One night, two movies.

So The Souvenir was Joanna Hogg’s semi-autobiographical movie about a young, naive woman who was dating a guy who seems all mysterious and cool but turns out to in fact be a heroin addict, and how that relationship unravels into his semi-tragic death. When I found out there would be a part two, I was a little confused, because… it’s a movie about a relationship, and the guy’s dead, so…?

Well, it turns out that part 2 is a semi-autobiographical movie about how the woman goes to film school and… makes a student movie about this relationship and his death, called The Souvenir. Yes, that’s right.

It’s not as far up its own ass as that makes it seem, but it’s not not up its own ass. This is definitely one of those “movie people love movies about movies” movies, and tbh I almost sorta get it: The vignettes where they’re making the film and she’s trying to explain character motivations to the actors (who are like “but doesn’t she realize he’s an addict?” when in fact she really really should have), or is fighting with the cinematographer passive-aggressively, are great. But if you don’t have the specifics of a film school education to feel nostalgic for, or aren’t deeply enmeshed in Joanna Hogg’s oeuvre and able to appreciate the meta (and it does get meta), there’s maybe not as much there as you’d like. I don’t regret watching it, but it’s not something I’d rush out to recommend.

After finishing that up, I wanted something medium-stupid — not like full stupid, but medium-stupid — and so put on The Hunt for Red October.

What’s weird about this movie is, when I saw it, there were two big stars in it — a baby-faced Alec Baldwin (who looks so young, I actually had to IMDB to verify it was him) and Sean Connery (playing, per his contractual requirement to only play non-Scottish ethnicities, a Russian sub commander, always while speaking with his Scottish accent). But somehow, in the intervening years, it went back and acquired Sam Neill, Stellan Skarsgård, Tim Curry, and James Earl Jones. So it’s loaded with acting talent.

But the script is, as foretold, medium-stupid, and it has all the emotional and character depth of… whatever the opposite of a submarine is. A boat, I guess. Still, it does have a great soundtrack, and a great soundtrack booming out over a chase cam of a submarine crashing through the waves before it descends isn’t nothing (as Crimson Tide has also proven). I don’t regret watching it, but it’s also not something I’d rush out to recommend.