Midsommar Spoilers

Here's something that I wrote for the BGG Film Lovers Guild. Almost all of the time I spend online these days is time spent on BGG. I started a blog there and have been writing a lot about games. The Film Guild is somewhat active and has some great guys in it. I'm re-posting these rambling thoughts here because it looks like at least Brandon and Jeff are attempting to resurrect the CR5FC blogs. I  don't have any patience anymore for social media or news sites or the whole Internet, but I do miss the blogging days, having a tiny corner of the Internet that was truly personal and also had depth to it, a place in which one could argue at length, but all argument was centered in love and respect for one's conversation partners. That's the Internet done right, and we did it right for a brief while. Anyhow, here are some first reactions to Midsommar (with companion reactions to My Brilliant Career), full of spoilers, so don't read any of this if you don't want to be spoiled.

I went in as blind as I could. I hadn't watched any trailer. I had seen the poster. I had skim-read the interview that I linked above. I had seen Hereditary and so had huge expectations. But I've so far avoided all reviews and any other interviews or whatever. I'll probably deep dive into the commentary over the next couple of days, but first I'll offer up some of my initial "gut-level" reactions here.

All spoilers from here on out.

I'm somewhere between Jonathan and Matt in my appreciation for this film.

Way too long and just pretty boring? I don't know. 

The weird thing is that after the initial set-up, it was pretty obvious to me that our heroine was going to go down the path that she did, finding satisfaction in a new family, and that everyone else was going to die. 

I'm usually not all that great at guessing plot developments and endings. The fact that it was telegraphed here has me thinking that Aster was intentional in not caring about any sort of surprise. Either that, or I'm giving him too much credit, and this whole thing is inept.

So, it was all obvious. And it probably was too long. But I was never bored. If nothing else, Florence Pugh was always interesting to watch, and she was often in the frame. 

It probably was too long. I like Jonathan's comment above about an even longer cut being potentially more interesting. Each scene did add to the whole and the pacing never slogged, but I found myself repeatedly thinking that I'd already gotten the point and was ready for something crazy. What's worse is that I found myself thinking that I was already done with all of this. I have no desire to re-watch (though I may have already accidentally committed to see it again with a friend next weekend if it's still playing around here) and don't see it becoming a favorite in any way.

I unintentionally saw this as a double feature with Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career. I hadn't seen a movie in a while so watched MBC on Criterion Channel last night, then finished it this morning. This afternoon, I had time to see Midsommar, so decided to go see it. (3:20pm showing on a Saturday afternoon opening week, me and 3 other people in the theater).

So, My Brilliant Career and Midsommar are crashing around into each other in my mind right now.

As of right now, I believe that MBC is by far the better film. It's definitely a film that I'd like to re-watch, a film that delighted me. It's a Very Good film, but I also found it tremendously unsatisfying (and it is designed to be purposely so) in its conclusion. I won't spoil it too badly, but the conclusion is an anti-Comedy turn to stubborn Pride of Self. It is in praise of individual choice at the expense of lovers, family, community, all others.

Midsommar, on the other hand, in its perverse way, is a celebration of found community. The American male friends are shallow assholes, happy to satisfy their own desires. Our heroine is lost and in pain, struggling in the aftermath of her sister's terrible, selfish, final decision, all family lost. She yearns for an understanding lover, for family to fall back on, for a close-knit community. The way that these various storylines play out reflect a sort of horror logic judgment, in which everyone gets what is coming to them.

As an aside, answering Simon's question about "torture-porny" elements, I think that the film is actually fairly mild in the violence aspects, with most of it occurring off-screen (besides the cliff jumps; and it should be noted that the film is comfortable with its excess of gore in these moments). The film does become pornographic in its final "climactic" impregnation ritual scene, but Aster frames and edits this sequence in such a way that it's never erotic or titillating, but always awkward and uncomfortable. 

What's really lacking for me is the straight-up horror, the feeling of queasiness and dis-ease. A lot of the film feels like it's going through the motions. The suicides are pretty matter-of-fact. The other deaths are largely off-screen. The cult's actions seem pretty inevitable. We don't dread things so much as expect them. Nothing in this film scared me or made me feel any sort of emotional terror, which seems like the worst thing that anyone could say about any horror film.

Finally, I'm a little bit uncomfortable with Aster's use of mental retardation and physical deformity. It's true that these things make people uncomfortable. I almost feel like Aster is using them as a cheat, a shorthand way to get easy reactions of fear and disgust caused by the Other. But I have extensive experience with the mentally retarded, the developmentally disabled, and with individuals who have deformities. These individuals do not need further fear and disgust. They do not need any reminder that they are "not normal." Often, these persons evidence love and genuine goodwill in the face of adversity and disadvantage. But someone who looks different is strange and invokes fear and disgust. In Aster's current film, these few roles don't seem to serve any purpose beyond this obvious one, invoking fear and disgust, with these characters having no further real life to them at all. 

February 2017 Top 100

TSPDT #997 - Husbands and Wives (Allen, 1992)

Stars: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Sydney Pollack
Director: Woody Allen
Writers: Woody Allen
Release Date: 19 August 1992
IMDB Synopsis: When their best friends announce that they're separating, a professor and his wife discover the faults in their own marriage.

TSPDT #997
My progress: 3/1000

First Time
Some time in the mid-90s?

Format
DVD

What I Think
I hate relationship Woody Allen. I want more existential angst crime genre Woody Allen.

It's really hard for me to care about "intellectuals" stressing out about fidelity, infidelity, and everything in between. Allen always starts from the position that happy monogamy is an impossibility, then he comes to the conclusion that happy monogamy is an impossibility. There is no argument. There is no development of theme. There is only a series of hijinx and a winking nod followed by resignation. Meh.

Additional Notes/Stats
I don't care.

My Meaningless Star Rating 
2 out of 5 stars.

The Horror of October Horror Viewing - Sailors on the Starless Sea

October seems like a long time ago already.

This past October, I decided once again to fake it 'til I make it as a horror fan.

Here's what I watched, with some of my comments originally posted on the BGG Slashing Through Cinema 4 geeklist.

Copying and pasting from the Geeklist :

SAILORS ON THE STARLESS SEA

Step 1: Add a geeklist item to this list

Done! (I ran a session of Sailors on the Starless Sea a couple of weeks ago. It's slapstick fun when playing with old buddies, but the basic adventure plot is straight-out dark fantasy horror.)

Step 2: Introduce yourself

This is my second year participating in Slashing Through October. Last year was great fun. I only managed to watch seven films (and one tv season) in 31 days, but I had great fun doing it.

I'm a lifelong cinephile. I love horror yet I am almost always disappointed by horror films (and horror novels/stories as well). I'm probably the worst person to participate in a gleeful celebration of horror films, since I dislike so many of them. Yet every October I'm suckered into watching horror films because it seems to be the thing to do. One of these Octobers I'll commit to watching nothing but romantic comedies (this is someone's idea of a horror marathon!) just to be contrary. But for right now, I'll join in on the horror lovefest with everyone else, especially this great community here on BGG.

The best thing that I've ever read in regards to horror is Chesterton's short essay, "The Nightmare". Read it here:
http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/nightmare.html

Step 3: Copy/Paste this form into your geeklist

Done! I will try to be good about updating (and commenting) daily as I watch more films. My goal for this year is to beat my 7 films watched last year. 8 films in 2018 is my goal!

