![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Fall Season: Week 12
Feeling a LOT better with that tax stuff behind me. Even if I'll probably still end up having to pay, at least I'm DONE with it, it's out of my hands, I can move on with my damn life. I even wound up a doing (gasp) a couple of tags! Wild.
Skipped the work Christmas party for the second year running, and I'm not entirely sure why. Last year, it was because that was the day we found out about Lys, but now I'm wondering if I wasn't just using him as an excuse to get out of social obligations? Hopefully he would appreciate that. Anyway, this year, idk, I just wasn't feeling it. Between the fact that I'd have to skip working late on Saturday (meaning no overtime and I'd be drowning in paperwork come Monday), mom's ongoing mobility issues (we could have made it work, though, what with the wheelchair and the fact that it would be her first year not needing to take constant smoke breaks (which reminds me! the 19th was the one-year anniversary of her last cigarette! I should have done something! I should do something belated! maybe I'll make her a card or something tomorrow)), and the idea of dressing up and going out all night to hang with a only a small handful of people I like enough to want to see outside of work making me miss going out with actual friends because none of you live here (YES I KNOW THAT'S SAD), I just... don't know. Wasn't feeling it! We went to see Frozen II instead, which was probably the right call, but I know I WOULD have had fun if I'd gone out and it feels like such a waste of one of the very rare occasions I have to go all out, so I'm not feeling great about it. Christ, I need a vacation, that's probably all it is.
Speaking of mom, she saw a guy commit suicide at work last week?? She had to take her van through the car wash because there was blood on it. And tonight she brought a whole bunch of his food home??? I don't know, everyone copes differently I guess. But MAN.
Weather remains insane. We got an even WARMER warm snap, all the way up to, like, 8 degrees at one point, so absolutely EVERYTHING melted, we were all the way back to bare grass and asphalt, just... madness. It has since dropped back to normal November temperatures (though still not particularly cold ones), and combined with the fact that it snowed all damn day, I am back to navigating a large, lumpy ice rink all day, covered in all this beautiful fluffy whiteness that makes it impossible to see where the bad patches are. Hooray! Honestly, though? The warmth was fucking worth it.
All of comic Twitter randomly remembering that piracy is a thing again got me rolling my eyes so hard. Piracy and theft are two fundamentally different things that can maybe be equally damaging in certain circumstances and it's always so annoying to see good arguments undermined by silly false equivalences. People who feel the need to justify their downloads to the people being harmed by piracy are jackasses regardless, though. Keeping your damn mouth shut is free for everyone!
Anyway, TO THE MOVIE SPOILER ZONE. None of them were pirated this week, but that is not always the case! The theme this week is MUSICALS!!!
Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971): A slow, contemplative sort of movie for slow, contemplative sorts of days. Likable people making poor life choices that don't actually result in any harm being done in the long run. A little too plotless for my tastes, but nice. Probably would have bored me a lot if I'd seen it in a different mood. Still, it's really nice to see queer male characters that are so healthy and well-adjusted with regards to their sexualities in something this old.
Midnight Cowboy (1969): Still my favourite Schlesinger, this felt like appropriate International Men's Day viewing.
Viva (2007): I enjoyed this once I figured out what the hell it was actually doing, but ultimately I think two hours is just a bit too long a time to spend inside of '70s magazine ad world.
