Never Seen It #323: In the Mood for Love

He remembers those vanished years. As though looking through a dusty window blog, the 500 movies he's never seen before are something he could see, but not touch. And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.

In the Mood for Love

2000

Wong Kar-wai

Welcome back to another in our Film Club mini-series, "Already Seen It," in which a member of Film Club chooses a movie from the least they've already seen, and makes me watch it. Catherine has already seen In the Mood for Love, and she sent me this prompt after I let her know that I watched it too.

"With the title and the idea of 'mood lighting' and color psychology, I'm curious if you felt color played a more significant role in the film than usual."

See, this is the kind of shit that I need from my more film-inclined friends in FC. I need prompts that involve ideas that I would have never been able to think about on my own. Catherine apologized that it was a "leading question," and I know what she meant, but I'll confirm it in another way: it was leading in the way that it literally leads me to think about shit that is all new to me, way outside my normal film-watching routine. I can confirm with y'all that I was watching In the Mood for Love and not once during its 98-minute runtime think about the color palette.

But that's the point of this exercise, to explore new ideas, so let's explore it. The first thing I found was that the color was updated from the 2012 version to the 2021 version (both via Criterion). I think I watched the more recent one, with the yellow tinge. I appreciated that someone in those reddit comments said that the yellow one is more accurate to the director's intentions, and I especially appreciated the comment about how the newer one reminds the audience of an old photograph that you'd find in a grandparent's shoebox from way back when. The whole movie is of a specific moment in time, and does feel like we, the audience of the 21st century, are looking back at something from long ago, peering in on a decades-old secret or private moment.

I also read through a few articles. This New Yorker one was particularly nice (you can click the link, but I can't imagine that it works very well on mobile, there was a lot of cool movement on that website when access on the desktop). It spoke mainly to the general aesthetic of the film, both the color and also the style and manner and setting. In the Mood for Love is highly influential in this way, and that article gives a lot of side-by-side comparisons to films that were explicitly influenced by this one.

I don't know if either of these sources speak directly to the "color psychology" that Catherine mentions. I'll be completely honest with you, I am hesitant to adhere to this particular thought process, that certain colors symbolize certain feelings or ideas. I know it's a real thing, and I know that it makes a difference sometimes, I'm just weary of it. I'm talking about something like this, where we the audience can say that there are lots of uses of the color red in the film, and that this red traditionally symbolizes love. I don't believe that's untrue, but I just wonder if that was actually the intention of the filmmaker, or if it's something that we as the audience assign to it.

Like, of course red "symbolizes" love and romance. We see the color everywhere on St. Valentine's Day, for example. But it's a question of chicken-and-egg: do we use red because we feel love and feel compelled to choose red to match that emotion, or are we told that red symbolizes love, and thus are compelled to feel an emotion like love whenever we see red? I think it's relevant to a discussion about In the Mood for Love because 1) red really is present throughout the film (even without thinking about color psychology, I noticed the startling red curtains in the hotel), and 2) the director may have had intentions on invoking certain feelings by choosing certain colors to match with those feelings. Red for love, yellow for nostalgia, green for newness, that kind of thing.

And I of course back wholeheartedly the idea that a director is creating a world that we get to live in for an hour and a half, and that the director is going to be making purposeful decisions, from that macro to the micro, from dialogue to such minor details as what color the curtains should be. All of that makes the film feel that much richer and more important and easier to think about in contexts such as film club discussions and blog posts. I was pulled almost immediately into the world of In the Mood for Love. Just because I wasn't conscious to the decisions like color palette doesn't mean I wasn't subconsciously affected by what those colors were and how they (again, subconsciously) affected how I felt about it in that moment.

If you had asked me what about this film pulled me in so thoroughly before I was asked about color psychology, I would have said that I am fascinated with the ways in which human beings connect and form bonds and examine those bonds in real time and constantly reevaluate what we mean to other people and what other people mean to us. I loved how understated the plot was, how it took me probably a little longer than intended to figure out that these two main characters were connected because their respective spouses were having an affair together. It was an effective film because it didn't feel the need to make it overdramatic. Finding a small spark of connection within the sadness of such a situation was truer to life than any melodrama we would have felt if we had, for example, even seen either spouses face at any point!

(A thought I had about the color stuff in relation to the intriguingly understated plot—I wonder if, like the New Yorker article states, this is one of those movies that requires rewatching. I mean, I know people say that about every movie that's even slightly more complicated than, like, Happy Gilmore, and it's been said throughout this Film Club plenty of times. But my specific thought this time was around wondering who might read such a New Yorker article filled with spoilers about this film. Do people read such articles before watching the film. And, if I were the type of person who could read such spoilers, and then watch the film for the first time, might that first time not allow me more space to think about things such as color palettes? If I'm not trying to keep up with the plot, since I already know it? I'm not going to change my ways because of this thought, but it's a thought were putting out there anyway.)

To me, this felt like a beautiful inverse of one of my favorite movies ever: Brief Encounter. There's the overarching similarity of two people crossing paths and knowing full well in that moment that the paths are not converging but simply crossing. But the difference is the circumstances that bring them together, and the ways that they are kept apart, and how they choose to address that inevitability. I love how both movies have the fucking balls to examine (not "to question," I think that would be overstating it) the idea of monogamy. How there's love in finding your forever person, and then there is a different kind of love in the margins and in the cracks in between, a love that is similarly powerful but a completely separate tone and taste.

All that could be chalked up to "seeing what I want to see," of course. Just like the color palette. But I do want to see it, that's the thing. I really do appreciate the idea that a film is using the sense of sight to its full advantage to move the audience with the emotions it intends to. Color, I can see now, would be an important function of that. Mood lighting too, even though I haven't touched on that yet. I saw the lighting as more indicative of the space that the character inhabit, the crowded apartments versus the quiet moments with just Chan and Chow, the mood lighting reflecting the gentle moments of connection. As with the color, it's not that hard to imagine the director purposefully choose lighting to directly inform what emotions the audience is feeling.

Do I think that these pieces of the film played a significant role? That's hard for me to say, but only due to my own deficiencies when it comes to understanding the art of film, and my lack of confidence. Thinking about it now, though, I can see how such factors lay the framework for an effecting movie about love and one ultra-specific way in which love could find us, wallop us, make us feel pain in its absence. I don't know if color is significant in its role, but everything, color included, certainly added up to me feeling something powerful about In the Mood for Love. Watching this movie felt like unplugging the hole in the wall and listening to the secrets shared within.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: We have our Juice discussion on Zoom on 7/22/26 at 9 PM! Followed by a discussion blog post the next day!

Unorthodox Behaviour, Catherine

As a Film Club interloper, I felt a little out of my element with this one. I've never reviewed/analyzed an album like this before, and I was unprepared for JAZZ FUSION with NO LYRICS on my first crack at it, so my mind resorted to making up stories to accompany every track. Forgive me. Here's what I came up with:

• "Nuclear Burn" — Quiet bank heist in a small California town. Everything pulled off seamlessly by a smooth operating bandit, clad in a tan suit and sunglasses. He executes his deed almost gracefully, barely brandishing a weapon. Hurried but calm, he coolly tucks his stash under an arm and rides off into the desert. It's not clear even to him why he does what he does, but it isn't greed. It's innate, the only way of life he's ever known.
• "Euthanasia Waltz" — Life between heists. Scrambling to make a train during rush hour only to have nothing to do at home. Call a woman. No answer. Take a walk. Too quiet. TV? Nothing on. He almost misses the excitement of the commute. Tomorrow he'll try again to feel alive.
• "Born Ugly" — Flashback to the mystery man's youth. Funky. Sleek cars, wide pants, nights out. Blowing all the money he saved at a shitty summer job. Excruciating crush on a coworker. Too much cologne. Wanting to be noticed. A kiss! A rival lover gets jealous. Uh oh, am I just picturing West Side Story? Anyway, it doesn't work out because his dad never lets him borrow his car. He never fully recovers.
• "Smacks of Euphoric Hysteria" — Back to the present. A new heist! And this time he's got a girl with him. She's wilder than he is, bloodthirsty and unpredictable. Shooting at cops. This won't end well, but, god damn she's beautiful. He spins out of control. Fireball in the desert.
• "Unorthodox Behaviour" — Years have passed. He's a corporate man now. At work. New identity, carrying an air of aloof apprehension. He rides the elevator and avoids eye contact. Monotony of office life. Police sirens make him jumpy. He has flashbacks of his old life. Highs and lows. Is that screaming? He misses it desperately.
• "Running on Three" — That's it. One last job. He's getting too old for this and he knows it'll probably kill him but he can't stay away. Dust off the old suit. A little tight, but not bad. Sunglasses cover the crow's feet. He's back. It's not about the money but, hey, that doesn't hurt. The breeze whips his face as he flies down the highway. Is life even worth living unless it feels like you're about to die?
• "Touch Wood" — Deathbed musings of a career criminal. He sees his life in watercolor. Slow and meaningful. Sure, he was bad, but he didn't hurt anyone, right? Except that one cop, but that was her fault. Ultimately his nature gave him so other choice. He'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

2/5 pukes (do we do that here?)

This rating is based purely on preference. It's clearly a polished album by highly skilled musicians and I do not begrudge its critical acclaim whatsoever. But I DO resent it for forcing my simple mind to come up with stupid little plays.

