It’s hard for me to keep up with my watchlist during the school year. I’ve got stuff to read, homework to do and Scene pieces to write. Usually I can use my summers to catch up, but when you have to do summer school, there goes half of your freetime. This year, I was left with only a handful of weeks to devote to the watchlist grind. To keep pace — I aspire to be as well-watched as fellow Scene writers Andy Ottone, Jack Horton, Luke Foley and Marguerite Marley after all — I had to pull two, three and four movie nights. Here are some of the cursed-est double and triple features I concocted in pursuit of my goal:
You be the judge: “Call Me by Your Name” and “Fried Green Tomatoes”
My intent in presenting this double feature is polemical. I think that if people put two and two together, realized how similar these movies are and watched them back to back, they’d realize that one is objectively better. “Call Me by Your Name” isn’t the definitive same-sex romance set in the countryside — it’s “Fried Green Tomatoes,” starring Kathy Bates as a woman named “Evelyn Couch.”
You be the judge, part two: “Querelle” and “On the Town”
This pairing is similar. “Querelle” is the cinemaesthete’s favorite movie about gay sailors. It looks insane, its plot is unfollowable, it’s remarkably profane and it was directed by a German — i.e. it checks all their boxes, so much so that it was recently rereleased by Criterion. But I feel the same way about “Querelle” versus “On the Town” — a 1949 movie-musical in vivid Technicolor starring, among others, Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly — that I feel about “Call Me by Your Name” and “Fried Green Tomatoes.” The supposedly schlock-y American movies are miles more beautiful and subtle than their supposedly artful European counterparts. “On the Town” has all the stuff “Querelle” has — handsome actors, elaborate visuals, etc. — but is also comprehensible to its audience.
Movies you watch in English class: “Romeo + Juliet” and “Beowulf”
I never got to experience the American coming of age ritual that is watching Baz Luhrman’s “Romeo + Juliet” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in a high school English classroom, because my crazy English teacher went off the rails and screened the Liz Taylor and Richard Burton version of “The Taming of the Shrew” instead. I think Robert Zemeckis’s “Beowulf” — which is animated in pretty much the same style as “Polar Express” — was intended for this repertoire of movies-for-English-class, but Angelina Jolie’s Grendel is so comically sexy that I can’t imagine this movie being shown without a permission slip. Both, I believe, are misunderstood masterworks.
Movies you watch in English class, Catholic school edition: “The Mission” and “Of Gods and Men”
This is not my lived experience — I went the sort of public school which struggled with Serbian gang violence — but from talking to Catholic high school graduates, it seems like these two are the go-tos whenever the TV cart gets rolled out at America’s countless “Immaculate Conception,” “Holy Family” and “Loyola” academies.
Oscar bait movies about beheaded British saints named Thomas: “A Man for All Seasons” and “Becket”
If I had a nickel for everytime there was an Oscar bait movie about a beheaded British saint named Thomas, I’d have two nickels — which isn’t a lot, but it’s still pretty remarkable.
The auteurs do Jesus: “The Passion of the Christ,” “The Last Temptation of Christ” and “The Gospel According to St. Matthew”
I think that if you can sit through all six hours and 22 minutes necessary to watch the Mel Gibson, Martin Scorcese and Pier Paolo Pasolini takes on the passion, you deserve some sort of indulgence — at least six hours and 22 minutes cut off your purgatory sentence, I think.
Two sides of Nicole Kidman: “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Practical Magic”
Kidman is a remarkable technical actress — I put down “Eyes Wide Shut” as the proof text for that, but any number of her other movies would suffice (“The Beguiled” and “Dogville” come to mind). She’s even more impressive, however, when you watch “Practical Magic” and realize that she can do commercial movies just as well as she can do art movies. “Practical Magic” is commercial — a feel-good, post-“Bewitched” situation — but still genius, and a jewel in the crown of Kidman’s filmography.
Two sides of Emma Stone: “Poor Things” and “Superbad”
Stone is a similar case. When you think Emma Stone, you think Yorgos Lanthimos these days. “Poor Things” and “Kinds of Kindness” are monuments, but let’s not forget her roots: “Superbad”!
The Keough School of Film, Television and Theater: “Dr. Strangelove,” “Bananas” and “Ishtar”
A while back, Jack Horton was trying to come up with a movie for all of Notre Dame’s constituent colleges. Here are three candidates — all comedies — for a movie that fits the Keough School of Global Affairs: my favorite Stanley Kubrick movie, a great Woody Allen movie and Elaine May’s misjudged magnum opus.
Crossdressing for God: “The Passion of Joan of Arc” and “Yentl”
This 1928 French silent film and this 1983 American movie-musical bridge a 2,000 year old religious gap. Whether you’re Christian or Jewish, you can appreciate an actress partaking in some good old-fashioned theologically-motivated crossdressing!
