I re-watched Sinners. Again. It's such a great movie. I don't care if it gets recognition with the Academy Awards, because it's clearly one of the best of this year. This watch I was really loving all the setting up done in the 1st act. Delroy Lindo is a treasure.
About a week ago I noticed that in 2025, I've watched movies from almost every year of the last 100 years... So I decided to plug the holes.
I watched Pandora's Box (1929), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), Queen of the Amazons (1947), D.O.A. (1949), From Russia with Love (1963), Diary of a Chambermaid (1964) and The Babadook (2014) this week, and now I'm only two away from having seen feature-length movies from 104 different years, from 1922 to 2025. I have A Woman of Paris and The Adventures of Prince Achmed planned to complete the set.
That is an achievement, Mikko. I did notice the variety of years covered when I look at your Letterboxd list. I saw many Finnish films showing up in it recently.
Prince Achmed is a unique film. Shadow puppets are not a common animation technique even today.
First of all, let me say RIP to the great Rob Reiner. He left a permanent mark in american cinema. I celebrated his career by watching two favorites of mine: A Few Good Men and Spinal Tap.
G.I. Jane (1997): Another one of those overpriced-super-cool-awesome-special-collector editions that only the australians can make (Imprint in this case). Demi Moore is badass, Aragorn is a douche-nozzle, and you gotta laugh at Jim Caviezel losing it when Demi put her stuff on the bunk next to him. The 4k is really good and the extras are cool. It only needs a new interview with Demi Moore to be complete.
Dogma (1999): another Australian overpriced 4k release. About a month after I preordered it, Lionsgate also announced their much cheaper release... BUT, it's sold only on their online store, which doesn't ship to Canada. Long story short, the boxset is cool, good looking and sounding, and full of extras. I'm a fan of Kevin Smith movies, except maybe a couple (probably not the ones you think) and I think this is one of his best.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1,2 and 3: I only needed the first movie, but had to get the boxset to have it. The second movie is passable, and you can skip the third movie. It's another homerun from Arrow, with great technical quality and full of great extras. I didn't finish the 3rd movie, it's almost painful to watch.
RIP Rob & Michele Reiner. Rob is unquestionably one of the best and most unique movie directors. One who isnt discussed as much as others but, to me, is endlessly brilliant in his incredible take on so many different styles and genres of film. He leaves an indelible legacy of cinema that will be enjoyed by generations to come as long as film exists. #AsYouWish.
Unintentional Double Feature Theme This Week: Battle Royalle of Two Cheezy Ski Slashers:
Iced (1989) vs Shredder (2003).
Its really pretty incredible to think about how much of horror cinema lies in the shadow of Friday the 13th. In this case change summer camp for a ski hill and go for it! Both flicks are pretty low budget slashers but not without their charm. Rando group of couples dispatched in a myriad of ways involving ski hill props. I give the win to Shredder as its paced better while still channeling a very 80s slasher feel. Iced saves virtually all the kills for the last 20m and isnt particularly intriguing leading up to that. Plus, as one who was raised on skiing and transitioned to snowboarding, i do appreciate that Shredders revenge plot is built around the early stereotypes and general disdain for snowboarders by the ski community at the time. (At one point riding a gondola in the early 2000s a couple was telling me and my friends about their favorite mountain. We said we'd have to check it out. They looked outside the gondola and saw our boards and said "oh..sorry..snowboarders are NOT allowed" in the snootiest way possible...LOL)
It is the time of year when Turner Classic Movies releases its TCM Remembers memorial video. There are so many big names in the 2025 edition. Claudia Cardinale was one that hit me. Once Upon A Time In The West was very influential in developing my love of movies. One death that I was not aware of was Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who was featured in many action films of the 1990s.
Do any of you ever periodically look up people to see if they are still living? There are a handful of Italian genre actors that I check up on. Most of them are in their eighties now.
As 2025 nears its conclusion, I began counting up watches for the year. I have reached over 250 films, largely due to an extremely active June and October. Between the Mahoning Drive- In and the Gap Theatre, I have probably seen more theatrically than I ever have in a single year.
PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN ROW (1971, dir. Roger Vadim) – This is such a weird viewing experience. Part (very inappropriate) sex comedy, murder mystery, and high school satire, Pretty Maids All In Row switches tones frequently. Rock Hudson is a popular high school teacher and football coach who happens to be engaging in physical relationships with many of his students. His teaching philosophy is as quirky as his life. While his antics are going on, female students are turning up dead around the school. The film is presented in an extremely leering style, not surprising considering this comes from the director of Barbarella. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was behind the script.
ROAR (1981) – Roar is among the most foolhardy films ever made. Having the disc (a rental) was nice because the extras really show how crazy the production was. The plot of the film is that of a big cats specialist who lives with dozens of animals somewhere in Africa. His family comes to join him there after several years of separation and are not ready for the experience. It truly was a family affair, with Tippi Hedren and her family raising the lions and other cats for years before filming began at a California ranch. They then acted in the film, sometimes being genuinely terrified and periodically getting injured. Roar took five years to finish.
NIGHT PEOPLE (1954) – Another film that is obscure for a reason. There is some murky business going on in Cold War Berlin when an American soldier is kidnapped off the streets. Gregory Peck is the Army officer responsible for determining why the kidnapping happened and how to get the soldier back. Night People is not a compelling film (a bit too stagey) but has lovely widescreen Technicolor cinematography. It really did not need to be in widescreen, though.
A DAY IN THE COUNTRY (1946, dir. Jean Renoir) – A lyrical short film about a Parisian middle-class family going out to the countryside for a seemingly uneventful day. It is all about the little details and passing moments.
THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE (2024, dir. Magnus von Horn) – It was time to finally use my Mubi subscription. This stark odyssey of a working-class woman, Karoline, trying to survive in post-WWI Denmark is matched by stark black-and-white imagery. After a series of increasingly dire setbacks, Karoline finds refuge with a woman running an illegal adoption agency. Things do not get better from there. I had been eyeing this on MUB for a while, not expecting a fun experience with it. It was more depressing than expected.
I drove out to see AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH at the Imax. Once I got inside, the computer running the projector crashed, so I couldn't see the movie. And then, the computer at the customer service desk also crashed, so no one could get their money back. Total disaster.
THE BLACK CAULDRON (1982) What strange alchemy brought this movie into being? It's so all over the place, yet so beautifully animated.
METROPOLIS (2001) Osamu Tezuka goodness!
PITCH BLACK (2000) Vin Diesel debuts as Riddick like he has something to prove, making the most out of the part. Too bad about all the unfinished-looking CGI.
Sounds to me like TRON wasnt ready for we users to move so quickly past ARES. While the computers crashed for Fire and Ash and cash registers, ill bet the ones in the arcade ran juuuusssst fine. #EndOfLine
With the last major free time before having to prepare for holiday activities, I went to the Gap Theatre yesterday for the X-Massacre Marathon, a five-film barrage of yutetide horror.
SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2 (1987) - Knowing the first half is basically recapping the first film, I took the opportunity to get some food before returning in time to see Ricky's trashy Christmas rampage. This is very tongue-in-cheek horror.
INSIDE (2007) - The biggest surprise of the marathon was this French Extremity film about a pregnant woman fending off an attacker trying to cut the baby out of her body on Christmas Eve. The silence at the conclusion spoke volumes about how drained most of us in the audience felt. This was a digital presentation.
ELVES (1989) - A showing on VHS because that is the only format the film is available on. The thirty-year-old tape showed its age, too. Elves was the perfect palate cleanser after the intensity of Inside. This is goofy, nonsensical low-budget 1980s horror about an elf (just one!) that somehow gets resurrected and starts a killing spree. The plot gets extremely ridiculous.
THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1981) - Definitely the least seasonal of the films. A small group of students are clearing out a dorm building during the holiday break while strange things start to happen around them. Not being the biggest slasher fan, I did find much of the film a tedious exercise in the subgenre. The finale, however, was better than expected. The print had the original title of PRANKS.