Pre-October Warm-up
September 30th: mother! (2017, d.Darren Aronofsky), Beyond the Gates (2016, d.Jackson Stewart)

Slashing Through October!
October 1st:

October 2nd:
The Monster Squad (1987, d.Fred Dekker)  ***
Demon Seed (1977, d.Donald Cammell)  ***1/2

October 3rd:
Oculus (2013, d.Mike Flanagan) ***1/2
Are We Not Cats (2016, d.Xander Robin) ***

October 4th:

October 5th:
Revenge (2017, d.Coralie Fargeat) **

October 6th:

October 7th:
The Evil Dead (1981, d.Sam Raimi)  **

October 8th:

October 9th:
Psycho (1960, d.Alfred Hitchcock) ****

October 10th:
October 11th:
October 12th:
October 13th:
October 14th:
October 15th:
October 16th:
October 17th:
October 18th:
October 19th:

October 20th:
Happy Death Day (2017, d.Christopher B. Landon) ***

October 21st:
October 22nd:

October 23rd:
Wake in Fright (1971, d. Ted Kotcheff) ***

October 24th:
October 25th:

October 26th: The Haunting of Hill House 1&2.

October 27th:
October 28th:
October 29th:
October 30th:
October 31st:

Rating scale is pretty simple and completely subjective:
* = Hated It
** = Didn't Like It
*** = Liked It
**** = Really Liked It
***** = Loved It
I'm fairly generous with 3-stars if I liked something, but 4s and 5s are for special movies. If a film is a 5, it means that it's one of my all-time favorites. If it's a 4, it means that it has impressed me and that I want to spend more time with it. If it's a 3 and 1/2 (like Demon Seed and Oculus above), it means that I liked it enough that I'd re-watch it to explore it further.. If it's a 3, it means that I liked it, but that I don't think that I'll get anything out of watching it again. Anything less than a 3 means that something about the film actively irritated me or worse.


My 3D:

Decade: Probably the 1950s. I actually can't name all that many horror films from the decade that I love, so this will be controversial, but I'll name Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place as my horror pick from 1950. It's a noir melodrama, but its exploration of trust and truth and anger and human relations has all of what I am personally looking for in any psychological horror film (which are usually more satisfying to me than jump scare thrillers).

Director: Again, I'll cheat. Allen Baron directed one great film, maybe my favorite film, Blast of Silence. It's maybe the final true noir film (and maybe that's what I'm arguing right now with these picks, that noir is my horror genre, the film space in which I most clearly see the horror of life reflected on film). Baron's film is also a great Christmas film, so I recommend that you watch it now and then watch it again on or around Christmas.

Denizen: And one final cheat. I'll name The Room from Tarkovsky's Stalker. The Room is the "denizen" of The Zone, which is perhaps some sort of alien outpost in our world (and by alien, I don't necessarily mean extraterrestrial). This room purportedly has the power to fulfill one's truest desire. But are you sure that you know what your most true desire is? Scary stuff.


September 30th: mother! (2017, d.Darren Aronofsky)
Basic plot: Mother loves Him. Him loves Him.
Seen Before? N
Recommend? N

I don't know if horror fans would want to claim mother! or not. It could be shelved under horror. Or a legitimate case could be made for black comedy. Or domestic drama. Or biopic maybe.

I hated it. I'm all for directors following their personal visions. I've just never been aboard any train that Aronofsky has been conducting. mother! is his most self-indulgent film yet, a sort of winking, knowing nod of the head to smile at and wave away his creative trespasses. Bleh. I found most of it boring, then found the end completely frustrating in a bad way, not in a good way, like a silly episode of Black Mirror that tries to mean a lot, but is mostly caught up in the same immaturity that it seeks to expose.

September 30th: Beyond the Gates (2016, d.Jackson Stewart)
Basic plot: Adult brothers play an 80s VHS horror board game to save their father's soul.
Seen Before? N
Recommend? N

I had about as much fun watching this film as I ever did playing VHS board games. Which is not very much. But that's a little too unkind. The premise is great and the movie is perfectly watchable. It hits the right notes and knows that it is silly and slight. I'd have happily paid $2 to rent a VHS copy of this one back in the day.

