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Awards Season: Week 12
Another short update this week because work has been STUPID and I have NO TIME.
Still! Managed to book my travel tickets to get my ass to Stratford this August, bought tickets to see some motherfuckin' PLAYS, booked a BnB to stay at for the week, and got my time off request approved. Two and a half weeks because I'm taking a train like a crazy person and it's a very large country! Now I can RELAX for a few months before the inevitable travel panic sets in. I haven't had a vacation since before the fire, so it's probably gonna be real bad!
It was all very, very expensive, but then I got a $6500 credit limit increase across two of my cards, reminding me that at least I have my very good credit to lean on when I splash out for shit that I can't really afford. Goal is to have it all paid for by the time I actually leave!
also I watched like eight billion movies because escapism yes
L'armée des ombres (1969): BIG OOF. Picking up where I left off last week in the weeds with Melville, this was a brutal, ugly, decidedly unglamorous vision of freedom fighting. The washed out palettes being used here, like all the colour's just been washed out of the world... man. Also, then I looked up the real guy Jardie was based on and omg what a babe
Un flic (1972): Came for Alain Delon being hot some more, stayed for MORE LONG, KILLER HEIST SEQUENCES. I barely even CARED about what the good guys were up to just FUCK YES, GET BACK TO THE CHOPPERRRRRR.
Le doulos (1962): "Where is that piece of shit narc, I hope they string him up by hiTHERE HE IS, THERE'S MY HANDSOME BOY, HELLO." Belmondo, man! I just can't stay mad at him! Ending my Melville-thon on a high note, this was just games inside of games inside of games and it was GREAT.
Captain America: Civil War (2016): When it came out, this felt like a better version of Age of Ultron (not in terms of plot, just in terms of what it all had to do and how it juggled all of its moving pieces), but idk, I feel like that one's aged a lot better? I still like this movie, and it does a lot of things really cleverly, but yeah, idk. I've got a lot more nitpicks with it, even if the messy seams don't show as much as they do in AoU? Still, an impressive adaptation of a crappy comic arc that really shouldn't have worked onscreen at this point.
Caché (2005): Everyone always talks up Haneke's Funny Games remake, but idk, I love how this movie plays with the meta so much more. Who was tape? Haneke was tape! Don't worry about it! Also it's terrifying! Also ALSO, it takes true skill to make a protagonist THIS awful and unlikable. You think he's already pretty much the dirt worst early on, and then he just keeps finding new lows every ten minutes or so. Impressive.
The Gentlemen (2019): Excellent actors making all kinds of excellently bizarre choices in service of all sorts of twisty-turny crimey-wimey nonsense. It's also real racist in parts and a little homophobic in parts and there's a completely pointless near-rape of the only significant female character, so, you know, not GREAT, but goddamn I had a lot of fun with it anyway. Also, this is now two movies in a row that have made explicit James Bond references in regards to Henry Golding, DON'T YOU FUCKING TOY WITH ME UNIVERSE. JUST FUCKING DO IT. YOU GODDAMN COWARDS.
and then I accidentally sixteen Bette Davis movies GOTTA GET THESE OUT RAPID FIRE
Dark Victory (1939): Weepy, melodramatic 'YOLO' inspiration porn, worth it for the part where the doctors explain that it's okay, this is the glamorous kind of brain cancer so we won't have to watch her fade, she'll be totally fine and hot and healthy right up until she goes blind and dies a few hours later. Bogart turns up in a pretty minor role and the two of them playing off each other is the best part, a lot of fun before it gets too heavy.
The Petrified Forest (1936): Making a romance where the male lead is just a batshit crazy weirdo was a BOLD choice, but fuck it, I dug it. Also gangster Bogey, hnnnnnnng. Also I'm pretty sure he bonded more with the male lead than Bette did? SO WEIRD. SO FUN. I KINDA LOVED THIS MOVIE?
