July 2023 - still watching... and writing again?

I'm trying to recover my old Chasing Pictures self; here's at least one sentence on every feature I've watched in July.

The Raid: Redemption (2011) is a remarkable, astounding work of artistic choreography. I'm not sure it's anything more than that. If you love seeing violent action, you'll get it all here.

When I see or hear anyone mention Asteroid City (2023), I instantly translate it in my head to Asteroid Shitty. There are good moments in the film, but I failed to find an entry point for myself. Anderson's metafictional playing around strikes me as ultimately meaningless. He's playing with toys, playing with people. I'm not against playing, I like to play myself. Maybe I just don't like Anderson.

Okko's Inn (2018) is a strange film. It seems like a children's film, but it's also a serious exploration of grief. I didn't quite like it, maybe because I was jarred by what I considered tonal inconsistencies.

Counsellor at Law (1933) is maybe the talkiest talkie I've ever seen/heard. I'm most interested in the ambiguous ending. It's abrupt and it's not quite happy. I can't write about it without spoiling the end, so I'll refrain. I recommend it. It's a successful early Wyler film.

I wasn't sure how I felt about L'Argent (1983) until the very end. The end is brilliant, among the best of anything I've seen all year. After watching the film, I watched a Cannes press conference from '83 featuring Bresson and the actors. I can't stress too much how much I loved seeing Bresson interact with his questioners. I have begun to hate seeing the same faces, the same 'actors', and I yearn for Bresson's 'models' more and more. Today, I saw a trailer for a new film featuring Tilda Swinton. It's clear to me that she has become a parody of herself, maybe in the Nicholas Cage phase of her career. I'm not entirely anti-actor, but I no longer want to see the same dozens of faces repeatedly.

I re-watched The House That Jack Built. I wrote a thing about it.

A Nos Amours. So frustrating. I hate it. I might even hate Maurice Pialat, dead for twenty years. I was on the fence, sometimes appreciating it, sometimes convinced that it was simply artsy child pornography (and not sure why the film isn't illegal). The dinner party at the end is the best part of the film... and the worst (or maybe the bus scene is truly the worst). It was during the credits that I understood that Pialat himself played the father. That's when I hated the film, and hated Pialat. The entire film feels like an apologetic for Pialat's lifetime of infidelity.

I'm against seeing Barbie. I'm done seeing films based on toys.

I'm against seeing Oppenheimer. I'm done seeing films directed by Nolan.

Yet I still needed to get out to a cinema and see a film. Enter Talk to Me. All I knew about it was the Fandango synopsis: "When a group of friends discover how to conjure spirits using an embalmed hand, they become hooked on the new thrill, until one of them goes too far and unleashes terrifying supernatural forces." I don't know, but that's a great synopsis. The film itself wasn't great. There were moments of genuine horror that I won't spoil. Unfortunately, the film doesn't fully commit, ending with a gimmick ending instead of going all-in on the truly horrific. I'm tired of horror films hedging their bets. Great horror films are few and far between. Talk to Me is not one of them. 

What about TV Club?

I watched a couple of episodes of Twilight Zone Season 2. "The Man in the Bottle." "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room." Not great, but solid.

I also re-watched the first episode of Tsuritama, an anime series that I enjoyed ten years ago. I'm going to keep re-watching. I think it holds up. It's the story of an unlikely group of friends who find meaning in their lives through fishing.

Zom 100 is my favorite new show of the moment. It's got a great premise (the zombie apocalypse is a good thing) and it's visually striking. It's the best recent anime that I've seen, without any real competition. I'm also loving that I'm watching it as it's released week to week. The end of Better Call Saul left a hole in my TV entertainment. I briefly filled that hole with Tulsa King, which was a guilty pleasure. Zom 100 is also a bit of a guilty pleasure, but so far, I love how it leans into its ridiculous premise. The execution each episode has been well done.

I've also watched half a dozen or so episodes of Bluey, which is maybe the best kid show I've seen in a long while. 

Speaking of kid shows, I'm usually watching old 70s or 80s episodes of Sesame Street at least a couple of times a month with the kids.