movies | Rtm - Part 8

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my year in movies, 2015.

By Scott • On 2016-01-05 • In 2015, another day. another movie., lists of 2015, movies, scott • 2 min read

Every year I share the list of every movie I watched. Many years, it’s with a bunch of other lists I make of all sorts of favorite things and whatnot. We’ll see if that happens this year, but at the very least, here is my 2015 in movies.

125 is better than last year’s 105, but I really miss the days when 200 movies a year was the minimum. Anyway, on with the list!

The key is mostly the same as always:
(#) Movie I saw in the theater.
[#] Movie I saw for the first time.
E# Movies I watched with Emily.
Favorites (These underlined films cannot be movies I saw this year for the first time, they have to be movies that have been able to stand up after at least one repeated viewing.)
*Best movies I’d never seen before. (It doesn’t matter when these movies came out, I saw them for the first time this year, and they were awesome.)
Halloween Movie Fest.

1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – E1
2. The Imitation Game [1] (1) E2
3. The Guardians of the Galaxy
*4. Persepolis [2]
5. The Guardians of the Galaxy – E3
6. The Grand Budapest Hotel
*7. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes [3]
8. Horns [4]
*9. Birdman (or, The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) [5] (2) E4
10. What If [6] E5
*11. Calvary [7]

12. The Equalizer [8]
13. Captain America: The Winter Soldier – E5
14. Arbitrage [9]
*15. Whiplash [10] E6
16. John Wick [11]
17. The Trip to Italy [12] E7
18. eXistenZ [13]
19. They Came Together [14] E8
*20. Kingsman: The Secret Service [15] (3) E9
21. Gone Girl [16] E10
22. St. Vincent [17] E11
*23. Frank [18]
24. The History of Future Folk [19]
*25. The One I Love [20]
*26. Paris, Texas [21]

27. The Double [22]
*28. Throne of Blood (Kumonosu-jô) [23]
*29. The Silence (Das letzte Schweigen) [24]
30. Nightcrawler [25]
*31. Housebound [26]
*32. Top Five [27] E12
33. Shadow of the Vampire [28]
*34. 13 Assassins (Jûsan-nin no shikaku) [29]
35. The Boxtrolls [30] E13
36. Hot Fuzz
37. John Dies In the End [31]
38. The World’s End
39. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug [32]
40. Girl Most Likely [33]
41. Shut Up and Play the Hits [34]
*42. What We Do in the Shadows [35] (4)

43. Avengers: Age of Ultron [36] (5)
44. Avengers: Age of Ultron (6) E14
*45. Brooklyn Castle [37] E15
46. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World [38]
47. Natural Born Killers [39]
48. Now You See Me [40] E16
*49. Fury [41]
50. Pitch Perfect 2 [42] (7) E17
*51. Mad Max: Fury Road [43] (8)
*52. Ex Machina [44] (9)
53. Zoolander
54. Star Wars – E18
*55. Inherent Vice [45]
56. A Fantastic Fear of Everything [46]
57. Spy [47] (10) E19
58. Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief [48] E20
59. High-Fidelity E21

*60. Inside Out [49] E22
61. Wet Hot American Summer – E23
*62. Dope [50] (11) E24
63. Ant-Man [51] (12) E25
64. Say Anything… – E26
65. Slow West [52]
66. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation [53] (13) E27
67. The Guest [54]
68. Hurricane of Fun: The Making of Wet Hot American Summer [55]
69. Theory of Everything [56] E28
70. The Crossing Guard [57]
71. Life of Crime [58]
72. 48 Hrs. [59]
73. Dear White People [60] E29
74. El secreto de sus ojos – E30

75. Hot Fuzz
76. Three Colors: Blue [61]
77. Best Exotic Marigold Hotel [62] E31
78. Creep [63]
79. The Skeleton Twins [64]
80. Harmontown [65]
*81. Life Itself [66] E32
82. The House of the Devil [67]
83. Magic Mike XXL [68] E33
*84. Kingsman: The Secret Service – E34
85. Dawn of the Dead *1978*
86. Day of the Dead [69]
87. The Martian [70] (14) E35
*88. The Haunting [71]
89. Pulse [72]
90. Byzantium [73]
91. The Empire Strikes Back – E36
*92. It Follows [74]

93. Pan’s Labyrinth – E37
94. The Devil’s Backbone
95. Witching and Bitching [75]
96. The Wicker Man *1973* [76]
97. Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead [77]
98. Frenzy [78]
*99. The Babadook [79]
100. Crimson Peak [80] (15)
101. The Blair Witch Project [81]
*102. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night [82]

103. Spirited Away – E38
104. Spectre [84] (16) E39
105. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 [85]
106. Seven Psychopaths
107. Better Living Through Chemistry [86]
108. People, Places, Things [87] E40
109. Jurassic World [88] E41
110. The Kings of Summer – E42
111. Rocky – E43
*112. Spotlight [89] (17) E44
113. Cop Car [90]
114. Return of the Jedi – E45
*115. Me and Early and the Dying Girl [91] E46

*116. What We Do In The Shadows
117. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. [92] E47
*118. The Tale of Princess Kaguya [93] E48
*119. Amarcord [94]
*120. The Force Awakens [95] (18) E49
121. Trainwreck [96] E50
122. A Very Murray Christmas [97] E51
*123. The End of the Tour [98] E52
124. Inglourious Basterds
*125. The Force Awakens – (19) E53

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david ehrlic’s favorite 25 films of 2015.

