Desert Hearts (1985)

When we picked our movies on the Criterion Draft podcast, I clearly didn’t know exactly what this movie was, since I referred to it both as a “road movie” and taking place in “Reagan’s America”. Neither of these things are true, since pretty much all of the film takes place in and around one city (Reno, Nevada), and I must have forgotten that this movie takes place in 1959 when we recorded that podcast. Still, Desert Hearts nonetheless had more or less the vibe I was hoping it would have, since it does feature a lot of scenes in cars of characters getting to know each other better (like in a road movie) and also features two women having to hide their romantic feelings for each other, much like they would have to in most places in Reagan’s America that weren’t New York or San Francisco. Continue reading →

After Hours (1985)

It’s satisfying to find any connective tissue that exists between our Criterion Month selections, especially well after we’ve drafted them. So imagine my delight when a very particular line in the middle of After Hours triggered me, and I went on Wikipedia and found, against all odds, that one of the inspirations for this movie was The Trial by Franz Kafka, the film adaption of which I just posted about. You see, in After Hours there’s a scene where Paul (Griffin Dunne) is trying to get into a club and its bouncer (Clarence Felder) won’t tell him why he’s not being allowed in. Paul offers the bouncer a bribe and he takes it but claims its only because he doesn’t want Paul to feel he “left anything untried.” That is a direct reference to “Before the Law” from The Trial (and specifically the wording from Welles’ version), a reference Scorsese included because he believed Kafka’s parable reflected his own frustration with trying to get The Last Temptation of Christ made. Fuckin’ A, right?

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Streetwise (1984)

The first time I read about Martin Bell’s 1984 film Streetwise was in the December 2009 issue of Seattle Metropolitan Magazine. The issue was dedicated to “75 Years of Seattle Movies,” and no film in that issue piqued my interest like Streetwisee. A gritty documentary about teens living on the streets of my city? But Seattle’s not a dangerous, hardened, urban jungle like New York, right? Right?!?

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Quadrophenia (1979)

The Who? I love bands. I’ve loved The Who ever since they were the Hillbilly Bugger Boys. So why hadn’t I seen this movie before? Because I’m not a big fan of the album. I like Quadrophenia, but I don’t LIKE like Quadrophenia. It has my favorite Who track, “The Real Me,” but it also has one of my least favorite Who tracks, “Love, Reign o’er Me.” And you better believe that song makes its presence known throughout that album’s sprawling 81-minute runtime. But what about the movie?

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The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)

Well here I am, once again reviewing the first part of a loosely-defined trilogy from a director synonymous with the ’70s. The Marriage of Maria Braun is the first in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “BRD Trilogy” which is also a Criterion box set that traces three films by Fassbinder about Germany’s post-war period seen through the eyes of a female protagonist. I have not seen the other two films in this trilogy (1981’s Lola and 1982’s Veronika Voss) nor have I seen any other Fassbinder films since Ali: Fear Eats The Soul, my first foray into the German New Wave director several Criterion Months ago. After seeing The Marriage of Maria Braun, I would say I’m still curious to check out more of his massive body of work, though I’m not sure to what extent exactly. Continue reading →

Wise Blood (1979)

I can’t believe John Huston, grizzled director of the iconic The Maltese Falcon and director of propaganda films to support the war effort during WWII, was not only still directing films in 1979, but films that were just as weird and compelling as anything being made by the twentysomething hippies and burnouts of New Hollywood. This is a man who worked with Humphrey Bogart, now filming a man stealing a shrunken mummy from a museum and a guy pounding his chest in a gorilla suit. What a career and what a film.

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