Last movie you watched

[erilaz]

On the big screen:

Beau Is Afraid (2023) — Is it a dark comedy? Is it a cinematic rendering of nightmare logic? The latest from Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) is a whole lot of WTF.

On DVD:

One Hour Photo (2002) — Robin Williams is creeptacular as a Sav-Mart photo technician who is obsessed with a family whose photos he's been developing for years.

[Zunu]

I got around to seeing Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. It's not a great movie, but it's pretty dang good, about as good as a tongue-in-cheek D&D movie's gonna get. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Chris Pine, Hugh Grant and Regé-Jean Page were chewing up the scenery like starving men. However, to me the standout was Justice Smith as the hapless young sorceror, an actor I thought I'd never seen before but turns out he was in the 2018 Jurassic Park which I saw, and maybe didn't make the connection because the movie was very forgettable, but also because although an American actor (and in the role of an American boy in Jurassic), he plays this role with a British accent that I was completely convinced by (reportedly he even had uber-English Hugh Grant confused.) In fact the whole film had me fooled -- I mistakenly thought it was a British production because the humor was rather Pythonesque.

Anyway, it's the type of film that greatly benefits from seeing it on a big screen with a relaxed crowd, so if it's your genre, it's worth catching before it leaves the theaters for good. I never played D&D growing up, but I did play a few of the classic videogames like Baldur's Gate, so I recognized some of the locations such as Icewind Dale, and some of the creature types. I'm sure the vast majority of the in-jokes and Easter Eggs went over my head, but that didn't interfere with my enjoyment of it one bit. Sometimes you can kinda tell something's a callback even if aren't exactly aware what it's a callback to, you know what I mean?

[erilaz]

Polite Society (2023) — Ria Khan is a Pakistani teenager in London who wants to become a stuntwoman. But first, she's on a mission: to stop her older sister's wedding.

IT'S SO MUCH FUN!

[erilaz]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) — What can I say? Loads of fun and a fine conclusion to the trilogy. I am Groot.

Two tangential remarks, though:

1. HOLY CRAP! I saw "Poor Girl" by X listed in the song credits, but totally missed it in the movie. I'll have to pay closer attention next time around.

2. EVEN HOLIER CRAP! A FREAKIES T-SHIRT!!!

Y'all have no idea. Freakies — the cereal, the commercials, the toys in the cereal boxes — are the ultimate in nostalgia for me. For those of you who are '80s kids, I'm talking about the original stuff from the 1970s, not the failed 1986 reboot, which was an ABOMINATION.

[erilaz]

Bathtubs over Broadway (2018) — A fascinating and often hilarious documentary about Steve Young, a writer for the Late Show with David Letterman, and his quest to find records, films, writers, and cast members of "industrial musicals," produced for corporate sales meetings.

It's leaving Netflix on June 10th.

[erilaz]

You Hurt My Feelings (2023) — A darkly funny dramedy about relationships and honesty, starring the great Julia Louis-Dreyfus. David Cross and Amber Tamblyn are hilarious as a constantly bickering couple.

This will presumably be the last film I ever see at the theater closest to my home, since it's closing tomorrow night. Granted, this theater usually doesn't show many films of the sorts that I really want to see, so I only go there a few times in a typical year, but this still sucks. There will now be only one two-screen theater less than a mile from my home, and nothing else within three miles.

R.I.P. Albany Cinema, 1935–2023

[Zunu]

That sounds fun, I may have to check it out. The movie, not the theater. I mean, I guess it's still doable but I'd really have to rush.

[erilaz]

Dr. Caligari (1989) — I saw this at the U.C. Theater in Berkeley back when it was new, and I'd forgotten that the cast includes Fox Harris and Jennifer Balgobin from Repo Man, as well as Jennifer Miro from the San Francisco punk band, the Nuns (whose lines consist of nothing but repetitions of the word "Chinchilla"). I'd also forgotten just how wackadoodle this movie is. Stephen Sayadian's tribute to Robert Wiene's 1920 Expressionist classic is a mess of day-glo insanity blended with Café Flesh, Forbidden Zone, The Color of Pomegranates, and the œuvre of David Cronenberg.

[erilaz]

The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (2021) — GQ's article from last year is entitled "Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch Looks Like the Most Wes Anderson-y Film Yet." That's a perfect description. If that's a positive thing for you, see it by all means. If it's a negative, avoid this movie like the plague. I loved it.

Last night I saw Wes Anderson's newest film, Asteroid City. I tell ya, his films just keep on getting Wes Andersonnier.

"You can't wake up if you don't fall asleep."

[Zunu]

Good to know. The recent proliferation of Wes AI-nderson faux trailers, some of which very nearly out-Anderson the master, has really whetted my appetite for Asteroid City.

Spoiler: show

^^^I'm sure you've seen this one at least ^^^