Saturday Night Fever
In my ongoing club/rave movie-watching phase, I really expected to hate the hell out of this. Not only did I know the writer of the book this is based on basically made his version of late-70s disco all up, but... John Travolta. Come on.
Yet somehow, the outright grit, engaging story, great acting (especially by Travolta!), and fun characters made me a believer. It's not exactly high art, and it almost definitely does not represent any of what disco culture was actually like, but there's a great story to be told here.
4 / 5
Better Living Through Circuitry
A pretty bog-standard documentary on the rise of 90s rave culture. Gotta be honest I was pretty bored during most of it, but I didn't check out completely so it's not too bad.
3 / 5
The Florida Project
Utterly charming. Even though all the kids are little shits, they're somehow captivating and adorable all the same. They can't necessarily be called good actors but they nail the roles. The story on the other hand is a little whatevs, pretty predictable and the ending makes no sense. Sean Baker's previous film Tangerine was better but only slightly. Looking forward to whatever he puts out next.
4 / 5
The Ritual
This Netflix horror flick about four friends getting lost in Swedish woods would have been one of my favorite scary films if it didn't totally shit the bed in the last 10 minutes (with the 10 minutes before that also declining noticeably in quality.) It's disappointing when you come up with a more satisfying and logical conclusion before the movie ends, and then the film in question just fumbles the potential at the finish line. Still worth watching though, there's some really creepy shit here and only two or three jump scares.
4 / 5
Southbound (2015)
This anthology horror film by most of the people involved in V/H/S shows what can happen when you stick with something to the point you master it. While they do vary a bit in quality, each horror "short" here is good on its own, but what pushes Southbound into an entirely new strata compared to V/H/S is how they're all connected. Personally, I've always either slightly disliked or outright hated the "in-between" segments in the V/H/S movies, in addition to feeling like the standalone nature of the various segments led to a lot of repeated "build-up, break-down" in the formula.
Southbound doesn't have that problem - all the shorts segue into each other, and they all inhabit a consistent world. So it's less like "here's a situation, paranormal event, and location we have to introduce every single time" and more like "OK, now here's how another person/group of people respond to this consistent world." It's far more satisfying. My only real complaint is that the final short, while poetic, didn't really do it for me and felt too obvious (in addition to containing some absolutely horrendous and unnecessary CG.)
4 / 5
Limelight (2011)
This look into the rise and fall of the 90s New York club scene as built by eyepatch-wearing Canuck Peter Gatien is possibly the most entertaining documentary I've watched yet. It's a little bog-standard in terms of format at times, but the combination of the diverse cast of interviewees, copious amounts of archival footage, and just flat-out interesting events being retold utterly captivated me. It loses a bit of momentum around the 75% mark as it transitions to the final act, but things pick up slightly afterward and the movie ends on a strong note. I usually don't go for docus, but this is one of the greats. (It was also, it must be said, produced by Peter Gatien's daughter, so if you go into it not expecting an unbiased look at things, you'll be good.)
5 / 5
