Dear friend,

This week I was affected by some kind of light illness – not sure whether it was a cold or a flu, definitely not Covid; it wasn’t strong enough to keep me off work by day, but in the evenings I preferred to avoid anything I may struggle to understand.
That’s why the programming this week might look a bit different than usual, mostly consisting of rewatches.

Avengers: Endgame, directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, written by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, US, 2019 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

In search for comfort viewing, I ended up re-watching Endgame (after revisiting Infinity War a few weeks ago). Surprisingly, I had logged this film only once, in 2019. Whether this was my second or my third watch, I found it weirdly emotionally engaging. Maybe because of the flu, but I felt greater admiration for the authors’ skill in weaving together elements from the different stories of the MCU and make it feel like a single huge story. So much contrast with all the aimlessness of phases 4 and 5.

Starship Troopers, directed by Paul Verhoeven, written by Edward Neumeier, from Robert A. Heinlein’s, US, 1997 - ⭐⭐⭐½

I had never properly watched this film before. I have a vague recollection of having it in the background one afternoon while doing some other activity with a group of friends (a jigsaw puzzle maybe?). But I didn’t leave a positive impression, so I never cared for it.

I guess it’s fine? I know it’s supposed to be satirical, but, aside from the ridiculousness of the story and the acting - which make you hope they were going for intentionally over-the-top - the only parts where that really comes across are the propaganda ‘interactive’ inserts.

Sorry about Buenos Aires.

Companion, written and directed by Drew Hancock, US, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I went and watched Companion without knowing anything about it, including the fact that one would be advised to watch it without knowing anything about it.

Still, I remember hearing it has some production link with Barbarian, so I bought a ticket just hoping it would be a horror. The trailers before the film (for The Monkey and The Strangers Chapter 2) seemed to confirm I was in the right direction.

Maybe it’s not a horror properly: tonally I would compare it to something like Bodies bodies bodies, but good.

It was a lot of fun. It hit the right balance between serious and funny, the characters made reasonable choices, and I ended up rooting for the good ones.

And although it doesn’t come equipped with a lot of surprises, the plot kept moving the story forward in an energetic way, and I wasn’t bored or disinterested at any moment.

Late Night with the Devil, written and directed by Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes, Australia/US, 2023 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

To celebrate the purchase of the Second Sight edition Blu-ray, I slipped the disc into the player and ended up watching the whole film again. My impressions from my first watch were all still valid, even after knowing the overall story: some perplexing acting, but overall I often drifted towards thinking this was really footage from an actual TV show, probably because I could almost overlap David Dastmalchian’s character with one or two hosts from Italian TV in the 80s, always looking compassionate but sometimes leaving you with the doubt they were courting controversy to improve the number of viewers.

This second time I noticed more the lack of verisimilitude of the ‘behind the scenes’ sequences, filmed from multiple angles.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, directed by Adam McKay, co-written with Will Ferrell, US, 2004 - ⭐⭐

Ferrell and McKay’s kind of humour is not for me; I loathed Step Brothers, and I have watched Ron Burgundy before, but I wanted to give it another try. It still didn’t work: it feels to me a very low-effort script - I know a lot of space is left for improvisation, but that doesn’t make it necessarily a good thing; I laughed a couple of times when the humour took an absurdist turn (i.e. the battle scene), and then the film actively worked against it: Steve Carell produces a hand grenade out of nowhere (which for me was funny), then Ferrell had to point out that that didn’t make sense; again Carell kills someone with a trident (funny), then in the following scene explains there was a battle where he killed someone with a trident. Why explain/point out/repeat things we have already seen?

At some point during the film (ok, when Vince Vaughn appeared) I reflected on the fact that I liked Dodgeball and wondered whether it is the same kind of film and whether I would still like it. Then Ben Stiller cameoed, and it made oh so much difference.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, directed by David Lynch, co-written with Robert Engels, US, 1992 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (up from ⭐⭐)

I’m surprised my previous rating for Fire Walk With Me was just two stars. But that was before I came to appreciate horror, and from that first watch I only remembered the Blue Rose scene and David Bowie (hey, Phillip Jeffries was in Buenos Aires too… might he have something to do with the destruction of the city?).
This time, the film was absolutely terrifying. After hearing everything about her in the TV series, seeing Laura Palmer alive (with a masterful interpretation by Sheryl Lee, who should have had a much better career) was such a revelation. The last days of her very complicated life are such a tour de force of horrors, plus they’re interspersed with the overwhelming depiction of the activities of supernatural beings, resulting in a hundred relentless and unforgiving minutes (luckily Lynch edited out all the irrelevant scenes of everyday life in Twin Peaks). And when the inevitable is coming, I was so invested in Laura’s life that I considered stopping the film the spare her from her destiny.

I think I want that picture of a doorway hanging in my bedroom.