Lockdown Movies 126-143, reviewed and rated

As our Covid trajectory continues to splutter – remember the halcyon days when this was all going to be done and dusted by Christmas? – my tunnel vision towards watching 200 movies in 2020 is as tunnelly and visiony as it was back when it all started. More so even, and probably logically so too – with the planet moving further away from resembling anything close to normality (to the point where it now may never be the same again) movies are everything. They’re escapism, and they’re nostalgia. You can’t put a price on that – although in capitalism terms, you absolutely can. It’s something like a few quid a pop.

Here are my most recent watches, all scored on my Covid Rating – 19 being magnificent, 1 being horse manure.

My Neighbour Totoro (1988) – one of those Japanese Studio Ghibli cartoons everyone goes nuts for, most of which are now on Netflix (barring the unparalleled Grave of The Fireflies for some mad reason). These occupy such a strange spot on the Venn diagram – far too slow for young kids to love, far too in tune with childish feelings from way back when for adults to fully compute. But they’re artistic, slow moving, dramatic, critically appreciated – sort of like the John Cassavetes movies of the cartoon world. Though actually good.

Covid Rating: 14

500 Days of Summer (2009) – a rom com that inverts rom com clichés, while in turn possibly becoming an archetype in itself. Of course, people/things hate being applied the broad brush-stroke of hipsterism, it’s sneered through teeth, intended to scathe – as if to be seen as another confusing, rootless element in a fog cloud of vaguely kitsch things that don’t really amount to anything solid is the worst thing that can be levelled at you. But in many ways that sums this film up perfectly. The fundamental question – do relationships need to be permanent to have meaning? – ultimately makes it a celebration of the small love affairs that didn’t quite make it. It’s a hipster.

Covid Rating: 13

The Fireman’s Ball (1967) – dirty old perverts cobble together a beauty contest in a local hall that none of the participants want to be in, and all the raffle prizes get nicked. It’s every Sunday night Last of the Summer Wine/Dad’s Army sitcom you can remember from the 1970s and 80s, the difference being it’s funnier, insanely well shot, and all in Czech. Plus it’s directed by Milos Forman, who famously went on to do things like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus.

Covid Rating: 13

Les Biches (1968) – now being fluent in Godard and Truffaut, it was time to take the work of another darling of the Nouvelle Vague for a walk. This movie was part one of a self-selected Claude Chabrol double bill (followed by Le Boucher, below), and with a poor street artist creepily transforming herself into the bisexual socialite who seduced her, it reminded me a bit of Single White Female. Just like you, I initially misread the title as Les BITCHES. Oh don’t pretend you didn’t

Covid Rating: 12

Le Boucher (1970) – Round Two of my Claude Chabrol sesh, and one of the best thrillers I’ve seen (and I’ve seen The Firm with Tom Cruise, so make of that what you will). SPOILER ALERT What it does so well is to humanise a serial killer without letting him off the hook, while also drawing on the conflicted feelings of an (possibly) intended target for a man she’d grown fond of. Amazing performances – shout out to Jean Yanne, and to Stéphane Audran in particular. She’s wonderful.

Covid Rating: 17

California Suite (1978) – one from Neil Simon, who’s sort of like Woody Allen but not, this is a series of LA vignettes which play out like the best soap opera you’ve ever seen, with a dream cast too – there’s Jane Fonda (smashing it, in the best vignette by far), Maggie Smith (also great, got the Oscar), Hawkeye from MASH, Michael Caine, Walter Matthau (love Matthau), then Richard Pryor alongside his one-time hero Bill Cosby from back when Cosby was as stoical as they come. Such a shame he turned out to be Bill Cosby.

Covid Rating: 14

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012) – I don’t know what’s less believable, the human race waiting to be hit by a meteorite or Steve Carell playing a character called “Dodge”. He’s the least likely “Dodge” I think I’ve ever seen. “Dodge” smokes cigarettes down to the end and dramatically fans himself when he passes sexy women on the street, this guy’s all sad dewy eyes and turtlenecks. It’s a film with a similar identity crisis, not sure whether to be slapstick or existential, profound or profane, and so ends up a little bit of everything and a quite a lot of nothing.

