Now Watching 2025

[Beltmann]

 

Yesterday I stumbled upon an old Super 8 film shot by my father in the summer of 1980. It features the six-year-old me riding a bicycle on the dead-end street leading to our village apartment in Jackson, Wisconsin. No cars, no fear... until, as the movie undeniably proves, our asshole mailbox refused to yield the right of way. My mind doesn't actually remember that crash--I must trust the movie when it tells me about that day, including how my silly faces mugged for the camera--but I do remember the sensations of that chrysalis age, and comprehend how those sensations entered a kind of perpetual metamorphosis that still hasn't ended after another 44 years of life proceedings. And, as the years pass, the changing way I perceive those images from 1980 provides its own kind of evolutionary map.

 

This universal yet elusive dynamic is nearly impossible to put across in a film, which is why Up, Michael Apted's nine-part documentary series spanning 56 years, is one of the cinema's greatest miracles. Apted started chronicling the lives of 14 British seven-year-olds in 1964 and then checked in on them every seven years until 2019 (even though Apted died in 2021, future installments have not been ruled out). The first few entries are bluntly engineered to bear witness to class immobility but eventually the series becomes more personal than political, and there is accumulating wisdom to be found in accompanying children as they travel toward young-old age, their hopes and worries shifting right along with the sands of time. What happens when "the future" gives way to mortality?

 

I've been watching Apted's movies for decades, and even though my actual age somewhat trails the participants (at the time of 63 Up, I was 45), I've always been able to identify with their position of having to reckon anew with their choices, with their aging, and with who they once were--or at least who Apted's camera tells them they once were. Fifty-six years later, there's a sense that the participants only know those children from Seven-Up! the way audiences do, meaning all they know is what Apted's recorded fragments show. Those children are resurrected every seven years, but they are increasingly strangers from another life and sometimes they are unwelcome interlopers in the participants' current lives. What's most curious to me, I think, is that my own aging has caused me to also have an evolving relationship with these archival images, these individuals, and these movies. In a sense, that makes me--and by extension any viewer--the real subject and beneficiary of Apted's magic.

 

(I watched 63 Up last night after several years of waiting to legally acquire a physical copy. I finally gave up and caved; thank you, person who uploaded a high-quality copy to YouTube. But YOU shouldn't watch it. This series is best viewed in order, preferably with years in between each installment!)

[Oil Can Boyd]

On 1/10/2025 at 8:08 PM, Beltmann said:

 

Yesterday I stumbled upon an old Super 8 film shot by my father in the summer of 1980. It features the six-year-old me riding a bicycle on the dead-end street leading to our village apartment in Jackson, Wisconsin. No cars, no fear... until, as the movie undeniably proves, our asshole mailbox refused to yield the right of way. My mind doesn't actually remember that crash--I must trust the movie when it tells me about that day, including how my silly faces mugged for the camera--but I do remember the sensations of that chrysalis age, and comprehend how those sensations entered a kind of perpetual metamorphosis that still hasn't ended after another 44 years of life proceedings. And, as the years pass, the changing way I perceive those images from 1980 provides its own kind of evolutionary map.

 

This universal yet elusive dynamic is nearly impossible to put across in a film, which is why Up, Michael Apted's nine-part documentary series spanning 56 years, is one of the cinema's greatest miracles. Apted started chronicling the lives of 14 British seven-year-olds in 1964 and then checked in on them every seven years until 2019 (even though Apted died in 2021, future installments have not been ruled out). The first few entries are bluntly engineered to bear witness to class immobility but eventually the series becomes more personal than political, and there is accumulating wisdom to be found in accompanying children as they travel toward young-old age, their hopes and worries shifting right along with the sands of time. What happens when "the future" gives way to mortality?

 

I've been watching Apted's movies for decades, and even though my actual age somewhat trails the participants (at the time of 63 Up, I was 45), I've always been able to identify with their position of having to reckon anew with their choices, with their aging, and with who they once were--or at least who Apted's camera tells them they once were. Fifty-six years later, there's a sense that the participants only know those children from Seven-Up! the way audiences do, meaning all they know is what Apted's recorded fragments show. Those children are resurrected every seven years, but they are increasingly strangers from another life and sometimes they are unwelcome interlopers in the participants' current lives. What's most curious to me, I think, is that my own aging has caused me to also have an evolving relationship with these archival images, these individuals, and these movies. In a sense, that makes me--and by extension any viewer--the real subject and beneficiary of Apted's magic.

 

(I watched 63 Up last night after several years of waiting to legally acquire a physical copy. I finally gave up and caved; thank you, person who uploaded a high-quality copy to YouTube. But YOU shouldn't watch it. This series is best viewed in order, preferably with years in between each installment!)

 

I saw 28 Up when it was in theaters in 1985 and have been obsessed ever since.  It is such a great series, particularly as the participants get older and have a better sense of who they are.  Thanks for the reminder.  

