I watched 5 movies last week:

• It’s tempting to call State of Grace a forgotten gem, but it’s also a tarnished one, whose flaws I suspect have become more pronounced as even more films have trafficked in the same cliches. “What’s best about [the movie],” Roger Ebert wrote at the time, “is what’s unique about it,” while acknowledging that it “gets less and less original, the more complicated it becomes.” There is a lot to like about it, from the complicated characters to the strong performances, which is why it’s all the more disappointing when it falls apart in a hail of gunfire.
• “Mike Leigh’s films realize,” wrote Roger Ebert about the touching but low-stakes Career Girls, “that for most people, most days, life consists of the routine of earning a living, broken by fleeting thoughts of where our efforts will someday take us–financially, romantically, spiritually or even geographically. We never arrive in most of those places, but the mental images are what keep us trying.”
• I don’t know if Under Capricorn is Alfred Hitchcock’s worst movie, but it’s a strong contender. Decent performances mired in long, talky shots and largely uninteresting characters.
• At first, We Who Are About to Die seems like the only thing it has going for it is that title. But then it goes surprisingly hard on the prison scenes, making you actually care about these men society has condemned and thrown away.
• There are a few moments when The Astronaut builds tension and suspense…and if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen all of those moments. You’ll almost certainly clock the twist ending before it comes, and the fact that it only works as a twist robs it of the weight the movie tries to place on it. Kate Mara tries her best to create some kind of character from her performance, but the movie itself never works.

I also rewatched 1977’s House, which I always remember is going to be weird, but always forget just how weird. This is my third time watching it, and while I’ve never used psychedelics, I always feel like I have after I’ve watched the movie. “How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable 1977 movie House (Hausu)?” asked the Criterion Collection. “As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of Scooby-Doo as directed by Mario Bava? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip…”

Last week:

This week:

1. “I was born to endure this kind of weather”
2. “They overtook me down in Juarez, Mexico”
3. “Your hand won’t write, not tonight”
4. “Letters I’ve written, never meaning to send”
   “Nights in White Satin” by the Moody Blues, guessed by Frodis Caper
5. “They heard me singing and they told me to stop”
6. “Packing my bags and giving the academy a rain check”
7. “We crave a different kind of buzz”
   “Royals” by Lorde, guessed by Glen
8. “And she probably lives in Tahiti”
   “Whole Wide World” by Wreckless Eric, guessed by Glen
9. “My friends say I’m acting peculiarly”
10. “Stay away, you’ll never know what you’ll catch”

Guess the song lyrics, artist and song, in the comments. Good luck!

Last week, I watched 6 movies:

• Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is a lot of fun, when it’s a lot of fun. Problem is, the movie is too often trying too hard for its own good, prolonging bits and pop culture references when it could stand to be a whole lot snappier. The cast, particularly Vaughn, are really good, though, and there are enough silly goofs and clever jokes to keep the thing moving at a brisk enough pace. I just wish it was funnier, and did more with its premise.
• Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is like a goofy Black Mirror episode. It doesn’t always work, isn’t half as smart as it thinks it is, and it’s not remotely subtle in its satire, but it is often weird and fun. Sam Rockwell’s charm is unsurprisingly infectious, and the movie isn’t without its clever touches.
• There is a lot to like in the very amiable Good Fortune, particularly Reeves’ kind and goofy performance, even if the movie doesn’t really hold together very well in the end.

• The plot of Send Help is never surprising—it’s all there even in the marketing—so the fun of the movie is in the interplay between its two characters, the subtleties of the performances. Unfortunately, subtlety isn’t exactly in Sam Raimi’s wheelhouse, or at least not in his interests, and what we end up with is two unlikable characters being nasty to one another. (A sprinkling of unconvincing and unnecessary CGI here and there doesn’t help.)
• Locked traps Bill Skarsgård in a car, and a not very good movie, for several hours. Skarsgård puts in the work of creating an interesting character, and this may very well be his best performance, but it’s largely wasted against an underdeveloped premise and halfhearted arguments about morality.
• There’s some charm to be found in Man Wanted, particularly in Kay Francis’ performance, and there are some interesting pre-Code moments here and there, but it’s a little limp and confused, or at least dated, as a romantic comedy.

I also rewatched Kill, Baby… Kill!, which doesn’t really work on the level of story or script, but is so full of atmospheric Gothic horror and terrifically composed shots that it’s easy to forgive that.

Last week, there were a few guesses.

Will there be more, less, or any this week? Guess the artist and song for any or all of these ten lyrics and win no prize!

1. “This Is Why We Fight” by the Decemberists
   “When we die, we will die with our arms unbound”
2. “Why Can’t I Touch It?” by Buzzcocks
   “And it feels so real, I can taste it”
3. “When I’m Five” by David Bowie
   “I will chew and spit tobacco like my grandfather Jones”
4. “Six Weeks” by Of Monsters and Men
   “I fight these animals”
5. “Fortune Teller” by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (or others)
   “She said, ‘Son, you feel kind of warm'”
6. “The Way it Seems to Go” by Rachael Yamagata
   “I cannot stand small talk but I’m great at being wordy”
7. “Funnel of Love” by Southern Culture on the Skids (or others)
   “My poor old head is a reelin'”
8. “Hüsker Dü” by Splitsville
   “The drummer was not too bad”
9. “The Partisan” by Leonard Cohen
   “I was cautioned to surrender”
10. “In Too Deep” by Genesis, guessed by John
    “You know I love you, but I’m playing for keeps”

Good luck!

Here’s my April music playlist: