1,001+ Films I’m Glad to Have Seen Before I Die, Vol. 50
Capsule reviews of randomized selections from a very long list of movies that make up my "Personal Canon".
Some things I’ve enjoyed this week!
1. The Wicker Man (1973)* adding to Canon?
A stodgy Christian copper goes to an island in search of a missing girl, and all the inhabitants just fuck with him the whole time. His circumstances can be relatably Hellish at times, because one of my nightmares is to be around groups of people singing in unexpected settings. Something about that just grosses me out. And all the music in this is stuff I really don’t like out of context, but I do think it’s perfect and incredible in context of this movie, and the lyrics especially set quite the tone. On the other hand, this stodgy cop has a frustratingly one track mind (the supremacy of Christian ideology), so he’s hard to like and root for. The island cult members are similarly fanatical in their beliefs, but they seem to be a happy community entirely without conflict, so it’s like, just let them do their thing. Not one single islander is like, "actually, it's kinda fucked up here, I should warn the outsider." They are all in perfect harmony all the way through to the end. Sure, they have to burn up one guy and some animals every couple hundred years, but by religious standards, that’s pretty good! By the way, people would probably hate this, but I really wanted some text on screen at the end about Summerisle having several years of the most bountiful harvest they’d ever had, to let us know the ritual worked. I know it’d be cheesy, and take away the mystery, but I enjoy the idea of knowing they were right.
It’s a pretty incredible, singular, and influential film that I didn’t entirely appreciate the first time I saw it, but I loved it this time around. So rich in character and setting, it’s very immersive. Fantastic ending. I love people dancing joyfully around a horrendous event. Christopher Lee is incredible. Probably his best performance, and certainly the best he’s ever looked! That hair is outta control.
2. Fast Times at Ridgemont High: The TV Cut
Watched the TV Cut, which would have been the first version I ever saw. It was interesting reading reviews of the movie, how many people had initially avoided it because they thought it was just a boy-centric stoner comedy. I totally get why, and I guess I was lucky that I saw it as a kid (11 or 12) on USA Up All Night, having no idea what it was, and completely fell in love. Pink Flamingos launched an obsession with cinema that has shaped my whole life, but before that, Fast Times was the prototype for that obsession. I just loved everything about it, and I still think it’s the best teen comedy ever made.
The TV version has some fun word replacements, like “I’m gonna kick 100% of your face” instead of “ass”, or “that guy’s been strange since the third grade” instead of “stoned”, or mirror graffiti that says “EAT IT” instead of “BIG HAIRY PUSSY” which feels like a clever in-joke. But the bigger appeal is all the additional scenes put in to make up for all the stuff taken out. Lots more with Linda and Stacy, which is always great. There’s even one more beat to the already multi-tiered Led Zeppelin gag. Lots more Spicoli, which is kind of a bad thing. It gives more depth to his character, but I think using him sparingly was the way to go. There’s also a couple of lines of dialogue from an up-and-coming teenage actor named Nicholas Coppola, so this should maybe be the go-to version for anyone watching it specifically for Nic Cage. He has a great delivery on one of the lines. They actually wanted him to play Brad, but he couldn’t work the amount of hours required since he was still under 18.
Another thing I noted on this watch is that Damone is wearing an Eraserhead pin at one point, and Linda has Rocky Horror posters up in her bedroom! These kids have great taste!
I also want to mention some bad math in the film that has always bothered me. First, Damone is scalping tickets that originally cost $12.50 each, and he sells two for $20 each. Then he says he made $16. Where did that extra dollar come from? I always rationalized that he must get a discount for buying tickets in bulk or something (so only paid $12), or that the character is just bad at math, but it’s a little weird to have in there. Then at the end of the movie, Stacy is giving someone change after they buy pizza, and she says “It’s $1.10, and you get five cents back.” So the customer gave her $1.15? What the fuck is happening there?
3. Getting It Over With (1977)
Amy Heckerling’s thesis film for AFI that helped her get the job for Fast Times. It stars a very charming Glynnis O’Connor as a girl about to turn 20 who wants to lose her virginity while still a teenager. She’s really great, and the guy she finds to do the deed is a perfect himbo who is just likable enough to make it ideal for getting it over with. It also has a funny small role of an intrusive roommate from producer Stuart Cornfeld, who also played Brad’s boss at the pirate restaurant in Fast Times. This didn’t even have a Letterboxd entry, and I figured it was pretty obscure and would be hard to find, but it’s actually been just sitting there, available to watch for free on the AFI site!
4. Never Let Go (2024)
Similar to last year’s Arcadian on a surface level, but definitely stands out enough to be more than just Her-cadian, or whatever super clever pun we can throw at it. Alexandre Aja is just fantastic with tension, and even when it goes out of its way to show that the Evil is not real, it still had me clenching my seat when they stopped clenching the rope, and sure enough, things would twist back around, and I wouldn’t be sure what was real again. Halle Berry is great. The kids are great. The dog is great. It has some shocking moments. I had fun!
5. Runaway Brain (1995 Short)
Fun horror-themed short with a crazed monster Mickey Mouse after his brain (which extends into his ears) is swapped. I love that there’s a gag about Minnie wearing a skimpy bikini even though she’s already topless.
