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Spring Season: Week 6
At work as usual, waiting on my burrito earlier than usual, since mom said she'd have Easter ham for me when I get home. She took a four-day weekend and it's been absolutely exhausting having her just AROUND those two extra days, camped out in the living room, but she made supper Friday and Saturday, and also I love her so I won't actually complain, but C'MON PLEASE AT LEAST CLEAN SOME THINGS WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE.
Actually, I lied. I ordered two burritos. Sometimes it's tough to hit that $20 minimum for free delivery and I NEED TO FEEL LIKE I'M GETTING MY MONEY'S WORTH.
Anyway! Two new cases of That Thing announced up here today, after a long while of no active ones (4 cases total, all resolved), which actually makes me feel a little better because my growing relief that we're doing pretty good keeps being tempered by paranoia that the other shoe's gotta drop soon. Washing my hands, keeping to my bubble, etc., etc.
Had a long weekend myself, which was real nice! Even if more money would be welcome, I think I really needed it, I took care of a few annoying chores that I'd been meaning to hit up for a while but also relaxed a lot. Also bought a PS4 with my surprise government money, so I can FF7 Remake it up! Still wondering if I have enough willpower to just play, like, one chapter a week to make it last.
Crave is allegedly finally on Roku now, but hasn't shown up in my channel store. Annoying.
The impending death of Wunderlist has got me panicking a little, since I am convinced I will cease to function without a constantly replenishing list of basic ass tasks to get me through my days and Microsoft's To-Do replacement is hot trash. I've known this was coming for ages now, but I've yet to find a replacement that doesn't have at least one total dealbreaker built in, although I THINK I may be close to wrangling Todoist into something approaching usable for my purposes IF I spoof my browser's time zone. WE SHALL SEE.
Burritos are here, and I'm looking at this list of movies and wondering if I missed a week or something, because this feels like a lot?? Maybe I watch too many movies, guys.
A Zed & Two Noughts (1985): Because I had a fun time with The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover and Prospero's Books earlier this year (I think?? time is a flat circle), the theme for this week was EARLY GREENAWAY. First up: a welcome addition to the ZCU (Zoo Cinematic Universe). Life and death, sex and decay, an obsession with doubles and symmetry, gorgeous compositions and lots and lots of weird shit, this was great and also real baffling a lot of the time! All those time lapses of the rotting animals were... not fun, though.
The Draughtman's Contract (1982): Strange and stylish, even when it seems to be playing things a lot straighter than I'm used to from Greenaway. All those shots with the natural lighting were just so damn stunning, though, and what the fuck was up with the statue people?? I feel like there's a longer cut of this movie out there somewhere that makes more sense, and honestly, I don't think I'd ever want to see it. MICHAEL NYMAN'S FUCKING SCORE, THOUGH, MY GOD IT'S EMBEDDED IN MY SOUL NOW. I've just been hearing aggressive strings following me all week. It's getting concerning.
A Walk Through H: The Reincarnation of an Ornithologist (1979): Okay, then I watched a bunch of Peter Greenaway's shorter, non-feature-length stuff! This was real fuckin' weird! I think he might be kind of a weird guy! This is forty minutes of meandering, metaphorical weirdness, and as a former quiet kid who spent a lot of time drawing maps of made-up places, it really spoke to me.
Dear Phone (1976): But who was phone????
H is for House (1973): Sesame Street, but make it vaguely creepypasta.
Intervals (1969): The music of people watching. Just a neat little thing.
Water Wrackets (1975): Okay, back into the weird shit! This is very soothing, if you don't actually listen to what's being said (but don't do that). Kinda made me have to pee.
Windows (1975): An ode to defenestration. I think it's the same house from H is for House?
Vertical Features Remake (1978): Man, what the FUCK, I think this movie straight-up hypnotized me. I was counting my blinks afterward. I don't have a lot of experience with structuralist film, and I think that's what this is? Or maybe it's a parody of structuralist film? I'M NOT SURE, BUT IT WAS A FUCKING TRIP AND I THINK IT MIGHT BE A MASTERPIECE.
