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Spring Season: Week 7
I got nothing this week, I don't know. My mind is a total blank. Digging this season of Westworld, dreading tonight's Better Call Saul finale (it's gonna be so good and it's gonna destroy me hahahahaha), have made it to the third season of Zombies, Run!, which periodically blows my mind, and am continuing to take my time with the FF7 Remake.
Life trucks on. I miss going to the movies and also visiting my grandmother.
Also almost all the snow is suddenly gone and everything is disgusting! Spring is so gross!!
Anyway, movies.
Some Like It Hot (1959): One of those rare movies that truly 100% transcends all the gross problematic shit in it to just be goddamn delightful. Marilyn! GOD, Marilyn! She's such an ~icon~ it's always easy to forget how she got that way, she's goddamn luminous, and also literally nothing is funnier than how instantly and exuberantly Jerry commits first to pretending to be a woman ("I'M DAPHNE!") and then to getting engaged to that old guy. That ending is iconic as fuck for a reason.
House of Games (1987): Yeah, I... didn't get this one. It's a grift movie where every beat is so goddamn telegraphed and predictable, the only tension is in just wondering how long it's going to take the lead to figure out what is so obviously happening all around her (the whole movie, it takes the whole movie)? But it's David Mamet, so people seem to think that's on purpose? I dunno, this didn't really do it for me, and the weird robot dialogue/line deliveries and trying to accept Joe Mantegna as a dreamy romantic lead certainly didn't help.
The Grifters (1990): NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE IT. There is a LOT going on in this movie, and most of it is plotless, deeply corny nonsense, but everyone is just SELLING it, and it's real weirdly compelling. It's got grifts, ghosts, gangsters, incest, a towel full of oranges, just SO MUCH. WATCH THIS RIDICULOUS MOVIE, IT SOMEHOW GOT NOMINATED FOR FOUR MAJOR OSCARS.
if... (1968): Interesting enough, and young Malcolm McDowell is always a treat, but a) I never really connected with it much, b) I never understood the point to the switches between colour and black/white, and c) the ending is REAL uncomfortable in modern contexts, which admittedly isn't really the UK's fault, but still (it ends with the protagonist perpetrating a mass casualty school shooting and I think it's meant to feel cathartic?), YIKES.
The Naked Prey (1965): Oh man, when this first started, I was preparing myself for something REAL racist, and this wound up being WAY LESS RACIST THAN EXPECTED! Like, at the end of the day, it's still very much 'ooga booga savage African tribe stalks the white man who manages to get the better of all their best hunters', but it actually seems to go out of its way to subvert all the usual tropes along the way? The scary savage evil cannibal tribe... actually seem like pretty cool people! They're portrayed as way more personable than the douchebag white colonialist assholes they kill, the titular naked prey was the only remotely likable white person while the pursuers all seem perfectly friendly, aside from their ruthless streak. Even though the movie never subtitles their dialogue to keep things more of a wordless affair, we still spend a decent amount of time just seeing them shoot the shit and react to things, mourning their dead and strategizing instead of being silent terminators! And then the whole 'respect' bit when he gets away at the end! And there's a random subplot about slavers kidnapping a peaceful village and it's horrifying, and the main character (who doesn't get a name either) bonds with an adorable child even though they don't have any languages in common, and man, I dunno! This movie was a trip!
Buck and the Preacher (1972): POITIERTHON 2020 RETURNS!!! This dragged a little in the middle, but the passion for the subject matter and Belafonte's fantastic performance as the "preacher" really shone through.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967): An hour and forty minutes of reliving Hannibal Buress' apple juice joke over and over again. 'Wait, why are they being so- oh right, the racism.' Kinda wish more had been made of the age gap, tbh.
A Raisin in the Sun (1961): This feels like the the pinnacle of the 'we filmed a play, here you go' genre, it's nicely claustrophobic and the performances are absolute fire. END MINI POITIERTHON.
Vanya on 42nd Street (1994): lol speaking of 'we filmed a play, here you go' OH MY GOD CHEKOV IS SO GODDAMN BORING YOU GUYS. The gimmicky production actually kind of manages to overcome that a bit here, but at the expense of immersion; I was always very aware that I was just watching (very good!) actors acting in a play, slapped on a screen. Always nice to see Wallace Shawn in a lead role, though.
Adaptation. (2002): Ridiculous, fun, and so self-indulgent. Chris Cooper has never been better. Love it.
Gas Food Lodging (1992): Hoo boy, a lot of this hit REAL close to home. Single mother trailer park life is kind of the same all over, isn't it? I just wish so much of it didn't revolve around their relationships with men above all else.
A Man for All Seasons (1966): This won a billion Oscars, so maybe I shouldn't have been quite so surprised, but man, I really dug this. The subject matter is just SO dry and deathly boring, I don't understand how I still found the whole thing so engrossing! This grabbed me from the beginning and didn't let go, even as I barely cared about any of the shit that was going on??? I still don't know if it was the cinematography, or the performances, or just the costumes, or WHAT. So weird!!
Jason and the Argonauts (1963): Rad as hell. This shit deserves to be in the MCU. RIP Honor Blackman, what a badass.
A Warm December (1973): PSYCH, POITIERTHON CONTINUES. Sickle cell anemia and made up African nations, just hitting all the black issues and tropes that he possibly can, here. This was kind of a weird movie, tonally? First I thought it was gonna be some taut spy thriller thing, but then nope, it's just a tragic romance with lots of random motorbike races!
Uptown Saturday Night (1974): So I think this is the first thing I've actually sat down and watched with Bill Cosby in it since... all that went down, and boy does it hang heavily over things. Once you get past the heavily-bearded rapist elephant in the room, this was actually pretty funny. OKAY, POITIERTHON OVER FOR REAL NOW.
La Nuit américaine (1973): Hoo boy, see above re: Adaptation. in terms of how movies about making movies are SUCH a special brand of self-indulgent. This was pretty fun and interesting in a 'how the sausage gets made' sort of way, but didn't really feel like it had much of anything to say beyond 'making movies is sooooooo haaaaaaaaard'. I guess it's a bit of a love letter to movies in general? But eh. Biggest takeaway here was that Truffaut was... kinda hot???
Life trucks on. I miss going to the movies and also visiting my grandmother.
Also almost all the snow is suddenly gone and everything is disgusting! Spring is so gross!!
Anyway, movies.
Some Like It Hot (1959): One of those rare movies that truly 100% transcends all the gross problematic shit in it to just be goddamn delightful. Marilyn! GOD, Marilyn! She's such an ~icon~ it's always easy to forget how she got that way, she's goddamn luminous, and also literally nothing is funnier than how instantly and exuberantly Jerry commits first to pretending to be a woman ("I'M DAPHNE!") and then to getting engaged to that old guy. That ending is iconic as fuck for a reason.
House of Games (1987): Yeah, I... didn't get this one. It's a grift movie where every beat is so goddamn telegraphed and predictable, the only tension is in just wondering how long it's going to take the lead to figure out what is so obviously happening all around her (the whole movie, it takes the whole movie)? But it's David Mamet, so people seem to think that's on purpose? I dunno, this didn't really do it for me, and the weird robot dialogue/line deliveries and trying to accept Joe Mantegna as a dreamy romantic lead certainly didn't help.
The Grifters (1990): NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE IT. There is a LOT going on in this movie, and most of it is plotless, deeply corny nonsense, but everyone is just SELLING it, and it's real weirdly compelling. It's got grifts, ghosts, gangsters, incest, a towel full of oranges, just SO MUCH. WATCH THIS RIDICULOUS MOVIE, IT SOMEHOW GOT NOMINATED FOR FOUR MAJOR OSCARS.
if... (1968): Interesting enough, and young Malcolm McDowell is always a treat, but a) I never really connected with it much, b) I never understood the point to the switches between colour and black/white, and c) the ending is REAL uncomfortable in modern contexts, which admittedly isn't really the UK's fault, but still (it ends with the protagonist perpetrating a mass casualty school shooting and I think it's meant to feel cathartic?), YIKES.
The Naked Prey (1965): Oh man, when this first started, I was preparing myself for something REAL racist, and this wound up being WAY LESS RACIST THAN EXPECTED! Like, at the end of the day, it's still very much 'ooga booga savage African tribe stalks the white man who manages to get the better of all their best hunters', but it actually seems to go out of its way to subvert all the usual tropes along the way? The scary savage evil cannibal tribe... actually seem like pretty cool people! They're portrayed as way more personable than the douchebag white colonialist assholes they kill, the titular naked prey was the only remotely likable white person while the pursuers all seem perfectly friendly, aside from their ruthless streak. Even though the movie never subtitles their dialogue to keep things more of a wordless affair, we still spend a decent amount of time just seeing them shoot the shit and react to things, mourning their dead and strategizing instead of being silent terminators! And then the whole 'respect' bit when he gets away at the end! And there's a random subplot about slavers kidnapping a peaceful village and it's horrifying, and the main character (who doesn't get a name either) bonds with an adorable child even though they don't have any languages in common, and man, I dunno! This movie was a trip!
Buck and the Preacher (1972): POITIERTHON 2020 RETURNS!!! This dragged a little in the middle, but the passion for the subject matter and Belafonte's fantastic performance as the "preacher" really shone through.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967): An hour and forty minutes of reliving Hannibal Buress' apple juice joke over and over again. 'Wait, why are they being so- oh right, the racism.' Kinda wish more had been made of the age gap, tbh.
A Raisin in the Sun (1961): This feels like the the pinnacle of the 'we filmed a play, here you go' genre, it's nicely claustrophobic and the performances are absolute fire. END MINI POITIERTHON.
Vanya on 42nd Street (1994): lol speaking of 'we filmed a play, here you go' OH MY GOD CHEKOV IS SO GODDAMN BORING YOU GUYS. The gimmicky production actually kind of manages to overcome that a bit here, but at the expense of immersion; I was always very aware that I was just watching (very good!) actors acting in a play, slapped on a screen. Always nice to see Wallace Shawn in a lead role, though.
Adaptation. (2002): Ridiculous, fun, and so self-indulgent. Chris Cooper has never been better. Love it.
Gas Food Lodging (1992): Hoo boy, a lot of this hit REAL close to home. Single mother trailer park life is kind of the same all over, isn't it? I just wish so much of it didn't revolve around their relationships with men above all else.
A Man for All Seasons (1966): This won a billion Oscars, so maybe I shouldn't have been quite so surprised, but man, I really dug this. The subject matter is just SO dry and deathly boring, I don't understand how I still found the whole thing so engrossing! This grabbed me from the beginning and didn't let go, even as I barely cared about any of the shit that was going on??? I still don't know if it was the cinematography, or the performances, or just the costumes, or WHAT. So weird!!
Jason and the Argonauts (1963): Rad as hell. This shit deserves to be in the MCU. RIP Honor Blackman, what a badass.
A Warm December (1973): PSYCH, POITIERTHON CONTINUES. Sickle cell anemia and made up African nations, just hitting all the black issues and tropes that he possibly can, here. This was kind of a weird movie, tonally? First I thought it was gonna be some taut spy thriller thing, but then nope, it's just a tragic romance with lots of random motorbike races!
Uptown Saturday Night (1974): So I think this is the first thing I've actually sat down and watched with Bill Cosby in it since... all that went down, and boy does it hang heavily over things. Once you get past the heavily-bearded rapist elephant in the room, this was actually pretty funny. OKAY, POITIERTHON OVER FOR REAL NOW.
La Nuit américaine (1973): Hoo boy, see above re: Adaptation. in terms of how movies about making movies are SUCH a special brand of self-indulgent. This was pretty fun and interesting in a 'how the sausage gets made' sort of way, but didn't really feel like it had much of anything to say beyond 'making movies is sooooooo haaaaaaaaard'. I guess it's a bit of a love letter to movies in general? But eh. Biggest takeaway here was that Truffaut was... kinda hot???