The Film Thread

[MasterMastermnd]

Yeah, season 2 came out like 6-7 years later. I got into Peaks not long before that set dropped. It had a wonderful little teaser trailer for Inland Empire idk if you can find anywhere else.

 

[AXX°N N.]

Yeah, season 2 came out like 6-7 years later. I got into Peaks not long before that set dropped. It had a wonderful little teaser trailer for Inland Empire idk if you can find anywhere else.

I didn't know that! I skipped that set in favor of the forthcoming gold box. Was it the teaser where some of the women from the prostitute troupe are speaking to the camera?

 

[Dom]

I remember the years when Twin Peaks was unavailable. I had the whole lot on Betamax, but eventually the 20 year old machine died. I was really hard up when season one came out on DVD. I couldn't afford to go out for a month when I bought it and had to walk to work rather than buy a bus pass! Bad days!

This was the era when a single season of Angel would cost over 70 pounds. Watching it in much better quality (although the unrestored pilot was taken from a German broadcast master, IIRC) reignited my love for the series, which had been dormant for a time. All those years, then, of waiting for season two, constant speculation about FWWM releases, Dugpa's unused extras, rumours of deleted scenes. Nightmare!!

 

[Dom]

I am so hesitant to recommend movies like this because I still think it kind of spoils it going in. But I'll make some suggestions, read at your own risk:

Spoiler

One Cut of the Dead
Something Wild
Psycho is like the all-time champion for me
Barbarian

Thanks for the suggestions! Obviously Psycho is a longtime favourite. The sequels are decent too.

In books, I remember, years ago, that JK Rowling put out that a major character in her latest Harry Potter book would die. Consequently, every time a character was in mortal danger, it was in my mind. It actually became irritating: like someone crying wolf over and over. I really enjoyed the book otherwise and that detracted from the enjoyment. Then again, at 28, perhaps I was the wrong age group for that gimmick to work on. I picked up my copy on the day of release from Tesco at midnight on the way home from the pub!

 

[Stavrogyn]

Then again, at 28, perhaps I was the wrong age group for that gimmick to work on. I picked up my copy on the day of release from Tesco at midnight on the way home from the pub!

I never could get into Harry Potter... Actually, I hated it as a child. Now I fear that I missed out, but the whole idea of wizards waving around their magic wands just irritates me.

I like Emma Watson, though. By the time The Perks of Being a Wallflower came out, I was of the right age, and I cried my heart out at the end of the film.

 

[MasterMastermnd]

I didn't know that! I skipped that set in favor of the forthcoming gold box. Was it the teaser where some of the women from the prostitute troupe are speaking to the camera?

It's very short, starts with Grace Zabriskie saying "evil was born and followed the boy" and then Ghost of Love strikes up, it cuts to the record player, then we get a few mysterious shots of the Rabbits, Laura Dern's face after she's been stabbed, and then the corrupted form of Nikki the Phantom turns into in the end. Then like that it's over

 

[MasterMastermnd]

I never could get into Harry Potter... Actually, I hated it as a child. Now I fear that I missed out, but the whole idea of wizards waving around their magic wands just irritates me.

I like Emma Watson, though. By the time The Perks of Being a Wallflower came out, I was of the right age, and I cried my heart out at the end of the film.

Harry Potter has the distinction of being something I went from obsessed with as a kid in elementary school to something I just never finished. By the time the last book came out I'd outgrown it and just never read it. Even the sixth had felt like a chore by that point.

 

[Dom]

I

Harry Potter has the distinction of being something I went from obsessed with as a kid in elementary school to something I just never finished. By the time the last book came out I'd outgrown it and just never read it. Even the sixth had felt like a chore by that point.

Harry Potter holds a strange position in my life: in 2000, I had just moved to London. At 25, I'd just finished a six-month stint at the BBC, was looking for other work and signing on as unemployed. I wasn't sure whether I'd survive up there. Days were long and dreary and I wandered down on to Chiswick High Road. The Goblet of Fire was due out imminently and the first three books were in the sale at Waterstone's. So I picked them up. They were a kind of hybrid of The Worst Witch, Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl, but with enough 'knowingness' and darkness that an adult could read them. In that patch of living away from home, with few friends yet, they were comfort food. So the first four books were unemployment reads.

