Slow Burn

Movies: Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Celine Sciamma's exquisite tale of two women falling in love takes its time. It is a gentle and intentional film where each glance is meaningful.

Taking place in the late 1700s, Portrait of a Lady on Fire follows Marianne (Noemie Merlant), a painter and an independent woman who is commissioned to paint a portrait of Heloise (Adele Haenel), a young woman who has been brought back from the convents by her mother to marry a wealthy gentleman from Milan after her sister "refuses the marriage" by killing herself. Heloise has never met this man and is sure that this marriage will be the death of her freedom. Marianne is told that she must paint the portrait without Heloise knowing--as Heloise refused to sit for the last painter and he was unable to finish.

As the two women get to know each other (Marianne is introduced to Heloise as a companion for walks), they slowly fall in love. Or in lust, at least. This film reminded me *a lot* of my beloved Call Me By Your Name for many reasons: the taboo same-sex affair, the gentleness and slowness of the characters' courtships, the dreamy European setting. Even the ends of both films mirror each other (and involve lengthy shots of people crying). Like CMBYN, one of the pleasures of Portrait of a Lady on Fire is its sensuality and sumptuousness. The cinematography is striking, the scenes of love-making are tender and erotic instead of porn-y, and the camera lingers on the characters faces and hands--this is a film that is made to be savored instead of devoured.

The other pleasure of the film is its female-centric point of view. Directed by a woman and starring only women (with a couple random guys who are, like, valets or whatever) the conversations women have in this film--be they about arranged marriages, literature, unwanted pregnancies, or art--feel true to how women think and talk (at least from this cisgender woman living in the 21st century's perspective). They talk about abortion and loveless marriages like they are annoying facts of life to be dealt with practically. There is no romance novel purple prose here. The women in this film are just as grounded and logical as they are passionate--like most women I know. And the sex scenes don't feel skeevy and slavering the way they often do when lesbian sex is filmed by and for the male gaze.

I honestly don't have much else to say. Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a sensual, transcendent, feminist film and you should get your ass to the theatres and watch it (on the big screen) today.

Grade: A-

Cold Little Nasties

Movie: The Lodge

**Spoiler warning for this blogpost**



Content warning for this post and the movie:
Suicide and mental illness


Y'all. I wanted to like The Lodge. I really did. Directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, who also directed the very upsetting Goodnight Mommy, the preview for The Lodge came out last fall and looked like exactly my type of arthouse spooky: a creepy house, stark cinematography, a musical score designed to raise goosebumps. Before I even saw the movie, I could tell it borrowed heavily from Hereditary and The Shining--two of my favorite scary movies.

Alas, The Lodge did not live up to my expectations. It's both problematic and boring. It teases a fascinating backstory and doesn't follow through. It's mean-spirited, humorless, and aside from a few jump scenes it's not even that scary. It's just really sad.

First, I'll tell you why it's problematic: The Lodge uses mental illness as its "Big Bad". There are no ghosts in this movie. No axe-wielding serial killers. No ghouls or goblins. But there is a woman who came from a hugely traumatic background and suffers from mental illness and there are kids who steal her meds. That's it. The "bad guy" is simply a woman having a mental breakdown when some punk-ass kids gaslight her. Folks suffering from mental illness already face stigma and misunderstanding--they don't need this dumb horror movie encouraging the erroneous belief that if you struggle with mental illness you're a psycho who is going to kill everyone.

The plot: Worst dad in the world, Richard (Richard Armitage), leaves his wife (Alicia Silverstone) for a much younger woman, Grace (Riley Keough, doing great work in a thankless role). It's not just that Grace is young--she also grew up in a Christian fundamentalist cult where all the members killed themselves except for her (she was specifically spared to pass on the message of the cult). So we have a young woman who grew up incredibly sheltered and then faced unbelievable trauma before ol' Dick came along and blew up his own marriage to get with her.

It only gets worse. Richard's kids, Aiden (Jaeden Martell) and Mia (Lia McHugh), are understandably not very fond of Grace. But after Richard's ex-wife fucking blows her brains out (yep, we the audience get to see it), they REALLY don't like Grace, especially since a mere six months after their mother's suicide, Richard announces he's marrying Grace and they're all spending Christmas together in their family's cabin in the mountains. Richard is a real piece of work.

Well, like father like kids, I guess, because after Richard leaves his children with Grace in the cabin to go back into the city to get some work done before the holidays (classic Bad Movie Dad behavior), these little fucksticks decide to play a trick on Grace. While she's asleep, they basically take all the food in the cabin, all the outdoor gear like coats, all personal items--including Grace's medicine--and hide it and then pretend they don't know what's going on when Grace starts freaking out. Technically, it's not officially revealed that it was the kids who did this until partway through the movie, so at first the audience is just as confused as Grace. Kind of. When Aiden mentions he had a dream that they all died in a gas heater explosion, it starts to become clear that this is all one massive, and absolutely cruel, prank.

Without her meds and with Aiden convincing her that actually they all died and are in purgatory, Grace starts to lose it. I guess Aiden was smart enough to pre-plan an elaborate hoax but not smart enough to--I don't know--make sure to take away the handgun Richard left Grace when he went into town. That's right--at one point, Grace stands in front of the kids in a fugue state, HOLDING A GUN, and neither kid thinks "maybe this person we're convincing is already dead and whose meds we've stolen shouldn't have access to a firearm" and swipes the gun. So, honestly, fuck them for being so cruel and oblivious. Maybe Mia gets a pass because she's younger and impressionable, but that piece of shit Aiden is definitely old enough to know right from wrong.

