Category Archives: MovieNight stuff

2001: A Space Odyssey. Finally.

MovieNight stuff, Movies

This week saw the long-considered screening of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was great to finally show this, as the MovieNight season, perhaps even MovieNight herself, nears the end. I worried that many of you wouldn’t be able to stick this one out: its slow pace can be underwhelming for the Twitter generation (indeed, there were a few faces illuminated by their phones during the screening… sometimes, I’d like to confiscate the fricking things, but hey… life’s too short). In the end, though, 2001 rekindled old appreciations, and made new friends. Not a bad thing.

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High Performance

MovieNight stuff, Movies

The “curation” process for MovieNight has never been easy (so many things to take into account… sometimes even the weather), and Cammell and Roeg’s Performance had been lurking near the top of our list for several years. It was great to finally see it on our lovely big screen, and probably fitting that we left it until our sound system had become as good as it is today. The cast was pretty wonderful… lots of gratuitous nudity, comedic turns from Jagger, and btw, Mick delivered a great musical Performance!

More Roeg coming soon. Get ready.

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Life is Beautiful. Hmmm. Yes, and No.

Love and Life, MovieNight stuff, Movies

I’m not sure what happened here… I wanted to honor Holocaust Remembrance with a movie that would still make for an enjoyable MovieNight, and I recalled finding Life is Beautiful quite entertaining and sweet when I first saw it during its general theatrical release. This one didn’t age very well (maybe the sugar content increased with age?), at least not for me.  Sure, there were some touching scenes (the little boy was adorable), but overall I found it cloying… everything was just a bit too cute, and the coincidences too plentiful. Benigni’s comedic acting, replete with rouge-y clown-like make-up, was reminiscent of an annoying relative who can’t stop making jokes when they come for a holiday dinner.

As for the portrayal of the Holocaust… it was pretty shallow, but ultimately I guess that Holocaust and MovieNight just don’t play well together. I guess I should respect that.

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Alps. Quite High.

MovieNight stuff, Movies

This week’s feature left a number of folks scratching their heads. What happened? Why? Alps was certainly based on a bizarre concept, such as we expected from Mr. Lanthios. One of our regular MovieNight guests, in response to my question, “Well, what do you think?”, said that he’d need some time to think about it. In my book, that’s good… time to think about it. I expect that one doesn’t need much time to think about Wedding Crashers, for example. Not that I’ve seen it. Seriously, though, Norris made a great comment: Lanthios would be so good if he had a great writer. Hey, who wouldn’t?

Thanks to “Matterhorn” for being good company at the bar.

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The Holy Girl. Wholey good.

MovieNight stuff, Movies

Lucrecia Martel’s intriguing The Holy Girl (La niña santa) brought yet another good turnout to MovieNight this week! This spellbinding film moves slowly from one expertly-crafted shot to the next and, I must admit, even after my second viewing, there remain subtle nuances which I haven’t been able to comprehend. Somehow, though, it doesn’t matter. I just believe.

And in the category of best blurted-out comment from the pre-show bar, we have, “Stop saying that! You’re freaking me out!” Not mentioning any names, of course.

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