Hi everybody. How are you doing? It’s been a bit. It has, in fact, I think been the single longest drought of film reviews from me since I started writing back in 2005, and I didn’t want that to go unexplained. Not that I haven’t been writing – oh, the writing I’ve done! I have been in strict mental isolation working on my dissertation, to meet a deadline that I missed by several days, which only meant the isolation had to get even stricter. As those who follow me on Letterboxd know, my media diet has been limited pretty much exclusively to Charlie Chaplin shorts, one per day. Unless you count watching and re-watching scenes from Disney’s Pinocchio for hours at a time, frequently frame-by-frame, as “a media diet”. But I’m through all of that (till next time…), and very excited to switch back to writing here, where the stakes are lower and the prose is less bloodlessly academic.
My great thanks, of course to Mike, Mandy, Gavin, and especially Brennan, who’s been working his ass off editing everything for the site, for keeping the home fires burning these last couple of weeks. Thanks to all of you, Alternate Ending still lives. But even so, I have left a bloody wake of broken promises and failed obligations, and that’s what this post is really for: squaring up everything I’ve missed in the last few weeks, particularly the things that our very kind Patreons have paid for, and making sure that I am holding myself accountable, in public, for laying out a plan to make it all right – especially in this precious window of relative freedom before I start teaching in September. So here it goes, category by category.
Current and Recent Releases
If this was going to happen, at least it happened in a murderous dead zone of cinema where no films have been coming out that I or anybody else gives a shit about. That being said, I’ve been keeping a list of the things I’ve felt worst about missing this summer. I can make no promises to when you should expect to see all of these reviews pop up, or how frequently (the film I’m most excited about on this list is also the one I’ll have the hardest time laying my hands on), but I think you should expect to see reviews for the following films pop up in something not too far from this order:
–Three Thousand Years of Longing
–Bullet Train
–Beast
–The Invitation
–Orphan: First Kill
–Luck
–Lux Aeterna
–Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
–Inu-Oh
If you’re just shocked, shocked that I’m not going to cover something, mention it in comments and see if you can convince me. And I am aware that Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero went to #1 at the box office this past weekend; but you know what, I have decided to give myself permission to not care about Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.
Summer of Blood
We were so close: only three more entries before wrapping things up. Aye, well, it’s still meteorological summer, so I can still make this happen, just by quietly nudging the whole thing back. So here is the upcoming schedule for the last few reviews in this series:
–Psycho II (1983): Patreon preview 8/27; open to the public 9/3
–Psycho III (1986): Patreon preview 9/3; open to the public 9/10
–Psycho IV: The Beginning (1987): Patreon preview 9/10; open to the public 9/17
Blockbuster History
I missed quite a few weeks of this series: some I was excited to write about, some I wasn’t. I am going to brusquely shove past the ones I wasn’t, but still take the opportunity to review the ones I wanted to talk about in this moment of having a relatively adequate excuse for doing so.
In honor of Bullet Train: The Bullet Train (1975)
-Patreon preview 8/28; open to the public 9/4
In honor of Mack & Rita: Big (1988)
Patreon preview 8/31; open to the public 9/7
In honor of Beast: The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)
-Patreon preview 9/4; open to the public 9/11
In honor of Three Thousand Years of Longing: Kazaam (1996)
-Patreon preview 9/7; open to the public 9/14
Patreon Requests
This is a big one. We are very grateful to those of you who support us by contributing via Patreon, and we believe it’s a matter of utmost importance to get the requests for reviews, podcast topics, etc. made by our Patreons fulfilled by the date we’ve promised, prior to the anniversary date of your signing up. In practice, this isn’t going to come close to happening for a ton of people, due to a combination of bookkeeping mix-ups, me reading a spreadsheet wrong, and the upheaval to our Patreon policies that happened last June. So first and foremost a big, big apology to [takes a deep breath] Brian Fowler, Harold Bleacher, Mandy Albert, Hoffnungshaftling, Stephen, Andrew Johnson, Nathan Morrow, and Benjamin Johnson, all of whom will be getting their requested review later than we had initially pledged. I’ll be writing two reviews a week until I’m caught up; in the meantime, thanks to everyone in that list for their contribution to the site and their patience. It is deeply appreciated.
–Dangerous Liaisons (1988): Patreon preview 8/29; open to the public 9/5
–Dinotopia (2002): Patreon preview 9/2; open to the public 9/9
–Night on Earth (1991): Patreon preview 9/5; open to the public 9/12
–Last Year at Marienbad (1961): Patreon preview 9/9; open to the public 9/16
–Ruggles of Red Gap (1935): Patreon preview 9/12; open to the public 9/19
–Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984): Patreon preview 9/16; open to the public 9/23
–Tokyo Godfathers (2003): Patreon preview 9/19; open to the public 9/26
–Rear Window (1954): Patreon preview 9/23; open to the public 9/30
I believe this covers every Patreon with a request for a written review due through the end of September. If anyone is missing from this list, please contact us through the Patreon website, or via e-mail at contact [at] alternateending [dot] com.
TV reviews
This, at least, should be easy. We promised our Patreons four TV reviews a month, and by God they’re going to get that many. Since I only missed one week, I’m just going to double-up this week, and boom, we’re back on track.
-8/26: The X-Files, season 1, episode 13, “Beyond the Sea”
-8/30: The X-Files, season 1, episode 14, “Gender Bender”
-9/2: The X-Files, season 1, episode 15, “Lazarus”
et cetera