I.e., films I watched in October. As F.M.I.’s movie-watchingest contributor, I have been encouraged to move these posts from my personal blog to this space. Each month, I’ll post a simple list of the films I watched and a smattering of quick-hit reactions, which are often of a merely personal nature. I have a thing not just for the obscure good, but also the very, very bad, a thing that I sometimes pretend is part of an anti-aesthetic post-modern impulse rather than just a love of explosions.
October films:
10/2 - Dragonball: Evolution | Mach 2
10/3 - Zombieland | She-Wolves of the Wasteland | Time Runner
10/7 - Pickpocket
10/11 - Couples Retreat
10/15 - Brand Upon the Brain
10/16 - Whip It
10/17 - A Serious Man
10/20 - Paranormal Activity
10/23 - Prom Night (2008)
10/24 - Gamer | Macabre (2009) | Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl
Selected commentary:
- The amazing thing about Dragonball was how often it authentically imitated the worst aspects of Japanese humor. And how strange and over the top it was for a Western, mainstream family film. It was an experiment of some sort, and I have to say that it was interesting.
- Mach 2 is part of my ongoing project to see every movie that Fred Olen Ray has ever directed. It delivered to expectations, especially by including scenes from other movies edited in as if they were original.
- Zombieland was amusing. If it’s the American Shaun of the Dead, however, it doesn’t say much for America. Somehow I hate Jesse Eisenberg less than Michael Cera, even though they do basically the same thing.
- I don’t often feel as if I missed the point of a movie, but I wasn’t sure about Pickpocket. I’m pretty sure that Paul Schrader’s take on the ending is wrong, however.
- I can’t believe I got dragged to goddamn Couples Retreat. And Whip It.
- Speaking of Whip It, how does Jimmy Fallon keep getting work? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a charisma-draining black hole as powerful as he is. And if you’re making a movie about Austin’s roller derby, why would you shoot in Michigan?
- A faux silent film about a mad lighthouse keeper who keeps orphans for her mad scientist husband to do experiments on, with lesbian child detectives, voodoo rituals, screaming psychic transmitters and other craziness? How could Brand Upon the Brain have ended up this painfully boring?
- Even when they’re working on a “minor film,” the Coens usually deliver. Or maybe that should be “especially when.” (A Serious Man)
- Paranormal Activity had some very good scenes, but the end was film-ruiningly weak and the story did not hold up upon later reflection.
- I’ve never seen a movie that exerted less effort to be interesting than Prom Night.
- Macabre is the best Texas Chainsaw Massacre riff I’ve seen in many years. Definitely the highlight of the month.
- lolroflwtf (Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl)