Anyway, so it looks like Grace is about to kill the kids, then Richard comes back and you think he's going to save the day, but hahahahah, nope! Grace shoots him in the fucking head and then forces the kids to sit at the dining table with her and their dead dad while she prays and prepares to kill the rest of them. The End! What a fun movie.

The more I think about it, fuck this movie. Not only does it make mental illness the Monster, it also has this interesting backstory--Grace being in a cult--that COULD HAVE played a role in the plot but, other that being proof that, yep, Grace was brainwashed as a kid and maybe a little of that brainwashing kicks in when she's off her meds, it serves no purpose to the story. I think there is a much more interesting movie hiding somewhere inside The Lodge. Cults are fascinating and instead of making this poor woman, tormented by a couple of kids, the killer of this movie, it would be so much more interesting if somehow the cult Grace grew up in was still involved.

So, I don't recommend this movie. If you're easily upset with depictions of suicide and with offensive and inaccurate portrayals of people struggling with mental illness, this will be a difficult and unrewarding film for you. If you're a horror lover, The Lodge really has nothing new or interesting to say. Hereditary did it better. The Shining did it WAY better. The Lodge is just riding the coattails of better films from the past.

Grade: C

Quickies

Movies: a bunch

Dear readers: I have been on a streaming binge for months. Not only did I blast through all of Fargo (3 seasons), Shrill season 2, the final season of Bojack Horseman, and a bunch of Broad City, I caught up on a number of films languishing in my Netflix/Hulu/Prime queues. I guess that's winter for you. Nothing to do but lie on the couch and wait for the sweet release of death (or at least the pizza delivery guy). I also saw the Harley Quinn movie!

So, for the sake of time, here are some quick reviews of every movie I've watched since my last blog entry:

***

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

So the best thing about watching this movie is that I know nothing of the DC multiverse or whatever the fuck, so I can come to this movie without all the baggage of "well, this character wouldn't ACTUALLY do this" and such hogwash. All I know is that Birds of Prey was a fun movie with badass babes kicking (male) ass. Margot Robbie's Quinn is like cotton candy with teeth: she's cute, "accidentally" violent, kind of terrible for you but also strangely alluring.

Ewan McGregor plays the big bad, Roman Sionis, a rich narcissist who owns most of Gotham. He has a lot of beef with Harley, and when he finds out she's no longer under the protection of the Joker because they broke up, he's ready to literally tear her face off. There's also a diamond that a teenage pickpocket steals (and swallows) that Sionis is after. It comes down to Sionis and his ragtag army of meatheads vs. Quinn, Cassandra Cain (the pickpocket), good cop Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), singer Dinah Lance/Black Canary (Jurnee Smollet-Bell), and revenge-driven Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Guys against girls. It's a tale as old as time.

Birds of Prey is just plain fun. I saw it with a couple gal pals and we loved watching Harley Quinn sic her hyena, Bruce, on a rapist. It's that kind of movie. Similar to Deadpool in its irreverence. It's not going to win any Oscars, but it's just a fun chicks kicking ass movie that doesn't overly sexualize said chicks.

Grade: B

***

The Poughkeepsie Tapes

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is a faux documentary/food footage horror films streaming on Amazon Prime. I don't recommend it to anyone but EXTREME horror aficionados. As a violent horror film, it works. It is TERRIFYING. There are scenes with imagery that will haunt me for life. I'd even go so far as to call it a good, quality movie. But it is sick and extreme. The story is about a serial killer who kidnaps a woman, Cheryl Dempsey. Years later, the killer's video tapes are discovered (as is Cheryl, alive, but a shell of a woman). The videos show the work of a twisted sadist who takes pleasure in scaring people, hurting them, and killing them. Depending on your perspective, The Poughkeepsie Tapes is an extremely well-made faux documentary or an exploitative piece of trash. I feel comfortable to sit with the fact that I "enjoyed" the film as a horror lover (it scared the hell out of me) and also felt grossed out by it as a feminist. Unless you have a stomach, mind, and heart of steel, just sit this one out.

Grade: B+

***

Train to Busan

Ok, now here is a slightly more palatable horror movie. This Korean zombie film takes place mostly on a commuter train during an outbreak of a strange illness which turns people into, well, zombies. Businessman Seok-woo is tasked with taking his young daughter, Su-an, to visit her mom (his and Su-an's mother are divorced). Seok-woo is a classic business dad whose priorities are all fucked up: he puts work above family. Well, that's all going to change with a horde of motherfucking zombies trying to kill him and his baby girl. Hah!

Train to Busan was...ok. Not nearly as scary as some zombie movies I've seen. It also felt a bit melodramatic in parts--scenes with soaring music and lengthy camera takes that zoom in on someone's sad face, that sort of thing. I think that might be a convention of Korean films, though. Still, it was tonally a bit off. Overall, meh!

Grade: B-

***

Marriage Story

The strength of Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story lies in its actors. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson play Charlie and Nicole Barber, a previously happy couple who realize they can't make it work and decide to divorce "amicably". Hah. Marriage Story reveals the dirty truth of divorce: that even with the best of intentions, when you factor in living arrangements, money, and children, separation often ends up nastier than couples intend. When Charlie and Nicole decide to separate they want to make it easy and straightforward. But after Nicole moves from New York to LA with their son, Henry, and starts working with a fierce (and fiercely competent) divorce lawyer (Laura Dern, a revelation) things start to go off the rails. An easy, gentle separation is no longer in the cards, especially since Charlie stubbornly insists that the Barbers are a "New York family" despite his wife and kid moving to LA.