Never Seen It #316: Mad Max

The chain in that blog is high-tensile steel. It'd take you the length of 500 movies you've never seen before to hack through it with this. Now, if you're lucky, you could hack through your ankle in five minutes. Go.

Mad Max

1979

George Miller

Thanks to all those who watched Mad Max and shared their thoughts below! Remember to wear your seatbelts!!!

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Allison

"More Like Mid Max"

Mad Max is a mid-octane tour de farts that begs the question: Is it dystopian or is it Australian?

Little baby antisemite Mel Gibson, still more than 20 years away from calling a lady cop "sugar tits," gives a shockingly flat and boring performance as the bad-assedly named Max Rockatansky. Is this the role that catapults him to stardom? Multiple action franchises and TWO Oscars? He wasn't even that mad.   

Was this a good movie? No. Did I have fun watching it? Mostly no. The last thirty minutes are far and away more interesting than the first sixty, but it didn't make up for the fact that I just didn't care. I did find myself wondering what happens next, but only because I don't understand how this movie turned into a franchise. What did I miss? How much movie time elapses between this and the fucking Thunderdome? 2015's Fury Road fucking rules. But I don't see how these are at all related, let alone in the same cinematic universe.

Two parting thoughts: Is the solution for the male loneliness epidemic roving homoerotic biker gangs? These men are not lonely enough! And finally, everyone saw the baby playing with the gun, right? What the shit was that about?!

1.5 stars, but only for the promise of an eventual Tina Turner 

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Sunny

I was on a plane once, and the guy in the row ahead of me was watching this movie on his laptop. Probably for a blog or something. I watched maybe ten minutes of it, fairly enraptured, before I figured I shouldn't ruin the movie for myself since I can't hear and barely see. But the people sitting next to me were also watching (yes, I was middle seat). Something was that compelling about the movie.

It is a compelling movie. Yet I didn't like it quite as much as I thought I would. It's sort of threadbare, maybe due to the age. Near-apocalypse Australia feels not too different from Australia in my mind today. The kiwi accents and names make 20% of the movie indecipherable. The stunts and effects, being real, feel real, and that's really great. You can tell where they pulled back, but the action scenes are still quite visceral—car flips, squibs, real stunts. The movie killed off people I didn't expect faster than I expected. MASSIVE kudos for keeping it a tight 90. Characters' motivations are pretty unclear, but who cares. All this and more was addressed in Fury Road. Between that and Babe, George Miller can do no wrong. I won't comment on Gibson, but at least his accent is muted and he doesn't say a lot.

3.5/5

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Catherine

This film probably falls into my rating territory of "not mad about it, but not for me." I'm glad I finally saw the original just for context / pop cultural literacy, but I think they've significantly improved upon the source material in recent years.

I did find it interesting how far we begin from the post-apocalyptic decay we see in the newer sequels. I was expecting the same level of chaos and anarchy, but 1979 Mad Max's world is only on the precipice

of collapse. They still bother trying to have cops! Cute!

I feel for Max and his poor wife, she just wants companionship and a pair of pants. And I do love a cartoon-world movie where parents can just leave a baby on the ground with a single toy and go about their day. But, maybe it's because I'm coming fresh off of Escape from New York, I felt like it lacked a little pizzazz. I can't help but see Toecutter and miss Isaac Hayes driving around in a Cadillac with a big-ass chandelier hanging off of it. I'm also surprised at myself for this take, but there's a lack of violence that I felt was... kinda required?? I'm getting bloodthirsty in my old age, I guess.

Finally, I desperately needed Australian-to-American English subtitles for about 30% of the movie, but that could just be me.

Overall, fun watch that I probably won't revisit.

3/5 pukes!

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Sean G.

I didn't know what to expect from the first Mad Max movie of the series. I'd only ever seen a few minutes of Beyond Thunderdome in college. My roommate, Pat, loved it and I caught some of it during one of his many watches. I figured this wouldn't be as unhinged as the antics of Master and Blaster. Before today, the only Mad Max movie I'd seen in full was Mad Max: Fury Road. I also guessed Mad Max wouldn't have the nonstop circus of action that is Fury Road.

I did a quick look on Letterboxd and read a few brief things about some people finding the original Max Mad boring or too slow. Compared to Fury Road, obviously Mad Max is slower. 

But I do not agree with those assessments that it's dull or boring. 

I feel something this movie gets so right is its pacing. The editing was something I took note of within the first few minutes of Mad Max. It's tight as hell, especially in the driving sequences. It's creative—the flash cuts to the bulging eyeballs is uncomfortable and exciting. I loved the overall pace of this movie: thoughtful and quiet during the domestic moments with Max and his family, and supercharged in the crashes, chases and showdowns.

The cinematography is also outstanding. Miller's placement and use of cameras really feels unparalleled and innovative. As seen in Fury Road, he's an obvious master in knowing how to combine fantastic camerawork, quick editing, and kick-ass stunts to create an exhilarating payoff.

I love Mad Max as its own movie. A story of a cop who no longer likes how it feels to be a cop but maybe realizes the world is too dangerous for him to quit. It was dramatic, disturbing, and cool as hell. The villains steal gasoline, but other than that seem to have no real motive other than they're evildoers who don't give a shit about anyone else. They rape, they kill, they kidnap. They DGAF. Watching Max take them out and know they would get theirs was thrilling. 

Loved the score. It felt inspired by the swelling strings of a 1940s American epic, Hitchock's greatest suspense sequences, and the melodrama of something from the 1950s.

I know most people like Road Warrior a lot more than Mad Max—and I might too once I watch it. I've read that people think of Mad Max as a blueprint/training wheels for what George Miller would go on to do in the franchise. That's probably true! Regardless though, as its own film, I think Mad Max is a brutal, fun, quiet-when-it-needs to be, thoughtful, perfectly edited, masterfully shot, beautifully scored piece of art about revenge and people trying to survive as the world goes to shit. I had a blast.

Also, duh, Mel Gibson is not a great guy, obviously. But I have to say he was great in this and it makes sense why he became a superstar. 

4.25 pukes out of 5

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Zach

One thing I'm trying to become more aware of is when I feel compelled to say the phrase "it's not for me." "That girl isn't for me because she trends more introvert." "That music isn't for me because it's too heavy metal-y." "That coffee shop isn't for me because it's too fast-paced." Or: "Mad Max isn't for me because it's too hard to follow and has too much violence."

This was the thought I had when watching the beginning of this movie. I really didn't know what was going on, and the intense violence was too much, and it was too fast-paced, and what was the person saying over the radio in the background and was it important? I relied heavily on the plot section of the movie's Wikipedia page to understand at all what was going on. Without it, I don't think I would have gotten exactly what was happening, and that's frustrating to me, but I'm generally slow when it comes to getting movies. Still, the violence was a lot, and I kind of wanted to turn it off. It felt like a chore to have to get to the end, even though it's only 93 minutes long. I also felt ashamed having to look at the Wikipedia page—why do other people understand what's going on, when I don't? There's no way I would have understood why the biker gang exists (because of the breakdown of law and order due to oil wars and ecocide). 

As the movie went on, though, I found myself inhabiting the space and the energy of the film, more and more. The violent and graphic deaths made sense within the world of the movie, so the charred Goose and the hanging dog were less disturbing. The child being killed was pretty terrible, and I didn't love that, but it did make Max's desire for revenge more stark. It feels like a movie that needs a sequel, although I wonder if a sequel was planned from the beginning (I am guessing the answer is no). 

The movie made me feel things. I felt like I had gone through an intense wringer by the time it was over. I also like that it didn't stretch things out too much; ending with a satisfying explosion of a villain, and then the open road. The Australian landscapes here are pretty cool, too. 

The idea of someone trying to "leave it all behind" and then have danger catch up with him is a scary one. Max can never leave the force, even if he wants a quiet life with his family. Not in the world of the movie. It makes me think about our own lives. Can we ever really fully leave something, even if we want to? I think about generational trauma and how it stays with us, even if we try so hard to heal.

So was it a movie "for me"? Who cares? I want to expand my mind, not limit it to things I already know I like. It was a movie I watched and processed in the way I wanted to right now, and that's what matters.

Mel Gibson has said some pretty terrible things before, in his life, and has physically abused women, so that does leave a bad taste in my mouth. He has made an effort at repentance, though, so there's that. I'm all for redemption and repentance. But I am curious how much his attempt at redemption excuses anti-Semitic comments like "Fucking Jews... the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world... are you a Jew?" and his battery of Oksana Grigorieva in the eyes of Hollywood and in the eyes of anyone who watches his movies.

Rating: 3/5

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Joe

It was to my detriment that I became familiar with this franchise through 2015's Fury Road. It set the bar for insane visuals that its 1979 predecessor could not hope to match. Not with a budget 1/50th the size, anyway. Though who knows if anything would've changed if they had more room to film George Miller's wilder visions back then! It's more my assumption that the series took great creative leaps in the intervening two films, for reasons beyond the budget—as the movies go along, we can assume that they get crazier and crazier, that the creativity keeps one-upping itself.

