2021 started out with a weekly movie post. After awhile, the researching and writing took nearly as much time as I spent watching the movies, and the old “if your work isn’t 100% perfect, you’re a bad person” standard from my upbringing seeped into my anxiety. I got overwhelmed, and missed a dozen weeks. I do not want to repeat this in 2022, so I’m starting out by making the RadishFlix highlight post monthly. Keyword: Highlights. Feel free to ask my opinion of other movies on the list in the comments.
Tarantula (1955)
Cable, original English
I love this movie and will watch it any time it pops up in the TV schedule. I don’t know why. It’s ridiculous. But it’s also deeply enjoyable.
The “it hasn’t been fully tested on animals yet, but let’s inject it into humans anyway!” plot device feels so timeless for some reason.
Police Academy (1984)
Cable, original English
Another one of those classics where I knew all the jokes and the references in later films, but had never seen the original. There was a marathon of the entire franchise; we watched the first one because Mr Radish wanted to see Kim Cattrall. I laughed where I was supposed to, but it’s a time capsule film now. Good slapstick, strange attitudes.
We spent half the movie trying to figure out in which Great Lakes Rust Belt city it was filmed: Put your hands together for Toronto!
Men in the City (2009)
There are only fourteen people living in Berlin, that’s how they all know each other.
Mr Radish
Netflix, original Deutsch
A Who’s Who of German male actors at the time of filming, and a stereotypical and predictable romcom. Please enjoy the satire on Schlager from the only character who made me laugh.
The Barefoot Contessa (1954)
arte, Deutsch
The film opens with a funeral, so you know you haven’t settled in for a feel-good experience, but this is a very nice film about a dancer from Spain who gets discovered by a Hollywood guy, has some success, and leaves the industry a short while later. Good performances, great costumes, and I liked the structure of hearing the story of her life from the people at her funeral.
Spoiler: When the Count tells his new bride that he’s unable to father children due to a war injury, his monologue is so contorted around the moral standards of the era that Mr Radish didn’t understand what he was telling her. Even in German, I thought it was obvious–he spent half his screen time talking about his family line dying out–that “the doctors could only salvage most of me” was how you describe getting your junk blown off when you’re not allowed to mention your junk.
- I am still obsessed with movies about making movies and
- Reminds me I don’t know enough about the Spanish Civil War.
The Big Boss (1971)
Cable, Deutsch
One of our cable channels did a “month of Bruce Lee” so I picked one at random and gave it a look. Maybe picked the wrong one. The ending was sad.
Invisible Ghost (1941)
Amazon prime, original English
Short fun little psychological thriller; you have to want to suspend your disbelief to accept the investigators not questioning the man of the house at all, but I just wanted to watch Lugosi be creepy, and he was.
Side note: his butler is played by Clarence Muse, an African-American actor with a law degree and an interesting resumé.
The Exorcist (1973)
Cable, original English (and Latin, heh)
I’d just heard a podcast where the film history expert (whose name I have forgotten) suggested that when you see Max von Sydow in the desert in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, you’re meant to remember his character standing in the desert in The Exorcist and Conan the Barbarian, and bring all the weight and meaning of those scenes into this movie. I know I saw that Star Wars movie twice, and I did not have that experience either time. But that reminder that The Exorcist starts with archaeology in the deserts of Iraq prompted me to rewatch it when it serendipitously popped up on cable.
Mostly what remains of this movie in popular culture is Linda Blair swearing, contorting, and barfing pea soup, but it’s ultimately about a priest losing his faith after the death of his mother. I’m not sure if he found it again. I’m also not sure how a demon unearthed in Iraq ended up in Georgetown.
The IMDB tells me people who saw this in 1973 were so terrified, some theaters had paramedics on stand-by. Maybe people were easier to scare back then.
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