CHRISTMAS EVIL (1980) - The marathon ended with one of the major films of yuletide horror. I was quite sleepy by this time, so I ended up closing my eyes for long portions. This is a film that I know well, so I did not feel guilty about my lack of attention.
OMG what a fun marathon and theme! Thanks for sharing. I actually am planning on watching Inside in the near future as ive heard it mentioned alongside Martyrs many times. Also, Elves sounds fun! Will track down a vhs rip. Thanks!
Definitely a fun experience. The turnout was good, too. Having a repertory theater in small-town Pennsylvania is something I have appreciated this year.
Considering how ridiculous it gets, watching Elves with a crowd was very enjoyable.
Inside is very intense and bloody. Generally, there is clapping when a film finishes in these marathons. With Inside, it was silent in the theater.
The theater is probably around 40 minutes away from where the Mahoning Drive-In is, Rob. Most places close down in town by the evening, so there is generally not much to do if you have to kill some time. (Sometimes the Gap closes between films to give the staff time to eat.)
Living in the Poconos, my drive to the Gap Theatre is generally around 35 minutes based on traffic. I would probably go there more often if my fun budget was not limited. I tend to go to screenings of films that I have not seen before or the special events.
Plain Clothes (1988): Gotta love a 30-something, playing a 20-something, infiltrating a high school as a teenager. I really like the shot when our dude elbows the principal in the face. It's too bad we lost that part of Martha Coolidge, when she did fun and cool movies. The supporting cast is impressive too: Diane Ladd, George Wendt, Robert Stack, Harry Shearer. With all these folks, you know it won't be that serious.
I re-watched Sinners. Again. It's such a great movie. I don't care if it gets recognition with the Academy Awards, because it's clearly one of the best of this year. This watch I was really loving all the setting up done in the 1st act. Delroy Lindo is a treasure.
ReplyDeleteAgreed all around. Hands down my fav flick of the year. Will likely revisit over holidays. Or, at a minimum, spin the soundtrack.
DeleteHello gang! Hope everyone's enjoying the weekend!
ReplyDeleteAbout a week ago I noticed that in 2025, I've watched movies from almost every year of the last 100 years... So I decided to plug the holes.
I watched Pandora's Box (1929), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), Queen of the Amazons (1947), D.O.A. (1949), From Russia with Love (1963), Diary of a Chambermaid (1964) and The Babadook (2014) this week, and now I'm only two away from having seen feature-length movies from 104 different years, from 1922 to 2025. I have A Woman of Paris and The Adventures of Prince Achmed planned to complete the set.
That's awesome, i like that
DeleteINCREDIBLE! Well done movie lover Mikko
DeleteThat is an achievement, Mikko. I did notice the variety of years covered when I look at your Letterboxd list. I saw many Finnish films showing up in it recently.
DeletePrince Achmed is a unique film. Shadow puppets are not a common animation technique even today.
First of all, let me say RIP to the great Rob Reiner. He left a permanent mark in american cinema. I celebrated his career by watching two favorites of mine: A Few Good Men and Spinal Tap.
ReplyDeleteG.I. Jane (1997): Another one of those overpriced-super-cool-awesome-special-collector editions that only the australians can make (Imprint in this case). Demi Moore is badass, Aragorn is a douche-nozzle, and you gotta laugh at Jim Caviezel losing it when Demi put her stuff on the bunk next to him. The 4k is really good and the extras are cool. It only needs a new interview with Demi Moore to be complete.
Dogma (1999): another Australian overpriced 4k release. About a month after I preordered it, Lionsgate also announced their much cheaper release... BUT, it's sold only on their online store, which doesn't ship to Canada. Long story short, the boxset is cool, good looking and sounding, and full of extras. I'm a fan of Kevin Smith movies, except maybe a couple (probably not the ones you think) and I think this is one of his best.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1,2 and 3: I only needed the first movie, but had to get the boxset to have it. The second movie is passable, and you can skip the third movie. It's another homerun from Arrow, with great technical quality and full of great extras. I didn't finish the 3rd movie, it's almost painful to watch.
