Ah, February. First month went off without a hitch.
Posting-wise, anyway. The year itself...thaaaaat's a topic for another day.
Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up, a year-long trip to keep me committed to working through my cinematic to-do list by checking out a movie a week that I have not seen and posting responses here.
Last month, I had mentioned I'd be changing up parts of the formula going forward, so I should probably just address that here.
Starting this month, I will be putting two new adjustments into the mix. One will be temporary, one more of a recurring feature.
So, let's start with the temporary.
Since 2021, I have gained a particular custom in the fall. For a weekend in September, I join the gathering of lovable freaks, weirdos, and perverts that is known as Camp John Waters – a celebration for fans of the director lovingly known as the Pope of Trash.
It's been a good time and I've made some good friends as a result. But, as is so often the case, all good things must come to an end, and this year will be CJW's big finale. With plans to attend already locked in, I'm dedicating some time in the next few months to addressing the gaps in what I have seen in Waters's filmography. What this means going forward is that I will have something of a thumb on the scale as I make my rolls. Of the titles chosen, one will be selected from the John Waters specific queue (no, I won't say what this month's is yet.)
The more recurring is, itself, something that occurred to me in part after the discussion with my wife regarding Yellow Submarine. I pitched the idea to her, and with each month, after I roll up, I'll have one title I will give her the option to swap out for a title of her choosing that we have established I have not seen. The swapped out title will be returned to the queue where it may be rolled at another time (if it does, I may give it weighted preference/immunity from being a swap-out.)
Okay, that's enough rule jockeying. Let's get back to the movies.
I'd like to tell you that the informal tour of Europe ended with January. Of course, if I did that, I would be a liar. I promise, we'll eventually getting some American film in there, but you're just gonna have to wait for another week cause we're making a stop off in Ireland.
If it helps any, we're changing the decade at least. In fact, this is a fairly recent title I had been curious about since seeing the trailers and missed the theatrical run for – so, time to dig in to Damian McCarthy's Oddity.
This may be one of the titles on this list I went in with the least knowledge of. I had no prior familiarity with anyone attached to the movie and the trailers I had seen were more pitched towards tone and mood than actual story beats (with particular emphasis on the effectively creepy wooden statue.) For as much discourse as there's been over marketing giving too much away in movie advertising, there is something refreshing about when you can get that blank slate experience, even though I'll admit it's paradoxical to these sorts of write ups. So let me just leave it at hopefully this reveals enough to get you interested without giving too much away and press on.
As an 'in a nutshell' summary goes, Oddity tells the story of two sisters – Dani and Darcy (both played by Carolyn Bracken.) Dani is happily married to her psychiatrist husband (Gwilym Lee) while Darcy is a professional medium who runs an antique shop specializing in unique and cursed objects. Despite these two very different backgrounds, the sisters get along well. Which is complicated when Dani is murdered in the house she and her husband are renovating. A year after her death, Darcy arrives at the now largely finished house to mark the anniversary with Dani's husband (and his new girlfriend) with a creepy wooden statue in tow and plans she is keeping to herself.
That's about as much set-up as I can put here without any spoilers. Some of it you might already piece together (and I know there were some beats I keyed in on) but I have to admit, like The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, the overall execution kept that from being a problem to me.
One of the things found particularly interesting in this case is that this movie is, functionally, a mystery more for the audience. The story presents Darcy to us as the de facto 'detective', but we see pretty early on that she has already clocked what happened to her sister and worked out her own plan for what to do about it. As such, the mystery is primarily on the audience to figure out and catch up with the characters (who, if they have any question it's 'How much does * know?')
"...sooooo...aren't you going to ask me about the wooden man?"
I've been trying to think of the last time I saw a movie that did something quite like this – where the burden of the mystery is more on the viewer than the character – and for the life of me, I'm coming up empty (with the possible exception of The Last Broadcast, which, while I enjoy it, I feel like it's far less adept in handling the payoff.)
Adding to the appeal, this doesn't feel like it loses anything when you know the reveal – especially as parts of it can be picked up on early on. It doesn't fall into the pit of movies that feel like they lose steam when you know where it's going, as the movie makes its reveal with a lot of runway left to instead go into how this knowledge is being acted on.
Another part of that working goes to the overall visual style and tone of the movie. Alongside the above mentioned statue, the movie has a very striking look to it, both in terms of set design and even the way the cast are fashioned (particularly the stark difference in styles Bracken offers between Dani and Darcy, the latter presented as a figure out of a ghost story with her own pale, blind appearance.)
I can't pretend I'm going to be raving about this movie, but at the same time, there needs to be a place for movies like this in the discourse – not a game changer, but a well made, effectively told little ghost story with enough of a sense of style to it that, I will admit, I'm going to be keeping an eye out for some of McCarthy's other work and hope maybe this gets some of you curious enough to see if his movies will work for you.
But, it's time to be moving on here, and, after five weeks, 52 Pick Up finally ends its trip abroad and touches down in the US. Not only that, we're also marking another big first for this project – alongside the first American movie featured, this will mark the first documentary on this list, and one I've been circling for a while now.
So if you plan to be here next time, break out your Sunday best and meet me at the revival tent, cause next up is the 1972 Academy award winning documentary Marjoe.
Till then.
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