Alright, I'm going to try to smash these out and clear the decks for July.
Previously mentioned:
A film from the 1960s: L'Avventura (1960)
A film with a title that starts with the letters K or L: Legally Blonde (2001)
A film from the Criterion Collection whose number includes the #6 (i.e. 16, 506, 761): Invention for Destruction (1958) (#1016)
And since then:
A horror film: The Driller Killer (1979) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977) Maybe I'm way off base here, but I thought The Driller Killer was the superior movie. It's sort of clumsy and raw, but fits with the subject matter and it actually works pretty well as a psychodrama. I never really got a good sense that Hills Have Eyes knew what it wanted to be about. It's got a bit of colonial critique and a bit of man's inherent savagery, but it's not really coherent.
A film about LGBTQ+ lifestyles (Pride Month): Bad Education (2004) This is a Hitchcockian thriller/drama from Pedro Almodóvar about childhood friends, Catholic sex abuse, and identity. Sometimes it feels like an excuse for Almodóvar to stretch his writing muscles: at one point I believe there's a film within a film within a film within a film. But it mostly works and, if you are weary of the male gaze on the female body, well, here's plenty of male gaze on the male body.
A film with Peter Lorre (born June 26): The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) I think we can all agree that he should never have changed his name from László Löwenstein (a wonderfully alliterative name), but I guess he did pretty well as Peter Lorre. It's pretty impressive that due to his limited English, Lorre had to learn his lines for this movie phoenetically. It's not noticeable (to me, anyway), and he is one of the highlights of a solid, if not top-level, Hitchcock film. The other main highlight is the famous concert scene, which remains effective as ever.
Previously mentioned:
A film from the 1960s: L'Avventura (1960)
A film with a title that starts with the letters K or L: Legally Blonde (2001)
A film from the Criterion Collection whose number includes the #6 (i.e. 16, 506, 761): Invention for Destruction (1958) (#1016)
And since then:
A horror film: The Driller Killer (1979) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977) Maybe I'm way off base here, but I thought The Driller Killer was the superior movie. It's sort of clumsy and raw, but fits with the subject matter and it actually works pretty well as a psychodrama. I never really got a good sense that Hills Have Eyes knew what it wanted to be about. It's got a bit of colonial critique and a bit of man's inherent savagery, but it's not really coherent.
A film about LGBTQ+ lifestyles (Pride Month): Bad Education (2004) This is a Hitchcockian thriller/drama from Pedro Almodóvar about childhood friends, Catholic sex abuse, and identity. Sometimes it feels like an excuse for Almodóvar to stretch his writing muscles: at one point I believe there's a film within a film within a film within a film. But it mostly works and, if you are weary of the male gaze on the female body, well, here's plenty of male gaze on the male body.
A film with Peter Lorre (born June 26): The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) I think we can all agree that he should never have changed his name from László Löwenstein (a wonderfully alliterative name), but I guess he did pretty well as Peter Lorre. It's pretty impressive that due to his limited English, Lorre had to learn his lines for this movie phoenetically. It's not noticeable (to me, anyway), and he is one of the highlights of a solid, if not top-level, Hitchcock film. The other main highlight is the famous concert scene, which remains effective as ever.