October 2nd: The Monster Squad (1987, d.Fred Dekker)

Basic plot: 80s kids vs. all the monsters.

Seen Before? N

Recommend? Y

Like Bob Pony above, I hadn't seen this one before (or if I had, it just wasn't memorable to me). I liked it more than Bob did, but I don't disagree with his take on the film. "No scares, lots of dumb goofiness." Yep. But there is still something charming to me about 80s dumb goofiness. I'm sure someone somewhere has written a great dissertation on 80s film kids. There's something utterly unique about the era. The kids of the 80s grew up too fast with no bearings but pop culture. And the films of the 80s reflect this, with kids who are simultaneously innocent and knowing, foul-mouthed and good-hearted, vulnerable yet aching for something more. The Monster Squad isn't the best example of this (I'd point toward something like a double feature of Return to Oz and River's Edge as the edge of "children's horror" in the 80s), but it is goofy fun. I'm probably an old fart, but I prefer a world in which kids can run around as they please and make plans to save the world from monsters in their treehouse fort. But I also think that there's a danger beyond the goofiness, that those of us who grew up watching pop culture which was self-referentially interacting with pop culture ended up in a sort of media trap, in which Hollywood is our chief cultural heritage. We don't know the deep myths of our ancestors, but we know the shallow ones reflected in the funhouse mirror. And we sure know that we want to buy Monster Squad action figures!

Surprisingly, there was no merchandise push for this film. See this post here: http://brandedinthe80s.com/tag/monster-squad-toys

Eh, sorry that what was meant to be a couple of sentences on goofiness turned into a rambling mini-rant. If Monster Squad can get me riled up, just wait until I tackle Hereditary next! (that's the plan anyhow, but I might watch something older first; I'm not sure yet.)

October 2nd: Demon Seed (1977, d.Donald Cammell)

Basic plot: Google AI uses your Smart House features to manufacture synthetic sperm in your basement.

Seen Before? N

Recommend? Y

I was just in the right frame of mind for this one. I giggled a few times at some of the silliness, but mostly I thought that it still works as an expression of the fear of technological progress apart from moral progress. If you can find a way into the spirit of this one without your MST3K filters turning on, you'll find something worth watching. Its presentation of "Smart" computer automation turned against its users is worth thinking about even if the Rational Computer Rapist For The Good Of The World plot is distasteful and icky. And, well, even if you can't get to that space to enjoy any serious part of this film, at least you'll still get to see a killer wheelchair with mounted laser.

October 3rd: Oculus (2013, d.Mike Flanagan)

Basic plot: An old mirror is the greatest serial killer of all time.

Seen Before? N

Recommend? Y

I went into this with very low expectations and I was more than pleasantly surprised. Oculus is compelling in the way of the best thrillers. I didn't want to look away. The intercutting worked well and ratcheted up the tension. I was really satisfied by the end.

October 3rd: Are We Not Cats (2016, d.Xander Robin)

Basic plot: A dropout drops in on a girl because he sees that she shares his fetish.

Seen Before? N

Recommend? Y

I'm trying really hard to keep the "recommend" either a straight yes or a straight no. But really, all of the above recommendations should be qualified, and this one the most so.

I think that Are We Not Cats is best seen with no knowledge about it at all. Just go in blind. 

It's too bad that that sort of blind watch is usually impossible. You already know too much about Are We Not Cats by me telling you not to read anything more about it. So it goes.

October 5th: Revenge (2017, d.Coralie Fargeat)

Basic plot: A young woman is raped. She gets revenge.

Seen Before? N

Recommend? N

Caveat: I almost always hate revenge movies, so it's no surprise that I'd hate one titled Revenge.

This is a pretty basic revenge flick, following the rape-and-revenge exploitation horror template. 

I only watched it because it's getting such great reviews and because it's being touted as something special. Sentences like Lemire's "one of the most impressive feats of all is the way Fargeat subverts and co-opts the male gaze, turning it into something that’s both playful and fierce" can be found in many reviews of the film. Meh. I don't buy it. I don't have time right now to go into details since I really should be working, but there is nothing here that changes the rape-and-revenge empowerment formula (fantasy).

[more comments on Revenge]

The style is a little too slick for me (pun maybe intended since there's the equivalent of a blood slip n' slide in the film), but Fargeat is definitely talented. 

I haven't watched anything new yet so I'm still thinking about Revenge.

I do give Fargeat credit for the way in which the rape is staged. I don't have all that much experience with this rape-and-revenge subgenre (I've seen I Spit On Your Grave and a couple of other 70s exploitation films), but in my experience, the rape is all too often hypersexualized (it is, quite frankly, exploited for the purposes of titillation). 

In Revenge, the rape of Jen by Stan is initially interrupted by Dimitri. This is the key change in this film's presentation. Dimitri is invited to either come in and join the activity or get out (I forget exactly how it's phrased--probably an f-bomb in there). Dimitri has a moral choice. He can join in the evil or he can act to stop the evil. He chooses a third way, which is not at all a morally neutral way. He walks away. Intentionally or not, Fargeat associates the film audience with Dimitri. In order for the film to work, in order for us to get to all of that badass woman warrior desert combat stuff, we need for this bad thing to happen. We don't want to be associated with Stan. We don't participate directly. But we're all Dimitris, letting "the inevitable" happen because we can't disturb the rape film tropes. We dive into the swimming pool rationalizing our commitment to genre.

My biggest problem with the film is that it is this empowerment fantasy that absolutely requires the rape. And it's a complete fantasy. If this were a true horror film, I could accept everything up until the push off of the cliff. If this were a true horror film, the next scene wouldn't be her magically using her earbuds to get a lighter, it would be a scene of her stuck on the tree, bleeding out, followed by a scene of the men approaching her and shooting her in the head. That's enough, but it could be followed by playful scenes of the men burying her, then hunting together, then even returning home, with a final shot of Richard hugging and kissing his wife and child. A film titled "Revenge" that played out like that would be subversive and it would have something to say about the power dynamics between men and women. This film as it is just more or less follows the fantasy formula.

Finally, I'll just gripe that I hate the term "male gaze." It should be called "sleazoid gaze" or something. But I know what people are saying when they use the term. And I don't think that Fargeat's film does much with the idea. Fargeat just goes with one version of the male gaze that enjoys the Xena Warrior Princess "Strong Woman" archetype. Jen as warrior is Jen in underwear, which is how men (please read "sleazoids") want all of their women warriors, right? (as evidenced by the disparity in men and women's armor in fantasy games for instance?) 

And again, I'll just note that it's the rape that somehow gives this woman hunting/survival superpowers. It's part of the empowerment formula of these fantasy films that the woman must first be humiliated before she can kick ass. I find the very heart of this subgenre to be an offensive idea that always plays out in shallow ways, as if murdering men will somehow heal the terror of rape. These films always end with the murder and never explore the further psychological repercussions that the rape would have on any woman and that the revenge would have on any woman.

Anyhow, I gave the film two stars instead of one because of Fargeat's talent with staging and editing. Most of my problems are with the script and not with the execution of the film.

October 7th: The Evil Dead (1981, d.Sam Raimi)
Basic Plot: Kids stay at a cabin in the woods without any board games. Shenanigans ensue.
See Before? Y
Recommend? N

This is probably where I'm going to part company with many of you. This is my second time watching The Evil Dead..... and it just doesn't do anything for me. I think that the people who love this love the over-the-top inventiveness and enthusiasm of it, the gore and the effects. It's a grunge aesthetic and I think I get it, but the whole is less to me than the sum of each gory goof, even if some of the moments are indeed grand. It's all a bit too campy for me. And a bit too hectic, too frenetic. I've given it a couple of chances and I'm pretty much done with it.

October 9th: Psycho (1960, d.Alfred Hitchcock)

Basic plot: There's a vacancy at the Bates Motel.

Seen Before? Y

Recommend? Y

I probably don't need to spend any time convincing you all to see Psycho. Watch it if you haven't.

Psycho does bring up an interesting question. What is the difference between horror and thriller? Are they the same thing? Is there a distinction that matters? Is it an "I know it when I see it" sort of thing?

October 20th: Happy Death Day (2017, d.Christopher B. Landon)

Basic plot: A girl re-lives the same day repeatedly.

Seen Before? N

Recommend? Y

There are all sorts of reasons why I shouldn't like Happy Death Day, but this movie is so light and breezy and a little bit charming, that it's easy to get caught up in its cycle of mystery-solving and self-help betterment. Specifically as a horror film, I don't know that it has any real scares or uneasy moments. It falls more clearly into the youth sex comedy genre (how one lives in relation to all others is the core theme of HDD) developed through the 80s-->90s-->present.

October 23rd: Wake in Fright (1971, Ted Kotcheff)

Basic plot: An ungrateful jerk gets stuck in a town where everyone treats him like family and gives him free beer.

Seen before? N

Recommend? Y, just barely.

Wake in Fright was mostly unpleasant to watch. Our protagonist is a whiny ingrate. The Yabba men may all be alcoholic brutes, but at least they're generous ones. Still, their lifestyle isn't all that pleasant either, and watching debauchery after kangeroo hunt after debauchery isn't all that fun. But, dang, that kangeroo hunt and fight sequence is something fierce. I may not have loved this film, I may not even have liked the experience of watching it, but I'll remember it, and that's something special in a landscape of forgettable fare.

Ted Kotcheff directed First Blood!!!!

And Weekend at Bernie's, which I think was on HBO every single day in 1990. So maybe I've seen it a few times. 

Is Wake in Fright a horror film? I'd wager that there's more horror in the gambling scene alone than most horror films, but it's definitely not horror in the genre sense that creates certain expectations of slashing and screaming.

I watched two episodes of Haunting of Hill House. I'm withholding comment. I may watch more in the next few days.

October is over.

I only watched 9 horror films and 2 horror TV epiodes. 

Real life horror (illness and death) intruded on my time. 

But I probably wouldn't have watched that much more anyhow. I do regret that I never made it out to see any horror on the big screen. I did go to the local second-run theater a couple of weeks ago; I saw A Simple Favor, which was kinda a thriller comedy, not much horror--entertaining enough for $3. I didn't watch anything anywhere in the last week. Well, that's not entirely true. I half-watched Adam Sandler's comedy special while doing some cleaning/sorting last Tuesday. Not at all horror. 

I had meant to watch some more of Hill House, but never got to it. I wasn't all that captivated by the first two episodes, but I was impressed that it was obviously the work of an auteur. It felt like Oculus, which I had just watched. I think that even if I hadn't known that it was the same director, I would have wondered if it were. Flanagan is interesting. It's weird that Hill House, which should be its own thing, felt like a remake of Oculus. The thematic preoccupation with the "child is the father of the man" (to borrow from Wordsworth), which is reinforced through parallel intercutting of "past" and "present" events in the film's timeline, is a constant. I'm guessing now that this continues throughout the series. I'm intrigued, but I'm not sure that I'm actually intrigued enough to devote another 8 hours or so to it.

TSPDT #999 - Oasis (Lee, 2002)

Stars: Kyung-gu Sol, So-Ri Moon, Nae-sang Ahn
Director: Chang-dong Lee
Writer: Chang-dong Lee
Release Date: 9 August 2002

IMDB Synopsis: An irresponsible and childish ex-con befriends a girl with cerebral palsy and develops a progressively stronger bond with her.

TSPDT #999
My progress: 2/1000

First Time
This time.

Format
DVD

What I Think
I've spent most of my adult life working alongside persons with developmental and intellectual disabilities. I've got a pretty good "bullshit detector" when it comes to cinematic representations of such persons. Oasis smells right for most of its runtime. It falters quite severely near the end. Despite the flaw at the end, Oasis stands as a success. Both actors are convincingly real. The writing is significantly real. It's also lovely the way that the camera explores the two real characters at the center. There are also a handful of moments of cinematic magic, including the introduction of one of the characters. I find aspects of Oasis frustrating, but I especially found the end a mixed success. By the end of the film, the lovely relationship that has emerged in surprising but believable ways is put through a cruel enforced suffering. Everything about it feels strained and forced. It continues to work as narrative, especially one symbolic act, but it's clearly the story following an imposed structure.

Additional Notes/Stats

• Ebert: "There are fantasy scenes when Gong-Ju seems miraculously restored, and can move with grace and speak with eloquence. I am not sure if these moments are poetic, or somehow cruel." This.
• Still, Moon So-ri deserves all of the awards for her performance.
• This is a good review (w/spoilers): http://alexsheremet.com/lee-chang-dongs-oasis-2002-undoing-narrative/
• 
  
• 
  

My Meaningless Star Rating
3.5 out of 5 stars.

TSPDT #1000 - Sorcerer (Friedkin, 1977)

Stars: Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal
Director: William Friedkin
Writers: Walon Green (screenplay), Georges Arnaud (novel)
Release Date: 24 June 1977

IMDB Synopsis: Four unfortunate men from different parts of the globe agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across dangerous South American jungle.

TSPDT #1000
My progress: 1/1000

First Time
This time.

What I Think
Sorcerer is grubby and dirty and dangerous. Its pleasures are the vicarious pleasures of watching men act confidently as men, sure of their actions and ready to do whatever it takes regardless of risk. None of the main characters are moral men. Each one that we are introduced to has been involved in violent crime and deserves what is coming to them. Yet each one of them wants to survive and so Friedkin effectively creates in the viewer a desire for each to live. Even as we may frown on their criminal activity, we admire their nobility of spirit, a sort of regal disposition that allows them to live their lives as free men even as they are forced to hide in the jungle.

I'm often too hard on the 70s American scene, and there is plenty to hate in the rampant exploitation and overall lowering of moral standards that accompanied the film brats rise to power in Hollywood. But I've come to forgive them more than a little when I consider that they were operating in a world of bankrupt morality, hypocrisy, exploitation, etc, and were expressing themselves accordingly. Friedkin is no exception. Of all of his films that I've seen, this one is actually the most joyful, the one most brimming with life as it skirts death many times. Friedkin's film somehow gives me the same feeling that the Indiana Jones films gave me as a kid. There's a sense of high adventure to the film, but it's more adult. It's grimier. It's more dangerous, it's brutal and savage. Each set piece in the film is a high wire act. It's difficult for me to truly feel suspense/thrills at most Hollywood products. Sorcerer gave me the feels. Even when I knew that something would play out a certain way, the way it played out pleased me. Some of the action (trucks across bridges) seemed like Herzog-level of manly commitment to getting great shots.

Since watching the stupid horror movie Revenge a couple of weeks ago, I've been thinking about the "male gaze" (which I prefer to refer to as the "sleazoid gaze" in most ways in which it is used). One of my favorite moments in Sorcerer is a playful series of shots of a Coca-Cola advertisement poster and Scheider's character's response to that ad. It's obvious that the ad works perfectly, creating a desire for sex and soda, but there is also an undercurrent of sadness in being so far away from these sources of pleasure. It's a very earthy moment, which perfectly conveyed the feeling of exile and loneliness. Regardless of what else I am, I am a culturally conditioned American, and the sight of a well-proportioned woman in a bathing suit pointing at a bottle of coca-cola on the beach is ridiculously comforting. It is very easy for me to imagine how wonderful that image would be in a wasteland of testosterone and terror.

