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Awards Season: Week 11
Okay. OKAY. I still haven't started booking any of my Stratford stuff and I gotta do that so this'll be SUPER QUICK AND SHORT today. I want to tag, too: that Valentine's Day party sounds dope, but I'm still battling a case of the 'why bothers' on that front, so we'll see.
Oh! I also forgot to mention last week that I stopped by a stranger's apartment to buy a bunch of old records, which was fun and not at all murdery! He had so much great '80s shit (he's a retired DJ that lives in the apartment building my mom works at?), and now so do I, and he even gave me a few bags full of old Archie digests he had lying around as a freebie~
Anyway, MOVIES, seriously quick this week:
Pasqualino Settebellezze (1975): Okay, so, um, wow? I guess when you're checking out a big name director for the first time, YOU START WITH THE BIG GUNS. I was thoroughly put off by Lina Wertmüller's All Screwed Up last week, but I gave her another whack and holy shit this was amazing. How can you possibly make a protagonist who at one point rapes a woman tied to a bed in a mental hospital remotely sympathetic? JUST PUT HIM IN A FUCKING CONCENTRATION CAMP I GUESS, JESUS. This movie fucked me up! It's heartrending and horrifying and hilarious (HOW?) in spite of all that and Giancarlo Giannini is a fucking REVELATION. This fucking guy! At one point he's acting with his TOES, it's fucking unreal! And now I can be mad as hell that he lost at the Oscars to a fucking dead guy forty-odd years late to the party (I'm sorry Peter Finch, u were good 2, I'll get over it).
Film d'amore e d'anarchia, ovvero: stamattina alle 10, in via dei Fiori, nella nota casa di tolleranza... (1973): More Wertmüller. More Giannini. More EXCELLENT SHIT. This one has a tendency to get REAL DENSE with the dialogue, with characters going off on long, impassioned political and moral tears that left me kinda dizzy after a while, but overall it's some really good, brutally affecting stuff. Giancarlo Giannini, man. I swear he's got the most expressive eyes I think I've ever seen. His eyes alone seem capable of conveying more in a single glance than most decent actors I know. He'll be across the fucking street from the camera, and his gaze will flip to something different and it's ALL YOU CAN SEE. I DON'T GET IT. I DON'T GET HIM.
Mimì metallurgico ferito nell'onore (1972): More Wertmüller! More Giannini! More Mariangela Melato with her vaguely fish-eyed beauty and insanely rapid-fire machine gun line deliveries this time around, too! A nice little fable about the dangers of hypocrisy, this, with some decidedly wacky elements sprinkled throughout.
Travolti da un insolito destino nell'azzurro mare d'agosto (1974): MORE WERTMÜLLER! MORE GIANNINI! MORE MELATO! Okay, I had some issues with this one, lol. The gender politics on display here are... well, problematic would be putting it lightly. Which I'm sure is the point of them! I'm sure this movie is saying a lot of very thoughtful and interesting things about power and society and class and corruption, but it all made me uncomfortable enough to watch that I didn't really have any desire to engage with it that deeply! Also, her hair and makeup remained flawless through her entire stay stranded on the deserted island, which was intensely stupid but DID serve to highlight just how much Giancarlo Giannini is willing to make himself look like a fucking hideous ghoul of a man for these roles. Holy fuck, was this movie BEAUTIFUL, though. All those long, lingering shots of the sea, my god, I don't think I've ever seen blues that blue before.
Notte d'estate con profilo greco, occhi a mandorla e odore di basilico (1986): Wertmüller and Melato, ten years later! This movie and Swept Away make me want to eat the Italian rich IN PARTICULAR. Also fuck, that sex scene was INTERMINABLE.
Ferdinando e Carolina (1999): OKAY, LAST WERTMÜLLER FOR NOW. This was a fun, if slight little bit of... I want to say comedy? All about historical fuckin'. There is a ridiculous prosthetic nose and an even more ridiculous red merkin. The sets were absolutely stunning, though, a lot of this was very clearly filmed on location in the actual historical castles and shit and it just pulls you RIGHT in.