Next time a Harry Potter book came out, I'd been made redundant when the company I worked at in London folded. I couldn't get another job and - flat broke - moved back to my home town. The next month, The Order of the Phoenix arrived. I found myself long-term unemployed. The Order of the Phoenix is a pretty paranoid book and it fitted with my own mood. The Half Blood Prince found me still unemployed, but about to return to university for a year to take my BA (Hons). The Deathly Hallows arrived after my degree had ended and I'd spent a year at a local TV company... which went bust. I was in London, crashing on a friend's sofa, working at a film school, and on the cusp of what became a very successful 12-year stint as a freelancer.

So the series followed me through some difficult times into a pretty astonishing turnaround. I enjoyed the films and have them all on Blu-ray, although I've not watched them in an age. I love how the series develops: the colours in the first two are 'Hollywood kids' movie' movie bright. Then the third film changes the feel drastically. The surroundings of Hogwarts resembles my beloved Dartmoor: bleak and wild. And gradually the palette desaturates across the films as things get more dangerous. I'm fond of them. They're fluff, but quite enjoyable. The Order of the Phoenix is actually probably my favourite of the films and The Goblet of Fire my least enjoyed.

 

[Mr. Reindeer]

Never got into Harry Potter. As I mentioned in the thread on The Paladin Prophecy, Young Adult was never really my thing. My youngest sister was very into the series and reread all the books each time a new one came out (she dislikes the movies). Several people I've dated were VERY into the series. And I worked at multiplexes for most of the duration of the film series. So I feel like I pretty much absorbed the series by osmosis. But I never read the books, and have only seen three of the movies, non-sequentially: the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone (bland), the Alfonso Cuarón one (better), and Deathly Hollows Part I (I was sad when

Spoiler

the owl died

). Even at a time when I saw movies for free and watched basically everything, I just couldn't be arsed to see those unless someone dragged me. Part of it might just be the contrarian in me.

I do really like Universal's Wizarding World theme park. I've been there a couple of times, and it's a fun immersive environment even for someone with no investment in the stories. And what's not to love about pumpkin juice?

 

[Jordan Cole]

I only just recently marathoned all of the Potter movies in a few nights. My wife was away, and she loves the books and hates the movies, so it was a perfect chance. I liked it! I thought they basically got better and better.

 

[AXX°N N.]

I was really into the books until the fifth one. I remember feeling something was off within just a few sentences, and felt like the prologue was interminably long. Looking back and from what I've heard of how the series is structured, it's at that point where the books depart, and go backward and forward in setting up a broader mythology. The first four are, on the contrary, fairly standalone, but my understanding is 5-7 are more of a shared narrative that folds the first four into a grander arc.

I could imagine that if I had been younger when the first came out, the fifth and how it broadens might have matched my growth into adulthood. I understand that's how the Toy Story series functions for some people. I'm kind of jealous, I missed the boat on any "YA narratives that deepen thematically as you age along with them" projects.

 

[Dom]

I never really 'got' the whole 'Young Adult' thing. For me, there are kids' books, then adult books. I was reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation books and Arthur C Clarke at ten. 'Young Adult' seems like a weird 'in-between' marketing ploy. Harry Potter simply seemed to be well-written kids' books that grown ups could enjoy and His Dark Materials worked as books for older children that, similarly, grown ups could enjoy. If His Dark Materials is 'Young Adult', so must be JRR Tolkien, Rudyard Kipling and John Buchan. Harry Potter is really a classic example of the hero's journey. The books also, mercifully avoid the postmodern pop culture references that blighted the 1990s literary and film landscape, so they retain a timeless quality. There's no 'Like, my iPhone ain't got no signal, innit?' thrown in there!

Then again, my interests have always been crime thrillers, horror, science fiction and fantasy. There seem to be an awful lot of 'kitchen sink drama' young adult novels out there - stuff about druggie kids living in druggie housing projects with druggie parents and having druggie underage sex while on drugs, then getting AIDS and having to take drugs for it - which I would never have touched with a bargepole, the same as I've never watched British soap operas (America's Dark Shadows is a glorious exception to my soap opera rule!)

I was always more into Asimov, Clarke, Chandler and Spillane, while pulling Thurber books off my parents' shelves - I liked the pictures, so I read the text! In my early teens to 20s, I loved Ian Fleming/John Gardner James Bond books and Tom Clancy's stuff. And discovering David Lynch at around 15 took me into all sorts of odd and wonderful directions, including Mark Frost's The List of Seven, Clive Barker, William GIbson and Anne Rice.

