Welcome back to Worth the Watch!

It’s finally mid-July, and that means the biggest movie of the year is in theaters! Nearly every publication has praised this film as a masterpiece from early reviews, but even before all the glaze, the anticipation has been high for over a year. This is the movie that was so big, footage from it was leaked last summer, resulting in the studio releasing a theaters-only teaser early. Then, that movie took advantage of the leak, and opened up IMAX ticket sales a full year in advance, making history selling out 95% of seats within the first hour. Do I even have to name it?! I’m talking about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, of course!

Obviously, I will be in attendance tonight to marvel at Nolan’s genius, what will likely be some career-best performances from the stacked cast, and as always, to delight in an epic theater experience. And while I hope we all make it to the theaters to watch this movie at least once (maybe twice, or three times!), I would like to take the opportunity to share 5 five-star movies you can enjoy at home, right now, that I’m certain you haven’t watched. The only thing I love more than watching a masterpiece on the big screen is discovering an underrated masterpiece and encouraging more people to watch it. Let’s get into it!

As someone who doesn’t have a single home video of myself or my sister as a kid, I’ve been thinking a lot about how my memories of childhood compare to reality. Even my most vivid memories feel hazy. I wonder how my perspective would change if I could rewatch a recording of my memories. I wonder what I could learn from watching a video of my parents at my age. I yearn for a clearer connection to my past. But at the same time, there is something romantic about having to rely on memories and family stories.

With the rise of smartphones and a culture where everybody feels like the main character of their own movie, we’re overwhelmed with personal footage. But this wasn’t always the case. I think about my grandparents, who only have a couple of pictures of their parents. No voicemails, no silly video clips of their parents goofing around, and no iCloud folders organizing their videos by year, month, and day. But years ago, long before smartphone cameras became accessible, there was one man in New York who documented everything.

Fragments of Paradise tells the life story of independent filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who, for over 70 years, documented nearly his entire life. Known for having a camera with him at all times, Mekas was attempting to catch the beauty of the human experience.

Mekas’ films were experimental and unlike anything that had come before them. Although his films were not particularly popular in the grand scheme of things, they played a large part in developing the underground film scene. He became the figurehead of independent cinema in America, and believed it was his life’s mission to show independent cinema to the world.

There’s something poetic and grounding about seeing raw, unedited video footage of the real world from a time when video footage was largely unavailable. There’s a scene in the film where Mekas was documenting himself walking around the streets of New York, just for the sake of documenting it. There was no special occasion, no goal. He just wanted to capture that particular moment in time. As a viewer, getting to experience a regular citizen walking around the streets of New York in 1970, 28 years before I was even born, feels almost psychedelic.

If you, like me, appreciate art about art and witnessing artists work through the creative process, you’ll love this one.

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