Who's Getting Safe in August? We All Are!

I don't mean to besmirch the rest of Criterion's just today announced line-up for August 2026 but when the headliner is Todd Haynes' 1995 masterpiece Safe getting a 4K upgrade I'm going to be somewhat hyper-focused. Haynes has several masterpieces under his belt but I'd say this is the crown-jewel -- or to continue the belt metaphor this would be the buckle. And now I need to own a belt buckle that has that famous image from the poster of that woman in her white body-suit lurching like Bigfoot through a field. (Which reminds me that I own a copy of the original Safe poster and how the hell is that not hanging on my wall?) Anyway I couldn't cough up enough superlatives about this movie -- I think it's one of the greatest American films ever made, and it only feels more resonant and affecting with every year that passes. While I'm still dying for Velvet Goldmine to get an upgrade already -- long long long overdue, that one -- the ocassion of Safe in 4K is a hallelujah moment if ever there was one. That lands on August 4th.

Safe aside August will also bring a double-feature of Barbara Kopple documentaries -- her most celerated one Harlan County USA from 1976 is getting the 4K upgrade from a previous release, while 1990's American Dream, about a labor strike in Austin in the mid0-80s is hitting the Collection for the first time. I've never seen the latter so that'll be something to look forward to. 

Next up is French legend Bertrand Tavernier's 1981 classic Coup de torchon starring Isabelle Huppert in a Jim Thompson adaptation about a corrupt cop in West Africa and the dangerous and unprectiable gal he falls for. "Dangerous and Unpredictable" -- has there ever been  a quicker distillation of The Whole Huppert Thing? After that there's James Gray's directorial debut Little Odessa from 1994 -- I have never seen this! Could this be the movie that convinces me James Gray deserves the hype people throw on him? Because I have yet to really get it. With a cast that includes Tim Roth, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximillian Schell, and Edward Furlong... uhh I don't know where I was going with that. With every name that list of names got weirder and weirder and threw me off. Anyway the final August release from our favorite physical media barons is a box-set of documentaries from the Japanese legends Kazuo Hara & Sachiko Kobayashi -- Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 and The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On have both been on my To Watch list for years and years so I embrace this golden opportunity to fill them holes. In summation -- SAFE IN 4K!!!!!!

Pics of the Day

I know it's unsporting of me to be such a little bitch about it but looking at the Cannes line-up every year depresses me, knowing I will never go to there, and so often I just ignore it totally. I mostly like to know about the movies that are right in front of me, ready for consumption, because I am desperately impatient and also -- once I know what the movies are I try to immediately forget everything I know so when I do sit down to watch them I can see them with the freshest eyes possible. It's not the wisest way to play things for a person who's posting about movies all day every day but I don't think any of you picture me first, second, or five-hundredth when the word "wise" comes up. 

Anyway! The Cannes 2026 line-up did indeed drop today and I couldn't help myself for some reason this year, I looked. And now I'm annoyed. But a couple of images from this year's line-up grabbed my eye and felt like they deserved a post, and here we are -- up top that's the first image of Rami Malek in Ira Sachs' new movie, an 80s-set musical called The Man I Love that is about the AIDS epidemic. Ira Sachs has never made a movie I haven't liked and he's given me no reason to date to not trust him but my god that Team-America-adjacent description, and the fact that the movie stars the man who spat on Freddie Mercury's memory and was handed an Oscar for it in turn, gives me some pause! But I want it to be good so I'll shut up. And then down below is a shot of Exxxtreme Frenchies Vincent Cassel & Pierre Niney in Asghar Farhadi's new film Parallel Tales, which also stars the extraordinary gallic triumverate of Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Efira, and one Catherine fuckin' Deneuve. High hopes, then! We'll pretend we're not filled with hate and just be hopeful. What from the line-up grabbed your eye? 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from: 

Amour (2012)

Georges: In the courtyard of the house where grandma lived, there was a young guy at the window who asked me where I'd been. He was a couple of years older than me, a braggart who really impressed me. "To the movies," I said, because I was proud that my grandma had given me the money to go all alone to the cinema. "What did you see?" I started to tell him the story of the movie, and as I did, all the emotion came back. I didn't want to cry in front of the boy, but it was impossible; there I was, crying out loud in the courtyard, and I told him the whole drama to the bitter end. 

