This may be a David Lynch film but it’s also noted as being the film that is the most unlike his established style, so much so that people kept asking what prompted him to make it. Indeed with its opening score by Angelo Badalamenti and an aerial shot that immediately brings to mind Twin Peaks, it feels like classic Lynch but then the story proper starts with its determinedly positive message, it’s such a sharp turnaround that it’s almost enough to give you whiplash.

This is the latest of the recent spate of American Chinese films to receive critical acclaim and I admit that I have a particular fondness for them, being curious as to they might slowly shape the identities of ethnic Chinese in the United States. The Farewell is actually the most Chinese of these films yet. It does star Awkwafina who isn’t especially Chinese but the director here Lulu Wang was indeed born in China and only later moved to the US. The film itself takes place almost entirely in China, with only some brief scenes in the beginning set in the US.

Even after years at it, revisiting the great classics of cinema is a never ending affair and so here we have one of the earliest and most famous exemplars of the French New Wave movement. The director is of course Alain Resnais but I think we should also give due credit to screenwriter Marguerite Duras. I also note that the producers of the film stipulated that one of the main characters must be French and the other must be Japanese and scenes must be shot in both countries. So labouring under these restrictions, Resnais and Duras created this thoroughly unique film.

Here’s a classic Hollywood adventure film starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn and directed by John Huston. It’s notable in that they actually did film this at least partially in the Belgian Congo, which must have been quite a feat in the 1950s. It’s a fun enough adventure that is entertaining even today but there’s nothing especially noteworthy in it.

The proper Nosferatu film is of course the 1922 silent one by German director F. W. Murnau but we’ve never watched and judging that it is perhaps a little too difficult to grasp in the present, I decided to skip over it. This one is the 1979 remake by Werner Herzog, once again starring his favorite actor Klaus Kinski. Unfortunately while this is solid work the impact is subdued due to how familiar we all are with the Dracula story and I kept wondering how much of it really comes from the earlier work. I now think maybe I should have watched that instead.

After hearing about the controversy over the Bruce Lee scene, I held no great enthusiasm for watching this but I always knew I would get around to it eventually. As it turned out I did find the scene to be kind of insulting, but it’s a relatively minor part of the film. As for the rest of it, after a bit of a slow start, I found it thoroughly entertaining and yet bereft of any meaningful theme or deep insight.

I actually really liked the first Frozen and could immediately tell while watching it in the cinema that Let It Go would be a huge global phenomenon. It’s obvious that Disney struck lightning in a bottle with it and didn’t quite understand how that happened. The subsequent Frozen-based shorts that were released were truly awful and reinforced the impression that Disney had no idea how to replicate that initial success. The failure of any song in this sequel to make any lasting impression is proof enough that it isn’t as good as the first film but watching it now, I realize that it is far worse than I thought it would be.