It’s the first of the month my dudes, that can only mean one thing? Actually it can mean many things, sorry to remind you rent is due and probably several other bills you’d rather not deal with. However in this blogspace those pesky things like reality and money don’t exist. Instead we’re here to just discuss movies, and what the royal We have been watching for the past month.
I have found my monthly numbers to be eerily similar to both March and April, which is encouraging to be able to gauge how many things on my checklist I can realistically cross off in a month. Would I love to do more? Absolutely but until the day I’m independently wealthy (there I go talking about money again) this pace will have to suffice.
What does this pace mean? Well specifically my timetable for finishing the top 100 list will be pretty on schedule, or at least right on the revised schedule. As of the first of June I’m looking at about 47 movies I can say with absolute certainty will make the final list. There are about the same number of movies in the “maybe” category, but I can say right now, most of those won’t go the distance. Of the 125 movies I have left, there are probably 40 I can confidently say will make the list, so that leaves about 13 of the 50 maybes. Too much math? I’m sorry, either way we are shaping up to be disappointed, as is tradition.
The ever looming presence of what to watch/do after this list is growing larger. I originally planned a nice reprieve where I did things like read books, play video games, or catch up on TV shows, but the pile of unwatched new movies is growing larger by the week. Perhaps the real solution is to strike a sort of balance in my life you know, like “normal” people seem to have where I just live life, watch a few movies and not stress out about filling every spare second with something quasi-productive. That however is a problem to be dealt with in about two months.
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| Did you eat 30 cans of pineapple in solidarity? |
So it seems a fair time to discuss what was actually watched this month. I did see a CGI racoon and his cute friends get tortured and experimented on in the theater. I even had a night or two of trash, so the list isn’t completely bogged down with prestigious classics. At some point this month I decided to take advantage of my local library system. I was shocked and appalled to find out in a city of 6 million our library is stuck in 2005. There are maybe 10 blu-rays in total throughout the Chicago Public Library system, and nearly every surrounding suburb kicks our ass in terms of available titles. It would help if Chicago was part of the inter-library lending system but that’s far too much to ask. Oh yeah, they also aren’t part of Kanopy so that gives up another legit streaming option. Sad times indeed.
However I did hit them up for some *gulp* DVDs, I know gross right? It does harken back to a time when Criterion really were kings in the media game, because let me tell you their DVD releases were leagues above most other companies in that era. Having many another company dropping crap that wasn’t exactly formatted to fit modern TVs. Auto-playing subtitles, oftentimes underneath the black letterbox bars making them impossible to read on modern TVs. Well considering the lengths I went to on the previous list even watching VHS tapes and rips of them, I suppose DVD is fine and I should quit being a snob. This is just what happens when a city spends ⅔ of it’s budget on a militarized police force and kick-backs rather than investing in any public services. I’ll end the political diatribe now.
I also understand the irony of renting DVDs I actually own. However, when your DVD collection is scattered in random boxes 50+ miles away, you take the path of least resistance. 2013 me would have thought nearly all my contending films would have had a proper release by now, but I would have been wrong. I can launch into many a tirade on why streaming ultimately sucks and how that format cries out for a monopoly to corral all media into one place. Perhaps we’re still another decade away from streaming movies joining the same space as music, but don’t be surprised if it gets even worse. Then we’ll be at the mercy of what titles streaming services want to bother licensing and we’ll be left with a world in which every video store is Blockbuster. In this analogy Blockbuster sucks, it always did, you’re just nostalgic for a world in which you didn’t have back pain and music videos were still on MTV.
I started the month with Chungking Express for one very specific reason. That is the date on the canned pineapples He Qiwu buys 30 of. I don’t need much in the way of a nudge to select my evening’s entertainment. The film is still a damn masterpiece but stay tuned for the top 100 to see if it makes the list. The month ended with Asia as well, particularly Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha, one of the films I own that I still rented because driving sucks. Kagemusha sure looks good, and I wish that was the first 4k Kurosawa announced from Criterion instead of Dreams. The film itself is a notch below his best work, which is not exactly an insult, but the man has done better.
In between those I tackled a number of films that seemed like first time watches, and others I could have slept through and remembered every line of dialogue. This will only increase as I approach the finish line but it did feel good to wrap up more directors this time around. Both Chaplin and Keaton are finished and their respective top 100 representatives have been chosen. Kenji Mizoguchi is also wrapped up with the double feature of Sansho the Bailiff and the Crucified Lovers. Similar but different, I am done rewatching Czech films for this list, knocking out the last three major contenders. I suppose I have no more Iranian films either but that’s another story.