By Scott • On 2015-12-09 • In movies, scott • 1 min read

David Ehrlic’s annual video list of his favorite 25 films is becoming quite the exciting tradition. He’s great because his lists are provocative and eclectic, always bound to incite conversation or argument.

Our lists of favorite films always say more about ourselves than they do about the actual movies, and it is fun to see one cinephile edit his list together in an awesome video. I love the various yearly movie montages that pop up everywhere, and Ehrlic’s are always a cut above.

Also, this video was yet another reminder of how bad I’ve been at watching this year’s films.

Watch this! It begins with a larger montage of 2015 in general, and then gets on to the actual countdown.

THE 25 BEST FILMS OF 2015: A VIDEO COUNTDOWN from david Ehrlich on Vimeo.

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sleepy skunk’s 2015 movie mashup.

By Scott • On 2015-12-04 • In movies, scott, trailer park • 1 min read

It’s amazing with the number of shitty movies spliced in here that you can still make film look pretty damn cool. There are plenty of great 2015 films in here, too.

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captain america: civil war. [trailer park]

By Scott • On 2015-11-24 • In movies, nerd candy, scott, trailer park • 1 min read

The first trailer for Captain America: Civil War is here. Bonus: They show Black Panther in action in the very first trailer!

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every frame an inspiration.

By Scott • On 2015-11-04 • In movies, scott • 1 min read

Tony Zhou’s Every Frame a Painting is such a beautiful exercise in interaction with film. His language and style of film engagement is so solid that there have been no shortage of followers doing the same thing. We are all the richer for it. Here are two recent copycat videos that help remind me just how much I love films.

[via Kottke]

[via The Creators Project]

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the babadook, though! – halloween movie fest, 2015: nights 13 & 14.

By Scott • On 2015-10-27 • In another day. another movie., hmf '15, movies, scott • 5 min read

Okay, this is a little awkward pacing-wise. The posts were originally framed out into three parts. However, I had so much to say about The Babadook that I simply had to post one today to keep things a bit more manageable for readers. It reminds me of back when Another Day, Another Movie posts would actually be one per movie. Maybe with my getting back into a rhythm will return ADAM posts to their former glory.

Anyway, on with the movies.

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Night Thirteen: Frenzy

“You’re not wearing your tie.”

This Hitchcock thriller is horror in the loosest sense of the word. Featured on the They Shoot Zombies, Don’t They list of 1000 Greatest Horror films, this is the story of a sexual maniac serial killer before they were featured on sweeps week for every crime show on television… and there are somewhere around 25,625 of said shows currently on the air at last count.

Anyway, whatever genre you’re comfortable calling this movie, it sure is fucking beautifully filmed. This is Hitchcock’s second to last film, one of only two he did in the 70’s. It was strange seeing Hitchcock’s fingerprints all over a 70’s film. Hitch reveled a bit in the ability to take things much further in the climate of the decade than he could earlier in his career.

Apparently, Hitchcock had just had two duds critically and commercially that made people wonder if he’d just gotten too old and tired to perform cinematic magic anymore. Frenzy was almost universally seen as a return to form, and it’s easy to see why. As is always the case when he’s at his best, the entire movie is amazing to look at, but there are also several scenes that are so wonderfully crafted and executed that it literally makes me a little giddy just to watch. I love watching people do something they are great at, and no one has been better than Hitch.

I didn’t realize when I put the list together that this is the second film this year with a screenplay written by Anthony Shaffer (The Wicker Man). Just like The Wicker Man the screenplay is mostly enjoyable, but features some notable holes that were large enough to be a bit frustrating. Also, this movie had a strange, very old school British obsession with how terrible anything gourmet is (which includes scratch margaritas for some reason). It was used to color all the exposition scenes, but was distractingly small-minded.

Also of note, it’s amazing how much changed between the reception of Peeping Tom in 1960 and Frenzy in 1972. This went much, much further and was not decried as the downfall of Western civilization by critics like Peeping Tom was.

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Night Fourteen: The Babadook

“You can’t get rid of the Babadook.
I’ll wager with you
I’ll make you a bet.
The more you deny,
The stronger I get.
You start to change when I get in.
The Babadook growing right under your skin.“

Of the several films from this year’s list released over the last 18 months, this one had the most buzz and critical fanfare around it. A 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. 86 (Universal Acclaim) on Metacritic. Folks were not ambiguous in their feelings about this one. That can set up the potential for a huge disappointment, which is what happened for me when I watched The Conjuring last year. In the case of The Babadook, disappointment was the farthest thing from my reaction. I loved everything about this film, and in so many ways it exceeded my expectations.