The Falls (1980): And then there's this shit. I had NO idea what to expect going in, just that it was over three hours long, and then it turned out to be Peter Greenaway's fucking Avengers: Endgame for all of his weird, fucked up little shorts that I had just watched! It's ALL in here: the number 92 (from A Walk through H), the rigid structuralist format (from Vertical Features Remake), an obsession with birds (A Walk Through H, A Zed & Two Noughts), this sketchy fucking Tulse Luper guy (A Walk Through H, Vertical Features Remake, The Draughtman's Contract), an obsession with flying/falling (Windows), bizarre made-up histories (Water Wrackets), it's all this man's weird bullshit come full circle! I was SO skeptical at the start, once I kinda realized what I was getting into, because three-hour movies are already a hard sell, three-hour comedies are basically unheard of, and three-hour surrealist mockumentaries are... well, WHAT. But then it was just... suddenly over?? This shit was amazing, though I feel like there's gonna be no middle ground with this movie, either you love it or it hates you.
MOVING ON FROM GREENAWAY FOR NOW, BECAUSE HE WAS MAKING ME KIND OF SQUIRRELLY BY THIS POINT, AND REALLY, WHERE DO YOU EVEN GO AFTER THE FALLS? BRING ON THE VUE.
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006): This was really beautiful and quiet and melancholic, but I had a real tough time figuring out what the fuck was actually happening through most of it? Also a lot of it made me extremely, stomach-clenchingly uncomfortable. Loved the very ending, though?
Hollywood Shuffle (1987): There's a bat in my house, there's a bat in my house, somebody go get my stick!
The Graduate (1967): "Extremely Horny" is my favourite genre of '60s movie. Plastics.
This brings us to Easter weekend, or POITIERFEST 2020. It's all Sidney Poitier, all the time, baby!
Cry, the Beloved Country (1951): This is bleak as fuck, even knowing that apartheid did eventually end, and also Canada Lee deserves to be remembered as one of the greats.
The Defiant Ones (1958): A FOREVER FAV. Fuck, I love this movie so much.
Lilies of the Field (1963): Sometimes a family can be a Southern Baptist drifter and five German Catholic nuns! AMEN! It's buck wild that THIS is what Poitier won his Oscar for.
Pressure Point (1962): DEEPLY fucking frustrating, but in a good way. Super cool that we've still got to worry about homegrown Nazis today! That's just real great! Also kinda funny that Peter Falk is part of the framing device, except this time, HE'S the one being told a story (no kissing).
Duel at Diablo (1966): A real kickass sort of western with great locales, some truly thrilling gun battles, and lots of real snazzy outfits. I thought it was pretty cool that Poitier's race is never once even alluded to?? Especially when it's such an important part of every other movie I watched this weekend, dude did not fuck around regarding the issues of the day in the roles he picked, but this was just a kickass western so it wasn't relevant! Real racist against Natives, though; James Garner does have a cool exchange at the end ("I wonder if they'll stay on the reservation this time." "Why should they?"), but it's kinda undercut by them being white-woman-kidnapping cannon-fodder bad guys for the entire rest of the movie before it.
Paris Blues (1961): Oh my GOD, this was so extremely my shit, it was PATHETIC. Paul Newman plays the trombone! I'm so easy like that! At one point, when Louis Armstrong came out and just started playing in everyone's faces and they have a big climactic jazz-off, I screamed 'THIS IS THE GREATEST MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN', which was hyperbole, but does a good job of showing what level I was at, emotionally. Not one but TWO real-life couples here (Newman/Woodward, Poitier/Carroll) mean the chemistry was through the damn roof, and I love that they didn't cop out on the downbeat ending. Loved this.
In the Heat of the Night (1967): You can't have a Poitierthon without going full Tibbs! It's just not done!
THANK YOU FOR JOINING ME FOR POITIERFEST 2020. I CAN'T GUARANTEE IT WON'T RECUR VERY SOON.
Carving Magic (1959): no, u watched a twenty-minute educational video about how to carve various meats because herschell gordon lewis directed it
Captain Marvel (2019): Holds up as solid mid-tier Marvel, but my issues with it do seem to remain intact. I really like all the Hala worldbuilding, and I really like all the '90s period piece fish-out-of-water stuff, and I really like the 'origin story as a mystery to solve' conceit, and I feel like any one of them could have been a great movie, but stapled all together, they all end up feeling kind of underdone? I really want to know when the second one is going to be set, I hope we don't just skip over those twenty-odd years.
nooooo don't fuck around and waste time, just take the flower and goooooooo
Actually, I lied. I ordered two burritos. Sometimes it's tough to hit that $20 minimum for free delivery and I NEED TO FEEL LIKE I'M GETTING MY MONEY'S WORTH.
