Gregory Crewdson

And I'm Mike Massimino.

And this is the weekly Movie Throwdown, where each week we take two films that have something in common, talk through that commonality, and decide which one does it better.

This week, it's two stories of being followed by a creepy entity to lead us into spooky season.

We're gonna talk about 2014's It Follows going up against 2022's Smile.

That's about it.

Well, I've had no time to watch anything or do anything 'cause I'm very busy this week.

But, uh, I did get something in the mail that I wanna shout out that I've been really looking forward to, and it is this new 4K edition of Sexy Beast, the Jonathan Glazer film, that was the only one of his titles not on physical media as far as I know, so it's kind of a big deal that this came out.

And it's, it's from Second Sight Films, which is a, a small boutique label.

Um, I t- I, I like, I like theatricality in lighting.

Um, I'm really inspired by, like, a photographer like Gregory Crewdson for instance, you know, and just like-

Mm.

Mm-hmm

Um, and it came together pretty organically over a number of years, um, because I was experimenting with writing about art for the first time, and I didn't study art in any formal capacity.

And so, like I had written a review of Gregory Crewdson's show probably, like...

It's almost embarrassing to say how long ago this was, but it was probably in 2016 or 2017.

I wrote a review of Crewdson's, um, Cathedral of the Pines that was up at Gagosian, and that was kind of my first time ever doing coverage of an exhibition.

I've known him for years.

Um, Kiyomi Taylor is an artist that I worked with at Key Smith Gallery when I was the editorial director there for a number of years.

Um, right, so a lot of these people are homies, and then you have Louise Bourgeois or Robert Rauschenberg or Gregory Crewdson.

Um, or there's like a crystal in the book, which is kind of my attempt to be like a little bit cheeky and take the form less, um, not too seriously.

Yeah, 'cause the, the photography, I think this is w- what brought me to that thought was, uh, just the idea of a close-up.

I think most, at least for me, the two versions of photography that I enjoy are, you know, your kind of standard, uh, well, I almost said Gregory Crewdson.

That's not standard at all, but, uh, you know, your, your-

Yeah

Like, he brought in photographers to actually take the picture, but he's the one who, like, set it all up and stuff.

So in a very Crewdson kind of way, he is the photographer.

Yeah, yeah.

Wow.