Hereditary – scariest movie I’ve ever seen. Terrifying.
Rosemary’s Baby – the inspiration for Hereditary, I have to assume. Perfect October movie. (If you’re into the trope that this film started, also watch The Astronaut’s Wife, False Positive, the episode of the X-Files entitled “Essence”)
The Shining – Admittedly I enjoyed this film more when I was younger, but it’s a classic.
Hocus Pocus – another classic. Forget the new one; that one’s trash.
Labyrinth – why not?
The Lodge – this is a newer one where Riley Keough really shines, I think. I also think anything that incorporates religion (specifically Evangelical Christianity) into a horror story is fantastic.
The Sixth Sense – or NOT since I saw Old and decided to boycott M. Night Shyamalan. Fuck that guy.
Psycho – preferably the Alfred Hitchcock version but Vince Vaughn is wonderful so whatever you want.
Practical Magic – I just saw this for the first time a short while ago and I really loved it. Amazing soundtrack and Nicole Kidman a few decades ago was really an excellent actress. (Can’t say I feel the same way now.)
The Others – speaking of peak Nicole Kidman! I almost forgot about this one. Make this a must-watch for this month.
Barbarian – you’d be a couple years late to the twitter maelstrom but it’s worth a watch. Very disturbing and super weird.
Suspiria – preferably the original (because I’ll admit I only saw the recent remake and I figure the original is necessary to watch to consider yourself any type of film buff).
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Clue – speaking of Tim Curry.
The Addams Family
Jennifer’s Body – I also recently watched this in its entirety for the first time. I read an article about it that said it was a sleeper hit (obviously) and the reason it’s so good is because Jennifer regains her power by attacking men, who caused her transformation into a demonic spirit in the first place. It’s a story of vindication.
Get Out and Us – we love Jordan Peele.
American Psycho – I will take any excuse to watch this or recommend it.
Dark Shadows – I know everyone watches this throughout the year and for good reason, but October is especially appropriate.
Children of the Corn – Stephen King films are better than his books, and they are perfect for October.
The Witch (the vvitch?) – “Wouldst thou like the taste of butter?” Black Philip. Very good for anyone who’s extremely online, as they say. (A24 makes some creepy shit. They’re probably a reliable production company to go through during this spooky month, but I will say to go through the rest first. A24 is, I’ll repeat, for the extremely online. Go with some more mainstream classics.)
Halloween, The Exorcist, Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street
The Conjuring franchise
The House that Jack Built – Lars Von Trier and Matt Dillon. Run don’t want to your smart tv to watch. (Watch other LVT films this month, as well.)
There’s probably many more. Tell me what I missed.
UPDATE after reading some articles:
Interview with the Vampire
What we do in the shadows (tv and which I meant instead of Dark Shadows above)
Goodnight Mommy (2014)
The Blackcoat’s Daughter
The Purge
The Thing
The Haunting of Hill House (movie and tv show and book)
This is not really about film but it is about actors. (And I made a post several several years ago about Gossip Girl, which I should maybe update, so I clearly don’t always talk about film on this film-centered blog anyway.) Update: I think I should update MANY of these posts because my, are they embarrassing and simply overflowing with inaccuracies.
This post is about the show Entourage (it’s time! I’ve started it, by which I mean I am blowing through it at an alarming pace. I love it.) and the associations I make every time I see Johnny Drama and Melissa Gold (who our captioning system refers to as “Mrs. Ari” which I find so funny).
Kevin Dillon looks so much like his brother and I find it impossible to not think of Matt Dillon when I watch Kevin Dillon. I love Matt Dillon so much that I just assumed that what I had read about Kevin Dillon screaming “Victory” as an homage to his fictional series during an important event in his life was about an Emmy win rather than his wedding, which is actually where he yelled it. [Update: I watched the Entourage movie and he did yell this at his fictional Golden Globe win.] I want to put him on a pedestal with his brother when it’s probably not appropriate. I’m sure (and I hope) that he’s happy, but it must be so hard to be the member of the family that doesn’t make it like their relative did.
Perrey Reeves (Mrs. Ari (also insane spelling of a name, right?)) DATED David Duchovny! I am obsessed with this fact. I am almost done with the X- Files, which I have been watching with my boyfriend since the start of our relationship, and maybe I’ll write about it when I’m done. I want to watch and listen to everything David Duchovny has ever done and I constantly think about his sex addiction and I already knew he was married to Tea Leoni, but to know that he also dated this woman from Entourage?! FUN FACT. Last comment on this: good for her for staying so thin! I aspire to be that toned now, let alone when I’m 50+. [Update: I am a Solidcore convert! Praise.]
I am desperately trying to think of the origin of this quote I have in my head where someone hates Jeremy Piven. I tried to google it and couldn’t find anything. What is it from? Some guy says something like, “Ugh Jeremy Piven, fuck that guy.” Did I dream it? His was a good Wikipedia read, as well. Best friends with the Cusack family and also total creep.
My first Kanopy watch. (Isn’t is frustrating that the New York City library system, which must be filled with cinephiles real and self-proclaimed, doesn’t offer Kanopy? My membership had to wait until I moved back to Jersey. (Quick additional aside, cinephile is underlined in red and the suggested word to replace it is philistine – HAHAHA fuck you, too, WordPress.))
Buffalo ’66 is total art house cinema (obviously). It’s Lynchian and hipster and mumbles to its viewers, “You’re definitely either watching me on Kanopy or at a small, non-sanctioned theater in Brooklyn or Dimes Square.” And why is this? Because the writer, director and star is Vincent Gallo and this role is his better known (or rather, more accepted) of the two from this era. (The other is Brown Bunny.) Vincent Gallo is a Renaissance man and the wet dream of the Red Scare crowd. The first half of that statement is great; we love a Renaissance man. The second half of that statement is embarrassing and makes me throw up in my mouth a little.
I appreciated this movie. The protagonist is unlikeable because he’s impatient and entitled, yet somehow he’s charming. He reminds me, physically, of a colleague of mine at my first job after college in NYC. There have been articles about the theme of Stockholm Syndrome present in this movie, which has to be the case. Why else would Christina Ricci’s character (adorable, great tap dance scene) be okay with how insufferable and selfish her abductor is besides the fact that he’s hot?
Anjelica Huston plays the mother in this film, so it obviously had budget. It’s entirely watchable and I recommend. I’m glad I’ve finally seen it.
Rocky
This one is the most unacceptable for me not to have seen. But moving beyond that. I loved it SO much. It made me love Sylvester Stallone (until I inevitably go on his Wikipedia and learn that he’s more right-learning than I’d like). It made me realize how deep the Coppola dynasty goes (Talia Shire is Jason Schwartzman’s mom.) It made me learn that there are lyrics to the song that plays when Rocky runs up the stairs of the museum. It made me suggest to my boyfriend that we dress as Rocky and Adrian for Halloween.
I also watched Rocky II shortly after seeing the first (that’s how much I loved it). Also very good, increasingly stressful, and educational (for me): I need to space out my viewing. For everyone else: kids, stay in school!
Free Solo
Now that I have access to Disney+, I’ve learned that I can’t get enough of this movie. I watched it once a while ago and found it impressive. However, it hasn’t really left my thoughts since, which is pretty wild. The man around whom this documentary is centered is fascinating. He’s a freak and I think he’s extremely annoying (I would never be friends with him; I don’t know how his girlfriend turned wife turned mother of his child stands him), but the fact that his brain is different from everyone else’s, and the fact that he’s one of the few people in history to have accomplished the feat that inspired the documentary, is extraordinary and worthy of repeat viewings.
I suppose the string that ties these films together (besides how they’re all ones I watched in the recent past) is that the protagonists are boys who seem difficult to love but actually aren’t (except the real person (probably due to the fact that he is a real person and not a fictionalized character)). This is a stretch but:
Rocky and Alex have “hobbies” that take over their entire lives – boxing and climbing, respectively.
Alex and Billy (Buffalo ’66) aren’t looking for love but find it anyway.
