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- I think I can see the “sparks of talent and wit” that Roger Ebert recognized in Class of 1984, but there’s a lot more of the “raw, offensive, vulgar, and violent” that he also acknowledged in the film. I often couldn’t shake the feeling that might would better if it was worse, if it just embraced the camp that it keeps leaning towards, and yet its increasingly darker moments are the movie’s more effective ones. This isn’t a great movie, or even necessarily a good one, but it is a lot.
- Christmas in July feels effortless, which is good, because I’m not sure how much effort the movie could have sustained. It’s an endearing, well-directed and acted, if somewhat slight, comedy.
- Circus of Horrors could do with a lot less circus and a few more horrors, is all I’m saying.
- Cavalcade is a lovely (though very melancholic) Noel Coward trip through several decades of the early 20th century.
I also re-watched The Blood on Satan’s Claw. The movie’s pacing is more than a little chaotic, and it can’t help but feel a little pieced together from a movie that originally started as separate tales in an anthology film. But it’s a very creepy, well produced, and at times deeply upsetting, piece of folk horror.