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. ⚅

Hey — it’s that guy from that TV series… er… Firefly?

This is a very… “Hey look at them Southern yokels” movie.

Which is always nice.

As comedy horror movies go, this is on the grisly side? I mean, many comedy horror movies go for gore, but some of the stuff here is just yuck.

Oh, this kinda bombed… Gunn did a bunch of TV stuff after this, and then made Super four years later. (Before going on to do Guardians of the Galaxy and taking over the world.)

I guess I’m surprised that this had such a big budget? It’s not that this looks bad, but it looks… small.

Indeed!

Any similarity to sperm is purely coincidental.

OK, this basically devolves into a zombie movie? (With a group consciousness thing, which is a twist, I guess.)

It’s a pretty good horror movie, but I grew a bit impatient during the middle parts. It needed more of something? Perhaps good jokes?

Slither. James Gunn. 2006. ⚃

I bought this DVD kinda at random — I was looking for the 2006 film with the same name, and this one came up, too. And I thought “what the hey”. So now I’m watching this movie — which I assumed was going to be a horror movie based on the name, but I guess it’s some kind of … thriller/crime/comedy thing?

This is very much of its age — it’s a very 1973 movie, looking all indie (but isn’t actually, I think?), and is all outlaw chic and stuff.

But it’s also a quite odd movie — the storytelling beats are totally unpredictable. People die or start robbing diners at random — but this isn’t one of those zany “satires”, either. It’s kinda… slinky and knowing?

A subtle dislocation of the norm.

And what’s up with that van!

I’m still not sure why this movie is called “Slither”.

I had no idea that Caan was this good at playing slightly goofy guys.

It’s an amiable, original, amusing movie. But the pacing in the middle part is a bit off.

Slither. Howard Zieff. 1973. ⚃