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Spring Season: Week 14
Agh, I keep forgetting I have new Dreamwidth passwords, this is the worst. And I still have so many to change!!
One of my low-key favourite co-workers said goodbye yesterday and it was very bittersweet. I will miss Body Shop Joe very much, he was one of only two people left from when I started back at the tire shop in 2013 (Ex-Con Coworker being the other, and he's stuck on the cross-shift so we can't even scream at each other about movies from six feet apart anymore), but I'm also very happy for him getting to retire and go back home for some well-deserved rest. Even once I moved over to service and we saw a lot less of each other, he would always stop by to say hi every time he was in the building, and he was also the guy who made me realize that people who get by without being fully fluent in the primary language of the place they live are some of the smartest people alive; his English was not great, but he never had trouble making us understand what he was saying, even when he struggled for vocabulary. Once, we were having a conversation and he offhandedly needed to refer to an abstract concept, one of those things that we all learn the meaning of as children but will still ruin your Pictionary game because it's super hard to explain out of context, and he just didn't have the word for it, so instead he spun me this elaborate metaphor, just off the top of his head, that instantly conveyed his meaning with perfect clarity. It was more impressive than any beautiful turn of phrase I've ever read in a book and that moment has always stuck with me. Also, he would absolutely destroy the dance floor at Christmas parties, so shout out to Jose Moreira, I hope you and your wife have a kickass retirement~
No work reads this week, as I made the horrible mistake of rediscovering Conceptis Puzzles, one of my biggest work time wasters of yore. My credit balance was still there after all these years! I'm doomed! Here's the movies I have watched so far this month!
Le quattro volte (2010): A thoughtful, fascinating meditation on rural Italian life and Pythagoras' concept of metempsychosis I'M SORRY I CAN'T KEEP THIS UP IT'S SO FUCKING BORING I WANTED TO DIE I JUST COULDN'T DO IT OH MY GOOOOOOOOOD. Maybe I'll give this another try one day when I'm in the right mood for slow cinema (those baby goats were v. cute), but it was just not happening for me.
Death Race 2000 (1975): I'm pretty sure Le quattro volte put me in a coma, and I needed something VERY DUMB and VERY LOUD to snap me out of it. This movie is an old favourite, and I love that it's streaming on the Criterion Channel of all fucking places. I also love the conflicting gender politics in it: they never make a big deal out of the sport being completely co-ed, with two of the five racers being women. And because the navigator is always of the opposing gender as the driver (cuz sex), at one point in the movie (after Nero and Cleopatra die and Matilda kills Jane's navigator), women outnumber men on the road and it's never even addressed and it's so much cooler than how most of these stupid movies only have one or two token ladies to stand around and bang the leads. Of course, it still has a naked near-catfight in the process of passing the Bechdel Test, and killing women is still worth more points than killing men, so it's no Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in terms of secret feminist masterpieces, but I still love it a whole lot.
Neighbours (1952): A little NFB is always good for the soul.
Would You Look at Her (2017): SCRAPPY MACEDONIAN BABY LESBIAN SMASHES THE PATRIARCHY, WHAT A JOY.
Sergeant York (1941): Oh man, this is SO long and trite and corny. The first half is cornball religious nonsense, and the second half is my least favourite kind of WWI film (the rah-rah WWII propaganda kind), but Gary Cooper can 'aw shucks' his way out of pretty much anything, even being a conscientious-observer-turned-war-hero-killing-machine (NO MORAL CONFLICTS HERE, HE GAVE A LITTLE SPEECH ABOUT IT, IT'S ALL TOTALLY FINE, DON'T THINK TOO HARD ABOUT IT AMERICA JUST KEEP FIGHTING PLEASE), so I didn't hate it.
La Voie lactée (1969): I can't express what a breath of fresh air it is to watch a weird allegorical religious movie and have a couple of characters constantly going "boy, that was weird, huh?" I didn't realize Buñuel could be so fun? Really dug the 'just a regular dude who walks like a dork and takes grooming advice from his mom and also does miracles' portrayal of Jesus. This is the sort of movie I really wish I'd found when I was a little baby atheist. Kinda loved it.
Antonyms of Beauty (2013): I haven't seen the movie this is actually a follow-up to, but it was still very good, and I feel like I should probably be seeking out more things from African-American filmmakers at the moment? The rapid-fire cuts in the visuals got a little too Mekas-y at times, but only intermittently, and the whole thing was short enough that it didn't bother me too much.
Whirlpool (1934): So much more wholesome than I was expecting! It starts with carnies in an old-timey crime drama, then OOP TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER IT'S ACTUALLY ABOUT A DAUGHTER CONNECTING WITH HER LONG LOST DAD SURPRISE. It's a little weird at first, how physically affectionate Jean Arthur and Jack Holt get with each other, but only because society has made us weird about those things, it's actually very sweet how quickly they bond with each other and try to cram all those years of a lost relationship into a week. Nice subversions of tropes here, I love that her mom marries the judge who condemned her beloved first husband because... he's actually a really nice guy who totally dotes on them both and they also like him a lot and they're all really happy and that never changes! Ending made me tear up a li'l!
The Devil and Miss Jones (1941): I think I'm really falling in love with Jean Arthur a little! She's super great! Also this movie is just a long, pro-worker's-rights episode of Undercover Boss where the moral of the story is that rich people are petty, moronic weirdos and P.S. ACAB, it rules.
One of my low-key favourite co-workers said goodbye yesterday and it was very bittersweet. I will miss Body Shop Joe very much, he was one of only two people left from when I started back at the tire shop in 2013 (Ex-Con Coworker being the other, and he's stuck on the cross-shift so we can't even scream at each other about movies from six feet apart anymore), but I'm also very happy for him getting to retire and go back home for some well-deserved rest. Even once I moved over to service and we saw a lot less of each other, he would always stop by to say hi every time he was in the building, and he was also the guy who made me realize that people who get by without being fully fluent in the primary language of the place they live are some of the smartest people alive; his English was not great, but he never had trouble making us understand what he was saying, even when he struggled for vocabulary. Once, we were having a conversation and he offhandedly needed to refer to an abstract concept, one of those things that we all learn the meaning of as children but will still ruin your Pictionary game because it's super hard to explain out of context, and he just didn't have the word for it, so instead he spun me this elaborate metaphor, just off the top of his head, that instantly conveyed his meaning with perfect clarity. It was more impressive than any beautiful turn of phrase I've ever read in a book and that moment has always stuck with me. Also, he would absolutely destroy the dance floor at Christmas parties, so shout out to Jose Moreira, I hope you and your wife have a kickass retirement~
No work reads this week, as I made the horrible mistake of rediscovering Conceptis Puzzles, one of my biggest work time wasters of yore. My credit balance was still there after all these years! I'm doomed! Here's the movies I have watched so far this month!
Le quattro volte (2010): A thoughtful, fascinating meditation on rural Italian life and Pythagoras' concept of metempsychosis I'M SORRY I CAN'T KEEP THIS UP IT'S SO FUCKING BORING I WANTED TO DIE I JUST COULDN'T DO IT OH MY GOOOOOOOOOD. Maybe I'll give this another try one day when I'm in the right mood for slow cinema (those baby goats were v. cute), but it was just not happening for me.
Death Race 2000 (1975): I'm pretty sure Le quattro volte put me in a coma, and I needed something VERY DUMB and VERY LOUD to snap me out of it. This movie is an old favourite, and I love that it's streaming on the Criterion Channel of all fucking places. I also love the conflicting gender politics in it: they never make a big deal out of the sport being completely co-ed, with two of the five racers being women. And because the navigator is always of the opposing gender as the driver (cuz sex), at one point in the movie (after Nero and Cleopatra die and Matilda kills Jane's navigator), women outnumber men on the road and it's never even addressed and it's so much cooler than how most of these stupid movies only have one or two token ladies to stand around and bang the leads. Of course, it still has a naked near-catfight in the process of passing the Bechdel Test, and killing women is still worth more points than killing men, so it's no Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in terms of secret feminist masterpieces, but I still love it a whole lot.
Neighbours (1952): A little NFB is always good for the soul.
Would You Look at Her (2017): SCRAPPY MACEDONIAN BABY LESBIAN SMASHES THE PATRIARCHY, WHAT A JOY.
Sergeant York (1941): Oh man, this is SO long and trite and corny. The first half is cornball religious nonsense, and the second half is my least favourite kind of WWI film (the rah-rah WWII propaganda kind), but Gary Cooper can 'aw shucks' his way out of pretty much anything, even being a conscientious-observer-turned-war-hero-killing-machine (NO MORAL CONFLICTS HERE, HE GAVE A LITTLE SPEECH ABOUT IT, IT'S ALL TOTALLY FINE, DON'T THINK TOO HARD ABOUT IT AMERICA JUST KEEP FIGHTING PLEASE), so I didn't hate it.
La Voie lactée (1969): I can't express what a breath of fresh air it is to watch a weird allegorical religious movie and have a couple of characters constantly going "boy, that was weird, huh?" I didn't realize Buñuel could be so fun? Really dug the 'just a regular dude who walks like a dork and takes grooming advice from his mom and also does miracles' portrayal of Jesus. This is the sort of movie I really wish I'd found when I was a little baby atheist. Kinda loved it.
Antonyms of Beauty (2013): I haven't seen the movie this is actually a follow-up to, but it was still very good, and I feel like I should probably be seeking out more things from African-American filmmakers at the moment? The rapid-fire cuts in the visuals got a little too Mekas-y at times, but only intermittently, and the whole thing was short enough that it didn't bother me too much.
Whirlpool (1934): So much more wholesome than I was expecting! It starts with carnies in an old-timey crime drama, then OOP TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER IT'S ACTUALLY ABOUT A DAUGHTER CONNECTING WITH HER LONG LOST DAD SURPRISE. It's a little weird at first, how physically affectionate Jean Arthur and Jack Holt get with each other, but only because society has made us weird about those things, it's actually very sweet how quickly they bond with each other and try to cram all those years of a lost relationship into a week. Nice subversions of tropes here, I love that her mom marries the judge who condemned her beloved first husband because... he's actually a really nice guy who totally dotes on them both and they also like him a lot and they're all really happy and that never changes! Ending made me tear up a li'l!
The Devil and Miss Jones (1941): I think I'm really falling in love with Jean Arthur a little! She's super great! Also this movie is just a long, pro-worker's-rights episode of Undercover Boss where the moral of the story is that rich people are petty, moronic weirdos and P.S. ACAB, it rules.