Stuck at home with a lot of free time on my hands, instead of keeping up with friends and family, I blitzed the streaming services to beef up my movie history credentials.
These set of films are gonna be 1 part strange, 3 parts awesome. You might want to partake in some substances before some of these. You might also feel a little icky for liking these films so much. But rest assured, they’ll probably spend an extra minute or two in your head after you watch them, as you sit puzzled at what you just watched.
Romcom between death obsessed 20 year old Harold and 79 year old Maude.
Analysis
You read that right. Hal Ashby makes the briliant choice of using a standard romantic comedy plot with 2 completely off the wall characters that Tim Burton or David Lynch would be more comfortable writing for. You laugh through your humorless friend’s incredulous looks at you as Harold fakes suicide after suicide and Maude and him get excited by attending funeral after funeral or evading the police. If you look past the twisted individuals, the sweetness slowly envelops you and wins you over by the end, happy these 2 found each other.
Gelflings Jen and Kira must heal a dark crystal from the treacherous Skeksis and save their planet.
Analysis
For the guy who helped create the Muppets and Sesame Street, it says something that Jim Henson believes this is one of his favorite properties. I highly encourage watching this movie while high: I imagine it’s a helluva trip! Outside of the creatures, the story is the hero’s journey, always a delight. And if you get wrapped up in Henson’s vision, check out the Netflix prequel series.
Tom Ripley (Matt Damon), low level con artist, is sent to Europe to return Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) and his girlfriend Marge (Gywneth Paltrow) back to the US.
Analysis
After years playing a hero, crusader, or damaged good person, it’s chilling to watch Matt Damon play this sociopath with all sorts of sexual and social repression. Tom Ripley is a strange but compelling fellow, but also really compelling is an insanely good cast like Law, Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, with Anthony Minghella tying them all together with a twisty fun story. Plus, put any cast of characters among European beauty, and the movie’s gonna be at least a lovely travelogue.
A group of friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where evil spirits are awakened and possess everyone, person by person.
Analysis
The Evil Dead 2, deservedly so, gets all the praise for finding the perfect blend of horror and comedy. Sam Raimi’s original isn’t too shabby either, making it for 350k, presumably all in blood special effects. This one plays more like a standard horror flick, and scary it is, as Raimi messes with the previous rules of the genre to create something fresh and different, and make a cult hero out of Bruce Campbell.
A child murderer (Peter Lorre) so unnerves the town that the police and the underground crime syndicate go looking for him to lock him away forever, or kill him.
Analysis
That story would be chilling today. To think that in 1931, Fritz Lang got this made in Germany is an achievement in itself. The movie sets you on edge in the first 10 minutes, as the killer slowly abducts a child, in the most sinister way possible. “In the Hall of the Mountain King” will send chills down my spine everytime I hear it from now on thanks to this evil gem of a film.