RIP Rob & Michele Reiner. Rob is unquestionably one of the best and most unique movie directors. One who isnt discussed as much as others but, to me, is endlessly brilliant in his incredible take on so many different styles and genres of film. He leaves an indelible legacy of cinema that will be enjoyed by generations to come as long as film exists. #AsYouWish.
DeleteUnintentional Double Feature Theme This Week: Battle Royalle of Two Cheezy Ski Slashers:
ReplyDeleteIced (1989) vs Shredder (2003).
Its really pretty incredible to think about how much of horror cinema lies in the shadow of Friday the 13th. In this case change summer camp for a ski hill and go for it! Both flicks are pretty low budget slashers but not without their charm. Rando group of couples dispatched in a myriad of ways involving ski hill props. I give the win to Shredder as its paced better while still channeling a very 80s slasher feel. Iced saves virtually all the kills for the last 20m and isnt particularly intriguing leading up to that. Plus, as one who was raised on skiing and transitioned to snowboarding, i do appreciate that Shredders revenge plot is built around the early stereotypes and general disdain for snowboarders by the ski community at the time. (At one point riding a gondola in the early 2000s a couple was telling me and my friends about their favorite mountain. We said we'd have to check it out. They looked outside the gondola and saw our boards and said "oh..sorry..snowboarders are NOT allowed" in the snootiest way possible...LOL)
It is the time of year when Turner Classic Movies releases its TCM Remembers memorial video. There are so many big names in the 2025 edition. Claudia Cardinale was one that hit me. Once Upon A Time In The West was very influential in developing my love of movies. One death that I was not aware of was Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who was featured in many action films of the 1990s.
ReplyDeleteDo any of you ever periodically look up people to see if they are still living? There are a handful of Italian genre actors that I check up on. Most of them are in their eighties now.
As 2025 nears its conclusion, I began counting up watches for the year. I have reached over 250 films, largely due to an extremely active June and October. Between the Mahoning Drive- In and the Gap Theatre, I have probably seen more theatrically than I ever have in a single year.
ReplyDeletePRETTY MAIDS ALL IN ROW (1971, dir. Roger Vadim) – This is such a weird viewing experience. Part (very inappropriate) sex comedy, murder mystery, and high school satire, Pretty Maids All In Row switches tones frequently. Rock Hudson is a popular high school teacher and football coach who happens to be engaging in physical relationships with many of his students. His teaching philosophy is as quirky as his life. While his antics are going on, female students are turning up dead around the school. The film is presented in an extremely leering style, not surprising considering this comes from the director of Barbarella. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was behind the script.
ROAR (1981) – Roar is among the most foolhardy films ever made. Having the disc (a rental) was nice because the extras really show how crazy the production was. The plot of the film is that of a big cats specialist who lives with dozens of animals somewhere in Africa. His family comes to join him there after several years of separation and are not ready for the experience. It truly was a family affair, with Tippi Hedren and her family raising the lions and other cats for years before filming began at a California ranch. They then acted in the film, sometimes being genuinely terrified and periodically getting injured. Roar took five years to finish.
NIGHT PEOPLE (1954) – Another film that is obscure for a reason. There is some murky business going on in Cold War Berlin when an American soldier is kidnapped off the streets. Gregory Peck is the Army officer responsible for determining why the kidnapping happened and how to get the soldier back. Night People is not a compelling film (a bit too stagey) but has lovely widescreen Technicolor cinematography. It really did not need to be in widescreen, though.
A DAY IN THE COUNTRY (1946, dir. Jean Renoir) – A lyrical short film about a Parisian middle-class family going out to the countryside for a seemingly uneventful day. It is all about the little details and passing moments.
THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE (2024, dir. Magnus von Horn) – It was time to finally use my Mubi subscription. This stark odyssey of a working-class woman, Karoline, trying to survive in post-WWI Denmark is matched by stark black-and-white imagery. After a series of increasingly dire setbacks, Karoline finds refuge with a woman running an illegal adoption agency. Things do not get better from there. I had been eyeing this on MUB for a while, not expecting a fun experience with it. It was more depressing than expected.
I love Roar. Bought the bluray many years ago and made all of my friends watch it
DeleteWhat did your friends think of it? Roar is certainly an interestingly cinematic experience.
