Watch List Weekly Recap 4/28/23
A forgotten '80s director, one of the true movie satires, and a stroll through films and old friends that resurrect the past.
This is the Friday recap of Ty Burr’s Watch List postings for the week. If you’d like to cut down on in-box clutter and receive this weekly email ONLY, please go to your account page and under “Email notifications” uncheck every box except “Weekly Digest.” If you’d prefer to not receive it at all, uncheck just “Weekly Digest.”
A memory jog from a young film fan of my acquaintance prompted me to write something about director Alan Rudolph, whose frisky, punch-drunk love stories made moviegoing in the 1980s and ‘90s a little riskier and who’s in danger of disappearing beneath history’s waves.
A new WatchCast went up on Wednesday, in which Sam Adams — the movie critic, not the brewery — and I discussed Armando Iannucci’s devastating “The Death of Stalin” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐), which balances horror and hilarity like no other political satire. Have a listen — but make sure to see the movie first, as it’s really quite brilliant.
This Friday’s weekend round-up came out a little more philosophically than most, as I mulled on the ways movies like “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2), 1941’s “The Strawberry Blonde” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2), and a rediscovered Thelonious Monk TV special (⭐ ⭐ ⭐) can transport us to the past. From there, I moved to a more personal remembrance of a man, recently passed, who taught my younger self much about music, food, and life. I hope you enjoy reading it.
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