Category: Recently Watched

To the surprise of absolutely no-one, I watched a bunch of Christmas movies in December. But as much as I love my seasonal treats, the movies that left more of an impression this time around were some of the other movies I watched during the month. In particular, The Outrun — which is harrowing and life-affirming in equal measures, I think, and cements Saorise Ronan as one of my favorite actors working right now — and Conclave, which is exactly the “bitchy Priest Succession” that I was promised by early reviews. The Red Shoes is also on there, which I hadn’t seen in close to three decades and is, if anything, so fucking wonderful that I feel embarrassed for not getting it earlier. Movies! They’re wonderful! (Also on the list: The Virtues, which is technically a TV show but has a movie-length final episode, so I counted it.)

Here’s the month in full.

I’ll be honest: finally watching Deadpool & Wolverine when it showed up for free on Disney+ was something that I had been quasi-looking forward to for some time — I relatively like the other Deadpool movies, and who didn’t want an over-the-top self-aware Marvel roast at that time in the world? That feeling went away maybe inside 10 minutes, and what followed was one of the most exhausting, depressing movie experiences I’ve had in a long time, so much so that I switched off after an hour because I could only handle so much smugness in one sitting. (The second half of the movie felt less annoying than the first, but maybe I was simply in a better mood the next evening.)

The very next movie I watched was The Elephant 6 Recording Co., a documentary about the collective of bands in the 1990s that worshipped at the altar of Pet Sounds, Revolver, and 4-track recording only to become successful despite themselves. Watching a bunch of scruffy middle-aged nerds offer variations of, “We were just so into what we were doing, fuck knows why it got big” for 90 minutes proved weirdly healing after the glossy Marvel of it all. Anyway. Here’s what I watched in November.

It strikes me as very weird that, despite managing to watch literally nothing while I was in New York for a week — I really was far too busy working the entire time, as ridiculous as that sounds — I still managed to see as many movies as I did in the remaining 24 days of the month. Thanks, especially to the Criterion Channel, which I subscribed to as a birthday present to myself back at the start of October.

Really, though, what I’m honestly taking away from October’s movie viewing was that I was too tired to watch The Substance on Halloween when it came to Mubi. What a way to end the month that would have been…!

(Also, I have no idea why Letterboxd decided to format the layout this way…)

Perhaps because I read so much in September, I really didn’t watch that many movies, especially compared with the past few months. It’s not as if I was sitting around watching TV or other things instead, as occasionally happens — I’ve curiously fallen out of the habit of TV watching with the exception of a couple of shows, unintentionally — but, rather, September was filled with a bunch of other things that required my attention in the evenings and on the weekends. I could joke and say that October will be different, but this is a month with a week-long convention trip right in the middle of it, so we’ll see.

(Also, I realized only when putting the image in here: I missed out Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which got rewatched this month as well. Just mentally throw that in there, thanks.)

Is this late? Listen, bud: he’s got radioactive bl — wait, what I mean it, “Yes, it is; basically, the combination of being in Seattle for PAX West 2024 and then having a down day after returning yesterday kicked my scheduling ass and I only got to this four hours or so after posts normally go live.” What can I say, besides sorry?

Anyway; I watched a lot of movies in August, and that includes some genuinely bad ones — I’m looking at you, Slumber Party Massacre and Hospital Massacre (which, notably, I watched under its alternate title, X-Ray) — however, there were also some new favorite mixed into things, too: Wicked Little Letters, The Apple, and Omen are all destined to be rewatched multiple times, I suspect, for entirely different reasons. Notably, perhaps, only one of the movies on this list was seen in the theater, and maybe that’s something I’d like to change for September… but we’ll see how that works out with everything else that’s coming up over the next few weeks. Intention doesn’t always equal planning, after all…

Anyway, here’s what I watched in August 2024:

There’s a particular genre of movies that I struggle to name, but have become increasingly enamored with over the past few weeks — that weird brand of 1970s (and late ’60s, in one case) rock opera that is at once overblown and theatrically outrageous and also utterly possessed of its own importance and making with the societal pronouncements like they’re going out of fashion.

I’ve written before, more than once, about my love of Head, the Monkees’ highpoint from the late ’60s, and I’m pretty sure I’ve shared my affection for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls around these here parts, as well. (If I haven’t: I’d argue that it’s not only Russ Meyer’s best movie — heresy, I know — but also one of the best movies about the culture gap between straights and freaks in the middle of the 20th century, bar none.) But there are more than those movies: in the past week or so, I’ve watched Xanadu, The Phantom of the Paradise (a true classic), and The Apple, all three of which are variations on the same idea, in some way.

The Apple and Xanadu feel like two different endpoints for this genre, which essentially died a death when both of these movies bombed at the box office. Xanadu is this genre as upbeat, hopeful, optimistic thing with almost no real threat or darkness throughout the entire movie, unless you count the fact that Gene Kelly effortlessly out-charms the rest of the cast without breaking a sweat to be a sign that the future is doomed; The Apple, meanwhile, is a sprawling, messy parody of pop culture devotion and corruption that has to be seen to be believed — think The Rocky Horror Picture Show if it decided to really go for it, and something far more cynical (and, arguably, more realistic, despite a finish that can’t be described).

Rewatching all of these movies, I find myself even more distraught that very little today has the same… lack of giving a fuck, perhaps? Or energy, to be more polite about it. I want to see someone convince Taylor Swift to just go for it and create a ridiculous, unapologetic pop opera about how fucked up everything around her is. I want to see Beyonce do her own version of Swarm but it’s actually a musical with big fuck-off production numbers. I want to see things get less boring, just a little bit.

You’ll have to excuse this one being a little late; I’ve been sick for the last few days, in a final gift given by San Diego Comic-Con. (It’s not COVID, at least according to the home tests; I’m waiting for the results of a test from an actual real doctor, but for some reason that’s taking awhile longer than I’d expected.) On the plus side, being sick has allowed me the opportunity to see some great films… which aren’t included in last month’s total, of course. Ah well; you’ll see for yourself next month. For now, enjoy what I did watch last month — which includes one of my old all-time favorites (The Double Life of Veronique), and a brand-new all-time favorite (Aftersun), as well as some trash (that new Exorcist)…

June was a weird month for movies; I watched some of my favorite movies of the year this month — Godzilla Minus One! I mean, come on — but I also got distracted by the reality TV of it all and didn’t spend as much time with movies as I have done recently. (Five of the above movies are shorts, for context.) I do think that Lovelace and Boogie Nights prove to be an accidental but fitting pairing, as both simultaneously glamorize and sterilize both the porn industry and the 1970s/early ’80s in very similar ways. Given that July has two separate Love Island series running simultaneously and San Diego Comic-Con, don’t be surprised if next month’s list is so short as to barely exist; I apologize in advance.