Moviegoing (Pandemic) October-November

I've already blogged about the election, which turned DJT out of office (if he leaves, that is, for which there is no guarantee) and will bring back Joe Biden, this time as president, with Kamala Harris as VP. So much else has gone on over the last few months that I basically smushed the two together, so instead of individual entries for October and November, here's my tally for both months. It's a long list, but an interesting one. One thing I'll note again is that it was refreshing to see both Criterion Channel and Amazon Prime respond, in their differing ways, to the Floyd murder and the Black Lives Matter push, with diverse and unexpected offerings. What remains to be seen is how long this lasts. The other streaming channels (Netflix notwithstanding), like the cable TV ones, need to up their games.

My list for the two months:

Beau Travail* (an old fave)

Career Girls* (I'd always heard about this film & it was worth the wait)

Suburbia (a 1984 Penelope Spheeris that felt less engaging than many films from that era on a similar theme)

Tomboy* (one of Céline Sciamma's best)

Viridiana* (a film of considerable formal and plot restraint that is nevertheless quite outrageous)

Luminous Motion (Bette Gordon realist film from 1998)   

Variety* (I watched it again!)

Born in Flames* (Lizzie Borden's masterpiece, IMHO)

Calendar* (Atom Egoyan film about a woman who decides to stay in Armenia once her husband finishes his photographic assignment & heads home to Canada - visually striking & full of Egoyan's signature touches)

Lola Montès* (the Max Ophüls masterpiece I first read about years before actually being able to watch it; this was my 3rd viewing)

Henry Gamble's Birthday Party (a good introduction to Stephen Cone's oeuvre if you haven't ever watched one of his films)

The Gates* (I saw this in real time--the exhibit inaugurated this blog!--& the film was a delight)

The Headless Woman* (by the director of La Ciénaga--I definitely want to watch this again)

Pauline Alone (one of my first introductions to the work of Janicza Bravo)

Salut les Cubains* (Agnès Varda, introducing viewers--me--to revolutionary Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez)

Vitalina Varela* (a performance so searing you won't soon forget it--my favorite of Pedro Costa's films that I've seen so far)

Affirmations* (Marlon Riggs--love love love)

100 Boyfriends Mix Tape* (Brontez Purnell)

Lovecraft Country* (series)

Two Drifters (a João Pedro Rodrigues film from 2005; not among my top films by him but suitably strange and full of unexpected twists)

A Drop of Sun Under the Earth* (Shikeith Cathey's marvelous short)

Anthem*

The Joy of Life* (Jenni Olson's lesbian hymn to San Francisco)

2001: A Space Odyssey* (one of my all-time faves)

Mildred Pierce* (Joan Crawford's greatest role)

The Ornithologist* (the incomparable João Pedro Rodrigues at his best--utterly bizarre and unpredictable yet still able to weave everything together)

O Fantasma* (Rodrigues's first major international success & one I've seen many times now)

Videodrome* (an old Cronenberg fave)

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum* (jointly directed by Volker Schlôndorff & Margarethe von Trotte, this is a ironic political film in the best sense & one you seldom if ever get from Hollywood these days)

Burroughs: The Movie

The Night of Counting the Years* (Shadi Abdel Salam's version of The Mummy, but really a neo-realistic, groundbreaking essay in filmmaking)

Flores* (visually arresting)

Coffee Colored Children* (Ngozi Onwurah's experimental film about growing up mixed-race in the UK)

Jáaji* (Hopkinka films)

Anti-Objects of Space Without Boundaries*

Lore* 

A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness* (a Ben Russell film, starring Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe -- whew!!!)

Terence Nance films*: Swimming in Your Skin Again, Their Fall Our All, No Ward, Jimi Could Have Fallen from the Sky, You and I and You

8th Continent* (compelling short about the aftermath of migrancy and refugee arrivals)

Buck Privates* (Abbott & Costello film - pure silliness)

Accident* (Joseph Losey's campus entanglement film, starring Dirk Bogarde, Stanley Baker, Michael York, Delphine Seyrig, and Vivien Merchant, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter)

Welcome to the Terrordome* (Ngozi Onwurah's groundbreaking SF film)

An Oversimplification of Her Beauty* (A Terence Nance joint, very inventive)

A Dream Is What You Wake From* (Third World Newsreel's documentary film about three Black women and their lives)

Tender Game* (animation by John Hubley)

Totally F***** Up* (perhaps my favorite Gregg Araki film & his most racially diverse - I watched it again)

Working Girls* (Lizzie Borden's feminist film about a young woman trying to fund her own business and the steps she has to take, including sex work, to get there)

The Dark Past* (William Holden vehicle about a psychopathic hostage taker, starring Lee J. Cobb as a psychiatrist)

Mangrove (Small Axe)* - (this and the other Steve McQueen mini-films are some of my favorites of his work. I wish he'd make many more)

The Homecoming* (an adaptation of Pinter's brilliant, frightening play--I'm a huge fan of Pinter's but I appreciated this cinematic adaptation)

Vente et Loquamur (Hopinka)

Wawa (Hopkina)

When You're Lost in the Rain (Hopinka)

The Crown* (series, Season 4 - when is this show never not entertaining?)

The Wise Kids (another Stephen Cone film)

Portugays* (O Ninho) (A series about queer 20-somethings in Porto Alegre, Southern Brazil)

Conframa* (series, new season)

Freefall

Borat