Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Eternal Sunshine has been one of my favourite films for a long time. Now that I’ve watched it again I have to relegate it closer to shrug territory. The touching moments I remembered it for are few and far between. The other characters are transparently just plot devices to move the story of the central pair forward… but that’s just treading water most of the time. If I could see it again for the first time would the magic still be there? I don’t think so but I strongly recommend everyone watch it to find out.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is a straightforward tale of heroism. The kind where the hero is celebrated (rather than ridiculed) for being the straight, earnest man. With the counsel and aid of his fiancée, the very smart and bubbly Princess Parisa, there’s no peril he can’t overcome.

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)

This is more like it. Full of bonkers adventures, incredibly colourful and more merciful on your lifespan than the original. Very watchable, too.

The Thief of Bagdad (1924)

The Thief of Bagdad is about grand sets, spectacle, Douglas Fairbanks and a lot of hand waving. Two and a half hours of it.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

This is the worst Star Wars film.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Blade Runner 2049 is what the original Blade Runner is often claimed to be. Unlike Blade Runner, it is a startlingly human film. It manages to pack in so much of what it means to be alive, to be human, in a film about a whole variety of people, robots and holograms. Their society is a layered one that’s as broken with inequality and prejudice as our own. It’s one in which being a member of a certain club is more important than the content of your character. Ryan Gosling’s officer K is science fiction’s Pinocchio. He’s a replicant (biomechanical android) who knows he isn’t human and feels that to be born is to have a soul. Unlike Pinnochio he’s not sure if he wants to be a real boy.

Blade Runner (1982)

Long ago, Blade Runner was my favourite film. Maybe it was an illogical choice as I had probably enjoyed many other films much more even then. It was certainly cool. I liked cool things like liked dinosaurs, space, the future and sci-fi. This one wasn’t just laser battles either and perhaps I mistook the absence of action (and many other things…) for the presence of substance and depth to its existential pretensions. It was easy to like Blade Runner because it was cool and regarded as being philosophically worthwhile. Sometimes it’s worth confronting and even castigating yourself so you can change your mind!

Meet John Doe (1941)

How do you follow up a run like It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, You Can’t Take It with You and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?

In a Lonely Place (1950)

“I was born when she kissed me.
I died when she left me.
I lived a few weeks while she loved me.”

Melodramatic stuff.

The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)

“Drop dead!”
That’s one of the first things said to Kirk Douglas’ character in The Bad and the Beautiful. 1952 was a long time ago. He would have been 35 for most of that year. Now he’s 100 and you have to delve into the extended cast (and those much younger) to find others who still live. It’s difficult to imagine a world where almost everyone alive right now is gone… and you’re still hanging in there.