So Many Movies!

I've been able to get out and see a lot of movies in the past few months.  This may be approaching the glory years of the mid 90s when there was a whole string of second run theatres, many along Bloor, and they even had their own publication listing all of the monthly movies at all of the theatres.  I generally avoid Cinema Clock these days, sticking with the Revue and Paradise and Carlton websites, as those are the places I go by far the most.  It's relatively rare for me to get over to TIFF, though I have been going more recently, now that they have this Naruse retrospective on.  I've been quite patient, lurking on the website, and about a week ago, I managed to get a ticket to Yearning.  Then on Wed., I was getting ready to listen to Dave Young over at the Rex, and I happened to check the TIFF website and a few tickets to Sound of the Mountain popped up, so I had to drop everything and try to book the best seat of the bunch (on my phone, no less!).  That was a bit stressful, but it worked out.  (And indeed, at that show and on the streetcar home, I finally wrote out the last of my Stratford piece.  Yea!  I'm fairly happy with the ending, but now I need to type up the whole thing and see how balanced it is.  I suspect I meander a bit too much, but maybe not...)

And just a few minutes ago I looked and the last two movies that caught my eye had a couple of seats open up.  In both cases, they are a bit too close to the screen, but given how hard it has been to book these screenings, I'll put up with it.  I'll be seeing Flowing on Jan. 2 and then Daughters, Wives and a Mother on Jan. 24 (after watching the Sondheim musical Company over at Theatre Centre, so that will make for a long day...).  I decided to check, and indeed I think the same person who cancelled Flowing also cancelled Lightning, so I got a ticket for that as well on Jan 3.  In the end, I will have seen 9 of Naruse's films, including several that appear to be quite difficult to source on DVD or Blu-Ray, including Yearning, Lightning and Scattered Clouds.  Having gone from 0 to 9 is a huge swing!  That's certainly the most films I've seen by a single director after excluding Hitchcock, Almodovar and Kurosawa.  I believe Naruse just edges out Jon Huston, though that might change when I finally get around to watching The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Beat the Devil.  What is particularly intriguing is that 1950s, Naruse's films covered topics such as infidelity, suicide, rape (with the perpetrator not being caught and punished!) and even abortion!  A lot of his films are pretty melodramatic to be sure, many of them being adaptations of novels aimed at women.

It's possible that this big push to see films (on the big screen) started at the tail end of 2024 when there was the huge Almodovar retrospective.  I have to admit that The Room Next Door was disappointing in some ways, though I did appreciate the shout out to Huston's The Dead, which I feel is a bit underappreciated in general.  I was pleased I managed to catch this on Monday.  (I had planned on rereading Joyce's story but instead read it immediately afterward.  Huston is generally quite faithful to the story, but there are a few changes, including making the Irish tenor a bit rougher and even a bit unpleasant at times (as he was battling a sore throat) and having the tenor join Gabriel and Gretta in their cab on the way over to their hotel, which is not in the film.)  The meditative ending is what elevates the story and the film.

I kind of forgot that last year, I went to see The Big Lebowski at Hot Docs on New Year's Eve, which is becoming a Toronto tradition (with people showing up in their bathrobes).  I see that it is on again this year on New Year's Eve, but the truth is that (for me) The Big Lebowski has not aged very well, and I have no intention of going again.  (It didn't help that the thing dragged because of some pre-show activities going on at Hot Docs, so then I couldn't go see this other thing at the Tranzac Club and I also had a very mediocre Thai meal for dinner.)  I'm much, much more likely to make watching Tokyo Godfathers a holiday tradition, having seen it first at the Revue, then at Carlton.  And I am fairly likely to try to see it on Christmas Day, as there is not that much else that will be open.)  I don't know that it is a tradition proper, but interestingly The Fox is showing The Apartment sometime next week, and the Paradise is playing it on New Year's Eve, so I plan on catching it right after work on New Year's Eve at the Paradise.

I haven't managed to see more than a handful of Atom Egoyan films, but I saw Exotica at TIFF (a few years back) and then Speaking Parts at Paradise.  Egoyan actually showed up at both screenings to give some general comments and then a Q & A at the end, which was very cool.

I certainly can't remember everything I've seen, but there was a screening of quite a few restored Kurosawa films at the Revue (and Ran at the Fox, though that was a bit disappointing).  Playtime at the Fox.  I also saw a few Wes Anderson films there.  I'm pretty sure I saw The Life Aquatic (loved the Bowie songs in Portuguese!) and The Royal Tenenbaums at the Fox and maybe Moonrise Kingdom.  I've kind of worked backwards with Wes Anderson, oddly never having seen Rushmore or Bottle Rocket.