Behind the White Glasses (2015): And then a li'l documentary about Lina Wertmüller to cap off my li'l exploration of her work. She's real hit or miss for me, it turns out! This had a low-key theme of music and musicianship running through it that was really nice and bumped it up a bit from the usual talking head genre. Two takeaways here, one: Apparently the fun wacky violent rape scene from All Screwed Up was about capitalism? Because she elects to save her TV over her virginity? Yup, still fuckin' gross. And two: Seeing this rich old lady wandering around her giant homes full of beautiful art REALLY puts some of the class warfare aspects of her work into... perspective.
Oliver! (1968): MORE? MOOOOOOORE??? also bill sykes is hot af don't @ me
Barbara (2012): OKAY, from Italy to Germany I guess! You know how sometimes you see a filmmaker's work for the first time and just immediately click with it? That was me with Christian Petzold, who I hadn't even heard of until last weekend! Something about this just spellbound me from the word go, I'm not even sure what it is. Is it Nina Hoss? Is it the way he shoots the outdoors, making it seem somehow so overwhelming with detail in comparison to the people and their shitty lives that the movie is ACTUALLY about? Is it the use of colour, where rooms have wholly different palettes in a way that SHOULD be totally Saw II levels of obnoxious, but instead just took my breath away? I don't know! I don't get it! But this dude is so totally on my wavelength, so I immediately watched a couple more of his movies.
Yella (2007): I'm really glad I didn't know this was a Carnival of Souls remake going in, because that ending caught me REAL off guard, ha ha fuck. This was so good! Nina Hoss is so fucking good! That opening was TERRIFYING, and in such a real, we've-all-been-there, just-going-along-with-a-situation-you-know-is-unsafe-in-the-vain-hope-that-it'll-get-this-guy-to-leave-you-alone sort of way. And then the rest of it never let me go for an instant, which is wild, since it's really reliant on understanding the minutiae of a series of dry business deals? This is normally the sort of thing I IMMEDIATELY check out of! Petzold!
Jerichow (2008): This one took a little longer to get its hooks into me, possibly because Nina Hoss isn't the protagonist? She's still real fucking good in it, though! This is quiet and spare and sexy and the ending is an absolute fucking gut punch and just. Guh. THIS WAS A GOOD WEEK FOR DISCOVERING NEW FAVS.
Ant-Man (2015): Baskin Robbins always finds out. Goddamn, this movie is so much fun, even with the weird glaring discrepancies between Scott's character and his backstory.
Bob le flambeur (1956): FROM GERMANY TO FRANCE, continuing on my little impromptu director-focused tour of Europe with a little Melville! This movie's just so fucking COOL, you guys. Just the whole vibe of it, it makes you feel cool just to be watching it. I also love the total anticlimax of the ending, where it's all classic heist film setup (maps! rehearsals!) and then... the cops show up, shoot everyone before they get started and OOPS Bob missed the whole thing because he was gambling anyway, WOMP WOMP. And then the credits roll and you look down and you're wearing a neon green sports bra and Star Wars jammies and the spell of cool is shattered forever.
Le cercle rouge (1970): Came for Alain Delon being super hot, stayed for the thirty-minute wordless heist sequence. HNNNNNG THAT'S GOOD HEISTIN'.
lol I accidentally a heist movie triple feature
Deux hommes dans Manhattan (1959): This one's all about the atmosphere. It had trouble holding my attention at times; it meanders a LOT and Melville's got a really weird energy, playing one of the leads here instead of just writing/directing, but if you can just soak in it, there's a lot to enjoy. Those gorgeous, inky BLACKS, man, they just swallow people up. Also: French filmmakers doing America is fun as heck.
Léon Morin, prêtre (1961): Okay, BUT THIS WAS SERIOUSLY JUST FLEABAG SEASON 2.
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020): The gayest movie of 2020. Rad as fucking hell. Takes all the weird, sleazy aesthetics of Suicide Squad and makes them POP instead of just letting them lay there like a wet dishrag. New favourite DCEU movie by a hot mile. Good to know it's not just Italian filmmakers who can put stuff out with intensely stupid long titles.
OH MY GOD, THAT WASN'T SHORT AT ALL, FUCK.