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944): Great costumes and a couple of real show-stoppers, but overall, it's just Fine. I feel like The Trolley Song would be completely forgotten by my generation if not for The Simpsons, it's goddamn nonsense (WHY ARE THE WHEELS GOING PLOP??? DON'T BUILD A SONG AROUND FUN ONOMATOPOEIA IF YOU CAN ONLY THINK OF LIKE, THREE THAT MAKE ANY SENSE), and the shifting pronunciation of St. Louis thing was weird as hell, even if they (kinda??) addressed it. Mostly, though, this movie reminded me of something I always think about now when I see things that are just wholly nostalgic for the past, any past, and that's a page from one of the crazy old Spire Archie comics where the gang are all in fancy 1900's period dress (just like this movie!) and waxing rhapsodic about all the ways it was back then, except... Chuck and Nancy are nowhere to be found. Because of course, they wouldn't be. That image has always stuck with me once I noticed, and seeing as this play has no real reason to be set when it is (yeah, yeah, they go to the 1904 World's Fair at the VERY END, but it still could have been set when and wherever), it was on my mind. Still, those costumes were, admittedly, real nice. But also, the plot is just kinda weird and wandering and the first big dance number is to SKIP TO MY FUCKING LOU of all things and Tootie is the absolute worst fictional child I think I've EVER been subjected to, I wish her NOTHING but pain for the rest of her life. Fuck, that main theme is an earworm, though, and Garland's the damn GOAT on Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
The Love Witch (2016): It's a real good thing I watched something between this and Viva, or I would definitely be dead of aesthetic overdose now. Not 100% sure what the message(s) was/were supposed to be here, but gosh was it a lot of fun to just look at. Would also never in a million years have called that a horror movie?
Klute (1971): Kind of a 'whatever' generic '70s thriller plot, but the performances are great and there's this BRILLIANT tension throughout, like the stalker vibe is genuinely scary at times to me? It might mostly be the score, UFF it's so good.
Frozen II (2019): HOW THE HELL DID KRISTOFF GET THE BEST NUMBER??? And then disappear for like an hour, womp womp lol. I... actually think I liked this more than the original? Frozen was a fairly clever, if uneven, spin on the old Disney fairy tale formula, this was more of a straight adventure movie starring characters that come with a whole lot of pre-existing goodwill, I dug it a LOT. And it didn't forget it was a musical halfway through, good show! Some real gorgeous animation here, too. A little exposition dump-y at times, though I really liked that, even with all the parent retconning they did, they still didn't change the way they died when they so easily could have. Making up new contexts without actually changing anything, it's a nice touch.
The Harvey Girls (1946): THIS ONE ALSO HAD A SKIP TO MY LOU NUMBER?? WHAT THE FUCK, MGM. Anyway, this movie was SO much fun, just a goofy, low-stakes good time. The songs didn't leave a huge impression, but the dancing and staging were just a joy to get lost in for a while. Garland remains the GOAT, Ray Bolger is just inhuman (he looks like he's tapping ABOVE the floor, he just FLOATS), and Angela Lansbury was the human embodiment of a fire emoji, I loved it. Biggest issue for me was that the love interest and the villain looked enough alike that I mixed them up CONSTANTLY, oops.
An American in Paris (1951): Man, I don't know about this one. It's got it all: amazing music, brilliant dance numbers, stunning sets and costumes, an INSANE ending. But Gene Kelly is just SUCH a fucking creep in it, it's SO hard not to let it spoil the whole thing. Lise is fully HALF Jerry's age, it's SO gross the way he instantly fixates on her and harangues her until she finally gives in and starts seeing him, he's a total piece of shit to Milo (the one who actually gets to have a personality)... BUT BOY CAN HE DANCE, I GUESS. BOOM, BEST PICTURE.