There are no heroes or villains in Marriage Story, although your personal opinions on gender roles might factor into how you view the characters and storyline. Is Nicole a conniving shrew for taking her kid, moving to LA, and choosing a ruthless divorce lawyer? Is Charlie a narcissistic ass who never understood his wife's needs and now insists *he* is the one who has been wronged? Maybe it doesn't matter. Both parties are hurting. Both parties have fucked up and have been fucked over.

The lesson of Marriage Story is to 1) know what you want and 2) be honest with your partner early and often about what you want. If you don't know what you want or how to express it to someone else, you have no business joining your life with someone--let alone having children.

Grade: B+

***

Luce

I was genuinely confused about the moral of the film Luce. Directed by Julius Onah, Luce is about a high achieving high school student (the excellent Kelvin Harrison Jr.) who writes a paper for his history class that seems to promote the idea that violence is necessary for social revolution. Luce's teacher, Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer), contacts his (adoptive) mother Amy (Naomi Watts) and expresses her concerns. But since Luce is a straight-A student and role model, Amy refuses to take Harriet's concerns seriously. The twist here is that Luce was a child soldier in Eritrea before being adopted by Amy and Peter Edgar (Watts and Tim Roth). So the unspoken question is: was this boy unduly influenced by his violent childhood? Does he really believe violence is a solution to social ills?

It seems like a pretty straightforward moral conundrum until you find out about how his teacher, presented as "the good guy", has a history of ratting out black students for infractions such as smoking pot and getting them into enough trouble to possibly affect their chances of getting into college. Is Harriet Wilson the good, innocent teacher she initially appears to be or does she play favorites among her students of color to the point where those she doesn't favor suffer unduly?

I was confused at what Luce wanted me to feel. And maybe that's the point. The audience is set up to mistrust Luce, but by the end, I thought Harriet Wilson was the least trustworthy person in the movie.

I found Luce to be boring and underwhelming. I think it had much more potential to explore racial issues and the idea of being a "model minority" and how people from within a racial group can encourage inherently racist stereotypes. For me, it didn't live up to that potential.

Grade: C

***

Hell or High Water

Directed by Taylor Sheridan, Hell or High Water is a modern-day Western with an anti-capitalism message. Brothers Toby and Tanner Howard (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) are about to lose their ranch to a bank that provided them a reverse mortgage. They decide to rob the very bank they owe in order to pay off the debt before the bank forecloses on them. Unfortunately, what the more even-keeled Toby sees as a swift, harmless crime (they will rob the banks right when they open and are empty except for a few employees, and no one needs to get hurt), ex-convict Tanner sees as an excuse to go totally aggro and menace some terrified bank tellers. Tanner also doesn't want to stop at robbing Texas Midlands branches and rob a few additional banks just for funsies. Soon, Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges, being verrrrry un-Dude in this role) and Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham), a pair of bickering Texas Rangers, are on the Tanner brothers' tail.

Hell or High Water is a fun movie. Well, as fun as a movie with some needless, violent deaths can be. It has a "stick it to the Man" message, although the Howard brothers are hardly Robin Hood types. They're stealing from the hated banks to give to themselves in order to provide for their families (well, at least good brother Toby is), but really no one is a hero here.

I can't say I'll rewatch Hell or High Water. It's a bit forgettable. But it does have an excellent performance by Jeff Bridges doing what he does best: being cooler than anyone else in the movie.

Grade: B

***

Bone Tomahawk 

Speaking of Jeff Bridges, do you know who looks a lot like Jeff Bridges? Kurt Russell. Bone Tomahawk is a Western-horror-comedy that takes place in the 1890s in a small town called Bright Hope. After a drifter (David Arquette), a lady doctor (Lili Simmons), and a deputy (Evan Jonigkeit) are kidnapped by some (ok, bear with me here) "savages", Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Russell) gathers a small party to find them. Among the party is the doctor's husband who is suffering from a broken leg (Patrick Wilson), the bumbling and intellectual backup deputy (Richard Jenkins), and a local man who is a talented shot but very aggressive and arrogant (Matthew Fox).

This motley crew has no idea that they are walking into the den of a group of cannibalistic, cave-dwelling Natives who would love to have all of them for supper. EXTREME violence commences (not a lot of it, but what we see is...well, my stomach churned and I have a high tolerance this sort of thing).

I was very torn on Bone Tomahawk. It's a good movie--it's scary, funny, compelling, and even though it's a 2 hours plus film, it never feels slow for a minute. The banter between the characters is some of the best I've heard in a movie. However, the Big Bad is a group of Native Americans, which is...not cool. Granted, these Natives are not based on any real historical tribes in the United States and are portrayed as nearly supernatural in their violence and ability to capture and take down their victims. But given the gruesome way white people treated Native Americans, well, since we arrived on America's shore, it feels gross and disrespectful to even make up a fake tribe like the one in Bone Tomahawk.

I can't say I didn't enjoy the film--I did very much. But I only recommend watching it if 1) you can handle the image of a man literally being torn in two and 2) you understand and can come to terms with the fact that this film, though fictional, is not respectful of Native Americans and their history. As for the grade, I'd give it an A for the entertaining dialogue, but a C- for the racism, resulting in:

Grade: B-

Class Warfare

Movie: Parasite

If you're a movie lover, by now you've either heard about or seen Bong Joon-ho's masterpiece, Parasite. The film lives up to the hype: it is funny, shocking, devastating, and thrilling. When I first saw the poster and title, I assumed it was a straight-up horror film. However, Parasite is more of a social horror film: it is a film about the lengths desperate people will go to take care of their needs.