Because I'll be honest, just based on my experience with the third sequel, I was shocked at how... grounded this seemed? And I understand the use of the word "grounded" is ridiculous when referring to an action movie featuring colorful roving gangs of sadistic murderers in a near-apocalyptic world on the empty highways of Australia, I'm more just painting a comparison between a movie and a sequel to that movie. Mad Max is extremely grounded when compared to Fury Road. It seems within the realm of possibility that the events of Mad Max could indeed unfold "a few years from now." Fury Road is more or less a cartoon come to life.

The contrast, however, is only in terms of scale. As far as "how I watched them" goes, I think they are actually pretty comparable. This is what I mean: there are movies that get by because what you are seeing on screen, and not what you are comprehending from what you see. I watched both of these movies, ten years apart, and both times I didn't really understand exactly what was going on most of the time. But I was never bored, because the visuals were big (again, relative to each movie's respective limitations, or lack thereof), and the scenery and characters and general mise-en-scène were absolutely fascinating. A movie is able to hook you on just that alone, even if the plot is hit or miss.

I think Mad Max was "out there" enough that it avoided the usual pitfalls of apocalyptic movies. Mostly talking about "wow, this is what's happening now, in our world!" which is unfortunately true (trump's gas prices comparable to Mel Gibson's gas prices, and so on), but kinda droll and cliché. I've definitely written that about every film in this Film Club that is even vaguely apocalyptic, and I guess I'm getting tired of it. Tired of what I am doing, to be clear. No criticism of the movie in this regard. I mean, I assume Australia has been this hot and sweaty for a long, long time, so it makes sense that the people down there are going to react extremely when the oil runs low.

If I had to speak to something else that meant something to me during this viewing, I think it would be how fucking bleak it was. I don't think they wanted us to think that the last scene was triumphant, right? Because even though the bad guy probably deserved it, it still felt like an incredibly sad ending. Like maybe Max is finally going all-in, becoming the thing he's been fighting against the whole time. And how about the brutal killing of little Sprog? I wonder how many people watching this are conditioned to think that the cute little toddler is gonna find a way to escape? Count me as one of them. That they went ahead and killed him makes sense for the development (devolving?) of Max, but it doesn't make it any less rough to witness. Were the villains, Toecutter and his crew, too cartoonish? I think sometimes. On the other hand, I think the over-the-top nature of their characters was necessary to undercut the severe pessimism at the heart of the film. Would've been too much otherwise.

If there are any criticisms of Mad Max, they come from expectations not being met. But that's what happens when you watch the third sequel first. I needed more, and I needed less. Apparently the first sequel is also great? Maybe if I manage to cut my ankle off before finishing these 500 movies, I'll check it out.

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5

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GROUP AVERAGE GRADE: 3.042 pukes out of 5

Rev your engines down below in the comments, let's see what else there is to say about this thing.

(NEXT TIME: Our next already-seen-it pick with Sean G., as we check out Ikiru.)

Never Seen It #311: Escape from New York

In 2026, the blog rate in the United States rises four hundred percent. The once great blog of Puke on Your Birthday becomes the one maximum security prison for the entire country. A list of 500 movies we've never seen before is posted. There are no editors inside the blog, only bloggers and the worlds they have made. The rules are simple: once you go in, you don't come out.

Escape from New York

1981

John Carpenter

Thanks to all those who watched the movie and shared their thoughts! Check 'em out below.

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Stef

I was hooked by the premise of this movie being a dystopian lit junkie, so I was thrilled with this watch. The plot was fun, but even mores o was the setting and practical effects. 

Firstly, the version of NYC presented here is what I believe flashed before the eyes of my suburban mother when I signed the lease on my first city apartment. The burned out buildings, overgrown landscapes, warlords driving disco-themed Cadillacs. Generally, it was just cool to see New York so similarly portrayed to its own reputation as a city in the '70s/'80s. A dystopian setting that's relatively implausible now, but surely could've fooled the suburban moms of this era. 

The effects in this movie were so cool, particularly the miniatures. It's possible that CGI has lowered my bar, but I was so distracted trying to figure out "how did they do that?" that I may have missed some major plot points. I was amazed at the amount of creativity and detail that had to go into some of the shots. And it paid off as far as I'm concerned.

4!!!!!

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Bobby M.

I first watched this movie in grad school. I wrote an essay about depictions of urban space in cinema post-urban renewal. This movie was best example of negative urban depictions at the time—NYC, the biggest city in the country, was not only facing bankruptcy, but 2,000 murders a year, and serial arsonists burning down enough housing to displace 250,000 (!!!!) residents. The NYC of today is nothing of the city when this movie was made. (In my self-indulgent grad school essay, I then moved onto how Sex and the City marked an inflection point in depictions of the city, but I'll spare you the details.) In this context, it makes sense that NYC is depicted as a literal prison run by the inmates. And outsiders who didn't understand the nuance of NYC's situation probably agreed with the inference that the city is lawless, anarchic, and dangerous. 

The movie itself is great. A comedy is supposed to make you laugh. A drama is supposed to make you cry. And a movie like this is supposed to make you say "Hell yeah." I said hell yeah a lot while watching this movie. The more you think about the plot, the less sense it makes. So don't think! Just take it for what it is. 

I think the movie shines visually, and is its best feature. I loved the "futuristic" computer graphics, and the style of prisoners in NY. Two things that stuck out to me: the more natural physique of the characters (compared to the 'roided up action stars of today) and practical effects made this movie a great watch. I'm glad I rewatched it.

4/5

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Brittany

My first thoughts were how it is kind of sad that we watch movies that were "new" when we were kids and now they seem like the equivalent to movies from the 1950s when we were kids. So insane how far cinematic effects and technology have come, and absolutely mind blowing how different the graphics are today. Another first thought was... I was immediately on the side of the criminals in the jail, more so than I was on the side of the President and police. No surprise there I guess. 

I have always wanted to watch this movie—I enjoyed it, for what it was. I also found humor in it... like... yeah ok, we're going to give criminals Manhattan? We'd give criminals Alabama or something like that. And the crime rate increasing 400%—clearly some arbitrarily high number that John Carpenter was like, YEAH 400% seems CRAZY, that should do it! I did enjoy the movie's simplicity—how ridiculous it was to handcuff a suitcase containing a single tape cassette to your arm?  I did think the ending had a nice twist and was really cracking up at "destroying the tape cassette."

One negative: I did feel like the relationship and character development were lacking severely, but what can you do? I was really wanting to know what happened to Snake's eye, but this movie just wasn't that deep. I bet Kurt Russell was just like, you know what would be so dope? Me wearing an EYE PATCH! and everyone was like, yesss, great idea! But yeah, I enjoyed it overall. It was an easy watch with not a lot of depth, so not too much emotional investment, which is nice sometimes.

I'll give it a 2.5

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Brianna

Sci-fi is always an interesting genre, somewhat hit or miss for me depending on the movie. Interstellar? Hugest hit. Escape from New York? Unfortunately, it falls into the latter category this time around. So why?

For starters, I found the story kind of lame. On paper, I was intrigued. Manhattan is a prison! The president is kidnapped! Russell Crowe [editor's note: I'm leaving it] wears an eye patch and has a time bomb injected into his neck! But in practice? It fell majorly flat for me. Everything from the world building to the technology was lackluster on the big screen. 

If I hadn't been told that Manhattan was a prison, for example, I don't think I would've picked up on that. There were glimpses of chaos this kind of imprisonment would entail, but nothing ever quite met the intensity and claustrophobia I think one would feel if dropped into it pretty much against your will. 

I think about other older sci-fi movies, like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Alien, and am reminded about how interesting the technology looked and behaved. Even decades after those films were made, there is sometimes still futuristic about the way the sets were designed. And, listen, I'm sure it's not easy to imagine what future tech could be, but surely we can do better than a glider landing requiring a grappling hook to get the job done? 

Even the characters were very blah to me. Duke and his chandelier/disco-ball-decorated car aside, I found myself wanting more from the prisoners of the super prison. Like if we're going to say this is some high-techie future, couldn't we play that up more with these guys? Hear me out: what if Duke's gang of criminals were more like the neon gangsters of the Gotham of Batman Forever? Now THAT would've been much more fun than the vaguely homeless looking crew they rolled out instead.

In the end, it certainly wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, and let's get real, any movie with Harry Dean Stanton is worth the watch for performance alone. But good? Meh. I'd give it 2 out of 5 pukes at best. Maybe Escape from L.A. is better? Someone let me know.

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Catherine

I may have endured too much hype and waited too long to dive into this cult classic, OR maybe I was just in a weird mood, but I have to say up top that this one didn't do it for me.

From the jump, the pacing seemed way off. What felt like five straight minutes of credits first thing certainly didn't help, but once we got started, I was expecting nonstop breakneck action, and my man Snake barely broke a sweat. I was bored, plain and simple. And this is coming from someone who could watch Kurt Russell read the phone book. I love him. Isaac Hayes? Sign me up. Harry Dean Stanton?? Huge fan. But it just wasn't for me.

Hey, I've dabbled in theater. I understand at least the very basics of performance. So, at the risk of stepping on some toes, I feel confident in asserting that it probably would've been wise of John Carpenter to suggest Kurt PLEASE... STOP... WHISPERING. I'm not sure who told actors that tough guys should be barely audible, but what if you let the audience in on the secret just this once? To me, the plot felt paper thin and the characters zero dimensional and I wanted so much more.

