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.

Spring into Cinema

Something about the change in weather has me watching more films. While everyone else has crawled out from their Winter holes to enjoy the warm sun, I've felt the pull to escape from the sun into cold, dark, digital pictures.

Every few months I've tried Filmstruck again. In the past, I just couldn't get a good stream from them. Part of it was/is surely my slow country DSL connection, but mostly Filmstruck was just not ready for release. Any time I'd try to watch something, I'd get buffering a couple times a minute. It was impossible to watch anything that way. Anyhow, this time the streaming is working well with hardly any issues. I'm going to trust that the connection problems have been solved. I'm signing up for the full year plan, boys. A year of Filmstruck. If I only watch an average of one film a week, that comes out to about $2 a movie, which is about what I was paying for a VHS rental in the 90s, so I think that I can live with that.

What have I watched so far?

Shorts
The Acquaintances of a Lonely John (Safdie, 2008)
The Burden (von Bahr, 2017)
The Marathon (Goulding, 1919)
Old Man (Shore, 2012)
We're Going to the Zoo (Safdie, 2006)

Features
Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969)
The In-Laws (Hiller, 1979)
The Man on the Eiffel Tower (Meredith, 1949)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Donen, 1954)
Thirst (Bergman, 1949)

That's 5 shorts and 5 features in less than two weeks. There's no way that I'll keep up this pace, but I am really enjoying watching movies right now. Easy Rider was a re-watch. The rest were new to me. The Man on the Eiffel Tower was the best of the lot and the only one that I think would make any sort of Top list (that's why we watch movies right, to put them on lists?). I'm thinking of doing a Brandon-style march through 1949, then writing about it. I can't access Brandon's old blog, but I think he wrote about 1949 at one point.

Here's my old '49 list from a few years back:

1949

1. Colorado Territory (Raoul Walsh)
2. Passport to Pimlico (Henry Cornelius)
3. The Set-Up (Robert Wise)
4. The Inspector General (Henry Koster)
5. Hellfire (R.G. Springsteen)
6. I Shot Jesse James (Samuel Fuller)
7.
8.
9. Border Incident (Anthony Mann)
10. Reign of Terror (Anthony Mann)

Mentions: A Run for Your Money (Charles Frend)

I don't remember anything about A Run for Your Money. I remember not liking the two Mann films. The Fuller Jesse James picture wasn't all that memorable either. Hellfire was a weird low budget c-western that I think was on NWI a while back. I remember liking it, but it hasn't stuck with me. I confess that I don't remember anything about The Inspector General. But the Top 3 for the year are still solid. All three of them made it on my Top 30 of the 40s list and even bigger, all three of them made it on my Top 100 list. Remember that great Top 100 project that we all finished? Yeah, me too.

So, back to The Man on the Eiffel Tower. It's pretty great, though I'm sure that what I love about it frustrates others. Laughton plays a wonderful version of Maigret, as the plot has him doing pretty much nothing to solve the crime beyond letting the criminal unravel and give himself up. The most climactic moment of conflict in the film involves a decision to back away and not confront the criminal. I found it all satisfying. This film is based on the first Maigret novel that I ever read, the novel that made me really love Simenon's Maigret books. Contrary to noir connoisseurs, I've hated every one of Simenon's non-Maigret crime novels that I've read, but the Maigret books are cozy fun. Lots of pipe smoking and beer drinking and a detective that loves his enemies in order to understand them. What's not to love?

GeMAYni Blahs.

How is TV Club going for everyone?

Cobra Kai actually had me excited for a couple of days. It fell into predictable patterns, but that's kinda what we want from 80s sports movies, right? A week ago, I felt like I was going to write a long, dumb post about Cobra Kai, what I really liked about it. I didn't write it. Now I won't write it because the moment is past and it turns out that I think Cobra Kai is pretty stupid. But it was stupid, highly binge-able fun for a couple of days. I was glad to watch it. My biggest gripe with the show is actually how "conservative" it is in its portrayal of high school life. The artificiality of American public school settings should not be normative for anyone. The entire system is an anomaly in the history of education. The Karate Kid tropes depend upon this social structure. True wisdom would be opting out of this system altogether rather than survival tactics of lunch room brawling.

Movies? Not so much.

Two days ago, I got out of work early and decided to see the first movie that was playing at Regal. I went to the 3:15pm showing of Deadpool 2. I could have waited another 15 minutes to see Solo, but I was impatient. I got there at 3:20 and seeing a movie that just started meant that I got to skip some of the 30 minutes of crappy previews.

I mostly hated the first Deadpool. Guess what? I mostly hated the second Deadpool. I almost walked out a few times in the first 30 minutes or so. Once the film hit its central X-Force section, though, I was entertained. I enjoyed the "lucky" Domino sequence in the middle of the film. All of the self-aware and crude humor? It fell flat for me. I rarely laughed. That said, I was amused by the live-electric-wires-up-the-butt gag. Finally, despite all of Deadpool's obvious pandering to the naughty crowd, the film ends up stealing heavily from the Christian tradition and insisting on self-sacrificial love over all. I don't think that the film overall is worth watching, there are too many fatal flaws to recommend it, but if someone is going to watch this stupid movie anyhow (and the box office suggests they are), well, I guess I'm okay with the final themes that hit hard at the end.

My only other theater experience was Gemini. I confess that my picks for the month weren't so good. No theaters were showing them for more than a week. Nobody cared. The truth is that I don't even care. Gemini has a slow build in which character relationships are built up, then a pretty decent "Wrong Man" middle, followed by a disappointing (and retrospectively obvious and stupid) resolution. It looks great. I think that where it failed for me is that I just don't care about L.A. or celebrity culture. The mystery wasn't so great and the cultural commentary was pretty weak.

At home....

The Blue Dahlia. It's got a few great lines. The fistfight at the safe house is better than any action staging/editing of any contemporary Hollywood film.

Thirst Street. The new Nathan Silver film. This is Silver's most ambitious film to date. I think that it's also where he loses me. There is a lot to like in the camerawork and in the acting, in the awkwardness of the story beats, but I think that in the end, it all feels too staged, too much of a performance piece to impress Silver's friends.

The Truman Show. This one has only grown in my estimation. It's better now than it was in '98. I don't even say that because I think that it is "profound" or "relevant," but only because it's still so effortless to watch, a joyous entertainment.

Isle of Never Here

I'm not feeling it, boys.

April didn't have me watching all that much. I'm grateful for Chris picking two films that got me out to the theater. I'll watch movies on my pocket device with the rest of the zombies, but my heart is in a dark room with expensive popcorn and flickering light.

I enjoyed both films, but I don't know that I have anything terribly insightful to say about either one.

Isle of Dogs is charming and good fun. The past couple of decades have given us a large number of family/children's movies. This one is right up there with the best of them. I find myself wanting to make a list...... maybe later.

You Were Never Really There is not a masterpiece. The flashbacks tarnished it for me. This might just be my pet peeve, but these flashbacks seemed like a cheap way to establish meaning in what was otherwise an expert exercise in playing with action tropes. The little girl at the center of it all also seemed more Macguffin than real person. But. But. The score more often than not won me over. The staging and editing are truly terrific. Throughout most of the film, the violence is seen indirectly, implied, or doesn't happen as expected. This is opposite of Refn's violence-as-orgasmic-release. It is violence as steady disruption of terrible reality, moments of focus that exist as blur. What worked for me, and the reason that I left the film feeling overall positive about it despite my complaints mentioned above, was the bold gamble at the end of the film, a moment of direct, fully revealed violence. That this moment comes with success is a lovely statement, maybe one of the truest revelations of mental illness that I've seen on the screen. All gestures are meaningless. It is a beautiful day. This moment is also a continued subtle commentary on the action hero saved through action, in which all is reconciled and restored. All is not reconciled and restored here. It is broken and fragile and it is riding despair..... and yet Ramsay does not end on the violent moment, but on a quiet moment of hope after. I respect that a lot.

------

It's been another slow watching month.

I saw The Apartment on TCM. Eh, it's okay.

I re-watched Dead Poets Society. Eh, it's okay.

I watched some stupid late night shows. I fell asleep to the beginning of a couple of movies.

I watched the first episode of the new Lost in Space and thought it was stupid.

That's it. Lame.

-------

It's my turn to pick for May.

Here are my two picks:

Gemini
Lu Over the Wall

Probably neither one will make it to Regal, but they're both coming to Cinemapolis. I'm hoping to see them both on the same day as a double feature. These two films are by two of the most exciting directors working today. I don't want to miss them.

Crap Car

I watched Cop Car on March 24th.

Then, I forgot to write about it.

I don't have much to say.

Overall, I think that the movie is stupid, but maybe also close to great.

One single sequence from the movie can demonstrate why I think it is stupid.

The sheriff is burying a body in the middle of nowhere.

The kids start up his car.

But the sheriff does not hear the car start. Maybe I'm too used to driving cars with loud exhausts to understand how quiet vehicles are now. It just seemed weird to me that he wouldn't hear a car start and drive off when he was just over the next hill.

I also disliked the kids cursing.

With a few adjustments, including cleaning up the language, slightly taming the violence (and there isn't much of it; the threat of violence and implied violence is more present than actual violence/gore), and tightening up the logic a bit, I could see this being a noir masterpiece. I kept imagining it shot in b&w by John Alton, starring Robert Mitchum. Bacon is no Mitchum, but he does give me a Mitchum vibe in this.

The kids being kids in a world gone bad is the reason this movie sometimes approaches greatness. I just think that it indulges its vices and falls short.

...always act from love.

"My weight is my love; by it am I borne wherever I am borne." -Augustine

I've been thinking about Good Time for 4 days now.

I don't even know that I can write out what I want to write out. I don't know how to do it. Kinda spoilerish paragraph below.

I was immediately drawn in by Safdie's performance as Nick. The opening of the film, through Nick's arrest and prison beatdown, held my attention like very little else has in the past year. Then, Nick is removed from the story and we follow Pattinson as Connie. As this middle portion meandered, I found myself increasingly irritated by its spiraling into action/crime mode, until the truly understated climax of that section, powerful because of its refusal to be a big moment, shifting attention from the capture to a contingent death, stressing the odd beat of fate. Then, the film shifts back to Nick, completing the frame, once again catching me off guard with my defenses lowered. I had heard the Iggy Pop already while going through the Pitchfork 100. Eh, whatever. But in the moment of the film, watching that oh-so-subtly powerful final scene, and then unexpectedly hearing that song as commentary over all that had gone before, I was wrecked and ruined in the best way, defenses down, crying over a movie. Catharsis, right?

Love My Way - Disordered

These are thy gifts; they are good, for thou in thy goodness has made them.
Nothing in them is from us, save for sin when, neglectful of order,
We fix our love on the creature, instead of on thee, the Creator. 
(Augustine, City of God, XV.22)

“Let it be understood that I am a very prejudiced man. ‘Prejudiced’ means simply working from prejudgements, from previously acquired information.” -R.A. Lafferty

Disclaimer: I am prejudiced. I judge current information from previously established and accepted information. I have certain pre-judgments and pre-suppositions. This does not mean that my positions are irrational or uncharitable. Quite the opposite.

Likewise, you too are prejudiced and hold presuppositions, whether you have examined them or not.

I am ready to admit it. I don't know about you.

For the sake of this post, here is some of my own relevant previously acquired information:

Sex is a gift from God. We are male and female.

Sex is primarily procreative. It is fruitful. Its primary (though not exclusive) purpose is children.

Sexual activity outside of marriage is always a sin. There's even a fancy name for it: Fornication.

Marriage is by definition between a man and a woman. This has been understood pretty much universally for all of recorded history.

So, all homosexual sex is fornication. But, just to be clear, so is all heterosexual sex outside of marriage. Fornication. Sin. So is buggering a sheep or whatever your preference may be. I do believe that there are degrees of disorder, that buggering a sheep is worse than buggering a dude is worse than buggering a prostitute, etc, but all are fundamentally disordered expressions of sexuality.

Our current culture has rejected all of this. Sex is divorced from its purpose. It has nothing to do with new life. We do all that we can to suppress this truth, through propaganda, pills, rubber sheaths, and chemical acids. If new life does occur, we have ways of legally destroying that new life in an act of cruel violence. Scientifically, medically, the fetus is a human life. The difference between you and it is one of degrees, not one of kind. This is murder. We call it choice. Whatever it takes to have sex free from telos.

The popular opinion today is the opposite of what I've stated above. I believe that this popular opinion is fundamentally nihilistic and anti-nature, anti-life. It is irrational and inconsistent. It is quite simply ugly. It is folly.

Sex is a shackle of nature. You may have male bits or female bits, but that does not make you male or female and does not determine what your bits are for.

Sex is primarily self-expressive and designed for a moment of brute pleasure. It does not matter who or what you are penetrating as long as everyone feels good.

Non-consensual sex is the only sexual sin.

Marriage is by definition whatever the hell we say it is. It's a societal construct, a legal fiction, designed primarily to recognize feelings and not to protect a structural bond for the good of society.

We have an abundance of pornography. This is ostensibly what men want. Beyond naked women, most pornography today features men with hard erections, being men. Anal sex and oral sex are common. No possibility of new life. Men ejaculate everywhere but into a vagina. So it goes. The men who watch this do the same. They service themselves while watching other unfruitful conquests. Men watching other men while touching themselves is at the root of most pornography. Most pornography is the celebration of the penis. The only thing nearly as popular is watching women pleasure themselves with no man around at all. (Please correct me if my understanding of contemporary pornography is wrong; my understanding is based on Hollywood perversions and secondhand accounts. Maybe I'm wrong and all pornography is mild long shot missionary position.)

Into this context, we hear a statement like, "Call me by your name and I will call you by my name."

If that's not as fuck-all masturbatory as possible, I don't know what is. Call me by your name. I will call you by my name. I am fucking myself. You are fucking yourself. Mutual masturbation. This is love? No.

[as an aside: I'm using strong language for emphasis, because we already live in an "R/X-rated" world of discourse, as evidenced by this film. I'll be very happy to return to more civilized language when we return to more civilized films]

The title of the film alone condemns itself. And yet no one sees this. What the hell is wrong with us?

Hell.

During the first sexual encounter between Elio and Oliver, the camera pans from their bed to out the window to a fruit tree. This is a damnable lie, equating their experience with any sort of fruit. Homosexual sex by definition is fruitless. That said, I do think that the symbolism is elsewhere, that of the apricot. A short season. Something that is delicious while it lasts, but cannot last. (but this too is problematic; the film celebrates this short-term embrace as something good. even the discarded girl comes back at the end to say that all is right with her. all affairs are good in this film. all sex is good. eat as many apricots as you can. The season is short. No one is hurt by this. It is nothing but a positive experience.)

Which does bring me to appreciating the film. As much as I disagree strongly with its final message, I do think that it is a skillful work. It communicates the joys and pains of fleeting romances. These are real. If I think that the film focuses on the joys over the pains, it doesn't change the fact that the film contains both. The film does capture a moment in time. I even think that it's fairly fair in its portrayal. Others see the Elio-Oliver romance as something mutual and consensual. I tend to see it as an act of predatory grooming and naive embrace from a boy who has no friends and no life. Oliver's actions are self-seeking. Elio's infatuation is a pathetic puppy dog desire. I actually think that my interpretation of the Elio obsession as dangerously negative is better supported from the text of the film, but I think that the film itself wants to suggest that the romance is a positive for all involved.

The fruit trees are a constant. So is the "shape of water" and it is interesting to watch how water features in this film. There is strong symbolism at work that is reinforced visually and verbally. There are some interesting things happening in the visual construction of the film.

I disagree strongly with Brandon that there is any Rohmer connection. That's wrong. I do think that there is a shallow, surface similarity. I get why he said it. There is philosophical talk. And the rural setting of Italy is sometimes similar visually to the rural setting of France. But CMBYN doesn't ultimately care about its talk. The philosophical beats in the film are part of the music, punctuating the drama. The camera in CMBYN is much more active and fluid, always in motion, than Rohmer's. In Rohmer, the talk is given time to develop. Talk is important. In CMBYM, the talk is not ultimately important. It is a signifier to situate the characters, a kind of shorthand. It almost always advances or comments upon the plot. It has a dynamic quaility, a forward momentum that Rohmer is uninterested in. CMBYN is ultimately didactic (even if subtly so) in a way that Rohmer never is. Also, I'd be willing to bet that CMBYN has three times as many cuts as any single Rohmer film.

Following that, the musicality of CMBYN is one of its strengths and weaknesses. The score (and diegetic sound) is always in service of the plot. It is not a traditional Hollywood manipulative score, but I have not encountered such a non-traditional traditionally manipulative score like this since Under the Skin. It is not what you expect, masking the fact that it is always giving strong emotional cues.

Eh, I do think that this is a dangerous film. It's probably not anywhere near as dangerous as that execrable piece of filth, The Shape of Water. CMBYN can at least be respected because it explores a very particular and real experience. The Shape of Water is worse because it aspires to be a fairy tale that works in universals, boldly attempting to shape the hearts of its viewers through story and metaphor.

What is wrong about CMBYN is not that it explores desire. Desire should be explored. Even disordered desire should be explored. There is a real sense in which all men desire other men. Sexually. Because we are sexed. We don't do anything apart from our sex. If we recognize something attractive in other men, we recognize it sexually. It is how this is done and expressed that is at issue.

All good things can be disordered.

Love can be disordered.

Sex can be disordered.

Any system that says that there is no possibility of disorder and all is permitted is insane. We are currently navigating the insane.

I view CMBYN as an example of disordered desire, disordered love, disordered sexuality. It seems to present itself as an instance of fully recognized good, something too often suppressed which is nonetheless beautiful. It blames a stifling culture and lack of acceptance. In the end, I actually think that the film portrays the emptiness and fruitlessness of pederasty and homosexuality. But I understand that others will think that the frustrations of the ending are simply the forced consensus of a culture which still cannot tolerate such high expressions of "love" as two guys bonking.

Speaking of two guys bonking, we can be assured that no anal sex happened, since there are always shots of the two of them getting on bikes the next day after their encounters. Things feel good.

This is classic pederasty, the ancient Greek and Roman kind. An older man grooming a younger man. The preferred form of sex was intercrural. The film does from the very beginning connect itself to classical civilization. Pederasty was a very real part of this culture. If you were a young boy of privilege, you hoped for an older man to demonstrate his manhood between your thighs. High culture.

This "review" has already spiraled out of control. I felt the need for a "Christian Sexual Ethics 101" above because my response to the film does not make sense without it. I know that you all disagree with my position. So it goes. Am I intolerant? Yes. Do I have some sort of phobia? I don't think so. Am I hateful? Absolutely not.

I believe that the Christian account of human sexuality is the best explanation of human sexuality and provides a framework for human sexuality to flourish in rightly ordered relationships. Without it, relationships fall into wreck and ruin. Disorder reigns. If you believe that there are no such things as rightly ordered relationships, then of course you will disagree with me. But I hope that you'll be charitable toward me and at least entertain the possibility that I am correct. And that if I am correct, then our culture is facing a sexual crisis and CMBYN is simply one small symptomatic expression of a widespread dis-ease.

"How then, according to reason, ought man to live?  We all certainly desire to live happily; and there is no human being but assents to this statement almost before it is made.  But the title happy cannot, in my opinion, belong either to him who has not what he loves, whatever it may be, or to him who has what he loves if it is hurtful or to him who does not love what he has, although it is good in perfection.  For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture, and one who has got what is not desirable is cheated, and one who does not seek for what is worth seeking for is diseased.  Now in all these cases the mind cannot but be unhappy, and happiness and unhappiness cannot reside at the same time in one man; so in none of these cases can the man be happy." -Augustine


------

I watched CMBYN in two parts. About 40 minutes early in the morning, then finishing the rest in the evening. During the first 40 minutes, I took notes on my laptop while watching. I'm including them here below because otherwise I guess I'd just delete them. I did not take any notes on the rest of the film. And the funny thing is that I didn't even look at these notes when I wrote the above. But just paying closer attention and noting things did affect what I wrote.

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Opening credits. Photos of statuary link the film to classical art. Stocatto piano piece, punctuated with passion. Modern elements slowly overlayed over classical elements.

Summer 1983.
Girl on bed. bare chested boy

somewhere in northern italy

already too much intercutting to be anything like Rohmer, brando.

Armie Hammer arrives. Seen from above. Disorienting. camera moving, moving.

Hammer in bed within 5 minutes of opening.

listening to music on headphones while storm rages outside. indicating outside forces breaking his calm. bell rings. called to dinner. wakes up Hammer. Hammer stays in bed. In Elio's "old room." which he has now completely taken over.

Hammer descends into light, refreshed, dressed in white. out back w/ professor. son. mother. wants to open a "local bank account"

local trees. local fruit.

Attention to star of David necklace.

transition. on bicycles. two riding into town.

what does one do around here? boredom.
Jewish? both Jewish. odd jew out.

read books. transcribe music. swim at the river. sounds fun.

alright buddy. thanks for the help. power dynamics. first touch. grooming going on.

back at house. piano raucous. stimulating work discussions. Elio observant.

Arabic to Italian.  Latin from Greek. Etymology. Playful intellect. Plenty of cross cutting. reaction shots. testing. responses.

two walking into town again. into bar. younger observing older. older permitting younger. younger joining closer.

girls. observing volley ball. sun. minimal clothing. sexuality. judgment. Elio given water. Oliver swoops in and grabs it instead. More grooming. Touch. Touch. Touch. Making things acceptable by bringing a girl in. Easing the transition.

bathroom. shaving. Elio feeling like a man who needs to shave.

dinner party. sparkling wine. Elio stepping up, mocking Oliver before he arrives. grow to like him or grow to hate him.  always oriented toward him.

inside. tv.  nightcaps. sleepy. boredom. hints that Elio is drunk. also that he may be hanging around waiting for Oliver. plays piano. showtunish. goes to bed. undresses. restless.

new morning. fruit trees. oliver returns. out all night. elio awakens. touches himself. oliver walks in. what are you doing? reading. how come you're not with everyone else? allergies. me too. maybe we have the same one. why don't you and I go swimming.  naked butts. swim suits.

swimming together. what are you doing? oliver's continued question to elio. prodding. prodding. leaves when elio won't play his what are you thinking game.

elio playing guitar. olver: sounds nice. more games. inside to piano. elio plays. music is important. lizt playing bach. play inside the thing played outside. elio in control but taking cues from oliver. brezzoni playing lizt playing back. playful. gives way to playing original. young bach.

in bed. scribbling notes. leaving notes. communicating

old man bringing fish. the shape of water.

shot of swimming hole. two back at hole. lounging around. philosophy talk. Heidegger. probably important. goes by quickly. "kindest thing anybody has said to me." more grooming.

party. mixed sex. relationship talk. oliver conquering female while elio observes.

