This is really cool. Very odd and unexpected structure.

The cinematography here is captivating. It’s a carefully limited set of colours, but it doesn’t feel oppressive, as so many of these colour-graded movies are.

I love these abstract, but luxurious sets.

It’s like it goes over the same scenes, over and over again, and we’re hoping it’ll end in a less fucked up way.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like this. I mean, it’s Groundhog Day, but serious. I’m in awe.

Groundhog Day movies are usually played for nerdy laughs, which isn’t really the case here.

But… there’s a few too many iterations that aren’t… that interesting?

Like, this iteration isn’t captivating. The movie had been absolutely riveting up until … it kinda fizzled. It was a ⚅ until the last half hour.

The Obituary of Tunde Johnson. Ali LeRoi. 2019. ⚃

This post is part of the Queer Cinema blog series.

Man, this has some cast. Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, Nathan Lane, Dianne Wiest, Hank Azaria, Christine Baranski…

Ben Gazzara! I was thinking “hm, Hank Azaria sure looks young to have been in all those Cassavetes movies in the 70s”, and that’s because… he’s not Ben Gazzara.

Oh, yeah — now I understand why I thought the plot was kinda unreasonable when I saw this in the 90s — the son is supposed to be 20, and the daughter-in-law-to-be is supposed to be 17, so they’re kids, and kids by weird things. But Futterman was 29 and Flockhart was 32 at the time, and that’s what they look like, so I kinda thought they were… weirdos.

It’s a classic for a reason. It’s hilarious and it’s got real nerve.

The Birdcage. Mike Nichols. 1996. ⚄

This post is part of the Queer Cinema blog series.

Man, the bitrate here is ridiculously low. It’s like less than 2Mbps? So there’s banding de luxe.

Hey, this is properly scary. I think I saw this at the time, but I don’t remember it being this spooky. It’s like a proper horror movie.

This is so scary! It’s a lot of jump scares (all the mirrors don’t help), but it’s got a real intense atmosphere. I had almost forgotten that horror movies could be this scary — horror movies these days is just people being tortured, and that’s a whole nother thing.

This movie’s really unrealistic. I mean… Virginia Madsen married to this guy?

I’m joking because I’m totally ascared of this movie.

I loved the first two thirds of this — I haven’t been this scared watching a movie since I watched Love, Actually.

The last third, though, was a let-down. There was some good stuff, but it was mainly just kinda… sad… I mean, melancholic. I liked that it went kinda insane, but it could have gone even more insane?

So I’d give the first two thirds a ⚄ and the last third a ⚂, so:

Candyman. Bernard Rose. 1992. ⚃

This post is part of the Queer Cinema blog series.