Hiatus Highlights: Watching
Everything I watched over my summer hiatus
Hello again, friends,
I just checked my Letterboxd stats for this year, and I’m up to almost 10 full days of movie watching. Which puts this list of the movies I’ve watched over the last few months in SOME sort of perspective, I guess? The movies in my Highlights sections are the ones that I rated four and a half or five stars on Letterboxd, which is my shorthand for WHEN I FINISHED THIS MOVIE I IMMEDIATELY WANTED TO WATCH IT AGAIN.
I only pulled posters and links for the highlights; if I’d pulled everything for all of them, I’d be 900 years old by the time I finished. But if you’ve got thoughts or questions about anything on the list, lemme know.
Watching
Movie Highlights
All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) and 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
This was the first time I’d watched All About Eve, and it had been such a long time since I’d seen 12 Angry Men that this might as well have been the first time—they are both absolute bangers, my god. They both feel so modern in so many ways—All About Eve particularly in the way it plays with time and narration and framing, and 12 Angry Men in terms of the issues raised and the human behavior still being incredibly relevant. There’s so much tension and humor and nuance in the performances, and if you think about the choreography in 12 Angry Men while you’re watching, let me know if it blows your mind as much as it did for me. Woo boy, these are on every list of Cinema Classics for a reason.
The Haunting
Robert Wise, 1963
This one isn’t for everyone—I have a soft spot for ghost stories that rely more on slow-burn suspense and tension between characters than on BOO!! ghost jumpscares, but I get why a lot of viewers find them intensely boring, LOL. Anyway, this one is an adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House that stars, among others, Russ Tamblyn (Dr. Jacoby from Twin Peaks) and Claire Bloom as lesbian icon Theo.
Klute
Alan J. Pakula, 1971
In which Donald Sutherland plays a cop-turned-amateur-sleuth and Jane Fonda plays a sex worker who is being stalked by a KILLER. Their chemistry made me fall off my couch—there’s a scene where he’s handling peaches at a fruit stand while she Looks On Affectionately and my heart swelled to such a degree that I think I might have actually died and come back to life? Note: I have A Thing about 1970s Donald Sutherland, so some of this might be My Stuff.
God Told Me To
Larry Cohen, 1976
Soooo… If you’re not familiar with Larry Cohen, he’s the guy who made Q, which is about a giant flying lizard attacking New York, and the It’s Alive trilogy, which is about killer babies? This one involves multiple people committing mass murder and then claiming that God told them to do it… and the cop who is trying to unravel the whole thing discovers that he has an extremely personal connection to the whole thing. It is truly bananas and the mass murder stuff—particularly in how people try to wish the issue away into the cornfield—is depressingly pretty accurate.
The Fury
Brian De Palma, 1978
So, two years after Carrie, De Palma made ANOTHER movie about a psychic teen. But in THIS one, said psychic teen—whose daddy is Kirk Douglas—gets kidnapped by Evil John Cassavetes. So Kirk Douglas tracks down A DIFFERENT psychic teen—played by Amy Irving, who is great—and they team up to find his son. This movie is processey and a slower burn than you’d expect given the premise—the characters and conversations have a lot of room to breathe—and it GOES PLACES. Judging by the reviews I’ve read, it’s divisive, but I definitely came down on the ADORE end of things.
Killer Workout
David A. Prior, 1978
Of the two horror movies I watched set in Murderous Gyms—the other one was Death Spa (Michael Fischa, 1988)—this was my favorite. Rating was about enjoyment factor, not quality.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow
Frank De Felitta, 1981
This one is ROUGH—the inciting incident involves a group of complete bastards murdering a disabled man—and it is absolutely bananas to me that it was originally a TV movie. It is… dark. Charles Durning is fantastic in what is easily the most hateful role I’ve ever seen him in—his character is a textbook example of Minorly Empowered Bully, and he really leans into it by wearing his postal uniform (complete with USPS pith helmet) while leading a Murder Posse.
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) and She-Devil (1989)
Susan Seidelman
OH MY GOD. Yes, this was my first time watching Desperately Seeking Susan, and YES, the radness of it almost killed me. Madonna’s Susan is such an amazing piece of work and she’s so magnetic that it’s completely understandable why everyone puts up with her character’s nonsense—and then you have Rosanna Arquette playing her equal and opposite as the entirely guileless Roberta. It’s a mid-80s screwball comedy that is SUCCESSFUL—unlike Vibes, which I will never stop being disappointed in—AND so many other folks show up: Steven Wright, John Turturro, John Lurie, Aidan Quinn, Laurie Metcalf, what even.
She-Devil, meanwhile, ALSO completely blew my mind, but on a different front: Roseanne is a mousy housewife who is married to Ed Begley, Jr., who starts having an affair with Meryl Streep the romance novelist… and Roseanne goes the revenge route. So, even before she morphed into whatever the hell she’s morphed into, Roseanne’s comedy was never really my jam—she goes so loud and shrill and that’s generally pretty fingernails/chalkboard for me. But she’s super in this, and it’s incredibly satisfying to see her take Begley apart piece by piece. I also loved it because, yeah, Meryl Goes Through It, but it’s more collateral damage—Roseanne’s prime target is her husband, not the Other Woman.
sex, lies, and videotape
Steven Soderbergh, 1989
I watched a bunch of Spader movies—Stargate (even with Kurt Russell wearing a little hat, it does not hold up), Supernova (in which Spader is JACKED and it looks so weird), The Watcher (in which he plays an FBI agent and KEANU REEVES plays a serial killer, WHAT MANIAC did that casting???), and Raising Cain, which he’s not actually in but he may as well be due to John Lithgow channeling him—and this was THE ONE. Everything about it basically turned me into a pile of emoji hearts, good lord.