Oh! I also forgot to mention last week that I stopped by a stranger's apartment to buy a bunch of old records, which was fun and not at all murdery! He had so much great '80s shit (he's a retired DJ that lives in the apartment building my mom works at?), and now so do I, and he even gave me a few bags full of old Archie digests he had lying around as a freebie~
Anyway, MOVIES, seriously quick this week:
Pasqualino Settebellezze (1975): Okay, so, um, wow? I guess when you're checking out a big name director for the first time, YOU START WITH THE BIG GUNS. I was thoroughly put off by Lina Wertmüller's All Screwed Up last week, but I gave her another whack and holy shit this was amazing. How can you possibly make a protagonist who at one point rapes a woman tied to a bed in a mental hospital remotely sympathetic? JUST PUT HIM IN A FUCKING CONCENTRATION CAMP I GUESS, JESUS. This movie fucked me up! It's heartrending and horrifying and hilarious (HOW?) in spite of all that and Giancarlo Giannini is a fucking REVELATION. This fucking guy! At one point he's acting with his TOES, it's fucking unreal! And now I can be mad as hell that he lost at the Oscars to a fucking dead guy forty-odd years late to the party (I'm sorry Peter Finch, u were good 2, I'll get over it).
Film d'amore e d'anarchia, ovvero: stamattina alle 10, in via dei Fiori, nella nota casa di tolleranza... (1973): More Wertmüller. More Giannini. More EXCELLENT SHIT. This one has a tendency to get REAL DENSE with the dialogue, with characters going off on long, impassioned political and moral tears that left me kinda dizzy after a while, but overall it's some really good, brutally affecting stuff. Giancarlo Giannini, man. I swear he's got the most expressive eyes I think I've ever seen. His eyes alone seem capable of conveying more in a single glance than most decent actors I know. He'll be across the fucking street from the camera, and his gaze will flip to something different and it's ALL YOU CAN SEE. I DON'T GET IT. I DON'T GET HIM.
Mimì metallurgico ferito nell'onore (1972): More Wertmüller! More Giannini! More Mariangela Melato with her vaguely fish-eyed beauty and insanely rapid-fire machine gun line deliveries this time around, too! A nice little fable about the dangers of hypocrisy, this, with some decidedly wacky elements sprinkled throughout.
Travolti da un insolito destino nell'azzurro mare d'agosto (1974): MORE WERTMÜLLER! MORE GIANNINI! MORE MELATO! Okay, I had some issues with this one, lol. The gender politics on display here are... well, problematic would be putting it lightly. Which I'm sure is the point of them! I'm sure this movie is saying a lot of very thoughtful and interesting things about power and society and class and corruption, but it all made me uncomfortable enough to watch that I didn't really have any desire to engage with it that deeply! Also, her hair and makeup remained flawless through her entire stay stranded on the deserted island, which was intensely stupid but DID serve to highlight just how much Giancarlo Giannini is willing to make himself look like a fucking hideous ghoul of a man for these roles. Holy fuck, was this movie BEAUTIFUL, though. All those long, lingering shots of the sea, my god, I don't think I've ever seen blues that blue before.
Notte d'estate con profilo greco, occhi a mandorla e odore di basilico (1986): Wertmüller and Melato, ten years later! This movie and Swept Away make me want to eat the Italian rich IN PARTICULAR. Also fuck, that sex scene was INTERMINABLE.
Ferdinando e Carolina (1999): OKAY, LAST WERTMÜLLER FOR NOW. This was a fun, if slight little bit of... I want to say comedy? All about historical fuckin'. There is a ridiculous prosthetic nose and an even more ridiculous red merkin. The sets were absolutely stunning, though, a lot of this was very clearly filmed on location in the actual historical castles and shit and it just pulls you RIGHT in.
Behind the White Glasses (2015): And then a li'l documentary about Lina Wertmüller to cap off my li'l exploration of her work. She's real hit or miss for me, it turns out! This had a low-key theme of music and musicianship running through it that was really nice and bumped it up a bit from the usual talking head genre. Two takeaways here, one: Apparently the fun wacky violent rape scene from All Screwed Up was about capitalism? Because she elects to save her TV over her virginity? Yup, still fuckin' gross. And two: Seeing this rich old lady wandering around her giant homes full of beautiful art REALLY puts some of the class warfare aspects of her work into... perspective.