[uncool2pillow]

A couple of great things I've seen recently...

 

Cunk on Life. A dense number of laughs per minute.

Bad Sisters Season 2

[Oil Can Boyd]

2 hours ago, uncool2pillow said:

Cunk on Life. A dense number of laughs per minute.

I love the Philomena Cunk character. So many laughs.

[chuckrh]

Great mini series about a great & underrated band. (Late) singer Gord Downie's brother directed this. I dare you to get through episode 4 without a tear in your eye.

[Beltmann]

 

The chemistry between Keke Palmer and Sza is so electric, their hijinks are so funny, and the pace is so zippy that when the main plot arc of One of Them Days succumbs to formula it feels a little deflating. Still, when no one's looking the movie spikes the punch bowl: The coolest thing about this supercool comedy is the way the script sardonically reflects upon American economic inequality and the intersection of class, race and capitalism. It's all so breezy that it might be easy to underestimate its lethal takedowns. Heed has not been taken!

[Brian F.]

Since you didn't ask:

 

The day before Oscar nominations were announced, I shared the list of my ten favorite films of 2024. Only films released in theaters during the 2024 calendar year were eligible for inclusion on this list. All ten films and the Honorable Mentions were seen in the theater except for Nos. 5, 8 and 10. Incidentally, “Five, Eight and Ten” is a great song by Mineral, the chorus of which is appropriate for this list: “I want to know the difference between what sparkles and what is gold.” Here’s what sparkled in 2024, and here’s what I’d give the gold to:

 

*******************************************

 

1. Anora: The most entertaining film of the year, with rollicking slapstick comedy and deep pathos existing seamlessly side-by-side.

 

2. Hard Truths: A keenly observed, funny and moving look at two working-class London sisters and their families. Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s Pansy is one of the most simultaneously unsympathetic and sympathetic film characters in recent memory.

 

3. Conclave: I think my favorite line of the year might be when Ralph Fiennes snaps, “I don’t want to be pope!” A pleasingly suspenseful potboiler that is catnip for anyone interested in the history and trappings of the Catholic Church.

 

4. September 5: The attack on the Israeli delegation at the Munich Olympics as seen through the eyes of the ABC Sports journalists covering the Games. Suspenseful despite knowing how the story ends, and fascinating to see how much harder it was to report live news fifty years ago because of technological limitations. My favorite billboard of the year: “September 5. In theaters December 13.”

 

5. Saturday Night: A tightly written screenplay that packs a lot more than 90 minutes of action into the 90 minutes leading up to the first episode of what we now know as Saturday Night Live in October 1975.

 

6. The Seed of the Sacred Fig: Filmed in secret under the noses of the repressive Iranian regime, this powerful and terrifying film is kind of a miracle. The footage was smuggled out of Iran after the filmmaker had to flee the country on foot to avoid arrest.

 

7. All We Imagine As Light: Two nurses and a cook navigate daily stresses at home and at the Mumbai hospital where they work. Another beautiful and graceful portrait of working-class folks.

 

8. Thelma: 95-year-old June Squibb goes against type to play 93-year-old Thelma Post—all right, Squibb was probably 93 when she filmed it. Hell hath no fury like a woman scammed out of $10,000 over the phone who has access to a motorized scooter. Squibb and the late Richard Roundtree (in his final role) are an unlikely but very entertaining Batman and Robin. Based on a true story, and so much fun.

 

9. A Complete Unknown: I was very skeptical about Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan but he pulled it off. Strong performances all around in this biopic.

 

10. The Apprentice: Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong as Donald Trump and Roy Cohn, respectively, really nail the essences of the people they’re playing without doing blatant impersonations—Stan especially. This movie actually manages to somewhat humanize Trump for the first hour before we see him transition from terrible person to the worst person.

 

Honorable Mentions: Sing Sing; The Room Next Door; Nickel Boys; I’m Still Here; Emilia Pérez; The Outrun.

 

Best Director: Sean Baker, Anora; also considered: Mike Leigh, Hard Truths; Mohammad Rasoulof, The Seed of the Sacred Fig; Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine As Light; Jason Reitman, Saturday Night.

 

Best Actress: Mikey Madison, Anora; also considered: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths; Saoirse Ronan, The Outrun; Kani Kusruti, All We Imagine As Light; Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez; Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here.

 

Best Actor: Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice; also considered: Colman Domingo, Sing Sing; Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown; Ralph Fiennes, Conclave; Hugh Grant, Heretic; Sebastian Stan, A Different Man.

 

Best Supporting Actress: Michele Austin, Hard Truths; also considered: Ariana Grande, Wicked: Part One; Elle Fanning, A Complete Unknown; Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown; Jamie Lee Curtis, The Last Showgirl; Renate Reinsve, A Different Man.

 

Best Supporting Actor: Yura Borisov, Anora; also considered: Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice; Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown; Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing; John Magaro, September 5; Ben Chaplin, September 5.