Recommended

Still enjoying The Great British Baking Show as a cozy watch. But even if you don’t watch it, here’s a great phrase — “A total bag of pants” (meaning a disaster). Has entered my lexicon and I’m experimenting with all the “<container> of <garment>” combos. And also watching Prue Leith (an 80 year old proper British Matriarch type, but with an Austin Powers 60’s flair) innocently ask things like “Tell us about your beaver,” or “I am interested in your large nuts” never gets old. Sadly only have a series or two left to watch.

Maybe

The 9th Configuration — An insane 70s movie (although released in early 80) set in a military insane asylum where the inmates apparently have access to a Hollywood prop department to enact whatever crazy stuff they want. Written, Produced and Directed by William Blatty (fresh of The Exorcist) so the studios were willing to let him do whatever he wanted. Some great scenes and mostly great but nonsensical dialogue. I had to watch it in chunks. Definitely a noble failure and not a cookie cutter movie.

Grantchester — A Masterpiece Mystery that is definitely ripping off Father Brown¹. (Except that the priest is Anglican? Church of England? In any case, Not Catholic and it’s post WW-II instead of WW-I). But I like Father Brown and this is close enough for me. But as the series goes on it gets less about the mystery of the week and more about the main character(s) being miserable, and lost a fair chunk of the joy². (Netflix only has the first four of the ten(!) seasons).

In the Mouth of Madness — A (90s) rewatch of which I remembered almost nothing. Attempts to capture Lovecraftian dread, but the execution isn’t quite there. Some genuinely creepy moments but also too reliant on “repeated dream awakenings” and re-used footage. Amazing to think that John Carpenter did this a decade after The Thing, because the monster effects are a step down; less is more would have been so much better here³. But …. any schlock horror movie is elevated by David Warner & Jürgen Prochnow looks very anti-christ-like. Clever ending, but “ah, that’s clever” clever instead of a gut punch. I think it works better if you simply lop off the last few minutes.⁴

The Long Kiss Goodnight — (90s Rewatch, pt II). Shane Black makes another Shane Black movie. Action movie? Check! Partners who don’t like each other? Check! Banter? Christmastime? Checkity Check! Sadly this isn’t up the the heights that Lethal Weapon started, but its not bad.

Nobody Wants This (S2) — A reasonable ‘comfort food’ romcom/sitcom. Sometimes veers into cringe, but it understands that a romcom/sitcom must be funny (and heartwarming) so that both Mr. and Mrs. Tao will watch.

Under the Skin (book) — Read this after watching the movie (see Sep-Oct). Good, but in a very different way (books can show inner monologues, movies are visual). I think that the near silence of the movie was a good choice, but that necessitated changing the story to make it much more ambiguous. Note — Not for the squeamish.

Wick is Pain — Documentary on the John Wick Franchise. Reasonable if you liked the franchise. What impressed me was seeing stunts that I said “Obvious CGI” in the theater and then discovering that the CGI was only for the environment, not the stunt itself, which was real. (The building fall at the end of John Wick 2)

Maybe Not

Turned Off / Not Recommended

“Oh, Hi!” — I saw this recommended by Marginal Revolution. The plot is that a young couple go on a weekend vacation, find some bondage equipment, he gets tied up and (after sex) reveals that he doesn’t consider this a serious relationship, at which point she leaves him tied up and tries to convince him that she is girlfriend material. BUT nobody is sympathetic. She’s crazy. (It’s established that she considered stabbing her last boyfriend). “Leave him tied up” isn’t played for laughs, and isn’t funny. On the other hand, she’s right. You don’t go on a weekend trip alone after dating for four months and expect her to think it’s a fling. In Re: “Crazy girl” vs “Idiot Boy” I find both guilty. Turned off at the 30 minute mark (or less), tried to continue a few times. Failed. Now re-reading Marginal Revolution I realized that “better than expected retelling of…” isn’t necessarily an endorsement.⁵

Tenet — This finally showed up on streaming and … man; was Christopher Nolan trolling us the entire time⁶? “What if I just didn’t have a plot at all, but did as much cool stuff as possible?” Turned off before the hour mark; tried again and couldn’t get through another few minutes. It’s like a Bond movie with truly excellent set pieces and locations. (Off-brand Bond but not skimping on quality). Plus Time-travel special effects. But when you break it open it’s just Nelson Munz “Hah hah!”-ing you, the sucker audience.

1. OK, its an actual series of books on its own that started a few years ago, and the author’s father was formerly the Archbishop of Canterbury, but still … ︎
2. After finishing season 4 I realize that part of that was the requirements to switch the lead actors. ︎
3. Such as the people in an oil painting moving. If they never moved on camera and if you thought they had but weren’t sure, it would have been creepier. ︎
4. For example — Sam Neill’s character “sees” the carnage in the hallway (a ‘less is more shot’, where you see vague shadows and hear screams), realizes the door keeping him the sanitarium is busted … and then chooses to retreat to his room & close the door. ︎
5. But then I see it’s on his years best film list, so uh, whatever. ︎
6. No, mostly he’s pretty good. I guess this was just a misfire. ︎