Anyway! Two new cases of That Thing announced up here today, after a long while of no active ones (4 cases total, all resolved), which actually makes me feel a little better because my growing relief that we're doing pretty good keeps being tempered by paranoia that the other shoe's gotta drop soon. Washing my hands, keeping to my bubble, etc., etc.
Had a long weekend myself, which was real nice! Even if more money would be welcome, I think I really needed it, I took care of a few annoying chores that I'd been meaning to hit up for a while but also relaxed a lot. Also bought a PS4 with my surprise government money, so I can FF7 Remake it up! Still wondering if I have enough willpower to just play, like, one chapter a week to make it last.
Crave is allegedly finally on Roku now, but hasn't shown up in my channel store. Annoying.
The impending death of Wunderlist has got me panicking a little, since I am convinced I will cease to function without a constantly replenishing list of basic ass tasks to get me through my days and Microsoft's To-Do replacement is hot trash. I've known this was coming for ages now, but I've yet to find a replacement that doesn't have at least one total dealbreaker built in, although I THINK I may be close to wrangling Todoist into something approaching usable for my purposes IF I spoof my browser's time zone. WE SHALL SEE.
Burritos are here, and I'm looking at this list of movies and wondering if I missed a week or something, because this feels like a lot?? Maybe I watch too many movies, guys.
A Zed & Two Noughts (1985): Because I had a fun time with The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover and Prospero's Books earlier this year (I think?? time is a flat circle), the theme for this week was EARLY GREENAWAY. First up: a welcome addition to the ZCU (Zoo Cinematic Universe). Life and death, sex and decay, an obsession with doubles and symmetry, gorgeous compositions and lots and lots of weird shit, this was great and also real baffling a lot of the time! All those time lapses of the rotting animals were... not fun, though.
The Draughtman's Contract (1982): Strange and stylish, even when it seems to be playing things a lot straighter than I'm used to from Greenaway. All those shots with the natural lighting were just so damn stunning, though, and what the fuck was up with the statue people?? I feel like there's a longer cut of this movie out there somewhere that makes more sense, and honestly, I don't think I'd ever want to see it. MICHAEL NYMAN'S FUCKING SCORE, THOUGH, MY GOD IT'S EMBEDDED IN MY SOUL NOW. I've just been hearing aggressive strings following me all week. It's getting concerning.
A Walk Through H: The Reincarnation of an Ornithologist (1979): Okay, then I watched a bunch of Peter Greenaway's shorter, non-feature-length stuff! This was real fuckin' weird! I think he might be kind of a weird guy! This is forty minutes of meandering, metaphorical weirdness, and as a former quiet kid who spent a lot of time drawing maps of made-up places, it really spoke to me.
Dear Phone (1976): But who was phone????
H is for House (1973): Sesame Street, but make it vaguely creepypasta.
Intervals (1969): The music of people watching. Just a neat little thing.
Water Wrackets (1975): Okay, back into the weird shit! This is very soothing, if you don't actually listen to what's being said (but don't do that). Kinda made me have to pee.
Windows (1975): An ode to defenestration. I think it's the same house from H is for House?
Vertical Features Remake (1978): Man, what the FUCK, I think this movie straight-up hypnotized me. I was counting my blinks afterward. I don't have a lot of experience with structuralist film, and I think that's what this is? Or maybe it's a parody of structuralist film? I'M NOT SURE, BUT IT WAS A FUCKING TRIP AND I THINK IT MIGHT BE A MASTERPIECE.
The Falls (1980): And then there's this shit. I had NO idea what to expect going in, just that it was over three hours long, and then it turned out to be Peter Greenaway's fucking Avengers: Endgame for all of his weird, fucked up little shorts that I had just watched! It's ALL in here: the number 92 (from A Walk through H), the rigid structuralist format (from Vertical Features Remake), an obsession with birds (A Walk Through H, A Zed & Two Noughts), this sketchy fucking Tulse Luper guy (A Walk Through H, Vertical Features Remake, The Draughtman's Contract), an obsession with flying/falling (Windows), bizarre made-up histories (Water Wrackets), it's all this man's weird bullshit come full circle! I was SO skeptical at the start, once I kinda realized what I was getting into, because three-hour movies are already a hard sell, three-hour comedies are basically unheard of, and three-hour surrealist mockumentaries are... well, WHAT. But then it was just... suddenly over?? This shit was amazing, though I feel like there's gonna be no middle ground with this movie, either you love it or it hates you.
