Movies: various
Here is what I am watching (so far) during the quarantine for COVID-19.
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Crip Camp
Crip Camp, which is a documentary by Nicole Newnham and James LeBrecht, gives the audience an inside glimpse into Camp Jened--a summer camp in upstate New York for teens with disabilities. Camp Jened opened in the 1950s and ran until 1977. It provided a place for teens and young adults who had disabilities such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, and complications from polio to just be themselves during a time in which people with disabilities were at best treated like children and at worst social pariahs.
Watching Crip Camp did a rare thing for me: it made me cry. Not tears of pity (yuck!) but tears of joy at watching the archival footage of young people experiencing freedom, self-expression, romance, and much more possibly for the first time in their lives. The first half of the film mostly focuses on the freewheeling ways of the camp, which included campers smoking pot alongside their counselors, experiencing first kisses (and more), and expressing themselves through music, arts, and sports.
The second half of the film zeroes in on Judy Heumann, a former camp counselor who became a disability rights activist who was involved in so many fights for disability rights, that I'll just link her Wikipedia page and let you explore for yourself. It also followers some of the other former campers who worked alongside Judy to reach such achievements as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
I really can't recommend this movie enough. I didn't know a ton about the history of disability rights, so not only was it a joyful, fun, and funny documentary--it was also very enlightening and inspired me to want to learn more.
Grade: A
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American Psycho
This was a rewatch for me, and I have to say that American Psycho just isn't my favorite. Believe it or not, it's really not that gruesome (I've seen horror films with MUCH more graphic carnage). Being a satire, American Psycho is more funny than anything else. I think the humor stems from the incongruity of Patrick Bateman being a complete dork (Huey Lewis sucks. What is wrong with this guy's musical taste?) and also a prostitute-murdering psychopath.
I've only read chunks (pun intended) of the book and, look, it takes a lot to gross me out but I will give it to Bret Easton Ellis: you got me buddy. I couldn't read your damn book because it's fucking disgusting. Ya happy?! But director Mary Harron explicitly said that she wanted to excise some of the violence from the story and focus more on the dark humor, and I think she achieved her goal.
I think people will mostly self-select into watching this movie. If you're the kind of person who would be interested in American Psycho, you've probably already seen it, and if you're the kind of person who is squeamish about violence, I don't think I'm going to convince you.
Grade: B
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Piercing
I was really disappointed in this 2018 horror-thriller. It was directed by Nicolas Pesce, who also directed the supremely creepy The Eyes of My Mother. The movie is based on a book Ryu Murakami who also wrote Audition. So, the horror pedigree for this film is flawless.
Sadly, I found the movie boring and unoriginal. Reed (Christopher Abbott), who is a husband and new father, has a fantasy of murdering someone. So, on a business trip, he hires a prostitute, Jackie (Mia Wasikowska), to act out his demented dream (unbeknownst to her, obviously). Turns out, Jackie is kind of nuts and randomly starts stabbing herself in the thigh, forcing Reed to take her to the hospital. She then invites him back to her home, but discovers what he is up to and turns the tables on him.
Although Abbott and Wasikowska are excellent actors, their chemistry is far too dull to pull off what should be a cat-and-mouse game of a film. Instead, Piercing is a movie that really wants to be transgressive, but just feels derivative and a bit boring. Only recommended for superfans of horror.
Grade: C
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Eyes Without a Face
The history of the French horror classic Eyes Without a Face is interesting. By today's standards, the film is more beautiful and atmospheric than anything else, but in 1960 it was pretty shocking--especially one scene in particular which admittedly I was surprised got past the censors in its heyday.
The film was released in the United States under the name The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus and marketed as a schlocky b-movie, which is wild because I've seen schlocky b-movies from the 50s and Eyes Without a Face isn't anything like them. It's about a young woman whose face is horribly scarred due to a car accident and whose father--a doctor--keeps attempting face transplants by kidnapping young women and removing their faces to graft onto his daughter's face. The "spooky" part of the movie is when the daughter, Christine, wears a custom mask that gives her face a poreless, expressionless appearance. Hence, eyes without a face (yes, the excellent Billy Idol song was inspired by the movie).
While by no means a great film, Eyes Without a Face is pretty solid for early 1960s horror and is just a beautiful and strange film to watch. Classic cinema buffs should definitely add it to their queues.
Grade: B
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Wonder Boys
Another rewatch for me. Wonder Boys was my muthafucking JAM in like, 9th and 10th grade. I already loved the concept of "college" even though I wasn't there yet. So a movie about a pot-smoking English professor who drives around with baby gay Tobey Maguire was basically catnip to me (I was very into gay men at this time in my life).
Rewatching this was fun, although some of the jokes don't land well in 2021, especially the entire subplot about Robert Downey Jr.'s "transvestite" date in the first third of the film. There's also some weirdness with RDJ, who plays a hilarious and naughty book editor, having sex with aforementioned baby gay James Leer (Tobey Maguire) despite being a lot older than him, but I'm going to assume everyone is over 18 and consenting.
