Movies I watched in September
The Executioner (1970 - S. Wanamaker)
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006 - A. McKay)
Top Gun: Maverick (2022 - J. Kosinski)
Heartburn (1986 - M. Nichols)
The Thieves (2012 - D-h Choi)
Slow Horses (2022 - Series)
The Pirates (2014 - S-h Lee)
Dead Reckoning (1947 - J. Cromwell)
Jade (1995 - W. Friedkin)
Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022 - C. Raiff)
The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone (1990/2020 - F. Coppola)
Arahan (2004 - S-w Ryu)
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985 - W. Friedkin)
Notorious (1946 - A. Hitchcock)
Georgy Girl (1966 - S. Narizzano)
Sweet and Lowdown (1999 - W. Allen)
Valkyrie (2008 - B. Singer)
The Exorcist (1973 - W. Friedkin)
Running on Empty (1988 - S. Lumet)
Babe: Pig in the City (1998 - G. Miller)
Subway (1985 - L. Besson)
The US and the Holocaust (2022 - K. Burns, S. Botstein, L. Novick)
The Munsters (2022 - R. Zombie)
Groundhog Day (1993 - H. Ramis)
The Big Steal (1949 - D. Siegel)
Swimming to Cambodia (1987 - J. Demme)
Highlights included three films directed by William Friedkin. Jade was a hot mess with sloppy second unit work but the plot was crazy enough to keep me interested. To Live and Die in LA's combination of bright visuals and bleak worldview make it one of the quintessential 80s films for me. I hadn't watched The Exorcist in decades. I think it holds up well today although its deliberate pacing makes it seem much older than horror films made just a few years later.
I also watched three recent Korean action movies. The Thieves was kind of an interesting heist movie variant that started off like a light Ocean's 11 take before taking a hard turn to over the top action in the second half. I liked Arahan best of the three because its offbeat humor reminded me a bit of Stephen Chow's films. All three were quite ridiculous but they were entertaining rides.
Subway might interest
@El Floppo because of its many similarities to Diva. Subway didn't take itself as seriously but still had plenty of Christophe Lambert's scowling intensity and Isabelle Adjani looking beautiful.
Coppola's re-edited version of Godfather 3 was an improvement on the original cut. It doesn't measure up to the first two of course but there are some scenes where everything works.
The US and the Holocaust was a tough six hour slog but I'm glad I made the effort.
Spalding Gray and Swimming to Cambodia are largely forgotten today but he was huge for a brief moment in the 80s when long-form theatrical monologues became a thing. Jonathan Demme shot and edited the stage production in a similar fashion to Stop Making Sense. It was still a theater piece at its core but the film technique made it more accessible to a movie audience.