Columbus š¼
Happy Monday! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Last weekās recommendations were a bitā¦ intense, so I promise today will be lighter.
Todayās movie is Columbus (2017), a romance streaming on Hulu. This wildly overlooked and underseen gem by video essayist Kogonada, who has often cut supplemental material for the Criterion Collection, has quickly become one of my favorite movies of this century.
Hereās what itās about: After his father falls ill while on a speaking tour in Columbus, Indiana ā a small midwestern town renowned for its modern architecture ā Jin (John Cho) finds himself stuck waiting for his condition to improve. While wandering around the town he strikes up a conversation with local Casey (Haley Lu Richardson), a young architecture enthusiast. [Trailer // 104 mins]
Why you should watch it: Every time I watch Columbus I fall deeper in love with it. This time what struck me is how it perfectly captures the feeling of two people at a crossroads in life āĀ between relationships, between decisions, between life before and life after ā and how they find each other.
ColumbusĀ is one of those gems that doesnāt seem like anything extraordinary until youāre sitting through the credits trying to absorb what you just watched. Like the Before series, it is one long conversation. And Kogonada ā with help from Oscar-worthy performances by Richardson and Cho āĀ allows the conversation to flow naturally, but with purpose and empathy. And that purpose is for two completely different people, a juxtaposition just like the town theyāre in, to understand each other and eventually understand which road each of them should take. [Full review]
š· Pair it with:
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (dir. Celine Sciamma)
La La Land (dir. Damien Chazelle)
Support the Girls (dir. Andrew Bujalski)
šŗ Buy or Rent: Prime Video | iTunes | YouTube
Rank all the movies
š„ Every Alien movie ranked
Since the moon that Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and the crew of the Nostromo landed on in Ridley Scottās Alien was called LV-426, April 26th was deemed Alien Day. And since the original 1979 sci-fi horror is my favorite science fiction movie of all time I thought Iād celebrate by ranking every entry in the franchise. Reply to the newsletter with your ranking ā and tell me why Iām wrong!
Alien (1979): Ridley Scottās watershed film is one of the most influential movies ever made and remains a masterclass in building tension in horror.
Aliens (1986): Legend has it that when James Cameron pitched a sequel to Alien, he wrote the word āAlienā on a chalkboard, then added an ās,ā and then drew two lines through the āsā spelling ALIEN$. The rest was history.
Prometheus (2012): After the first two films the franchise has had its ups and downs. However, Ridley Scott took the biggest swing with this reboot by expanding the lore and visual iconography of the original in a remarkable way.
Alien: Covenant (2017): Though itās one of the few movies Iāve ever walked out of (long story), Iāve come to appreciate Covenant for its pure audacity. The plot is unwieldy and at times itās ridiculous, but itās at the very least entertaining.
AlienĀ³ (1992): David Fincherās directorial debut was a mishmash of ideas following a hellish development period. And while the finished product is rough around the edges, Fincherās talents, even at this early stage, were undeniable.
Alien Resurrection (1997): One word: basketball.
Take care of yourself and check in on each other.
See you Thursday ā
Karl (@karl_delo)