Films in 2023: September

Like August, September continued a bit of the music and movies trend. Outside of actual cinema, I did go to a couple of other concerts, including Beyoncé (fingers crossed there will be a concert film of her Renaissance World Tour coming sooner than later). An event actually related to film that I had the pleasure of going to was an outdoor screening of La La Land at the L.A. State Historic Park with Oscar-winning composer Justin Hurwitz conducting his score live with a 52-piece orchestra (along with some costumes and props from the movie on display around the park). The other movie-music screening I went to last month was an early screening of the newly restored Stop Making Sense at the TCL Chinese Theatre, which ended with an interview between Talking Heads and Spike Lee broadcast live from the Toronto International Film Festival. Now outside of the musical link, there were a few other memorable screenings I went to, most notably the opening day of the new “John Waters: Pope of Trash” exhibit at the Academy Museum, wherein I was one of the lucky attendees of a special silent screening of Eat Your Makeup featuring live commentary by Waters himself, and then later a Q&A with the filmmaker before Serial Mom. I also saw two of my favorite Harold Lloyd films, The Freshman and Girl Shy, at the New Beverly on what happened to be National Silent Movie Day; before the double feature, I happened to strike up a conversation with the son of actor Robert Sully (most known for Meet Me in St. Louis), who then introduced me to Suzanne Lloyd, who was there to introduce her grandfather’s films. And finally, Beyond Fest is now underway at the American Cinematheque, and I already have two epic events under my belt. First, the special edition of The Abyss screened at the grand Regency Village Theatre followed by a Q&A with James Cameron, which was an incredible way to see the film for the first time. And just yesterday, I attended “Hail to the King: a Celebration of Roger Corman” at the Aero Theatre, which included a marathon of Rock ’n’ Roll High School, Grand Theft Auto, Piranha, and The Raven (movies he produced, and in the latter’s case, directed), followed by a panel with the legend Corman himself with producer Jon Davison and filmmakers Ron Howard, Joe Dante, Allan Arkush, and Amy Holden Jones. All in all, September was a spectacular month, and there’s much more to look forward to in October (including more Beyond Fest screenings). So before moving into the spooky season, a complete rundown of everything I watched over the last 30 days…