The movie opens on the Kim family: father Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho, a regular in Bong Joon-ho's movies), mother Chung-sook (Chang Hyae-jin), daughter Ki-jeong (Park So-dam), and son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik). The family lives in a semi-basement in the poor part of town. They struggle to find work, resorting to doing menial tasks like folding pizza boxes to earn just enough to get through each day. However, they are clever and resourceful. When Min-hyuk, Ki-woo's friend who attends college, says he will recommend Ki-woo as an English tutor for the daughter of a rich family he knows, things start looking up for the Kim family.

Ki-woo shows up at the Park family's enormous, modern home and is shocked by their lifestyle. Mom Yeon-gyo (Cho Yeo-jeong) is a "simple" woman: a stay-at-home wife who is very naive. She is impressed with how confident Ki-woo is when he tutors her daughter, Da-hye (Jeong Ji-su) and confides in him that she believes her young son,  Da-song (Jung Hyeon-jun), might be an artistic genius. It just so happens that Ki-woo knows a very talented--and very expensive--art teacher (his sister, though he doesn't tell Mrs. Park this).

After Ki-woo and Ki-jeong have infiltrated the Park family, Dad is next. The Kim family hatches a plan to get Mr. Park's (Lee Sun-kyun) chauffeur fired and then "recommend" Mr. Kim, all the while not letting the Park family see that the whole Kim family is becoming employed by them. The most dangerous and crafty move is getting the Park's loyal housekeeper fired and Mrs. Kim hired in her place. But once they accomplish this, the entire Kim family is living the high life as well-paid employees of the wealthy Park family. Hence the title.

Of course, things don't go as planned. A huge surprise is in store for both the Kims and the audience partway through the movie that makes the game they've decided to play extremely dangerous. And the movie fires on all cylinders from the moment the twist occurs until the end of the film. It's a nail-biting rollercoaster ride where you don't really know who to root for. I would say that, overall, Bong Joon-ho encourages the audience to empathize with the Kim family. They are the center of the story and not only are they poor at the start of the movie, they face additional losses throughout. But the director is careful to acknowledge that in their quest to scam the Park family, they end up hurting others who are suffering worse than themselves.

Bong Joon-ho also directed 2013's Snowpiercer, another class warfare fable. But unlike Snowpiercer, Parasite is more subtle (and more realistic, seeing as it's set in reality and not on a train that houses all of humanity and travels endlessly around the frozen planet). The concepts remain the same: rich people just have so much. So much stuff, so much space, so much food, so much help. Whereas poor people literally have to beg, borrow, and steal to survive. But this is a systemic problem and individuals, while they may not be innocent, are certainly not 100% to blame. The Park family isn't doing anything *wrong* by being rich and, in fact, the film suggests that Mrs. Park in particular tries to be very generous. And they are taken advantage of, fooled, and tricked into letting their "help" go and hiring (unbeknownst to them) a whole family. And then, of course, there's the help--the chauffeur and housekeeper--who did nothing wrong except stand in the way of the Kim's ambitions.

So Parasite is one of those juicy films where, depending on how you look at it, there either are no bad guys or everyone is a bad guy in one way or another. Parasite will have you on the edge of your seat for the entirety of the film and be thinking about it long after you leave the theatre.

Grade: A

Streaming Binge

Movies: Ready or Not, Hail Satan?, Support the Girls, Brittany Runs a Marathon

Here are some quick reviews of movies I've rented/watched on streaming lately. Enjoy!

***

Ready or Not

I was ready to completely write off this movie as...well, I don't know what. Something akin to a cheesy "Blumhouse production". But I kept hearing more and more about this thriller, in which a woman (Samara Weaving) marries into a rich family who made their money on games. It's tradition that everyone who marries into the family must select a random card with a game on it and play the game with the family at midnight on the eve of the wedding. 99% of the games are fine: Old Maid, Chess, Checkers...no big deal. But if the unlucky or bride or groom chooses the one bad card, Hide and Seek, well...let's just say the stakes become much higher.

Ready or Not is an "eat the rich" movie, where the moral is that rich people will do literally anything, include making murderous pacts with the devil, to keep their riches. Weaving is plucky as Grace, the bride who becomes the prey among a family of rich psychos who believe they must hunt her down and kill her...or all die, as part of the pact their grandfather made with a mysterious benefactor (the...devil???) Part of the fun is not knowing whether or not this "family curse" is real, or just bullshit--and hoping you might find out at the end. Darkly funny, Ready or Not is a very entertaining movie.

Grade: B+

***

Hail Satan?

This documentary is about the Satanic Temple, a "church" that really serves as more of a check and balance against the Christian right in the United States. The Satanic Temple advocates for religious freedom by basically challenging the religious right--so, most famously, they advocated for a statue of Baphomet to stand alongside a monument of the ten commandments on the Oklahoma State Capitol. Their reasoning? If Christianity gets a monument on the state capitol, surely other religions--such as Satanism--should have the same rights.

One might call the Satanic Temple trolls in action. They primarily exist to go head-to-head with fundamentalist Christianity. But their kind of "trolling" is a much-needed reality check in a country that supposedly believes in "separation of church and state"...except when it conveniently doesn't. That said, some of the Satanic Temple members are still white guys who think they know best. One of their members, a woman, is relieved of her duties as a high-ranking member of the Satanic Temple when she gets a little too radical. Even among Satanists, there are limits.