Oliver! (1968): MORE? MOOOOOOORE??? also bill sykes is hot af don't @ me
Barbara (2012): OKAY, from Italy to Germany I guess! You know how sometimes you see a filmmaker's work for the first time and just immediately click with it? That was me with Christian Petzold, who I hadn't even heard of until last weekend! Something about this just spellbound me from the word go, I'm not even sure what it is. Is it Nina Hoss? Is it the way he shoots the outdoors, making it seem somehow so overwhelming with detail in comparison to the people and their shitty lives that the movie is ACTUALLY about? Is it the use of colour, where rooms have wholly different palettes in a way that SHOULD be totally Saw II levels of obnoxious, but instead just took my breath away? I don't know! I don't get it! But this dude is so totally on my wavelength, so I immediately watched a couple more of his movies.
Yella (2007): I'm really glad I didn't know this was a Carnival of Souls remake going in, because that ending caught me REAL off guard, ha ha fuck. This was so good! Nina Hoss is so fucking good! That opening was TERRIFYING, and in such a real, we've-all-been-there, just-going-along-with-a-situation-you-know-is-unsafe-in-the-vain-hope-that-it'll-get-this-guy-to-leave-you-alone sort of way. And then the rest of it never let me go for an instant, which is wild, since it's really reliant on understanding the minutiae of a series of dry business deals? This is normally the sort of thing I IMMEDIATELY check out of! Petzold!
Jerichow (2008): This one took a little longer to get its hooks into me, possibly because Nina Hoss isn't the protagonist? She's still real fucking good in it, though! This is quiet and spare and sexy and the ending is an absolute fucking gut punch and just. Guh. THIS WAS A GOOD WEEK FOR DISCOVERING NEW FAVS.
Ant-Man (2015): Baskin Robbins always finds out. Goddamn, this movie is so much fun, even with the weird glaring discrepancies between Scott's character and his backstory.
Bob le flambeur (1956): FROM GERMANY TO FRANCE, continuing on my little impromptu director-focused tour of Europe with a little Melville! This movie's just so fucking COOL, you guys. Just the whole vibe of it, it makes you feel cool just to be watching it. I also love the total anticlimax of the ending, where it's all classic heist film setup (maps! rehearsals!) and then... the cops show up, shoot everyone before they get started and OOPS Bob missed the whole thing because he was gambling anyway, WOMP WOMP. And then the credits roll and you look down and you're wearing a neon green sports bra and Star Wars jammies and the spell of cool is shattered forever.
Le cercle rouge (1970): Came for Alain Delon being super hot, stayed for the thirty-minute wordless heist sequence. HNNNNNG THAT'S GOOD HEISTIN'.
lol I accidentally a heist movie triple feature
Deux hommes dans Manhattan (1959): This one's all about the atmosphere. It had trouble holding my attention at times; it meanders a LOT and Melville's got a really weird energy, playing one of the leads here instead of just writing/directing, but if you can just soak in it, there's a lot to enjoy. Those gorgeous, inky BLACKS, man, they just swallow people up. Also: French filmmakers doing America is fun as heck.
Léon Morin, prêtre (1961): Okay, BUT THIS WAS SERIOUSLY JUST FLEABAG SEASON 2.
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020): The gayest movie of 2020. Rad as fucking hell. Takes all the weird, sleazy aesthetics of Suicide Squad and makes them POP instead of just letting them lay there like a wet dishrag. New favourite DCEU movie by a hot mile. Good to know it's not just Italian filmmakers who can put stuff out with intensely stupid long titles.
OH MY GOD, THAT WASN'T SHORT AT ALL, FUCK.
no subject
I loved Birds of Prey SO MUCH, what a goddamn delight (and, as you mentioned, gay as hell). I was cautiously optimistic going into it, but man, it was just plain fun. I loved all those ladies so much, and I could not stop grinning the whole way home.
no subject