Anne: So? How did he react? 

Georges: No idea. He probably found it amusing. I don't remember. I don't remember the film either. But I remember the feeling. That I was ashamed of crying, but that telling him the story made all my feelings and tears come back, almost more powerfully than when I was actually watching the film, and that I just couldn't stop.

A happy 84th birthday to the legendary director Michael Haneke today. In the spirit of Amour, a film about death, I'll admit here (and hopfully writing this out won't be some sort of horrible jinx) that I've come to terms with the assumption, over the course of the nine years since Haneke's previous film Happy End was released, that Michael Haneke probably isn't making any more movies. I might have kept holding out hope but then that great big boxed-set of his movies got released last year -- I pre-ordered the minute it was announced, only to get an email a few months later that the set was being delayed because Haneke, who was being very hands on with it, was insisting that the previously-missing Happy End make it onto the set.  That immediately read to me that he was seeing the set as a culmination -- a finality. I'd love to be proven wrong but it's been nine years and the man is 84. And also Isabelle Huppert said as much a couple of years ago. Truth be told the one-two punch of Amour and Happy End is a killer way to cap off his career. But if he wants to come back swinging, we're ready and we'll shoot through the moon with enthusiasm about it. For now I just hope he's enjoying life. Thanks for the movies, good sir. 

Pic of the Day

I am shocked and horrified to realize I never did a post on this movie when it was first announced -- I vividly remember hearing about it happening so I know I knew about it (you never know) but somehow that never translated into me sitting down here and writing something and for that I ask your forgiveness. Because not only (as seen above in the first image, via) is Isabelle Huppert starring as the real-life imfamous historical figure the Countess Elizabeth Bathory, whose legend has it that she's bathe herself in virgin's blood to keep her youth thereby inspiring a thousand lesbian vampire movies in the process (plus that scene with Heather Matarazzo in Hostel Part II, we shan't forget that). But Huppert s playing Bathory for the avant-garde German filmmaking legend (and compatriot of Fassbinder) Ulrike Ottinger, the woman who directed, among many, Freak Orlando and (my favorite) Ticket of No Return. 

Ten minutes into Ulrike Ottinger’s TICKET OF NO RETURN on @criterionchannl and I am already in love - this is my first Ottinger and I had a feeling she’d be my kinda people - feels like Tati Meets Fassbinder shot by Guy Bourdin (swoon) pic.twitter.com/77Do8H4FO9

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 28, 2021

Ottinger's movies are kind of difficult to see -- there was a traveling show of them several years back and they pop up on Criterion every so often, but the only way to buy physical media versions are via her own website. Which on the one hand I applaud -- make your money and keep ownership of your own work, queen! But they're not cheap and I think it'd do her so good to loosen the grip just a little bit. (At least put together a box-set!) Maybe this new movie starring a legit movie star in a tailor-made role will put this iconoclast's name in big bright lights where it belongs. I mean if Bloody Disgusting is reporting on one of Ottinger's movies then she's very much moving in that direction. Speaking of they've got the plot details and what not so click over if you need those -- it is an original spin but we'd expect no less. No word on a release yet for The Blood Countess, but we'll keep watching! And maybe we'll just re-watch Daughters of Darkness to keep ourselves flush-cheeked and ready... 

Quote of the Day

This one demands a bit of set-up first -- Interview Magazine had Anora star Mikey Madison (seen above) chat with the French legend Isabelle Huppert in its new issue about Sean Baker's film, which Huppert was bowled over by when she saw it at Cannes (where it won the top prize) -- so far so cool. But since it's Isabelle Huppert and she's got the gravitational force of a black hole (I mean this as a compliment to Isabelle obviously) the high point of the interview, for me, was this nonsensical exchange between the two actresses:

MADISON: I want to apologize in advance if you hear barking or whining in the background. I just got a new puppy. 

HUPPERT: What’s his name? 