Speaking of streaming, I took advantage of Mubi’s 4 months for $4 deal, and promptly watched the four films they had that were on my list. Not sure if any will make the final tally, and to be honest I can’t exactly say I recommend the service. Streaming quality was fine and the interface was solid, but this is clearly something to love at that price. I am told that soon Netflix will boot us off because they are not allowing password sharing. Well if that is the case, so be it, I got to watch I Think You Should Leave last night and I’ll live without it. There were like 1-2 films I would have liked to rewatch but that app is garbage for film. HBO Max is now just Max, and I don’t like how they changed things around because new things scare me. However they seem to have the same content for the most part. I will refrain from speaking on the actual quality of the streaming and whether or not a bunch of my titles disappeared or not until I can properly dive in. For now at least I would say Criterion and HBO had by far the most films on my list to stream. So if you did want to watch along with these, you could do a lot worse than these.
Oh yeah for those that are hip to the old physical media this past weekend was Vinegar Syndrome’s annual Halfway to Black Friday sale. I found myself going fairly hard (not as crazy as last year but there’s no shame in that). This sale will make that unwatched pile get damn near unruly but if last year proves anything, I can recover. I did take advantage of the Flash pre-order bundle so best believe we’re watching Showgirls in 4k when that arrives. Until then, here are the films I watched in the merry month of May.
May Film Journal
05/01
Chungking Express (1994)-*****
Malcolm X (1992)-*****
La Strada (1954)-*****
Nights of Cabiria (1957)-*****
05/02
Brief Encounter (1945)-*****
Frankenstein (1931)-*****
05/03
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)-*****
A Woman Under the Influence (1974)-*****
05/04
Three Colors: Red (1994)-*****
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)-*****
Guardians of the Galaxy (2023)-***½
Return of the Jedi (1983)-*****
05/05
Los Olvidados (1950)-*****
05/06
The Battle of Algiers (1966)-*****
The Exterminating Angel (1962)-*****
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)-*****
05/07
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)****½
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)-*****
05/08
The Gold Rush (1925)-*****
North by Northwest (1959)-*****
Wanda (1970)-****
Oliver Twist (1948)-*****
05/09
The General (1927)-*****
Rosetta (1999)-*****
05/10
The Cremator (1968)-*****
The Junk Shop (1965)-***½
Diamonds of the Night (1964)-*****
Daisies (1966)-*****
05/11
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)-*****
The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)-*****
The Witches Mountain (1972)-**
Cemetery Man (1994)-****
Jungle Holocaust (1977)-***½
05/12
Don’t Look Now (1973)-****
Diabolique (1955)-*****
Close-Up (1990)-*****
05/13
The Color of Pomegranates (1969)-*****
The Cyclist (1989)-*****
05/14
Toni Erdmann (2016)-****½
The Social Network (2010)-****½
05/15
To Live (1994)-*****
Imitation of Life (1959)-*****
The White Ribbon (2009)-****½
Raising Arizona (1987)-*****
05/16
The Deer Hunter (1978)-*****
Scarface (1932)-*****
05/17
Sansho the Bailiff (1954)-*****
The Crucified Lovers (1954)-*****
05/18
Intolerance (1916)-*****
Brazil (1985)-*****
05/19
All About Eve (1950)-*****
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)-*****
05/20
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)-*****
Cache (2005)-*****
05/21
Strangers on a Train (1951)-*****
Annie Hall (1977)-*****
05/22
Orlando (1992)-*****
Burning (2018)-****½
Damnation (1988)-*****
Huesera: the Bone Woman (2023)-****
05/23
Last Tango in Paris (1972)-*****
Metropolis (1927)-*****
05/24
The Seventh Seal (1957)-*****
Tropical Malady (2004)-****½
05/25
Diary of a Country Priest (1950)-*****
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)-*****
05/26
Glen or Glenda? (1953)-*****
05/27
Fargo (1996)-*****
05/28
The First Nudie Musical (1976)-*½
The Princess Bride (1987)-*****
Dazed and Confused (1993)-*****
05/29
Up (2009)-*****
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974)-*****
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)-****½
05/30
Rocky (1976)-*****
Rocky 2 (1979)-*****
05/31
Kagemusha (1980)-****½
Best Film of the Month - Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Worst Film of the Month - The First Nudie Musical
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