Now, Voyager (1942): Never a big fan of 'just take off your definitely unnecessary glasses and you'll be hot' narratives, which this pulls TWICE, but yeah, this is a good one. Spent the whole thing just TERRIFIED that she'd cave to her horrible mother and backslide into dowdiness again, but she never does and it's really damn satisfying? Even after the mother dies mid-fight and she blames herself and it's like 'this is it, the guilt's gonna ruin everything', she just... calls her therapist and takes some time out to resolve the crisis and it all works out! It's real refreshing and healthy! Needed more scenes of that old bitch falling down the stairs, though. Also she deserves better than that ending, "don't let's wish for the moon, etc. etc.", but she's still so new to sticking up for herself, I feel okay imagining that she eventually DOES strike out and find someone who's worth her. Yes ask for the moon! You deserve to ask for the moon!
Marked Woman (1937): Clip joint calamity!! Ending's a little too pat in some ways, but nicely downbeat in others, loved the focus on all the ladies here. OG Hustlers. Also Bogart is the assistant D.A. this time? Weird!
Three on a Match (1932): WHAT A RIDE. Two hours worth of plot brutally hacked into half of that, and lots of fun with tropes. Bette Davis is actually kinda barely in it, she's definitely the third wheel of the titular trio of ladies, but she's adorable and wears a bathing suit at one point, so hey. And then young Bogart turns up in the last fifteen minutes and I realized he could still totally get it even while deciding to murder a child, which was... somewhat distressing to learn, not gonna lie.
The Cabin in the Cotton (1932): Wishy-washy Southern class warfare. Love that 'please nobody get mad at us uwu' opening crawl. Barthelmess looks like he stepped straight out of a silent film, and acts like it, too, but this was another fun small early role from Davis. The ridiculous 'both sides' of it all, though, lord. They just HAD to make it clear in the very last scene that ACTUALLY, the planter was breaking the law and stealing from the pickers in this case, this totally wasn't just the natural outcomes of unchecked capitalism, honest! Don't be mad, rich people!
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939): THIS IS WHAT TECHNICOLOR WAS MADE FOR. THESE COSTUMES, MY GOD. Takes too long to get to the actual private lives in question, things pick up once Bette and Errol are actually allowed to be alone in a scene together, and there's not a ton of chemistry here, but it's real hard not to love a romance that ends in one party executing the other.
Front Page Woman (1935): Snappy little battle of the sexes comedy. About as enlightened as you'd expect, but Bette Davis wears some great outfits, and the chemistry between her and Brent makes how consistently nasty he is work a lot better than it should.
Mr. Skeffington (1944): I did NOT realize this was two and a half hours long when I put it on, so I settled in for a little 'marriage of convenience hopefully eventually turning genuine' drama thing and got... SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY, WOW. Just... wow. Un. Pre. Pared.
The Letter (1940): Fun little colonialist murder mystery, where the mystery isn't 'who', it's 'why'. Only real problem here is that Leslie is the least interesting character in the movie, no matter how fantastic Bette plays it. It opens with her just cold murdering a dude and it's AMAZING, and down was the only direction to go from there. Also, does having a white woman playing the Malaysian widow make all the talk of how horrible she looks less racist or more?
Jezebel (1938): A racist nothingburger of a plot elevated by a trio of truly excellent performances. Gone with the Wind but less than half as long and a lot better for it. Also, seeing Henry Fonda so smooth-faced really weirds me the fuck out.
The Little Foxes (1941) 'Bette Davis looking in mirrors, aghast at the ravages of time' is a hell of a genre. This is probably my favourite Wyler movie yet, he's firing on ALL cylinders here, just some really gorgeous staging and reveals.
Kid Galahad (1937): Bette Davis molling it up, Edward G. Robinson and his big weird head, brutal boxing action, Bogart looking fine as heeeeeeeellllllll, and that's all in the first scene! Like damn, movie, I'm already watching you, you don't gotta sell me so hard!
The Old Maid (1939): At least the aging makeup isn't nearly as dodgy here as it was in Mr. Skeffington. Wasn't bad, but I'm still mad at this movie for giving me peak Civil War soldier himbo George Brent just to kill him off in the first twenty minutes. Also at Max Steiner, for leaning SO hard on the 'Oh, My Darling Clementine' theme throughout.
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942): Davis in a fun supporting turn for a change. A little on the long side, starts to drag later on in that way that only these rapid-fire one-room play adaptations do, but Woolley is such a great, charismatic douchebag of a lead, just a joy to watch throughout.
In This Our Life (1942): Easily the most monstrous piece of work I've seen Davis take on yet, and she plays her so blithe and ditzy for most of it. Stupendous stuff. Also, black characters who actually have their own personalities and motivations, and the acknowledgment that they are getting screwed by society and it fucking sucks? In MY '40s film full of pretty white people? WHAT. Also, they just never address the fact that the (female) leads' names are Roy and Stanley and it's bonkers??? This kicked ass, A GOOD ONE TO END MY INSANE BETTE DAVIS MARATHON ON, I THINK.
Something Wild (1986): It's all fun and games until Ray Liotta shows up, isn't it? God, I had such a fucking weird crush on Jeff Daniels when I was a kid, and I don't want to talk about it, and this manic pixie dream schlock was PROBLEMATIC as a result. Great music, though.
Black Legion (1937): So one of the biggest takeaways of my Bette Davis deep dive was that I've got a hankering for early Bogie! He wears a li'l Jughead cap in this one! And then gets radicalized by '30s Fox News and joins a thinly-veiled stand-in for the Klan, womp womp.
Dead End (1937): EAT THE RICH. FUCK THE POLICE. I HATE HOW RELEVANT SOME OF THESE OLD MOVIES STILL ARE, JFC WE ARE BAD AT SOCIETY. Homesick gangster Bogart was fantastic and I really need to get back to work now GOODBYE
Still! Managed to book my travel tickets to get my ass to Stratford this August, bought tickets to see some motherfuckin' PLAYS, booked a BnB to stay at for the week, and got my time off request approved. Two and a half weeks because I'm taking a train like a crazy person and it's a very large country! Now I can RELAX for a few months before the inevitable travel panic sets in. I haven't had a vacation since before the fire, so it's probably gonna be real bad!
It was all very, very expensive, but then I got a $6500 credit limit increase across two of my cards, reminding me that at least I have my very good credit to lean on when I splash out for shit that I can't really afford. Goal is to have it all paid for by the time I actually leave!
also I watched like eight billion movies because escapism yes
L'armée des ombres (1969): BIG OOF. Picking up where I left off last week in the weeds with Melville, this was a brutal, ugly, decidedly unglamorous vision of freedom fighting. The washed out palettes being used here, like all the colour's just been washed out of the world... man. Also, then I looked up the real guy Jardie was based on and omg what a babe
Un flic (1972): Came for Alain Delon being hot some more, stayed for MORE LONG, KILLER HEIST SEQUENCES. I barely even CARED about what the good guys were up to just FUCK YES, GET BACK TO THE CHOPPERRRRRR.
Le doulos (1962): "Where is that piece of shit narc, I hope they string him up by hiTHERE HE IS, THERE'S MY HANDSOME BOY, HELLO." Belmondo, man! I just can't stay mad at him! Ending my Melville-thon on a high note, this was just games inside of games inside of games and it was GREAT.
Captain America: Civil War (2016): When it came out, this felt like a better version of Age of Ultron (not in terms of plot, just in terms of what it all had to do and how it juggled all of its moving pieces), but idk, I feel like that one's aged a lot better? I still like this movie, and it does a lot of things really cleverly, but yeah, idk. I've got a lot more nitpicks with it, even if the messy seams don't show as much as they do in AoU? Still, an impressive adaptation of a crappy comic arc that really shouldn't have worked onscreen at this point.
