needed it when it was breaking the longest stretch between MCU movies since the franchise started, but I still dig these li'l clip shows.
Rick and Morty 5x04/5x05: Pretty good. Basically animated Loki with no season-long romance ark.
Wrestling:
AEW Dark 3x28/3x29
AEW Dark: Elevation 1x17/1x18
AEW Dynamite 3x27/3x28
IMPACT! Wrestling 18x27/18x28
IMPACT! Slammiversary 2021
New Japan Pro-Wrestling 1x31/1x32
NJPW Strong 2x27/2x28
NWA Powerrr 5x05
NWA PowerrrSurge 1x04
ROH Wrestling 13x27/13x28
ROH Best in the World 2021
We are STARDOM!! 1x07-1x13
TJPW Don't Miss the Signs
TJPW Go Girl
TJPW Go Girl 2
Two more days. Then rest. And warm. And rest.