 

[AXX°N N.]

I never really 'got' the whole 'Young Adult' thing. For me, there are kids' books, then adult books. I was reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation books and Arthur C Clarke at ten. 'Young Adult' seems like a weird 'in-between' marketing ploy. Harry Potter simply seemed to be well-written kids' books that grown ups could enjoy and His Dark Materials worked as books for older children that, similarly, grown ups could enjoy. If His Dark Materials is 'Young Adult', so must be JRR Tolkien, Rudyard Kipling and John Buchan.

Come to think of it, I think my usage of YA was wrong there, should have been 'kids' books' ... yet the point I was making almost seems to be presenting a situation where it's more like kids' books evolving into YA over the course of their entries. A Series of Unfortunate Events also deepens as it goes along. The first books is light, the last one a doorstopper. Surely the last entry should be in a different genre?

I use the term YA because it's what the bookstore/library aisle reads, but I agree with you. I'd count Little Prince and the Moomins series among some of my favorite books of all time, regardless of age classification. Despite being classified as kids' books, they outshine the vast majority of adult novels I can pick up at the fiction aisle today, much less the Young Adult fare.

I wonder how much the advent of the YA genre was spurred by things like album parental advisory stickers and movie age ratings. It's kind of interesting to see how the doctoring of a classification out-of-thin-air then births its own tropes. There are YA cliches that never existed before the introduction of it as classification, similar to the eventual cliches of a PG-13 movie, like the tried and true methods of, for instance, indicating but not showing too much sexual content.

 

[Dom]

Come to think of it, I think my usage of YA was wrong there, should have been 'kids' books' ... yet the point I was making almost seems to be presenting a situation where it's more like kids' books evolving into YA over the course of their entries. A Series of Unfortunate Events also deepens as it goes along. The first books is light, the last one a doorstopper. Surely the last entry should be in a different genre?

I think it's a fair usage. Harry Potter arguably birthed the YA classification. The biggest YA trope is the image a bunch of sulky looking teens staring the camera moderately defiantly - not quite enough to imply delinquency - with a 'strong, independent gal who don't need no man' standing front and centre. At one stage, every other week there seemed to be a film looking like The Hunger Games coming out. Japan had YA long before us and Battle Royale, which The Hunger Games blatantly rips off, is honestly and forthrightly bloody, unlike its anaemic American cousin.

I use the term YA because it's what the bookstore/library aisle reads, but I agree with you. I'd count Little Prince and the Moomins series among some of my favorite books of all time, regardless of age classification. Despite being classified as kids' books, they outshine the vast majority of adult novels I can pick up at the fiction aisle today, much less the Young Adult fare.

I agree!

I wonder how much the advent of the YA genre was spurred by things like album parental advisory stickers and movie age ratings. It's kind of interesting to see how the doctoring of a classification out-of-thin-air then births its own tropes. There are YA cliches that never existed before the introduction of it as classification, similar to the eventual cliches of a PG-13 movie, like the tried and true methods of, for instance, indicating but not showing too much sexual content.

Yeah, I think you're right. Then again, the suitability of some YA fare is being loudly questioned, because there's material more explicit than in actual adult books. It's like one of those 'PG-13 box-ticking exercises' in movies they can get the classification if they cut one f-word, shorten the shot of someone's head being pulverised by a brick by half a second and reduce the sight of the woman's boobs bouncing in the sex scene to two shots instead of three. That leads to the argument that conceptually unsuitable material is pulling in a young audience when it shouldn't be. So actually, some YA books can be rather too adult in content to be pushed at kids.

On the other hand, I never read Isaac Asimov's The Robots of Dawn until years after I read the Foundation books. While there's some sexual content in Foundation and Earth, The Robots of Dawn has a character discussing orgasms and vibrators. I'm glad I didn't read that book at ten. I can only imagine my parents' reaction if I asked what those things are! Most likely, I'd not have got to continue to read Asimov's other books!

Nevertheless, I'm kind of glad that I missed the YA thing. I still enjoy slipping between kids' and adults' books now. I have a complete, uncensored set of Roald Dahl novels and short stories (children's and adults') and can read CS Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia in a couple of days now, where it took much longer when I was ten and everyone at school read them. And I think the so-called 'Problem of Susan' is nonsense confected by adults with an ideological axe to grind.

