Friday's Five Films: March 14, 2025
Another weekly roundup.
It’s been a bit slow now that award season is over. But I guess now I don’t have to keep committing myself to continually watching movies that I wouldn’t normally be talking about so regularly because the Oscars are always on our minds. After all, there’s a whole lot more out there to what makes cinephilia so rewarding, because the journey just never stops. As long as there are more great films out there, they’re always waiting to be seen and thus, see them I must!
Without further ado, these are Friday’s Five Films. If you like what you’re seeing here, remember to subscribe for a whole lot more.
#1: Buzzard (2014, Joel Potrykus)
This is maybe the funniest movie I’ve ever seen about nerd culture. Simultaneously, it is one of the most horrifying that you can ever imagine. Granted, I had a feeling this movie would be catered towards my tastes on the ground that this was a movie about a Nintendo-obsessed freak who ends up turning his Power Glove into a Freddy Krueger-esque weapon so that he gets his own way while living on fake checks. But I think that this movie captures a certain subset of nerd culture all too well, down to the absolute paranoia in thinking the whole world is after you. Except in this case, it might just be the real thing and that’s what makes it so entertaining.
#2: Casino (1995, Martin Scorsese)
I’ve never understood where people continue writing off Casino as “another GoodFellas,” all because I think Casino works on a much bigger canvas. In fact, that might be what makes Casino one of Martin Scorsese’s best films in my eyes, because this is a movie all about the sudden downfall from grace especially while the criminal enterprise becomes so integral to America’s foundations. It’s a movie all about who really runs the show when the country itself might say they are a democracy, but when you know who’s running the picture, you come out with a different viewpoint entirely.
#3: The Hours (2002, Stephen Daldry)
A movie all about tortured artists and tortured women who live the art in turn. To be honest, Stephen Daldry’s particular mode of filmmaking has never exactly worked for me, but I’ve always found myself drawn to what he’s accomplished in The Hours. It’s a movie that really understands how Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway comes from the mind of a tortured artist but also how people reading her work end up finding themselves so deeply affected by her words to the point that they re-evaluate everything they know, especially when they end up living like her own characters. For that alone, I think it makes Nicole Kidman’s Oscar win not just for one of her finest performances, but it’s a very lingering one at that, as is the case with all her best works.
#4: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, Sergio Leone)
I think I’ve come to realize that this may be my favourite Sergio Leone, but I’ll also have to revisit Once Upon a Time in America before I solidify that for sure. This movie has everything I want in a western, but I think that after seeing what Sergio Leone had been building up within the Dollars trilogy, Once Upon a Time in the West feels like a definitive statement from the Italian filmmaker about how the west looks to many outsiders. But that’s also where it all seems to sting so perfectly, going all the way down to the fact that Henry Fonda is cast as the film’s villain, after having been made recognizable on the screen so long as a hero through American cinema. Even the heroes in this film aren’t safe anymore.
#5: The Tied-Up Balloon (1967, Binka Zhelyazkova)
TIFF has started a retrospective dedicated to the films of the Bulgarian filmmaker Binka Zhelyazkova; one that goes concurrently alongside their series dedicated to Swedish filmmaker-actress Mai Zetterling. After seeing The Tied Up Balloon, I simply said to myself that Zhelyazkova is a filmmaker I should be more actively seeking out, especially owing a lot to my own lack of familiarity with Bulgarian cinema. This is also just one of the funniest movies I think I’ve seen in quite some time, owing to how Zhelyazkova captures the sense of the community’s uncertainty during the war, especially within the grasp of the Soviet Union too. It’s something you need to see for yourself.
The Complete Day-by-Day Log
First time watches are denoted with bold text. Scores are on an out of five star basis.
Friday
To Die For (1995, Gus Van Sant) - ✯✯✯✯✯
Full Moon in New York (1989, Stanley Kwan) - ✯✯✯✯
The Tied-Up Balloon (1967, Binka Zhelyazkova) - ✯✯✯✯✯
Saturday
The Lawnmower Man (1992, Brett Leonard) - ✯✯✯✯
One Way or Another (1975, Sara Gómez) - ✯✯✯✯½
The Last Word (1973, Binka Zhelyazkova) - ✯✯✯✯½
Handsworth Songs (1986, John Akomfrah) - ✯✯✯✯½
The Last Angel of History (1996, John Akomfrah) - ✯✯✯✯½
Sunday
Good Manners (2017, Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra) - ✯✯✯½
Winchester ‘73 (1950, Anthony Mann) - ✯✯✯✯✯
Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer (1985, Kimio Yabuki and Bernard Deyriès) - ✯✯✯, watched on 35mm
GoodFellas (1990, Martin Scorsese) - ✯✯✯✯✯, watched on 35mm
Monday
Eugenie (1970, Jesús Franco) - ✯✯✯✯½
Mifune (1999, Søren Kragh-Jacobsen) - ✯✯✯
Casino (1995, Martin Scorsese) - ✯✯✯✯✯
Eureka (2023, Lisandro Alonso) - ✯✯✯✯½
Tuesday
Isola: Multiple Personality Girl (2000, Toshiyuki Mizutani) - ✯✯✯
Graveyard of Honor (2002, Takashi Miike) - ✯✯✯✯
Nosferatu (2024, Robert Eggers) - ✯✯✯½, watched on 35mm
Manufactured Landscapes (2006, Jennifer Baichwal) - ✯✯✯✯
The Mansion of Madness (1973, Juan López Moctezuma) - ✯✯✯✯
Wednesday
Witching & Bitching (2013, Álex de la Iglesia) - ✯✯✯½
The Heroic Trio (1993, Johnnie To) - ✯✯✯✯✯
Henry Fonda for President (2024, Alexander Horwath) - ✯✯✯✯½
Buzzard (2014, Joel Potrykus) - ✯✯✯✯
Thursday
The Truman Show (1998, Peter Weir) - ✯✯✯✯✯
The Hours (2002, Stephen Daldry) - ✯✯✯✯½, watched on 35mm
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, Sergio Leone) - ✯✯✯✯✯
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Joel Potrykus deserves the opening slot at EVERY American film festival whenever he's got something new.
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