Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

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I'm still haunted by the people playing cards in the Exorcist (allegedly). I haven't watched it since to verify that they're actually in there.

It's a shot that lasts probably one second, an open door Father Karras passes as he walks towards his own room. '


As someone who thought he had memorized every single shot of the film, I only noticed it a few years ago. And it was the impetus of the whole project. To find hidden moments in movies. And to make people feel bad when they didn't recognize them.



It's not at all a horror movie. No zombies. It's just a weirdo crime thing with David Carradine in a dress.
Is that the one with Brad Dourif dancing a little jig at the beginning while waiting to steal a car?



Which raises a more troubling question: how many films did David Carradine appear in a dress?



How pleased I was to realize Dennis Hopper's Last Movie was on the Criterion Channel, after wanting to see it for the last twenty years. How frustrated to realize it's days were numbered, and right in the middle off my October glut. Clearly this was more important than my miserable horror duties though, and so I had to commit, quickly.


I don't know what I think. In some ways it's better than I thought it would be. In other ways, it was slightly worse. But either way, I'm am pretty sure by all of their ice frozen faces, no one on screen could care one way or the other while they were making it. And they definitely thought they were saying something special.

The question though, is did I like it.


Shrugs.


Mostly.



Another non-horror entry





This is my third Boetitcher, and even as a big fan of all three, I think this is my favorite. Tense. Unpredictable. Full of emotion and gun smoke.



I talk lots about my disinterest in story. But also, how I am more than willing to accept it as the focus of a film when it unfolds with any sense of poetry. These movies understand the human element of storytelling so well, and so efficiently tell us everything we need to know about the guts of these characters on screen, I am fine with how basic Boetitcher's approach is. This is a perfect example of when story is enough. When story can be art.



These are really special for any fans of Westerns or even just concise and beautifully clear character portraits. In many ways, I've been preferring them to a lot of the John Ford classics. And I say that, not remotely to knock Ford, who is great in lots of similar and dissimilar ways, but to loudly articulate my love of these very particular films, and make them sound as important as I think they are.


Also Randolph Scott >>>>> John Wayne



Another non-horror entry





This is my third Boetitcher, and even as a big fan of all three, I think this is my favorite. Tense. Unpredictable. Full of emotion and gun smoke.



I talk lots about my disinterest in story. But also, how I am more than willing to accept it as the focus of a film when it unfolds with any sense of poetry. These movies understand the human element of storytelling so well, and so efficiently tell us everything we need to know about the guts of these characters on screen, I am fine with how basic Boetitcher's approach is. This is a perfect example of when story is enough. When story can be art.



These are really special for any fans of Westerns or even just concise and beautifully clear character portraits. In many ways, I've been preferring them to a lot of the John Ford classics. And I say that, not remotely to knock Ford, who is great in lots of similar and dissimilar ways, but to loudly articulate my love of these very particular films, and make them sound as important as I think they are.


Also Randolph Scott >>>>> John Wayne
Agreed on all of this.

I love how often there is real character work embedded in whatever shootout or escape from cattle rustlers is happening.

Ride Lonesome and The Tall T are probably my favorites of his, but I haven't disliked a single film from the Boetticher-Scott collaborations.



Agreed on all of this.

I love how often there is real character work embedded in whatever shootout or escape from cattle rustlers is happening.

Ride Lonesome and The Tall T are probably my favorites of his, but I haven't disliked a single film from the Boetticher-Scott collaborations.
Those are the other two I've watched. I loved Tall T. Ride Lonesome I was slightly was less in love with, and my least favourite, But I think my slight hesitation towards it had to do with watching it under non ideal circumstances. I still thought it was really good, as distracted as I was.



When I was watching Decision at Sundown yesterday, it was a rare example where I was so engrossed with what was happening, I stopped acknowedging everyone else around me. The final stretch is a fascinating thing. I became legitimately invested in it. And I don't feel bad that neither by dogs nor my cats could get through me while I sat there watching.



When I was watching Decision at Sundown yesterday, it was a rare example where I was so engrossed with what was happening, I stopped acknowedging everyone else around me. The final stretch is a fascinating thing. I became legitimately invested in it. And I don't feel bad that neither by dogs nor my cats could get through me while I sat there watching.
It feels like a plot where you totally get where it's going, and then it takes a real left turn.



Zombie Nightmare did not let me down.



THE SLOW AND STEADY PURSUIT OF MESSIAH OF EVIL





Just because Messiah of Evil moves slowly, doesn’t mean you can catch up with it. Just because it methodically drifts from one familiar location to another—gas station, art gallery, supermarket, movie theater—doesn’t mean the life lingering there beneath our unwavering gaze, won’t still somehow sneak away towards something otherworldly. Every seemingly mundane scene seems to either begin with, move towards or organically transform into something we don’t quite recognize. A mechanic at the far end of a parking lot shooting a pistol into the shadows. A blind womans fingers reaching out to crawl over our face like a spider. A home whose walls have been painted in such a way that it seems we can step into them. Or be stared out at from them. We’re only ten minutes into the film, and already it makes sense for us to join the company of a disheveled man we overhear talking in a hotel room about the violent details of his birth. Some strangers have invited us in, after all. We just take a seat and keep listening. Because of course we do.