First, a description, after that it will be spoiler time.

The story is about a widowed single mother trying to hold her life together while battling grief, loneliness, depression, anxiety, and intense insomnia. One night, when her son gets to pick the bedtime story he hands her a book called Mister Babadook. Things don’t go so well after that.

Non-spoiler praise: Jennifer Kent’s writing and direction are perfect, as are the set design and art direction. Also, Essie Davis’s performance is amazing. Most importantly, I saw The Babadook as an amazing metaphor about denial, grief, isolation, and mental illness.

It’s deeply sad and troubling, featuring some scenes that will bother you, especially if you don’t normally watch this genre. With that warning out of the way, I think people should see this film.

I struggle with the things depicted in The Babadook in my own life. I also grew up as a child with too many parallels to Samuel. The last time I felt this much deep internal connection between my own childhood and the thematic territory of a film was Where the Wild Things Are.

As such, this film was both difficult and therapeutic for me to watch.

Now it gets spoilery. I hope you’ll read it anyway, or even better, go watch the movie and then read it.

Primarily, this film is about the honesty and surrender necessary when dealing with grief, trauma, depression, etc. Since that is the primary issue I deal with in life, the dark heart of so much of my weakness and powerlessness and struggle, this film immediately feels close to my heart and life.

When I wrote about Pan’s Labyrinth earlier in the Fest, I mentioned that Story can collude with two different types of escape. There is the sort where we use Story as an escape from unchangeable circumstances, a reprieve into fantasy and imagination. Then there is the sort where Story collaborates with us in an escape in which we are actually able to flee mental prisons and thought patterns, to break out from the limitations of our own habits and assumptions that actually makes new things possible for us. I’m hoping that The Babadook can be another partner in crime for me in my escape past the walls and guards and barbed wire of my own mental landscape.

This metaphor is remarkably astute in my experience. Amelia won’t surrender to the reality of her grief and trauma, she keeps her memories locked away in the basement, she can’t bare to look directly at the darkness. Whenever we keep things in the shadows and closets of our lives they continue to grow scarier and darker, they emerge as shapeshifting black monsters that stalk and hound us, change us, isolate us, torture us, even make us dangerous to the ones we love.

Amelia’s shame keeps her isolated. It keeps her from differentiating from the vapid idiots who are incapable of empathizing with or hearing her at all from the people who genuinely care for her and want to help her.

The monster is always far scarier when we won’t look at it. The mental space it takes up as we try to pretend it isn’t there is far larger than the space it takes up when we face it.

Don’t deny the Babadook. We can’t get rid of it, we must learn to live with its presence. The task, and it is a considerable one, is to face it. There will be times we must rage against the Babadook, tell it how small it is. There will be times when we must make peace with it, feed it and calm it, shush it and tell it everything will be okay. These are the things Amelia is forced to do to save her son from the monster, and it is what we must do when we face these monsters of our own. It will always be scary to face, time will never remove all of its teeth and claws, it will always try to frighten and intimidate us. The filmmakers of The Babadook have created a totem we can use to steady us for carrying this burden, a burden which is always heavier when we resist it. I’m genuinely grateful for their work.

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halloween movie fest, 2015: nights 7-12.

By Scott • On 2015-10-26 • In another day. another movie., hmf '15, movies, nerd candy, scott, the revisitor, zombies • 6 min read

The second third of this year’s HMF was a mixed bag. A few underwhelming films, two favorites I was revisiting, a trendsetting classic in the horror genre, and a film that will become that in time. Let’s just get right to the films:

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Night Seven: It Follows

“It could look like someone you know or it could be a stranger in a crowd. Whatever helps it get close to you.”

It Follows is a really great movie. It is also one of those movies that may be impossible to talk about with folks who have never seen it before. For one, the film is pretty spoiler-friendly. If I explain anything about the premise to someone who hasn’t seen it, then I will ruin the early build of tension and strangeness. And two, the film doesn’t have a clear narrative point. It has a lot to say, but not in simple allegory. It Follows engages many ideas concerning sex, death, relationship, family, absentee parenting, and coming of age. Yet it doesn’t engage any of those ideas in a way that offers answers or morals, but instead insinuates mercurial questions and open-ended thoughts.

David Robert Mitchell has created a film that is moody, atmospheric, and wonderfully creepy. Also, Maika Monroe is fantastic as the terrorized lead, Jay.

This is a film that will be a genre classic, and I expect to see this referenced, honored, parodied, and copied in coming years.

Will I Ever Watch It Again? Yes. This feels like the sort of movie that can be watched again and again with varying takeaways and reactions every time.

