Last week, I watched 10 movies:
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- “I see that I have neglected to summarize the plot of Porky’s,” Roger Ebert wrote at the end of his original review. “And I don’t think I will. I don’t feel like writing one more sentence (which is, to be sure, all it would take).” Its plot is very thin, desperately crude, misogynistic, and more than a little creepy since these characters are supposed to be high school students. The movie probably benefits from the fact that there are worse versions of this kind of teen comedy, many of them inspired by Porky’s, but that doesn’t make it worth seeking out.
- Our Body is remarkably intimate, patient, and empathetic. It quietly observes these women, often in their most vulnerable moments with their doctors, and we understand that we are seeing them on their best, worst, and sometimes last days.
- There are good performances in Girl, Interrupted, but they often feel like performances in search of a character, and the movie feels episodic in a way that never quite adds up to anything.
- Babetida Sadjo is fantastic in the Our Father, the Devil, an “eloquently composed” and “bleak, slow-burn character study” (in the words of critic Robert Daniels).
- There are no shocking revelations in wait in Butterfly in the Sky, but that doesn’t make it a less lovely or insightful stroll through the history of Reading Rainbow.
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- If The Gift doesn’t entirely work, it does have some moments of real tension, and some good performances. I think Bateman, in particular, weaves a really interesting character by the movie’s end.
- Sasquatch Sunset is just too deeply weird and novel to write off completely. It’s not particularly successful as a narrative—it veers wildly into absurdity and never really develops these creatures into characters—and yet the film is strangely kind of moving.
- Jim Henson: Idea Man is genuinely enjoyable. It’s full of interesting history and fond reminiscences by those who knew and worked with him. It’s also not entirely uncritical of the man, although it does feel like there’s a fuller picture than what Ron Howard’s talking-heads documentary provides.
- Going in Style is never what I would call funny—indeed, there are scenes, like a late trip the characters take to Las Vegas, that feel interminable—but there are moments of bittersweet amusement.
- Godzilla Minus One is a lot of fun. Who would have thought that marrying a wartime melodrama to a giant monster movie could be this effective?
I also rewatched Waking Life, for what I think was the second time, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, for the first time in many decades. Waking Life is, as always, interesting, full of compelling visuals and ideas. Snow White, meanwhile, succeeds largely on the strength of its storybook animation, mostly in the scenes involving the wicked stepmother.