Four Favorites

Presenting: My Letterboxd Top 4!

They’re really just my general Top 4, I suppose. If you don’t use the app and don’t know, Letterboxd lets you list 4 favorites (and only 4), so that’s a whole thing now. These haven’t budged in a while…and I’m not sure if I've given a ton of thought to an expanded list in at least a few years. I’ve watched some good movies since then. Maybe it is time to switch it up, but until then…

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Alien (1979) 

dir. Ridley Scott

It’s been a few years since I last rewatched Alien, so I have little to say about it beyond the superficial. It’s a great psychological horror–you don’t get a good look at the titular alien for the majority of the movie, and that’s partially because the effects were practical and difficult to maneuver. It still looks incredible. Alien was probably also my introduction to body horror. Well, not Alien specifically, but rather Alien vs. Predator, which was the first time I ever laid eyes on the xenomorph. It’s a far more inferior movie, but the I spent many nights as a child hoping I hadn’t just seen something move in the corner of my dark room. The face-hugging and chest-bursting no longer terrifies me; instead, I see the promise of corporeal destruction. It scratches a psychological itch I have. Also, love Sigourney Weaver and her castmates, especially the now late actors John Hurt, Ian Holm, and Harry Dean Stanton, and the adorably fierce Jonesy the cat. 

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Suspiria (2018) 

dir. Luca Guadagnino

I also haven’t seen Suspiria in a few years. Probably less than Alien, though, because I’m talking about the 2018 REMAKE, baby! It’s the shakiest inclusion on this list–I really am due for a rewatch. It solidly goes down as one of the remakes I have controversially decided is better than the original. Dario Argento didn’t like it, saying that it was different enough that they should've just made their own movie. Luca Guadagnino drew plenty from the original material; he just expanded it and made it better, elevating it from a giallo to a movie that proposes a deep, merciful darkness that underpins everything. 

Dakota Johnson stars as Susie Bannion in a wig as divisive as the film itself (I personally love it, no notes on styling, placement, quality, etc.), and we are also treated to performances by Tilda Swinton, Jessica Harper (the original Susie!), Tilda Swinton, Chloe Grace Moretz, Mia Goth, and Tilda Swinton. Did I mention that iconic British actress Tilda Swinton plays three characters (Madame Blanc, Dr. Jozef Klemperer, and Mother Markos) in this movie? Why she plays Markos, I really don’t know. Maybe she just found out that she didn’t mind wearing thirty pounds of prosthetics and they thought it would be fun–Markos has limited physical presence in the movie and is a disfigured, wretched creature. Anyone could have been disguised under there, grumbling her lines.

Now, why does Tilda also play the doctor? I think this has more roots in the more feminist themes of Suspiria, though they did try to have some fun with it during press at Venice and pretend that some old German psychiatrist was making his film debut. Functionally, I think the choice is another way the film rejects men by nearly osctracizing them completely from the movie, à la The Women (1939) or Volver (2006). There’s a point made in the movie I vaguely remember wherein someone chides/blames men broadly for ignoring warnings about the Second World War and the Holocaust. I would have to rewatch the film to really crystallize my point on this. Anyhow, the doctor is weak and feeble, immasculated, and the perfect victim for the coven. He doesn’t get that, though. Mother Suspiriorum grants him forgiveness, peace, and extends him a merciful death. That’s a lot of power for a feminine figure to wield.

There’s a lot else to sort through in Suspiria, and I worry that this section in particular is a jumble of thoughts. I just find the whole thing very layered and complex, which lends itself to lingering in the mind. Superficially, the film is wonderfully twisted and gory. The ritual scene has to be one of the most memorable of the 21st century. All the lauding aside, I think it’s nice that they’re still letting Luca Guadagnino make movies after how hard this bombed at the box office. 

Also, as a final note on Suspiria, something that I have to point out is that the score is by Thom Yorke–his first for a feature film. It’s quite haunting. Shout out to Thom Yorke. Good job, man.

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First Reformed (2017)

dir. Paul Schrader

Like all great artists, writer-director Paul Schrader consistently returns to the preoccupations he’s grappled with his entire life, and First Reformed is no exception.