The Band Wagon (1953): Okay, it was a coincidence that I watched this right after An American in Paris, but let's play the comparison game, anyway. They're both MGM musicals from the early '50s directed by Vincente Minnelli. They both end with a PHENOMENAL long, wordless ballet taking place in its own, even more stylized, world. They both have Oscar Levant in a real fun supporting capacity. They both feature a female lead/love interest twenty years younger than the male lead. And yet. AND YET. Where that movie skeeved me the fuck out on the whole, this one was just an unbridled delight, and THAT, my friends, is the difference between Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. It's a vibe thing. Like, I have seen Fred Astaire play total fucking creeps (not in this movie, for what it's worth), and it's just like... "you are so lucky you are Fred Astaire, that was horrible but gosh, you're charming!" While I have seen Gene Kelly play perfectly nice guys but it was still like... "you seem really great, but I would not want to be left alone at a party with you." Were '30s ideals of masculinity just less rapey on the whole than '50s ones? Beats me, but watching these movies back-to-back really laid the difference out on the line for me. ANYWAY, BACK TO THE BAND WAGON, I really loved it. Fred may be long past his prime here (and the film never pretends otherwise! it's not a Roger Moore Bond situation here, he's kinda old and they lean right into it!), but he still just radiates charm and Cyd's RIGHT there meet his energy beat-for-beat. And to drag the comparisons back in, because old man/young woman pairings normally bug me so much, the romance in this was SO well done, more of a subtle resolution of tension than some sweeping thing. There's no moment where he picks her out of a crowd and decides she's the one, just two people working closely together for months on end (with a fun dip of the ol' 'enemies to lovers' trope for good measure) and eventually falling for each other just like happens ALL THE DAMN TIME IN REAL LIFE. He falls first and she turns him down and he accepts it and they go on working with each other with no problems! IT'S SO FUCKING EARNED, the way these romances NEVER are, I LOVE it. Maybe a touch too long overall (what the actual FUCK was that Triplets number???), but a seriously great old slice of musical fun nonetheless.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954): Okay. Okay. I love this movie. I love this movie a lot. It's problematic as FUCK, but honestly? I think a lot of people miss a lot of the clever ways it plays with the horrible sexist tropes of the time and kind of completely stomps the crap out of them. Like. Ugh, I can already tell this is gonna get long-winded but fuck it, here we go.
It starts at the very beginning of the movie. We open with Adam basically going wife shopping, and it's gross as fuck. TOO SKINNY, TOO FAT, OOH, JUST RIGHT, I'LL TAKE THAT ONE misogynist tripe. But hey, it's Howard Keel being charming with that gorgeous baritone, the song is catchy, whatever. He sets his eyes on Milly, she's game, hooray for love at first sight, whatever. But instead of her acting the way you'd expect, all swoony and moony over this rugged woodsman, she's just... really endearingly hyped? It's the 1850s, shit's tough for women, she bagged herself a handsome husband! What a great day for Milly, hoorah! And in the wedding scene, they just quietly slip in the fact that he's NOT the first guy to propose to her, his ISN'T the first proposal she's accepted, this isn't her just jumping at the first guy to look her way, she's here because she genuinely wants to be and it's super adorable how excited she is, and it's all so unexpected after the cliché way the whole thing started. It's a minor swerve compared to some of the other ones the movie serves up, but we're just easing into it.
So then the other shoe drops and we get into the plot proper and meet all those brothers and from the get-go, Milly is having NONE of this bullshit. I just kept waiting and waiting for her to falter and compromise her pride or her sense of morals or SOMETHING, and it NEVER HAPPENS ONCE, and it starts that very first night, with her flipping the table on all those jerks and refusing to go to bed with Adam (at least until she takes pity on him sleeping in a tree, which is fair, he was making a point to respect her boundaries even if he was being a big drama queen about it). She liked him so much! She'd be totally DTF normally, but he explicitly misled her and that's not cool! It's the fun wacky premise of the movie but they still make it a point to show us that our handsome charming lead was a total dick in withholding this information! That's what this movie does over and over again, serves up the cornball trope of the era and then completely undermines it while still playing it relatively straight, it's such a subtle thing and I love it.
So okay! She's not going to get her quiet farmstead with just her and the hubby like she wanted, whatever, Milly's a badass, she rolls with the punches. She immediately takes to the brothers, they immediately take to her, they're all one big happy family as she whips them into shape (still taking NONE of their shit along the way), pretty standard stuff. We get the big amazing barn raising dance (seriously in the running for one of the best numbers of the era, the way it goes from group dance to like a... gymnastics competition? is just so cool, and another neat subversion of the tropes they're playing with is the way the drab townie boys, while remaining the bad guys in addition to competition for the ladeez, don't just roll over and get immediately outshined by the brothers here -- the brothers ultimately come out on top of course, but the townies actually get plenty of badass moves and cool moments of their own here, which they really didn't have to!), and the giant fight scene ends on another moment where it SEEMS like Milly is gonna succumb to the tropes and be all shrill and unreasonable about them fighting, but the cut from her crying to tending their wounds and giving them sass undermines the trope once again. SHE'S NOT MAD, SHE'S JUST DISAPPOINTED, BOYS. They really did try for her and she gets that because she's the best!
