for reels: January 2022
A monthly look back at my Letterboxd diary.
Welcome to for reels, a monthly look back at my movie diary on Letterboxd // Today, I’m looking back at January 2022 //
Hey hey, first month of the year come and gone with its own share of happenings ranging from lovely to downright atrocious and the drums keep on beatin’ between the ears and I keep on watchin’ movies. It’s Friday as of my writing this and I’m feelin’ mad energized by the promise of seeing Jackass Forever later. Just what the doctor fuckin’ ordered amirite??
Anyway, guess I’ll get right down to it folks. Here are some fake awards or whatever for 10 notable joints from my January movie diary…
Best New Movie: Scream (2022)
Obviously not a lot to pick from in January new movies wise, so the new Scream sorta wins by default, but also I did genuinely dig it! I fuck with those Radio Silence guys, man, they really know how to make a fun bloody romp, and I’d say overall they did as good a job as anyone could’ve done picking up the Scream reins from the late great Wes Craven. All the kill scenes were fantastic (always slasher priority number one in my book), and there was a real vividness to the way they filtered the iconography of Ghostface through their own lens, you feel me? Found myself really vibin’ with all the new cast members as well. Had its flaws and head-scratching moments and the end reveal wasn’t exactly fresh, but I’ve never been one to really care about the cleverness or whatever of the whodunit plotting in Scream movies (probably one of the reasons Scream 2 is my favorite one lol). Bottom line, really liked the new one and remembered how at the theater, nothin’ beats horror movies, man. Nothin’.
Best New-to-Me Movie: A Face in the Crowd (1957)
One of those classics I missed the boat on til now. Caught it just before it left The Criterion Channel and boy is it the fuckin’ banger of evergreen relevance everyone says it is. A sinister rags-to-riches satire about a drifter who gets discovered by a radio producer and becomes a faux-populist major media figure, A Face in the Crowd has gotten a lot of renewed attention post-2016 for the obvious Trump comparison. It’s certainly a clear indicator of Trump and his ilk as a symptom of a greater American disease rooted in our collective past, present, future, whenever.
A Face in the Crowd is available to rent wherever you rent shit.
2021 Catch-up: Nightmare Alley & The Scary of Sixty-First
Caught up on a number of movies from 2021 in January, two of which really stuck with me. First, Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, a real return to form in my mind at least (wasn’t really into The Shape of Water tbh). Del Toro really crafts a legit noir seething with all the sadness, ugliness, corruption, and glamour you’d hope for. Couldn’t stop thinking about it for days which is always a good sign. Bradley Cooper really pops off in one of those charismatic but imminently unlikable leading man roles we seldom get. Rest of the cast goes hard as well. Super happy to have seen this in theaters (on accounta it’s a big budget Hollywood spectacle that still felt idiosyncratic and actually looked good on a big screen) and even happier that other people will watch it now that it’s streaming.
You can stream Nightmare Alley on HBO Max and Hulu.
An even harder sell than the dour if not glistening-with-star-power Nightmare Alley, The Scary of Sixty-First is the directorial debut of “Red Scare” podcast host Dasha Nekrasova, about two roommates who find out their newly acquired apartment was owned and used for human trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein. “Trips down rabbit holes” both physical and metaphysical ensue to strange and hilarious results.
Your mileage on may vary on both the abrasive tenor of this movie and so-called “dirtbag left” stuff in general, but I gotta say I thought this was a pretty fuckin’ funny and cool movie. In the trailer above there’s a pull-quote from Indiewire hailing it as “an unforgettable ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ revision for the Q-Anon age,” which is true but also kind of misses the nature of the humor at play here. Everything’s played like super New-York-hipster deadpan but then there are these flashes of looney-tune grotesquery and delicious lines like “Reddit’s for bottom-feeders, but there’s some really good threads.” As filmmaker Christian Zakharchuk put it in his Letterboxd review:
Scary of Sixty-First offers the type of films I want to see more of in this age of sensitive media and virtue signalling. Unapologetically vile films that don’t shy away from explicit subject matter and tone. It serves that purpose so god damn well as it becomes more disgusting, hilariously uncomfortable, and more conspiracy nut as it goes on.
The Scary of Sixty-First is available to rent wherever you rent shit.