Grade: B

***

Support the Girls

Regina Hall plays Lisa, a manager at Double Whammies--a Hooters-esque sports bar that serves hot food, cold beer, and sexy babes. Over the course of a single day, Lisa has to deal with a burglar who gets caught in an air duct, new girls coming in for interviews, a manager who is not only an asshole but very stupid to boot, and her depressed husband whom she is trying to separate from.

Support the Girls is a slice-of-life film that is funny and heartwarming, but also very frustrating. Lisa sees the kind of sexism both she and the waitresses she is responsible for have to put up with, with very little recourse. The women who work at Double Whammies are generally the kind of folks living paycheck-to-paycheck and thus have to put up with rude comments, skimpy outfits, and tons of bullshit--all with a smile on their faces. Support the Girls is not a loud, flashy film, but it will stick with you when it's over...and hopefully encourage you to tip generously the next time you go out to eat.

Grade: A-

***

Brittany Runs a Marathon

Woof. Very mixed feelings about this one. Brittany Runs a Marathon is not a bad movie, but it's a movie that is benevolently fatphobic. What I mean by that is while the movie is not blatantly fat-shaming, it's very a much "all bodies are beautiful...as long as they're healthy!" type film. Jillian Bell plays Brittany Forgler, a hard-partying 28 year old. Brittany is "fat" according to New York City standards (in most parts of the country, she would be considered average). She goes to a doctor to try to scam an Adderall prescription and the doctor informs her that her BMI is too high and she needs to lose 40-50 pounds. Brittany has never heard of "BMI", which is the first clue that a non-fat, non-woman directed this film: every woman in the USA, especially every fat woman, knows what a BMI is because fat women know more about diet, health and weight than fucking anyone else. Why? Because we are forced to know it. Women are forced to know everything about calories, weight, metabolism, the "right" kind of snack (handful of almonds, amirite ladeez!?) Fat women know even more. There is no reality in which Brittany Forgler does not already know this information.

So she starts running, she starts losing weight, and her life improves. The movie tries really hard to no be fatphobic, but what do you call a film where a person loses weight and everything in her life gets better? Then, when Brittany hits a snag (she gets shin splits a month before the marathon), she reverts into a monster. She tells off her boyfriend, calling him a manboy. She commits a heinous act of fatphobia at a party for her brother-in-law's birthday where she tells a fat woman that her skinny boyfriend doesn't love her because "you can't love someone you don't respect". The movie treats this soul-crushing moment as something that is excusable/forgivable because 1) Brittany is drunk and 2) it's supposed to be her own self-hatred she is projecting. She writes a letter to the fat woman, apologizing, and the woman responds "I understand your pain". This is where the movie lost me. The cruelty with which Brittany treats this *total stranger* moves her from protagonist to irredeemable cunt in my book. I could no longer root for her. When she finally crosses that finish line at the end of the movie, I was rolling my eyes. It takes a lot of balls to have your protagonist say something so hurtful and, honestly, unforgivable and then use that to move the plot forward as if it was just another stepping stone in her journey to the skinny, self-loving good person she is inside.

Fuck this movie.

Grade: B- as a movie, but an F in my heart

Cats; or, Stop Trying to Make Jellicle Happen

Movies: Cats

Oh, Cats. What can I say that hasn't already been said? It is known and accepted that Cats, the musical created by Andrew Lloyd Weber based on the poetry of T.S. Eliot is an embarrassing, yet mysteriously popular musical. Like Seinfeld, it is a show about nothing. Cats emerge and introduce themselves through song. One is chosen to go to the "Heaviside Layer" (heaven). End of show. How this show became one of the longest running on Broadway is something that will never be explained except that maybe people like cats? Even in the pre-Can Haz Cheezburger days, people liked to watch cats prowl around and be weird, I guess.

And so Tom Hooper brings this monstrosity to the silver screen. Cats is filled with talent: Ian McKellan, Judi Dench, Jennifer Hudson, Idris Elba, and even Taylor Swift play roles of the titular felines. Plus there are a bunch of no-names who are great dancers, such as Francesca Hayward as Victoria and Steven McRae as Shimbleshanks (these cats all have really dumb names, btw. It's kind of their thing). The dancing and singing is pretty good, overall. The acting, well...these seasoned veterans of stage and screen try their best, but there is only so much polishing a cat turd can stand.

Ok, I'll level with you: Cats is kind of fun. It's a CGI nightmare in which the cats in question have human faces, human hands, human feet, and human butts...but fur (and no visible genitals). The scale makes no sense. These cats are simultaneously human-size to a mouse, but mouse-size to a human. Bustopher Jones (James Corden) is a fat cat at 25 pounds (or an "absolute unit" as my friend who saw the movie with me said), yet other cats appear to be kitten size in scale to everyday objects. Basically, whoever was in charge of the artistry of this movie didn't give a fuhhhhck. 

But despite the insane CGI (or maybe because of it), Cats is enjoyable in a Star Wars Holiday Special kind of way: it's so bizarre and weird that it's fun. Now, not all of it is equally fun. For example, there are some songs ("The Moment of Happiness", "The Addressing of Cats", "Gus the Theatre Cat") are boring as shit, while precious few ("Mr. Mistoffeeles", "Bustopher Jones", "Shimbleshanks") are actually fun. Did you guys know that this really famous musical has really bad music? Even the award-winning song "Memory" kind of sucks if I'm honest. If it were my choice of who wins the Jellicle Ball or whatever the fuck it is, I'd give it to Mr. Mistoffelees because he has hands down the best song in the show. 