AND THEN WE GET TO THE KIDNAPPING PLOT. Which... it's bad. It's real bad. It's an insanely catchy tune (AND THE WOMEN WERE SOBBIN', SOBBIN', SOBBIN') all about a bunch of cowhands reading PLUTARCH of all fucking things (THIS MOVIE IS WILD) and getting SO INSPIRED by the rape of the Sabine women that they decide "WHAT A GREAT IDEA". And it's framed as this fun, wacky thing as they go to town and kidnap these screaming women from their homes and trap them on their side of the pass for an entire season. Pretty fucked up to modern sensibilities, but hey, it's a product of its time, right? Then they get home and... the women are freaking out! And Milly is fucking HORRIFIED that they would do this! They spend ALL THAT TIME treating the whole thing as this fun goofy shenanigan only to once again completely pull the rug out at the very end to tell us all that HA HA NOPE, THAT'S ACTUALLY REALLY MESSED UP, GUYS, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. And there's one random line in Sobbin' Women about women eventually getting rights that seems SO out of place in context, but really it's just them reminding us of what this movie is REALLY doing in the midst of the most egregious bit of sexism, IT'S ALL SECRETLY FEMINIST, I SWEAR ON PEPE SILVIA.
Obviously, because it's a fun Hollywood musical, the movie's gotta end with the women marrying the brothers in spite of everything, but even that's handled surprisingly deftly. They liked these guys to begin with, and aside from that one scene where the brothers keep coming up with excuses to come inside from the barn (which Milly swiftly puts an end to because THAT'S WHAT SHE FUCKING DOES), the movie makes it seem fairly clear that the brothers don't interact with the women for pretty much the entire winter. The women are pissed off and the movie portrays it as pretty righteous anger, but delaying any actual romance until the spring makes it feel less like Stockholm Syndrome: The Musical and more just a matter of enough time passing that they were ready to forgive the boys for this awful thing they did to them. Meanwhile, you have Milly giving birth with her friends all around her because her husband's being a pouty dick and never once seeming bothered by his absence? She still loves him, but he was being awful so fuck him, and in the end, he's the one who swallows his pride and finally comes home, because Milly is the most baller protagonist in any musical from this era who takes zero shit from any man, least of all the one she married. Sucks that he needed to have a daughter of his own to realize why kidnapping is wrong, but dudes still be like that today, so.
IN CONCLUSION, SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS IS A HIDDEN FEMINIST MASTERPIECE AND ALSO THE WOOD CHOPPING DANCE IS AMAZING THE END.
Okay, then I rewatched all the SparkShorts on Disney+!
Purl (2019): Still not too keen on that central metaphor of women = sentient balls of yarn.
Smash and Grab (2019): Still my favourite of the bunch, maybe because it reminds me of those old CGI shorts that would air on YTV when I was a kid that all took place on weird alien robot worlds because that was all anyone could animate. But also, dat efficient worldbuilding.
Kitbull (2019): Still so cute we all want to die.
Float (2019): The new one! Pixar's X-Men, except now mutants are a metaphor for... I want to say autism?
Hey, remember that time I wrote over a thousand words about Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? I sure don't. Don't look at me.
and the women were sobbin', sobbin' sobbin'...
Skipped the work Christmas party for the second year running, and I'm not entirely sure why. Last year, it was because that was the day we found out about Lys, but now I'm wondering if I wasn't just using him as an excuse to get out of social obligations? Hopefully he would appreciate that. Anyway, this year, idk, I just wasn't feeling it. Between the fact that I'd have to skip working late on Saturday (meaning no overtime and I'd be drowning in paperwork come Monday), mom's ongoing mobility issues (we could have made it work, though, what with the wheelchair and the fact that it would be her first year not needing to take constant smoke breaks (which reminds me! the 19th was the one-year anniversary of her last cigarette! I should have done something! I should do something belated! maybe I'll make her a card or something tomorrow)), and the idea of dressing up and going out all night to hang with a only a small handful of people I like enough to want to see outside of work making me miss going out with actual friends because none of you live here (YES I KNOW THAT'S SAD), I just... don't know. Wasn't feeling it! We went to see Frozen II instead, which was probably the right call, but I know I WOULD have had fun if I'd gone out and it feels like such a waste of one of the very rare occasions I have to go all out, so I'm not feeling great about it. Christ, I need a vacation, that's probably all it is.