MADISON: His name is Jam. 

HUPPERT: James? 

MADISON: Jam. I have a cat named Biscuit, so I decided to call him Jam. 

HUPPERT: Jam, like jam? 

MADISON: Yes, like what you put on biscuits and bread. 

HUPPERT: I have a new cat myself that I’m completely in love with. 

MADISON: What’s his or her name? 

HUPPERT: Her name is very, very complicated. That’s the only bad thing about the cat. I don’t even call her because the name is unsayable, actually, so I say, “My love.”

The way Huppert can't comprehend the name "Jam" only to reveal that her cat's name is so complicated as to be literally "unsayable" is the funniest fucking thing I will see this week -- we might as well go home, this is the high point. Bless you, La Huppert!

Isabelle Huppert’s cat when you ask her name https://t.co/sc1yaehBkS pic.twitter.com/FlvPi6UN8z

— Gentleman Doofus (@GentleDoofus) October 21, 2024

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

La Cérémonie (1995)

Jeanne: They're pathetic. What do they know? They've got it all. Their biggest worry is what color car to buy. Or which cousin stole half the inheritance. I'd be happy with a tenth of what they have. I'd have the life I wanted, instead of just the opposite.

It's a top shelf day for Criterion releases -- I already told you earlier that one of this year's finest films The Eight Mountains is hitting blu today. But that's not all! This 1995 Claude Chabrol masterpiece quoted above is also "entering the collection." (Sidenote: that phrase has begun to sound so provocotive to me. "Entering the collection." I'll enter your collection, et cetera.) Unbelievably I'd never seen it until about a week and a half ago when my review copy of Criterion's disc came in and HOLY SHIT. This movie is a banger. It's one of Isabelle Huppert's greatest performances up in here, and a horror show that totally sneaks up on you like nothing else I've ever seen. 

It is tempting to compare this to Michael Haneke's Funny Games, which came out two years later -- indeed I wonder what people who saw La Cérémonie first thought of the comparison. I'd hesitate to guess they found Haneke's take a bit histrionic in comparison (and I say that with love -- "histrionic" isn't a bad angle for the material.) But the poison of Chabrol's film, subtle and insidious, is deeply unsettling in its own special way. Anyway this movie is very much recommended to those of you who've never seen it! And if you have seen it tell me your thoughts in the comments, please.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Double Lover (2017)

Paul: Whoever desires without acting produces decay.

Jeez what a line of dialogue. Perfectly purple prose for a perfectly purple movie. I gotta re-watch Double Lover again soon -- just superbly classy trash. Excellent work from our birthday boy Mr. François Ozon who's turning 56 today! Happy day, Ozon! And this presents us with the perfect excuse to share the trailer for his next movie -- The Crime Is Mine stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Rebecca Marder, and Isabelle f'ing Huppert, and it's being released here in the U.S. on Christmas Day. It's a 1930s-set screwball comedy about an actress pretending she murdered a creepy producer just for the tabloid infamy it grants her.

The Mean Streets of Heaven

Once again sneaking up on me since time has lost all meaning or whatever -- Happy Criterion Day! Every months' middle is devoted to Criterion announcing their release slate three months ahead, and so here today on August 15th we're given the titles they will be releasing come November. First up is a movie I have never seen before but always wanted to -- Claude Chabrol's 1995 thriller La cérémonie starring Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Bonnaire. Huppert won a Cesar for her performance, which sees her and Bonnaire's sudden unexpected friendship going, and I quote them, "haywire." And who does haywire better than Huppert, I ask you? This one, a new 4K restoration, hits on November 21st -- pre-order it here. 

Next up is a 4K restoration of Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, which... wanna hear something insane? I have never seen Mean Streets. I have seen pieces of Mean Streets, but I have never sat and watched it from start to finish. I have been saving it for.... I don't know, the right time. I know I'll watch it some time. I suppose this new blu-ray is a good time, at last? It's also out on November 21st -- pick it up right here. Lots of people watching some crazy shit this Thanksgiving, I guess!

