i've started watching the 31 non-amazon-marketplace movies i recently purchased, all of them having arrived, and just last night, for obvious reasons, i also purchased the new Thunderbean release, Popeye Original Classics In Technicolor
Model Shop -- i started with this one because i already seen it, not so long ago at the New Bev in 35mm, doubled with Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice i remember. the plot of this is like whatever but i'm obsessed with when the lead character is driving around, like when he picks up the photos and goes to the gas station. i have no fucking idea why there's the scene with him getting gas so i'm like head over heels about it for some reason i truly can't fully explain. its slow pacing is gorgeous to me. i recently heard Kiarostami say he only likes movies that make him fall asleep because with the others it feels like he's being taken hostage and maybe what i'm saying is in line with that philosophy and maybe i just find excuses to quote Kiarostami, whom a younger me considered silly arthouse stuff and an older me adores. some of this is pure chemistry
Max and the Junkmen -- i sort of regretted buying it but a friend of mine asked me to tell him what i thought of it after i watched it so i watched it right away to be polite, and it turns out that i adore this movie. the first night i began it without paying attention much, just kind of staring at it, like how Model Shop can be watched, but i admitted to myself that i didn't have any fucking idea what was going on when i returned to it the second night and started over, and like, totally. it's a whole world and it has this beautiful ending that's perfectly conceived. in any other movie that's actually a dumb fucking ending but yet this movie nails it and i'd fight you to the death about it or whatever. i'm also into sort of um partitioned narratives and this movie does a hella job compartmentalizing cops and criminals and this was when i read the wiki article about Romy Schneider whom i wasn't already familiar with so i was able to like follow the bouncing ball there too
Quai des Orfèvres -- i've already seen this too but over a dozen years ago so it was like a first time. i didn't posses a fond memory of this movie, which i mostly bought because it was on sale, and first watched after Diabolique. and Diabolique, i didn't like it either, but thought it was better, and then i watched and still own Le Corbeau, which i thought was the least of the three. yet so this movie starts with fire and i was like hell yeah, but then there's this cop thing that's well done i guess but god i'm bored, except when the wrist cutting happens in the jail cell, so basically i think the french know how to end a movie when i generalize like that
Manhandled -- and Stage Struck -- you know what happened was i fell i love with silent cinema but when you bring that up in conversation it's kind of awkward and most people mostly nod because of course they love everything that came after silent cinema. i don't know man, some say youth is the best but probably baby shit is most awesome, when you don't even know you're becoming human, and that's what silent cinema is like to me. it's growing in front of my fucking eyes. and i'm very into the expressive acting. the titlecards give you fyi's but mostly it's about watching human behavior and i think that rules. anyway so i had kind of burnt out on silent cinema but these pulled me back in and prompted me to immediately regret not just ordering all of Kino's silent movies. they're both with Gloria Swanson and Manhandled is city-set so i'm a fan of that but definitely her wider range of acting comes through Stage Struck. this allowed me to appreciate Gloria Swanson and soon enough i'm going to go back to Sunset Boulevard, which she was only 51 when it was released by the way. she's a terrific actor. Stage Struck begins and ends in technicolor. a silent movie begins and ends in technicolor
Death Takes a Holiday -- it's kind of the inverse of Quai des Orfèvres, in that during the beginning i was like oh shit this sucks my bad (a dumb af shadow haunts them, it's death and yawn), but actually when Death appears this movie becomes hella solid. first of all bravo to doing this cool thing in which embodied Death is both a shadow and transparent. then great job Fredric March as Mortal Death. i was like, what's going to happen what's going to happen, oh how interesting, which is a fun way to watch a movie, you know. and it's a love-positive movie which is kind of complicated
The Devil Incarnate -- Mondo Macabro is by far the best thing that's ever happened to global cult cinema from my perspective. they're rather towering by my estimation. so i needed to see this fellow Paul Naschy, and that's a semi-americanized pseudonym for Jacinto Molina, a body building horror fanatic spaniard. his actual cult reputation is that he "reigns supreme as the true king of Spanish horror cinema." he died underappreciated and his older movies also suck maybe (haven't seen them) anyway i can confirm that he's a hero figure to me since The Devil Incarnate hardcore slays this deadpan insanity only perhaps rivaled by José Mojica Marins and Coffin Joe. Paul Naschy is nasty in The Devil Incarnate and not only does he not bat an eye but he even explains why, and his reasons like nail it. and you're supposed to believe that he's the victim by the end, which how funny. i regretted not ordering Inquisition
The Wild Pussycat -- i've only started this one, and i started it because i am guessing that it will be the least impressive of my Mondo Macabro purchases, although in the end it might not be, who knows. it comes with a free double, The Deserter, and giving me an extra free movie sort of impedes my faith in your initial selection. it isn't the same director it's the same country, Greece, which Mondo Macabro has a whole thing about, this is their third volume, and it's the second sex film i've ever purchased, after Radley Metzger's Score. i watched the beginning which is a suicide scene and after that there's some office stuff which is all i know so far, and what i can say is the westernized idea of 60s cool was rather homogenized and american centered, like it is now, which isn't fully accurate, especially addressing the 60s, in which British cool was the leader perhaps, except i think The Wild Pussycat feels hella american in the beginning, it hasn't even gotten into the sex stuff and it's b&w
