Harold & Maude

I’ve never seen this movie before, but I’ve seen the name mentioned en passant a gazillion names. Like an example of 70s filmmaking? I’m not sure. But it finally occurred to me to just buy the bluray, so now I’m watching it.

Wow, I don’t think I’ve seen any of Hal Ashby’s movies, but again, the name is so familiar.

That’s an odd-looking kid, so I wondered how whether he was supposed to be 12 or 22, but the actor turns out to be 23…

Ah ok, Maude is the Magic Pixie Dream Granny. I’m guessing she’s going to die, but the kid is going to experience Character Growth.

That’s Maude.

It’s radical to cast an older woman to play an older woman — that still doesn’t happen a lot.

Interesting wall treatment….

I like this. It’s very… 1971.

Very big.

Oops, I think we entered the third act.

I want a hallway with pictures like that!

I have never been so sad to see a plot development that I predicted at the start come to pass. Because I really, really enjoyed this movie, and I’m so disappointed that it had to end on such a cliché.

Anyway. Perhaps I should sample some of the other Hal Ashby movies anyway?

And I think the trope of the old, funny woman who represents anarchy and disregard for laws and propriety has largely disappeared? Growing up, it seemed like this — the cheeky grandmother — was a character that appeared all the time? But I can’t remember the last time I saw one of these characters…

Harold & Maude. Hal Ashby. 1971. ⚄

Dune Part Two

Futura!!!

Whatsisname!

And that guy!

And the wrestler!

The weird thing, when this movie was released, I was all “oh, I hated the first Dune movie, so I’m never gonna watch this one”, but then I checked my blog post about that movie — and I totally misremembered. I loved it! Why didn’t I remember that? So weird.

Anyway, that just goes to show: You should always blog what movies you’re watching. And now I’m watching Part Two.

Futura!

It’s Zimmerman!

I respect that there’s no recap — “as you know, Paul, you’re the son of a king who was killed by the eeevil Harkonnen in the previous movie” — but I have to admit I’m slightly confused. I don’t remember these people! But still, I’m enjoying this a lot! So far.

Hang on… that apostrophe isn’t a Futura apostrophe! What’s going on!

See?

TSK TSK VILLENEUVE! YOU ARE DISSAPOINT

Aww.

Oh right — I’ve seen this shot before.

Somebody was tweeting comparisons between the bluray version and the Max version, and I thought it looked kinda fake, but indeed, the bluray version is very horizontal.

You gotta admit that it’s a bit confusing that they cast a woman 12 years older than Timothee to play Timothee’s mother.

That’s not Sting!

Are we black and white now!?

Wow, that’s a cosy hotel room. Kinda like the one I stayed at in London last week — it had black rubber floors.

OK, I’m a bit bored now. It’s, I guess, kinda brave to have a movie start with 90 minutes without much plot, and basically being a training sequence. And it’s been entertaining mostly, but now it’s kinda sagging.

Hopefully the movie is going to start now — there’s a bit more than an hour to go.

It’s a bit amusing that the Eeevil Sting Guy’s Evil Genius plan is just to actually bomb the Fremen instead of, like, running around and being shot at by them. That’s so… genius. And evil!

Man, these Arabs have excellent sound systems… Paul was ranting in the middle there, but all these hundreds of thousands of people could hear him.

Hey, it’s Post Atreides.

I think I have that headpiece.

These algorithmically generated crowds just look silly. And why didn’t the worms eat all the soldiers anyway?

I liked this… but I have to admit to being bored a bit, too. It’s not that the movie is overlong (at almost three hours) really — there’s nothing that feel superfluous, exactly. In many ways it feels like it’s recapping a story? I.e., perhaps it could have been longer?

I think the parts that were most boring were when we had to go through plot points. Like, when Paul drank the Secret Potion — that felt like we were going through the motions. While the more offhand, less plot-driven scenes were more entertaining?

But I did like it, anyway. And it was fun watching Stellan have so much fun playing the eeeevilest guy.

It also felt like the middle part of a trilogy, but I guess it’s unsure whether there’ll be any further Dune movies?

Dune Part Two. Denis Villeneuve. 2024. ⚃

Stop Making Sense

I’ve never seen this before. I was a huge Talking Heads fan up an until Remain In Light as a child (my elder sister had most of their albums; I was 12), but their first album I bought myself (Speaking In Tongues) I found kinda naff. So when this came out the year after, and all my friends finally got into them (and the live version of Psycho Killer was playing everywhere) I was doing the stupid teenage hipster thing and thinking I was all over it.

But man, this is awesome!

I would have loved this.

I admit it: I was wrong. Once! When I was er sixteen, I guess? 1984? Yeah, that tracks. But I was listening to The Smiths and Ministry by this time.

Oh, I didn’t know that Tina played the pick-ey guitar part on Home. Makes sense, though.

<menswear guy>That suit should be bigger.</menswear guy>

Wow, I still feel exactly the same as when I was twelve years old listening to Crosseyed and Painless: Why can’t that song just continue forever?

One thing I kinda regret is watching the half part of this with the subtitles on, because it corrected so many misunderstandings I had about the lyrics. I’ve always thought it was “TV’s in the bedroom, inventing situations” not “Judy’s in the bedroom” and so on, and I prefer the versions of the lyrics I made up back then.

Anyway, this is absolutely fantastic. (Even if some of the songs have a distinct lack of much needed Adrian Belewness.)

Stop Making Sense. Jonathan Demme. 1984. ⚅