Next up a pair of masterpieces that I have actually seen, huzzah! Both The Last Picture Show and Days of Heaven are getting 4K upgrades -- and seeing as how these are two of the most gorgeous movies ever directed that's something to properly celebrate. Also Picture Show has only ever been released in that America: Lost And Found boxed-set of theirs which also included Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider and several other great films of that time period -- I know because I bought that set just to have Picture Show last year. Sigh! Days hits on November 14th, pre-order it here, and  Picture Show is also on the 14th -- get it right here. 

And finally -- Criterion is dropping a great big Jackie Chan boxed-set! Dropping on November 7th (buy it here) "Emergence of a Superstar" gathers up six of Chan's early films, from 1978 to 1985, including Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, Spiritual Kung Fu, Fearless Hyena I and II, The Young Master, and My Lucky Stars. I admit I'm not the audience for this set -- wacky kung-fu hijinks aren't really my bag. I've had Chan's Police Story set of movies from Criterion for months and not gotten around to them yet. But I'm sure plenty of people will be very excited for this and I am excited for them!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Elle (2016)

Michèle: I'm very sorry for all you've been through.

Rebecca: Fortunately, I have faith. What's it for

if not to get through tough times.

An incredibly super duper happy 46th birthday to the actress Virginie Efira, who's managed to skyrocket to the ranks of one of our favorite working actresses in the six years since the movie quoted above. It wasn't that movie that did it -- that movie was obviously Huppert's show and then some (here's my review), although Efira did leave a mark in that scene (one that actually changed the way I viewed the entire movie). But no it was the next movie that Verhoeven made with her that did it -- Benedetta, glorious Benedetta (my review), which of course starred Efira as a lesbian nun who goes mad with holiness, of several different sorts. 

What a picture!!! But as revelatory an experience as that film was Efira's has proved herself as much if not even more formidable elsewhere -- she's tremendous in the 2019 movie Sibyl, which I reviewed during that year's NYFF right here. That was how I knew she'd kill it in Benedetta -- and sure enough!

And then I saw her in two films in the past year which have proven beyond any shadow she's the real f'ing deal -- I haven't written properly about Other People's Children (it just got released a few weeks ago here) but our pal Cláudio did at The Film Experience and I underline everything he says about it. Click that link and read.

I did not have anything near enough time to review the also-out-this-week OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN (which I saw at Sundance) but go see it, see it, SEE IT! Virginie Efira is a MARVEL, truly one of our best working today. An unforgettable heartbreaker, this one @musicboxfilms pic.twitter.com/LGajocQHk8

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 21, 2023

And then there's Revoir Paris from director Alice Winocour, which I saw at my beloved annual "Rendez-vous with French Cinema" series here in NYC at Film at Lincoln Center back in March -- Efira is once again phenomenal, this time as a woman who survives a mass shooting and falls apart as she can't remember what happened in the aftermath. It's a perfect companion piece to Winocour's film Disorder with Matthias Schoenaerts (reviewed here); they'd make a great double-feature actually, both being about people manifesting their reactions to trauma in experiential, outward ways.

Anyway Revoir Paris is being released here in the U.S. on June 23rd in New York and then in L.A. the next week, with a wider roll-out to follow planned, and we very much recommend seeking it out. We very much recommend seeking out all of the movies I have mentioned here, all because of the magnificent Efira. Here's the trailer:

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

Amateur (1994)

Listen. If Isabelle Huppert suddenly popped up in front of me wearing a leather slicker and wielding a power-drill I would probably throw myself out of the window too. When I saw this scene last night for the first time while watching Hal Hartley's dryly comic noir, which feels beamed in from another galaxy in the same way that every Hal Hartley movie I have ever seen feels beamed in from another galaxy, I turned to my boyfriend and said that Isabelle Huppert wielding a power-drill might be the scariest image I have ever seen on-screen. And I have seen some shit, believe you me. And the character she's playing here is far from the terrors she's given life to in other movies -- her character is kind of sweet and innocent in this movie, even as she annoys her neighbors by reading porn loudly in diners. But it's still Isabelle Huppert wielding a power-drill when it comes down to it. And that shit's scary. It's a big enough image to've made it onto the poster!