80s touches. love my way.

elio joins the dance. picks a girl and swims with her. girl recognizes that she is second or third choice.  swimming previously associated with oliver exclusively.

morning post-game talk. something dug up out of the water.

girl comes by for oliver. not elio. triangle. he's good-looking, no? oliver shows elio how it's done. boys talk girls. almost wearing the same shirt. stripes up. stripes across. oliver invited up to front seat. triangle with dad as well as girl.

at digging site. piano. mystery. at beach. finds arm. part of statue. ship. statue. gift from lover. bring up statue OUT OF WATER. penis on statue.

dad would like to go for a swim. the three go out in the water together.

get home. elio runs out. gets on bicycle. dad gets oliver to go out for drink.

waking up again. elio. hesitant piano notes. piano theme develops slowly.

elio finds cosmic fragments. letter inside - "meaning of river flowing" in oliver's voice. again, water. Heraclitus' famous problem.

Call Me by Your Cop Car

I still haven't seen either March pick. Thanks a lot, Mike O’D.

Since my last post, I’ve watched:

Ocean’s 11 and Logan Lucky. It turns out that I kinda hate Soderbergh’s takes on the heist film. Both movies play more like over-the-top Mission:Impossible fantasy than any sort of plausible heist. These are no Rififi or Asphalt Jungle. I was thinking about it, that maybe there have not been any great heist films recently. Then I remembered the Breaking Bad episode “Dead Freight” and a few other solid episodes. Still ridiculous and implausible if you think about it too much, but Breaking Bad always worked at a slower pace and made the criminal escapades believable, anchored in a heightened realism.

I gave up on Ocean’s 12 after 20 minutes.

Brawl in Cell Block 99 somehow still succeeds as thrillingly violent pulp entertainment in spite of featuring the most blatant Mary Sue protagonist I’ve seen in a while. Which I guess just might be part of the genre trappings.

Dirty is a grimy low-budget crooked cop movie from 2005 that no one needs to ever watch. It’s stupid, but almost willfully so, to the point which makes you almost kind of like it for being so stupid.

I want to re-watch Chris Rock’s new special, Tamborine. It is evidence of a performer working at the top of his game. He makes it look effortless. I’ve always liked Rock and really began to respect him after Good Hair. Tamborine is mature Rock. He’s still crass and vulgar, but beneath the surface is sadness and regret, a grasping at repentance and penance that is quite striking. In a surprising way, Tamborine might be the most conservative movie of the year, a call to treasure and conserve the things in our lives that really matter, clinging to those you love instead of chasing worthless distractions.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is an action remake of The Breakfast Club. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting that. I don't know what else to write about it besides that sometimes a man just needs to sit in the dark eating popcorn and candy. This movie provided me an opportunity to do that and for that I am grateful.

TV Club?

Not much. I did watch another episode of Future Man, then completely gave up on it. The joke wears thin.

I watched a few episodes of Rick & Morty. Then gave up on it.

Both shows were recommended by a couple of old friends. 

I do get the appeal of the shows. They’re adult, naughty twists on geek stuff we loved as children. I get it. But it just makes me sad. Geek culture becomes something so masturbatory that it ceases to appeal to me.

More than that, I hate that these shows are now what 11-year-olds are experiencing as their introduction to science fictional ideas. There are appealing gonzo ideas, but they’re smothered in casual cursing and sex jokes. I’d give a meh sigh except that it actually makes me angry that I know kids are watching these, because I would have been watching them. (I feel the same way about Black Mirror; I feel sorry for children raised on the dark cynicism of Charlie Brooker instead of the gentle humanism of Rod Serling.)

So much for my Hulu trial.

On Netflix Watch Instantly, I watched the new episode of the Dave Letterman show. George Clooney. It was fine. Better, I watched a YouTube clip of Letterman inducting Pearl Jam into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Finally, the usual odd miscellany of YouTube videos. The best of which was probably an hour long informal discussion about “the psychology of why we play.” I disagreed with plenty of it, but it was refreshing to hear an intelligent and fun conversation about games.

2017 Year in Review

My 2017 list: 

1) Phantom Thread
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)

 Honorable Mentions: Hostiles, It Comes at Night, The Beguiled, Get Out

Phantom Thread is the only film I care about out of the 33 films I've seen from the year.

The four honorable mentions get mentioned here because they're the non-Phantom Thread films that have stuck with me, that I keep thinking about. I want to re-watch these. There was something about each one of them that kept me from loving them, but they stood out just the same. They stuck.

Other than those, I thought the year was forgettable. I've forgotten most of what I've seen. I don't care to revisit any of it.

[Weird exception. I feel lukewarm toward The Last Jedi, defending it sometimes, panning it others. I don't have any serious urge to re-watch it, but I know I will, sooner or later. Sooner or later the new Star Wars fever will pass and I'll be able to not feel like a little boy. But it's still got me in its grip for now. When is Solo?]

That's not entirely true that nothing was memorable. There are images and sequences from some other films, even films that I actively disliked, that have also stuck. But I don't think I even care enough to make a list. Bleg. Meh.

The good news is that 2017 could still be a great year. There are at least a dozen films I missed that I "must see" before writing the year off. And there are probably dozens more that I don't know of, that I may never know of. What I do know is that I'm not impressed with the critical consensus or the popular consensus this year.

Still cranky. Peace.

Columbus is full of squares

I've been sympathizing with the deadline critics. Guys and gals who go see a movie that they don't particularly enjoy, then have to continue spending more time with the film in their heads until they get something out on the page for their editor.  Without that external threat of the deadline/editor or an external reward of a paycheck, it is nearly impossible to get myself to care about writing anything on The Square and Columbus.

It's not that either one is worthless. I do think that it'd be easier for me to interact with someone else's positive review than for me to make the effort right now to articulate my negatives.

The Square would be a better film if it were tighter, more focused. I found the first 40-50 minutes thrilling, watching a man feel more and more alive as he progresses from the feeling of saving a woman's life to the astonishment of being robbed to the odd risks of becoming a vigilante. 

The rest of the film, with its focus on the art world and on the protagonist's personal life, lets go of this focus and opens the film up, allowing it to sprawl. There's probably a second interesting film there, but I was annoyed by it. Someone else could write an interesting essay on children and generative activity, on self and selflessness. From the condom scene to the introduction of the daughters to the activity of the wrongly accused boy, it is clear that Ostlund is trying to say something. I just stopped caring.

Which is more than I can say for Columbus. I never found an "in" for Columbus. I couldn't stop caring because I never started caring. I think that my problems are mostly script problems. Every word seems heavy-handed. The scenario seems contrived. It's all so neat and tidy, just like the framing of the film. I'd actually have been happier to just watch a shorter cut of this film with just the Columbus architecture shots and some of the snippets of tour guide narration.

What else have I been watching?

Hostiles was really good.

I just wrote a paragraph, then deleted it. There are problems with Hostiles, but overall it's a richer film than almost anything else Hollywood gave us last year. I'll leave it at that.

Coco was good fun. As a movie, I thought it was great. My reservations have more to do with its glorification of real life Dia de Muertos practices, which I find dangerously demonic.

That's all of the films so far. As for TV Club, I've watched two episodes of Future Man on Hulu (I signed up for another month free trial). A friend recommended this one to me. It's raunchier than I would like and it caters too much to fanboy wish fulfillment, but it has made me laugh out loud a couple of times. I guess that's something.
[Update a day later: It's not worth it. I gave up after episode 3.]

Phantom Thread is better than a fart on the head

Chris, great post.

Here's a bit of interaction.

"I don't know if the Reynolds/Alma relationship is healthy or not."

If this were a real life dynamic, it'd be totally f*cked up. As a narrative metaphor, I do believe that the relationship is healthy, especially mutually healthy by the end of the film.

I might be wrong, but right now I'm convinced that Alma is a purely positive character as presented by PTA.

Reynolds is selfish and self-centered. He delights in Alma, but at his worst it is because she serves his interests. When she gets in the way of his petty habits (not his work) and preferences, he will not budge.  Her dinner party is a desperate attempt on her part to force a loving confrontation, one that has him face himself and face her instead of allowing him to turn in on himself, waiting for her to disappear so that he does not have to do any hard emotional work. It IS an ambush. But he's so hard-hearted that he needs an ambush.

It is for HIS good, not hers. From the moment that Alma enters the relationship, she begins to serve Reynolds. She is the true helper fit to be by his side in ruling his slice of dominion. She submits to him. She serves him. She works for him. In one of the best scenes of the movie, she takes up the cause of the House Woodcock in a ferocious public display. She is protecting the honor and name of her beloved, stripping those who would take that name and wear it in vain. She never asks anything of Reynolds that is not the best thing for him. All of her moves increase his happiness, especially the ones that hurt the most.

Brandon wrote, "my personal favorite scene was towards the end where the doctor was checking Reynolds and he darts a batshit look at Alma."

I'm not sure which shot Brandon is referencing, but there is a very late shot of Reynolds smiling crazily at Alma which I think is the one he means; I saw it as Reynolds totally in love with Alma, finally mutually bowing in love to her. She has (forcibly!) demonstrated that he NEEDS to slow down, that he needs to experience love and joy more than he needs success and control.

He's now happily eating his mushrooms bathed in butter and his life could not be better.

So, yes, the film brings up all of the relationship questions that Chris highlights, and I think that it's richer than any of us can grasp right now. It certainly deserves repeat views. I was going to see it again this weekend, but stupid Regal stopped showing it. I'm hoping that it hits the Cinema Saver before disappearing from theaters entirely.

January Recap

The Killing of a Sacred Deer
See post.

A Ghost Story
I felt like I was trapped inside this movie. Does that mean the movie was a success? I hated it.

The Mask of Zorro
It was an absolute blast to watch this with my kids. The only downside is that my boys keep thwacking me with swords now.

The Shape of Water
I hated this film for how safe and cozy it was. Real monsters are monstrous, not misunderstood wet dreams.

Lady Bird
It's a story of a young person acting shitty toward all of her loved ones, then learning life lessons that teach her who is really important in her life. This is the basic plot of every other 80s movie I grew up watching on HBO. It's fine, but really nothing special.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
Like Lady Bird, this one also sticks in old tropes, this time the tired asshole dad one. As such, it's mostly disposable as well, but I was carried along by Sandler and Stiller having fun with it.

Daddy's Home
I guess this was me checking in on mainstream comedy. There were some genuinely funny moments, but for me it worked best when it went all-out over-the-top stupid (motorcycle through the house, electric lines), which it only did a handful of times.

Downsizing
Downsizing was mostly frustrating to me. Overall, I liked it. But it lost me completely in the end with a moment that probably didn't bother too many others. The Magical Negro (um, I mean the Virtuous Vietnamese Voman) gives our hero a bible. He says, "but I can't read the words," to which she replies, "the words don't matter, remember ME," to which I coughed bullshit and stopped caring.

Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry
This documentary was mostly frustrating to me. It's too "lyrical" and "lovely" for me. There were all sorts of interesting ways to go with Berry's material. This film went none of them.

Justice League
So bad that I don't even know.

A Charlie Brown Christmas
I watched this again as a palate cleanser and a pick-me-up, I guess.

Finally, Hybrid TV/Movie Club.

Letterboxd includes each Black Mirror episode as a stand-alone movie, so I guess there's some case for that. I've long felt that the lines are blurred. I've always been chasing "motion pictures" wherever they're found and not "films," though I've also made it quite clear that the theater experience is my chief joy in this cinephilia business.  Anyhow, the series is definitely a work of an auteur, Charlie Brooker. Several obsessions recur. I want to like each episode more than I do. There's always an interesting idea, an interesting hook, but it rarely plays out in any meaningful way. I'd pick Serling over Brooker every time.
Episodes watched, ranked:
Nosedive
The Waldo Moment
White Bear
White Christmas
Be Right Back
(I had watched Season 1 last year. This is all Season 2 and into Season 3.)

That's it. No other TV viewing. I watched one episode of Hogan's Heroes, half an episode of Cheers, and some board game YouTube videos.

PTA Ranked

1) There Will Be Blood
2) Phantom Thread
3) The Master
4) Inherent Vice
5) Magnolia
6) Hard Eight
7) Punch-Drunk Love
8) Boogie Nights

a house that does not change is a dead house

"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." - Flannery O'Connor

The days move from good to good, from glory to glory. And they do so by undergoing darkness (sleep, death) before the next day arrives.....
What is important to see is that death and resurrection is never, in Biblical religion, a way of returning to how things used to be. It is not mere resuscitation. The resurrected life is always a transformation of the life before death. Each day of creation was more glorious than the one before. Adam was glorified when he was given a wife. And each new covenant in the bible is more glorious than the one before. This fact stands in opposition to all the "dying and rising" myths of paganism, which only assert the return of an endless cycle, and bring about no change in history. - James B. Jordan
 

Phantom Thread is a masterpiece. There Will Be Blood is the greatest American film of the aughts. Phantom Thread is the greatest American film of the twenty-teens. I think that makes Paul Thomas Anderson our greatest living film director.

I don't know how to write about the film without spoilers. I expect you guys to see the film soon. Read this or don't. I'm not getting into many specifics, but I do riff on what I think is the main theme, which is a minor spoiler. I went in completely blind (except having watched the trailer once whenever it first dropped several months ago) and was happy to do so.

Phantom Thread is a story of a man who breaks out of a cycle, who through a glorious death and resurrection (a series of them, in fact) learns to move from good to good, from glory to glory, whose life is transformed through the experience of death.

When we meet Reynolds, he has disposed of his most recent lover. It is strongly implied and easy to imagine that this incident is yet another in a long line of such. Reynolds is stuck in a pagan "dying and rising" myth. Every time he does the same thing. Every time he gets the same results.

When he meets Alma, there is no reason for us to expect anything except more of the same. Except maybe we do. Because PTA has inserted a framing device into the film that structures the film. The first shot of the film is of Alma, speaking to someone, speaking to us, of what it is like to love this man and be with this man. We suspect that she may be the one to break the cycle.

Reynolds is full of life. He is full of himself. Those who enter his circle as lovers submit themselves to him. Alma instead challenges him. She eventually kills him. Because this is what Reynolds needs. He needs to be emptied of his own life, to lose his self, to learn to live beyond himself. He needs to die to self.

And this is the film's genius. And the film's joy.

The film is slyly funny. Sometimes it's in the dialogue. Sometimes it's in the camera movement ("tracking shots are a question of morality") and/or the way that an actor is placed and moves in the frame.

In the end, we learn with Reynolds that life is fleeting, that we must live memento mori, that we are at our best when we keep death near. When we admit that we are weak. When we know that we are dust.

Some of us are harder hearted than others, insisting on a pretended strength.

May an Alma rise up, loving, kind, to kill us when we won't kill ourselves. Then we might experience New Life. Glory to greater glory, each day more glorious than the one before.

only a gentle yoke, o mediator

Well, I asked for it.

I confess that I wasn't expecting Brandon to pick a Lanthimos film.

It's amusing to me that I enjoyed this one more than Brandon. I still didn't like it, but I didn't hate it the way I hated Dogtooth (a film which I still respect in many ways) or shrug it off as stupid the way I did with the half-watched The Lobster or ignore it altogether like Alps.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Lanthimos immediately caught my attention, not with the beating heart (more on that soon), but with the opening notes over darkness that open the film. Lanthimos had appropriated a "sacred" choral work from the Christian tradition and was using it for his own nefarious purposes. My immediate response was anger and disgust, followed by curiosity--what would Lanthimos do with these very Christian themes of suffering and sacrifice coupled with glory and bliss?

As the apostle Paul puts it, "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Could it be possible that Yorgos Lanthimos was seriously exploring this "folly"?



Of course, it turns out that the answer is NO. Lanthimos is not so serious. And I can hardly fault him for that. I am sympathetic to what Brandon quotes him as saying. I can't do anything "straight-forward" either. I can't seem to ever be 100% serious about anything. There's always a joke, always an irony, always some wrinkle that queers things; strange-forward. There's always a second and third and fourth level of mental questionings and twistings, the always aware that is crippling. Does this mean that I (along with Yargos) am reduced to gimmick? It feels that way sometimes.

What really strikes me as impressive in Sacred Deer is the direction of the actors. Every line is delivered flat. Every action seems somehow inevitable, even feeling morally neutral because it all rings so loudly of fatalism.

