Rob Christopher's Blog, page 92
January 3, 2021
3 things about Steve McQueen’s SMALL AXE: MANGROVE
Small Axe: Mangrove [2020]
1. A small hole in the toe of his sock.
2. Her unborn child.
3. She sings a few bars of “The Tennessee Waltz.”
January 2, 2021
3 things about Bernardo Bertolucci’s THE LAST EMPEROR
The Last Emperor [1987]
1. “I told you, I hate you.” The disengaged look on her face as the spy sucks her toes.
2. Beneath the sheets.
3. A cricket cage still hidden under the cushion.
January 1, 2021
3 things about Howard Hawks’s BRINGING UP BABY
Bringing Up Baby [1938]
1. The way she laughs.
2. Backless dress.
3. “Did we get across?”
“No, we’re right back where we started, only we’re wet.”
A selected inventory of 2020.
By the numbers …
207: feature films I watched in 2020 (10 of which I viewed in a theater)
47: books I read in 2020
29: pizzas we ordered from The Art of Pizza
86: mystery green statistic
Happy New Year!
December 31, 2020
3 things about Richard Linklater’s WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE
Where’d You Go, Bernadette [2019]
1. Star-shaped opening in the carpet revealing the green shoot of a houseplant.
2. Microsoft money.
3. “Interventions are above my paygrade.”
Best films I watched for the first time in 2020.
Years don’t matter any more, if they ever did. True is true.
CAMERAPERSON (Kirsten Johnson)
DON’T THINK I’VE FORGOTTEN: CAMBODIA’S LOST ROCK’N’ROLL (John Pirozzi)
FIRST COW (Kelly Reichardt)
I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (Charlie Kaufman)
JASPER MALL (Brett Whitcomb & Bradford Thomason)
THE LONG WALK (Mattie Do)
PARASITE (Bong Joon-ho)
QUEEN & SLIM (Melina Matsoukas)
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (Matthew Rankin)
THE WIND: A DOCUMENTARY THRILLER (Michał Bielawski)
I consider CITY SO REAL (2020, Steve James) to be a series, not a film, or else it would surely be on my list!
December 29, 2020
3 things about Paul Thomas Anderson’s INHERENT VICE
Inherent Vice [2014]
1. “Molto panacako!”
2. A bare patch on the sofa cushion’s vinyl cover.
3. “So, justice was served?”
December 28, 2020
December 27, 2020
3 things about Frank Capra’s IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE
It’s a Wonderful Life [1946]
1. Mr. Gower’s voice is the first we hear.
2. Fifty cents on the dollar.
3. “Yeah, yeah yeah, soybeans, yeah.”
December 26, 2020
3 things about John McTiernan’s DIE HARD
Die Hard [1988]
1. Japanese artifacts in the vault.
2. Is the nerd the only bad guy who doesn’t die?
3. “Now I know how a TV dinner feels.”
