Psycho II. Richard Franklin. 1983. ⚃

The odd thing about a sequel to Psycho is that it took over two decades for it to happen. Hitchcock died in 1980, though, so perhaps they couldn’t get any traction for it before that?

I did see this one on VHS back in the 80s, and I remember it being… a better than average 80s horror movie? The reason I’m watching it now isn’t because of any great nostalgia towards it or anything, but I somehow bought a Psycho box set (with all the five? six? movies).

And since there’s nothing horrifying going on in the world, I might as well start watching now. (I skipped the first one, because I re-watched that some months back.)

[forty minutes pass]

Hey, this isn’t bad. I mean… it’s no Psycho, but few movies are. This is pretty tense and well made. I mean, they managed to make a scene where Perkins I mean Norman no I mean Perkins was chopping some iceberg lettuce exciting. That’s good editing.

[forty minutes pass]

Uhm… it’s OK, I guess? But some of these scenes are getting pretty tedious. They had a good thing going, but then there was a couple of boring scenes, and then I lost interest. That’s the problem with movies of this ilk (what species of deer is that, anyway?) that it doesn’t take much to spike the interest.

With just a bit of editing… just dropping, say, ten minutes… this would have been a really fun little movie: It’s got a pretty interesting plot, as a slasher movie goes, performances that are just the right side of scenery chewing, and doesn’t annoy in any way.

[the end]

That was a good twist at the end there, I think? I mean, the many twists.

Les Demoiselles ont eu 25 ans. Agnès Varda. 1993. ⚅

This docu was included on the Criterion bluray of Demoiselles, and is about both the movie and the celebration Rochefort did 25 years after the movie.

It’s really good, but it’s Varda, so that’s no surprise. It’s a really loving portrait of Demy at work: Watching him work is a lot of fun, because he’s the opposite of the psycho auteur director you often see in these things. He’s funny, friendly; really concentrated on getting the film made; professional, but never neglecting the “merci” to everybody.

This being Varda, we also get a lot of shots of random people and their thoughts about it all. It’s really amiable and interesting.

The Young Girls of Rochefort. Jacques Demy. 1967. ⚅

I was like… is that Gene Kelly? It can’t be Gene Kelly! It’s just some French guy that kinda looks like Gene Kelly. I mean, he doesn’t even look that much like Gene Kelly. Is that Gene Kelly? And then he danced a bit, and yup it’s Gene Kelly.

Anyway!

This is probably a less personal movie than the Umbrella one, but it’s fantastic. It’s got better tunes, and incredibly enough, it looks even better: It’s got the best set design ever. Every scene is a delight to look at.

It’s also a much more traditional movie: It’s got a clockwork logic where it’s obvious that everybody’s going to end up with each other. It’s got I don’t know how many star-crossed lover pairs, and you root for every one of them, and the movie delivers.

So it’s more traditional… but it’s still unique.

It’s so much fun.