Covid Rating: 9

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) – another one from Rainer Werner Fassbinder (my favourite German). Where someone like Eric Rohmer (my favourite Frenchman) taps into the idea of love with (partly) an optimistic purity, Fassbinder seems less forgiving. Love and sex are weaknesses or weapons, if you strive for humanity in the wrong place, people will reveal themselves as monsters. His most pertinent point here is how we turn ourselves inside out to be adored by one person while being shitty to everyone else, made all the more astonishing by the fact it all takes place in just one room.

Covid Rating:  16

Don’t Think Twice (2016) – for a certain kind of American improv comic, getting the chance to audition for Saturday Night Live (or SNL to its friends) is the ultimate Everest, the stamp of approval, and also the theme of this extremely niche film, which is a bit like Marmite – you either love it, or hate it, or you think it’s okay (a nod to the great Mitch Hedberg). I’m Option 3/C.

Covid Rating: 9

Good Time (2017) – one from the Uncut Gems crew, the Safdie Brothers, and it cements two points for me – one being that the brothers might be the most exciting directors around at the moment, specialising in giving audiences a muscular dose of caffeine to contend with, and the other being that Robert Pattinson might yet prove to be the new Daniel Day Lewis.

Covid Rating: 13

Booksmart (2019) – from a similar Hollywood teen comedy lineage that probably starts somewhere around Animal House, through sex comedies like Porky’s and American Pie, and higher end navel-gazers like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, now here with gender reversals, characters that pointedly don’t conform to expectation (stoners who get good grades, kids who like sex but aren’t fucked up), plus a huge chunk of Superbad. To coin The Life of Brian “we’re all individuals” – that seems to be the point here. But are we though?

Covid Rating: 11

Rashomon (1950) – directed by Akira Kurosawa, a man famous for the incredibly long and not-yet-watched-by-me Seven Samurai. This clocks in at 88 mins at a canter, the telling of the same murderous story from different perspectives, each one somehow aggrandising the new narrator, creating a sense of ambiguity about who did what and where the finger of guilt should point. Rightfully viewed as one of the greats, you can now see its influence all over the place.

Covid Rating: 16

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) – with the relationship at the centre between understated Jim Carey and overstated (but by the correct amount) Kate Winslet becoming more lovely and relatable as the story unfolds, this ends up being unbearably romantic – but also very real for something so surreal, though that may be the point of surrealism all along (I’m not educated enough to know). Just normal life through a funny mirror.

Covid Rating: 15

All the President’s Men (1976) – White House corruption that seems quite quaint by modern standards, just a little bit of bugging here and there, with Hoffman (Dustin) and Robert (Redford) comprising Woodward and Bernstein relentlessly hacking away at Watergate. Gripping.

Covid Rating: 16

A Summer’s Tale (1996) – Frenchiness in the 1980s, 20somethings on long summer breaks treating their love lives like sprawling Shakespearean epics, which suits director Eric Rohmer, who himself comes off as a kind of casual Shakespeare – less hey-nonny-noey compared to the Bard’s comedies, far less bloody-knuckled than his tragedies, but often with elements of both. Casual Shakespeare. Some lovely moments here, though the main guy, intended in character to be shy, at times seems genuinely embarrassed to be even acting, which is possibly a taste of realism too far.

Covid Rating: 14

Lady Bird (2017) – everyone seemed to go mad for this when it came out, around roughly the same time as Fleabag hit, making the world re-examine how women/girls have been characterised on screen over the years. Both champions of underwhelming sex and questionable decisions, and both big on the relationships women have with each other – as sisters, mums, daughters. No higher compliment can be paid than to suggest this would make an excellent final piece to a 400 Blows/Eighth Grade triptych.

Covid Rating: 14

Ocean’s Eleven (2001) – glitzy Hollywood capers don’t get much capier, in fact this might be the capiest of the lot, undertaken by some of the sexiest blokes (+Julia Roberts) ever to grace the big screen.  When Matt Damon is the short straw, the going’s good, right girls? Unfortunately, every other film it spawned returned with diminishing degrees of being any good.

Covid Rating: 12

The Farewell (2019) – the gentle pace and intricate detail of family, particularly viewed from an elderly perspective (in regard to scenes with the “dying” grandmother) reminded me of the great Japanese director Ozu (much lauded in my 200 for 2020), while the contemporary voice of Awkwafina grounds it completely in the moment, and in the realities of life as a modern immigrant – she’s great. Weirdly I didn’t think it was having much of an effect on me, then I started weeping like a baby at the end.

Covid Rating: 13

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