I know I'm shitting all over this so far, but I should begrudge that I didn't have a bad time watching it, I just thought it would be so much MORE. Snake Plissken has been such a dominant figure in pop culture (and the Brooklyn Halloween parties I've attended) like an elusive legend that I almost felt like I knew him. I was sure that there would be so much more to him. But we got NOTHING. He's a decorated veteran who went bad and robbed the Denver federal reserve... for some reason. That's interesting. Tell me more. What happened? What makes him tick? Can anything make the man crack a smile for the love of God?

I more than respect the idea and the premise, I just wish this movie had turned up the volume in any direction. That being said, I'd probably watch 1981 Kurt run around in an Under Armour tank top for two more hours.

2.85/5 Chandeliered Cadillacs

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunny

SNAKE: Colonel, I'm at the drop site.

COLONEL: What's the situation Snake?

SNAKE: Looks like a single elevator down.

COLONEL: Just as I thought. Snake, the mission is to infiltrate the base at the center of the Escape from New York post and rescue the Blog EDITOR.

SNAKE: The EDITOR is in there?

COLONEL: At 5:55 AM, Michigan Upper Peninsula separatists kidnapped the EDITOR and transported him to the core of the post. We realized something was wrong by 8:02 AM. They're planning to use him as a negotiating chip, but they've threatened to exterminate him if we don't follow their directions. We have to be covert. That's why you're solo on this one Snake, and your gear is POA (procure on arrival).

SNAKE: How'd they find him? I thought the EDITOR went into hiding.

COLONEL: That was the story. Snake, when the government declared Blogging illegal and had all Bloggers systematically exterminated, the official story is the EDITOR found diplomatic immunity in Thailand. The truth is the EDITOR has been working at the Pentagon for years.

SNAKE: What?! But why? What about the government's War On Longform Writing?

COLONEL: Snake, that war's been a smokescreen for their real aims. In 1967, the CIA established operation CHAOS, telling the public they would uncover foreign influence in the country. We now know it was actually experiments into mind control and shortform shit posting.

SNAKE: I thought those experiments were just a rumor.

COLONEL: Were they Snake? Have you ever asked what happened to Borders? Books-a-Million?  

SNAKE: Amazon?

COLONEL: Once the pentagon understood shit posting was more addictive than crack, they knew they could subdue the populace through simple replacement. A Yammer here, a Twitter there. They knew that once things tipped, all they would need is one or two Bloggers producing and cut up their work into bite sized pieces.

SNAKE: But how could they just topple the old Blogging complex?

COLONEL: Simple—disrupt their communities, seed dissention, and eliminate high profile figures. Then the followers were ripe for tweeting. The British didn't have to force Opium on the Chinese, Snake; they just nudged a cart down a hill. The terrorists know the Pentagon is desperate; they probably only have a few days of banked content. If shortform dries up, civil unrest could bubble over.

SNAKE: What do I expect on the inside?

COLONEL: There are gonna be rough spots. The plot doesn't totally make sense, the pacing drags in the middle, and some characters' motivations are obtuse. The whole place feels like its age, which you might find familiar, or off-putting. It's also really, really dark and quiet in some rooms.  

SNAKE: What about the score?

COLONEL: Snake, you've got an amazing score to work with; the master is cooking in there. Russell delivers a simple but satisfying action performance. Supporting characters like Brain and Maggie and Duke and Cabbie are a delight when they show up. The plot, while kinda dumb, is also fun, and fits in the anti-Reagan vibes without being hammy. The whole conceit of the place is cool. You're not going to be burdened by backstories about eye patches or taxi medallions. And obviously the inspirations, Snake: Neuromancer, Metal Gear Solid. It's exactly the sort of movie they used to Blog about.

SNAKE: Got it. Alright, Colonel. I've got the EDITOR's tracker online. His vitals are reading 4/5 pukes. 

COLONEL: One more thing Snake: we need to get the EDITOR out in 22 hour or less. In his cargo pants is the outline for a Blog post that could put an end to the war. It could finally end the center of regressive thought and destroy podcasting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joe

Fuck, dude, I love a movie with a crazy premise. Crazy in a good way, I mean. Like the type of movie that when someone asks you "what is it about" you get this smirk on your face because you know that they too are going to find it interesting and perhaps irresistible. "Crime goes up high enough that they turn the entire city of New York into a prison" is just some straight-up great shit. I know I go into these experiences trying to know as little as possible, and I had no fucking clue what Escape from New York was about until I was watching it, but I'm telling you now, if someone had clued me in on the fact that this movie was about New York City as a prison and Kurt Russell trying to escape said prison with the president, then I'd be like, holy shit, when can I press play?

As such, there are no deep themes in Escape from New York, nothing to really ponder about life. It's a popcorn flick. Nothing wrong with pulling some shit out of it based on my own feelings about life and how this popcorn flick might apply, but let's just stop and appreciate for a second the idea that some movies are just meant to be fucking fun. That sometimes it's not deeper than that. I'm actually really glad that coincidence lined up this movie and Face/Off in the same week, since they are both cut from similar cloth. Both just have fucking absurd premises, and both manage to stick the landing in terms of seeing those premises through and making them maximum fun.

My sincere hatred of New York has been well-documented on this blog, and so it tickled me that, in this world, New York is a prison. Perhaps we should view it as a metaphor? Is our real-world 2026 New York City not also a prison of sorts? I'm mostly kidding, especially now that NYC has the country's best mayor, and I'm finding that with every Mamdani headline I see, my warmth and appreciation for the people of New York grows. But yeah, fuck yeah, turn 1980s NYC into a prison, that's extremely appropriate. You know what wouldn't have happened if America had actually gone through with this genius plan? September 11th. That's right, because you left NYC open and free, you caused a terror attack to happen.

Speaking of which, I liked the idea that I was on the side of the terrorists at the beginning of this film. As far as what the rebel hijacker was saying in the intercom on Air Force One, name the lie. We can joke around about a big prison in the country's worst city, but were such a thing to actually happen, it would indeed be fascist, and racist, and deserve to be destroyed. The prison industrial complex has only gotten worse and more bloated and more powerful in the time since this movie was made. I was glad to see that the sequel to this movie had the balls to make the president the bad guy. He is, and probably always will be, so as long as presidents continue to support prisons for profit.

I try not to make a habit of criticizing aspects of movies that were absent, since that misses the point, but I'll say this: the idea of an entire human ecosystem evolving within a city-sized prison was one that intrigued me, and I wanted more of it. We saw a couple weirdo aspects to it, like the musical theater production, and soul legend Isaac Hayes as a self-appointed leader. But that wasn't enough for me. I am intrigued about what else is happening in New York Prison in the 1980s. That could be a whole different movie that I would watch. I almost wish that the sequel had revisited it, instead of moving to Los Angeles.

Wait, now that I'm typing it out... what do you think happened to the non-criminals who lived in New York City when the decision was made to convert it into a prison? Were they displaced? Did they fight back? No mention of any of this in the film. This is why you could never have an Escape from Philadelphia, because no one wants to leave, and we'd fight back to the point that it wouldn't even be worth it for the government to try to imprison us all.

I'm mostly joking. The joke is in service to my original idea that some films just do not require any level of nuanced thinking. When I start speculating on off-screen aspects of the plot, you know I've gone too far. Escape from New York doesn't require any heavy thinking. Just sit back, put your feet up, and enjoy an eye-patched Kurt Russell tote a gun around a dark, trash-filled New York (very accurate description of the city as we know it now), and shoot some bad guys.

Did anyone ever write about Russellmania on this blog? Looks like Bridget mentioned it in her Your Favorite Movie interview. She's referring to the other Sixers Sister, Maeve, who had her 29th birthday party themed as "dress as your favorite Kurt Russell." This was like eight years ago and I had seen way fewer Russell movies at that point, so I don't think many costumes registered with me. I have to assume someone was dressed as Snake Plissken though, right? An eyepatch and leather jacket would have done the trick, that's easy enough for a 20-something who just wants to get drunk as easily as possible. And you know why that would've been a good costume? Because it's that type of movie. You don't have to take your costume at a 29th birthday costume party seriously, and you don't have to take Escape from New York seriously either. In both cases, you're just there to have fun. And in both cases, I had a lot of fun.

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GROUP AVERAGE GRADE: 3.264 pukes out of 5

If you comment, he dies. If you don't comment, he dies.

(NEXT TIME: Our second solo outing of the quarter, as we watch Atonement, as chosen by Brianna.)

Never Seen It #306: The Battle of Algiers

It's hard to start a blog. Even harder to continue it. And hardest of all to win it. But, it's only afterwards, when we have won, that the true difficulties begin. In short, Ali, there's still so many of the 500 movies I've never seen before to watch.

The Battle of Algiers

1966

Gillo Pontecorvo

Thanks to all those who survived the battle and lived to talk about it below.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sean G.

"The army is here for you. Trust in it." No thanks.

This movie reenforces my anti-war beliefs, and angers me that some humans will always want to control other human beings. 

This was a beautiful bummer. I don't know what else I could say about The Battle of Algiers that hasn't been said. The realism and the documentary feel is incredible, and has obviously been inspiring movies since its release to tell stories in this style. 

The camera work is dazzling. Ennio Morricone's score is so great. The pacing and the editing are patient when they need to be and suspenseful and swift when it calls for that. The sequence of the women dressing down to sneak bombs out and blow up the bar and restaurants was totally compelling. 

