Now that, my friends, is more like it. After a few months of not really watching that many movies, I got back up to speed and then some in April — there’s a lot of old favorites in the list below, but what stands out more are the new favorites: Sinners, obviously, was something that just left me in awe and in love, just such a good movie (and such a good vampire movie, at that), but that might sit behind Burnt Milk as my favorite discovery of the month — a short movie that’s basically a spoken word piece with some amazing cinematography that felt at once intensely intimate and speaking to a larger truth that’s difficult to articulate. (It’s on The Criterion Channel, which is where I found it; maybe it’s available elsewhere, but it’s worth searching out nonetheless.)
Also a lot of fun: Companion, Shampoo, and Orson Welles’ The Trial, which I’d never seen before, and which feels very contemporary in the way it’s shot. (And its paranoia, for that matter.) Less fun: Little Murders and You’re A Big Boy Now, two movies in Criteron’s unofficial “New York City in the ’60s and ’70s was a mess” curated collection, both of which proved to be a little too unintentionally misanthropic and misogynistic for my contemporary tastes. (You’re A Big Boy Now also has a brief, pointless sequence that might be the most racist thing I’ve ever seen in a mainstream movie, and I think it was intended as pointed comedy against racism…!)
Also also: not pictures in the graphic below because I finished it after the screenshot: Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, which was absolutely fucking amazing; I have a vague memory of seeing it around when it came out, but I’m almost convinced that has to be wrong, because I was so blown away by it this time around…!
But I digress. What I meant to say is, this is what I watched this past month:
