What’s Been Watched Last Week: First Edition
You’ve seen “what to watch” newsletters come out all the time. They’re written by the same people who are building up hype for new releases every week. This time I think with Take Off the Festival Goggles, I’ll just create a “what’s been watched” newsletter so that I can share some highlights from the many things I watch and log on my Letterboxd every week. Sometimes there’s a lot of good, other times there’s a lot of bad — but I only have about as much time to watch so many bad movies as I can with making a movie.
Even then, I find that the more I watch movies the more ground I have to discover over time. I think that there’s also at least something great to find with each new film you watch and sometimes they stick with you in the best possible ways, which is a huge part of why I find myself always drawn back to how many people continue playing around with the medium as it always makes room for the most inventive storytellers. Some of the films I’ll share about here I think best embody that, so I’ll be happy enough sharing some of those.
Because this is a “what’s been watched” newsletter, I feel like I’ll shake things up a bit by at least covering a few new releases if I’ve seen them, but also trying to share what I’ve been watching and rewatching endlessly. Surely enough, I think those of you who follow me on Letterboxd would know where this can go from there onward, because of the fact I really like writing about everything I see, so maybe writing something on Medium or a Substack-esque newsletter would be repeating myself. Yet sometimes, I also think to myself that just writing only on Letterboxd won’t be reachable by literally everyone who wants to read what I say about certain movies. So, without further ado, I say it’s time we start.
Oldies on the big screen
Going to the movie theater isn’t something I should only save for the new releases, because it’s all about the collective.
The Last Waltz (1978, Martin Scorsese) — ✯✯✯✯✯
As they would advise you, this is a film that “must be played loud.” Perhaps the best way I think you can describe something like The Last Waltz is that it captures a huge moment in time. For many who remember the impact that The Band left upon the music scene, it only fits that someone who captures a moment that essentially boils down to their supposedly final farewell, as we see an arc formed with the many musicians who come along to perform alongside Robbie Robertson, who reflects back on what his journey with The Band has turned him into, it only makes every song coming forth feel more melancholic. I think that’s not only best reflective of the power of great filmmaking, but it’s simply just a perfect example of how great art changes people in general. Coming out of this, I only felt like I just wanted to listen to The Band back to back. Take the load off, Fanny, and put the load right on me.
Surname Viêt, Given Name Nam (1989, Trinh T. Minh-hà) — ✯✯✯✯½
A discovery made thanks to TIFF Cinematheque’s programme called “No Master Territories: Feminist Worldmaking and the Moving Image.” Admittedly, my knowledge of this film prior to the screening I attended on last Sunday was very limited, but I’d known Minh-hà’s work through a mutual friend. Yet it wasn’t at all what I thought: in that I was expecting a documentary about the identity of a Vietnamese woman through the many perspectives who’ve lived under patriarchy, and the final result is something more experimental. It’s a film all about the power balance at hand, especially from the point of view of Vietnamese women — and I think that with how it examines the world from this perspective it becomes something eye-opening. This was my first of her films, and I know for a fact it won’t be my last.
Long-awaited (or yet another) revisit or two
I rewatch a lot of films. Sometimes they bring out new thoughts coming to my mind.
The Double Life of Veronique (1991, Krzysztof Kieslowski) — ✯✯✯✯✯
Krzysztof Kieslowski’s The Double Life of Veronique has long been a favourite for as long as I can still remember the first time I saw it. But I think that with talking a film like this you’re bound to at least wonder if there’s some greater force that unites you with another person in the world that experiences many of the same things as you. In that, I find The Double Life of Veronique to be a haunting experience. Rewatching it now, I don’t think I have terribly much that’s new to add that I hadn’t already said in other Letterboxd entries but I think it’s just one of the best films ever made.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962, John Ford) — ✯✯✯✯✯
For me, I think this is one of John Ford’s best. Only felt like it was fitting to come back to after Steven Spielberg’s wonderful tribute scene to John Ford in The Fabelmans, although it’d also be worth noting that the film comes back a whole lot in important parts of the young Sammy Fabelman’s life. But I think the film’s place in history is one that I find particularly fascinating, because it is a film that shows John Ford knowing that the old ways of the western film, as he’d already popularized with the days of Stagecoach and going forth into The Searchers have long been past their prime. But you can’t truly go in with the new without at least knowing that the old ways have left an impact in some way, shape, or form, which is what I find makes The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance something truly special.