The violence feels so real and painful. Heartbreaking shots of women, men, and children crying. The poor guy they "interrogate" (torture) at the beginning who gives up the hiding place who we see again will be haunted by these moments as long as he lives. So much senseless violence. Obviously so relevant today and forever more. Now I get why Leo's character in One Battle After Another watches. Does he have the Blu-ray or VHS? Is he just happen to be catching it on TCM? 

I also knew absolutely nothing about France's occupation of Algeria and this conflict and the war. Deserved the legacy it has. 

5/5 pukes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Catherine

There's a haunting familiarity to this film, even at 60 years old. Watching bodies pulled from rubble as dazed loved ones look on has become so disturbingly common lately, so much of it could easily pass for footage from today. Roger Ebert mentioned in his review that the movie holds a universal frame of reference and I have to agree.

There are so many hard truths to grapple with in this story. In the face of torture and oppression, you yearn for a perfect protagonist to save everyone—but we don't have a wholly "good" hero to root for. The FLN is content to execute their own ne'er-do-wells to clean up the streets, and they can calmly scope out a café with babies and other innocents and still plant a bomb and walk away. Surely the Algerians still deserve their autonomy free from under the boot of the French government, but the film doesn't hold your hand to tell a perfectly packaged good vs. evil story. It peels back a tattered curtain and offers a glimpse at some uncomfortable realities that can be hard to swallow. What's fair in war? How far is too far in the quest for freedom?

Even the respect the French colonel has for the FLN was unexpected and fascinating juxtaposed with the atrocities carried out by his army. It all seems like a dark game to him, and he admires a worthy adversary.

The film highlighted well how war crimes, civilian casualties, bloodshed, and mass destruction are perceived differently depending on who holds power. When the Algerian rebels attack, it is barbarism. When the French military unleash their bloodshed, it's just plain old war. What can you do?

The propaganda employment was also interesting. French soldiers parade Donkeys though the streets to deliver bread to impoverished children in a show for the UN, as they blast speeches throughout the Casbah assuring the residents that they are the ones who truly care for their wellbeing, not the dastardly FLN. 

At certain points, the film almost felt like a Bond movie, with clandestine meetings, secret notes, trap doors, and over-the-top assassination plots, and I was rapt. And since this movie was released only four years after the war for Algerian independence ended, when everyone's feelings on the subject were surely still extremely raw, that makes its existence even more bold and impressive.

"It's hard to start a revolution. Even harder to continue it. And hardest of all to win it. But, it's only afterwards, when we have won, that the true difficulties begin."

This is one of those quotes that I'll probably have to mull over for the rest of my life—just leaving it here for some thought.

Anyway, I think I just saw a masterpiece. 5/5 pukes

~~~~~~~~~~

Frank

I'm currently in an international cinema class, and Film Club lined up perfectly this past month with viewing The Battle of Algiers.

I will be brief in saying that I think this lived up to the hype and there were parts that I think will be seared on my soul. 

Knowing that there were real members of the FLN cast in this is extraordinary to me. I can't get over the fact that this film has been used by both police and terrorist forces as a textbook for how to go about their respective businesses. 

As I enter the final weeks of my film school, I don't think I'm capable of one coherent thought, so here are some strays:

I think that it is fascinating how women are used in this. It struck me that the film spends almost more significant time with the three women bombers as they do with any other "character" in the film. Women are crucial parts of any revolutionary group, and yet I couldn't help but wonder out loud if these women knew the oppressive setbacks that a fanatic theocratic regime would have on their lives after the revolution. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss indeed. 

The French colonel defending himself to the journalists. *how can you call me a fascist? I literally fought with the French Resistance against Nazism* this hit me in two ways:

1) Someone in class said "Fascism is Colonialism when it happens to White People" and I cannot stop thinking of this. 

2) It makes me so angry that someone who fought Nazis couldn't see the hypocrisy. Or maybe even more mad that they can see it and don't care because in war there is just us and them. Freedom bought through blood has its own costs perhaps. 

It struck me that the colonel felt the need to win over a liberal media (albeit a French-bent liberal media, still in accord that France holding onto Algeria as a colony was a divine right). Like he wants the world to agree with him, think he is actually doing something necessary and aligned with French values etc. etc. Just compare that need for (deep ironic quotes) "full transparency" with say a government invading another country that actually has realized they can say or not say whatever they want and no one will really do anything about it. It deeply pained me that somehow our real life villains have somehow gotten more cartoonishly evil. They've figured out public opinion actually doesn't matter as much as we'd like to think. But then again, public opinion actually DID turn in France on Algeria. The government was overturned and Charles DeGalle, ultimate symbol of French Resistance, brought back in charge. So maybe there's still hope. 

The progression of visceral violence builds steadily as the tension boils over into inevitability. In the beginning of the movie, we catch the immediate after of a torture session. When people are shot, it's cartoonishly bloodless. As the movie ramps up, we steadily see more blood. more of the actual torture. more dead children and French Algerian citizens. Until finally we reach the crescendo of the actual Algerian revolution a few years later. 

Something else that someone in my class brought up that I have been digesting: Ali la Pointe was a violent criminal before he was radicalized. Revolutions seem to often be built on the backs of those for which unpleasant means are needed. I wonder if it makes it ultimately a poisoned fruit. But I also have no alternatives against oppression. 

This was such a barrage of sight and sound, I definitely think I will have to revisit it a few more times. 

4.5/5 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joe

A classic in the subgenre of "Wow, this is exactly what's happening in America right now!" This is a subgenre that I have created in my own mind. The subgenre lacks nuance, of course. But what it lacks in nuance, it makes up for in pure spirit. I'm a dummy about the world just like anyone else, but I know that it feels wrong, what's going on around me right now, here in this country, and so it's always pretty fascinating—and perversely comforting, perhaps—to know that we Americans in the 21st century are not unique snowflakes, that this has happened before, that history is cyclical, that there have been other people in the grand story of mankind that have persevered.

Here is the story of the Algerians in the late 1950s and early 1960s that fought the French imperialists for their independence. Some of us have been conditioned, or maybe even feel it within the very depths of our souls, to see the oppressed as the "good guys" and the oppressor as the "bad guys." The Battle of Algiers goes out of its way to make it more complicated than that, and honestly, at the end of the day, it should be. It should be complicated but also not complicated at all. There are subtleties among the binary but ultimately it's a binary. The Algerians were right to want to be free and the French were wrong to do everything they could to prevent that freedom.

It's complicated because the fight for freedom seems to require violence. The one FLN character discusses the idea of terrorism, and how it's necessary at first, but then can't be sustained, and the fight for freedom requires something more than that. It's tough to unilaterally say that the Algerians were completely right if they are killing people with bombs. You can make similar arguments all over the globe in 2026. You can talk about how the U.S. is bombing Iran, and how maybe there are complications in the fact that the Iranian government seems to not treat their own people very kindly either. You can talk about how the Israeli government is slaughtering Palestinians and murdering children and their soldiers are taking gleeful pictures of the Palestinians' suffering, and how maybe there are complications in the fact that the Jewish people who populate Israel have been suffering and oppressed for millennia. There are complications, but those complications do nothing to change the score here of who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed.

It's complicated here in the U.S. right now because not everyone (and in fact, possibly not even a majority of people) supports the government's senseless slaughter of humans overseas and the bombing of children's schools. It's complicated too because a certain subset of the American populace has been somehow conditioned to take the oppressor's side. That seems like a uniquely American thing, but I don't think it actually is. I think that some people are just attracted to power. It's like how people somehow think that Skylar White was the bad guy in Breaking Bad, even though Walter clearly was—Walter has the power, and that's why a certain type of person will exalt him.

Maybe you can watch The Battle of Algiers and think of the French, who hold all the power, as the heroes of this story. Colonel Mathieu's mid-film speech was pretty convincing! The rebels were dangerous, and he was there to protect the people from their own destruction! There's an assumption on his part that the French people are behind him. At one point, he lays it out: there is a conflict because they don't want us to be here, but we want to be here, and so where does it go from here? It takes an extra step, however, for the audience to then ask this question: wait, why do the French forces want to be there so badly? To answer that question, you have to understand what it means to be an oppressor and what it means to be oppressed, which is not a capacity that some human beings have. To not know you are oppressed means that the oppressor is winning.

I was aware of this film's existence prior to the creation of the Film Club movie list in two ways. First was that I'm a big fan of the band Algiers, and it says right there on their Wikipedia page that they named the band after the movie. Their art is also embedded with the same righteous violence that is embodied in the film—Algiers makes punk rock music of the oppressed. Second was that former PoYB film correspondent Fisher made a rare sojourn into classic film to see this one, and had a lot of good things to say. I'm glad to say that he was right on the money in terms of this film speaking to the truth about fascism and that it's important for films like this to raise questions about the subject, if only to allow its audience to answer them. This is not just a good movie, it's an important one.

The way that it goes about making its importance known is itself important, I think. I'm talking about the cinema of the thing, and not just the politics therein. The Battle of Algiers is like a documentary, on purpose. The unseen FLN announcer acts as a narrator, explaining what's going on. It plays out like black-and-white newsreels. It was filmed so soon after the actual battle that there were people who took part in the real-life conflict acting in the film. All this is in service of making the film feel "real," which is integral to its purpose. You wouldn't get the message if it didn't seem real or felt exaggerated. Yes, this is real. Yes, fascism is real. Yes, you are being oppressed right now. Yes, there is something you can do about it.

It took me maybe half the movie to really appreciate what it was trying to do. Thus, the first half was slow for me. But when it sped up, it did so exponentially. The first hour was tough to get through, the next 50 minutes were exciting and I was into it, and the last ten minutes or so found me stunned. I think this probably mirrors how these things happen in real life, too. It happens gradually, and then all at once. The movie even pointed out the quick escalation, how the French quelled the uprising but then over a year later, there was a large and spontaneous uprising in the street, so strong that independence was won soon thereafter. The Battle of Algiers made me wonder if we'll ever see something like that in the U.S. Maybe we already did in Minneapolis. Maybe we never will, with half the nation licking cops' boots and a government who is more than willing to murder its own citizens if they're on the wrong side of the political divide.

I appreciated the fact that this movie has been used as a "training documentary" for organizations like the IRA and the Black Panters, re: urban terrorism in the fight for independence and freedom, and I also appreciated the fact that the director was quick to say that it wasn't that simple. Pontecorvo was correct to paint the theme of The Battle of Algiers more broadly, that it was more about the fragility of the human existence, and that there needs to burn within us a sense of justice in order for us as a species to survive. You see America crumbling because an agent of the state murders a mom in her car in cold blood and half the country defends the murderer. Something about The Battle of Algiers needs to speak to all of us in order to survive.

When I watch this film, and films like it, I find hope. I was thinking about hope as I considered the music of The Battle of Algiers. There is a musical motif that comes up again and again, and I'll admit, it's not very melodic. It sounds more like a broken car engine, loud and noisy. It's rhythmic, a loud clanking, in 4/4 time. I think it's supposed to sound like a beating heart, and I think that heart belongs to the human race. There is hope in the fact that the rhythm appears again and again in the film, that it never stops until the credits roll. The hope is that it never stops for any of us, that the heartbeat of the human race can continue, on and on, past any atrocity that might befall upon us by our oppressor.

GRADE: 4.5 pukes out of 5

