Trawling Through The Thrift Stores with Joseph Finn

 Happy Thursday, everyone!  I hope summer is going well for you here in the Northern Hemisphere and that winter isn't too cold yet for the folks down South.  So let's look at some recent thrift store finds for a summer/winter night.

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This one was a total blind buy for me, but when I posted it to a Criterion group I'm on people went nuts for it.  Casque d'Or is apparently one of the best films by French director Jacques Becker with a performance by Simone Signoret (who I only know from Diabolique) gets a lot of praise.  And hey, gangsters, molls, underworld intrigue?  Hell yes!  I might save this one for November Noir.

Casque d'Or is streaming on the Criterion Channel.

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This one isn't a blind buy but one I should revisit.  L'eclisse is a tall of ennui, of a young Roman woman (played with an interesting level of detachment by Monica Vitti) getting out of a relationship and drifting into a new one with a man played by Alain Delon and their rocky relationship culminates in an eclipse.  Michelangelo Antonioni specialized in movies dealing with people wandering through things and reacting to them, which can be frustrating if you want something more proactive, but I in general like his weird dreamlike tone.

L'eclisse is streaming on Criterion and available for sale/rent on Apple and Prime.

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And now for your schlock of the week!  I'm a big fan of boy swap movies, and this is a fun weird one where a high schooler (played by Kathryn Newton, who is having a real moment between various series like Dirty Pretty Lies) gets bodyswapped by a mystical dagger with a serial killer played by Vince Vaughn.  What's fun is that this weird little movie has a lot of charm and humor, not that surprising it's written and directed by Christopher Landon*, who did the Happy Death Day movies that wedded murder to a time loop story and are a LOT of fun.  Newton and Vaughn are just really damn good in this, both of them having a lot of fun dealing with how their initial bodies are just massively different (the serial killer, for instance, having to deal with how he's no longer in Vaughn's massive body).  A real fun supporting cast too and some genuinely touching moments due to some family drama.  And yes, it can be pretty bloody at times.  

Freaky is currently airing on Hulu as well as being available at the usual places.