Of courser that image gives you ideas that this will be the "Isabelle Huppert remakes Takashi Miike's Audition" movie of your dreams, which it seriously is not, alas. As you can tell by the goofiness captured up top, when the power-drill wielding does finally occur and all that happens is the dude flops out an open window. That said I dug Amateur -- it's very very funny if you're at all able to get onto Hartley's weird wavelength. (It's streaming right now as part of Criterion's new Huppert Collection, which is a marvel top to bottom.) And Parker Posey pops up for two minutes and steals the whole movie from everybody, as has always been her way. 

Anyway I'm excited to see that Hartley is working on a new movie -- it's been far too long. (Did anybody watch Red oaks, the Amazon series he directed several episodes of? I did not.) The new movie is called Where to Land and here is how IMDb is describing it:

"Joseph Fulton, a famous director, wants to work at a cemetery. Meanwhile, he has his last will and testament drawn up. His girlfriend thinks he's dying. Rumor spreads and soon everyone he knows gathers to say their last farewells."

Let's all form a prayer circle that the lead female role goes to Parker! A Hartley movie without her still never feels right, no matter how many times it happens. Hit the jump for links to all of the previous "Ways Not To Die"...

Four Flies on Isabelle Huppert

Okay first things first where has that photo of Isabelle Huppert wearing a Jaws tank-top been my entire life??? I want to make myself a t-shirt that has that photo on it, that is how much I love that. Second things second -- have y'all heard the news that Huppert is supposedly going to star in Dario Argento's next movie? That's according to Dario, who said so at the Stiges Film Fest where they're screening his latest giallo film Dark Glasses -- I briefly reviewed DG at Fantasia in August, read my thoughts right here. It's a little goofy but it's by far Argento's best film in literal decades, so this news about Huppert hits me in a mood more inclined to believe this could be incredible than I might have before when he'd only had a steady string of hard flops behind him. Not that Huppert is capable of being anything but fascinating on-screen -- even in bad movies she's always riveting. But let's hope this one (which we have no information on yet) works! That would be nice for Argento, it'd be nice for Huppert, and it would be nice for me personally, which is the most important factor of all. Anyway in related news Dark Glasses is playing a few theaters right now (including the IFC Center here in NYC) and it's hitting Shudder this Thursday -- here's the trailer: 

Bravo For Going Places!

Last March I posted about the movie Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris for the first time by sharing a heap of gratuitous photos of the gorgeous French actor Lucas Bravo, who'd just been cast in the film opposite Lesley Manville and Isabelle Huppert. Well Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is out this weekend, and I shall celebrate this fact by sharing another heap of gratuitous photos of the gorgeous French actor Lucas Bravo! They should release Mrs. Harris Goes to Parises more often!

(pics via) I joke, but it's actually possible since it's based on a book series -- turns out that Mrs. Harris went to a bunch of places. And the movie -- which I will have a review of up at Pajiba tomorrow (I will updates this post with a link when it's live) -- is actually a delight! And I'd go see every damn sequel. Not just because Lucas here is a dreamboat to stare at, but that sure don't hurt. 

Gawrsh he's pretty. And very charming in the movie too -- I kept thinking of him as a live-action version of Roger in 101 Dalmatians. Anyway these lovely photos are my goodbye to you until next week -- as previously foretold I'm visiting family and friends for my birthday this Friday, and won't be back to blogging here until Wednesday. Y'all keep safe and sane til then -- somehow! -- and see the eleven rest of the photos after the jump...

Bravo For This Movie

Well we've all got a Most Anticipated Movie to look forward to now -- it's called Mrs Harris Goes To Paris and it stars Phantom Thread queen Lesley Manville in the story of a 1950s British cleaning-lady named Ada Harris who scrubs and starves and saves her every penny in order to buy herself the Dior dress of her dreams. That, on its own, is the sort of 90s-sounding throwback movie we are always here for, so we're already sold -- especially with someone so talented as Manville getting a leading role -- but there's more. More! The film co-stars Isabelle Huppert! 