~~~~~~~~~~~

GROUP AVERAGE GRADE: 4.75 pukes out of 5

Meet us in the secret comment section behind the false wall.

(NEXT TIME: We take the battle of the human spirit to the parking lot, in 2024's Rap World.)

Never Seen It #297: Days of Wine and Roses

You remember how it really was? You and me and a blog—a threesome. You and I were a couple of bloggers on the sea of blog, and the boat sank. I got hold of something that kept me from going under, and I'm not going to let go of it. Not for you. Not for 400 movies I've never seen before. Not for anyone. If you want to grab on, grab on. But there's just room for you and me—no blogging threesome.

Days of Wine and Roses

1962

Blake Edwards

Alright gang. Sit down, pull up a drink, and scroll down to see what we thought of this one.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Catherine

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:

Out of a misty dream

Our path emerges for a while, then closes

Within a dream.

Who picked this bummer of a film?? Whoops.

All I knew when I made my selection was that it was a Jack Lemmon-led '60s romance. Fun! ...I was wholly unprepared to meet the Sid and Nancy of the Lawrence Welk set.

In retrospect, it's a perfect title. Along with the poem, it really captures the fleeting euphoria alcohol can bring before it takes a sharp turn to misery. Or at least a slow, numbing joylessness leaving you nostalgic for how you used to feel. But it was painful to watch.

God, I hate Joe Clay. I hated witnessing Kirsten be corrupted turn after turn by such a useless BUM. 

In brief:

• She wants nothing to do with him so he bullies her into a date.
• She's perfectly happy sober, he doesn't understand or accept that, so he TRICKS her into drinking.
• She's trying to be a good mom but it makes him insecure to be the only drunk one so she dives into oblivion with him as an act of loving solidarity.
• She's succeeding in her sobriety, he's tempted to jump off the wagon, so he drags her along.
• Then it's too late. He gets sober again, she can't. He gets better, and she's a lost cause wandering out into the darkness to drink herself to death. Sammen i himmelen, I guess. It's not fair. No amount of checks to her father will correct all the damage Joe has done.

I like to imagine a Christmas Carol-type pivot in the movie where we find out this is all just a bad dream brought to Kirsten by a benevolent ghost to show her what a train wreck her life would become if she lets Joe in. She wakes up before she ever gets on the boat, gleefully chomps on a little chocolate bar, and the credits roll. Trust your instincts, KA.

While I watched, I kept vacillating between two opposing takes: This a poignant, fascinating and accurate presentation of substance abuse, and this is kinda like Reefer Madness for booze.

When Joe ends his nursery-smashing bender in a straight jacket, gnashing his teeth at a horde of needle-wielding orderlies, I couldn't help but think we needed to rein it in just a bit.

Then he meets Jim, his AA sponsor, and their conversations are deep and unexpectedly raw and capture so much of the complicated psychological aspects of alcoholism and I was rapt.

Overall, I think the message of the movie was a little too on the nose for my taste. For a similar story that approaches alcoholism and marital woes without feeling like a neon sign blaring ALCOHOL IS BAD, I'd say Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is the way to go (maybe an unfair comparison, but it felt relevant).

Deciding a rating for this has been tricky because I don't think it's a bad movie whatsoever, but it did flirt with a bit of melodrama and I didn't really enjoy myself watching it AND I don't think I'd necessarily recommend it to anyone so I will reluctantly say 2.5 Brandy Alexanders out of 5.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunny

I realize I enjoy myself a good alcoholism/addiction-based media. Leaving Las Vegas, Another Round, obviously IJ if we bridge to books. I sometimes wonder why the personal appeal; I don't spend too much time on the thread, afraid I'll pull apart the whole sweater. Zach said a line in MMM this week that stuck with me ("But we've all been alcoholics at some point"), and even if it's not literally true, there's something spiritually right about it.

I was initially a little worried about this movie—the age, the length, the opening song. Was this going to be a slow and boring two hours? Or worse, overly preachy?

The opening is bizarre enough. What's this guy do exactly? Sort of an early Epstein slash Pete Campbell type? But somewhere around the Peanut Brittle scene and the elevator diatribe, I clicked in for the next hour forty-five.

The movie feels more modern than I first gave it credit for. The pacing was fast. The acting was superb. Lemmon and Remick, obviously, but I also enjoyed the Dad and the AA sponsor from 12 Angry Men. I dug that huge swaths of time would pass without much explanation, giving enough credit to the audience to fill in the gaps and get "Oh, they've fallen down another couple notches."

That pacing cuts both ways—one hour into the movie they're getting clean and working with the dad, but the audience knows there's half a movie left. It's inevitable the relapse, and we're just waiting to see how. Turns out there'd be like half a dozen more relapses. And there's definitely real power in those scenes. I cringed hard and felt the pain during the greenhouse trashing, the motel room concession, and the final apartment scenes in a way that a lot of media comes short in producing.

Two lines from Remick's character in particular stuck with me. Early on, when Lemmon is asking her why she doesn't like booze, saying it can make her happier, she says she's "already happy." I believe she genuinely means it, despite being a secretary living in a roach kingdom. There's a certain envy I have there, but I guess we all start like that don't we, as babes?

And then in that last scene, when she says she needs to drink because she can't deal with how "dirty everything looks," and the Substance make it pretty again. I can relate to that. It's both shocking and totally believable how someone's mind could change that dramatically in ~7 years and how they were taken on a ride nearly outside their control the whole time.

It's interesting that in the '50s/'60s drinking was everywhere (not like it isn't now), especially in well-to-do society and white-collar work. Like Mad Men, Lemmon mentions how he knows plenty of people who drink more than him, but didn't have this down-spiral happen to them. Moreover, it's interesting to see here a time where AA is ~30 years old, still rather looked down upon, and alcoholism isn't a disease but rather a failing of will. Remick's reaction to the program both felt real and hard to watch. I think I read on Wikipedia that Lemmon, Remick, and the director Blake Edwards all ended up going to AA in the years following the movie. There's some sympathy for poor souls to their social trappings. The sad/ambiguous ending closes the circle in that this definitely wasn't overly preachy; actually, quite grounded for and in its time.

Together in Heaven! 4/5

P.S. Somewhere around the third act, the score really clicked, and I kinda get why Mancini won the award, even if I think that opening song's stupid.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Joe

Well fuck, man. The timing on watching this one is pretty good. My sober-versary is this Sunday, and I'll be celebrating three years sober, so it's definitely been on my mind. I did not know what Days of Wine and Roses was about until maybe 30 minutes into the viewing, so I did not have the foresight to plan this blog post to be published three days prior to March 15th, on a Thirsty Thursday no less. Total fucking coincidence, and a welcome one. I don't believe in god and I don't believe in fate, but sometimes it's nice to just sit back and marvel and the wonders of the universe, and how the pure fucking randomness of it still manages to smile down upon you.

