“What about you, grandpa? You’ve led an interesting life”
“That’s a lie and you know it! But I have seen a lot of movies…”
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Blue Velvet 1986
David Lynch's Wizard of Oz. Screened as part of Beyond Fest 2024 with Kale MacLachlan in person (who revealed the reason Lynch calls him "Kale" is because Dino de Laurentiis couldn't say Kyle in his thick Italian accent).
Hadn't seen this in like 15 years but it's still so haunting and strange and beautiful and horrifying. Every performance is perfect, and I love how effectively the stage is set in the opening sequence - the idyllic suburban picket fence house,…
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The Thing 1982
A truly perfect and endlessly influential movie. I have a new theory that whoever wore safety goggles wasn’t the Thing, at the time they were wearing goggles at least.
This is easily the best visualization of a Lovecraftian cosmic horror entity ever done (and all practical!). Like every time Lovecraft wrote something like, “and then his eyes gazed upon a horror his mind could not comprehend, it appeared as a thousand beings all at once swirling within and screaming at…Translated from by -
Body and Soul 1925
Screened at Vidiots Eagle Rock Theater with an improvised live score by Surya Botofasina and Carlos Niño (seriously fantastic performance).
It really is a shame that Oscar Micheaux never got the funding or resources to fully match his visions. And that even in the pre-code era he was too provocative for the censors and forced to constantly re-edit his films. I mean, you'd have a hard time getting movies like this or WITHIN OUR GATES made today even, so it's…
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Companion 2025
Fun, brisk, good concept, solid performances (Sophie and Harvey obvs) - not that I expected a lot from this movie, but it delivered above those expectations. The real highlight though, is once you give the major conceit of these super AI robots existing at all, the “rules” they establish are kept consistently and pay off. There’s a purpose, major or minor, to every function and limit of the robots in the plot. Always nice when it feels like the writer…
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M 1931
35mm print screened at the Secret Movie Club in LA.
There never has been and never will be another like Peter Lorre. He’s easily one of my all time favorite actors. This movie is so timeless and haunting. His monologue at the end still gets me to the edge of my seat.
The sense of fear, chaos, and anger in this movie is something it feels like we’re continuously living in, and Lang nailed it 90 years ago.
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