litbitch

Will I see Cadillac Records just because Adrien Brody is the sexiest man alive?

Yes.  Yes, I will.      

not at all what I was thinking about, but

it's really fucking slow at work & I'm icing the back of my right knee, which has been puffed up for weeks, and I came across this - The Visitor, a film by the guy who wrote and directed the gorgeous film The Station Agent and starring Richard Jenkins, who was so quirky and funny and natural and heartbreaking as the father on Six Feet Under.   Time to shell out more $ at the Lagoon.

It took a male Brazilian director to make a feminist thriller?

Watched The Constant Gardener last night, which has been languishing in the Netflix envelope for weeks.  Really impressive, on so many levels.  Creepy as Ralph Fiennes is (he just is - maybe it's the Nazi thing), he's wonderful in it - shy and geeky and confused and repressed and quietly, subtly fawning - truly a delicate, beautiful performance.   Weiss is flawless, too, but his performance is, perhaps because of the nature of the character, more nuanced.  I was also charmed by the marriage.  Despite this being an issue film, the relationship between them is based on something outside of the temporal issues of the day.  Tessa is not an ideologue, she is a smart and sympathetic human being trying to help people.  You see this the first time she is introduced, and she loves Justin independent of the fact that he is not actively involved in her cause, is even unwittingly tied to the people who are fighting against her. The Buddhist in me was touched by this.
As far as the story, what struck me beyond the politics and  unsurprizing evil corporation stuff was the reversal of traditional gender roles in the film.  She is putting herself in danger.  She is protecting him.  She asks him to marry her, and does so (affection aside) not for money, or security, or children, but to advance her career, or mission, as it were.  He is up nights waiting for her to come home.  She is the one whose love,  loyalty, and constancy are in question.  Plot aside, it is directed and performed in such a way that the occasional and necessary remarks from authorities about "the bitch" and "reigning her in" resonate only as a sign of the fear and violence of the moneyed class. and there is no question that Justin is going to ignore them, ignore them as if he didn't even understand what they were talking about, as if controlling his wife were beyond his frame of reference.  And please don't argue (or do; you'll just be proven sadly wrong) that he is the one driving the action in the film, that she gets killed off (this isn't giving anything away), so it is a male-centric story.  He spends the entire film trying to figure out what she already knew.  So a big yay for the rare feminist political thriller.

one caveat:

this is not an Oscar post

Decided to skip the Academy Awards (which generally bore me) and instead used my free (if ailing) night to actually see one of the nominated films, namely No Country for Old Men, before they all left the theatres.  Can't quite process my thoughts on that yet, other than I love me some Coen brothers and I love me some cowboys.  And I'll throw this in: their films, to me, say more about America than any other director's oeuvre.  This is based on nothing but instinct.  They've also proven their range.  This movie had almost none of the typical Coen shtick (shtick I love, but still shtick) - the cameo prophet, the angry fat man, etc.  It felt more like a John Sayles film, and I don't think that's just because it took place in Texas. There were issues being broached here: major, eternal and pertinent issues all under the surface of a tense, precise thriller.  Turns out I do have something to say about this.  And yet I feel like I've said nothing. This is one I'll have to see again.

I saw 5 movies in the theatres last year (No Country is not included in this list), which is nearly double my usual intake. The biggest disappointment was Juno. 

two favorite white guys: one dead, one alive

#1) Roy Scheider, who was one of my biggest childhood crushes, died today.  He starred in 2 of my all-time (let's say ... top 40?) movies: All That Jazz; and Jaws, Spielberg's best film.  You want to argue that one with me?  I would be more than happy to indulge you, foolish young grasshopper.

#2)Tom Waits. He's alive.  The Guthrie's doing a tribute performance/music thing called Warm Beer, Cold Women that ends this week.  Wednesday is the only night I can go, as my first free week this year (well, 3 free nights) has rapidly filled up with fringe lottery (tonight!) and a free Jeune Lune preview.  I'm going to try and rush tickets.  Anyone want to join me? 

You know, I used to be afraid of the water.

