I really need to catch up around here. No writing here for a full calendar month is bad. so, let me catch up by posting some thoughts on a few recent movies I’ve seen.
I’ve been on a bit of a tear lately, with June consisting of 21 movies watched (with five in July), including seeing Sorcerer for the first time, which seems a little late for me. I also saw The Insider, Diabolique (extremely great), and Shaft (!) for the first times. June was a great movie month. Here is a bit about some movies:
- This Gun for Hire starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, directed by
rank Tuttle — I wrote that I had yet to come across a Veronica Lake movie I didn’t like (in fairness, I get my selections from collections of great movies). I picked up several of her movies in June and wanted to watch them all (The Glass Key, The Blue Dahlia, Saigon, The Hour Before the Dawn, and this one). I haven’t gotten to Saigon yet, but the only one that wasn’t really fun was The Hour Before the Dawn. Lake plays a Nazi badly and with a bad accent, so it can be disappeared. - Assault on Precinct 13 starring Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, and Laurie Zimmer, directed by John Carpenter — I was pointed to this by the Criterion Channel’s Techno Scores collection, and I was not disappointed. The movie’s politics are brutally bad, but the story and execution are great. John Carpenter is someone I might not ever like or want to know, but he is good at this kind of movie.
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac, directed by J.J. Abrams – This was fine, but after all of these years of watching and waiting for the new ones I think I’ve come to the conclusion that Star Wars isn’t all that great. The originals were cool, but the rest (Rogue One, Andor aside) are just the same shit over and over again with different, less interesting characters.
- My biggest takeaway from The Insider is that this is Pacino’s best performance I can remember. I am not the biggest fan of his, but respect his ability and certainly respect how well-regarded he is. This, however, was one of the few times I liked him in a performance. He’s never done anything for me, but was incredible in this movie.
- I also watch Beau Travail which some people consider one of the best movies ever made. I am only writing this to say that I probably need to watch it three more times, but I can understand the position. It was really good, even if I can’t figure out what I thought made it so. It was beautiful and simple, but French. I don’t know if I fully got it, but I’ll keep trying, as this was something worth seeing a few times.