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Night Eight: Pan’s Labyrinth

“Me? I’ve had so many names. Old names that only the wind and the trees can pronounce.
I am the mountain, the forest and the earth. I am… I am a faun. Your most humble servant, Your Highness.”

This was my third time watching Pan’s Labyrinth, but the first time in quite a while. The computer effects are certainly more dated now, but the film is still as darkly beautiful and moving as I remember it to be. This is Guillermo del Toro’s rendering of how story and imagination can sometimes be our only salve in a violent, often ugly world.

Escapism can get a bad rap when it comes to stories and art, but Pan’s Labyrinth illustrates the reality that sometimes escape into story is our only hope.

As Tolkien said about the scorn escapism faces: “Evidently, we are faced by a misuse of words, and also by a confusion of thought. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?”

The escape story offers can function in two possible ways. In some instances, it can actually help us escape from our prejudices, small-mindedness, fear, anxiety, etc. In others, we are powerless to change our circumstances, like Ofelia. Then, story and fantasy might be the most sane way to respond and keep hope burning in a hopeless situation. Story might not always save us, but it may be the only thing that makes the impending darkness bearable. Pan’s Labyrinth remains one of my two or three favorite artifacts of this idea.

Will I Ever Watch It Again? Obviously. Del Toro’s work is the sort that reminds me of the power of storytelling.

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Night Nine: The Devil’s Backbone

“What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber.”

Revisiting another del Toro film. I saw this for the first time during a previous HMF, which I wrote about here. The Devil’s Backbone is the lens through which I see del Toro’s work, as it’s an early film for him, it took him 16 years to develop, and he described it afterward as the first time he was fully satisfied with the final product of a film (which is in itself an amazing thing to say when your first feature length movie was fucking Cronos).

There are so many similarities between Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone, and I believe it is because they are the closest to the DNA of del Toro’s heart and his storytelling sensibilities. In both, we see the themes of violence, cruelty, power, innocence, gender, and humanity’s capacity for both monstrosity and beauty. In both we have scary supernatural elements that pale in comparison to the terror of what people are capable of doing to each other.

This time, rewatching both del Toro films, a primary thing that struck me was that each had a villain who was truly horrible, but complicated. Even though it doesn’t go into detail, each film’s villain had a rich subtext, the implication that a deep wound was the source of their ability to do evil things. It didn’t act as an apology or justification for their actions, but it made the characters richer and more satisfying. It made the fairly binary separation between good and evil in the films easier to buy into. The human ability to do monstrous things is so often rooted in our own fear and brokenness.

Whenever I rewatch things I previously loved I’m worried I’ll see new cracks or weaknesses that will ruin it for me, but I was happy to see that The Devil’s Backbone stands up as a beautifully crafted story and film.

Will I Ever Watch It Again? See above.

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Night Ten: Witching and Bitching

“What’s she doing with the broom?”

“Not sweeping up, that’s for sure.”

Witching and Bitching is a crazy film from Spain that I wish I liked more than I did. After a jewelry heist, some robbers and hostages are on the lam when they run afoul of some evil cannibal witches.

It’s really weird and original. It has a lot of enjoyable energy. At times it’s hard to tell if the film is sexist, or challenging sexism, which I think is actually a strength.

In the end the storytelling just gets a little too cartoony for me to keep enjoying it. For example, two characters fall in love because they need to for the filmmakers to make certain jokes and points, even though those characters had previously only been in the same room for maybe twenty minutes, none of which involved believable emotional connection.

Witching and Bitching felt to me like they ran with the kernel of a good idea with abandon, when they should have spent more time solidifying things early on. The energy and craziness were good, but without the needed foundation and structure that makes films like Shaun of the Dead or the original Dead Snow work so well.

Will I Ever Watch It Again? No, but I didn’t feel like once was a waste of time.

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Night Eleven: The Wicker Man [1973]

“Come. It is time to keep your appointment with the Wicker Man.”

The Wicker Man has been referred to as the Citizen Kane of horror films. Mostly, this is simply a hyperbolic way of praising it by comparing it to one of the few films that is always on the shortlist as greatest film of all time. However, there are ways this comparison is actually accurate. Citizen Kane set a new standard for visual storytelling, and The Wicker Man was a new way of making a horror film. Robin Hardy abandoned the horror sensibility of the time. Gone were the broad strokes and gaudy make-up and melodramatic overacting, replacing them with creepy subtlety and weirdness. The perfect microcosm of this is horror star Christopher Lee’s appearance as your friendly neighborhood cult leader.

The movie is definitely weird, for example it has a nude musical number by one character. It needs to be weird to throw the audience off balance along with the protagonist.

The plot definitely has a few major holes in it, and the main character is so hard to like that the stakes and danger never felt real to me. Yet, for the most part the film is still compellingly well-crafted in terms of visuals and atmosphere. From the slow burn of the film’s opening act to the impressive final shot, The Wicker Man is a solid movie that deserves its place in the cult film canon.

