for reels: haunted when the minutes drag
What I watched in the first half of November
Welcome to for reels, sorta-weekly highlights from my movie diary. Here’s what I watched in the first half of November.
Cat People (1982) - Paul Schrader meets The Black Cat
Alright everyone you can relax, October's over so it ain’t gonna be all horror around here for a minute. That said, post-Halloween I did clock a couple 'o moody, atmospheric bangers of the genre from great directors who don't usually do horror, both worth calling out. First up is Paul Schrader's Cat People, a "remake" of the 1942 horror noir of the same name. Felt even more like a horny synthwave remix of a pre-code monster movie. Not Schrader's best but pretty fuckin' rad.
You can stream Cat People on The Criterion Channel.
Used Cars (1980) - all-American psychos
This was one 'o those movies you find out about late in the game and have to watch straight away to satisfy your curiosity ya know? An early Robert Zemeckis joint starring Kurt Russel, half a decade removed from his Disney-kid days and right on the cusp of a major career reboot, Used Cars is one of those slapstick frat comedies of the Carter-to-Reagan recession days where a charismatic dirtbag achieves cult-hero status by gaming and pillaging the system. Russell plays used car salesman and aspiring state senator Rudy Russo, who engages in a series of escalating scams and publicity stunts to out-compete the more evil used car lot across the street (the plot's significantly and unnecessarily more complicated than that —there’s even like a Weekend at Bernie’s subplot in there — but you get the gist). Used Cars is a big mess but it's got that fuck-everything attitude that makes the movies of the era cook, and you can see how effective Zemeckis' vivid, mischievous style will be for such on-the-horizon projects as Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
I dunno man, what I like about these early-'80s comedies is, whether on purpose or by accident or a fair amount of both if we're honest about it, they really reflect the American experiment warts and all. Like you can almost smell the mediocrity, depravity, and twisted charm of the whole damned scene comin' off every frame. Plus you tend to get, like, elevated moments of class consciousness and righteous satire amidst all the looney-tune misogyny and racial stereotyping and shit — the kinda thing that makes you sit back and guffaw and have a little mini-Joker moment to yourself and say, "boy are we ridiculous or what?"
You can stream Used Cars on Crackle.
Road House (1989) - punch up, be nice
Never watched more than a few minutes of this on cable, saw it pop up on Netflix and figured hell yeah LFG. Both exactly and nothing like what I expected, Road House starts off like it's gonna be a kinda sports movie about platinum-bouncer Patrick Swayze doing a community building bar rescue and teaching a bunch of rough dudes how to shape up, be nice, and kick ass with zen-like discipline. Starts out that way sure but quickly unravels into a series of explosions and bullet parades, as is the coke-sick late-'80s blockbuster’s wont. Pretty fun. Also, Sam Elliot fucking rocks in this one dude. Like ladies, if you think Swayze is the main attraction just wait 'till Big Sam shows up.
You can stream Road House on Netflix.
You Only Live Twice (1967) - …and twice is the only way to live
The holidays are revving up so it's time for some Bond again. Dusted off the old 007 DVDs and Blu-rays and landed on this one for a weeknight rewatch.
"Bodies in space," wrote critic Matt Lynch of You Only Live Twice on Letterboxd. "If there's such a thing as a vulgar auteurist work, this is one of the greatest examples." The first of three outta-this-world Bond films directed by Lewis Gilbert, You Only Live Twice is classic Bond at its most beautiful, bombastic, bloated, and self-parodic. As I put it last year in my big Bond ranking, it's pretty hilarious that "James Bond emerged as a self-aggrandizing colonialist fantasy of the British intelligence community just as their empire was collapsing and real MI6 agents were defecting to the USSR in droves." You Only Live Twice is indeed a vulgar imperial Cold War comic-book movie that's both too absurd for its own good and too kinetic to look away from. Legendary production designer Ken Adam's top-tier set work is a major highlight (mid-century volcano lair anyone?), as are the Bauhausian action scenes showcasing 1960s Japan one stunt at a time. “Bodies in space” baby.
You can rent You Only Live Twice on Prime.
Images (1972) - rewarding rewatch
Just caught this one a year and a half ago and it really stuck with me as a hazy, poignant dream (a good Robert Altman joint’ll do that), been aching to revisit it ever since. Goddamn dude, the fucking balls on Altman to make one horror joint out of like 30 movies and just call it Images right? Not only a powerful comment on horror’s central place in the medium, but an apt, deep well of a mission statement for a film about the real ghosts that haunt us — the shifty images of the past that invade the present and, if we let them, consume the fabric of our reality. This is a great, uncanny, sorta laid-back psychological terror ride to watch in November, oddly cozy in its largely one-location setup — the crisp, autumn Irish countryside as serene as it is spooky. Recommending this one to people who didn’t like Alex Garland’s Men earlier this year but maybe went in wanting to like it.
You can stream Images on Tubi.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) - “To me, he was everything.”
I liked the first Black Panther fine and I ain't here to dispute its place in the culture. A top-shelf MCU joint for sure and, despite the terrible obstacle of making this particular sub-franchise work after the loss of Chadwick Boseman, Wakanda Forever is a major step up from the last several Marvel works, theatrical or otherwise. A lot of meh stuff in there but when it sings it really sings. Was genuinely impressed and deeply moved by the film's opening, which seamlessly frames the death of the fictional T'Challa not only in Boseman's passing but the overwhelming loss of life to disease that communities all over the world have endured in the last three years.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is now in theaters.
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) - “How’s the despair?”
Really dug Martin McDonagh’s new folkloric dark comedy about the only two things that’re certain in this life: death and conflict. Quite literally set against the backdrop of civil war, The Banshees of Inisherin draws equal parts pathos and gallows humor from a slowly escalating personal dispute between the village idiot (Colin Farrell) and the village artist (Brendan Gleeson) on an island off the Irish coast. “We’ll mutilate ourselves beyond recognition if it means having things our way,” wrote Joel Haver in his Letterboxd review, “leaving us with nothing but a pathetic ‘I told you so’. But who even is ‘I’ at that point? Who is ‘you’?”
The Banshees of Inisherin is now in theaters.
Edward Scissorhands (1990) - oh fuck, this shit still fucks me up
For real though fired up Edward Scissorhands on the mouse ploos and I mad forgot how much this movie fucked me up in the ‘90s and yet I watched it on cable like so many times. Probably me at my most emo in life… thus far anyway ;) Nah but Edward Scissorhands still make-a-me cry for sure (though the first half is very funny). In retrospect this is probably Depp’s finest hour, and goddamn, that whole first run of Tim Burton films are you kiddin’ me? Pee-Wes’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, this, Batman Returns?? Analog Burton still smacks dude.
You can stream Edward Scissorhands on Disney+. (Dude the thumbnail image or whatever when you pull this up on the app is like all Alice and Wonderland-y haha smh)
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