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Spring Season: Weeks 29/30
MONDAY ALREADY. It feels like this week has both been utterly interminable while also flying by? Much like 2020, I suppose! Have slept extra poorly this week for some reason, my eyes hurt MUCH more than usual, but I got to remember some pretty cool dreams out of the bargain, so I guess that's something.
Also a bad eating week! I can't stop myself! I finally hit my initial target weight, though, so I'm trying not to get too annoyed by it. I'm torn between just trying to maintain for a little while now that I'm here and just keeping going because who knows when/if I'll ever be able to get back this level of momentum and willpower again. Stopping RIGHT on a week when I happen to be struggling also feels like a bad precedent to set, but also, maybe the struggle is a sign that I should lean in and take a break? I don't know! We'll see how I feel during my week off, I guess, it's so hard to judge what my body needs when it's already not getting it, sleep-wise.
Gutted by film delays, have my space heater blasting but I'm still so cold, still waiting for our COVID numbers to drop back down, had to stage an intervention with my mother after finding out she's spent almost $3000 on phone games in the last 18 months, blah. Why was the lady from Alberta Health Services of all places the one with her mask pulled down today!!
I'm tired of being negative! Gonna leave this entry open until lunchtime or so and just add nice things as they come to me.
Movie roundup time! Alphabetical order this week to try and wrangle it into some semblance of order~
Themes for the period include WESTERN NOIR, Jane Fonda, Maurice Pialat, and lots of other random shit.
1009 (2013): A bunch of really by-the-numbers, artsy, nothing. Yes, yes, I get it, we all carry our painful memories around with us. The landscapes were really pretty, at least.
The Acquaintances of a Lonely John (2008): Odd and entertaining. Surprisingly sweet? Accidentally watched it after the sequel!
Alps (2011): Goddamn, does all the stuff about whether or not Prince is dead hit differently these days.
Arizona Dream (1993): I have no idea what the fuck this was, but Lili Taylor playing the accordion and smoking and kissing turtles should be its own sexuality.
Barbarella (1968): This movie has a spaceship covered in shag carpeting, a depressed angel, a sexual murder piano, an alien skunk dress, Marcel Marceau, and Claremont literally just lifted the character of Callisto from it wholesale, WHAT IS THERE NOT TO LOVE.
Blood on the Moon (1948): Nice and gritty, Mitchum cool as a cucumber throughout, what even was the plot?
California Suite (1978): My god, I could watch Jane Fonda and Alan Alda snipe at each other all damn day. And sorry, Dame Maggie, but the person who most deserved an Oscar for this was the actress who played Bunny for somehow not laughing during all the scenes of Matthau manhandling her unconscious body.
Come Back, Little Sheba (1952): Goddamn, this movie is SAD, and not even in a melodramatic, weepy sort of way, there's just this deep, aching sadness soaked into every single frame of this thing, even the ones that are perfectly pleasant, it permeates EVERYTHING. Shirley Booth being allowed to just look like a normal, older woman adds SO MUCH, especially opposite Burt fucking Lancaster (who does a good job of not SEEMING like he's that much younger than her), she's a goddamn force and made my soul hurt.
Dèmoni (1985): why edgar helicopter
The Devil (2012): I guess being numb to this stuff is worse, but oof.
Dogtooth (2009): I have a real fondness for things that seem like they're just being weird for weird's sake until everything comes together and actually it's all pretty straightforward after all? That's not easy to do! Even if this one gets a little too Flowers in the Attic for my tastes! Yorgos!
A Dry White Season (1989): This feels less over-the-top than it used to to me, possibly because the world is constantly in a state of getting more and more cartoonishly awful in what feel like similar ways??
A Farewell to Arms (1932): Maybe my favourite Borzage film that I've yet seen? Apparently even HE wasn't able to make Hemingway preachy! Love that pre-Code frankness about sex, there is a straight-up post-coital scene where Gary Cooper is just like 'oh shit, you were a virgin, huh???' Adolphe Menjou spends the entire movie calling him 'baby' and it's a deeply relatable performance.