Will I Ever Watch It Again? Eventually. This will be a good one to revisit for film and genre study.

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Night Twelve: Dead Snow 2

“The operation was a success. We managed to put your arm right back on.”

Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead is so over the top and insane that it’s hard to fault it for being so empty and nonsensical. As a movie to watch with some friends to laugh at its ongoing self-aware absurdity it is worth the price of admission. However, it pales in comparison to Dead Snow and other similar films.

The movie revels in its over the top gore and cartoonish violence as much as the original, but it lacks all the internal logic and structure that made the first one so satisfying. The first film was full of fairly interesting characters, ultimately ill-fated but tough enough to be competent in a zombie fight, in part thanks to their film knowledge. The second film had mostly annoying characters who didn’t make much sense.

This was fun while it lasted, in the right context, but lacks all the craft of the first film.

Will I Ever Watch It Again? I’ll watch Dead Snow again, repeatedly. I imagine this will be my only viewing of Red vs. Dead.

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halloween movie fest, 2015: nights 1-6.

By Scott • On 2015-10-19 • In another day. another movie., hmf '15, movies, scott, zombies • 7 min read

And so it came to pass that the first six nights of Halloween Movie Fest 2015 were completed.

And it was good.

Far more than I’d expected or hoped, adding this structure back to my movie viewing habits has reminded me how much I love film. It’s hard to describe how one can forget that, especially someone like me, with a long track record of a passion for movies. I was genuinely wondering if I would ever get that old passion back. This last week, I’m remembering how life-giving film can be for me. The films themselves, along with going back through old iterations of Another Day, Another Movie, have stirred those embers, and it turns out there is still enough heat left to make fire.

I’m waking up, and HMF is playing no small part in that!

On with the movies:

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1. Night One: The House of the Devil

“After tonight, everything will be complete.”

The first film of this year’s HMF is Ti West’s 2009 homage to vintage horror movies. It succeeds by being such a perfect recreation of creepy, atmospheric devil worship films of the 70’s and 80’s. Yet, it doesn’t offer anything new or have anything interesting to say.

West’s joy at celebrating and recreating the styles, editing, cinematography, and stilted acting of late 70’s/early 80’s horror is contagious, but also instantly forgettable.

The House of the Devil is a slow build of menacing tension. Taking its cues from films like Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen, we find a story where the devil is real, and people do terrible things to follow his will.

I liked this film enough that it was worth a viewing, but it never becomes anything special. I wish that West would have done something different with the genre. In a world where films like Shaun of the Dead and Cabin in the Woods exist, a skillful homage to a beloved genre or sub-genre isn’t compelling without distinct style or the infusion of something new. West recreated the film styles he is celebrating perfectly, but never adds a voice of his own. The story also never gets particularly interesting, but is more paint by numbers devil worship yarn.

Will I Ever Watch It Again? I can’t imagine I will. There are just too many amazing films to revisit to waste time on the decent ones.

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2. Night Two: Dawn of the Dead [1978]

“Don’t do it until you’re sure I am coming back.
I’m gonna try not to… I’m gonna try not to come back.”

This is the one that really started it all. Sure, Romero created the genre in Night of the Living Dead in 1968, with flesh-eating corpses (Romero never called them zombies) rising from the grave in hordes to terrorize the world. Before that we had all the voodoo zombie films and Ed Wood’s 1959 “worst movie of all time,” Plan 9 From Outer Space, featuring corpses revived by aliens to take over the world (although they didn’t eat flesh). But it is this one, 1978’s Dawn of the Dead, that is responsible for the zombie DNA we know and love today.

I wrote about this one for HMF ’10, and I’m still just as impressed that Romero got so much right here that folks are still recreating scenes and moments from this film almost 40 years later.

It’s dated. The blood is all bright red. The acting is clunky and ham-fisted. The zombie make-up is pretty silly much of the time. The soundtrack bizarrely tips over into an episode of the A-Team once or twice. Still, with all that, Dawn of the Dead remains compelling and relevant. This is one of the cultural artifacts portraying the rotting underbelly of nineteenth and twentieth century American life.

I do wish I could see it with the ending as it was originally written though. **Spoiler Alert** — Where Peter actually shoots himself and Francine puts her head in the helicopter blade in despair, then the film’s credits roll over the helicopter blades as the gasoline runs out and the blades stop rotating, showing they wouldn’t have made it anywhere if they’d tried. It’s a dark, fitting end to the story, even though they decided against it.

Will I Ever Watch It Again? Absolutely, yes. This one is in the canon.

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3. Night Three: Day of the Dead

“Take me man, take me! I don’t want to be like one of them!”

This was my first time watching the third film in the Dead series. Romero says it’s his favorite of those first three films.

Of the original trilogy, it is the angriest and the goriest (the makeup and gore effects age far better from this installment). The final act has some of the most intense, grotesque zombie mayhem in movie history. The horror of being overwhelmed by a zombie horde was fully realized and depicted.