Caché (2005): Everyone always talks up Haneke's Funny Games remake, but idk, I love how this movie plays with the meta so much more. Who was tape? Haneke was tape! Don't worry about it! Also it's terrifying! Also ALSO, it takes true skill to make a protagonist THIS awful and unlikable. You think he's already pretty much the dirt worst early on, and then he just keeps finding new lows every ten minutes or so. Impressive.
The Gentlemen (2019): Excellent actors making all kinds of excellently bizarre choices in service of all sorts of twisty-turny crimey-wimey nonsense. It's also real racist in parts and a little homophobic in parts and there's a completely pointless near-rape of the only significant female character, so, you know, not GREAT, but goddamn I had a lot of fun with it anyway. Also, this is now two movies in a row that have made explicit James Bond references in regards to Henry Golding, DON'T YOU FUCKING TOY WITH ME UNIVERSE. JUST FUCKING DO IT. YOU GODDAMN COWARDS.
and then I accidentally sixteen Bette Davis movies GOTTA GET THESE OUT RAPID FIRE
Dark Victory (1939): Weepy, melodramatic 'YOLO' inspiration porn, worth it for the part where the doctors explain that it's okay, this is the glamorous kind of brain cancer so we won't have to watch her fade, she'll be totally fine and hot and healthy right up until she goes blind and dies a few hours later. Bogart turns up in a pretty minor role and the two of them playing off each other is the best part, a lot of fun before it gets too heavy.
The Petrified Forest (1936): Making a romance where the male lead is just a batshit crazy weirdo was a BOLD choice, but fuck it, I dug it. Also gangster Bogey, hnnnnnnng. Also I'm pretty sure he bonded more with the male lead than Bette did? SO WEIRD. SO FUN. I KINDA LOVED THIS MOVIE?
Now, Voyager (1942): Never a big fan of 'just take off your definitely unnecessary glasses and you'll be hot' narratives, which this pulls TWICE, but yeah, this is a good one. Spent the whole thing just TERRIFIED that she'd cave to her horrible mother and backslide into dowdiness again, but she never does and it's really damn satisfying? Even after the mother dies mid-fight and she blames herself and it's like 'this is it, the guilt's gonna ruin everything', she just... calls her therapist and takes some time out to resolve the crisis and it all works out! It's real refreshing and healthy! Needed more scenes of that old bitch falling down the stairs, though. Also she deserves better than that ending, "don't let's wish for the moon, etc. etc.", but she's still so new to sticking up for herself, I feel okay imagining that she eventually DOES strike out and find someone who's worth her. Yes ask for the moon! You deserve to ask for the moon!
Marked Woman (1937): Clip joint calamity!! Ending's a little too pat in some ways, but nicely downbeat in others, loved the focus on all the ladies here. OG Hustlers. Also Bogart is the assistant D.A. this time? Weird!
Three on a Match (1932): WHAT A RIDE. Two hours worth of plot brutally hacked into half of that, and lots of fun with tropes. Bette Davis is actually kinda barely in it, she's definitely the third wheel of the titular trio of ladies, but she's adorable and wears a bathing suit at one point, so hey. And then young Bogart turns up in the last fifteen minutes and I realized he could still totally get it even while deciding to murder a child, which was... somewhat distressing to learn, not gonna lie.
The Cabin in the Cotton (1932): Wishy-washy Southern class warfare. Love that 'please nobody get mad at us uwu' opening crawl. Barthelmess looks like he stepped straight out of a silent film, and acts like it, too, but this was another fun small early role from Davis. The ridiculous 'both sides' of it all, though, lord. They just HAD to make it clear in the very last scene that ACTUALLY, the planter was breaking the law and stealing from the pickers in this case, this totally wasn't just the natural outcomes of unchecked capitalism, honest! Don't be mad, rich people!