Fuocoammare (2016): Has some important things to say, I just wish it seemed at all interested in getting around to saying them? It's like they started making a documentary about the refugee crisis and then just got distracted by this funny Italian kid, but didn't want to give him his own movie.
The Fits (2015): Kid-centric movies are always a hard sell for me, but this keeps everything juuuuust at arm's length enough that it really clicked. This was so good! Why don't all coming of age stories include gentle brushstrokes of body horror!!
Fuckkkyouuu (2016): Freaky shit!
Fun with Dick and Jane (1977): The first half of this is just godawful, endless fables of deeply unrelatable entitlement with bonus racism and homophobia and transphobia and classism for good measure (while sorta seeming like it's TRYING to be progressive and thoughtful about those things?). Once it finally gets to the crime stuff, it's a lot more fun, though. Also, I... did not know who the fuck George Segal is, apparently! I spent a truly embarrassing amount of time going "He looks like Jack from Just Shoot Me, is that him? I'm pretty sure it's him, yes, except from some angles he looks like the young dude from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woo-OH MY GOD."
The Future (2011): I was really expecting this to be way too hipster-twee quirkily-anxious aesthetic for me after the first few scenes, but it gets weirder and better the more it goes on, boring infidelity plot aside. Also the negative reviews are REALLY weirdly hostile, and I never want to just assume it's because a woman made it buuuuuuut... #justiceforpawpaw
The Game of Life (2015): A bunch of non-actors delivering moderately entertaining dialogue. Not bad! That one kid's school dance speech was the best.
Garfield's Halloween Adventure (1985): I WILL WATCH THIS 500 MORE TIMES BEFORE THE SEASON IS OVER.
Tacones lejanos (1991): Almodovar's typical mommy issues and gender shenanigans on parade. Also it kept treating things as big reveals that I had just assumed I was meant to infer all along?
Hollywood Shuffle (1987): Ho Cake! Hos got to eat, too!
John's Gone (2010): Can't quite say I got what they were going for here, but it was entertaining. Apparently it's a sequel? I've done it again.
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936): WHY IS THIS AN INSULT. HE IS THE SWEETEST, KINDEST, MOST THOUGHTFUL AND CARING AND HELPFUL AND GENEROUS LITTLE DORK AND HE MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS. Kinda weird that he calls his mom Dearest, though.
Lured (1947): UNDERCOVER DETECTIVE LUCILLE BALL, YES YES YES YES YES
Lust for Gold (1949): Extremely corny garbage until the flashback FINALLY kicks in, but the middle hour is a lot of fun. Every single person in this is a stone cold bastard and it rules.
Mad Hot Ballroom (2005): OH NOW THAT'S SOME GOOD GOOD WHOLESOME SHIT RIGHT THERE. DANCE, TINY CHILDREN, DANCE.
Man of the West (1958): Takes a little while to get going, but it's absolutely nasty once it does. Cooper kills it, it's like the dark mirror universe version of High Noon. So good.
Man with the Gun (1955): The noir connection is light here, but Mitchum's always good for straightforward western comfort food, if that's your thing (it is apparently my thing).
Many Thousands Gone (2015): I love grain. I love scratch. I love light leak. I don't love this.
The Naked Spur (1953): Straightforward little yarn, full of suspicion and betrayal and murder. Really dug this, right up until the very end, which felt deeply unsatisfying and overly sentimental, with a wholly unearned turn for Jimmy Stewart's character.
Police (1985): Kind of boring Gérard Depardieu cop drama? Stuff happens, performances are fine, everyone is corrupt, I guess this is neorealism? Not getting the hype over Pialat so far. ACAB in any language.
Puce Moment (1949): Really striking, if not much else.
Rancho Notorious (1952): This movie rules, I'm such a sucker for a leading lady allowed to be older than her love interests, and over-50 Dietrich fucks SO HARD here. The only problem is that 'chuck-a-luck' is a deeply goofy word, and they say it SO MANY TIMES.
Reely and Truly (2014): Eeeeeeeeeeeeeh. Maybe I just don't care about photography enough?
La règle de trois (2012): No English subs and one of the characters mumbles a lot, so I had to really pay attention to the dialogue, which only served to drive home how thoroughly uninteresting it all was.
Scream Greats, Vol. 2: Satanism and Witchcraft (1986): This is a direct-to-VHS documentary, it opens on an interview with the Warrens and just gets stupider from there, I love it.
The Sheltering Sky (1990): Beautiful to look at, tedious as fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I thought the scene where John Malkovich died was really good, and then he didn't actually die for another ten minutes.
Station West (1948): Less of a western/noir fusion, and more of a noir where they seemingly received the wrong costumes and sets and just ran with it?? Quick and dirty and a lot of fun.
Rester vertical (2016): "Jesus, what's with all of the close-up shots of her vagina, specifical- oh it's so that we can smash cut to footage of it getting tore open in childbirth and have ~contrast~, great, thanks a lot for that." I skipped that day in high school bio for a reason, ugh. Anyway, all the sexual fluidity aspects to this universe were neat? This is a weird one.
The Stranger (1946): "a nazi says what???" gotcha bitch
Taxi (2015): I love this movie. I want it to be eight hours long. I want it as a VR experience.
Transporter 2 (2005): OH, I forgot to tell you all that I've been writing this entry from early 2004, where I've been trapped ever since I heard Cells by The Servant in this movie and was physically SHUNTED THROUGH TIME. It was very scary, but it's so much nicer here! Hopefully this is all getting through okay!
Sous le soleil de Satan (1987): I want a version without the fucking interminable scenes of dialogue, I was SUPER into this movie, but every time the characters would launch into their endless diatribes about divine grace or whatever, all my investment just ground to a screeching halt until they finished and moved the fuck on.
Van Gogh (1991): A fantastic lead performance (I LOVE this guy's physicality) and some genuinely gorgeous shots, but it still took me three days to get through this. Sooooooo boooooooring, even if I liked the approach.
Vega (2014): I was kinda into this as a fun curiosity at first, then I read about the way it 'blurs the line between fiction and documentary filmmaking' and I realized they literally just set up a camera to film a mentally ill homeless woman and called it a day, and now it just seems gross.
The Violent Men (1955): A really nasty take on some pretty stock western tropes, so good. Just rips Ford, Robinson (and his big weird head), and Stanwyck straight out of those great Fritz Lang noirs and DUMPS them in Alabama. Would have been even better without the annoying, preachy daughter.
The Walking Hills (1949): Okay, now this is fun, a western that makes it noir by just... setting it in the present day (of 1949)! Great big ensemble cast all kept packed together in a brutally unforgiving setting, a ton of disparate character motivations at play and bouncing off each other in fun ways, and Josh White just killing it as the bluesy Greek chorus of the thing, I really dug it.
Wasp (2003): Really good, upsetting stuff, somewhat let down by some comically bad CGI at the very end.
Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble (1972): At the time, it just annoyed and bored me, but I hate this movie the more I think about it. It's just an unappealing piece of shit with zero redeeming qualities treating his much-younger (naturally) mistress like garbage for a little under two hours. That's it! That's the movie! And it's always described as this tragic 'dissolution of a relationship' drama, about two people so in love with each other who nevertheless just can't make it work, except... we never see that? All we see is him being awful and horrifically abusive (both verbally and physically)? We never see them happy, or get any inkling as to what she ever possibly saw in him in the first place (save some vague bit about how she used to 'love his letters'), he's just horrible the entire time and she cries a lot until she finally dumps him one last time and he moves on to bothering her parents and his wife, who all only enable his constant gross behaviour and just. Ugh. So of course I looked it up and it's meant to be autobiographical, I DON'T THINK I GIVE MUCH OF A SHIT ABOUT PIALAT, GUYS.
The Wickedest Witch (1989): It's a TV SPECIAL starring RUE MCLANAHAN and OFF-BRAND MUPPETS that only ever aired once and has never been released in any format! I love the internet!
Also a bad eating week! I can't stop myself! I finally hit my initial target weight, though, so I'm trying not to get too annoyed by it. I'm torn between just trying to maintain for a little while now that I'm here and just keeping going because who knows when/if I'll ever be able to get back this level of momentum and willpower again. Stopping RIGHT on a week when I happen to be struggling also feels like a bad precedent to set, but also, maybe the struggle is a sign that I should lean in and take a break? I don't know! We'll see how I feel during my week off, I guess, it's so hard to judge what my body needs when it's already not getting it, sleep-wise.
Gutted by film delays, have my space heater blasting but I'm still so cold, still waiting for our COVID numbers to drop back down, had to stage an intervention with my mother after finding out she's spent almost $3000 on phone games in the last 18 months, blah. Why was the lady from Alberta Health Services of all places the one with her mask pulled down today!!
I'm tired of being negative! Gonna leave this entry open until lunchtime or so and just add nice things as they come to me.
- Lower Decks' first proper Trek character cameo made me very happy.
- An older coworker spent like ten minutes extolling the virtues of Tuner Radio App, which he'd just discovered, and it was extremely wholesome real-life ASMR content.
- I made it up to the start of COVIDtimes in my AEW watch and everything is suddenly VERY weird, but I am loving the little peanut galleries of other wrestlers they have at the sidelines instead of audiences.
- Noodles. They're just good.
- Vin Diesel's HOT NEW SINGLE. Oh my god it's so bad. Oh my god I love everything about it (except listening to it).
- Escape This Podcast! I wanna do tabletop escape rooms now.
Movie roundup time! Alphabetical order this week to try and wrangle it into some semblance of order~
Themes for the period include WESTERN NOIR, Jane Fonda, Maurice Pialat, and lots of other random shit.
1009 (2013): A bunch of really by-the-numbers, artsy, nothing. Yes, yes, I get it, we all carry our painful memories around with us. The landscapes were really pretty, at least.
The Acquaintances of a Lonely John (2008): Odd and entertaining. Surprisingly sweet? Accidentally watched it after the sequel!
Alps (2011): Goddamn, does all the stuff about whether or not Prince is dead hit differently these days.
Arizona Dream (1993): I have no idea what the fuck this was, but Lili Taylor playing the accordion and smoking and kissing turtles should be its own sexuality.
Barbarella (1968): This movie has a spaceship covered in shag carpeting, a depressed angel, a sexual murder piano, an alien skunk dress, Marcel Marceau, and Claremont literally just lifted the character of Callisto from it wholesale, WHAT IS THERE NOT TO LOVE.
Blood on the Moon (1948): Nice and gritty, Mitchum cool as a cucumber throughout, what even was the plot?
California Suite (1978): My god, I could watch Jane Fonda and Alan Alda snipe at each other all damn day. And sorry, Dame Maggie, but the person who most deserved an Oscar for this was the actress who played Bunny for somehow not laughing during all the scenes of Matthau manhandling her unconscious body.
Come Back, Little Sheba (1952): Goddamn, this movie is SAD, and not even in a melodramatic, weepy sort of way, there's just this deep, aching sadness soaked into every single frame of this thing, even the ones that are perfectly pleasant, it permeates EVERYTHING. Shirley Booth being allowed to just look like a normal, older woman adds SO MUCH, especially opposite Burt fucking Lancaster (who does a good job of not SEEMING like he's that much younger than her), she's a goddamn force and made my soul hurt.
Dèmoni (1985): why edgar helicopter
The Devil (2012): I guess being numb to this stuff is worse, but oof.
Dogtooth (2009): I have a real fondness for things that seem like they're just being weird for weird's sake until everything comes together and actually it's all pretty straightforward after all? That's not easy to do! Even if this one gets a little too Flowers in the Attic for my tastes! Yorgos!
A Dry White Season (1989): This feels less over-the-top than it used to to me, possibly because the world is constantly in a state of getting more and more cartoonishly awful in what feel like similar ways??
A Farewell to Arms (1932): Maybe my favourite Borzage film that I've yet seen? Apparently even HE wasn't able to make Hemingway preachy! Love that pre-Code frankness about sex, there is a straight-up post-coital scene where Gary Cooper is just like 'oh shit, you were a virgin, huh???' Adolphe Menjou spends the entire movie calling him 'baby' and it's a deeply relatable performance.
Fuocoammare (2016): Has some important things to say, I just wish it seemed at all interested in getting around to saying them? It's like they started making a documentary about the refugee crisis and then just got distracted by this funny Italian kid, but didn't want to give him his own movie.
The Fits (2015): Kid-centric movies are always a hard sell for me, but this keeps everything juuuuust at arm's length enough that it really clicked. This was so good! Why don't all coming of age stories include gentle brushstrokes of body horror!!
Fuckkkyouuu (2016): Freaky shit!
Fun with Dick and Jane (1977): The first half of this is just godawful, endless fables of deeply unrelatable entitlement with bonus racism and homophobia and transphobia and classism for good measure (while sorta seeming like it's TRYING to be progressive and thoughtful about those things?). Once it finally gets to the crime stuff, it's a lot more fun, though. Also, I... did not know who the fuck George Segal is, apparently! I spent a truly embarrassing amount of time going "He looks like Jack from Just Shoot Me, is that him? I'm pretty sure it's him, yes, except from some angles he looks like the young dude from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woo-OH MY GOD."
The Future (2011): I was really expecting this to be way too hipster-twee quirkily-anxious aesthetic for me after the first few scenes, but it gets weirder and better the more it goes on, boring infidelity plot aside. Also the negative reviews are REALLY weirdly hostile, and I never want to just assume it's because a woman made it buuuuuuut... #justiceforpawpaw
The Game of Life (2015): A bunch of non-actors delivering moderately entertaining dialogue. Not bad! That one kid's school dance speech was the best.
Garfield's Halloween Adventure (1985): I WILL WATCH THIS 500 MORE TIMES BEFORE THE SEASON IS OVER.
Tacones lejanos (1991): Almodovar's typical mommy issues and gender shenanigans on parade. Also it kept treating things as big reveals that I had just assumed I was meant to infer all along?
Hollywood Shuffle (1987): Ho Cake! Hos got to eat, too!
John's Gone (2010): Can't quite say I got what they were going for here, but it was entertaining. Apparently it's a sequel? I've done it again.
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936): WHY IS THIS AN INSULT. HE IS THE SWEETEST, KINDEST, MOST THOUGHTFUL AND CARING AND HELPFUL AND GENEROUS LITTLE DORK AND HE MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS. Kinda weird that he calls his mom Dearest, though.
Lured (1947): UNDERCOVER DETECTIVE LUCILLE BALL, YES YES YES YES YES
Lust for Gold (1949): Extremely corny garbage until the flashback FINALLY kicks in, but the middle hour is a lot of fun. Every single person in this is a stone cold bastard and it rules.
Mad Hot Ballroom (2005): OH NOW THAT'S SOME GOOD GOOD WHOLESOME SHIT RIGHT THERE. DANCE, TINY CHILDREN, DANCE.
Man of the West (1958): Takes a little while to get going, but it's absolutely nasty once it does. Cooper kills it, it's like the dark mirror universe version of High Noon. So good.
Man with the Gun (1955): The noir connection is light here, but Mitchum's always good for straightforward western comfort food, if that's your thing (it is apparently my thing).
Many Thousands Gone (2015): I love grain. I love scratch. I love light leak. I don't love this.
The Naked Spur (1953): Straightforward little yarn, full of suspicion and betrayal and murder. Really dug this, right up until the very end, which felt deeply unsatisfying and overly sentimental, with a wholly unearned turn for Jimmy Stewart's character.
Police (1985): Kind of boring Gérard Depardieu cop drama? Stuff happens, performances are fine, everyone is corrupt, I guess this is neorealism? Not getting the hype over Pialat so far. ACAB in any language.
Puce Moment (1949): Really striking, if not much else.
Rancho Notorious (1952): This movie rules, I'm such a sucker for a leading lady allowed to be older than her love interests, and over-50 Dietrich fucks SO HARD here. The only problem is that 'chuck-a-luck' is a deeply goofy word, and they say it SO MANY TIMES.
Reely and Truly (2014): Eeeeeeeeeeeeeh. Maybe I just don't care about photography enough?
La règle de trois (2012): No English subs and one of the characters mumbles a lot, so I had to really pay attention to the dialogue, which only served to drive home how thoroughly uninteresting it all was.
Scream Greats, Vol. 2: Satanism and Witchcraft (1986): This is a direct-to-VHS documentary, it opens on an interview with the Warrens and just gets stupider from there, I love it.
The Sheltering Sky (1990): Beautiful to look at, tedious as fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I thought the scene where John Malkovich died was really good, and then he didn't actually die for another ten minutes.
Station West (1948): Less of a western/noir fusion, and more of a noir where they seemingly received the wrong costumes and sets and just ran with it?? Quick and dirty and a lot of fun.
Rester vertical (2016): "Jesus, what's with all of the close-up shots of her vagina, specifical- oh it's so that we can smash cut to footage of it getting tore open in childbirth and have ~contrast~, great, thanks a lot for that." I skipped that day in high school bio for a reason, ugh. Anyway, all the sexual fluidity aspects to this universe were neat? This is a weird one.
The Stranger (1946): "a nazi says what???" gotcha bitch
Taxi (2015): I love this movie. I want it to be eight hours long. I want it as a VR experience.
Transporter 2 (2005): OH, I forgot to tell you all that I've been writing this entry from early 2004, where I've been trapped ever since I heard Cells by The Servant in this movie and was physically SHUNTED THROUGH TIME. It was very scary, but it's so much nicer here! Hopefully this is all getting through okay!
Sous le soleil de Satan (1987): I want a version without the fucking interminable scenes of dialogue, I was SUPER into this movie, but every time the characters would launch into their endless diatribes about divine grace or whatever, all my investment just ground to a screeching halt until they finished and moved the fuck on.
Van Gogh (1991): A fantastic lead performance (I LOVE this guy's physicality) and some genuinely gorgeous shots, but it still took me three days to get through this. Sooooooo boooooooring, even if I liked the approach.
Vega (2014): I was kinda into this as a fun curiosity at first, then I read about the way it 'blurs the line between fiction and documentary filmmaking' and I realized they literally just set up a camera to film a mentally ill homeless woman and called it a day, and now it just seems gross.
The Violent Men (1955): A really nasty take on some pretty stock western tropes, so good. Just rips Ford, Robinson (and his big weird head), and Stanwyck straight out of those great Fritz Lang noirs and DUMPS them in Alabama. Would have been even better without the annoying, preachy daughter.
The Walking Hills (1949): Okay, now this is fun, a western that makes it noir by just... setting it in the present day (of 1949)! Great big ensemble cast all kept packed together in a brutally unforgiving setting, a ton of disparate character motivations at play and bouncing off each other in fun ways, and Josh White just killing it as the bluesy Greek chorus of the thing, I really dug it.
Wasp (2003): Really good, upsetting stuff, somewhat let down by some comically bad CGI at the very end.
Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble (1972): At the time, it just annoyed and bored me, but I hate this movie the more I think about it. It's just an unappealing piece of shit with zero redeeming qualities treating his much-younger (naturally) mistress like garbage for a little under two hours. That's it! That's the movie! And it's always described as this tragic 'dissolution of a relationship' drama, about two people so in love with each other who nevertheless just can't make it work, except... we never see that? All we see is him being awful and horrifically abusive (both verbally and physically)? We never see them happy, or get any inkling as to what she ever possibly saw in him in the first place (save some vague bit about how she used to 'love his letters'), he's just horrible the entire time and she cries a lot until she finally dumps him one last time and he moves on to bothering her parents and his wife, who all only enable his constant gross behaviour and just. Ugh. So of course I looked it up and it's meant to be autobiographical, I DON'T THINK I GIVE MUCH OF A SHIT ABOUT PIALAT, GUYS.
The Wickedest Witch (1989): It's a TV SPECIAL starring RUE MCLANAHAN and OFF-BRAND MUPPETS that only ever aired once and has never been released in any format! I love the internet!
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Noodles are just good. I haven't had noodles in forever, I should change this.
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which makes it sound like I don't like really weird shit, too, I DO, but this is just a real certain kind of satisfying, you know?
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