For something that moves so tremendously slow, Messiah of Evil is unrelenting. It never lets up accomplishing the feat of becoming stranger and stranger without ever moving. And, before you know it, it has enveloped you. Has got you lumbering deep into the nightmare, right alongside of it. Whistling like nothing ominous is afoot here. Don’t mind the darkness. After all, you should know your way around well enough. This place, at first glance, seems almost to be the exact same shape of you own life.

Forward! Forward! Nothing to fear!

But it will be the slowness of Messiah of Evil that will be its ultimate secret weapon. You can tell yourself you can outrun it. That it could never catch you. You’re much too fast, as you lumber behind it. And then when it offers you a chair, it only seems polite to accept its offer. This looks like as safe spot.

Why not?

Slow. Also polite.

So very polite.


What a harmless little movie

That’s how it gets you.







Victim of The Night
THE SLOW AND STEADY PURSUIT OF MESSIAH OF EVIL





Just because Messiah of Evil moves slowly, doesn’t mean you can catch up with it. Just because it methodically drifts from one familiar location to another—gas station, art gallery, supermarket, movie theater—doesn’t mean the life lingering there beneath our unwavering gaze, won’t still somehow sneak away towards something otherworldly. Every seemingly mundane scene seems to either begin with, move towards or organically transform into something we don’t quite recognize. A mechanic at the far end of a parking lot shooting a pistol into the shadows. A blind womans fingers reaching out to crawl over our face like a spider. A home whose walls have been painted in such a way that it seems we can step into them. Or be stared out at from them. We’re only ten minutes into the film, and already it makes sense for us to join the company of a disheveled man we overhear talking in a hotel room about the violent details of his birth. Some strangers have invited us in, after all. We just take a seat and keep listening. Because of course we do.

For something that moves so tremendously slow, Messiah of Evil is unrelenting. It never lets up accomplishing the feat of becoming stranger and stranger without ever moving. And, before you know it, it has enveloped you. Has got you lumbering deep into the nightmare, right alongside of it. Whistling like nothing ominous is afoot here. Don’t mind the darkness. After all, you should know your way around well enough. This place, at first glance, seems almost to be the exact same shape of you own life.

Forward! Forward! Nothing to fear!

But it will be the slowness of Messiah of Evil that will be its ultimate secret weapon. You can tell yourself you can outrun it. That it could never catch you. You’re much too fast, as you lumber behind it. And then when it offers you a chair, it only seems polite to accept its offer. This looks like as safe spot.

Why not?

Slow. Also polite.

So very polite.


What a harmless little movie

That’s how it gets you.




I think that about sums it up.
I don't know if I'm going to be able to get to it again this year, maybe if I watch it during the day, which is not my preference. But I really wanna.
I meant to do it as a double-feature with Lemora but I forgot.



I think that about sums it up.
I don't know if I'm going to be able to get to it again this year, maybe if I watch it during the day, which is not my preference. But I really wanna.
I meant to do it as a double-feature with Lemora but I forgot.

Lemora is a favorite as well but this (upon my second viewing) has immediately rocketed up on my approval rating. I can't imagine making a list of favorite horrors and not having this at least sneak into the top 20.



I watched it years ago on an extremely bad VHS transfer. The image was muddy, the sound was horrible. Because I am me, this was in some ways a plus, because I like watching films that seem to have been recently unearthed from beneath the dirt.



But watching a pretty pristine copy a few nights ago, it became almost immediately clear how perfectly composed and methodically thought out the entire film is. Nearly ever shot looks fantastic. Every scene builds upon its weird sense of muted terror. If there was a single flaw in the thing, it eluded me.



It's about as perfect as slow burn horror can possibly get. Sure, maybe the characters are thin. But I don't really even see how having fully fledged people living inside of this movie would help. It's eerieness very much comes from its otherness.



In spirit of the Halloween season, I have also rewatched Netflix's The Last Dance. And it once again proved that, even for a person who has almost no interest whatsoever in basketball, it is the best documentary I have ever seen Netflix put out. Where something like The Tiger King is entertaining, it is also just pure geek show and doesn't have much to say beyond its titillation. But this story about what it takes to become something great, the sacrifices and the triumphs, all of it revolving a handful of deeply complicated and interesting characters, with equally complicated and interesting inter personal dynamics, is perfection. I would consider it as being an even greater sports documentary than Hoop Dreams (probably not, but I would put it in contention)


Also, in more Halloween related news, I have watched two more Budd Boetticher's (Buchanan Rides Alone, Comanche Station) and they are also great. This guy is 5/5 so far.