There's more to say, but, ya know, life and family over film chatting.

Finally, the Tangerine Dream score is so good.

Additional Notes/Stats

• I have not seen The Wages of Fear so can't compare the two.
• I'd love to just do a Roy Scheider marathon
• Andrew Sarris: "What Friedkin, with all his enormous resources, has managed to fabricate in "Sorcerer" is a visual and aural textbook on everything that is wrong with current movies."
• https://criticsroundup.com/film/sorcerer/
• Wow, critics were not impressed with this in '77. Things have changed now.

My Meaningless Star Rating
4 out of 5 stars.

I've watched a lot of movies in the last month.

I've logged them all on Letterboxd, but here's a quick rundown with a few fresh comments.

2018 films
A Quiet Place
Avengers: Infinity Franchise
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Zoe
Hannah Gadsby: Nanette
Chris Rock: Tamborine

2018 has been a bummer so far, but I was pleasantly surprised by A Quiet Place and Solo. I liked how blatantly stupid the whiteboards were in AQP. I liked the stupid humor in Solo. Once I started thinking of Solo as a kid's movie, I realized how much I would have enjoyed it as a 10-year-old, and I just let myself enjoy it as a little kid.

I hated Avengers and its meaningless goofer-hero plodding. I couldn't watch all of Zoe. I jumped around in it and gave up on it. Nanette is overrated. It's preachy and not so funny. Some of Gadsby's narration of her own story is pretty powerful, but also misguided. Tamborine held up to a second watch. Rock is obviously in pain because of terrible decisions that he has made. Yet he's still funny. That said, he's the one who should probably quit comedy. It's obviously too late to save his marriage, but maybe it's not too late to save himself from continued celebrated celebrity depravity.

Films w/ DeNiro
Taxi Driver
The King of Comedy
Heat
Casino
Jackie Brown

Taxi Driver would make it into my Top 100 if I put together a new list. I'm convinced that this is the best work of Scorsese, Schrader, and DeNiro. There are aspects of it that I still find problematic, but these are also aspects of America that I still find problematic.

The rest of these films are fine. The King of Comedy is funny, but slight. The rest of these were re-watches. The King of Comedy was new to me. Heat is as bloated as ever, but remains interesting to watch. Casino struck me as an experiment in voiceover narration and propulsive skim-narrative. It's pretty shallow, like Las Vegas.

I'm still not in the "Jackie Brown is Tarantino's greatest film" camp, but this re-watch almost convinced me. Everyone in this seems like they're having fun. Besides Taxi Driver, I think that this is the best of the De Niro performances that I've watched recently. It's fun to think of him coming off of the bravado of Heat and Casino and signing on for this understated role.

Ozon films
Sitcom
Criminal Lovers

I'm listing these here out of respect. Ozon is talented. Sitcom is silly trash, but Criminal Lovers is a complex fable that would be worth wrestling with if it weren't so depraved. I'm pretty sure that that's probably how I'll feel about even the best of the rest of Ozon, so I'm done exploring his work. (The only reason that I watched these is because MUBI is having an Ozon series; my MUBI subscription is up for renewal at the end of August. I'm probably going to cancel since I don't watch enough and they are significantly raising the cost this year. If Filmstruck added offline viewing, I wouldn't even be considering MUBI any longer).

Watched on Filmstruck since the last post.

Shorts
Begone Dull Care
Captain Kidd's Kids
Just Neighbors
Bumpin' Into Broadway
Billy Blazes, Esq. (this is a new favorite)
Hairat
A Gentle Night
Call of Cuteness

Features
Taxi Driver
Singin' in the Rain
Withnail & I (one of my friend Mike's favorite films)

There are at least half a dozen other films that I logged on Letterboxd, but I'm not going to reproduce them here. I don't even have it in me to rant about Cronenberg's Shivers or Altman's Images or Mann's Thief. These all have their defenders. Meh. I guess I don't have anything to say. Blech.