Human Capital was a startling discovery… an engrossing movie, still doing the festivals circuit, not available to the general public… in other words, a MovieNight coup. I managed to find a copy, and it and it lived up to all expectations. Shit. I sobbed uncontrollably, even.

On Thursday night, though, someone (that would be me) was mortified when; a) the subtitles didn’t start automatically; b) when I started them manually, they had funny lines around them, and; c) the motion was jerky enough to cause an epileptic to have a seizure. We persevered, though, and it was kind of OK in the end.

However, “kind of OK” isn’t good enough around here, and after an upgrade to the operating system on the laptop that powers non-disk MovieNight presentations, we invited folks back for a special, Saturday night redo… Valentines day, as a matter of fact. All good. All great. I sobbed again. The take-away? Sound check. Pay attention. OK. Got it.

🙂

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“If it bleeds, it leads.” This adage concerning newsworthiness proved inspirational for Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), the bottom-feeding sociopath lead (it just doesn’t seem right to call him the protagonist, somehow) of Nightcrawler. It seems that this was one of those movies that people hadn’t quite gotten around to seeing. “Under the radar”, as Norris noted in making yet another successful recommendation. When I first watched it, I felt a bit like I’d been punched in the gut, and was disinclined to show it to you gentle folk, for fear that you might squeam out. Ha! No such thing. Even on a brutally cold evening, you came, you stayed, you loved it. Gyllenhaal was magnificently creepy, and creepily skinny. Perfect.

Also… I’m not one to be easily fascinated by a car chase (there have been few on our screen) but this one was really effective and unusual. Perhaps we need to have a classroom deconstruction some day. ?

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F. W. Murnau’s 1927 masterpiece might have been a bit slow for the one genius that we had in the house (you know who you are, forchrissake), but for everyone else, it was pure pleasure. Due to the aftermath of the blizzard of 2015, the advertized Blu-ray of Sunrise remains undelivered, “somewhere in the building” at the UPS depot on West Houston St. but, of course, we had a back-up DVD. Perhaps not a noticeable difference. I’m not qualified to comment as yet.

Suffice it to say that Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, at 88 years old, still packs a punch. I aspire to that myself. Rock on, Friedrich!

PS. Mark and Mark. Yes, it WAS Elevator to the Gallows… but that ain’t no Studebaker, homeboy.

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Thanks to Norris* for persisting in his quest to make me see the richness in this film. Lately, my world (the whole world?) has become so very “busy” that just sitting down to watch a movie in my own private theater is often the largest component in a set of multiple “tasks”. So, on my first two viewings of John Michael McDonagh’s [I think] masterpiece, Calvary,  I wasn’t one hundred percent present (not sure whether I can ever be that again, btw, but eighty or ninety would be good) and missed a lot. The third time proved a charm, and the forth was MovieNight. Actually looking forward to the fifth.

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*btw, Norris has MAD props as yet un-added to the Successful Suggesters’ page. I will get around to updating. Bob and Andy should be scared… very scared.

Jerzy Skolomowski’s little known Deep End filled the house on a frosty Thursday evening! You might say the start if the new year made a big splash… ?

London, at the end of the swinging sixties (the film was actually shot entirely in Budapest with a stunning pallet of greens and red) provided the setting for this coming-of-age tale of a 15 year old Mike’s (John Moulder-Brown, then 17) obsessive fascination for 24 year old Susan (Jane Asher). Speaking of older women, Diana Dors turned in an amazing performance as an excited client, looking to have a little teenage action for herself! Ms. Dors, a well known vamp in 50’s and 60’s Britain, was unknown to most of our guests. I described her as the English Marilyn Monroe before the movie started, and many of you couldn’t see how that might be possible. Just to set the record straight, here she is in her one time glory!

Read Diana’s Bio

The pressure’s on to keep MovieNight hot. I’ll do my best!

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