MOVING ON FROM GREENAWAY FOR NOW, BECAUSE HE WAS MAKING ME KIND OF SQUIRRELLY BY THIS POINT, AND REALLY, WHERE DO YOU EVEN GO AFTER THE FALLS? BRING ON THE VUE.
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006): This was really beautiful and quiet and melancholic, but I had a real tough time figuring out what the fuck was actually happening through most of it? Also a lot of it made me extremely, stomach-clenchingly uncomfortable. Loved the very ending, though?
Hollywood Shuffle (1987): There's a bat in my house, there's a bat in my house, somebody go get my stick!
The Graduate (1967): "Extremely Horny" is my favourite genre of '60s movie. Plastics.
This brings us to Easter weekend, or POITIERFEST 2020. It's all Sidney Poitier, all the time, baby!
Cry, the Beloved Country (1951): This is bleak as fuck, even knowing that apartheid did eventually end, and also Canada Lee deserves to be remembered as one of the greats.
The Defiant Ones (1958): A FOREVER FAV. Fuck, I love this movie so much.
Lilies of the Field (1963): Sometimes a family can be a Southern Baptist drifter and five German Catholic nuns! AMEN! It's buck wild that THIS is what Poitier won his Oscar for.
Pressure Point (1962): DEEPLY fucking frustrating, but in a good way. Super cool that we've still got to worry about homegrown Nazis today! That's just real great! Also kinda funny that Peter Falk is part of the framing device, except this time, HE'S the one being told a story (no kissing).
Duel at Diablo (1966): A real kickass sort of western with great locales, some truly thrilling gun battles, and lots of real snazzy outfits. I thought it was pretty cool that Poitier's race is never once even alluded to?? Especially when it's such an important part of every other movie I watched this weekend, dude did not fuck around regarding the issues of the day in the roles he picked, but this was just a kickass western so it wasn't relevant! Real racist against Natives, though; James Garner does have a cool exchange at the end ("I wonder if they'll stay on the reservation this time." "Why should they?"), but it's kinda undercut by them being white-woman-kidnapping cannon-fodder bad guys for the entire rest of the movie before it.
Paris Blues (1961): Oh my GOD, this was so extremely my shit, it was PATHETIC. Paul Newman plays the trombone! I'm so easy like that! At one point, when Louis Armstrong came out and just started playing in everyone's faces and they have a big climactic jazz-off, I screamed 'THIS IS THE GREATEST MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN', which was hyperbole, but does a good job of showing what level I was at, emotionally. Not one but TWO real-life couples here (Newman/Woodward, Poitier/Carroll) mean the chemistry was through the damn roof, and I love that they didn't cop out on the downbeat ending. Loved this.
In the Heat of the Night (1967): You can't have a Poitierthon without going full Tibbs! It's just not done!
THANK YOU FOR JOINING ME FOR POITIERFEST 2020. I CAN'T GUARANTEE IT WON'T RECUR VERY SOON.
Carving Magic (1959): no, u watched a twenty-minute educational video about how to carve various meats because herschell gordon lewis directed it
Captain Marvel (2019): Holds up as solid mid-tier Marvel, but my issues with it do seem to remain intact. I really like all the Hala worldbuilding, and I really like all the '90s period piece fish-out-of-water stuff, and I really like the 'origin story as a mystery to solve' conceit, and I feel like any one of them could have been a great movie, but stapled all together, they all end up feeling kind of underdone? I really want to know when the second one is going to be set, I hope we don't just skip over those twenty-odd years.
nooooo don't fuck around and waste time, just take the flower and goooooooo
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i say despite having not actually watched a movie in fuck knows how long, my brain has been SHOT
I feel kinda similarly about Captain Marvel — there's a lot that I really enjoy about it, but it ultimately feels underwhelming? I think a lot of it for me is technical stuff, too. The direction (you can reeeeally tell the directors came from indie film), the cinematography, the score, all feel pretty bland, which makes it all less... engaging. I would've liked to see someone with a stronger style handle it. Not as comedic as, say, Taika, but similarly lively.
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WELL IN THAT CASE I GUESS I'LL JUST HAVE TO WATCH ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US.
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