I watched 6 movies last week:

• Tokyo Gore Police does exactly what it says on the tin. Never mind that the tin is more than a little dented, or that its contents have started to go rancid, that seems like it’s maybe kind of the point. The movie is ridiculously over-the-top, certainly delivering on the violence and gore—sometimes in silly or inventive ways, though mostly just to shock and disgust—but it doesn’t offer a lot except for that, even when it finally gets around to having some kind of story. Some cheap but creative glimmers and an in-your-face attitude aside, the whole thing quickly grows tedious.
• The Hunted is…fine. It’s best when it’s a game of cat and mouse between its two leads, though mostly only because those leads are Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro, who invest more in their characters than the script does. The movie never really goes anywhere, beyond a stab at a lukewarm First Blood remake. And while William Friedkin certainly knows his way around a chase scene, this was not one of his better efforts.
• The new Anaconda doesn’t work just as a love letter to the 1997 original. Which is good, because I don’t have much if any love for that movie. This one is goofy and amiable, and if it doesn’t go anywhere even remotely surprising, at least the ride itself is good-natured fun.

• Roger Ebert said that Runaway Train was “a reminder that the great adventures are great because they happen to people we care about.” In this case, that’s Jon Voight and Eric Roberts, who really do manage to make you care about their characters and keep the tension high from start to finish.
• Imagine a cheap Canadian answer to Mad Max with a little Smokey and the Bandit tossed for some reason, and you probably have a pretty good idea of how Firebird 2015 AD ever got made. Of course, what you’re imagining is almost certainly a better movie than this lazy and tedious shamble. Some of the actors do their best with the absolute nothing they’re given, while some just do a lot, but none of it is worth watching even a little.
• I often didn’t like Marty Supreme the character, but Marty Supreme the movie takes so many weird and audacious swings, it’s hard not to largely enjoy it.

I also rewatched Coherence, which I think is a little less clever upon rewatching, and a little dated by its shot-on-video aesthetic and some of its cast—RIP to the troubled Nicholas Brendon—but still holds up as a clever explorations of science-fictional ideas.

I watched just 4 movies last week:

• If Little Caesar feels a little dated, to the point almost of parody, that’s largely because Edward G. Robinson so strongly created the template for future gangster movies.
• Jamie Lee Curtis, who stars in Virus called the movie “the all time piece of shit.” Trust her on this.
• Technically a television miniseries, split into two parts, World on a Wire is every inch a 1970s German television production, and if it’s science fictional ideas seem a little familiar now, it’s only because so many later movies have lifted them, or borrowed from the same influences.
• First Men in the Moon is very silly, but also surprisingly delightful and fun.

Finally, I rewatched The Bat, with #HorrorWatch on Bluesky. I thought the same thing as I did back in November when I watched it for the first time: it’s a little silly, a little oddly convoluted, but the cast, including Vincent Price, are a lot of fun.

Last week, there were zero guesses!

Let’s see if we can’t more than double that this week! 😉 If you know the song and artist, guess in the comments below, it’s just that simple. Good luck!

1. “Sail on, silver girl”
   “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel, guessed by Frodis
2. “Tore my shirt to stop you bleedin'”
3. “And the sky was made of amethyst”
4. “Flambeau dancers light the walkway to Jean Pierre’s”
5. “I wonder how the old folks are tonight”
6. “Figures that my courage would choose to sell out now”
   “Crucify” by Tori Amos, guessed by Chris McLaren
7. “Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letterbox”
   “Across the Universe” by Fiona Apple (orig. the Beatles), guessed by Glen
8. “You are cruel and you are constant”
9. “They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom”
   “First We Take Manhattan” by Leonard Cohen, guessed by Chris McLaren
10. “I really think I better get a hold of myself”

I watched another 7 movies last week:

• Hamnet is a wonderful, often excruciatingly beautiful exploration of grief. It takes quite a while to get there, though I can’t decide if that’s by necessity, if that last hour of grief and loss would work as well if you didn’t frame it within the larger love story. The movie has some genuinely incredible performances, not least by the child actor playing the title role, and some of the most beautiful shots I’ve ever seen, especially in that final hour—so much so that I can forgive it for feeling like it’s just waiting for that hour from its very first one.
• I don’t know if I kept waiting for Smiles of a Summer Night to become more, or less, like A Little Night Music, the musical which was based on it. Still, it has several playfully fun scenes and performances, even if there’s nary a clown to be sent in anywhere.
• Oh, Nighthawks is bad. Some of that, I’m sure, is the editing, which chops out whole characters and scenes, but what’s left is so boring and dumb that it’s difficult to see how the movie might have worked even in its original cut. The movie doesn’t even make a compelling case for its title. The Washington Post movie review at the time reportedly panned the movie by calling it “what The Day of the Jackal might have looked like if filmed by the producers of Baretta.” Rutger Hauer is only occasionally compelling, Sylvester Stallone is almost purposefully not, and everyone else gets lost by the wayside.
• Dust Bunny could do with a little more inventiveness in its story and characters to match its production design, but there’s a fun visual flair through most of the film. It’s hardly the best of Bryan Fuller’s work, but he at least acquits himself reasonably well in the transition from TV to movies.

• Pete Hujar’s Day isn’t necessarily profound, beyond finding profundity in the mundane, in the simple act of two people talking to one another, its glimpse of a brief moment of 1970s New York.
• Videoheaven makes a number of interesting observations, but none that it doesn’t belabor or support with too many clips. You could easily sharpen the film’s focus by editing out a full hour of the film’s three, without sacrificing any of its history, connections, or critical appraisals.
• I can’t really recommend Lady Frankenstein—it’s a shoddy mishmash of the Mary Shelley story and some Italian gothic horror—but if you are going to watch it, you could do a lot worse than the version hosted by Elvira.

There were 10 song lyrics last week:

And there are 10 new song lyrics this week:

1. “Even your emotions have an echo in so much space”
   “Crazy” by Shawn Colvin (orig. Gnarls Barkley)
2. “Persecution you must fear”
   “You Can Get It If You Really Want” by Jimmy Cliff
3. “Come on, belly up, to this brave new language”
   “Face Down. Feet First” by Christine Fellows
4. “For once I can touch what my heart used to dream of”
   “For Once in My Life” by Tony Bennett
5. “There’s a reason for the sun-shining sky”
   “Let Your Love Flow” by Bellamy Brothers
6. “I know a girl who thinks of ghosts”
   “She Don’t Use Jelly” by the Flaming Lips
7. “Still you forced a way into my scheme of things”
   “Word on a Wing” by David Bowie
8. “These mishaps you bubble wrap”
   “Let Go” by Frou Frou
9. “The white walls of your dressing room are stained in scarlet red”
   “High-Flying Bird” by Elton John
10. “No one’s teenage pride or throttle”
    “Passage” by Vienna Teng

Guess the song and artist in the comments if you know them! Good luck!