Bride of Chucky
Ronny Yu, 1998
We’ve been working our way through the whole franchise—I’d seen the first ones, but now we’re in the first-time watch realm—and we’ve reached the point where I’ve entirely forgetten that these puppets aren’t actual actors. Such bonkers fun.
The Devil’s Backbone (Guillermo del Toro, 2001) and Tigers Are Not Afraid (Issa López, 2017)
Two Spanish language ghost stories from Mexican filmmakers that made me cry my brains out. So good, so devastating.
I, Tonya
Craig Gillespie, 2017
Next time I watch this, I’m going to do it as a double feature with To Die For.
Knife+Heart
Yann Gonzalez, 2018
Neo-giallo set in the 70s about a producer of gay porn who is dealing with her actors getting bumped off—super stylish, super atmospheric, super French, and there’s an unexpectedly strong emotional core.
Longstanding Favorite Rewatches
Halloween
John Carpenter, 1978
Death on the Nile
John Guillermin, 1978
Die Hard
John McTiernan, 1988
The Craft
Andrew Fleming, 1996
Brad Pitt ruined it for the rest of us.
In Thelma and Louise we could all see his muscles;
now everybody has to do it. I hate Brad Pitt.
More Movies: 1930s
The Mad Miss Manton
Leigh Jason, 1938
More Movies: 1940s
Son of Dracula
Robert Siodmak, 1943
Adam’s Rib
George Cukor, 1949
More Movies: 1950s
So Long at the Fair
Terence Fisher & Antony Darnborough, 1950
Strangers on a Train
Alfred Hitchcock, 1951
Don’t Bother To Knock
Roy Ward Baker, 1952
How to Marry a Millionaire
Jean Negulesco, 1953
River of No Return
Otto Preminger, 1954
The Strange One
Jack Garfein, 1957
More Movies: 1960s
Roger Corman
House of Usher, 1960
The Haunted Palace, 1963
The Tomb of Ligeia, 1964
War-Gods of the Deep
Jacques Tourneur, 1965
Fanatic
Silvio Narizzano, 1965
More Movies: 1970s
The Fourth Victim
Eugenio Martín, 1971
The Fifth Cord
Luigi Bazzoni, 1971
The Shiver of the Vampires
Jean Rollin, 1971
Let’s Scare Jessica to Death
John D. Hancock, 1971
The House That Dripped Blood
Peter Duffell, 1971
Horror Express
Eugenio Martín, 1972
Sleuth
Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1972
Hannah, Queen of the Vampires
Ray Danton & Julio Salvador, 1973
Zardoz
John Boorman, 1974
Ovidio G. Assonitis
Beyond the Door, 1974
Tentacles, 1977
Blacker Than the Night
Carlos Enrique Taboada, 1975
The Muthers
Cirio H. Santiago, 1976
Massacre at Central High
René Daalder, 1976
The Witch Who Came from the Sea
Matt Cimber, 1976
Drive-In Massacre
Stu Segall, 1976
The Town That Dreaded Sundown
Charles B. Pierce, 1976
Demon Seed
Donald Cammell, 1977
More Movies: 1980s
Christine
John Carpenter, 1983
Ken Russell
Crimes of Passion, 1984
Gothic, 1986
Electric Dreams
Steve Barron, 1984
Making Mr. Right
Susan Seidelman, 1987
Don’t Panic
Rubén Galindo Jr., 1988
Child’s Play
Tom Holland, 1988
Death Spa
Michael Fischa, 1988
More Movies: 1990s
A Shock to the System
Jan Egleson, 1990
Child’s Play 2
John Lafia, 1990
Child’s Play 3
Jack Bender, 1991
Raising Cain
Brian De Palma, 1992
Auntie Lee’s Meat Pies
Joseph F. Robertson, 1992
Stargate
Roland Emmerich, 1994
The Last Seduction
John Dahl, 1994
Ghost in the Shell
Mamoru Oshii, 1995
More Movies: 2000s
The Watcher
Joe Charbanic, 2000
Supernova
Walter Hill, 2000
Wet Hot American Summer
David Wain, 2001
Witchouse III: Demon Fire
J.R. Bookwalter, 2001
Seed of Chucky
Don Mancini, 2004
More Movies: 2010s
A Dangerous Method
David Cronenberg, 2011
Sharknado
Anthony C. Ferrante, 2013
The Falling
Carol Morley, 2014
The Silenced
Lee Hae-young, 2015
Murder on the Orient Express
Kenneth Branagh, 2017
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Jake Kasdan, 2017
More Movies: 2020s
The Innocents
Eskil Vogt, 2021
Triangle of Sadness
Ruben Östlund, 2022
Barbie
Greta Gerwig, 2023
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein, 2023
Television
Father Brown, Jury Duty, Big Fat Quiz of Sport 2023, Doctor Who, Primo, Bob’s Burgers, Elementary, X-Files, Twin Peaks, Community, Nancy Drew, The O.C., The Office (US), What We Do in the Shadows, Wellington Paranormal, The Good Place, The Mentalist, 8 Out of Ten Cats Does Countdown, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Frasier
Obviously, I’d LOVE to hear about any gems you’ve found recently.
I’ll be back soon with a (much more manageable) list of my Hiatus Listening.
Hope you are well,
Leila
I still want that Desperately Seeking Susan jacket.
I just learned about The Devil’s Backbone a few days ago! Can’t believe it wasn’t on my radar, but now I definitely have to watch it.