Mildred Pierce (1946, Michael Curtiz) — ✯✯✯✯✯
I picked up the recent Criterion 4K UHD Blu-Ray disc of this film. Ever since I’ve been frequently upgrading many of my regular 1080p Blu-Rays into a 4K disc, I’ve found that I’ve been led to nothing but completely satisfactory results especially when the HDR really beautifully suits the black-and-white photography. It’s the case yet again with Mildred Pierce, because this is an especially gorgeous movie — but also one of the most psychologically complex films ever made about the challenges of motherhood. Perhaps it’d only be one way to tell this story than to have it all unfold like a murder mystery, but what I love most about Mildred Pierce comes down to how much of it is all shrouded in her world, and what she does for the people she loves most, even when one of them happens to be a demon like Veda Pierce.
Tár (2022, Todd Field) — ✯✯✯✯✯
Hard to imagine something else where every moment feels so intricate and creates a psychologically complex world, but I’ve already seen Tár a few times since its theatrical run, and once again for a Best Picture theatrical screening series. Not only is this a movie that I find to be among the best of last year, but it’s a film that engages with the ego and fractures it in a way that it’s less about the character but all about the world they inhabit and what creates that sense of self. For its star Cate Blanchett, this is a career best — but I think where Tár finds itself in a league of its own comes from the conversations that we can have about its title character. Field interrogates that ego flooding the art world, and in how that sense of herself is broken down on the screen, you can’t look away.
Recent highlights
New movies come in every now and then.
Scream VI (2023, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett) — ✯✯✯
In all truth and honesty, I have never been the biggest Scream fan growing up. Of course, time has changed and my stance on the original films by Wes Craven is not the same as it was when I first saw it as a teenager. I think that when talking the impact that Scream has had on the slasher genre, you can’t quite deny that what Craven and Kevin Williamson have done was something particularly playful in a concept that satirizes the core concept, because it knows the rules of how these films are to play out and thanks to that, they make a great horror film in turn out of what the audience wants versus doesn’t want. When Craven passed on and the torch was passed onto Radio Silence, my skepticism did arise because I wasn’t too fond of their last Scream film. Perhaps it’s my lowered expectations especially since Neve Campbell was not returning, but I came out of this one not minding it too much, although I think that Radio Silence and Vanderbilt don’t quite have the same flair that Craven and Williamson do — and there are some really fun kills here.
I Like Movies (2022, Chandler Levack) — ✯✯✯✯½
I’ll bite: I’m friends with Chandler Levack and she also treated me to a ticket to the Canada’s Top Ten showing when I was unable to get ticket as it was sold out (as expected, because many of the screenings during the festival itself were also sold out!). But I think that you can’t help yourself when you’re seeing a film all about that period in time as a young cinephile where everything gets filtered through that narrow point of view, and you get reminded of the worst aspects of that. In Chandler’s wonderful film, you have something especially great in the fact that you can’t help but at least see aspects of yourself being confronted in how uncomfortable it can get. Which I think is an indicator that it’s done its job well.
A friendly recommendation
Maybe not something I watched last week, but just want to pass some love to.
Millennium Mambo (2001, Hou Hsiao-hsien)
Admittedly, I wanted to write this newsletter to go out last week so I could devote an entire section to talking about Millennium Mambo. For what it’s worth, I’d already seen the film twice in theaters when the new 4K restoration distributed by Kino Lorber was showing at the TIFF Lightbox, but those two times I’d revisited the film, being the first I’ve seen the film since I was in high school, had only certified this as my favourite of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films. I think it’s the most dreamlike, because it feels like it’s celebrating a sense of freedom for Vicky, as played by the extraordinary Shu Qi. It’s all about having that sense of freedom at the dawn of a new millennium, but what it feels like to get there. It’s a film built on a particularly ethereal quality, first with the imagery but also that soundtrack, only making a clearer case for how one’s happiness might not always last as long as one hopes, but ultimately what it felt like to get there.
There’s only so many movies I watch that’ll offer something for me to say, but these were some that I knew I couldn’t really let go of. Maybe I’ll aim to keep this up on a weekly basis, and hopefully I’ll have motivated you all to seek out something new or put it all on your radar.