Speaking of mom, she saw a guy commit suicide at work last week?? She had to take her van through the car wash because there was blood on it. And tonight she brought a whole bunch of his food home??? I don't know, everyone copes differently I guess. But MAN.
Weather remains insane. We got an even WARMER warm snap, all the way up to, like, 8 degrees at one point, so absolutely EVERYTHING melted, we were all the way back to bare grass and asphalt, just... madness. It has since dropped back to normal November temperatures (though still not particularly cold ones), and combined with the fact that it snowed all damn day, I am back to navigating a large, lumpy ice rink all day, covered in all this beautiful fluffy whiteness that makes it impossible to see where the bad patches are. Hooray! Honestly, though? The warmth was fucking worth it.
All of comic Twitter randomly remembering that piracy is a thing again got me rolling my eyes so hard. Piracy and theft are two fundamentally different things that can maybe be equally damaging in certain circumstances and it's always so annoying to see good arguments undermined by silly false equivalences. People who feel the need to justify their downloads to the people being harmed by piracy are jackasses regardless, though. Keeping your damn mouth shut is free for everyone!
Anyway, TO THE MOVIE SPOILER ZONE. None of them were pirated this week, but that is not always the case! The theme this week is MUSICALS!!!
Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971): A slow, contemplative sort of movie for slow, contemplative sorts of days. Likable people making poor life choices that don't actually result in any harm being done in the long run. A little too plotless for my tastes, but nice. Probably would have bored me a lot if I'd seen it in a different mood. Still, it's really nice to see queer male characters that are so healthy and well-adjusted with regards to their sexualities in something this old.
Midnight Cowboy (1969): Still my favourite Schlesinger, this felt like appropriate International Men's Day viewing.
Viva (2007): I enjoyed this once I figured out what the hell it was actually doing, but ultimately I think two hours is just a bit too long a time to spend inside of '70s magazine ad world.
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944): Great costumes and a couple of real show-stoppers, but overall, it's just Fine. I feel like The Trolley Song would be completely forgotten by my generation if not for The Simpsons, it's goddamn nonsense (WHY ARE THE WHEELS GOING PLOP??? DON'T BUILD A SONG AROUND FUN ONOMATOPOEIA IF YOU CAN ONLY THINK OF LIKE, THREE THAT MAKE ANY SENSE), and the shifting pronunciation of St. Louis thing was weird as hell, even if they (kinda??) addressed it. Mostly, though, this movie reminded me of something I always think about now when I see things that are just wholly nostalgic for the past, any past, and that's a page from one of the crazy old Spire Archie comics where the gang are all in fancy 1900's period dress (just like this movie!) and waxing rhapsodic about all the ways it was back then, except... Chuck and Nancy are nowhere to be found. Because of course, they wouldn't be. That image has always stuck with me once I noticed, and seeing as this play has no real reason to be set when it is (yeah, yeah, they go to the 1904 World's Fair at the VERY END, but it still could have been set when and wherever), it was on my mind. Still, those costumes were, admittedly, real nice. But also, the plot is just kinda weird and wandering and the first big dance number is to SKIP TO MY FUCKING LOU of all things and Tootie is the absolute worst fictional child I think I've EVER been subjected to, I wish her NOTHING but pain for the rest of her life. Fuck, that main theme is an earworm, though, and Garland's the damn GOAT on Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
The Love Witch (2016): It's a real good thing I watched something between this and Viva, or I would definitely be dead of aesthetic overdose now. Not 100% sure what the message(s) was/were supposed to be here, but gosh was it a lot of fun to just look at. Would also never in a million years have called that a horror movie?
