For the first time ever, I’ve bought annuals, because I thought the balcony thing with the rose bushes looked a bit on the sparse side. I.e., 90% soil.
I may have gone slightly overboard.
The other one is a bit more reasonable. The ivy things will hopefully cover the soil and extend downwards while the rose bush fills out the top bits.
I’m getting so horticultural this year!
Spies Like Us. John Landis. 1985.
It was this one or The Purple Rose of Cairo, which I don’t have any positive memories of.
This is such a confusing movie. It has all the hallmarks of a zany crazy comedy, but there are like no jokes here, and the few jokes that are identifiable as such don’t really land.
And what’s even weirder is that this has an imdb score of 6.4, which is the highest score that any film can receive. (If it’s higher than that, it means that some Nazi nerd has brigaded the voting, and if it’s much lower, it might be bad.)
Still, it sucks.
Oh, right. It’s 32% on Rotten Tomatoes.
It’s so badly shot that even the scenes that had to have been done on location looks like they’re on a movie back lot. So this confirms my hatred of John Landis films that I didn’t quite know that I had until I saw his directorial list in imdb. It’s not just that this isn’t very funny; it’s ineptly directed.
This blog post is part of the Century series.
Broadway Danny Rose. Woody Allen. 1984.
Yeah, OK, for 1983 it was this is The Search For Spock and I threw the dice and I went for this one.
Allen had like an Imperial period where he could do no wrong, and this is towards the end of that period. And when he’s on screen here being embarrasing and embarrassed, it really works. He’s funny. But the other scenes where he’s being a Robert Altmanesque (with a pinch of Cassavetes) director and trying to have the other actors be in that imagined film… It just doesn’t work. Altman has (well, can have) such a wonderful hand at directing people behaving naturalistic, but those scenes here scream ACTING.
You can just look at their faces rehearsing their lines in their minds while the person they’re talking to is mouthing off their own lines.
The exception is Mia Farrow, who is amazing.
The plot (and the framing of the plot) is impressive. It’s like clockwork. You can’t help getting involved.
Is this peak Woody Allen?
This blog post is part of the Century series.
The Man With Two Brains. Carl Reiner. 1983.
Oh my Emacs! This is so stupid. In the best way possible.
I must have seen this before at some point, because so many scenes were familiar, like the Hufhurr thing, but it’s been a while. And I guess a lot of the jokes haven’t aged well (like the orderlies shaving the genital hair of the patient before brain surgery, and on and on). It’s a profoundly creepy film, but…
There are just so many good one-liners and bits. I laughed and I laughed.
But in addition to the general misogynistic creepiness, it just has some pacing problems. It portions out the hilarious parts carefully, and the more plot-related bits aren’t that well done.
This blog post is part of the Century series.
Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. Nicholas Meyer. 1982.
I was going to watch Der Stand der Dinge by Wim Wenders, but my DVD turned out to just have German subtitles. *sigh* It seems to be a current theme with European films.
So I have a choice between another Woody Allen film and this.
I haven’t seen this one since the 80s and remember absolutely nothing about it except Khan himself, and only because those clips show up here and there.
It’s very 70s, but I guess the 80s didn’t really start until a couple years later.
This isn’t a good film, but I certainly enjoyed watching it. I like the slightly too-long scenes and Kirk and Khan over-emoting at the audience. It looks pretty good on this Blu-ray version, too. And it’s nice to watch Spock, Uhura, Sulu and the gang again.
So I give it all thumbs up, but it’s… not a good film.
This blog post is part of the Century series.