But, hey, the Yankees and Red Sox were playing, which means there was highly-stressful television to watch mid-week. Much of the rest of the weekend got pushed back by circumstance, starting with the 350 bus just not arriving to take me back from work until it was too late to catch Racer and the Jailbird on Friday night, so that didn't get seen until Saturday afternoon. It's not bad, but not up to the standards of Bullhead.
Neat that Landmark's accepting MoviePass now, to the point where you can apparently get a ticket without a check-in. That closer relationship means Landmark is always at the top of the list in the app, even when there are a half-dozen places closer.
Then, on Sunday, the plan was Steamboat Bill, Jr., the first film of this year's "Silents, Please" series. It remains perfect.
The plan after that was to catch something over at Assembly Row, but the bus tracking data on Google Maps was wrong and I wasn't going to make it. Bummer.
I suppose I could watch something tonight, but there's enough TV to pull off my DVR tonight that it seems unlikely. In the meantime, there's IFFBoston stuff to write up, though much of it has a first draft on my Letterboxd account..
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
* * * * (out of four)
Seen on 13 May 2018 in Somerville Theatre #1 (first-run, 35mm w/ accompaniment)
Like I said before, Steamboat Bill, Jr. remains perfect, a thoroughly delightful combination of romance, slapstick comedy, and grand, incredible action. It was, as projectionist David Kornfeld and accompanist Jeff Rapsis pointed out before the film, Buston Keaton's last independent film before signing a contract with MGM, and an example of him at the height of his powers.
On the second or third time through, it becomes especialy clear that the randomness of the town of River Junction being destroyed is kind of weird. Looking at the first time I saw it, thirteen-plus years ago, back when WGBH was showing public-domain movies late at night, it looks like there was some mention of a tornado, but not in this one, so there's just this forecast of rain that evolves into a town-destroying super-storm like that's just something that happens in the midwest all the time.
Not that the oddness of this hurts the movie in any way; it's big and fun and pulls the audience along into some of the most memorable movie scenes ever put on celluloid.
Original review from seeing this in 2004
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