Deadline doesn't say who Huppert is playing -- something tells me she'll be a French person that Manville's character encounters during her quest for dress, though! -- so I checked IMDb and got confused for a second because they list Huppert's character as "Claudine Colbert" and I was like, wait, is she playing the famous 1930s actress? But that's Claudette Colbert. Not Claudine. Right? I know Claudette Colbert was actually French. Intriguing! Has anybody read Paul Gallico's original 1958 novella on which the film will be based? I guess it's been adapted twice before, in the 1950s and the 1990s. 

Anyway as seen above by that production still the film's already been filmed, and besides those two legends already mentioned the cast includes Jason Isaacs, Lambert Wilson, and saving the hottest-for-last some hottie who's apparently on Emily in Paris (shocker I do not watch Emily in Paris) called Lucas Bravo. And, uhh...

... holy hell, Lucas Bravo! Where has Lucas Bravo been all my life? Why didn't any of you tell me about Lucas Bravo??? Well now I know I guess, and I've got a couple dozen Lucas Bravo photos for us all to share in the wealth of that knowledge right here after the jump...

5 Off My Head: Quarantine Watches

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One of the things that fell by the wayside over these past few strange weeks was my updating of the site's right-hand column where I list the things I have recently watched -- ohh I been watching shit, have I ever. I just hadn't sat down and updated that and that is a problem that multiplies with time, as the list grows longer and the work gets heftier... anyway point is I finally updated it today because I wanted to do this.

What is this, you ask? Besides another example of me jerking myself off (verbally, of course) for an entire paragraph? This is, or is about to be, a list of the best things I have watched so far during these here Quarantine Days. Last week I asked y'all what you have been watching and I got  ton of lovely and appreciated replies, with plenty of suggestions that've been added to my own future-viewings list -- now tis my turn. Here are the five best new-to-me things I have watched over the past 33 days and counting.

The 5 Best Quarantine First-Time Watches

Tales From the Loop -- I have been singing this Amazon Prime series' praises every chance I get on Twitter but inexplicably I have not taken a moment for it here on the site proper (not since the show was first announced way back when anyway) so let me make this clear: Tales From the Loop is my new everything. I've watched it twice now, some episodes three times, and the last time I've done that with a TV show... well in this amount of time I don't know that I have ever done that with a TV show. 

If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about Tales From the Loop is a low-fi sci-fi series produced by Matt "all those Apes movies" Reeves and Mark "Never Let Me Go" Romanek that was inspired by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag's paintings (one seen above) of giant sad robots standing in prairies and the like. (And yes I am indeed pissed off I didn't buy a copy of his books when I first heard about this series because now they're worth way more money.) The show stars Rebecca Hall and Paul Schneider and Jonathan Pryce and Jane Alexander and lots more people whose names you might not recognize, and it set in a small town in maybe the 1980s -- they never really say and there are technological things that situate it in maybe an alternate timeline than our own. Like giant sad robots, and such. The feeling is Spielbergian melancholy.

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Ohhh the wonderful sixth episode of #TalesFromTheLoop (pointedly directed by The One I Love director Charlie McDowell) has EVERYTHING -- parallel dimensions, gay stuff, Jon Kortajarena in a towel, more gay stuff, woodpeckers pic.twitter.com/JPHhBaoti2

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 5, 2020

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Emphasis on melancholy. This show is slow (which will bug some people, but is something I love at least when it's done right), and quiet, and very very sad. Kind of Black Mirror every episode centers on a different character in the town coming into contact with a different piece of abandoned technology, and how that interaction spins out -- there is a floating tractor that switches dimensions (in maybe my favorite episode, the gay sixth one with Jon Kortajarena). Unlike Black Mirror most of these characters are interconnected, and their stories all overlap with one another -- the show really rewards re-watches because a person in the background of one episode suddenly gets their own story later on that makes sense of their earlier interactions... 

I didn't mean to write this much about one entry in this list but I could go on and on and on about Tales From the Loop -- this is a five-star recommendation from yours truly. I adore this show, every frame of it, and hope y'all do too. It carried me away from our terrifying real world situation like nothing else has, and like all you hope a piece of entertainment might when trundling in and spending your time somewhere. A wonderful perfect little sad world I love with all my clicking clanking robot heart. Go watch it and report back!