Klute (1971): Kind of a 'whatever' generic '70s thriller plot, but the performances are great and there's this BRILLIANT tension throughout, like the stalker vibe is genuinely scary at times to me? It might mostly be the score, UFF it's so good.
Frozen II (2019): HOW THE HELL DID KRISTOFF GET THE BEST NUMBER??? And then disappear for like an hour, womp womp lol. I... actually think I liked this more than the original? Frozen was a fairly clever, if uneven, spin on the old Disney fairy tale formula, this was more of a straight adventure movie starring characters that come with a whole lot of pre-existing goodwill, I dug it a LOT. And it didn't forget it was a musical halfway through, good show! Some real gorgeous animation here, too. A little exposition dump-y at times, though I really liked that, even with all the parent retconning they did, they still didn't change the way they died when they so easily could have. Making up new contexts without actually changing anything, it's a nice touch.
The Harvey Girls (1946): THIS ONE ALSO HAD A SKIP TO MY LOU NUMBER?? WHAT THE FUCK, MGM. Anyway, this movie was SO much fun, just a goofy, low-stakes good time. The songs didn't leave a huge impression, but the dancing and staging were just a joy to get lost in for a while. Garland remains the GOAT, Ray Bolger is just inhuman (he looks like he's tapping ABOVE the floor, he just FLOATS), and Angela Lansbury was the human embodiment of a fire emoji, I loved it. Biggest issue for me was that the love interest and the villain looked enough alike that I mixed them up CONSTANTLY, oops.
An American in Paris (1951): Man, I don't know about this one. It's got it all: amazing music, brilliant dance numbers, stunning sets and costumes, an INSANE ending. But Gene Kelly is just SUCH a fucking creep in it, it's SO hard not to let it spoil the whole thing. Lise is fully HALF Jerry's age, it's SO gross the way he instantly fixates on her and harangues her until she finally gives in and starts seeing him, he's a total piece of shit to Milo (the one who actually gets to have a personality)... BUT BOY CAN HE DANCE, I GUESS. BOOM, BEST PICTURE.
The Band Wagon (1953): Okay, it was a coincidence that I watched this right after An American in Paris, but let's play the comparison game, anyway. They're both MGM musicals from the early '50s directed by Vincente Minnelli. They both end with a PHENOMENAL long, wordless ballet taking place in its own, even more stylized, world. They both have Oscar Levant in a real fun supporting capacity. They both feature a female lead/love interest twenty years younger than the male lead. And yet. AND YET. Where that movie skeeved me the fuck out on the whole, this one was just an unbridled delight, and THAT, my friends, is the difference between Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. It's a vibe thing. Like, I have seen Fred Astaire play total fucking creeps (not in this movie, for what it's worth), and it's just like... "you are so lucky you are Fred Astaire, that was horrible but gosh, you're charming!" While I have seen Gene Kelly play perfectly nice guys but it was still like... "you seem really great, but I would not want to be left alone at a party with you." Were '30s ideals of masculinity just less rapey on the whole than '50s ones? Beats me, but watching these movies back-to-back really laid the difference out on the line for me. ANYWAY, BACK TO THE BAND WAGON, I really loved it. Fred may be long past his prime here (and the film never pretends otherwise! it's not a Roger Moore Bond situation here, he's kinda old and they lean right into it!), but he still just radiates charm and Cyd's RIGHT there meet his energy beat-for-beat. And to drag the comparisons back in, because old man/young woman pairings normally bug me so much, the romance in this was SO well done, more of a subtle resolution of tension than some sweeping thing. There's no moment where he picks her out of a crowd and decides she's the one, just two people working closely together for months on end (with a fun dip of the ol' 'enemies to lovers' trope for good measure) and eventually falling for each other just like happens ALL THE DAMN TIME IN REAL LIFE. He falls first and she turns him down and he accepts it and they go on working with each other with no problems! IT'S SO FUCKING EARNED, the way these romances NEVER are, I LOVE it. Maybe a touch too long overall (what the actual FUCK was that Triplets number???), but a seriously great old slice of musical fun nonetheless.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954): Okay. Okay. I love this movie. I love this movie a lot. It's problematic as FUCK, but honestly? I think a lot of people miss a lot of the clever ways it plays with the horrible sexist tropes of the time and kind of completely stomps the crap out of them. Like. Ugh, I can already tell this is gonna get long-winded but fuck it, here we go.
