Something New (This Week)
A Handful of Movies and a Kickass Techno-Pop Band
The Elevation of Three Crowd Pleasers
I saw three (3 [THREE!!!!!]) movies at my favorite local independent theater this week. The first, S. S. Rajamouli’s RRR is a bombastic, maximalist crowd-pleaser that featured the loudest, most raucous crowd I’ve ever been a part of in a movie theater. It was a wonderful, magical experience. See this movie in the theater while you still can.
The second was a throwback, Steve Barron’s TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, hosted by a local comic book store, and the crowd was peppered with 10 year olds and 37 year olds that knew every line of the movie. I was pleasantly reminded that this movie that was very special to me as a young child holds up. The editing – done by Sally Menke, who has worked on many Quentin Tarantino films – was crisp and clear, just like the lighting and cinematography by John Fenner, who lensed A MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL and other Jim Henson productions. This somehow got a bigger laugh than any moment of RRR. See this anywhere, anytime.
The final movie is a new, form-breaking creepypasta movie: Kyle Edward Ball’s SKINAMARINK. Kyle Edward Ball has made creepy shorts on YouTube for a long time, and honestly, this is just a short pulled way too wide, and features a narrativeless final 20 minutes that were completely ineffective on me. This has been some people’s BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, and I appreciate the inventiveness of the structure and filmmaking, but mostly this was a bore. The audience, however, was lively. We were all laughing at the continuous still shots of corners of rooms or legos on the ground, people shouted “WE GET IT!” at the screen, and the “THE END” card brought out a fit of surprised and relieved laughter.
An Algorithm Reminder
Every once in a while, Spotify’s DISCOVER WEEKLY playlist will remind me of a discovery I made years ago, but have since let slip from my memory. This week, it was Yellow Magic Orchestra, a Japanese techo-pop group that formed in the 70’s that features Ryuichi Sakamoto, who would create a ton of great work for movies and the pop world as a solo performer. I appreciate the depth of production in their music, and the inventiveness and pure bubbly nature of the songs. I can’t wait to listen through their many, many records.
I hope your week was good, and filled with art and leisure. Next week holds another great slate of old movies at local theaters here in Portland. I can’t recommend highly enough how fun it is to see old movies at the theater again/for the first time. I highly recommend staying in touch with your local listings. We miss you, Movie Phone guy.
As always, I’d love to hear about what you’ve watched, what you’ve read, what you’ve listened to, what you’ve eaten, what you’ve otherwise consumed.
TTFN,
B