Oh yeah — I watched a documentary about the Elm Street series: The producers (New Line Cinema) had an unexpected runaway success on their hands after the first movie, and had no idea what to do next. So they thought: Well, Twilight Zone was successful, so we could do that as a series of movies? Like, if you make a movie that has almost nothing to do with the previous movie, that’ll make a ton of money? Wont it? WONT”T IT!?!

And it did.

But they realised that making movies like this didn’t make much sense long term, so the first real sequel is the next movie.

Oh, this is the gay Elm Street movie…

Nooo don’t sleep in class

I just remembered why I lost my enthusiasm for watching this Elm Street bluray box set: It’s been cut down from 1.85:1 to 16:9.

THAT”S SEVERAL PIXELS

Nice digs.

Nice shades.

Nice can.

*gasp*

It’s hawt.

Nooes it’s his gym teacher!!

It’s amazing that this movie didn’t tank the enterprise. I mean, it’s not that it’s horrible… but it has so little of what made the first movie a classic. It’s got a few jump scares, and it’s got the general dream/horror thing going, which is the selling point, but…

That’s a sick jam.

Rude!

Limahl!

Hey, they filmed this in an actual abandoned steelworks?

Mm-hm.

I’m watching the extras here, and this is the director explaining why the movie doesn’t make that much sense, and that’s kind of amusing.

…

Wow, the extras here are really interesting. It’s not the usual puff pieces, edited together annoyingly — they’re giving pretty harsh critiques of the movies, and are allowed to do so at length.

I give the extras a ⚄, but:

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. Jack Sholder. 1985. ⚁

Huh… this is an odd 2K transfer… it’s very grainy.

Huh. This doesn’t looks as good as the first movie…

Heh heh.

Well, that’s very New York.

This looks like it’s been upscaled from a VHS or something.

Well, it’s nice of Jeff Goldblum to summarise the movie.

Man, this movie just sucks. I guess Spielberg didn’t want to make another Jurassic Park movie, so instead he made a movie about how capitalism sucks (true!) and t. rexes being all maternal (doubtful!) and stuff.

I’m one hour in… and finally something is happening?! Can it be? Spielberg found his schlock gene!?

Nope. I mean, he tries, but it’s just hard to care at this point.

C’est vraiment mauvais. (Yes, I’m duolinguing.) Spielberg tries so hard to make you care for some of these characters, but it doesn’t work. He wants you to rejoice at some of the other characters’ deaths, and that works better, but it’s still not … actually worth seeing?

Right:

Spielberg also expressed disappointment with the film, stating he had become increasingly disenchanted with it during production.

It’s just really bad. It’s boring. And it’s 128 minutes long. The only thing that’s vaguely worth watching is the truck-falling-off-the-cliff scene.

Jurassic Park: The Lost World. Steven Spielberg. 1997. ⚁

I’ve got a Rohmer thing going on after I bought the Rohmer box set in 2018 — I’ve been watching the movies mostly while on my laptop while on planes to different parts of the world. But I’ve skipped all his costume dramas, because they don’t seem to be quite as well suited for watching while eating overcooked carrots.

So I’ve now got a handful movies left from this huge box set, so I thought I should get around to watching them so that I can move the box set (financed by Agnes B) from the To Be Watched to the Have Watched bookshelf.

Makes sense? Right?

This film is in German! Boo! I wanted to practice kinda-sorta understanding French…

I’m not sure Rohmer’s general aesthetic lends itself to these costume dramas — his thing is filming people chatting with each other about nothing much, so when you have to do actual staging, you end up with a lot of scenes looking like this: I.e., a mess.

Well that aged well.

OK, these shots are lovely…

And after eating dinner (a truly indifferent lasagne and a somewhat decent red wine), I’m totally into it! I’m being lulled into an airplane cocoon feeling! Slightly tipsy, slightly distracted, mostly watching a Rohmer movie!

It’s such a weird movie. I’m totally into it.

Oh my ghod! This is fantastic!

Nice hat!

This is like finding a lost Bergman movie of a lost Shakespeare play — I mean, it’s a somewhat weird plot, but played with such conviction that it works. It’s totally gripping, and you feel like you’re watching something from a strange dimension.

It’s utterly gripping.

La marquise d’O…. Éric Rohmer. 1976. ⚅