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As the calendar turns into September there are a few things I always pay attention to:
Back to School
Pumpkins
Football
I’ve already decorated the house for Halloween and we’ve procured our massive 12 ft. Skeleton, so I think we are ready for spooky season. I know everyone doesn’t love pumpkin spice, but I do, and I’m glad that it’s back for a bit. In addition to the start of the NFL season (go Pats!), I’m also participating in a few Fantasy Football leagues this year. Fall is just an excellent time of year and even though the WGA strike and SAG-AFTRA strike mean different movies than normal, there are still plenty of movies coming out between now and Thanksgiving that are certain to impress.
Quick news items:
Barbie will be available for early Premium Digital Ownership for $29.99 and 48-hour rental for $24.99 beginning on September 12th. Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Goole Play, Vudu, and more will carry the release.
Dune: Part Two has been delayed into 2024. March 15th, 2024.
Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour concert film will be in select theaters starting on October 13th. If you haven’t bought tickets yet that first weekend might be tough, but it will be showing for four weekends.
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon will come to theaters worldwide on October 20th. Instead of a limited release, the new Scorsese movie will open in theaters and select IMAX screens on that date.
Before I start the newsletter in earnest, here are the movies I caught up with in August:
August was lacking when it came to exciting movies in the theaters, so I used the opportunity to catch up with classics I’d never seen before, movies I hadn’t revisited in a while, and one new arthouse release.
As for the classics I’d never seen before, The Warriors was probably the movie that I was most eager to watch. The controversial 1979 feature directed by Walter Hill (The Driver, Streets of Fire) follows a group of teenage boys known as The Warriors who are framed for the murder of a respected gang leader. The gang leader, Cyrus, had this dream where all the gangs would team up and take down the “evil police force.” It’s only when he’s shot and killed that all hell breaks loose. Now every gang in New York is trying to get revenge on The Warriors. As for its reputation, the film was linked to violent outbreaks, vandalism, and killings so Paramount had to significantly reduce its advertising budget. The Warriors is considered the best thing Hill has ever directed capturing a very specific time and place in American history, but it took a long time to earn that status. It wasn’t received all that well when it was first released, instead becoming a cult film as critics and audiences have revisited the movie over the years.
For my take on it, I thought it was fine. There are few memorable characters, but I love movies that take place in the span of one evening (I rewatched American Graffiti, another movie that takes place in one night.) I’d say one of my favorite sequences in the movie is right at the beginning when all the different gangs are introduced and how different they all are. I didn’t love this as much as Streets of Fire, but I didn’t expect that I would honestly.
If you’d like to give The Warriors a watch it can be streamed via Paramount+. Otherwise, you can rent it from digital retailers like Apple, Amazon, or Vudu.
Mini-Review: Playtime
This wasn’t the first time I tried to watch Jacques Tati’s Playtime. I tried almost a decade ago and found the movie unfocused. I struggled to complete it, getting overwhelmed by everything that was unfolding in front of me, while simultaneously being lulled into complacency. Now that I’ve watched it in full, this idea of the movie being unfocused still exists, but that is more of a feature of the movie, rather than a deterrent. Although the French Director Tati only directed six feature films, he’s considered one of the 50 greatest directors of all time. This feature, Playtime, is considered the 23rd greatest movie of all time as of the 2022 Sight & Sound Critics poll.
So what exactly is Playtime? It’s a movie that primarily focuses on two characters — a young American tourist named Barbara (Barbara Dennek), and Monsieur Hulot (Tati) who is lost in modern Paris. These two characters show up in six different sequences that define the movie:
The Airport
The Offices
The Trade Exhibition
The Apartments
The Restuarant
Carousel of Cars
What makes Playtime befuddling is that it doesn’t really have a plot. It’s almost a choose-your-own-adventure story based on who in the frame you’re interested in following at that particular moment. Tati shot the movie on 70mm (prints still exist!) and with a stereophonic soundtrack that really emphasized the physical comedy and engulfing nature of the spaces. Tati’s humor is different than Charlie Chaplin’s, it’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but rather a chuckle at something clever. And Playtime is filled to the brim with clever moments. While I finished the movie almost two weeks ago, there are parts of it that are sticking with me that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. If you’ve never seen it, perhaps consider watching it in segments. The pacing of Playtime could be its greatest challenge. Otherwise, it’s definitely something film fans should watch once. It’s truly a marvelous movie.
Jacques Tati’s Playtime is available to stream via the Criterion Channel or purchase from the Criterion Collection.
Links
Labor Day weekend represented the start of the Fall movie season with the Telluride Film Festival and Venice Film Festival so I wanted to share some reviews of anticipated movies:
How To With John Wilson completed its three-season run on HBO Friday night. It was a series shot documentary style capturing New York City and answering some intriguing questions. The finale was about discovering how to track your packages, but Wilson diverges (as he often does) and meets some interesting people at Alcor. A review of the episode and words from John Wilson are available in this Esquire article from Max Cea. If you have Max and have never given this show a watch, it’s well worth your time.
If you missed it, the latest It’s the Pictures podcast can be listened to here: