I got really sick for most of the week this week, which explains some of my choices. (And also why this is late! I’m still playing catch-up from all the work I didn’t do all week.)

  1. Water (Deepa Mehta, 2005): This was just gorgeous. A melodramatic feminist love story set in 1930s India yay. I don’t have a lot to add, it’s gorgeous. The scene with the dancing with the colours was so lovely and such a clear way of expressing joy and freedom after spending the whole movie seeing the women in white for the whole thing.
  2. Man Bites Dog (Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel & Benoît Poelvoorde, 1992): This is also pretty amazing. It’s a mockumentary following a film crew that’s making a movie about a serial killer. It starts out darkly comic and then gets…less funny. Everyone who’s talked it up to me has talked about how shocking it is, so maybe that’s what made it less actually shocking for me so much as confirming the dark side of the dark comedy. It’s pretty brilliant.
  3. Red Dawn (John Milius, 1984): I know this is like the “young neocon formative movie,” but I can’t imagine liking it as anything but camp even AT THE TIME. The Soviet Union was already starting to collapse, and also, it’s just, like, Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey fight the communist invaders. Like I said, I was really sick this week and this was one of my sick movies. I was pretty much sitting there going “wow, explosions!” and “oh my god they’re going to shoot that guy!” so I guess it was pretty successful in that respect.
  4. Jewel of the Nile (Lewis Teague, 1985): Oh wow. This is so high ’80s. It’s the slightly racist, action-packed, never-would-be-made-today sequel to Romancing the Stone. Reasons that this wouldn’t be made today: romantic action story about protagonists over 23; main action involves the rescue of a mullah who leads a group of Islamic terrorists (but it’s okay! he does wacky magic tricks! and is played by a guy named Avner Eisenberg so I’m guessing isn’t actually Islamic!); main couple has sex after seeing a “tribal” African dance that makes them realize how much they love each other; they actually have the scene where the villain leaves the heroes to die hanging over a pit but doesn’t watch them die; features Islamic terrorists named (according to IMDB) Barak, Tarak, Arak, Karak, and Sarak; also: Danny Devito.
  5. Legally Blonde (Robert Luketic*, 2001): This is one of those movies that I know intellectually isn’t very good, but I can’t help but love completely whole-heartedly. Here is why: it is hugely feminist, as well as being funny and fizzy. Seriously, you start out with a blonde, hot girl that no one takes seriously and everyone thinks her going to law school is a huge joke and it turns out: she’s actually an awesome lawyer and her girliness turns out to be an asset in the courtroom (because of lots of law clients and law witnesses are women so knowledge of ladies is important).
  6. Last Wedding (Bruce Sweeney, 2001): I’m not really sure what to say about this movie. It sets out to be a smart comedy about the pitfalls of actual adult relationships. And, it turns out to be a smart comedy about the pitfalls of adult relationships. I would definitely recommend it if only for the running joke about how the female lead is the worst country singer in the world.
  7. American Gangster (Ridley Scott, 2007): This one was…okay. I wanted to like this way more than I did, because I like gangsters, blaxploitation (which was a pretty huge influence given that it was a movie about a powerful black gangster in late ’60s/early ’70s Harlem — also the inclusion of “Across 110th Street” on the soundtrack was an obvious nod), Denzel Washington, the 1970s, Josh Brolin, and the Jay-Z companion album. And like, the performances and the filmmaking were good, but i was very long. It’s two and a half hours long.

*First directorial credit: something called Titsiana Booberini. That makes me pretty happy.