More movies watched in April.

48. (1487.) What's Up, Doc? (1972)
The biggest problem with this callback to the screwball comedies of the 1930s is Barbara Streisand. Not only is her character about as charming as nails on a chalkboard, I just don't buy her as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Something about her on-screen presence really, really rubs me the wrong way. The net effect of this film was just to remind me that I could be watching the much better movies that inspired it instead.

49. (1488.) Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Jr. (2009)
Speaking of movies that make you wish you were watching the movies that inspired them: don't watch this. Jim Carrey makes the originals work, and his absence here is painfully glaring.

50. (1489.) Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
I'm on the fence about this one. It's charming in its way, but it is somehow simultaneously stale. Perhaps I'm just weary of Tim Burton's aesthetic. Hrm. Maybe it's me. I can see myself watching this again one day.

51. (1490.) Lifeforce (1985)
Space vampires! This feels like a Hammer horror, which I suspect was the goal.

52. (1491.) Jour de Fete (1949)
Jacques Tati's first full length film is a delight. It occurred to me about halfway through that general tone of Tati's films is what Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful was trying to replicate in the late 90s. I hated Life is Beautiful because the protagonist is an inherently selfish lout. Tati's protagonists maybe oblivious and occasionally rude, but they are never unlikable. I wish someone had pointed me towards Tati sooner.

More to come.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: movies