The Guest List: Summer Films with Kate Jinx
We’ve been a bit all over the place this week - literally. SoRo is currently in LA eating her weight in tacos, and SoMo has been in Melbourne sampling a mortadella sandwich the size of her head. But before we jetted off we hung out with our favourite film guru Kate Jinx for the first Guest List of Season Two! We talked about her five favourite summer films, including a forgotten 80s Sydney classic, a gentle Japanese horror film and a Matthew McConaughey role so “McConaughey-y” that we’re not sure he can ever come back from it. Roll on summer!
Kate’s Five Fun Summer Films
Starstruck (1982) Dir. Gillian Armstrong
Available on DVD, was recently restored by the NFSA + NIDA are performing a musical version. If the trailer doesn’t charm you nothing will.INCREDIBLE Australian rock musical set in and around The Rocks, starring Jo Kennedy as a wannabe singer who gets swept up with the lure of pop stardom. When her mum’s pub might get closed down, she and her cousin Angus pull out all the stops to win a band competition at the Sydney Opera House. Same costume designer as Rocky Horror, music by Tim Finn and The Swingers. Wild.
Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974) Dir. Jacques Rivette
Screening Sun 10 Nov at AGNSW & available on DVD and BFiPlayerEpic French new wave about two women – one a cabaret magician, the other a librarian/tarot reader – whose lives become intertwined when they stumble across a haunted house they can enter but not interact with – and they only have memories of it by putting a lolly in their mouths. A TRIP
Reality Bites (1994) Dir. Ben Stiller but written by Helen Childress
Streaming everywhere…This film is still the classic Gen X
Hausu (1977) Dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi
Available via Criterion Channel & DVDOstensibly a horror film, but it was inspired by Obayashi’s daughter’s dream so it’s not actually scary. 7 schoolgirls go on summer holiday to one of their aunt’s houses and weird things happen – there’s a ghost cat (you can tell because it can open doors), a haunted piano, weird stuff with a watermelon…
The Beach Bum (2019) Dir. Harmony Korine
This film is screening only at Golden Age in December, will be streaming from JanuaryNot for everyone. Harmony Korine – love him or hate him – has made a film that allows Matthew McConaughey to go full Matthew McConaughey. He plays a full-on, tripped out, stoner poet named Moondog. His hedonistic lifestyle is bankrolled by his extremely rich, cool-as-hell wife (Isla Fisher), but when his access to the money changes he is forced to re-examine his life… or… not. Snoop Dogg, Zac Efron, Jonah Hill are all in it.
SR Summer Fave:
Looking for Alibrandi (2000) Dir. Kate Woods
You can watch this on Kanopy if you have a library card.Tomato day! Cruising down Campbell Parade in your friends shitty car! That overwhelming sense of freedom on the day of your last HSC exam! Re-watch to experience the banging soundtrack and remember that time when summer felt endless and your life was just getting started.
SM Summer Fave(s):
Talented Mr Ripley (1999) Dir. Anthony Minghella
Streaming on Youtube and Amazon Prime, or available on iTunes.Golden afternoons on the Amalfi coast, with Gwyneth Paltrow’s perfect outfits and the creeping sense that things are about to go bad. SoMo’s favourite plane movie.
Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001) Dir. Alfonso Cuarón
Streaming on Netflix.A steamy Mexican road trip movie staring Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, complete with secret beaches, dusty landscapes and (we’ve gotta be honest) some steamy sex scenes.
Kate’s Favourite Winter Films:
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) Dir. Celiene Sciamma
Out in Australian cinemas 26 December“The ultimate cinematic slow burn from Celine Sciamma (Girlhood, Tomboy) – two women stuck on a desolate French coastline swap lustful looks and ye olde psychedelics, while navigating personal and social hierarchies. It’s a lot more than that, but you get l’idea. New queer classic!”
Baby Boom (1987) Dir. Charles Shyer
Youtube, iTunes etc“Chosen not for the fact that it’s set in winter (it’s… not really) but because I can’t think of a cosier title to stream on a mucky day (or while nursing a hangover). Big Businesswoman Diane Keaton gets stiffed with a baby via an inheritance situation I’ve never truly been able to understand, and swaps Manhattan for a tree-change. This closely nudged out When Harry Met Sally from this list.”
Girlfriends (1978) Dir. Claudia Weill
Pretty much just available on DVD“This long under-appreciated Claudia Weill is undergoing some kind of renaissance and I’m here for it! A young photographer feels unmoored when her BFF and housemate moves out of their New York apartment and gently nudges her own life back together via her art, smooching a very young Christopher Guest, and some of the best scarves you ever did see.”
Bell, Book & Candle (1958) Dir. Richard Quine
Golden Age Cinema, Wed 18 Dec as part of Elements Rising: Sagittarius“My ultimate Christmas film, it combines so many of my favourite things I worry it was put on earth to teach me some kind of lesson I’ll never learn. Witches, warlocks, Christmas, beatniks, NYE, Greenwich Village, a nightclub themed around astrology. I mean! If you want a new fav Christmas film, try The Family Stone!”
The Souvenir (2019) Dir. Joanna Hogg / Metropolitan (1990) Dir. Whit Stillman
“See Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir (2019) if you can (not sure where!), the first in a duo of films based around Hogg’s life in 80s London starring Honore Swinton Byrne and her IRL mum Tilda Swinton.
A very different but a good sub-in if you can’t find The Souvenir is Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan, also an exploration of young privilege + great short haircuts for women. Christopher Eigeman is in it too, more commonly known as Jason, one of Lorelei’s flames on The Gilmore Girls. Both feature Christmas.”
Don’t forget that Kate is launching her film recommendations newsletter this Sunday – Abracadabra Dept, and you can also find her on twitter and Instagram or at our favourite Sydney cinema The Golden Age.
Thanks goes to our sponsor DRNKS.com for their support of this episode. Don’t forget to use the code HIGHLYENTHUSED at checkout for 10% off your order!
See ya in a week!
S&S