DeleteThey liked it enough. They wouldn't rewatch it multiples time like I did, but they had fun
DeleteI drove out to see AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH at the Imax. Once I got inside, the computer running the projector crashed, so I couldn't see the movie. And then, the computer at the customer service desk also crashed, so no one could get their money back. Total disaster.
ReplyDeleteTHE BLACK CAULDRON (1982)
What strange alchemy brought this movie into being? It's so all over the place, yet so beautifully animated.
METROPOLIS (2001)
Osamu Tezuka goodness!
PITCH BLACK (2000)
Vin Diesel debuts as Riddick like he has something to prove, making the most out of the part. Too bad about all the unfinished-looking CGI.
BILL AND TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY (1991)
Station!
That is a disappointing experience. Could you at least get some kind of voucher for a future screening there, Mac?
DeleteSounds to me like TRON wasnt ready for we users to move so quickly past ARES. While the computers crashed for Fire and Ash and cash registers, ill bet the ones in the arcade ran juuuusssst fine. #EndOfLine
DeleteWith the last major free time before having to prepare for holiday activities, I went to the Gap Theatre yesterday for the X-Massacre Marathon, a five-film barrage of yutetide horror.
ReplyDeleteSILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2 (1987) - Knowing the first half is basically recapping the first film, I took the opportunity to get some food before returning in time to see Ricky's trashy Christmas rampage. This is very tongue-in-cheek horror.
INSIDE (2007) - The biggest surprise of the marathon was this French Extremity film about a pregnant woman fending off an attacker trying to cut the baby out of her body on Christmas Eve. The silence at the conclusion spoke volumes about how drained most of us in the audience felt. This was a digital presentation.
ELVES (1989) - A showing on VHS because that is the only format the film is available on. The thirty-year-old tape showed its age, too. Elves was the perfect palate cleanser after the intensity of Inside. This is goofy, nonsensical low-budget 1980s horror about an elf (just one!) that somehow gets resurrected and starts a killing spree. The plot gets extremely ridiculous.
THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1981) - Definitely the least seasonal of the films. A small group of students are clearing out a dorm building during the holiday break while strange things start to happen around them. Not being the biggest slasher fan, I did find much of the film a tedious exercise in the subgenre. The finale, however, was better than expected. The print had the original title of PRANKS.
CHRISTMAS EVIL (1980) - The marathon ended with one of the major films of yuletide horror. I was quite sleepy by this time, so I ended up closing my eyes for long portions. This is a film that I know well, so I did not feel guilty about my lack of attention.
OMG what a fun marathon and theme! Thanks for sharing. I actually am planning on watching Inside in the near future as ive heard it mentioned alongside Martyrs many times. Also, Elves sounds fun! Will track down a vhs rip. Thanks!
DeleteDefinitely a fun experience. The turnout was good, too. Having a repertory theater in small-town Pennsylvania is something I have appreciated this year.
DeleteConsidering how ridiculous it gets, watching Elves with a crowd was very enjoyable.
Inside is very intense and bloody. Generally, there is clapping when a film finishes in these marathons. With Inside, it was silent in the theater.
Really need to make my way to the Gap at some point. Thanks for the reminder!
DeleteThe theater is probably around 40 minutes away from where the Mahoning Drive-In is, Rob. Most places close down in town by the evening, so there is generally not much to do if you have to kill some time. (Sometimes the Gap closes between films to give the staff time to eat.)
DeleteLiving in the Poconos, my drive to the Gap Theatre is generally around 35 minutes based on traffic. I would probably go there more often if my fun budget was not limited. I tend to go to screenings of films that I have not seen before or the special events.
Plain Clothes (1988): Gotta love a 30-something, playing a 20-something, infiltrating a high school as a teenager. I really like the shot when our dude elbows the principal in the face. It's too bad we lost that part of Martha Coolidge, when she did fun and cool movies. The supporting cast is impressive too: Diane Ladd, George Wendt, Robert Stack, Harry Shearer. With all these folks, you know it won't be that serious.
ReplyDelete