It starts at the very beginning of the movie. We open with Adam basically going wife shopping, and it's gross as fuck. TOO SKINNY, TOO FAT, OOH, JUST RIGHT, I'LL TAKE THAT ONE misogynist tripe. But hey, it's Howard Keel being charming with that gorgeous baritone, the song is catchy, whatever. He sets his eyes on Milly, she's game, hooray for love at first sight, whatever. But instead of her acting the way you'd expect, all swoony and moony over this rugged woodsman, she's just... really endearingly hyped? It's the 1850s, shit's tough for women, she bagged herself a handsome husband! What a great day for Milly, hoorah! And in the wedding scene, they just quietly slip in the fact that he's NOT the first guy to propose to her, his ISN'T the first proposal she's accepted, this isn't her just jumping at the first guy to look her way, she's here because she genuinely wants to be and it's super adorable how excited she is, and it's all so unexpected after the cliché way the whole thing started. It's a minor swerve compared to some of the other ones the movie serves up, but we're just easing into it.
So then the other shoe drops and we get into the plot proper and meet all those brothers and from the get-go, Milly is having NONE of this bullshit. I just kept waiting and waiting for her to falter and compromise her pride or her sense of morals or SOMETHING, and it NEVER HAPPENS ONCE, and it starts that very first night, with her flipping the table on all those jerks and refusing to go to bed with Adam (at least until she takes pity on him sleeping in a tree, which is fair, he was making a point to respect her boundaries even if he was being a big drama queen about it). She liked him so much! She'd be totally DTF normally, but he explicitly misled her and that's not cool! It's the fun wacky premise of the movie but they still make it a point to show us that our handsome charming lead was a total dick in withholding this information! That's what this movie does over and over again, serves up the cornball trope of the era and then completely undermines it while still playing it relatively straight, it's such a subtle thing and I love it.
So okay! She's not going to get her quiet farmstead with just her and the hubby like she wanted, whatever, Milly's a badass, she rolls with the punches. She immediately takes to the brothers, they immediately take to her, they're all one big happy family as she whips them into shape (still taking NONE of their shit along the way), pretty standard stuff. We get the big amazing barn raising dance (seriously in the running for one of the best numbers of the era, the way it goes from group dance to like a... gymnastics competition? is just so cool, and another neat subversion of the tropes they're playing with is the way the drab townie boys, while remaining the bad guys in addition to competition for the ladeez, don't just roll over and get immediately outshined by the brothers here -- the brothers ultimately come out on top of course, but the townies actually get plenty of badass moves and cool moments of their own here, which they really didn't have to!), and the giant fight scene ends on another moment where it SEEMS like Milly is gonna succumb to the tropes and be all shrill and unreasonable about them fighting, but the cut from her crying to tending their wounds and giving them sass undermines the trope once again. SHE'S NOT MAD, SHE'S JUST DISAPPOINTED, BOYS. They really did try for her and she gets that because she's the best!
AND THEN WE GET TO THE KIDNAPPING PLOT. Which... it's bad. It's real bad. It's an insanely catchy tune (AND THE WOMEN WERE SOBBIN', SOBBIN', SOBBIN') all about a bunch of cowhands reading PLUTARCH of all fucking things (THIS MOVIE IS WILD) and getting SO INSPIRED by the rape of the Sabine women that they decide "WHAT A GREAT IDEA". And it's framed as this fun, wacky thing as they go to town and kidnap these screaming women from their homes and trap them on their side of the pass for an entire season. Pretty fucked up to modern sensibilities, but hey, it's a product of its time, right? Then they get home and... the women are freaking out! And Milly is fucking HORRIFIED that they would do this! They spend ALL THAT TIME treating the whole thing as this fun goofy shenanigan only to once again completely pull the rug out at the very end to tell us all that HA HA NOPE, THAT'S ACTUALLY REALLY MESSED UP, GUYS, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. And there's one random line in Sobbin' Women about women eventually getting rights that seems SO out of place in context, but really it's just them reminding us of what this movie is REALLY doing in the midst of the most egregious bit of sexism, IT'S ALL SECRETLY FEMINIST, I SWEAR ON PEPE SILVIA.
