78/2389. Rumble Fish (1983)
Francis Ford Coppola's self-defeating tendency towards artsy-fartsy bullshit is the defining attribute of this beautiful but hollow ode to teenage angst. Coppola obviously wanted this to be French New Wave, and his great cast certainly nails the style. However, his characters are barely-sketched caricatures, and their interactions are disappointingly meaningless.

If Coca-Cola is cool enough for Tom Waits, Coca-Cola is cool enough for everyone!

79/2390. Tell It to the Marines (1926)
Lon Chaney in a rare leading role where he isn't the monster. I don't know that I'd call it "good," but mostly because cinema and cultural mores have changed so much in the past century. Chaney and his rubber face are, as always, greatly entertaining.

80/2391. When We Were Shuttle (2022)
This documentary is an historical look back at the often overlooked Florida ground crew that built and maintained the space shuttles between missions. If you have any interest in the Space Age, especially the Space Transport System that defined the American space program for three decades, it's worth a watch.

81/2392. What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (2018)
This documentary is a biography of the very influential (and very controversial) 20th-century New Yorker film critic as told mostly by her very sympathetic allies. I'm more familiar with Kael the antagonist (via the stories told by the many, many people she went out of her way to offend), so I'm reluctant to accept everything this would have me believe about her motivations and accomplishments. But it is worthwhile to hear both sides.

82/2393. The Color Purple (1985)
My rule is that I have to watch at least half of a movie before I will put it on my "watched" list. This is a rare exception. Steven Spielberg is up to all his old tricks trying to pull tears from a stone. I made it about thirty minutes through a nonstop series of incest, rape, child abuse, and murder before I had to tap out. Life is too short to spend with people this awful, even if they're fictional. (Maybe especially if they're fictional.)

More to come.

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