I forgot our ‘palate cleanser’ for after, as is often our MO after horror flicks.
The at times very funny & wonderfully dark Nikki Glaser special on Netflix, Some Day You’ll Die, although I found her lamenting her age and declining looks to be outrageous. She’s text-book Hollywood casting material. At the “ripe” age of 39. Nikki, plz 
That makes me think of this song:
Brilliant. Love Garfunkel and Oates 
I just finished watching the excellent current season of Shrinking on Apple TV. This show just keeps getting better and better.
Watched Smile 2. Eh. I’ve seen far scarier movies this year. At least it was free
another thumbs up for Juror #2. it’s a shame that the studio did Clint dirty by not marketing this and releasing it wide. he can still construct a good movie. a good illustration of a relatable moral quandary. a low key film about how Justice should be defined. draws comparisons to 12 Angry Men. if this is his last, it’s not a bad way to go out. not by a long shot.
Yeah, I recently read a review referring to it as One Angry Man. 
For whatever reason, I have never seen Holiday Inn, so when we came across it channel surfing last night, we decided to stick it out. It’s a piece of fluff with a lot of cool dancing, which I expected. What I did not expect was the extended blackface sequence. I’m usually pretty “oh, that was just the times” about such things, but it was quite a shock.
Holiday magic courtesy of Rickey Jay. Rickey Jay and His 52 Assistants, an HBO special from 1996.
I <3 Ricky Jay. He’s had a number of film roles throughout the years. I particularly recommend David Mamet’s House of Games. Jay was a fantastic magician, historian, and raconteur, and he is greatly missed.
If you are ever in Los Angeles, I suggest a visit to The Museum of Jurassic Technology
It’s somewhere between a hoax of a museum and a museum of hoaxes. Among their collection is Jay’s collection of decomposing celluloid dice from the 1800’s, and a display of microscopic art composed of butterfly wing scales and microscopic sea shells and plant parts, arranged on slides. It was an art form that popped up briefly after microscopes became easier to mass produce.
Ricky Jay was one of a kind. perhaps the most interesting man in the world. of his many talents, was something perhaps no one earth had developed more than him: card throwing.
Here’s another full special of Jay’s, Leaned Pigs and Fireproof Women
Nosferatu (2024) - dir. Robert Eggers
The original Nosferatu, the first (and unauthorized) feature adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, made a bunch of superficial changes to Stoker’s story in an attempt to avoid legal action, including changing all the character names, naturally, and shifting the setting to Germany. But the MAJOR change they made was to the titular count. Stoker’s Dracula is eccentric and a bit off-putting, but is not overtly monstrous initially. Count Orlock, however, is a freakish, ghoul-like figure.
Egger’s keeps the 1922 film’s renaming and relocation, and Orlock’s horrifying appearance, but emphasizes much more the spiritual/sexual connection. The contrast between the explicitly erotic hold of the Count on Lilly-Rose Depp’s Ellen Hutter and his walking corpse presence (Bill Skarsgard in heavy prosthetics and a truly epic mustache) lend a weird twinge to the proceedings. The atmosphere Eggers generates is stunning. He’s long been a fabulous user of natural lighting, and the eerie, candlelit interiors and dark nights all give you a creepy gothic feel that is this film’s main draw. It’s beautiful and forbidding and works amazingly well.
Unfortunately, that feeling only carries so much weight. While Depp’s performance is fabulous (she really commits to physicality of the roll, wrenching herself around in a possessed frenzy), ultimately things just drag on a little too long. At 2h 12m, this could have lost 20-30 min. Willem Dafoe shows up as this story’s version of Van Helsing in the last third to liven things up, but it’s not quite enough to make this the home run that Eggers clearly was swinging for.
It’s not bad by any means. It’s by turns scary and sexy and is a joy to look at. But this has been Egger’s passion project from his earliest days as a filmmaker, and I wanted it to be more successful than it is.
4/5 bloodsucking fiends.
Currently watching the newest episode of Shetland on Prime. Season 9, Episode 3.
Started The Penguin (2024, HBO), the mini series spun off from some Batman series I presume. Starring an unrecognisable Colin Farrell. Started off great, but have stopped watching after episode 5… Found it boring…
Sometimes I think it’s just me, why I don’t like a lot of tv and movies these days, thinking I just have a very short span of attention these days.
In times like these I put on some old movie I have seen before and see if this can hold my attention. So, I watched two classics I had seen before.
District 9 (2009). Already seen a few times. Had difficulty getting into the movie, more so than before, but once the action starts, it’s gripping. Though it had less impact on me than on earlier viewings.
Then today I watched another movie I rewatch every few years or so. Black Hawk Down (2001), based on true events of US soldiers trying to capture some African warlord in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993. Directed by Ridley Scott. Was sitting at the edge of my seat within ten minutes or so. The first hour has some of the finest, most brutal war scenes ever put on film. Complete mayhem. One of the best action/war movies I have ever seen. And testament to Ridley Scott’s genius as a film maker.
And, started Juror#2 now…
I had the opposite reaction to The Penguin. I’m not huge on comic books / superheroes etc., but the show grew on me thx to great acting, and when I simply looked at it like a show about the mob
At last! It is all that one would expect from this movie… and then some.
a future xmas classic? haven’t seen it (not really my thing). but i have a lot of respect for their use of practical effects.
