racketboy.com

Limewater wrote: ↑Mon Jun 16, 2025 11:49 am Sinners (2025):

Twin criminal brothers from Mississippi return from war and a stint with organized crime in Chicago to their hometown in the early thirties. The brothers are black, which is relevant because it's 1930's Mississippi.
Saw this in theaters a few weeks ago. It was the most consistently interesting, fun, entertaining, and captivating film I've seen in a long time. I love movies, but I haven't really studied them formally. That said, I feel like this film deviated from standard story structure and pacing in interesting and good ways. And I found the lighting choices very interesting. Also, it was clearly actually shot in the southeast near the gulf coast, so the natural features were right.

I liked Sinners too, and it's great to see an original movie do so well in the marketplace. I hope director Ryan Coogler focuses on new productions like this from now on, instead of the franchise work he's done before this movie. The franchise movies he's done are good, but it's kind of a waste to have him spend his prime years on that kind of film. It's like if Scorsese had spent the 70s and 80s working on Star Trek lol.

I didn't love Sinners quite as much as many people did, but I'm eager to watch it again and see if some of the problems I had with it melt away. Either way, there's a lot of good stuff in there. There's one particular sequence in the juke joint that had me wanting to stand up and applaud. Like, it started out good and I was smiling wondering if he was really gonna go for it, and then he absolutely did. Goosebumps.

I saw the movie a month or two ago and I've been listening to the Blues station on SiriusXM ever since, so it really did have an effect on me.

A theater somewhat near me had it's 100th anniversary last week and they had a special week of programming to celebrate. The first night they showed the same film that the theater opened with in 1925, and they even had a brief Q&A with the granddaughter of the movie's lead who had appeared at the grand opening.

It was great week, though I'm also glad it's over. It's an hourlong 50-mile drive to get there, so I'm glad it wasn't a longer than five days. I got to see seven silent films that I hadn't seen before, all with accompaniment on a well-restored Wurlitzer organ. (Nice organ, as Elvira would say.)

The last night was the 1928 silent film, The Crowd. I took this picture during a break in the proceedings. About a minute into the screening, the organist yelled, "Stop the picture!" and angrily marched up to the second story projection booth because they weren't playing the print at the proper frame rate. Once that was resolved, we started again.

Many (many) years ago I had a chance to watch a couple Chaplin silent films with live organist accompaniment in an old theater, and the experience was actually pretty awesome. It's fun to think that the experience was similar to how those films might have been experienced back in the day.

marurun wrote: ↑Tue Jun 17, 2025 9:35 am Many (many) years ago I had a chance to watch a couple Chaplin silent films with live organist accompaniment in an old theater, and the experience was actually pretty awesome. It's fun to think that the experience was similar to how those films might have been experienced back in the day.

Likewise, my university used to show silent horror films every Halloween in the university chapel with live organ (and choir!) accompaniment. I saw Nosferatu and The Phantom of the Opera that way, and they were great. Really the best way to watch those old films.

I'm not a fan of Suspiria, but it plays almost annually in theatres here with Goblin playing live. I did see Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc with a live industrial/noise score and that was incredible.

Goblin's work SLAPS! IIRC, they were supposed to work on Trauma but ultimately didn't work with Dario Argento again until Sleepless.

prfsnl_gmr wrote: ↑Tue Jun 17, 2025 9:45 am Likewise, my university used to show silent horror films every Halloween in the university chapel with live organ (and choir!) accompaniment. I saw Nosferatu and The Phantom of the Opera that way, and they were great. Really the best way to watch those old films.

Kind of the only good way, imo. I worked at a college a few years back and some of the students were talking about a silent film they had to watch. The teacher had a sent them a YouTube link. If your exposure to silent films is a crappy public domain video with a garbage score, you're going to think they suck. And well, you'd be right; silent films do suck when viewed like that. Buster Keaton is great, but the idea of seeing one of his films on a laptop (or phone!) with a presentation like that is just depressing.

PretentiousHipster wrote: ↑Tue Jun 17, 2025 3:23 pm I did see Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc with a live industrial/noise score and that was incredible.

An exception to the above is this movie with the Criterion treatment. So good, you have to see it, even if a tv is the best you can do. I really want to see it live, though not with a score like that.

Last night was the first time I've ever seen this from beginning to end but I did see the first 30 minutes back in the 90s on VHS and the last half (after the main characters end up in Snydersville) years ago.

It's about three drag queens who drive from New York to Los Angeles in what starts off not unlike an American style take on Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. But when an encounter with a bigoted small-town sheriff ends with an altercation, the queens find themselves in the small town of Snydersville and ultimately end up changing the lives of those they encounter for the better.

Some bits haven't aged well, but you are missing out if you don't give this charming dramedy a watch.