Oh right.

This is a very traditional documentary — talking heads that deliver one line and then there’s a cut to a different person, then a cut to an old still photo with a zoom-in, and then three seconds of old footage, and then back to another line from a different talking head.

I hate this genre so much.

But it’s something I’m kinda interested in — it’s about Max’s Kansas City, and it’s kinda interesting even if the form is really, really, really trite.

At least they’re showing the old footage without cropping to 16:9.

One weird thing about this docu is how little actual music they’re playing. I think the above is the first actual live performance (with sound) we’ve seen? That may be due to little being filmed, but when there’s talking heads, we’re getting a bed of tracks from Now That’s Vaguely Like A Rock Song… so perhaps they just couldn’t cough up money to license actual music?

CBGB’s looks a lot cooler than Max’s, but I guess there’s been a hundred docus about CBGB’s already.

Jayne County has the best anecdotes! The one about Dee Dee Ramone turning tricks and getting his dick stabbed…

That’s the cleanest cat ever. It’s been washing itself this entire movie.

Makes sense!

I was wondering whether they had a composer for the music-like stuff they used as a bed, but nope. So that stuff was from one or more of these bands?

Well, this isn’t a very good movie, but I hate all these documentaries. But there’s some really interesting stuff here… So… I’m going with:

Nightclubbing. Danny Garcia. 2022. ⚂

What the fuck? Surely this wasn’t originally in 16:9?

Gah! They’ve cut this down from 1.85:1 to 1.77:1! The edges are gone!

Now I don’t know whether I want to watch this… I was pretty suspicious of this box set — it’s got all the Freddy movies — on four bluray discs.

Except for the mutilation, the restoration looks pretty OK, though.

I was gonna relax with some trash after having watched over thirty quality films, and now it’s ruined. RUINED I TELLS YA

This movie is still kinda scary, though. I haven’t seen it since I was a teenager, and I remember being scared shitless.

Such teenagers they have in high schools!

It’s just such a good idea. I mean, Nightmare on Elm Street — nightmares are the scariest things most people experience (hopefully), and this film harnesses that expertly. And Wes Craves can play around endlessly with the viewer’s expectations — “did she nod off? is this real and we can relax? or is she asleep and we have to be prepared for Freddy to jump out of the mirror?”

The concept is just so much more exciting than the other major horror franchises like Halloween or (*zzz*, ironically) Friday the 13th. There’s just so much more scope for a writer to play around with.

Allegedly this series was the main thing that kept New Line Cinema afloat for a decade.

I’ve seen some of the subsequent films before, but not all of them, I think.

Not just a TV in bed — but shoes!?!

Oh, I didn’t realise until just now that it’s Johnny Depp. His first role?

Very ergonomic.

The 80s was a more … hopeful time, I guess? People in horror movies at the time often take a totally rational approach to what’s happening, try to work out the rules and vanquish the evil. (See Poltergeist, for instance.) I think that in most recent films of this ilk, we just see people crying, running around, and then crying some more until the film is over?

It’s a pretty good movie. I’m never sure how to throw the die on horror films like this — I mean, it’s not a “good movie”, but it’s a good horror movie. Let’s go with:

A Nightmare on Elm Street. Wes Craven. 1984. ⚄

Geez. There’s a lot of big names here (and names that are gonna be big later)…

I saw this movie back in the 90s, but I remember absolutely nothing about it.

This is a really callous movie. If it had a few more jokes, it’d almost be a John Waters movie. (Or perhaps that’s just the Kathleen Turner presence speaking.) It’s very stylish, and very cynical.

Aaah! Kirsten Dunst isn’t Kristen Bell! This explains so much!

There’s something really odd going on with the white balance in some of the shots. I guess these days it would all be colour graded into something less odd-looking.

Like what I said about the white balance…

Anyway, I didn’t dislike the start of this movie — it was kinda mysterious, even if a bit icky. But now it’s just “oh, abusive parents gonna abuse”, which isn’t that interesting.

This is the kind of movie I want to love? But I don’t? It’s probably just me, and the movie is a masterpiece. But I’m going with:

The Virgin Suicides. Sofia Coppola. 1999. ⚂