 

[Stavrogyn]

Anyone excited about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice? It opened the 81st edition of the Venice International Film Festival yesterday and the first reactions give me hope that the film will not disappoint.

I've had a bit of an unhealthy obsession with Winona Ryder for more than half my life now and the first Beetlejuice is one of my Winona-starring favourites, along with Heathers (probably the most formative film of my teenage years) and Girl, Interrupted, so I can hardly wait to see this. It might also reignite my interest in Tim Burton's work and make me catch up with some of his films that I've missed.



I also must express my frustration with myself for never attending the Venice Film Festival. It's right next door, and I've never even been to Venice at all, even though I always wanted to!

Fortunately, they always seem to have a great lineup.

 

[Dom]

Anyone excited about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice? It opened the 81st edition of the Venice International Film Festival yesterday and the first reactions give me hope that the film will not disappoint.

I'm crossing fingers. So many legacy sequels disappoint, but I have hopes.

I've had a bit of an unhealthy obsession with Winona Ryder for more than half my life now and the first Beetlejuice is one of my Winona-starring favourites, along with Heathers (probably the most formative film of my teenage years) and Girl, Interrupted, so I can hardly wait to see this.

Yeah, count me in as a Winona and Heathers fan too. I've always loved that film and she was great in those early years. I first saw Heathers when I was 16, recorded it next time it was on TV, bought the VHS, the DVD, the Arrow Blu-ray and I'm tempted to go for the 4K! I wish Winona hadn't cut her hair short in the 1990s: it didn't flatter her. I liked her in Bram Stoker's Dracula, although her accent was seriously dodgy (Keanu's was worse! . US film companies seem to be better with accent coaching these days. My big regret is that Winona didn't play Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III, because she'd supposedly been partying too hard with Johnny Depp! Another film of hers I'm fond of is Reality Bites, which isn't available on Blu-ray in the UK. I remember buying that with Richard Linkater's terrific Dazed and Confused in a 'buy two, get one free' deal on VHS in the mid 1990s.

I've not been posting much lately because I've had an exhausting job going on, but in the frequent short bouts of downtime, I've been ripping my entire DVD collection to a little solid state hard drive that I'll keep permanently plugged into my TV. I got rid of the cases and put the discs in binders years ago. Unfortunately, it's meant I've forgotten many of the films I own (and some seem to have gone 'walkies'!) Putting them on a drive means I have piles of films to rewatch (plus the modern HEVC encoding has actually improved the picture in for several films!) In some cases, I've taken the opportunity to upgrade to Blu-ray or 4K (I bought a load of internal trays and I put the DVD in the Blu-ray case.) Annoyingly some films that I know I owned, such as Ginger Snaps Unleashed or The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, are absent from my binders which really annoying. It's also reminded me of a number of films I used to own, but never upgraded after selling my VHS collection. So Scarface, Carlito's Way, Reality Bites, Dazed and Confused, Beetlejuice and many others are now on a list or have been bought.

It might also reignite my interest in Tim Burton's work and make me catch up with some of his films that I've missed.

Having been a massive fan in the past, I've found he's become sort of a subgenre all of his own and thus a bit predictable. This new film will probably be a bit of a 'make or break' for me with his work.

I also must express my frustration with myself for never attending the Venice Film Festival. It's right next door, and I've never even been to Venice at all, even though I always wanted to!

Fortunately, they always seem to have a great lineup.

Life is full of 'coulda, woulda, shoulda', unfortunately! We all get too bogged down with other things!

 

[Stavrogyn]

Yeah, count me in as a Winona and Heathers fan too. I've always loved that film and she was great in those early years. I first saw Heathers when I was 16.

I first saw it a week after my 17th birthday and it changed me profoundly. I wanted to become like Christian Slater and find my own Winona Ryder along the way, which, thankfully, didn't turn me into a crazed killer, but it did make me start taking care of my appearance. Up to that point, I was lonely and depressed but didn't care at all about how I looked when I went to school.

Later that year, my parents bought me a winter coat - not at all similar to what Slater wore in the film, but he inspired me to get it - and that coat soon became my trademark. I still didn't have any luck with girls, but the last two years of high school were nonetheless much better than the first two and I know I'll forever cherish that part of my life and remember it fondly.

Fun fact: I still wear that same coat every winter.

I wish Winona hadn't cut her hair short in the 1990s: it didn't flatter her.

