Near Dark. Kathryn Bigelow. 1987. ⚄

[forty minutes pass]

Man, Tangerine Dream sure did make a lot of music for this movie… Mostly just a synth that goes “wmhaaaaaaa… aaaaa…. aaaang”.

[the end]

Well!

Normally during these movies, I’m like typing away, but I was just absolutely captivated by this movie… in addition to not having a lot to say, because it’s just such an odd movie. It’s like nothing else: The sheer delight the movie takes in following these sociopaths is just stunning, and the plot just doesn’t go where you think it would… and then it does!

I love the performances from… well… everybody except the protagonist. Bill Paxton is having the time of his life, and Lance Henriksen is more stoic than you’d think possible, and Jenny Wright is totally perfect as the ingenue.

It’s just so much more fun than a movie like this has any reason to be.

Now, I’ve seen all of Bigelow’s movies before (well, until she started making Serious Movies), but the credits on this movie reminded me that it’s written by Eric Red… and didn’t he direct some movies that were supposed to be good, too? I think I’ll buy a couple of them..

Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Amy Heckerling. 1982. ⚃

[forty minutes pass]

I… may have seen this movies back in the 80s? I mean, I pretty much watch anything that was available when I was a teenager, and you’d think this would be? But I have absolutely no recollection of seeing this movie.

And it’s not what I expected. I thought this was going to be like a John Hughes movie, but it’s a lot more like a … low-budget American indie movie: There’s so much awkward stuff going on here. Some of it is definitely on purpose, but much of it seems unintentional. I mean, just by having actors that are really bad.

But Sean Penn is awesome, dude.

[twenty minutes pass]

The further along this movie goes, the more I’m getting into it. It’s just really … amiable. There’s so many fun, inconsequential scenes — if the movie had been made 30 years later, it would all have been “cringe humour”, but it’s not: It’s just fun and silly.

[the end]

Well, that’s such a weird ending.

I wonder whether Heckerling had to fight for every single scene in here, because it seems like none of these scenes should be allowed to be in a movie like this.

It’s so much fun, and everything about it is surprising.

But what does Rogert Eber think?

(One star.)

Tee hee.

I’m watching the DVD extras now… and Heckerling hired Judge Reinhold (who was way too old for the role and much older than the other actors) because, as she said, she just couldn’t find anybody else for the role. (Reinhold was the boyfriend of Heckerling’s best friend and next door neighbour.) The person originally thought of for that role was… Nick Cage (or Coppola, as he was back then).

Oh my god.

That would have been so much better! That would have been awesome! Because Reinhold sticks out like a bloody, pustulating thumb.

(The reason Heckerling gives for not hiring him was that he was 17, so he couldn’t work as long days because, you know, child labour.)

Oh oh, right. The reason the movie seems so … out of time is that it isn’t an 80s movie at all. Heckerling says that all the things in the movie didn’t seem like such a big deal to her, but that a new… era was coming, and that’s totally right. It got an “R” rating (and almost got an “X”) because it’s out of step with time.

It’s the last 70’s teenage movie.

Y tu mamá también. Alfonso Cuarón. 2001. ⚃

This is one of those mysterious DVDs I have no recollection of buying. I think it’s been on my shelves for… at least a decade? Without me watching it. Perhaps I got it at a raid on a used DVD shop at some point? That’s the only explanation I’ve got, because I’m not really a fan of Cuarón. I mean, I’ve seen only one of his movies (Gravity; it’s not horrible), but he won the best movie Oscars for Roma? So I assume that that is terrible?

Anyway! Roll film!

[ten minutes pass]

I like the pale colour scheme… everything is desaturated and dusty-looking. The voice-over technique is pretty odd: The movie will be going on as normal, but then suddenly all the sound drops out and then a second or two later the omniscient voiceover comes in. It’s pretty disturbing — the first fifteen times this happened my mind went “did the sound crap out?” before I remembered (again) that this is how this movie is.

I like the actors — it feels like a fresh movie.

[ten minutes pass]

These guys are behaving kinda oddly for somebody in their mid-twenties… are they supposed to be teenagers?

[half an hour passes]

I’m really enjoying this, but it’s also a bit unnerving… I’m waiting for some horrible, horrible thing to happen in the midst of all this happiness.

[the end]

Well… the ending was what I thought it had to be (except that it didn’t happen the way I expected). Fuck that shit! It’s the worst, most boring cliché of The Big Book of Standard Movie Plots, and fuck Cuarón for using it.

If you stop watching this movie two minutes before the end, it’s a fabulous movie.