I watched a good mix of movies in May. This included seeing a few from my favorite go-to sources: TCM and FilmStruck. And of course, I made a few trips to the theater, one of which was for the screening of Sunset Blvd., probably my favorite movie-viewing experience of the month. Anyway, this will be another brief round-up of what I watched this past month, so let’s get right to it.
New-to-Me: 20
Re-Watched: 3
New-to-Me Films by Decade:
- 1920s – 0
- 1930s – 3
- 1940s – 3
- 1950s – 0
- 1960s – 3
- 1970s – 1
- 1980s – 0
- 1990s – 2
- 2000s – 1
- 2010s – 7
List of New-to-Me Films:
- Ray (2004)
- The Swimmer (1968)
- Went the Day Well? (1942)
- Tully (2018)
- Hail, Caesar! (2016)
- Rocco and His Brothers (1960)
- Let’s Make Love (1960)
- The Blue Angel (1930)
- The Scarlet Empress (1934)
- Hanover Street (1979)
- Wag the Dog (1997)
- Deadpool (2016)
- Deadpool 2 (2018)
- Brighton Rock (1948)
- The Devil Is a Woman (1935)
- Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
- Book Club (2018)
- Prêt-à-Porter (1994)
- The Clay Pigeon (1949)
- Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017)
A Few Favorite Discoveries:
Tully (2018), directed by Jason Reitman
Charlize Theron teams up again with director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody, seven years after her first movie with them, Young Adult (Reitman and Cody worked previously together on Juno). I ended up enjoying Tully much more than I thought I would, and it’s stayed with me since I saw it towards the beginning of the month. The story ends up going somewhere I wasn’t quite expecting, but I think it pulls it off. Theron gives another great performance here, and she and Mackenzie Davis are wonderful opposite each other.
Rocco and His Brothers (1960), directed by Luchino Visconti
Rocco and His Brothers has been on my radar for a few years now, but as is the case with a lot of movies that run around two-and-a-half hours or more, I had put off seeing it mostly because of the seemingly daunting runtime. But it was well worth the wait, plus I had to see it on FilmStruck before it left the service! Anyway, the film is a fully-engrossing family melodrama, immediately drawing you into all the different dynamics between five brothers. Alain Delon is at the center of it all as the title character, and here he gives one of his finest performances. Another stand-out is Annie Girardot, giving a heartbreaking turn as a woman who ends up coming between Rocco and one of his brothers.
I like Delon but have yet to get to that one, some day. Nice collection of Dietrich titles in there and The Swimmer is a flick that always stays with you. Wag the Dog another one I like. Is it just me or did you think that Hail Cesar might have been trimmed a bit?