That's something I would probably say at an AA meeting, that bit about fate vs. randomness and the juxtaposition not really mattering at the end of the day. I would say that if I went to AA meetings, which I don't. I have, but I don't currently. I am 100% pro-AA, and I believe that it works. I also believe that if you can get through sobriety without it, then that's okay too. It's cool to know that I always have that as an option. I've pulled the trigger on AA as an emergency option exactly twice. The first time was on March 15, 2023, Day 1, or rather Night 1 I guess, an 11 PM meeting with a bunch of Northeast Philly hoagie-mouthed dudes. Figured I should start out on the right foot. It was nice saying my piece, talking about that voice in my head that told me that I should probably stop or else I'm gonna be dead soon, because everybody understood what I was talking about. The second time was on May 15, 2023, Day 62, before my graduation from Penn, when I knew that I would feel like a huge piece of shit that day for not celebrating "the right way" and honestly for feeling like a fraud for the degree I was receiving since I earned it mostly while intoxicated. So I fit a quick meeting in at like 7 AM, and the two other people there understood exactly what I was talking about, and then I went to graduation and felt like slightly less than a piece of shit and managed to not drink.

There are some good stories that you'll hear in AA, I'm sure. The ones I've heard were pretty normal. My story is nothing special. I don't have an exciting or retrospectively comedic rock bottom. I just made a decision to stop drinking after a lifetime of too much drinking. That more or less feels like this other Joe's story too. He got too drunk too many times, had some mildly amusing (to the observer) mishaps (like the greenhouse scene, yikes!), and finally reached the point where he had had enough. The trick is that the story doesn't have to be exciting for it to be impactful. The idea that there are other people out there just like you is enough. Even if the characters are fictional! Even in a movie as melodramatic as Days of Wine and Roses! It's still helpful!

(I'm glad I didn't know what the film was about, or else I think I might have approached it more guardedly. It honestly did not occur to me that this was a Movie About Alcoholism until, hmmm, maybe when the house caught on fire? Which is pretty late into the film. Look at the poster at the top of the blog post and you'll see that the themes were pretty well-known to contemporaneous audiences. I actually only added this film to the list because it sounded like the Japandroids song "The Nights of Wine and Roses," which I looked up was actually named after The Days of Wine and Roses by the Dream Syndicate, which is named after the same poem as this movie.)

While watching, I was concerned that perhaps it had too much of a After School Special vibe to it, too much pontificating by Joe and by Joe's AA sponsor about the evils of alcohol. It wasn't subtle. Kirsten goes from getting tipsy off one drink to having a beer at breakfast and destroying her home. Joe goes from getting taken off an account due to boozing to getting thrown in the psych ward. There's this thing that alcoholics who have not yet admitted they have a problem do when they say "oh, well I'm not THAT bad," and I think this movie probably provided a lot of wiggle room for a lot of alcoholics in the 1960s. I watch Joe and Kirsten and I can say truthfully that I was never this bad... but I can also say truthfully that I was bad in other ways, and that I have a problem, and that I cannot drink anymore or else I'll die. I just think the movie would've been more effective if it had been more subtle and casual about the substance abuse issues.

But see, here's where AA comes back in. It doesn't really matter. I'm not taking anyone else's inventory, including a movie's. It's not my place to say if something or somebody is "too dramatic," it's still a true-to-life story of alcoholism, and because of that, I appreciate hearing it, and I can identify. I can identify with a lot in this movie, it's true! Mostly Joe's fear of drinking, how some of those final drinks feel like he's allowing himself to be consumed by a monster, and he knows it, and the shame and fear and intertwined. That part didn't feel too dramatic to me at all. That felt grounded.

Something else that hit close to home, I guess in the contrast to my own experience, was when Joe's sponsor was like "your wife's gonna be miserable now! she lost her playmate! booze was your meeting ground!" I don't think that's true in my life, but it's definitely a fear that I have, still, however unfounded. I don't think that booze was my and Pam's "meeting ground," I don't think our relationship was ever built on that, and so right now it still feels solid to me, maybe even more so without beer soaking the foundation. But I do worry that I'm not as fun to people anymore. There's nothing much I can do about it, but I still feel bad. I don't want to be a wet blanket (or a "friend of the milkman," as Kirsten puts it, hilariously). I don't want people to feel weird about drinking around me. I don't want Pam to think that she can't have a great time with me like we used to do. I'm trying my best, and I'm half succeeding, but the fear remains.

Shit, my bad, gang. I'm getting way too far into the weeds on this one. I haven't really talked about the movie, just my personal reaction to some of the themes the movie has brought up. Hopefully there is some engaging discussion beyond what I've had to say about the Joe watching and the Joe being watched. Jack Lemmon is so fucking good, isn't he? I haven't seen too many (I think Some Like It Hot and Glengarry Glen Ross, plus JFK which was basically a string of 100 cameos by famous actors), but I love his nervous, manic energy. It was pretty interesting to watch him and Lee Remick attempt to play drunk characters, since that's generally tough to do, but Lemmon especially, since alcohol is a depressant, and Jack Lemmon is the living embodiment of an upper drug.

Some of the best moments in the film were just watching these characters exist mired in their own fucked-up ways. Drinking in the bedroom, stumbling toward the liquor store across the lake, the intense sadness of Kirsten alone in that motel. Those felt real. Otherwise, I'm acknowledging that this movie was corny as fuck. I'm saying that I thought it was over-the-top and maybe a little too preachy and outdated in the way that it had to explain in detail was AA was and what it means to be an alcoholic. I've seen public service announcements with similar tones.

And yet, if you're the type of person who has had sobriety on his mind a lot lately because of a personal anniversary, and you still struggle with the idea of sobriety even as the sobriety itself seems pretty intact at this point, and you are in a film club and you stumble across a movie during this time of the year, completely by chance, the time of year when maybe you need to hear someone's story, since hearing stories are always helpful, no matter how lame, no matter how cliché, you're just the type of person who needs to hear it, and finds comfort in it, in the idea of finding empathy in this space, even the fictional space in a movie, then, well... maybe this is a good movie for you.

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5

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GROUP AVERAGE GRADE: 3.33 pukes out of 5

Destroy every pot in the greenhouse to find the comment section.

(NEXT TIME: Our final small group of the month gets together to talk Babel... and speak in different tongues, I'm assuming...? That's just a guess, I know literally nothing about what this movie is about.)

Never Seen It #290: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

You can check your blog all you want, and even though there may be normal variation, when it comes right down to it, this far inside the head it all looks the same. No, no, no, don't watch 400 movies you've never seen before. You never know what it might be attached to.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

1984

W. D. Richter

Grab your oscillation overthruster, it's Bonzai time. Let's see what everybody thought of this.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Frank

"What does that look like to you?"

".....that's your hand, Buckaroo."

Why did I like this so much? The question I kept asking myself is why does this work for me where Howard the Duck or Dick Tracy didn't? I think it shows that the line between crap and camp is razor thin, and I THINK relies on a couple things:

Pitch-perfect casting that understands the assignment. Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Lloyd, John Lithgow, Dan Hedaya, just a murderers' row of rattling off insane or silly technobabble monologues with total commitment, and all made me smile wide in this. And Peter Weller. Man, between this and RoboCop, he might have the belt of overdry acting on purpose. Every time Buckaroo had to say something like "pure evil, lectoid invaders from the eighth dimension, get them!" I hoot and hollered. 

It doesn't take itself seriously, but it also has genuine affection for itself. This movie is clearly taking the piss out of how serious a Star Wars or Star Trek takes itself. It's clearly taking the piss out of '80s movies styles. But it also loves those things? And loves 1930s space fantasy serials and comic books. Where a Dick Tracy captured the look, this captures the joy, with a big wink. It made so much sense to me when I found out the writer of this also wrote Big Trouble in Little China, which I love and also is super aware of how stupid this all is ("Buckaroo, I've got the President on the line, he wants to know if everything is alright with the alien space cloud or if he should just go ahead and destroy Russia").

My gripes: Peter Weller is too 100% white to be half Japanese. I get that that's the joke, but it still gave me the ick. And my other gripe is my personal pet peeve when movie musicians are supposed to be the best and then the music stinks. Dewey Cox proves the music can still be good even when you're parodying a thing!! 

Anyway, it was quirky and weird and probably a cocaine-fueled fever dream and I loved it.

4 out of 5 stars 

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Catherine

I'm glad I happened to watch this one with my boyfriend—henceforth known as Ian—who highlighted some pivotal moments ("this rules!"), and pointed out fun things I definitely would have missed ("Is that a flux capacitor?"), because I fear without him, this entire review would have been something along the lines of: THIS STINKS, NEXT!

Buckaroo Banzai doesn't stink, though. Not completely. It's tempting to write it off as a corny Mystery Science Theater-level B-movie, but it's way too self-aware, and I appreciated the humor and the limitless confidence it took to make a film that covers roughly 100 genres and doesn't stick to any of them.

It's laugh-out-loud funny, and I could watch John Lithgow chewing the scenery and screaming Bigboote (almost) all day.

Sadly, I found it too chaotic and confusing to fully enjoy myself. The president, suspended upside down in his hamster wheel, summed up my thoughts perfectly when he said, "Lectroids? Planet Ten? Nuclear extortion? A GIRL NAMED JOHN??"

"Holy shit, it's Mike from Breaking Bad!" —Me & Ian

Maybe I'll be diplomatic and just say it's not for me. I do have an extreme prejudice against the '80s aesthetic that I'm trying to work on, but huge hair, drab gray color palettes, and overused synth music always throws my attention span out the window.

