last night's movie was The Maltese Falcon (1941)! and i liked it! i think? honestly, i don't know. i haven't really stopped thinking about it since last night, yet it's been a bit of a struggle to sit down and write out my thoughts. as one of the most notable instances of the first wave of detective film noir, Maltese Falcon is fuckin incredible for blazing a trail in that regard. the movie looks amazing even to this day, with incredible use of light and shadow thanks to a DP who previously worked on horror movies, helped by a palpable sense of claustrophobia aiding the tension of the storyline. the performances are, of course, incredible. i didn't realize this was a bit of a face turn for Humphrey Bogart, who up until this point had mostly played bad guys. however, i was very much not prepared for Sam Spade to be so....funny and also a complete asshole? it's always surprising to me when the hero is more then just a golden boy for this era of movies, especially considering the Hayes code (which this movie did battle with). Mary Astor completely nails the femme fatale/more-then-meets-the-eye qualities of Brigid O'Shaughnessy, who always seems to have an angle on everything going on and knows just a little too much about all the trouble Sam keeps finding himself in. Peter Lorre is a delight as Joel Cairo, the bumbling assistant to the powerful Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet). this leads us to the story and...well.....ok, first i should point out i watched this when i was kind of tired and also stressed out over the recent move i've had to do so my brain wasen't entirely on as much as it usually is, but honestly? i had no fucking clue what was happening for most of this movie. it's not as impenetrable as The Big Sleep, which is a movie where I never was able to follow anything, as Maltese Falcon has a fantastic third act where the audience is caught up on everything that happened in a way that feels natural while the story is still twisting and turning. but i ended up getting so exhausted and tired trying to keep track of everything that i genuinely started closing my eyes during the third act, which probably didn't help. i'm curious if i would like the film more if i watched it a second time, to be honest. anyway, the setup for this is that in contemporary San Francisco, the Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) and Sam Spade private detective agency are given a job by one Ruth Wonderly, who has asked the duo to find her lost sister who ran way from home along with someone named Floyd Thursby. after being impressed with the asking price, the duo take the job and Archer is assigned the task of finding Ms. Wonderly's sister. while investigating, Archer is totally surprised by someone who then shoots and kills them without giving Archer any time to draw his firearm. the police then track down Spade and inform him that he was killed, to which Spade is a tad dismissive about, though he does visit the scene of the crime and finds that Archer was shot in a way that illustrates his surprise. Spade then leaves the scene to allegedly break the news to Archer's now widow, though in reality he returns to the office to contact Wonderly, who has since checked out of the hotel she was staying at. Spade then gives up and returns home only to be greeted by detective Tom Polhaus (Ward Bond) and Lt. Dundy (Barton MacLane) who are a bit put off by Spade's attitude at the crime scene and inform him that Thursby has also been killed the same night, and that he was the likely killer of Archer. After an impromptu interrogation, Dundy accuses Spade of the murder of Thursby on both opportunity and motive grounds, to which Spade denies. hard-boiled detective hijinks ensue. like i said, i by no means didn't like the movie! i did like it, but the viewing came with so many qualifications next to it that i'm left in a bit of a spot when it comes to my final thoughts, as they were absolutely impacted by how i was feeling at the time. however, i do think if you haven't watched The Maltese Falcon, you should absolutely watch it! a hot take, i know.

imagine if mother 3 came out on nintendo switch online gba but as a japan exclusive and with no translation

You ready for me to blow your mind?

You've never heard the Monster Mash. You've only heard someone recollecting the night it happened. Yeah