Speaking of Mr. Mistoffelees, did you guys know that this is a magician nerd who (in this version of the story) gets the sexy girl (Victoria) in the end? I don't know how I feel about that. I kind of like Macavity (Idris Elba) the "bad" (but obviously sexier) cat who is also a magician but like an evil one.

Each cat has one attribute that is its personality: Victoria is the new girl, Mr. Mistoffelees is the nerd, Bustopher Jones is fat, Jennyanydots (Rebel Wilson) is also fat (I really related to her, not only because we share a name and are fat, but because if I were a cat I'd want to be a pampered-ass housecat), Macavity is evil, Rum Tug Tugger (Jason Derulo) is the cat that fucks, Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench) is old, Shimbleshanks is gay as hell, etc. There's no real character building because with about 1,873 cats and only 2 hours, there's no time to commit to giving these cats three dimensions. 

Overall, Cats is just...it's a lot. I saw a movie last year called Climax where a dance troupe accidentally drinks LSD-spiked punch and simultaneously goes batshit. Cats is basically the same movie. In fact, there's a scene where Taylor Swift (I refuse to reveal her cat-name...she is Taylor Swift) forcefully spikes the cats with cat-nip. Like I said: same. movie. If you want to watch a movie that you know, in your heart of hearts, would be WAY better if you're high as fuck, Cats is a good option. 

Grade: C+

2019: The Best and the Rest

Movies: Best of

Hello, Dear Readers! It's that time of the year where I give you my opinion (which is the *correct* opinion, of course ;) ) on what I felt were the best movies of the previous year.

A couple notes:

• Usually I wait until later in January to make this list, as I am typically still catching up on all the Oscar bait they push into theatres in late December. But, ah, I'm bored and want to do it now
• There are a few movies that I suspect would make the list that I haven't seen yet. These include Parasite, Uncut Gems, and The Irishman. I'll probably see them eventually. I'm not as fanatical about seeing EVERY critically worshipped movie as I was years ago. I just go at my own pace now.
• 2019 was, in my opinion, a "meh" year for movies, as was 2018. 2017, on the other hand, was a mind-blowing year for movies. Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you--right, Christian? Not every year is going to have a high number of orgasmically great films. Overall, 2019 was good but not great.
• I'm also going to list the movies I liked *the least* this year. Please note that this doesn't mean these movies were the shittiest of the year--they tend to be movies a lot of people like that just weren't my bag. That's why I call them "the rest" and not "the worst".
• As I'm putting this list together, I'm seeing just how "white" these movies are, with the exception of Us. While I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense that I'd be attracted to movies by and about white women, since they reflect my experience of the world, this is certainly something to take into consideration and expand beyond my comfort zone in the coming years. 

Enough! Onward!

2019: The Best

10) Booksmart (B+)

It's really a shame that this funny, sweet, and irreverent ode to female friendship didn't get more attention and accolades. Beanie Feldstein's Molly was one of the funniest characters of the year (Kaitlyn Dever as Amy was good too, but Beanie is more my speed) with her mix of snobbish disdain for the philistines she goes to school with and the feverish desire to experience the things they have experienced while she was busy being a straight-A student. 

9) Knives Out (B+)

A star-studded cast, turns and twists galore, and a huge "fuck you" to rich, white assholes who think they "own" The United States of America--what's not to love? While I don't think Knives Out is a movie I'll revisit often, it was a wildly entertaining, hilarious film-going experience.

8) Her Smell (B+)

Elisabeth Moss is slaying it these days. While her role as Offred/June in Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale is becoming a bit tiresome, her talent for playing fierce women is undeniable. In Her Smell, Moss plays the deeply unlikeable Becky Something, the lead singer of a 90s era grrrl punk band Something She. But Kathleen Hanna Becky is not--she is a nightmare to work with, a neglectful mother, and a drug-and-alcohol abuser. Where her bandmates and ex-husband have outgrown their excessive ways as they age into their 40s, Becky has only become more unhinged. Her Smell is the story of Becky's fall from grace and her quiet quest for redemption.

7) In Fabric (B+)

Directed by one of my favorite visionaries, Peter Strickland, In Fabric is a bat-shit crazy ride from start to finish. It's the tale of a killer dress. No, not like the one from the urban legend where a girl dies because the dress was worn by a dead girl and is saturated in embalming fluid. This dress is controlled by a coven of witches who run a very strange department store. The film could be read as a commentary on mindless consumerism, or it could simply be seen as another homage to psycho-sexual 1970s Italian giallo films, which Strickland is clearly fond of. Either way, it's an unforgettable ride into madness and dark, twisted humor.

6) Rocketman (A-)

I was fully prepared to write off this musical about Elton John's life as a cheesy biopic that lionizes its subject...but goddamn if I didn't cry during it. Taron Egerton captures the vulnerability of young, closeted Elton and the self-pitying drama of the older, drugged-up Elton. The musical numbers are used to highlight important moments in Elton's life: "I Want Love" reveals the loneliness of Elton's childhood home life, "Honky Cat" struts and preens as Elton and his alpha-asshole lover, John Reid, spend Elton's newfound fortune in the most glitzy ways imaginable, and "Rocket Man" shows Elton at his lowest--attempting suicide after a drug binge. While Rocketman can be cheesy at times (what musicals--or biopics--aren't?), the story of a queer, wildly talented man who has a shot at redemption is hard to resist.