Every film is an artifice. Artificial. Constructed. Not natural. One strength of this film is that it lays that artifice completely bare. We never get "lost in the narrative" the same way we might with a great pop film because we are always aware that the narrative is completely in control of the narrator. It is in this anti-realism that Lanthimos is most successfully close to his ancient Greek fathers. Bresson is often brought up for his use of actors-as-models. Lanthimos' intended expression is different than Bresson, but the method seems to be similar. By stripping his actors of personality and emotional affect, Lanthimos does achieve something not quite the same but close to the effect of a mask, which of course it was always common for actors to wear on a stage. Actors should be masked. The stage should be fantastic and not realist. It is only us moderns who fail to understand this.

You will guide your models according to your rules, with them letting you act in them, and you letting them act in you. -Robert Bresson

Back to the "heart" of the film. As I've already mentioned, the film opens in darkness accompanied by the sounds and words of "Christ hovering on the cross," bringing to mind a crucified king ruling mysteriously from this position, revealing in this bizarre action the central truth of all creation.

We're immediately given a "hovering" shot, a top-down view of a beating heart. The perspective we are given is godlike, both observing life but also so clearly exhibiting a power over life and death.

The next shot is of a doctor disrobing, literally removing the robes of his office. In this shot, coupled with the last, we understand that the role of doctor is a priestly role. When the doctor is acting in his liturgical role (performing his service) he is given a trust and holds a responsibility. He is a minister of life and death.

This disrobing is practically just a shot of a surgeon finished with his surgery, but because of this film being what it is, freighted with symbols, the shot also carries much more resonance. The film begins with a "priest" who has in some sense been "defrocked." He is no longer qualified for the office.

The next scene involves this doctor and another talking about wristwatches. The camera distances itself. Our defrocked doctor talks of buying a new watch. He has been wearing the same watch for many years, operating under the same time. He now feels that he needs a new watch, a new time. It is highly significant then that this new time does not represent his own change. As soon as he purchases this new watch (establishing a new time), he hands it over to the young boy Martin, clearly indicating that it is now Martin's time, that what will now happen proceeds from Martin and is under the control of Martin.

Let's do a silly bit of namesplaining.

Steven - crown, garland

Martin - of Mars, warlike

Anna - gracious, full of grace

Then the generic diminuatives of Kim and Bob, probably meaning:

Kim - precious

Bob - bright fame

The family surname Murphy = sea-warrior or sea-battler, establishing them as Irish, yes (and therefore connecting them to a world of folk spirits and magic commonplace), but also suggesting the turbulence of the specific combat they are engaged in in the film, never sure, always shifting like the sea.

Now, I don't want to make too much of the names, but surely they are no accident and are not random. Martin being Mars being Ares being pretty much a male counterpart to Artemis makes sense. Besides Artemis' sacred deer, the snake was sacred to her as it was to Ares.

Steven, the medical professional operates under the symbol of the upraised snake, a symbol he profanes when he dares to operate as priest of his guild while under the influence of strange spirits.

Brandon makes light of the doctor's drinking. But depending on the temple cult, being drunk on the job is a death penalty offense. Even stripping the priest aspect of the job that I have been stressing, we should all agree that a surgeon performing a procedure after having a couple of drinks (I imagine double bourbon in this case, and that "a couple" is most likely the understatement of a chronic abuser) is a form of criminally negligent homicide.

In the film, Steven's guilt is established. And yet he is never repentant. He makes excuses about his drinking behavior and puts the blame off on another (a simple accident of nature, the possible misjudment of his co-worker). He never once takes responsibility. He insists that his crown is still in place.

Martin insists on responsibility. But he insists on mediation, a sacrificial substitute. That just as Steven has killed someone special to Martin (I think that the father-killing is secondary to the betrayal of the medical office; that's my current read of the film), so Mars insists on the killing of something special to Steven.

At no point does Steven offer up himself. It doesn't even seem to cross his mind. He first fights against the idea of killing one of his family, but he finally gives in. Skipping over a lot, in the end an acceptable sacrifice to atone for his sin has been made and he can resume his life unstained.

There are some Christian themes in this, but what is remarkable is how ruggedly, insistently Hellenistic the film is. To whatever extent an audience rejects this film, it rejects Greek philosophy and Greek religion, and it does so because of the Morning of Christ's Nativity. The Killing of a Sacred Deer turns out to be a Christmas movie after all. Huh.

https://youtu.be/E8Ot-KPVZVE

Back to the artifice. Lanthimos introduces an element of dread, this terrible fatalism which comes from the capricious will of the gods. A god (Martin, whodathunk?) is offended and a human must bow before the will of this god. Resistance is futile. The will of the god will be achieved regardless.

As dread events begin in the film, we want to call bullshit. Screw you, Lanthimos. The guy has a choice. Something can be done. Fight it. Fight. THIS IS ALL ONLY HAPPENING JUSTBECAUSE YOU SAY IT IS, NOT BECAUSE IT IS NATURAL. IT IS BULLSHIT. IT IS A BETRAYAL OF OUR EXPECTATIONS. STOP IT.

And yet it never stops. It gets worse. And finally we come to the fated conclusion, the god is satisfied, and life can move on.

The film ends with Bach's St John Passion. And I'm not sure if it's a twisted irony or a desperate prayer. Or most likely both...

O Lord, our lord.

It is an impressive piece of filmmaking. Writing all of this has had me re-evaluating it even further, grudgingly convincing myself that I like this one after all.

Lanthimos reminds me of von Trier. Both are tortured provocateurs trying to communicate with audiences who no longer feel anything. Both are working so obviously in the Shadow of the Cross, haunted and hounded by a violent grace, severe mercies; they try to account for these peculiar glories amid a grimy world, a world that has stripped away all of their tools for doing so-- they work on the edges of an artistic culture which has already given up on meaning, which has no basis for anything. I can only sympathize with their struggles even when they result in cinematic tantrums and childish outbursts of violent creativity, sometimes hurting themselves as they lash out.

Go figure. Happy 2018. Film Club is dead. Long live Film Club.