Day of the Dead also features the worst acting of any of the three films… seriously bad acting. Oh man, so very bad.

I haven’t seen Land of the Dead yet, so I can’t speak to the human journey in that one, but in the first three there is a really satisfying movement of the human characters in general. This is true even though there are no recurring characters in any of the films. Night of the Living Dead is a siege film, it captures the panic and confusion of the initial outbreak. Dawn of the Dead is depression and despair, humanity is realizing that things aren’t going to get better, they are trying to adapt in various ways to the new world. Day of the Dead is rage and madness, the human characters have long since been pushed beyond their breaking point and left to live in that no-man’s land indefinitely.

The human on human violence in Dawn of the Dead contains a certain amount of perverse joy, people reveling and pillaging in the destruction of the old boundaries and rules that kept us civilized. But in Day of the Dead, the human violence is all frenzied despair. Characters might whoop and laugh, but it is an empty playacting, a hollow shell to cover their blind rage and hopelessness. We see more and more Romero’s assertion that there has only ever been a thin veneer that separates the living from the living dead.

Obviously, the films also do far more than that in terms of satire and commentary, but that was a huge takeaway for me after my first viewing of Day.

I do still need some time to decide if I’m on board with the whole ‘learning zombies’ thing. For me it might stretch the internal credulity of this world’s logic a bit too much. In time I might continue to warm to it though.

Will I Ever Watch It Again? Definitely.

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4. Night Four: The Haunting

“An evil old house, the kind some people call haunted, is like an undiscovered country waiting to be explored. Hill House has stood for 90 years and might stand for 90 more. Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there… walked alone.”

THIS is the sort film that reminds me why I fell in love with doing various versions of Another Day, Another Movie. The Haunting is really, really good.

It’s hard to call a movie that Martin Scorsese listed as the scariest movie of all time underrated, but I think this one is. This should be on more lists of historically great films.

An adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s novel, The Haunting on Hill House, The Haunting is one of those films that could be enjoyed without volume. That’s not to say anything negative about the dialogue or music, it’s just that this film is so visually captivating, the cinematography so well-crafted, that the story would come across without audio. Every frame in this movie is beautiful, but not an empty beauty, each frame is also meaningful. Freeze and capture any frame and you’ll still be able to sense the anxiety, the madness, the terror, and the tension in each scene. Robert Wise, in-between directing West Side Story and The Sound of Music, used lighting effects, shot framing, contrast, and blocking beautifully. This is a great director delighting in a change of pace.

Some plot holes aside, The Haunting was a joy to watch, and unnerved me far than I expected.

Will I Ever Watch It Again? Oh my god, yes. This joins films like Peeping Tom as one of the most delightful surprises I’ve come across in my time doing HMF. This is a new favorite.

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5. Night Five: Kairo

“Help… help…. help… help.”

Kairo is a 2001 Japanese horror film written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Ghosts have crossed over into the world of the living and are using our technology against us.

The writing is uneven, at times the allegory of how our technology isolates us instead of bringing us together is too on the nose. Other times, the story gets convoluted and confused. As is always the case when subtitles are involved, there is the possibility that things were lost in translation. I have a suspicion that was at play for Kairo.

Yet, even with the writing issues, Kairo succeeds because of how effectively unnerving it is. When they’re on their game, and hell, even most times when they’re not, J-Horror directors craft atmospheres and visuals which are creepy as fuck! Kurosawa is really good in this regard. All the terror in this film is from nuance and details. No gore, no cheap jump scares created with manipulative music and lazy lunging villains. Every scene is imbued with dread and menace because of the way the camera moves to reveal something which has appeared in the frame but wasn’t there a moment before. Even the scenes that would be horrifying anyway are made all the more creepy by framing and movement.

This won’t be in the running for my favorite ‘new-to-me’ film from the HMF ’15, but it was definitely an enjoyably creepy way to spend two hours.

Will I Ever Watch It Again? Perhaps. First I need to see more of the J-Horror films I’m missing, as it’s a sub-genre I’m underexposed to.

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6. Night Six: Byzantium

“I had eyes that cut through lies, I had lungs that breathed eternity. I felt I’d lived my whole wretched life just to prepare me for that moment.”

I really enjoyed this one. A small gothic horror tale of mother and daughter vampires. Like House of the Devil, this doesn’t really do anything to offer a new twist. Nothing is added to vampire lore. The difference is that Neil Jordan has a distinct visual voice on display here. The story is compelling, the film is stylish and beautiful to look at, the actors all offer absolutely wonderful performances, and the writing feels like a good novel, it’s warm and inviting and made me want to curl up and keep watching these dark, violent characters well past the film’s runtime.

I love well crafted, dark, romantic stories (in the 18th century Romanticism sense, not the romance novel sense) about the nature of life and death and terror and awe. Byzantium was very much one of those stories.

