1st David Cronenberg (followed by Dead Ringers, The Dead Zone, The Fly, Videodrome, Fast Company, Shivers, The Brood, Crimes of the Future, Stereo and Secret Weapons)
In the most Ethan move possible, I have spent my birthday working. Yes, the 4th of February this year marks my 25th birthday. But it's a weekday, and a weekday to me means work (if I'm not massively depressed), so it was time to continue my research for the Cronenberg presentation in April. Today,…
1st Wachowskis (followed by The Matrix and Cloud Atlas)
Watching this with a friend after more than ten years away, it's impossible to to underestimate how important this was for me as a kid. As I've mentioned many many times, I am a diehard car fan. It was my first true passion as a misfit child, perhaps because cars aren't complex beings like people. They are technical but not emotional; you push a button and you know what it does.…
31st Hitchcock Film
Far better than history would have judged it, Secret Agent has fallen into the shadow of its immediate predecessor, The 39 Steps, a film I care very little for. It also falls before what I think of as Hitchcock's British masterpiece, Sabotage, to its terrible luck. There are a number of real problems with Secret Agent, chiefly John Gielgud. Unnerved by Hitchcock's lack of interest in actors, he gives a stiff performance that is entirely unbelievable, though…
1st Steve McQueen
Been meaning to get around to Small Axe, especially considering it was rated so highly in the BFI's end of 2020 poll. Since Lovers Rock was top overall, I decided to start here and bounce around to which ones seemed to interest me most, as is my way with anything loose and anthology style. Did I miss things? Probably, but the fun will come in tying the elements together. In any case, Lovers Rock deserves the top…
3rd Jacques Tati (after Mon Oncle and Jour de Fête)
How appropriate that a filmmaker who started his feature film career with him riding a bicycle into shot would end with a film about endless gridlock. Tati's late career found him at complete odds with the technological world of the late 60s and early 70s, a fact he chose to lean into heavily in Playtime, and that bemusement is strong here at the world Hulot has somehow found himself in.…
3rd Karel Reisz (after Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Night Must Fall)
This came up on UC this Monday, so I thought 'what better way to consolidate my knowledge than by watching an adaptation?'. My reading around the subject suggests that maybe it was a bad idea to adapt the book in the first place. Seen as one of the archetypal postmodern novels, it's full of ironic allusions to classic Victorian novels and asides to developments in 19th century…