5) The Lighthouse (A-)

After In Fabric, The Lighthouse was the wackiest film I saw in 2019--and I mean that in a good way. This darkly humorous fever dream about two lighthouse keepers who might or might not be going insane was everything I hoped it would be. The acting is everything in The Lighthouse: Willem Dafoe is turned up to 11 as a crazy-eyed, barnacle-encrusted old sea salt, spouting monologues and lines that sound like the were written in a turn of the century penny dreadful. Robert Pattinson is the perfect foil to Dafoe and a very unreliable narrator, especially when he finally starts drinking liquor at the encouragement of Dafoe. The Lighthouse is hard to classify: it is horror, it is comedy, it is historical fiction. But mostly, it is a fairytale dreamed up by a dark and unhinged mind.

4) Us (A-)

Here we have another horror fairytale. In fact, the villain of the movie, Red, tells her story to her doppelgänger, Adelaide (both played brilliantly by Lupita Nyong'o), starting with "once upon a time, there was a little girl..." While not quite the same level of pure genius as Get Out, Jordan Peele's sophomore effort is a solidly chilling (and funny!) horror film that, like so many movies in 2019, has an "eat the rich" message. In this case, the "rich" are those who live above ground and the "poor" are the "Tethered"-- doppelgängers/clones that were part of a government experiment that was abandoned, only to have terrible consequences once the clones found a way to come out of their underground lairs. When asked who they are, Red (the only Tethered able to talk) says "we are Americans". What is Peele trying to say? Some interpretations have suggested this is a story about how immigrants are treated in the United States. But my interpretation is that it's a tale about privilege and how in order for one person to live a life of luxury, another must inevitably suffer.

3) Little Women (A)

Greta Gerwig's Little Women was the movie I most looked forward to in 2019--and not just because The Internet's Boyfriend, Timothee Chalamet, played poor little rich fuckboi Laurie. Little Women is not my favorite book of all time (I didn't even read it until college), but there is something about the story, which is both wholesome and subversive, forward-thinking and old-fashioned, feminist and feminine, that manages to continue to attract readers over 150 years after its publication. The story has something for everyone: Christian morals (*true* Christian morals, like caring for the poor and loving others), pretty dresses, love stories, sisterhood, an acid-tongued spinster aunt, and an ink-stained independent thinker. Gerwig's interpretation is true to the text while slightly subverting the tale by putting more emphasis on Jo March's truest love of all: writing. It plays up her (and Laurie's) gender non-conformity and plays down her "happily married" ending--while still allowing enough room for the more romantic viewer to believe that Jo gets both her man AND her book (AND her school for BOTH sexes--a deviation from the text). This version of Little Women is also not afraid to look the character's imperfections in the face: Laurie is a privileged, condescending man child...who is also sensitive and lonely. Amy is a vain and spiteful little brat...who grows up to be wise and kind. Meg is blinded by beautiful things and riches...but realizes what's really important in the end. And Jo is militantly against marriage...but also feels lonely and comes to see the value love can add to one's life. I really like this because, like real people, the characters in Little Women--even saintly Marmee--are not perfect and have strengths and weaknesses. 

2) Gloria Bell (A)

I feel like I'm the only person I know who saw this lovely, empowering film by Sebastian Leilo. Leilo remakes his own film, 2013's Gloria, here and sets it in the United States instead of Chile. Other than that, the story is the same: Gloria Bell (Julianne Moore, luminous) is a woman in her 50s. She's divorced, her children are grown, but she is not alone and she's not unhappy. She's a single lady who goes to bars where other singles her age meet up and dance (and fukkk). This is where she meets kindly, sensitive Arnold (John Turturro). But Arnold is not the DILF-y dreamboat he seems. He has serious issues and baggage that, when they come to light, could be devastating for Gloria. But no, Gloria Bell is a strong, adventurous woman who knows her worth. Leilo is a cisgender man, but he has a knack for writing women (both cis and trans) really well. Between Gloria Bell, A Fantastic Woman, and Disobedience, he has more than gained my respect as a director who relishes in creating complicated female characters who go through real struggles--but who never let the world hold them down.

1) Midsommar (A+)

I saw Midsommar three times in the theatre and rented it once within a 6 month period. Each time, I watched it with different friends and each time I was afraid said friends would be pissed that I had them watch such a fucked up movie. But hey, I'm still friends with all of them! Even with that stupidly gory ritual suicide scene that anyone who has seen the film knows and shudders to remember. Midsommar is Ari Aster's follow-up to 2018's Hereditary, which I loved. But, in my opinion, Midsommar is an even greater expression of the director's considerable talent. Like Hereditary, the real horror of Midsommar is grief, not ghouls, ghosts, demons, or cults. While all those things are scary, grief is real, inescapable, devastating...and coming for us all. Florence Pugh plays Dani, who experiences a wildly tragic event 6 months before her good-for-nothing boyfriend, Christian, invites her last minute on a trip to Sweden with his friends. His university pals are studying the rare, midsummer rituals carried out only every 90 years by a small commune in Sweden where one of the friends, Pelle, grew up. As Dani, Christian, and their friends bake under the 24-hour sun, strange things start to happen. But Christian and Dani are almost too distracted by their relationship falling to pieces to notice. It's not until the end when we realize that maybe, despite the fucked-upness of the situation, this whole trip was the best thing that could happen to Dani. As she watches the last tethers to her past literally go up in flames, her smile suggests that she is now truly home.

