With news of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) being extended until May 15 in selected areas, many of us will continue to spend every waking moment indoors. Worldwide, it seems like many other countries are going down the same route.
There’s a small silver lining to the lockdown, though: Media-shy creatives like Guillermo Del Toro are becoming active again on social media and interacting with the public. Cue an “Earth is healing” joke here.
Case in point: The writer-director started a recommendation thread of shows that he and his colleagues are currently enjoying during quarantine. If it’s approved by these cinematic masters, then it’s definitely worth a watch in our book.
Ari Aster
Still from “Reds” (1981)
Is watching (film): Reds, Jacques Tati films
Is watching (shows): Sopranos (season 3), Scenes from a Marriage (series)
Ava DuVernay
Still from “Belly” (1998)
Is watching (film): Belly
Brad Bird
Is reading: The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
Darren Aronofsky
Still from “Barton Fink” (1991)
Is watching: Barton Fink, Amélie, Rashoman, Total Recall (original)
Is reading: Thoreau Walden and Pablo Neruda books
Is listening to: KMLN, Franz Schubert
Edgar Wright
Still from “Idiocracy” (2006)
Is watching (films): 49th Parallel, One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing, Ministry Of Fear, This Happy Breed, Rome Open City, Paisan, Germany Year Zero, It Always Rains On Sunday, The Small Back Room, Le Silence De La Mer, Late Spring, Umberto D, The Cruel Sea, Ice Cold In Alex, Judgement At Nuremberg, The Train, The War Game, The Battle Of Algiers, Shame (Bergman), Army Of Shadows, Being There, Idiocracy, Duck Soup
Guillermo del Toro
Still from “Death Takes a Holiday” (1934)
Is watching (films): Easy Living, Death Takes a Holiday, Midnight, Hold Back the Dawn
Isaac Ezban
Still from “The Devil’s Backbone” (2001)
Is watching (films): The Others, Hereditary, Sinister, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Devil’s Backbone, Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark, The Witch, The Conjuring, Angel Heart
Is watching (shows): Hunters, Zero Zero Zero, Tales from the Loop, Westworld, The Outsider, Dracula, Better Call Saul, Unorthodox
Is reading: Full Throttle by Joe Hill, Antkind by Charlie Kaufman, Rucrusion by Blake Crouch
Issa Lopez
Still from the “Babylon Berlin” series
Is watching (shows): Fosse/Verdon, Fosse’s Cabaret, Sweet Charity, Babylon Berlin, Deutschland ’83
Is reading: Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, My Favorite Thing is Monsters, by Emil Ferris. And Harrow County, by Cullen Bunn
JA Bayona
Still from “Foreign Correspondent” (1940)
Is watching (films): Carrie, Silence of the Lambs, Nightmare on Elm Street, Evil Dead, Scream, Poltergeist, Psycho I & II, Clayton’s The Innocents, Welles’s The Stranger, Truffaut’s Argent de Poche, Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent & Rebeca, Weir’s The Last Wave and Dead Poets Society, Fleming’s Captain Courageous
James Gunn
Still from the “Patriot” series
Is watching (show): Patriot
James Mangold
Still from “Ugetsu” (1953)
Is watching (films): Red Desert, Ugetsu (also an Ari Aster recommendation)
Jorge R. Gutierrez
Still from “The Way of the Dragon” (1972)
Is watching (films): Enamorada, Operation Dragon, Fists of Fury, The Big Boss, Goodbye Bruce Lee: His Last, Game of Death
Lexi Alexander
Still from “Topkapi” (1964)
Is watching (film): Topkapi
Peter Ramsey
Is reading: Cartel Trilogy by Don Winslow, Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean, Conclusions by John Boorman, This Storm by James Ellroy
Peyton Reed
Is reading: Conclusions by John Boorman
Taika Waititi
Still from “Death of Stalin” (2017)
Is watching (film): Death of Stalin
Is watching (show): Wolf Hall
Is listening to: Bob Marley