This movie feels like a low budget sci-fi romp made by a bunch of scrappy dreamers, which really enhances the charm, but Wikipedia informs me this was a $17-million-dollar (that's about $300000 billion in 2026 money) endeavor from seasoned filmmakers distributed by 20th Century Fox, and I just cannot abide. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

At certain points, it seems like Buckaroo Banzai is daring you to understand what the fuck is going on, and I can see how some people might get a kick out of that, but I'm a beginning-middle-end kinda gal, and I've been too spoiled by straightforward narrative structure to go back now. All that said, I recommend this as a two-person+ viewing experience to laugh at the absurdity, because absolutely no one will believe what goes on in this kaleidoscopic nightmare unless they see it with their own eyes.

2/5 pukes

~~~~~~~~~~~

Allison

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is a campy, irreverent sci-fi romp that could have been America's answer to Doctor Who or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy if only the studio hadn't fumbled the ball so hard. It had everything going for it: a stacked cast, multiple opportunities for spin-offs and merchandise tie-ins, plus a theme song that I can't get out of my head. So, what went wrong? To start, the plot is as unpredictable as it is incomprehensible. The movie can't strike a balance between excessively explaining what's happening and waving away other plot devices as "eh, it's something galactic, move past it."

A brief exchange between New Jersey and Reno (two names that needed punch-ups) highlights the movie's dismissive tone:

New Jersey: "Why is there a watermelon there?"

Reno: "I'll explain later."

Of course, he doesn't because the watermelon doesn't matter.

Then there's a big glaring issue: Peter Weller isn't a leading man. His performance is too flat, too one-note, to portray Buckaroo Banzai as this badass multihyphenate. He can't sell the science, he can't sell the coolness, he can't sell the overt nods to Japanese culture. And he sure as hell can't sell the romance. The love story is shoehorned so clumsily into the plot without any regard to character development or chemistry. ("You're my presumed dead wife's long-lost identical twin sister. Move past it. Let's smooch!")

All that said, I had a great time watching. Sure, I was baffled by a lot of it, but it's silly and goofy, and the supporting cast carries the film. I'm not always tickled by Jeff Goldblum being Jeff Goldblum, but this role did it for me. John Lithgow is fully committed to an insane Italian accent. Clancy Brown is... hot? Move past it. Christopher Lloyd (one year away from an iconic role in a sci-fi premise that actually works) gives a surprisingly subdued performance; of course, he's in full alien prosthetics for most of it, so I forgot it was him a few times. But during the film's climax, he throws up an aggressive middle finger behind John Lithgow's back, which caught me so off guard, I doubled over with laughter. And, sure, let's throw Yakov Smirnoff in the mix so we can't possibly forget that it's the '80s. Speaking of the '80s, that club scene could have gone on forever. I needed so much more music from Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers (is this a problematic band name? I don't know, move past it!). When Penny, sobbing and singing along, brings the gun to her head—I've never laughed harder at a thwarted suicide attempt. I'll be thinking about that for a long time.

In closing, Doctor Who? More like Doctor What the Fuck.

3.5/5 stars, but the intergalactic kind

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Joe

Sometimes, the desire to know film feels like a heavy albatross hanging around my neck. I didn't like this movie. At times, I hated it. And yet, I felt this nagging sense that I was missing something. Even if I wasn't actually missing anything, even if this actually is a brazenly nonsensical movie, designed to confuse instead of engage, even if that's true, I still feel the pull toward optimism. A jealousy, perhaps, of those who are able to view such garbage and see gold. I want to feel that way too! It would be so much easier to watch Buckaroo Bonzai and say this sucks and move on. I wish I could sit here and use the requisite 1000 words to list everything I hated about it and say "this is the movie's fault!" and then forget about it forever.

But I can't do that. It bothers me when people do that, I don't understand that human tendency to think that way. The theory has been repeated enough on this blog that it deserves official naming today—the Everything Everywhere Butch (EEB) Theory, after the idea that my father-in-law was excessive dismissive of Everything Everywhere All at Once, simply because he did not understand it. The EEB theory states that if you do not understand a film, then that is your fault, not the film's fault. For the vast majority of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, I did not understand it. This is my fault. This theory is a heavy, heavy burden. It means that the remaining few paragraphs of this write-up will probably read as positive. That's because it's interesting to me to consider the idea that a bad movie is actually good. It does not actually mean that I thought it was good. The grade at the bottom will hopefully reflect that. I am simply enamored with the very existence of a person or people who watch this shit and think, this is good! And such an idea really does soften the blow for me, the blow of having watched a bad movie.

I think this is a good movie to test the EEB theory because I believe that a lot of it doesn't make sense on purpose. Or, at the very least, it is very obtuse on purpose, and purposefully goes out of its way to not explain anything beyond an opening crawl of text that gives background to the character of Buckaroo Bonzai. My assumption, going into this thing, was that this was an homage to old comic books or something, Buckaroo Bonzai being a sci-fi cult figure from the '60s or '70s that some fanatic filmmaker is lovingly adapting for the big screen. Something like Dick Tracy, right? But as it turns out, this is not the case! Buckaroo Bonzai is totally homegrown! The sense that I got that there is a story before this movie and after this movie is true, but not in other media. Instead, the story outside of the edges of the frame lives entirely in the fucked-up mind of the scriptwriter, and in the dozens of discarded drafts for other Buckaroo Bonzai movies stuffed into the sock drawer of his bedroom dresser. The film, then, is audacious in the way that none of the audience members could possibly be familiar with this character or this story, and yet it plows ahead as if you were anyway.

I also thought that the tone was inconsistent, to its detriment, but I can understand why people appreciated it. I honestly do think that the film believed it was being subversive by inserting humor into otherwise hard sci-fi proceedings, and by inserting impenetrable jargon into an otherwise lighthearted adventure film. To my eyes and ears, however, the jargon overshadowed everything. I couldn't get past it. I thought there were some moments when the sense of humor peeked through (mainly, the gag about Orson Welles, and the idea that the U.S. President had a "short form" declaration of war). But it was surrounded by so much fucking nonsense gobbledygook that I almost wouldn't have noticed.

So I have this other theory called the Tár theory, and it applies to both movies and life. It's named for the opening scene in Tár, in which Cate Blanchett's character talks for like five minutes straight about conducting music. I have no fucking idea what she's talking about, but I loved listening. I was thinking about the theory the other night when I was privy to a few of my friends talking lovingly about weed and the ways in which they smoke it. There were so many terms being thrown around that I just literally had never heard before, but man, it was so cool listening in. I just like hearing people being passionate about something, ya know? But the theory doesn't apply to something like Buckaroo Bonzai. Yes, it's 100-plus minutes of characters saying words who meanings I would have no reason to know, but there's no passion. The sci-fi jargon is, to these characters and the world they live in, mundane. It's kind of funny that Christopher Lloyd is in this film, since his Dr. Emmett Brown showed how to do it the very next year, yelling about a "flux capacitor," something that I would have no interest in knowing about if Doc didn't holler passionately about it!

It wasn't just the verbiage, though. Just the overall feel was off. Depending on how you think about that kind of thing, maybe that's a good thing. If it's off then it's like nothing you've ever seen before. I could maybe imagine being a pre-teen and coming across this one late at night and having my mind blown that a film could even do this, just throw a bunch of shit on the screen and pretend like you should know it even though there's no way you could. There are overt efforts to make things weirder than usually, like the conch shell spacecrafts or the insane cast of characters with no depth or the fact that Buckaroo Bonzai isn't just a suave doctor scientist action hero but is also in a ROCK BAND. This is an '80s thing, right? That characters must be in rock bands? Felt very Howard the Duck to me. Hey, at least rock music is a language that is accessible to me, more so than a frothing-at-the-mouth John Lithgow gibbering about parallel dimensions.

See how hard I'm working here? To understand a movie that never asked to be understood? That I'm hanging onto a scene that takes place at a bar featuring rock music, a scene that even the characters in the scene itself were quick to point out how weird it was? I don't think it actually matters, to understand something, but in this context, in a blog post about a movie, it's important to me. Either I understand it and I like it or I don't understand it and sweat it out trying to understand. Under no circumstances will I not understand and then use that lack of understand as the reason for criticism. But I wish I could. It would be a lot easier.

It's funny, because I'd like to think there was a brief moment at the end where it started to click for me. It didn't, but the moment made me believe that it could click, if I tried a little harder. It was the end credits. They were cool! Probably because of the music again, I love that whack-ass '80s goofy shit. But also because I liked all the weirdos walking around to the rhythm of that song. I think maybe you could view this as a thesis statement, how Buckaroo Bonzai isn't a person but an ideal, how his desire to do good in this world attracts people and support. But then also, it was like, who the fuck is that guy to Buckaroo's left? Some fucking dork-ass weirdo with toe-separator shoes? I've literally never seen this guy before. Was he in this movie? Did he have speaking lines? Okay, never mind, this movie is stupid. I don't get it. Where you go, there you are, and I am here, head in my hands, perplexed and lost.

GRADE: 1.5 pukes out of 5

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GROUP AVERAGE GRADE: 2.75 pukes out of 5

See you in the 8th dimension (the comment section).

(NEXT TIME: Another small group takes on The Amityville Horror on Thursday, see ya then!)