This Week in Film (9/15/13 - 9/28/13)

This wasn't a cult week in the most exact sense of the definition but on the whole it might as well have been. Even going back to some of the movies from last week (with Jason and the Argonauts and Sonatine -- even Cabin in the Woods feels like it's got cult potential) and carrying into this week, I've been watching more cult films than not and I can't say that was intentional but it makes an odd sort of logic for understanding my impulses this week. Even the exceptions (Days of Living Wild and The Celebration), while not being cult movies, have cult vibes to them (Other Wong Kar Wai and Dogme 95 films have been labeled cult films so it's not too far of a stretch). So enjoy the kind-of-sort-of cult week. Lets tally it up:

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)  - This excellent late noir film finds Tony Curtis as the wonderfully slimy Edie Falco, a press agent trying to rise up in the newspaper industry by any means necessary. He desperately wants to get out from under the thumb of J.J. Hunsecker (a scarily commanding Burt Lancaster) even going to great, despicable lengths to crush Hunsecker's kid sister's relationship with a small time jazz player.

Breaking Bad: "Granite State" - It's essentially just a bridge to the finale but Breaking Bad makes it feel like less like a bridge and more like a hellish descent into absolute decay and resignation. All that means is the show is, as always, doing things on its own fearless terms and what could be better.

Wet Hot American Summer (2001) - The film takes pot shots at every last 80's movie and trope it can think of with really mixed results but there's enough inspired silliness so that it mostly doesn't matter.

How I Met Your Mother: "The Locket"/"Coming Back" - For the most part, HIMYM starts off its final season strong, proving its odd structuring centered around the wedding can be mined for genuine, deeply felt pathos as well as some pretty good laughs. 

Kiss Me Deadly (1955) - A dark and punchy film that sends up film noir by embracing the darkest, ugliest aspects of the genre. It also features one of the most memorable and cool endings in the history of cinema.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - A worthy expansion of the Frankenstein franchise that is moodier, more thoughtful and more provocative than its predecessor while losing none of the high camp and expressionist values that made the first so good.

The Celebration (1998) - One of the better examples of Dogme 95's quest to distance itself from traditional, conventional Hollywood filmmaking. The Celebration is a searing and honest portrayal of the psychological fallout that comes with sexual abuse.

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) - Once again I was given the chance to write a review for my college's newspaper. This time around it was for a scary but not necessarily very good film.

Days of Being Wild (1990) -  One of director Wong Kar Wai's earliest films is an eerie, alluring mood piece about unbridled passions and the toll they have on a group of young people that Kar Wai observes with a hauntingly beautiful, evocative gaze.