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939): THIS IS WHAT TECHNICOLOR WAS MADE FOR. THESE COSTUMES, MY GOD. Takes too long to get to the actual private lives in question, things pick up once Bette and Errol are actually allowed to be alone in a scene together, and there's not a ton of chemistry here, but it's real hard not to love a romance that ends in one party executing the other.
Front Page Woman (1935): Snappy little battle of the sexes comedy. About as enlightened as you'd expect, but Bette Davis wears some great outfits, and the chemistry between her and Brent makes how consistently nasty he is work a lot better than it should.
Mr. Skeffington (1944): I did NOT realize this was two and a half hours long when I put it on, so I settled in for a little 'marriage of convenience hopefully eventually turning genuine' drama thing and got... SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY, WOW. Just... wow. Un. Pre. Pared.
The Letter (1940): Fun little colonialist murder mystery, where the mystery isn't 'who', it's 'why'. Only real problem here is that Leslie is the least interesting character in the movie, no matter how fantastic Bette plays it. It opens with her just cold murdering a dude and it's AMAZING, and down was the only direction to go from there. Also, does having a white woman playing the Malaysian widow make all the talk of how horrible she looks less racist or more?
Jezebel (1938): A racist nothingburger of a plot elevated by a trio of truly excellent performances. Gone with the Wind but less than half as long and a lot better for it. Also, seeing Henry Fonda so smooth-faced really weirds me the fuck out.
The Little Foxes (1941) 'Bette Davis looking in mirrors, aghast at the ravages of time' is a hell of a genre. This is probably my favourite Wyler movie yet, he's firing on ALL cylinders here, just some really gorgeous staging and reveals.
Kid Galahad (1937): Bette Davis molling it up, Edward G. Robinson and his big weird head, brutal boxing action, Bogart looking fine as heeeeeeeellllllll, and that's all in the first scene! Like damn, movie, I'm already watching you, you don't gotta sell me so hard!
The Old Maid (1939): At least the aging makeup isn't nearly as dodgy here as it was in Mr. Skeffington. Wasn't bad, but I'm still mad at this movie for giving me peak Civil War soldier himbo George Brent just to kill him off in the first twenty minutes. Also at Max Steiner, for leaning SO hard on the 'Oh, My Darling Clementine' theme throughout.
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942): Davis in a fun supporting turn for a change. A little on the long side, starts to drag later on in that way that only these rapid-fire one-room play adaptations do, but Woolley is such a great, charismatic douchebag of a lead, just a joy to watch throughout.
In This Our Life (1942): Easily the most monstrous piece of work I've seen Davis take on yet, and she plays her so blithe and ditzy for most of it. Stupendous stuff. Also, black characters who actually have their own personalities and motivations, and the acknowledgment that they are getting screwed by society and it fucking sucks? In MY '40s film full of pretty white people? WHAT. Also, they just never address the fact that the (female) leads' names are Roy and Stanley and it's bonkers??? This kicked ass, A GOOD ONE TO END MY INSANE BETTE DAVIS MARATHON ON, I THINK.
Something Wild (1986): It's all fun and games until Ray Liotta shows up, isn't it? God, I had such a fucking weird crush on Jeff Daniels when I was a kid, and I don't want to talk about it, and this manic pixie dream schlock was PROBLEMATIC as a result. Great music, though.
Black Legion (1937): So one of the biggest takeaways of my Bette Davis deep dive was that I've got a hankering for early Bogie! He wears a li'l Jughead cap in this one! And then gets radicalized by '30s Fox News and joins a thinly-veiled stand-in for the Klan, womp womp.
Dead End (1937): EAT THE RICH. FUCK THE POLICE. I HATE HOW RELEVANT SOME OF THESE OLD MOVIES STILL ARE, JFC WE ARE BAD AT SOCIETY. Homesick gangster Bogart was fantastic and I really need to get back to work now GOODBYE