Quarantine Film Diary: May

Everything is crazy.

The world is pure madness.

And still I watch movies…… because what else can I do?

It might not seem like a lot, but in my silly little way by talking about the movies I watch, good and bad, it’s putting something a little normal and fun out into the world.

So full month 2 of quarantine, what have I been watching? Well I managed quite the bumper amount of 32 films, which brings my year count up to a round 90. In past years I’m lucky to hit 100 by August, so if nothing else we can say I’m two months ahead of schedule.

I claimed I was going to try and watch more older films, so how did that work out? Well, not amazing. I did watch a couple of older movies like Arsenic and Old Lace and picked myself up a subscription to the BFI Player to enjoy the fruits of their Japan cinema season, but overall not really. I did watch The Hidden Fortress for the first-time courtesy of that BFI subscription, which was an interesting one. People cite it as one of the major inspirations for Star Wars with the two peasant famers being caught up in the story becoming R2D2 and C3P0, but I am not so sure. I feel like any comparisons between the two are of the shallowest variety, there is very little outside that loose element that the two have in common. But still, it is a well-made, if slightly slow paced, movie, and I’m always down for some Toshiro Mifune action. I’m definitely going to try and get more out of the subscription over the coming month, especially to fill in a few gaps in my Japanese cinema knowledge like the films of Yasujirō Ozu.

More horror, as is probably expected of me at this point. I did watch a couple more found footage films, like The Poughkeepsie Tapes which always had a reputation as both one of the most disturbing movies ever made, being the footage shot by a serial killer as he stalks and torments his victims, and one of the essential found footage watches. I would say that whilst I am glad I finally saw it and I admire both its realism and the sense of discomfort it builds, I’m not sure it’s one I’ll be revisiting again anytime soon. On the most part though I did switch up subgenres, and maybe a little oddly I ended up watching a lot of slasher movies. Nothing too extreme or in the realm of torture porn (not my thing) but I did watch the likes of Friday the 13th, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, The Slumber Party Massacre, all the Scream movies, and Better Watch Out. That last one I highly recommend, as it is not quite the movie you expect it to be, has some real twists, and a nice side helping of social relevance. I also revisited Tragedy Girls, a slasher but also not quite as whilst we do get the kills and the gore, its portrayal of two OMGBFFS4EVA who orchestrate a series of murders in their town in order to blog about them and get famous has more of a coming of age narrative feel, as we get to know the girls, their feelings of not mattering in the world, and the ups and downs of their friendship in the face of leaving highschool. It also explores the idea of fame and infamy in a way that I think is much more successful than the similarly themed Scream 4.

I also watched trippy folk horror A Field In England and even though I can say I liked it and it has a few unnerving moments, I couldn’t even begin to tell you what it was actually about. Maybe in June I’ll switch it up to purely supernatural/haunted house movies or make a dent in the small pile of Asian horror DVDs I’ve acquired but not watched.

Speaking of Asian horror, although I have had an interesting discussion on Twitter as to whether it counts as such (my argument in favour was because it was part of that same Tartan Asia Extreme wave as many other Asian horror), I also re-watched Battle Royale and it really drove home just how much I really love this movie. Sure it has its flaws, but it builds its story so well and has sequences that I regard as nothing less than iconic, like the lighthouse scene and the classroom scene. Plus, you have Kitano “Beat” Takeshi as the teacher, how could you possibly beat (haha) that? My Blu-Ray has the director’s cut included, so I gave that a watch for the first time. It doesn’t really add much, mostly just emphasises some things that were more implied in the original cut and adds some CGI blood splatter. One addition I did like was a kind of framing scene of the class pre-BR at a school basketball game, as it shows the whole class normal and united in something, even the psychotic Mitsuko, before the chaos of the game starts. The sequel Battle Royale II: Requiem, however, is nowhere near as successful, it just tries to repeat a few of the most memorable beats from the first film, increases the killing and bloodshed at the expense of the impact of it, and has a teacher character that tries for unhinged but ends up ineffectual like everything else. I wouldn’t say it’s a sequel that makes the film it follows worse or anything like that, I don’t think any sequel can really do that (not even Alien 3) but I think that the first film’s ending is stronger with no follow-on story.

As far as film based goals for June go, I definitely want to make the most of that BFI Player subscription. More Yasujirō Ozu, but also the Akira Kurosawa films I haven’t seen before and other films from the subscription’s catalogue. And less of a goal and more of a thing I’m looking forward to, my Blu-Ray of Parasite (complete with Black and White version) arrived today.

Until then,

Happy Watching.