This past few days have had a lot of amazing and fun movies, mainly only in two sections, plus an extra movie.
On July 9th Cailey and I finally watched Sheep Detectives, a new movie she's been wanting to see for awhile. It was pretty good, about what I thought it would be, I ended up giving it a 3/5. It was a nice bonding activity as we watched that and played Slay the Spire together.
The first major section of movies was 007, Sean Connery movies. I obviously already saw Dr. No last movie update, and this week I watched the other two of the original Sean Connery trilogy. From Russia with Love I for some reason didn't like as much as the others and I gave it a 2.5/5, so an average movie, good but nothing great. Goldenfinger on the other hand was a really great movie. The villain, the famous tied up laser scene, all of the practical effects and fighting scenes, everything was amazing. Gave it a 4.5/5, a perfect movie, and easily my favorite of the original Sean Connery trilogy of 007 movies. It was nice to watch them all, especially thinking about the significance they have with them being liked by Grandpa Arrington so much. The original three are the only ones on Criterion so I'll need to find any other Sean Connery (There's three more other than the original trilogy, but I think Goldenfinger has widely been considered his best), but for now the original trilogy is all I think was necessary. Now to find a time to watch It's a Wonderful Life with Beck and Cailey! And maybe Hogan's Heroes if I need a show to watch.
The next major and bigger section was Kurosawa, the only other film type I watched, and all were perfect or close to it. I started off with No Regrets for Our Youth, finishing it on the night of the 6th. Overall a really great movie about regret, sacrifice and doing what you want. I gave it a 4/5. It was also a very big political commentary on the Takigawa Incident at Kyoto University where students were silenced for criticizing the government, and the Ozaki execution of 1944. Next was Throne of Blood with Beck on the 7th, it was a Japanese adaptation of Macbeth. A sprit told him he would become emperor and his wife urged him to rush it and kill the emperor, which eventually led to his downfall. It's a samurai film and Kurosawa knows really well how to do samurai, gave it a 4.5/5. It took two nights because of me falling asleep but the next was Scandal. An artist gets his picture unknowingly taken with a famous actress and it's printed as an affair and goes over him trying to make it right. Overall a really great movie, but Shimura Takashi, my favorite actor, gave a perfect performance of the lawyer who was on both sides and kind of crazy. Easy 5/5 for me on that movie, and high on the list of Kurosawa. Speaking of samurai movies in Throne of Blood, although Seven Samurai is considered Kurosawa's best film/samurai film overall, Ran is widely regarded as his best shot film of all time, hitting top charts on best shot movies of all time, and for good reason. Ran is a Japanese adaptation of King Lear, and wow it really is shot so well. This was released in 1985 and past what is considered Kurosawa's prime, but showed he still had it. It was in color which added a lot and they put so much effort into everything and that made it better. Easily my favorite part is when Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Japanese adapted King Lear character) is being attacked by his two sons, and the castle is being burnt down and attacked, which had so many amazing shots. They actually built that castle from the ground up next to Mount Fuji and burnt it, only allowing really one shot to do it, and luckily he got it. Easy 5/5 again and (in my opinion) his best Samurai film ever. The last one I watched of his these past few days is Kagemusha, which means shadow warrior. It's about a thief who is a shadow warrior (a lowly person put in place of royalty during war so that in case they died it wasn't actually the emperor that died), but in this case the emperor does die and they don't want the enemies to know because they would attack them and win. His lies slowly unravel and overall a really cool film based on the real Takeda Shingen, a samurai and daimyo who died and told them to keep it a secret for three years so the enemy wouldn't attack them. Gave it a 4.5/5. Maybe it's cause his dad is a samurai, but whatever the reason Kurosawa exceeds at every samurai film he's done, and honestly every film except one so far.
I made some new lists in Letterboxd to track random stuff. My Top 25 has been changed a little bit. I added a Kurosawa Ranked list to rank all of his films as I get through them. I also have a To Watch list of the most immediate movies I need to see and a Beck Also Wants to Watch list. I'm glad Beck got me into movies with him, it's been really enjoyable and helped me discover a ton of new and amazing movies I would've never have seen before.
Next week should have lots of Kurosawa, Beck and I want to rewatch High and Low and want to watch Dreams by Kurosawa together. I also want to watch Rhapsody in August, Red Beard, The BAD Sleep Well, Sanjuro, Sanshiro Sugata and The Hidden Fortress this next week. We also plan to watch Harakiri at some point. And maybe I'll dare to start the three part, and nearly ten hours overall, Human Condition movies by Kobayashi.
I am 1-2 away from being half-way through Kurosawa (he has two co-directed films I want to watch but he's personally directed 30 feature films), and here's my ranking so far;
Of these 14 films only two are below 4/5 and 5 of them are 5/5 lol
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