Watched: Strictly Ballroom

Oh my God, what a classic. I wish Baz Luhrmann would make another film like this, funny and heartfelt and warty and quirky, instead of the opulent nothingness that was The Great Gatsby. That movie had all of the visual verve and style of Strictly Ballroom and 0% of its spirit. It felt like a cold, dead thing in comparison to this. Is that unfair? I don't know, maybe. When I watch this film and see how deftly Lurhmann switches between tragic family history/societal pressures and hilarious parody/character work, and I remember how insane but still grounded Moulin Rouge was, or even how much I like Romeo + Juliet despite itself (let's not talk about Australia), I just don't understand what happened in The Great Gatsby.

Anyway! Ending the rant there, I'll save that for another day. This is a great film, full of perfect montages and zany Australian-ness and so much amazing everything. Between this and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert you may be able to begin ascertaining my idea of a perfect film. It's gotta have sequins, it's gotta have dancing, it's gotta have heart, it's gotta have ultra-weird flashback sequences, and it's gotta have near-unintelligible Australian accents. But still: watch this for the sheer tonnage of sequins/feathers/eye shadow alone. And then rewatch it for the sweet love story. And then one more time for the fantastic cinematography and dancing. And then just one more time, for shits and giggles.

 All of these faces: perfection.

Watched: Happy-Go-Lucky

This is the kind of film you should watch after watching 12 Years a Slave. I have watched it about once a year or so since it came out (2008) and sometimes more when I'm going through a rough patch. It just reminds me of things that are important to me, I suppose. This is the first film where I really noticed Sally Hawkins or Eddie Marsan and I have been a fan ever since.

Also, Alexis Zegerman, who I don't think I have ever seen in anything else, plays Hawkin's roommate and co-worker in this film and her character is my hero. Her character is everything I try to be in life.

Watched: 12 Years a Slave

What can I even say or write about this? So much (e)ink has already been spilled. It's a devastating, essential film. It deserves all the praise it got. Steve McQueen is not a gentle or heart-warming director, Shame and Hunger are equally confrontational. But I think this one is so stunning because of its honesty about something that Hollywood has often softened in its portrayals. I'm not saying always, but I am saying often. (Cough cough Gone with the Wind cough) I feel like this is what really drives McQueen, bringing atypical candor and brutality to situations that may have been portrayed (the Irish troubles, sex addiction/sexual dysfunction) in a blunted, Hollywood fashion heretofore.

In any case, it's a beautiful film, it's a hard to watch film, it's an interesting film, and it's a painful film. It is perhaps the first and last time I was not distracted by Fassbender's beautiful face because the character he was playing was so vile and the story was about so much more than his character. I don't know what else to write. I cried. I felt bad about life for a while. I kept going.

Watched: The World's End

A bit dark, but good fun. No darker really than Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz though. It's not Spaced, which is not only one of my favorite shows every but also my favorite thing these guys have ever done but it's entertaining with enough character development to be engaging, like most of their stuff. I'm not the kind of diehard fan who remembers every line of all their films but still, this is definitely the kind of re-watchable comedy these guys are great at making. I like Attack the Block better but this is still great.

Watched: Rush

I remember reviews of this being kind of harsh, that it was typically bland Ron Howard boiler plate whatever. But I thought it was pretty engaging, with a good story about real people who are neither villains nor heroes. The racing scenes are well done and Hemsworth/Bruhl are both well suited for their parts. It's not changing the face of cinema as we know it but it's a solid film, an interesting story that's told well.

Watched: Don Jon

This was fine, basically. It's possible that I ruined this film for myself by reading.watching some of the promotion JGL did for it; seeing/reading him talking about our lives and the place that pornography/morality holds within them on several times sort of made the message of his film somewhat heavy-handed by the time I finally got around to watching the film. I'm not sure that it would have felt that way had I not seen him discuss its themes so thoroughly beforehand, or perhaps it's just that I didn't feel as though the observations being made in this film were quite as revelatory as its maker does, but I felt like... it was fine. The film mostly knew what it wanted to say. Julianne Moore was good, this was the right kind of role for Scarlett Johannson. It was okay. I was entertained. That's all, really.