Most Rewarding Rewatch: This is Spinal Tap (1984)
See there’s so much more in the scene above than the “these go to 11” part. That whole bit at the beginning about the sustain on the first guitar (“you can go and have a bite, and ‘aaaahhhahhhahh’ you’d still be hearin’ that one”), fucking slays me every time. Anyway, This is Spinal Tap is a literal contender for best comedy ever and it’d been a minute so I threw it on mid-month and goddamn does this massively influential mockumentary still sing both literally and figuratively. It does the magic trick of putting you in this state of howling laughter and cerebral exacerbation from start to finish and by the end you feel almost revitalized by it. It’s like the Goodfellas of comedies, If you know what I meeeean ;) Always hits.
This is Spinal Tap is available to rent wherever you rent shit.
Underrated Sequels: Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) & Alien 3 (1992)
Finally caught the much maligned Exorcist II: The Heretic and I gotta say, I dug it quite a bit. As a sequel to The Exorcist it’s anywhere from inexplicable to downright off-putting. On its own merits, though, it’s a gorgeous bit of dark-psychedelic camp, equal parts operatic and melodramatic and of a piece with director John Boorman’s trippy Arthurian joint Excalibur. Exorcist III may be a better film and a more fitting sequel to the OG, but this one’s definitely worth checking out.
You can stream Exorcist II: The Heretic on Tubi.
Speaking of maligned sequels, I also caught the extended cut of Alien 3 on Prime Video. Barely remembered this movie but idk man it really worked for me this time around. Has its flaws but it’s also a fascinating outlier in the Alien franchise with its own particular flavor of moodiness. Like it’s a slow bummer of a movie, almost tedious, but it also sorta parlays itself into a depressive, esoteric viiibe ya know? At the very least I’m surprised it doesn’t get more cred just for looking fucking cool.
Alien 3 is available to rent wherever you rent shit.
Tubular Sandler: The Wedding Singer (1998)
Back in the day The Wedding Singer was the Sandler joint I watched the most (had a heavy early-to-mid-2000s cable run), happened to notice it was streaming on Netflix and figured I’d give it a go. Still an authentically sweet movie with Sandler at his most endearing. An unbelievably bitchin’ 80s soundtrack as well. Pretty wild watching an ‘80s throwback piece that was made in the late-90s. Also the Jon Lovitz part still kiiilllls me.
You can stream The Wedding Singer on Netflix.
Shit Holds Up: Soylent Green (1973)
It’s the year 2022. People are still the same. They’ll do anything to get what they need. And they need SOYLENT GREEN.
So reads the tagline for the 1973 dystopian sci-fi joint Soylent Green, a movie my dad showed me when I was too young to understand what was going on but old enough for the imagery to really sink into my synapses. Figured it was worth revisiting seein’ how it’s 2022 and all. It’s a real genre picture of its time but it also remains blisteringly effective. Like a lot of sci-fi works of the era, it’s decaying-society predictions are only like 20 years off ya know? Takes place in a 2022 where overpopulation and environmental catastrophe have sent the world into a cyberpunk dark ages and there’s some weird conspiracy around the latest supply of “Soylent” foodstuff that feeds the masses. There’s an incredibly effective tactility and recognizable texture to the whole thing, the mood is strong, and Old Hollywood veteran Charleston Heston gives an all-timer performance. In an age where hope for the future is hard to come by, Soylent Green offers a terrible but necessary catharsis, and not one without its own genre pleasures.
You can stream Soylent Green on HBO Max.
Trashterpiece of the Month: Poison Ivy (1992)
Been meaning to check out more films by Katt Shea ever since I saw her debut, Roger Corman-produced sexploitation thriller Stripped to Kill, a few years back. Caught her erotic teen thriller/class-warfaresploitation flick as part of The Criterion Channel’s “Sundance Class of ‘92” collection and it didn’t disappoint. Stars a young, unbelievably charismatic Drew Barrymore as a “troubled teen” who befriends a wealthy introvert at school, moves in with her family, and eventually seduces her father. Shea is of a generation of female directors whose careers were defined by elevating traditionally male gazey, booby-obsessed exploitation films with next-level visuals and solid character work. Poison Ivy sees her taking a trashy premise in a trending exploitation market and getting a lot of good shit out of the actors she’s working with while understanding the unique visual potential of the genre. Pretty exhilarating if you’re into that sorta thing. Looking forward to watching more Katt Shea flicks and maybe covering her career in the next auteurism so stay tuned for that.
You can stream Poison Ivy on The Criterion Channel.
Well that about does ‘er for today folks. For the foreseeable future I’ll be tryin’ to do at least one roundup or plug or something and one longer-form piece each month. We’ll see how it goes. Later
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