Will I Ever Watch It Again? I’d love to. For a long time I’ve wondered what possible genre or sub-genre I could pick to do another original ‘Another Day, Another Movie’ series. I think I just realized it needs to be a week or two of beautiful gothic horror and related films. Crimson Peak is coming up soon in that same vein!

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ice cream soul food: rewatching the three flavours cornetto trilogy.

By Scott • On 2015-07-29 • In invasion/visitation movies, movies, nerd candy, scott, the revisitor, zombies • 5 min read

As promised a very long time ago now, here is the first post where I explore the reasons I revisit something over and over again. As was also promised, first up is the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, aka the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy.

For the uninformed, the Three Flavours trilogy is comprised of the three films directed by Edgar Wright, written by Wright and Simon Pegg, and starring Pegg and Nick Frost: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End. Each film represents another flavor of the delicious Cornetto ice cream treats. Shaun of the Dead is Red (strawberry): blood, gore, horror. Hot Fuzz is Blue (original/plain): cops. The World’s End is Green (mint, my favorite flavor of Cornetto): apparently science fiction was also referred to as green fiction at one point. Each film actually features the delicious ice cream treats, altough in the World’s End it doesn’t happen until the very end, and even then it’s only the wrapper (I was actually consciously starting to worry as the film was clearly winding down that there wouldn’t be an Cornetto reference).

The third film came out just last year, so obviously I don’t have years of revisitation for that one, but the first two films are the sort I come back to over and over. On average, I watch them a little more than once a year, and while there are times I worry I’ll get sick of them, it just never seems to happen.

This is why, as I was rewatching The World’s End recently, I couldn’t help but start wondering what it is that brings me back to these movies specifically, and to my favorite movies, shows, and books in general.

As I said in the last post introducing this idea, the reasons we love the things we love are too numerous and complex to flesh out with any certainty or finality. We can say things about this topic that are true, but that truth is never exhaustive. So, here are some true things about why I just can’t quit Edgar and Simon and Nick, at least when all three are together.

I don’t have to look very hard to see what first drew me to these films. Right on the surface, these are beautifully made movies. For all their levity and silliness, there is a technical skill at play that makes it easy to watch them again and again. Their combination of creativity/innovation and homages to the great films Wright and Pegg love is unparalleled. Here is Tony Zhou singing Wright’s virtues:

It’s so fun to watch someone do something they’re really good at. These guys are really good at making movies, and they are even better at displaying their love for the medium of film in general. It started with Spaced and has just kept on going. In this case, as with Tarantino, there is also such a deep, wide well of movies being referenced visually that as I continue to widen my exposure to the history of film I’ll catch even more of those references with each viewing.

Another reason I return to this films, as I mentioned in the intro post, is that these movies function like security blankets or comfort food. These films are familiar and comfortable. Yet, they still have the power to move me and inspire me. All the jokes still make me laugh, even though I quote them constantly in daily life. The sweetness and lovability imbued into all the characters by Wright and Pegg’s writing, as well as the acting, makes it feel like having dinner with old friends. And just like old friends, they feel safe, but still have the ability to surprise me.

These films are also nostalgic for me. Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz each connect to moments outside the film entirely. So many memories are associated with these films. Brian, one time (and maybe future?) RtM writer, and I could probably communicate fairly effectively with each other using only lines from these movies. And I don’t just mean barebones communication either. We can communicate humor, frustration, distress, sadness, and most importantly affection fairly well using Cornetto dialogue, combined with the decade of layers that added on since we started watching these movies together. Fortunately we don’t have to, because we have a massive catalogue of dialogue from other movies and shows that we use in addition to those from the trilogy.

Technical skill and artistry, beloved material, and nostalgic connection to my past: just one of those would be a good enough reason to rewatch. Yet, I think the biggest reason I rewatch them, or at least the reason I am rewatching them right now, is the way they engage life in general, and my life in particular.

These movies are about zombies, or weird secret murderous cults obsessed with having the ideal village, or alien invasions, but more than that they are about growing up. Not coming of age in the traditional sense, where young folks learn about love or death or friendship or loss for the first time. These coming of age stories are about growing up in the current millennium, where a great deal of our growing up happens in our 30’s and beyond. It’s the sort of growing up that feels close to my own story, or more accurately, my own insecurities and frustrations.

Shaun of the Dead is about zombies, but it is also about moving deeper into your 30’s and still having nothing in your life figured out. It’s about fear and lethargy and how too often we live life by default instead of making choices.

Hot Fuzz is about murderous village conspiracies, but it is also about having trouble being close to people, and how an overactive brain can make connection and intimacy difficult.

The World’s End is about a robotic insurgency created by aliens, but it is also about how hard it is to be an adult who never lived up to the potential everyone thought you had when you were young, to feel like all your friends have passed you by and you are the pathetic one, the embarrassment. It’s about the need to take responsibility for ourselves.

