Letterboxd Season Challenge 2023-2024

Week 33: Party Like It's 1999 Week

Shakespeare's epic of the brutal and cyclic nature of denying mercy and seeking revenge is brought to life with great verve, especially with excellently weird production design and costuming. I do think it runs too long and a more economic adaptation would make the brutality more nasty. I also think a few of the performers couldn't always hold the weight of the great bard's dialogue.

Watched as part of my 5 Favorite Actors X 5 Movies: Part 4 challenge!

Letterboxd Season Challenge 2023-2024

Week 32: ing Belafonte Week

This handsomely shot crime drama with a really nice jazz score is irable for its realistic depiction of a rather simple heist plan that goes awry for a very simple reason. The film focuses on a lot of backstory of what makes the three men feel like this crime is the only way forward in their lives for different reasons and on the racial hatred one of the three has for the third guy, a Black man.

Letterboxd Season Challenge 2023-2024

Week 31: Cut to the Chase Week

I hate cars so it makes sense to me that a couple guys who are really serious about cars would drive around challenging people to races, but otherwise be so totally boring and not know how to talk about anything else besides cars that they can't keep their hitchhiker girlfriend happy. I did enjoy the vibes of this, Warren Oates, and for showing how important a car to be to someone, feeling free and powerful, when they have nothing else.

Letterboxd Season Challenge 2023-2024

Week 30: Classic Performers: Frederic March Week

A fine thriller about three criminals on the run who take a family hostage in their home, while they wait for some money to be delivered before they split. The criminals do display some real menace and it was fairly interesting to see the family weigh their decisions on whether it is worth it to try some way to get out of the situation or to just go along with it so they won't be killed.

Letterboxd Season Challenge 2023-2024

Week 26: Scored No Oscar: Carter Burwell Week

There are a few nice scenes where the filmmaking rises to a more poetic level to complement the writings of the subject of this biopic, but there's mostly just a lot of typical biopic fare that I struggle to connect with any more than if I had just read about the person on Wikipedia. It's also strange to see Penn and Depp playing Cubans, even if they are pretty small roles.

Letterboxd Season Challenge 2023-2024

Week 24: The Disabled Experience Week

The portrait of a simple woman from Nova Scotia who became an unlikely famous artist, despite the many disadvantages she had in life like lack of family . She ends up becoming a live-in maid to an antisocial and abusive man, which slowly evolves into an actual sweet and loving marriage. Hawkins is particularly great in her role.

Watched as part of my 5 Favorite Actors X 5 Movies: Part 4 challenge!

Letterboxd Season Challenge 2023-2024

Week 23: New Black Film Canon Week

A beautiful documentary that showed what it was like to be Black and gay in the 80s featuring powerful poetry, monologues, music, and sound design. It's philosophical, eye-opening, and honoring to people whose lives were impacted by intolerant and hateful people.

Letterboxd Season Challenge 2023-2024

Week 22: Time Out for Romance Week

A melodrama that works for me thanks to Sirk's colorful and cozy imagery and the timeless theme of classism and social status getting in the way of two people in love. I always enjoy seeing countercultural characters on screen, especially in a decade where social rules were so strict. I also appreciate how well the story depicts the pull to conform to one's peers' expectations of success rather than a thoughtful, personal value system.