Crip Camp -- This doc has been on Netflix for a few weeks, I hope y'all have had a chance to watch it by now, but if not, do. It tells the story of how a summer camp for disabled kids during the summer of Woodstock led to its own parallel revolution for disabled rights -- how once those kids got a taste of what it meant to be treated with respect and to not be alone in the world there was no going back. It's deeply moving and inspiring stuff, and if that all sounds heady or heavy let me tell you it's also really very funny too.

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Giving today over to Sergei Bondarchuk’s seven hour War and Peace pic.twitter.com/QgxDwpEijr

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 17, 2020

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War & Peace -- Sergey Bondarchuk's epic and I do mean epic 1966 miniseries adaptation of Tolstoy's epic and I do mean epic book got a much deserved hyper-fancy restoration from Janus Films and Criterion last year, and it played some theaters before getting the Criterion blu-ray treatment and I meant so very much to see it, time and time again, but... that sumbitch is over seven hours long! Let me sit you kiddies down and tell you a story -- once upon a time in a kingdom far far away people were busy with these things called "going places" and "doing things." I didn't have time for a seven hour Russian miniseries!
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Finishing the final part this AM because last night the bf demanded the TV back from my sloth-fest yesterday; nothing like a little "The Burning of Moscow" the start a day out right amirite (This movie's so epic it makes Gone With the Wind look like Gone With the Slight Draft) pic.twitter.com/pVsN55jVkJ

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 18, 2020

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In March of 2020 however, let's just say... I did. I do, and I did, and I am glad I did, because this is one epic that lives up to epic, and one War and Peace that lives up to its title. There is War, there is Peace, and there is everything that that "and" in the middle implies. I really intend to do a post of its own on this film though, there's enough to talk about with it, so let's... wait and see if that happens. Or if I watch Starship Troopers again. Who can tell! How exciting!

Heaven's Gate -- Like War and Peace this was another one that kept falling through the cracks due to ye olden time constraints -- Michael Camino's infamous 1980 disaster, which bankrupted a studio and ruined his career, runs just under four hours long. And more than W&P I felt the sit of this one at times -- there are scenes, hell maybe even entire arcs, that feel excessive while you're sitting through them.
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Oh my goodness why didn't any of you ever tell me about Jeff Bridges whole thing in Heaven's Gate -- THIS is the 2020 look pic.twitter.com/fYkyESph1f

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 27, 2020

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But that excess, that cumulative effect, does really stun in the last stretch -- this thing is a hell of a downer, but I was deeply moved by what ultimately becomes a monument to life's pointlessness, to man's indifference. Is that really the Mood one wants to soak one's self in during the Current State of The World? Perhaps not! But it hits its mark with a punch square in the plexus.

From Beyond -- Honestly I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this one... but we're all friends here right? You'd never judge me. So here, among friends, I will now admit that I have for all these years thought that I had seen Stuart Gordon's 1986 Lovecraft adaptation starring his favorite gruesome two-some of Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, and then Stuart Gordon died and I had myself a little mini-fest of his movies (also seen: Dolls for the 50th time, and Castle Freak for the first... which I also recommend for those with stronger stomachs anyway) and I realized ten minutes into From Beyond that holy squids from hell I ain't never seen none of this glorious pink-tinted gibberish before!

No I don't know how that is -- perhaps a slimy sex-monster from a hell dimension slithered into this one and sucked that part of my brain out lasciviously through my ear cavity -- whatever the case I was delighted by what I saw, absolutely delighted. It's perverse and disgusting and offensive and funny as a three foot dick; I loved every single inch.

Runners-up: The Platform on Netflix

Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini, 1965)

A Cold Wind in August (1961)

Jeanne (Bruno Dumont, 2019)

Home For the Holidays (1972)

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If you didn't share in that earlier post I referenced at the start please share with me here in the comments what you've been watching and loving! Or tell me your thoughts on the above things I just talked about! Whatever! Just talk to me, pretty please.

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