Oh, I really loved her with short hair. I don't know if I liked her as much as a teenager because she perfectly fit the image of an ideal woman that I had in my head or if that image was formed thanks to her. Whatever the case, when I think of her, I still picture her with short hair.

My big regret is that Winona didn't play Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III, because she'd supposedly been partying too hard with Johnny Depp!

My big regret as well. I have no issues with Sofia Coppola, and I think that she even kind of resembled Al Pacino, but to have had young Winona in one of my favourite films would have been a dream come true!

And then if Robert Duvall decided to return... Oh, well.

Another film of hers I'm fond of is Reality Bites.

Reality Bites belongs to a kind of a subgenre that has become my favourite film genre in the last two years: films from the 80s, 90s, or early 00s about quirky twenty or thirtysomethings who still haven't figured out their lives and are often dealing with romantic troubles... Think of Whit Stillman's Metropolitan, Daisy von Scherler Mayer's Party Girl, Greg Mottola's The Daytrippers, Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, and many more.

And since we're already here...



It's fascinating, but even though she could be my mother, seeing her in this video - still so youthful, quirky, and enthusiastic about film and art in general - makes me think of her as a perfect match for me just as much as back when I first saw Heathers...

That's what they call starstruck, indeed.

 

[Dom]

I first saw it a week after my 17th birthday and it changed me profoundly. I wanted to become like Christian Slater and find my own Winona Ryder along the way, which, thankfully, didn't turn me into a crazed killer, but it did make me start taking care of my appearance. Up to that point, I was lonely and depressed but didn't care at all about how I looked when I went to school.

I was the kid at school who got bullied, regularly beaten up. I saw it in the summer break between finishing my GCSEs (14-16) and starting my A Levels (16-18). Heathers was cathartic for me. Christian Slater's JD is the dark side of every nerd who has ever been belittled. When I returned to school after the summer holidays, I recognised every person from Heathers in the people I was dealing with, even here in the UK. I was pretty f**cked up at that stage, as the bullying got extreme in that year (really bad things happened) but I suddenly realised I no longer had to go to school if didn't want to. I went on a week's work experience in the summer term, spun it out to three weeks and never went back. Heathers played a big part in psychologically cutting my ties with the compulsory education era of my life. I restarted my A Levels, now a year older than usual, at a further education college the following September, aged 17, and started a years-long recovery. Winona Ryder/Veronica Sawyer was my perfect woman at that age. She was smoking hot in Mermaids too. And, eventually, Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Heathers was such a big part of that summer: I finished my GCSE exams quite early and had four months away from that cesspool of a school. I'd often stay up until three or four in the morning watching 18-rated movies on satellite TV (still a new thing for us: this was 1991 and we'd had it for less than two years.) It was in that era that I saw Alien for the first time, Carrie, Heathers, Wild at Heart, Risky Business, Sisters (the Brian De Palma film and the one with Patrick Dempsey and Jennifer Connelly, which I believe was called Some Girls in the USA) and all sorts of others: Say Anything, Cold Dog Soup, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Blue Velvet...

That summer made me a full-blown film lover. My VHS film collection increased exponentially and started me on a lifelong love of all types of cinema. It was a a cushion and an escape in my final year of school.

The next summer, freed from the hellhole of school, I had a list of films I'd be watching for Film Studies A Level, which gave me my first viewings of the likes of Metropolis (the Giorgio Moroder version back then) Nosferatu, Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, Strike and more.

A strange, giddy time.

Later that year, my parents bought me a winter coat - not at all similar to what Slater wore in the film, but he inspired me to get it - and that coat soon became my trademark. I still didn't have any luck with girls, but the last two years of high school were nonetheless much better than the first two and I know I'll forever cherish that part of my life and remember it fondly.

Nah, I never had much luck with girls. I'm incredibly independent. I've been cooking since I was eight, taught myself to sew (my Mum has always been hopeless at it!) do DIY, my own laundry, did my own ironing from about 12, because I preferred the way I did it to the way my Mum did. More than once attractive girls have said to me that I'll never get a girlfriend because I'm too independent. Oh well! I have nice things: I buy them and, when I can't, I make them! Can't make women to order unfortunately!!

Fun fact: I still wear that same coat every winter.