But other than that, the film holds up. The acting is phenomenal and how couldn't it be with a stacked cast including Michael Douglas, Frances McDormand, RDJ, the Tobes, Katie Holmes, and Rip Torn? I will admit that some of the aspects of the film that felt intensely profound to me as a 15 year old now feel a little...cheesy? But in general the beauty and goofiness of Wonder Boys holds up.
Grade: A-
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Terrifier
What's more scary than a clown? How about a chainsaw-wielding serial killer clown? Terrifier is an indie-horror film by Damien Leone that follows Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton), a clown that looks scary as fuck and doesn't speak.
Tara (Jenna Kanell) and Dawn (Catherine Corcoran) are two besties out late on Halloween night. They stop at a pizza place for a slice so that they can sober up to drive home. At the pizza place, they see Art, who is in full costume. But that's not *too* strange since it is Halloween. When they go back to their car, they see that the tires are slashed. While waiting for Jenna's sister to pick them up, Jenna goes into an abandoned apartment building to use the bathroom. Clown terror ensues.
Terrifier isn't particularly inventive: a clown chases a girl around and kills multiple people. One of the kills in particular is horrifically gruesome. But the movie isn't scary-scary, ya know? It's just your run-of-the-mill slasher that you'll gasp during and promptly forget about a week later (if you're me, at least). I would recommend it for horror aficionados looking for a couple hours of bloody entertainment. But otherwise, you can pass on this one.
Grade: B-
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Hard Candy
Talk about a feel-bad film. Hard Candy came out in 2006 and stars Elliot Page (acting under his deadname at the time) as Hayley Stark, a 14-year old girl, and Patrick Wilson as Jeff Kohlver, a 32-year old photographer. It opens on the two of them flirtatiously chatting online and deciding to meet in real life.
The first chunk of the film seems like a straightforward story of a predator grooming a young victim--Jeff buys a gift for Hayley, lets her come to his apartment, and offers her screwdrivers to drink. But after the first 20 minutes or so, the truth is revealed: Hayley roofies Jeff's drink and he wakes up tied to a chair. She's more than a 14-year old girl--she's a hunter of pedophiles, and Jeff is fucked.
The rest of the film is an incredibly intense cat-and-mouse game in which Hayley psychologically (and physically) tortures Jeff in order to find out his secrets and punish him for his behavior. While it's not easy to sympathize with a pedophile, the movie is a little hard to watch and really serves as a revenge or justice fantasy for people who, well, hate pedophiles. I think it's a testament to the acting ability of Page and Wilson that they make you really volley back and forth over whether you feel bad for Jeff--who is, in fact, a monster--or not.
Hard Candy is a psychological thriller and is not for everyone, especially if violence and discussions of child abuse are triggering for you.
Grade: B
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High Fidelity
And here's another rewatch. I've seen High Fidelity (the film, not the Hulu series) many times. I remember thinking Jack Black's character was so funny, that I would randomly think about his lines in the movie and start laughing uncontrollably. Upon rewatching, Black is easily the best part of the movie. His character, Barry, is as gregarious and offensive as ever. Speaking of offensive, High Fidelity wears its age like an aging hipster dad wears a nose ring: cringingly. What I mean to say is that while High Fidelity still has a general aura of cool, given the excellent performances and general coolness of a plot about a guy who owns a record store (not to mention the very good soundtrack), the sexism and condescension of the characters (and film itself) ages it quite a bit.
John Cusack plays Rob, a 30-something record store owner whose long-suffering girlfriend, Laura (Iben Hjejle), finally dumps him because 1) he won't commit and 2) she's going places whereas he's going nowhere. It's a movie about a man-baby years before Judd Apatow made man-babies de rigueur. Rob deals with his misery by revisiting his old "top five all-time breakups" and derives comfort by discovering that the women he once thought were so great are just kind of "meh" in retrospect.
Let's just say it how it is: Rob is sexist. When he finds out Laura might be sleeping with the vegan hippy-dippy dude who used to live upstairs (Tim Robbins in a wonderful cameo), he flips out on her. When she tells him she has not, in fact, had sex with Mr. Vegan, Rob celebrates by...having sex with a new partner! Boys will be boys, right?! Rob also tells the audience about his anger at finding out that women only save the nicest pairs of their underwear for when they're going to sleep with someone. Oh, I'm sure your underwear is all super sexy and not just 15 pairs of hole-y tightie whities, ROB.
Still, the nostalgia factor is in High Fidelity's favor (heck, I loved the movie so much in high school I even read the book it was based on). It's a solid comedy, ok? It's not great, and it's not going to be one for the history books (The 40 Year Old Virgin, on the other hand? Stone cold classic), but if you can accept the imperfections, it's still an enjoyable movie. Not anywhere near my top 5 though.
Grade: B
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