{"id":13057,"date":"2023-07-30T12:41:09","date_gmt":"2023-07-30T16:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=13057"},"modified":"2023-07-30T12:41:09","modified_gmt":"2023-07-30T16:41:09","slug":"weekly-movie-roundup-38","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=13057","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Movie Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I watched a half dozen movies last week:<\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0062136\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/1-4-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Playtime\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13058\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/1-4-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/1-4-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/1-4-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/1-4.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0075931\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/2-4-194x300.jpg\" alt=\"Demon Seed\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13059\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/2-4-194x300.jpg 194w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/2-4-664x1024.jpg 664w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/2-4-768x1185.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/2-4-995x1536.jpg 995w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/2-4.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0068638\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/3-4-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Getaway\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13060\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/3-4-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/3-4-673x1024.jpg 673w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/3-4-768x1169.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/3-4.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li>To <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/great-movie-playtime-1967\">quote Roger Ebert<\/a>\u2014one of several times I&#8217;ll do so in this post\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0062136\/\">Playtime<\/a> &#8220;is one of a kind, complete in itself, a species already extinct at the moment of its birth.&#8221; It&#8217;s not so much a movie as a strange marvel of production design and observation. It&#8217;s often delightfully clever, and this &#8220;peculiar, mysterious, magical film&#8221; deserves to be seen, but it&#8217;s a weird trip all the same.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0075931\/\">Demon Seed<\/a> is pretty dreadful. The Criterion Channel <a href=\"https:\/\/www.criterionchannel.com\/demon-seed\">wants you to believe<\/a> the movie is &#8220;[p]acked with suspense, surprise, and special effects,&#8221; which leads me to wonder if they know what any of those words mean. Julie Christie is a better actress than the movie deserves\u2014and it&#8217;s arguably an interesting footnote to fans of AI horror movies, or Dean Koontz completists\u2014but it&#8217;s a lousy movie all on its own.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li>What passed for popular action movies in the 1970s, I&#8217;m starting to think, maybe just aren&#8217;t for me anymore. Case in point: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0068638\/\">The Getaway<\/a>, which I found mostly boring, even amid its bank robberies, car chases, and shootouts. Then again, maybe it&#8217;s not &#8217;70s movies&#8217; fault; Roger Ebert <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/the-getaway-1972\">at the time<\/a> called <em>The Getaway<\/em> &#8220;a big, glossy, impersonal mechanical toy&#8230;[that] functions with great efficiency but doesn&#8217;t accomplish anything.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0071200\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/4-3-196x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Beast Must Die\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13061\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/4-3-196x300.jpg 196w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/4-3-671x1024.jpg 671w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/4-3-768x1173.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/4-3.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 196px) 100vw, 196px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0034936\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/5-3-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Keeper of the Flame\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13062\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/5-3-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/5-3-682x1024.jpg 682w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/5-3-768x1154.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/5-3.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0276919\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/6-2-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"Dogville\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13063\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/6-2-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/6-2-691x1024.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/6-2-768x1137.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/6-2.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0071200\/\">The Beast Must Die<\/a> isn&#8217;t a bad movie, though it does sometimes almost seem like it&#8217;s trying to be one, from the constant day-for-night shoots to the laughably terrible werewolf effects. The movie never really works, but it&#8217;s interesting and has some surprisingly good performances.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li>Not to give Hedda Hopper too much credit\u2014because I suspect she disliked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0034936\/\">Keeper of the Flame<\/a> thanks in no small part to its anti-fascist politics\u2014but she wasn&#8217;t entirely wrong when she called it &#8220;<em>Citizen Kane<\/em> with all the art scraped off.&#8221;<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0276919\/\">Dogville<\/a> is an unpleasant movie\u2014<em>Our Town<\/em> re-conceived by a misanthrope\u2014which it might have gotten away with if it wasn&#8217;t also three, very slow hours long. It often seems on the verge of saying something interesting, a talented cast struggling to bring nuance to a script that fights it at every turn. &#8220;Few people will enjoy seeing it once,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/dogville-2004\">wrote Roger Ebert<\/a>, &#8220;and, take it from one who knows, even fewer will want to see it a second time.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I also re-watched a double-feature of vaguely remembered 2011 science fiction action thrillers with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0945513\">Source Code<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1385826\/\">The Adjustment Bureau<\/a>. I think the former holds up much better, even if it loses a lot when you know where it&#8217;s headed, while the latter is mostly as meh as I remember it, though Matt Damon and Emily Blunt have genuine on-screen chemistry together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I watched a half dozen movies last week: To quote Roger Ebert\u2014one of several times I&#8217;ll do so in this post\u2014Playtime &#8220;is one of a kind, complete in itself, a species already extinct at the moment of its birth.&#8221; It&#8217;s not so much a movie as a strange marvel of production design and observation. It&#8217;s &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=13057\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13057"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13057"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13067,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13057\/revisions\/13067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}