I can't imagine why.

pick your tragic brain injury! (unknown white male vs. 50 first dates)

I found Unknown White Male at my beautiful library a little while back.  I became obsessed with seeing this film when Allegra & I first saw the preview over a year ago.  If I remember, I blogged at length about my lifelong fascination with amnesia.  Ah, yes.  Here.  The documentary was quite good.  I do understand the skepticism that the people were too attractive for it to be real, but the guy lived in Manhattan and had money & was involved in the art scene, so... well, more believable than if he had been in bumfuck Kansas.  Not my concern anyway.  What I found so intriguing was how happy he seems to be in his new skin.

quote of the day

"I can't make love to a bush"
Lena Lamont; Singin in the Rain

memory

When I went to see TransAmerica a few weeks ago (not very good) I saw a preview for a new documentary called Unknown White Male, about a man with retrograde amnesia and his journey (I've come to hate that word) to get to know his life, and life in general.  Now that I have to see.  I've always had a thing for amnesia.  I don't know when I first heard about it, but when I was a young kid I used to convince myself that I had amnesia every time I bumped my head.  Except I complicated it (as I do most things).  Clearly I hadn't forgotten everything.  I was in the back seat of the car next to my sister; that was my mom driving; we lived in Chicago; I was 7 years old, etc.  I've always been better at logic than fantasy and I couldn't convince myself that those facts weren't there.  I could, however, convince myself that the memories I had were wrong, that amnesia had made me think that these things were true, but they were all lies; that I was being carted around by strangers that my addled brain had convinced me were family. 

It was a good way to pass the time on trips to grandma & Jack's house.

make em laugh

I've never been a big fan of musicals.  I love music, I love dance, I love theatre, I just don't like them cohabitating. The few musicals I will consitently admit to liking are those in which the singing and dancing scenes make sense - the Fosse films All That Jazz and Cabaret and the more recent Dancer in the Dark - pieces in which the singing and dancing is done because the people are, you know, singers and dancers, or in which the performances take place in dreams or fantasies.  I did, however, get hooked on a few traditional musicals as a child.  I had a bit of a crush on Fred Astaire (and, later, on Gregory Hines - I love tap) and my mom (who doesn't have the same prejudices I do) took me to many musicals - film and theatre - when I was a kid and those childhood attachments still linger today.  Films like My Fair Lady, Gigi, Hair don't fit into my standard format but I still love them.  One that's been resurfacing in my memory recently is Singing in the Rain.  I've been wanting to see it again for about a year, but apparently it was only released on DVD recently and I just watched it last night for the first time in a few decades.

good dark films

I've been renting movies again recently - a practice I more or less gave up when my beloved Netflix merged with WalMart and I had to cancel my membership.  Blockbuster has a similar program now, so I'm using it to help me through the cold, cold winter (4 degrees here, as I write). 

I've been hearing about Donnie Darko for years - the strange, disturbing, incomprehensible teen flick that shows up in movie clubs and discussion groups periodically.  I'm a fan of dark films, good teen films, and Jake Gyllenhall, so I thought I'd try it out.  Very interesting, with a lot of humor and an ending that is at once terribly defeatist and strangely uplifting.

The Machinist you probably heard about because of the extreme weight loss (63 lbs) that Christian Bale went through for the role - that's really all I heard about it.  He looks like he's a week or two out of a concentration camp.  But the movie itself is disturbing and mysterious and extremely well acted.  The weight loss is a crucial part of the theme - the loss of self, the desire to disappear, the tenuousness of his place in reality.  I highly recommend.

I also rented Mulholland Drive (though I think I thought it was Lost Highway).  Bizarre, like all of Lynch's stuff (Wild at Heart is probably one of my favorite love stories), though perhaps even more confusing.  Very interesting, and Naomi Watts is just fantastic (I haven't seen her in much, though I know she's in every other movie that's been released in the past few years, and I thought 21 Grams was basically overwrought crap, but she is phenomenal in this).  Oh, and what the hell was the deal with the guy in the alley that gives Patrick Fischler the heart attack? Anyone?

Happy holiday movie watching!