This is very dark… I just upgraded the TV computer, and it’s now using the nouveau driver instead of the proprietary Nvidia driver. And this is a 4K movie. Is it doing the mapping wrong?

It looks OK when it’s lighter…

That definitely has more colour than what I’m watching… Let’s try to go back to the Nvidia driver…

YES! COLOURS!!!

Geez; it’s really the year of Linux on the TV, isn’t it?

I’ve missed Goldie Hawn without knowing it.

I guess I don’t watch many, er, more commercial movies from the 70s? I’m born in 1968, so I didn’t see movies like this the first time around, and by the time I was old enough, I guess they seemed kinda outdated and slightly embarrassing? (While 50s movies were cool.)

And I’ve never really fixed that… I mean, I’ve seen all the “serious” 70s movies, but I don’t think I’ve ever watched this, for instance. And Hazel Flagg is big on 70s, so that’s fun — I’m catching up on things I didn’t even know I wanted to watch.

Because this is a really fun movie.

See? She agrees with me, too!

That’s the 70s, alright!

NOO A BATHROOM MIRROR

Heh heh, as teenagers while watching movies, we’d always start holding our hands in front of our faces whenever a bathroom mirror showed up, because we knew that there’d be a jump scare.

And there was one here, too!

I’m glad I had my hands up in time.

Oh, villains!

Oh, the director has only done three movies. There were all really successful commercially, I think? OK, the last one didn’t do fantastic, but…

This was very funny for the first half, but then it get a bit more bogged down into the plot and goes for a romance thing between Hawn and Chase, and I’m not sure that’s totally convincing?

But I mean, it’s still fun.

I tried out my new LLM-powered actor identification thing… I guess that’s right?

That looks correct, too! Wow.

Hey! No engravings! No “Anti-POPE”?!

OK, I didn’t watch this in the most optimal way — I was distracted by testing out various technical things here…

But I enjoyed watching this a lot. But I’m guessing this will never have a revival — it relies on clichés (both overt and not) to an unprecedented degree. Sure, the albino evil guy — that’s them having fun with clichés. But then there’s the strident feminist, the small person abuse played for laughs only, the (admittedly very exciting) car chase in San Francisco, the blonde being extremely ditzy… Every little thing.

But it’s funny.

Foul Play. Colin Higgins. 1978. ⚄

So this is the sequel to The Last Picture show, and I’m watching the extended black and white version (from Criterion).

Eh… this looks like a colour movie that somebody has removed the colour from. Which I guess it is.

Uhm… I think I’m gonna watch the colour version instead, because this just looks odd.

Yeah, this looks like it was intended to be shot in colour.

Hey, isn’t that… Eileen Brennan?

So, this film was done 20 years after The Last Picture Show, but is set 33 years later. That’s pretty unique?

So the actors were playing characters younger than themselves in the first movie, and now they’re playing characters older themselves…

Well, the cinematographer on the first movie was better.

Those are very actory toes.

Those are very fertile tomato plants. I can totally see why she’s digging a hole right next to one of them. It’s because of… er… because… I DON”T OWE YOU AN ANSWER11!

Advanced cinematography.

OK, you may infer from these things I’m typing that I’m not totally riveted by this movie.

The problem with this movie is that it assumes that we were so totally into the first movie that any information we’re getting about these characters 33 years later is supposed to be fascinating.

But I don’t really care, so it’s like eh? Eh?

Cybill Shepherd apparently only had three days to spare to film this, so her scenes are kinda brief.

Speaking of, she has had a strange career. She was hot shit in the 70s in a bunch of big movies (Taxi Driver, etc), and then was a phenomenon with the Die Hard guy in the 80s with Moonlighting, and then… sorta… faded? The final bigger thing I can remember seeing her in was in the Cybill sitcom, which was an American version of Absolutely Fabulous (only very very mild). And I like her a lot, but it does seem like the world didn’t. (I mean, she’s continued to work (and a lot) but nothing that’s making an impression, I think?)

I just couldn’t get into this movie. I was sitting here watching it, but nothing seemed to be of interest. But I guess it’s not awful or anything?

Texasville. Peter Bogdanovich. 1990. ⚂

I bought a Texasville bluray, but I already had two versions of the movie — included as extras on the Criterion Last Picture Show release, but I didn’t know that. I ended up watching the version from the latter release…

I’m actually not that fond of this era. “New Hollywood” I guess it was called? It’s always seemed to me like there was a bunch of American directors really impressed by European films, so they tried to make their own — but they had none of the depth or interest of the movies they were aping, so instead you got… American 70s movies.

And this is about The Magic Of Movies, I guess.

I’ve never seen this one before, but I’ve wanted to, so here we are.

I’m not sure about this 4K Criterion restoration… There’s no scratches or anything, it’s stable, and the blacks are black, but there’s so much grain that it looks like fake grain. It’s like a swarm of bees — I’m not sure you can see that in the clip above, but it’s pretty distracting.

So picaresque… it’s just like we’re in 50s Italy…

One of the big problems with these movies are that American actors act (and they’re good at acting). And in these movies the director is always going “no, just be natural! be natural!” and they get so stiff and artificial.

Hey, it’s that guy.

Tense!

OK, I guess I understand why this movie made a splash…

I’ve seen almost no Bognodovatorish movies… I’ve seen What’s Up, Doc? And that might be it. Possibly Paper Moon, or I might have read the Mad Magazine version of it.

One of the most disturbing things about this movie is the foley work. They have a guy making noises throughout the movie — so when they get in the bed, there’s squeek squeek squeek etc. It sounds so fake.

What’s her name! She looks so familiar…

The plot on this movie is frankly unbelievable. Cybill Shepherd is hot for this asshole and he’s all like “no, not until you’ve had sex (with Jeff Bridges)”, and she’s like “oh no, not Jeff Bridges”.

It’s like… wat?

This movie annoyed me on many levels. I mean — it’s a good movie — but it goes for the easy solutions all the time. Like killing off the goofiest character, so that it’s “tragic” but not too sad? The easy sentimentality of small town theatres closing down. The horniness. (OK, that’s actually fine.)

I guess I was most annoyed by how the actors seem a millisecond away from looking at the director going “was that OK, mr. Bogdavonitarish? was that natural?” all the time.

The Last Picture Show. Peter Bogdanovich. 1971. ⚃