I fell in love with the film noir look, so I've been wearing long raincoats since I was 16! In London, no one looks twice at you. Everywhere else in the UK, people take the mickey. I can't count the number of times I've had people shout stuff out of their car window like 'Oi Dick Tracy! Where's your hat??' I still wear them though. Robert B Parker's Spenser also wears pea-coats, so I don't feel I'm betraying my love of pulp novels when I put on the pea-coat!!

Oh, I really loved her with short hair. I don't know if I liked her as much as a teenager because she perfectly fit the image of an ideal woman that I had in my head or if that image was formed thanks to her. Whatever the case, when I think of her, I still picture her with short hair.

Yeah, I tend associate it with her contemporary 'Face of Gen X' era. I liked her best in the period films and wackier stuff. She's always watchable though.

My big regret as well. I have no issues with Sofia Coppola, and I think that she even kind of resembled Al Pacino, but to have had young Winona in one of my favourite films would have been a dream come true!

I agree Sofia isn't that bad. In fact, she's not bad at all. Trouble is, she's a reasonable actress in a film surrounded by Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Andy Garcia, Talia Shire, Eli Wallach, George Hamilton and loads of other great actors. Put it this way, I'm a decent editor, but put me next to Walter Murch and Stuart Baird and I'm less than nothing! I'm nothing next to many of the editors I've worked with over the last 30 years. Winona would have had to up her game and I think the role of Mary would have been huge for her. I think it was to her long term detriment that she missed out on that role.

And then if Robert Duvall decided to return... Oh, well.

The film suffered very badly from his absence. Robert Duvall was essential to the series really. I actually splooged £50 the other day - I've just finished a lucrative job, so I treated myself - on The Godfather Trilogy 4K set. I haven't watched the discs yet, but it's got the theatrical and original video cuts of The Godfather Part III as well as The Godfather Coda, which makes it the 4K the essential purchase. I still kind of hope The Godfather Saga - the extended chronological series - might get released in 4K at some point. It's an interesting alternative version that I treat as a sort of 'appendix' to the main films. I prefer the miniseries to any kind of 'deleted scenes' package, as the extra material is put in context. For me, the films are the 'great novel' version, the miniseries is the 'history' book verson and, curiously enough, the books are the trashy, tell-all, sleazy journalistic exposé of the same story.

Reality Bites belongs to a kind of a subgenre that has become my favourite film genre in the last two years: films from the 80s, 90s, or early 00s about quirky twenty or thirtysomethings who still haven't figured out their lives and are often dealing with romantic troubles... Think of Whit Stillman's Metropolitan, Daisy von Scherler Mayer's Party Girl, Greg Mottola's The Daytrippers, Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, and many more.

Metropolitan and Barcelona were very good. One of my film school friends was nuts about Whit Stillman and Hal Hartley. I liked Whit Stillman, but never really clicked with Hal Hartley. I loved Linklater's work. The Before trilogy is currently in goddamn 'Criterion boxset prison' along with the Infernal Affairs trilogy and several of Wong Kar-Wai's films. I can't afford to splooge on boxsets often and £60 for a trilogy that isn't necessarily on The Godfather level is something I struggle to justify spending in one go. I'd buy them separately, across paycheques, but separate releases don't seem to be forthcoming. I loved Dazed and Confused from that filmmaking era too: It was the first Richard Linklater film I saw. It was wonderfully... honest and unsentimental. I told a terrific slice-of-life story, but was honest about the darker aspects that were part and parcel of the era.

And there was a film called Go. Remember that one? I had it on VHS and haven't seen it in probably the better part of 25 years. I never repurchased a lot of films I had on VHS in the 1990s, so secondhand online stores are proving useful. I picked up A Life Less Ordinary for a couple of quid the other day on DVD, because it still isn't out on Blu-ray, surprisingly. I also picked up Scarface on Blu-ray and Carlito's Way on 4K, continuing my trend to pick up films I watched and liked back then. Perhaps it's to do with turning 50 in January! In 2025, surrounding myself with things I liked in the 1990s is a bit like someone in the 1990s surrounding himself with things he liked in the 1960s, which is a scary thought!!

And since we're already here...

It's fascinating, but even though she could be my mother, seeing her in this video - still so youthful, quirky, and enthusiastic about film and art in general - makes me think of her as a perfect match for me just as much as back when I first saw Heathers...

That's what they call starstruck, indeed.

Indeed! I watched that video a while a go. She's delightful. I'd love to have a bag in which I could put a load of Criterion films! Next month is a prebooked Arrow month, though.