Bye bye July
A bit of a Wrapped while I tap away at my Big Bond Project
New month, same goal
I watched 18 movies in July (19 if counting The Odyssey twice). That might sound like a lot to a regular person but to someone who has no other hobbies and who’s trying to beat last year’s Letterboxd stats, those are rookie numbers.
I’ll give myself some grace, though, because the majority of those 18 — as was also the case in June — were Bond films and thus required a fair amount of writing for my Big Bond Project. See below an amateur Canva compilation of the 12 I got through this month.
Not only do I feel an unreasonable sense of pride at traversing three Bond eras in the span of a month but I’m mostly up to date with my write-ups for each, too.
This means that compiling the thousands and thousands of words, facts and opinions I now have about the Bond franchise should be relatively straightforward, and I should have the full piece published before they announce the next Bond (which had better not be Jacob Elordi or Aaron Taylor-Johnson, or I’ll be forced to write a few more thousand words on why that’s a terrible casting decision.)
Non-Bond watches
I spent what felt like the rest of my month in IMAX sessions of The Odyssey, a film of such spectacle and loudness that I’ll be sending Christopher Nolan an invoice for illegal shaking of a baby (me).
I liked it a lot, even if I struggle to identify with characters a bit when they’re played by such huge names. Highlights for me include John Leguizamo and Elliot Page as the human characters I cared about most, all of the mythological goings on, Odysseus’s dog and the most interesting part of the whole thing, Circe. After second viewing I said goodbye to more of my money and bought the Folio Society edition of Madeline Miller’s book. I must know more about this witchy woman!
A Homeric revisiting
With swords and sandals on my mind I decided to revisit Wolfgang Petersen’s 2004 film Troy. It’s a film I was obsessed with as a teenager, before I had the critical thinking and observational skills to be able to tell when something is shit.
If conservatives crying over the ‘woke’ casting of The Odyssey need proof that casting hot white people as Greek legends and making them all use British accents is not the authenticity cue they think it is, they need look no further than Troy.
Aside from Sean Bean, who perhaps due to typecasting feels perfectly believable in this world, and Peter O’Toole, who is a screen legend and similarly feels at home, nobody is well cast in this film. Nobody.
Among Troy’s indiscretions are the insistence that Brad Pitt attempt an English accent (which he simply cannot, and watching him try to do so and act at the same time is painful), the assumption that Orlando Bloom deserves to be here (he is truly a terrible actor and I can’t believe young Laura never noticed), the sacking of Troy containing visible Baby Borns being flung around and the oft-memed rubberiness of the helmet as Eric Bana takes his off.
If for some reason you still want to watch it, the Revival House Perth is screening it in 35mm this Wednesday August 5th.
Evil Dead Burn
I also managed to maintain my streak of picking disappointing horror movies to watch at our local, Hoyts Southlands.
Other complaints include the early-2000s desaturated look, the sporadic attempt at humour and the lack of impact it left on me (admittedly, that last one might be due to how desensitised I am after years of watching fucked up shit). Several people I know had a good time with this film so take my disdain for it with a grain of salt.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about Jane Schoenbrun as a filmmaker.
I really liked We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, even watching it twice in one weekend because its mysteries required a second look and its atmosphere was pretty intoxicating.
I half liked I Saw the TV Glow and that was because of the first half. After that I found myself getting frustrated with the incoherence and the full submersion in The Pink Opaque. I understand that discomfort in a constructed world is probably the point and considering the acclaim from others, it might be worth revisiting.
At the very least, there was enough in Schoenbrun’s filmography up to that point that made me keen for their next film.
Again, I found myself excited and on board at the beginning of the film. And again, I found myself exhausted around the halfway point as the film descends for quite a long stretch into its own embedded fiction, this time a Friday the 13th-like horror franchise where the central antagonist, Little Death, spears teens at a sleepaway camp.
Coming out of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma I landed somewhere in the middle of respecting Schoenbrun’s style and ambition, enjoying Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder’s performances and being completely stumped as to what the point of it all was. Here’s what I came up with.
I guess overall I liked it more than I Saw the TV Glow while also finding it even less coherent, which is a weird space to be in but perhaps entirely appropriate for a Schoenbrun film.
Despite one hit and two misses, there’s obviously something about their films that keeps me intrigued. I may just have to come to terms with that fact that I’m not the target audience and that I’ll get more out of their work if I view each as an art piece rather than as a feature.
I’m still down for whatever they do next. At least it’ll have a good soundtrack.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is out August 6th. You can catch it at Luna Palace Cinemas.
Christ, more life admin
For some reason I’ve been in an uncharacteristically productive mood lately and it’s caused me to clean parts of the house that have historically remained undisturbed and to sell a bunch of shit on Facebook Marketplace that has been cluttering my space and mind grapes.
Since it’s not due to a natural follicular phase and I don’t know how long it’ll last, I’m going to use this random burst of energy this afternoon to sort through this box of Blu-ray and DVD double ups that has been sitting in the corner of the living room, mocking me.
I’ll be putting them on Marketplace and opening myself up to more “Is this still available?” messages and questions that are answered in the description from people who don’t/can’t read. If you’d like to save me from dealing with such annoyances, do reach out at contact@film-fam.com.