To take it back to its nearly pre-Schrader genesis, First Reformed is also a remake of a sort. It’s a combined retelling of the 1951 Robert Bresson film Diary of a Country Priest and the 1963 Ingmar Bergman film Winter Light, which are both about pastors/priests struggling with their faith, congregation, and world events. Bergman cited Diary as an inspiration for his film, as did Martin Scorsese for Taxi Driver, which was written for him to direct by Paul Schrader. 

There are some odd ones out in Schrader’s oeuvre, but the notable items in his body of work are about men struggling with the spiritual (if they are not already bereft), their past, and their place in society. First Reformed’s Reverend Toller is no exception. Toller lives with the guilt of indirectly causing the death of his son (which his wife left him over). His congregation is shrinking compared to the shiny, new, and well-funded nearby megachurch. He’s an alcoholic growing very sick, pouring pepto bismol in whiskey to try and get through the nights. It’s a sad state, and you can see how his own sermons about God’s love may ring a little hollow.

I’m doing my best to avoid spoilers here. Toller is exposed suddenly to radical environmentalism, which quickly intermingles with his crisis of faith. It’s one of the first movies I’ve ever watched that fully reckons with climate change, and while I expect that to change a lot as younger filmmakers enter the fray, it’s hard to imagine improving on perfection. How to Blow Up a Pipline, a release from this past year, is my next best example, but I must admit it pales in comparison. Pipeline is more of an Ocean’s Eleven-type movie. First Reformed has an incomprable depth. It’s a pessimistic movie, with an iota of hope if you should choose to see it that way (I do). It’s a great cathartic watch, if you like despair. 

It doesn’t exist yet, but for the last few years I’ve imagined my analytical magnum opus to be an essay about why I think First Reformed works as a sythesized retelling of Diary of a Country Priest and Winter Light but the 2019 film Joker gives me the heebie-jeebies as a malformed chimera of Taxi Driver (1976) and The King of Comedy (1982). Probably a bad idea to decide something is my magnum opus before I’ve made it, though.

My final note for this movie is that I wrote an essay about the screenplay and talked about the film in a screenwriting class I took in college a bunch, enough to pique the curiosity of my professor. He came in one day and told me that he had watched the movie and didn’t like it. 

Also, the movie was shot in 20 days. It’s a rather realist film with no action or huge set pieces, but I still think that’s pretty impressive. I'd also be remiss–and I am aware I am three postscripts in now–if I didn't acknowledge Ethan Hawke's career-defining performance. He didn't even get a nomination. Bogus.

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My Own Private Idaho (1991)

dir. Gus Van Sant

I get something new out of this movie every time I watch it. I love it so much, I’m honestly worried about writing about it. It’s almost like something that should remain in my heart and off the page. Yeah, I’m going to avoid getting too personal. 

This film’s got a little bit of everything. Yes, it’s named after the B-52s song. Why? I don’t know. MOPI is also a partial adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henriad. Keanu Reeves’s character Scott is Prince Hal, and the outlaw leader Bob is Falstaff. Reeves’s performance in this is… well, you know. It’s not good, per se, but you’re not expecting that anyway. I would say it’s passable and delightfully Keanu-y. Like, it’s not Dracula bad.

River Phoenix stars as Mike, the non-Shakespearean main character, a narcoleptic drifter working as a hustler on the streets in the Pacific Northwest. His performance is transcendant. He is often quiet and reserved, alone in the vast world around him that stretches out in all directions. Phoenix also delivers what is, in my opinion of course, one of the most heartbreaking lines ever uttered in a movie. If you’e seen the film, you know which one. Mike’s intrusive memories that hazily fade in and out through his days. Phoenix captured this guarded but earnest essence in a dazed character caught for a time in the gravitational pull of the charismatic Scott. He’s looking for his mother and he’s looking for answers in his past, presumably to aid his future. It’s not clear what Mike wants as far as goals, except for maybe a roof over his head anhd someone who loves him and won’t disappear.

River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves were best friends, and there are many stories that mythologize the production of this film. You are burdened, while watching it, with the awareness of River’s 1993 demise and the other tragedies faced by Reeves in his life. Mike doesn’t get a happy ending, either. He doesn’t know who he is at the beginning of the movie, and he doesn’t know who he is at the end. The roads go on forever.

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I realize that this post is also an introduction of a sort.

Thanks again.