Caligari is a great film to have had the opportunity to see on the big screen. I’m a big David Lynch fan to the point that the last time I was in the state of Washington I had to go to the hotel by the waterfall and the diner from Twin Peaks. While at the diner, I even had to have a piece of cherry pie (plus a couple of other varieties) and “a damn fine cup of coffee”. But, despite my love for Lynch, even I don’t get Eraserhead.
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2 Rewatches of classics, and 2 new films - all utterly fantastic:
Silence of the Lambs
What else can be said about this that hasn’t already been said? Perfect in every way.
A Clockwork Orange
My favourite Kubrick. Love anything with a dystopian Britain.
The Banshees of Inisherin
I’d only just seen Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges last month but I loved the pairing of the leads in that and they are just as fantastic in this. Insanely funny yet insanely dark. Cannot recommend it enough.
A Decision to Leave
Bizzare yet great love story. A little confusing at some points but had me a little choked up by the end.
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A Clockwork Orange on the big screen. 
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Means he doesn’t get it either. 
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Hah, I always sort of figured it was about his anxiety about having children from what I remember. Could be totally off, though.
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That makes sense, actually.
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Just came back from seeing the new All Quiet on the Western Front. Bloody phenomenal. I can’t recommend it enough when it hits Netflix!
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Watched November last night
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Big David Lynch fan but I’d never seen that before.
You’d think that but I remember him saying words to the effect of he’d “never seen, heard or read” an interpretation the same as his maybe about eight years ago. He must’ve surely heard that somewhere before then.
I remember when he said that and a lot of people were gutted but I think they missed the point; to me he was admitting that his interpretation is an interpretation and not an objective meaning. As long as you aren’t blagging yourself, whatever you think is right.
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As a side note this is probably still my favourite YouTube video all these years later
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Hahahahahaha, the sudden rage that seems to take over when he drops the F bomb is incredible.
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The Banshees of Inisherin (McDonagh / 2022)
Excellent stuff. Couldn’t recommend it highly enough.
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Glad you enjoyed it. Might be my favourite film of the year so far alongside Everything Everywhere All At Once and All Quiet on the Western Front
Plan to watch Everything Everywhere sometime over the next couple of days. Have heard very good things about it
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Wasn’t blown away by it
Last night I went to my local cinema’s Halloween All Nighter, an event which I’ve been hyped for since last year. Me and my pal chose to do the 4 mystery 35mm films and it was amazing. Each film had a short little introduction by the guy who chose them and the screen had pretty much a full audience for the entire night.
The first film was From Dusk Till Dawn which was a great opener and hilarious to watch with an audience.
The second was Society which I had never seen before. The film ended with a big round of applause, followed with a lot of "what the fuck was that"s from the audience.
Third was Pieces which was maybe my favourite cinema experience ever? Constant laughter and the infamous “BASTARDS!” scene got a mid film round of applause. So much fun.
The fourth was Tales from the Crypt: Hell Knight. Never seen this one before but thought it was a bit of a dud. Took way to long to get to the fun stuff. Didn’t get much of an audience reaction at the end, although that may be because it ended it 6:30am.
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By far the best cinema in the region. I often watch anniversary screenings of classics there.
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Frances O’Connor’s Emily (2022), loosely based upon the few known facts about Emily Brontë’s life, endeavors to reimagine the hitherto deemed rather reclusive and solitary author as a rebellious hoyden, eager to transgress social, religious, moral, sexual and artistic boundaries. In biographical terms, O’Connor’s directorial debut is as far removed from any kind of accuracy, or even probability, as Curtis Bernhardt’s Devotion, released in 1946, starring Ida Lupino as Emily Brontë. Both movies tell the same story, though: the future author of Wuthering Heights has an unhappy love affair with a curate newly arrived at Haworth Parsonage, an experience that impacts on the conception of her world-famous novel. Given Emily’s highly fictionalized, speculative depiction of Emily Brontë’s personality—The Guardian called the film an “inventive, urgent gothic fable” that has a “fairytale fever-dream quality” to it—O’Connor’s remarks that she feels “like Emily has been edited for a lot of her life. This is me taking her and putting her in the centre of her own story,” and that “there’s always a gap between who women really are and who they’re supposed to be,” may come as a surprise. The most subtle cinematic approximation to the Brontë Bunch was possibly accomplished by André Téchiné in 1979: His Les Sœurs Brontë, featuring Isabelle Adjani as Emily, avoids speculative (re-)interpretation and tries to create a visual compendium around established biographical facts.
Three Emilys: Lupino, Adjani, Mackey
Emily’s possible strength may lie in Emma Mackey’s portrayal of the title character—if one can get past the clichéd screenplay (written by O’Connor herself) and the kitschy orchestral score. The film demonstrates once more that “Emily Brontë”—not lacking in posthumous mythographers from elder sister Charlotte onwards—has become a free-floating signifier whose meaning is contingent on shifting modes and fashions of literary perception, sociopolitical orientation, and ideological predilection. Maybe a clean-slate approach to O’Connor’s film is most rewarding—as an IMDb reviewer writes, “I have never read […] Wuthering Heights, and I know little of the Brontë sisters. […] I adored Emily.”
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