6. WTF with Marc Maron: Kathleen Hanna (Podcast Episode)
Kathleen Hanna is a lifelong hero of mine, and I thought this was a great interview with her. She’s promoting her new book, which I will read soon. I’ve also been listening through her catalogue, and it’s just like, everything she’s done is so fucking good. There is nothing else that sounds like Bikini Kill’s The First Two Records. It’s mind-blowing every time I listen. It also inspired me to pull the clip of how I first discovered Bikini Kill, from an episode of Roseanne. In my memory, it was Sandra Bernhard as the riot grrrl hitchhiker, but it’s actually Jenna Elfman.
Personal Canon Entries
1. Night of the Comet (1984, Thom Eberhardt)
A comet causes an apocalypse, but some characters survive because they’re in a projection booth! I love that, and I love Kelli Maroney, Catherine Mary Stewart, Mary Woronov, and this super fun movie!
2. Step Up 3D (2010, Jon Chu)
The nerdy Jewish kid with the incredible dance moves from Step Up 2 The Streets joins up with this like commune for dancers, and so does this girl who looks a lot like Briana Evigan from Step Up 2, but is not actually her and is an entirely different character, and the group has to dance-off against a rival group of asshole dancers, and it’s in 3D. The 3D gimmickry is appropriately exploited, and the dancing is incredible as always. As a movie, Step Up 2 The Streets is better, but this was great as well, and had the bonus of people dancing right up in my face.
3. In a Year with 13 Moons (1978, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Heartbreaking film about unrequited queer desire. Fassbinder’s finest!
4. Labyrinth (1986, Jim Henson)
A fantasy masterpiece. Perfect. Tremendous soundtrack. My first favorite movie as a kid.
5. Cobra (1986, George P. Cosmatos)
One of the greatest taglines ever with “Crime is a disease. Meet the cure.” Might as well be “Shitty movies are a disease. Meet the cure.”
6. Gymkata (1985, Robert Clouse)
Gymnastics and karate, together at last! The 80's were a very good decade for film.
7. Child’s Play (1988, Tom Holland)
A young boy named Andy desperately wants a Good Guy doll for his birthday. His mom can’t afford a new one, so she buys one from a street-peddler, but it turns out to be defective; it’s got the soul of a serial killer trapped inside! The killer, Charles Lee Ray, or Chucky, is on the hunt for his old partner who abandoned him before his death (and quick-thinking voodoo soul-transference into the doll), and more than happy to murder anyone who gets in his way. Andy knows what he’s up to, but of course no one believes him because Chucky is a doll, and the police think he might be insane and possibly even responsible for the murders himself. One of my favorite things about the movie is the mother’s devotion to her son, and her desperation to believe him no matter how crazy it all sounds. And the scene where she finds out he’s right is fucking amazing. It’s an impressive movie, with what could be a campy premise played out brilliantly. It’s serious, but self-aware, with touches of dark humor. The killer-doll effects are also effective, and it’s great watching a doll going through shit and getting injured, looking more and more haggard throughout. A deserved classic. It deserves to be even more of a classic. I fucking love it so much. I love that it launched an enduring franchise that remains so strong and great!
8. Bring It On: Worldwide #Cheersmack (2017, Robert Adetuyi)
Here is a sample of what I consider perfect dialogue:
“That’s weird.”
“What? You realized cheer-miliated wasn’t a real word?”
“What? No. Don’t be cheer-diculous.”
There are so many not-really-puns in this movie, and all of them made me laugh! Not everyone nails their lines in a natural way, but the lead was perfect, and really sold it. She was cheerific! It added a lot to the movie’s excellent ability to build a world where cheerleading is the most important event in everyone’s life and adults literally do not exist except for Vivica A. Fox who can only communicate through screens.
It also has the most chaotic, modern, overwhelming opening scene of all time where a cheer competition is hacked by a group of cheerleaders in all black and creepy white masks who call themselves The Truth. How they are not called Cheer-nonymous is a huge mystery. It is possibly the movie’s only misstep (along with a weird homophobic joke).
I’m not just being cheeritable, I fucking love this movie, and I love the entire Bring It On series!
9. Super Buddies (2013, Robert Vince)
The buddies are superheroes now?! I gotta check this out!
10. Halloween Kills (2021, David Gordon Green)
Keeping my streak going strong of loving the most unloved Halloween sequels! Even the positive reviews of this movie seem to have caveats, but I loved every bit of this movie. This was almost universally hated by the horror community, so I watched Halloween Kills waiting for it to be bad, and it simply never happened. I don’t know, maybe I’m just one of those contrarians I’ve heard so much about, but when I watch something like this, it sure feels like I am right, and everyone else is being stubbornly contrary to good taste. This was so intense! And had so much good killing! I thought this was the scariest Michael Myers has ever been. This nutball is a THREAT. He’s like a Cemetery Sister, he LOVES TO KILL, and he cannot be stopped, not even by tiring himself out or anything. I loved all the mob mentality stuff because it was bonkers and seriously harrowing. I loved Anthony Michael Hall. I loved that Judy Greer had so much more to do in this one. To some degree, I’m comparing this to the previous film, which I found very uneven, and spent too much time on unlikable characters and their bullshit. This one has unlikable characters too, but they’re fun despicable. And it’s just perfectly paced. Near the end, things start happening that I worried would turn out to be a dream sequence, because it was literally my personal dream sequence of what I wanted to happen! This movie rules.
MV. Spiceknot: If You Wanna Breathe My Sulfur (2019 Mashup)
I think mashup songs/videos are amazing, and my favorite mashup artist is McClintock, who did this perfect blend of Spice Girls and Slipknot!