In other words, these movies are about me, which is the amazing thing about stories, because obviously they aren’t about me at all. Wright and Pegg have never met me before, which means these connections I see to myself are a result of something else. Partly, these connections appear by coincidence, or because of ideas and feelings common to our culture and times as well as those more specific subcultures I’m a part of. More importantly however, these connections are there because of the human tendency to read ourselves into stories, and to read stories into ourselves.

This is one of the amazing abilities story has, and a huge reason why we rewatch and reread and relisten. When I revisit the Cornetto Trilogy, I feel less alone. I see I’m not the only one wondering who the hell I am, and how on earth I can become a better version of myself for me and the world and the people I care about. I find reassurance and comfort, which leaves me with at least two potential options: I can sink into that comfort and continue living the version of my life I’m disappointed with, allowing continual visits to Cornettoland to keep me pacified, or I can use that comfort and sense of connection to help me be less afraid and paralyzed, to take a new step forward and grow up a little. As I said, rewatching the Cornetto Trilogy is a bit like dinner with old friends, and just like old friends they can either shackle us to who we used to be, or inspire us to always be moving onto better things.

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the revisitor.

By Scott • On 2015-04-24 • In movies, scott, television, the revisitor • 3 min read

Recently, I’ve been rewatching the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End). That in itself is unsurprising, even inevitable, as I’ve done that on average more than once a year (for the first two, at least). Yet, this particular round of rewatching has me thinking about all the reasons why so many of us rewatch things at all. Why watch something, as some us do, not just twice, but five or eight or twelve times? As often as people offer lazy, oversimplified answers as to why we might watch or read something over and over again, there is simply no catchall reason. The reasons why I revisit 30 Rock are different from the reasons why I revisit Wes Anderson movies, and the reasons my brother and I watched Newsies and Bedknobs and Broomsticks every weekend as kids differ quite a bit from the reasons my friends and I watched Swingers over and over again in college. I don’t just mean that these reasons differ in the obvious and specific ways, the particular characters and strengths that vary with each example. I mean they differ in profound philosophical and psychological ways. They are different in the way my need to sleep differs from my need for water; I require both to stay alive, but each serves a very distinct purpose.

I’m definitely not the only one who returns to old favorites again and again, either. Revisiting stories is as old as stories. Myths, religious liturgies, fairy tales, oral histories, and the timeless tradition of theme and variation are all examples of the way we return to certain stories over and over again, retelling and rereading as we remake our tales and they remake us. As is the case with anything that has been central to the human experience for as long as there has been evidence of language, it would be a mistake to try and oversimplify it or nail it down conclusively. The reasons are countless, they are nuanced and overlapping, and some are hidden in the realm of the individual and collective unconscious where Jung’s archetypes reside.

Even at just a passing glance I can identify some of the more obvious reasons why we keep returning to favored stories.

We rewatch seeking a relic that remains the same for us as everything else becomes unfamiliar and strange. In other instances, the opposite is true, we rewatch a film or show because it is new every time we return to it, since we are never the same when we experience it and thus will see it with new eyes every time.

We rewatch for a version of comfort food or a security blanket. The familiar characters feel like family, the cherished jokes still make us laugh, or a film is linked to a formative time in our lives and we feel a unique nostalgia connected to a particular cultural artifact. These stories then become a connection to a home we can’t otherwise return to. This particular category would be the easiest in which to identify attracts us to keep rewatching. Yet, even though there are some obvious reasons we can see, each is most likely entwined with more subtle and nuanced factors that keep calling us back.

Other things we return to because of how brilliantly constructed they are, because the beauty of some scene or moment or performance or shot or writing, or combination of all those elements, just won’t let go of our imagination, won’t stop triggering a deep feeling of wonder and so we go back to it again and again to suck all the marrow out. Yet, even these examples are more complicated than that, the beautiful construction was probably a vehicle for a thought or sentiment that connected with us very personally. There are so many well-crafted movies, and not all of them connect with each of us to the same degree. While the artistry is a huge part of what draws me toward the work of Kurosawa, there are other factors at play that make his films impact me the way they do.

All of that to loosely illustrate that there isn’t a final answer we can land on to explain the human habit of continually revisiting some collection of cherished stories again and again. We can say things about it that are true, but that truth is never exhaustive.

I don’t know exactly what is happening when I find joy in seeing a movie for the eleventh time. What I do know is that there is goodness to be found when we acknowledge that there is beauty in something and pore over it. It can reveal beauty that is in the artifact itself, and it can reveal beauty from within us by showing what we find to be admirable and worth returning to again and again. We can learn by looking closely at the things we find worth celebrating, or emulating.

Thus, all these thoughts I’ve had about why we rewatch things, combined with a recent desire I’ve had to thoughtfully return to many of my favorite stories, has led me to start a new theme here where I revisit an old favorite and attempt to discern some of what it is that I cannot escape. For example, as I rewatch the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy again, what are some of the true but not exhaustive reasons I return to these movies again and again? That will be the first post in this theme, so stay tuned.