I saw The Shining and Midnight Cowboy for the first time at Carlton.  I saw Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express at Carlton, as well as In the Mood for Love.  I saw Linklater's Before Trilogy at the Revue in Feb.  I went ahead and watched Brazil again (mostly because Tom Stoppard just passed away) and enjoyed it more than the previous time, though I still think Sam Lowry is an absolute dolt at the police road block, so there are about 10 minutes of the film that I find really hard to watch.  Speaking of Gilliam films, I just saw 12 Monkeys again at the Carlton, slipping in just as the title sequence was wrapping up.  That was cutting it too close!  That's a pretty bleak film for sure.  And I saw Total Recall again, as well as The Matrix.  These movies really cry out to be seen on a bigger screen.

I managed to watch Akerman's Jeanne Dielman (and managed to sit through the entire thing without running to the washroom!), but I did not care for it at all.  It is absurdly over-rated.  I've seen it once is probably the best thing I can say about it.  I can pretty much guarantee if I had watched at home, I would have dropped it around the 40 minute mark.

In addition to seeing North by Northwest on 70 mm this past weekend, I managed to get a ticket to see Vertigo in 70 mm.  I've seen Rear Window a couple of times and North by Northwest three times on the big screen, but this will be the first time seeing Vertigo in the theatre, so that's exciting.

I've started watching more David Lynch films (after being really turned off by Eraserhead in college).  I saw Blue Velvet at TIFF and Wild at Heart at Carlton.  In Jan., I am planning on watching Mulholland Drive at Paradise.  So I only need to see Lost Highway (maybe at the Revue?) to catch up with the movies that I had expected to see at the movie theatre at Yonge-Dundas Square (but they changed the schedule on me!).

I finally got around to watching Thelma and Louise!  I saw Kajillionaire, which was really good.  This was a film that really got squelched by COVID.  It was shown as part of Queer Cinema Club over at Paradise.

I try to get to most of the Queer Cinema Club offerings, but I definitely have missed a few.  Can You Ever Forgive Her? and Guidance were both films I wouldn't have watched except for QCC.  Over time, I've now managed to watch 4 or so Fassbinder films, including most recently Fox and His Friends.  (This is another case where I have quite a lot on DVD but I really am trying to watch the films for the first time in a cinema...)

I just watched Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (yesterday in fact!).  I'm not sure I was actively avoiding it, but it wasn't that high on my list.  I thought there were some interesting parallels to Scorsese's After Hours.  Some people see these connections and others don't...  (It was a few years back that I managed to see Bringing Out the Dead again but wasn't able to swing After Hours.  I am waiting on my Blu-ray copy to arrive, but I definitely hope After Hours ends up at The Revue or Carlton...)

I don't watch nearly that many brand new movies, aside from Wake Up Dead Man, Honey Don't, the Running Man remake and Spinal Tap II.  (RIP Rob Reiner!)  But I did just catch Hamnet and thought that was pretty good, though longer than it needed to be (and more than a little emotionally manipulative...).  I'm likely to try to catch this Brazilian movie called The Secret Agent over the weekend.  We'll see.

Edit (12/20): I'm not sure if I should make a full list of all the movies that I would like to see (or rewatch) in a proper movie theatre, as it might be extremely long (like this partial list of plays I'd like to see), but there are a few that are top of mind, including Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well and Red Beard, as well as Amodovar's What Have I Done to Deserve This?, Varda's Cleo from 5 to 7, Huston's Key Largo, Lynch's Lost Highway and maybe Inland Empire, and Scorsese's After Hours (I just missed out at seeing this at TIFF but it seems like one that Carlton should run one of these days).  I suppose I am hoping for a Rohmer or an Ozu retrospective at TIFF, as these are probably the two most important directors that I have barely scratched the surface of their films, despite owning a huge number!  Bergman is sort of in that category as well, though I have seen four or five of his core films, so he and Fassbinder are basically in the same boat. 

Edit (12/25): I haven't introduced myself, but I am starting to recognize a few hardcore movie fans that are at all the key TIFF screenings.  I overhear them talking about how they have seen most of these movies for the second or third time, and how they are heading over to the Revue for additional movies.  (Yesterday, they were off to see Scrooged again.)  I think the main reason I don't is that, while I enjoy movies, I will almost always cut them first, when there is a conflict with a play or a concert, because they are essentially unchangeable and will be the same whenever I do finally watch them, unlike a live performance.  Granted, this may mean I need to watch them at home rather than on the big screen.  Last year there were mini-festivals at the Paradise for John Waters, and I only managed to get out to see Serial Mom (with Kathleen Turner), as well as for Mel Brook, and I only got out to see High Anxiety and Space Balls.  If I rated movies more highly, I would have found a way to get out to a few more.  Now that Paradise does seem to be screening more movies, I think I might sign up for a membership for 2026.  The Revue is still too far away, and I basically have written off The Fox.  Even though I suppose it would have paid off in the end, given how many Naruse movies I finally signed up for, I don't plan on getting a TIFF membership in 2026, though I would probably change my mind if they dp put on an Ozu or Rohmer retrospective.