So....I entered this thread with a pretty consistent stream of movies, because the truth is, I watch a shitton of movies. Maybe 1000+ in a year. But I've been absent recently, and not because I haven't been watching at the same rabid pace. I just haven't felt like posting about much of anything anywhere. I'm in a bit of a hermit phase. But I thought I'd share a few important views for me recently:
Dune
I don't know specifically why, but this might be my favorite film ever. I am drawn to this film, like a moth to a flame. I think it does just about everything amazingly well. The script is the best possible adaptation of what I know about the novels. The cinematography is sublime. It looks so fucking perfect. This film will age so goddamn well. We'll look back at it in 20 years, with the same adoration we hold some of the best practical effect of the 90s. It's such a visual masterpiece. It's only bested by the haunting soundtrack. OMFG! I literally have the shit paused right now, as I guiltily sneak in my Nth viewing as my wife sleeps. This is the film I needed this year.
The Northman
Thank you GAF stans of this film. It's amazing. I didn't watch The Witch, and I half-watched The Lighthouse, because I realized it was a copy of
the 2016 film of the same name that I'd watched back in 2018. This was a great film. It might have missed the mark for me, like Lighthouse, as I too think it was a bit incomplete in its presentation. I kinda felt the same way about Revenant too, although for different reasons. In any case, I think it struck a nice chord with me in the 2020s that a classic like Braveheart couldn't. I felt the same kind of way about both, while watching them for the first times, but I don't think the bloodbath that was Braveheart would have resonated with me like Northman did today. Probably because the Braveheart story has been retread to death now, while Northman remains somehow fresh by sticking to a really basic but identifiable revenge plot: avenge father, save mother, kill Fjolnir. I can get behind that, especially when they're the desperate chant of a young boy, who'd just had his whole world shattered. I wanted the fulfillment of that goal just as much as he did, and I think the director did a perfect job of indoctrinating us as the viewer, from the very start. Man, I love how well the casting of a doofy teen as the young protag worked by the end of the arc. I hated it at first, but fuck if I wasn't onboard as he rowed off into the distance. A sequel will destroy the significance of this film. Yet, I'm totally on board..
Go
WTF am I talking about? WTF is a Go?
That is Go! 1999's best film for me. I randomly popped this one into the playlist a couple of weeks ago, because I remember loving this film, and wanted to see if it still hit. FUCK YEAH IT DID! Timothy Oliphant, Sarah Polley, Katie Holmes (who somehow commanded top billing back then), William Fichtner, Taye Diggs, Jay Mohr, Scott Wolf, and Breckin Meyers. It was a cast of low-key, about-to-breakout stars, most of whom never quite hit the heights that you originally thought. A random plan to get some rolls for a weekend rave, and then having shit totally spiral out of control, was a little bit too near and dear to my heart back in those days. I was nearing the end of my uni run. Ecstasy was definitely big on the party scene, and the random cross-state road trips were totally a thing. Everything about this movie still slaps for me. It's one of the best pulp films in the composition of the events from the different POVs. It's so fucking underrated in that department. Major kudos go to the editors on that, as that's purely constructed by their hands, even if there's a script to it. The acting by this rag-tag cast is so fucking on-point, I love it. They cover a wide range of personalities, without coming off as fake. We had every one of these dudes in our crew, especially the reckless Simon, who gets everything popping off. The music also slaps in this film. 23 years later, and I still found the soundtrack worked for this film. If you slept on this film before, give it a watch now. It is hands-down, one of the best films of its type. I hesitate to just define it as a pulp film, for its out-of-sequence story telling. The truth it, it tells the story in sequence, but it fills in the full picture via multiple retellings from multiple POVs, and they're all unique and interesting retellings. This is one of the most underrated films of my time. I'm not talking about review scores, but rather the number of people who didn't get a chance to see it.