Obviously, because it's a fun Hollywood musical, the movie's gotta end with the women marrying the brothers in spite of everything, but even that's handled surprisingly deftly. They liked these guys to begin with, and aside from that one scene where the brothers keep coming up with excuses to come inside from the barn (which Milly swiftly puts an end to because THAT'S WHAT SHE FUCKING DOES), the movie makes it seem fairly clear that the brothers don't interact with the women for pretty much the entire winter. The women are pissed off and the movie portrays it as pretty righteous anger, but delaying any actual romance until the spring makes it feel less like Stockholm Syndrome: The Musical and more just a matter of enough time passing that they were ready to forgive the boys for this awful thing they did to them. Meanwhile, you have Milly giving birth with her friends all around her because her husband's being a pouty dick and never once seeming bothered by his absence? She still loves him, but he was being awful so fuck him, and in the end, he's the one who swallows his pride and finally comes home, because Milly is the most baller protagonist in any musical from this era who takes zero shit from any man, least of all the one she married. Sucks that he needed to have a daughter of his own to realize why kidnapping is wrong, but dudes still be like that today, so.
IN CONCLUSION, SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS IS A HIDDEN FEMINIST MASTERPIECE AND ALSO THE WOOD CHOPPING DANCE IS AMAZING THE END.
Okay, then I rewatched all the SparkShorts on Disney+!
Purl (2019): Still not too keen on that central metaphor of women = sentient balls of yarn.
Smash and Grab (2019): Still my favourite of the bunch, maybe because it reminds me of those old CGI shorts that would air on YTV when I was a kid that all took place on weird alien robot worlds because that was all anyone could animate. But also, dat efficient worldbuilding.
Kitbull (2019): Still so cute we all want to die.
Float (2019): The new one! Pixar's X-Men, except now mutants are a metaphor for... I want to say autism?
Hey, remember that time I wrote over a thousand words about Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? I sure don't. Don't look at me.
and the women were sobbin', sobbin' sobbin'...
no subject
Man, do I feel that, like... hanging out with some people just making you wish you could hang out with your actual friends thing. I have so little social contact here, and even having recently reconnected with one (1) local old friend, it's still just... not the same, I want to be with my people. Really just want teleportation to be a thing so we can all get together without it costing a goddamn fortune.
I really loved the original Frozen, obviously, but man, the sequel really did it for me. The greater number of songs/not just... not having any more songs at the end was a big part of that, and that STUNNING fucking animation, oh my god, it's wild how far things have come in the past six years. And I liked that it wasn't afraid to get really dark? It made for some good character stuff. I'm not entiiiiiiiirely sure how I feel about the very end yet, or that it even entirely made sense to me, but I'm also not sure I care, it hit enough emotional beats and was... brave? enough story-wise that I'm willing to roll with it. KRISTOFF'S SONG WAS SO GOOD, OH MY GOD, that was a FANTASTIC payoff for not giving Jonathan Groff a real song in the first movie.
I love that you're someone who can write over a thousand words about Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. XD Look, I'll watch ANYTHING with Russ Tamblyn dancing, always.
no subject
omg that reminds me of one of my lowkey favourite little goofy things about this movie, the way that Adam, as the romantic lead, was clearly cast for his voice first and foremost, while brothers B to G were clearly cast for their dance skills, so all the most iconic numbers consist of Adam standing back, lying down, or just being conspicuously absent while his six brothers just go absolutely APESHIT all over the set, I love it so much and Russ as the baby of the scruffy ginger harem is just so perfect
no subject
I hope the tax situation ends up resolving in your favour :/
no subject