2019: My Least Favorites

3) Jojo Rabbit (C)

Because of Jojo Rabbit's strong first act, it is the best of my least favorites. Sadly, the biting satire of the first 30 minutes of Taika Waititi's Nazi-lampooning dramedy doesn't last and the film quickly turns into a slushy "feel good" movie about accepting others. NO. FUCK THAT BULLSHIT. I signed up to watch Waititi play an imaginary version of Hitler and to watch Nazis make fools of themselves. I did not sign up for a fucking milquetoast after-school special (in which...spoiler, spoiler spoiler...

...

spoiler...

THE MOM FUCKING DIES!?!?

...end spoiler

Jojo Rabbit is the biggest bait-and-switch of 2019. It wants to have its strudel and eat it too. I went in expecting The Producers and came out realizing I'd been fooled into seeing The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: an overly earnest, "childlike" look at genocide. While genocide can be satirized and mocked, in my opinion, it cannot be turned into a pat fable about how friendship conquers all. Also, some of the Nazis in this movie are "good Nazis". Fuck that--the only good Nazi is a dead one. 

2) The Souvenir (C)

The critical acclaim for Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir puzzles me. It's almost as if a boring and pretentious film automatically gets labeled as great. But despite a strong performance by Honor Swinton Byrne, The Souvenir is not great: it's boring, pretentious, and fucking annoying. A young woman, Julie (Byrne), goes to film school in early 80s England. She also begins seeing a rich fuckboi, Anthony (Tom Burke) who has a condescending attitude and, as it turns out, a heroin addiction. Despite Anthony treating Julie horribly--even stealing her stuff to fund his drug habit--she keeps forgiving him and taking him back until the inevitable happens (he dies of a drug overdose, and not a single viewer is sad about it because he's a real piece of shit and the movie doesn't even try to make you care for him). Now, while one might argue that this is realistic because young people fall into bad relationships all the time, it's just so. fucking. boring. We don't CARE about these characters so it's very hard to empathize. The Souvenir is a total snooze. Feel free to skip.

1) Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (D)

Not scary. Plot is absurd. Boring. I guess it's meant for kids? Skip the movie and read the books--with the original drawings--instead.

2019: Notable Mentions

Coulda been better if the director wasn't such a prick: 

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (B)

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood is a good movie, because all Quentin Tarantino movies are good movies. Hell, Inglorius Basterds is one of my all-time faves! With talent like Leo and Brad at the helm, you know the film can't be bad. But I tire of QT's bullshit. His films used to focus on strong women (Jackie Brown, Kill Bill [albeit he treated Uma Thurman like shit]) and he kept peeling strong women away from his recent films. Django Unchained had one female lead and she was 100% a damsel to be rescued. But OUaTiH is a new level because in this movie, women are either silent or murdered violently by men. Margot Robbie plays Sharon Tate and exists to look pretty and prop her bare feet up. There are two women and one man who are part of Charles Manson's cult who, in this revisionist story, accidentally enter Rick Dalton's house (Leo), a washed up actor who lives next door to Tate and Roman Polanski. Both Rick and his stunt-double, Cliff Booth (Brad) are high as a kite and they beat the shit out of and murder the intruders. Now, of course, the intruders are bad guys--in real life they killed 8 months pregnant Tate! But with the knowledge that QT is a misogynist who has treated his leading ladies like they are literally disposable, it's less pleasant to watch Brad Pitt beat up a teenage girl. This movies stinks of male bullshit. Yes, it's "good"...but it's also shitty.

Biggest freakout:

Climax (B-)

Gaspar Noe's frenetic movie about a troupe of dancers who accidentally drink LSD-spiked punch and go bananas is...a lot. It's not as fun as it sounds. There's a lot of screaming and fucking and running around. If you want to watch a movie that feels like a waking nightmare, by all means check out Climax. I'm just still amused by the guy who left in the middle of the movie, while yelling (for all in the theatre to hear), "this is bullshit!". Too weird for you, buddy?

Best use of Fiona Apple's Criminal:
Hustlers (B+)

It felt...criminal...to let Lorene Scafaria's based-on-true-events tale of strippers who stole from the rich and gave to themselves go unmentioned, even if it didn't make my final cut. Hustlers is fun and female-fronted, with great performances by J. Lo and Constance Wu. Along with Knives Out, Ready or Not, Us, and Parasite, it follows the big trend of "fuck the rich/privileged" of 2019. But unlike those other movies, this one actually happened. Sure, they got caught, but they fucked over a bunch of rich, white guys before the pigs busted 'em. Yeah, yeah..what they did (drug men and run up their credit cards) wasn't "technically" "legal"...but the way sex workers, blue collar workers, and women workers are treated in this dumb country that thinks it's better than it actually is...well, it's a crime. They've been bad, bad girls...but unlike Apple's song, I don't believe it's a sad, sad world when a woman breaks a boy just because she can.

Best movie that didn't come out in 2019, but I watched in 2019:
First Reformed (A)

I have to give a quick shout-out to Paul Schrader's beautiful and complex film about faith, hope, and depression. It's not a flashy film, but it grapples with some of the biggest questions in life, such as how to stand up against injustice even if injustice pays your bills, and how to go on in life when you truly believe the future won't be better. The answer, it seems, is love. Or rather, there is no answer--there's only the feeling of another human being holding on to you as you both freefall into the great unknown.

***

That's all folks! Best wishes in 2020!