Contractual obligation (Patreon)

Looks like there's an Ides of March coalition sizable enough to keep getting it heads-up but not nearly sizable enough for it to actually win (though sometimes folks eventually get worn down and vote for a film just to dispense with it). In any case, it got steamrolled (35% to 65%) this week by The Draughtsman's Contract, last seen by me in 1999. I'm generally a fan of '80s Greenaway and dug that one enough to stick it on my then-recently-composed 1982 top 10 list, where it still resides (theoretically at #10) decades later. Streaming on Kanopy, at least via my own library, and rentable elsewhere. 

Apologies for the paucity of reviews this week. As noted (but perhaps not where everyone could see it), I was out of town for four days, meeting my sister's fiancé who flew in from Cape Town, and also killed most of two days making the drive to/from San Jose; found a few free hours in which to write up Peppermint Frappé, but that was it. And now I'm in last-minute Skandie-cram mode, rewatching most of last year's highly acclaimed films just to make sure that I didn't completely miss the boat à la The Prestige. (No revelations thus far.) Those will all be addressed in the big Quibi post on March 1st. Also tbh I'm dragging my heels on Cemetery Man because I flat-out hated it and never enjoy pissing all over a beloved cult favorite. But that's coming no later than tomorrow, and once the Skandies* deadline passes (early Monday morning) things'll return to normal.

* If you're new here and have no clue what that is, fret not; you'll find out very soon.