Rocky and Billy are fictional characters, written by the men who portrayed them (I had a note about their political views but I’m not sure they can actually be categorized in the same bucket and also, why beat a dead horse.)
I don’t remember how I originally came across this movie, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t know that it’s an adaptation of a Henry James novel. I know I said (I think in literally my last post) that it’s important to consume both versions of media, but novels by writers like Henry James can be hard to read (I much prefer Edith Wharton). That said, if you’re going to experience the story of Maisie Beale, I think it’s totally fine for it to be through this film instead of through the book.
It’s a story of a bitter custody battle between two parents who use their daughter as a pawn, and it’s told entirely through her eyes. The film does an excellent job of this, including making the audience really uncomfortable during one scene where Maisie doesn’t have anyone to take care of her.
Steve Coogan is the absent, British father who has an unknown business that takes him on international trips quite frequently. Julianne Moore is the unstable rocker mother who still uses the word “cool” and spoils her daughter in order to keep her love (when all it would actually take is providing her with a feeling of security). Joanna Vanderham (who’s my age? what! yikes) plays Maisie’s longtime nanny who (like in the book, which I did attempt to read and made a third of the way through) marries Maisie’s father, oblivious to the fact that his proposal was to help him in the battle for custody of his daughter. Alexander Skarsgard plays the guy who Maisie’s mother rushes to marry in a tit-for-tat move.
All of the adults play their parts perfectly. Perhaps it’s a bit heavy-handed, but I think it’s well done. At one point Maisie’s mother hires an old nanny (same as in the book), but Maisie is used to her young caregivers and doesn’t enjoy the old nanny’s company.
In addition to this just being a feel-good adaptation, it’s also one of those films that’s a love letter to New York. We get to experience some apartment porn because Maisie Beale is from an aristocratic family. Therefore her parents’ respective apartments are in downtown Manhattan, she attends the Little Red School House, and she wears the clothes that you see little NYC babies wear when they hold hands walking down the sidewalk on a sunny day.
Maisie and Lincoln (Skarsgard) have a delightful day on the High Line (RIP to what the High Line used to be and the days where you could have it all to yourself like they did). Maisie and Margo (Vanderham) spend time in Central Park – at the sailboat pond and at some children’s theater? I believe the end of the movie takes place in the Hamptons (but I’m not sure). Regardless, enough city content to put it on that list. I love movies that do that.
The psychology at play with the parents is interesting to delve into. Susanna (the mother, Moore) is emotionally fragile. She’s an artist who places a weird focus on Maisie. She loves Maisie but she doesn’t know how to be a good mother, and because the story starts as the custody battle begins, we’re not entirely sure what her history or her deal is. We know she and Beale (the father, Coogan) are not married and that their relationship has been tumultuous. The things Susanna does increase in shittiness as the movie goes on: first she pits Maisie against her father before court, telling her that he threw her and that it was traumatizing. Then she marries Lincoln without telling anyone, including Maisie, and when Maisie asks her directly if she really got married, she tells her twice that she only did it for Maisie. Then she gets mad at Lincoln for engaging with Maisie and being a caring adult and showing interest in Maisie’s ideas. She goes on tour, leaving Maisie with Lincoln full-time, comes back to the city for a day without telling anyone and is discovered to have been cheating on Lincoln with Mr. Hells Kitchen. When she is forced to go back on tour, she drops Maisie off at the bar where Lincoln works, not caring to make sure he was even working that night and not considering that Lincoln may not want to do a favor for a woman who threw being with another man in his face. That night, because Lincoln wasn’t working that night, Maisie sleeps in an unknown bed in the house of someone she’s never met and is rescued by Margo the next morning. She’s more interesting a character than Coogan.
When it comes to Beale, he doesn’t actually care about Maisie, he simply doesn’t want Susanna to have sole custody. It’s entirely a power trip. He marries Margo to get joint custody but then considers divorcing her so casually. In the same train of thought he entertains the idea of having Maisie come to live with him in England, and then attempts to dissuade her from the idea by talking about how bad the weather is.
The young spouses, also pawns in the parents’ chess game, end up being the best caregivers Maisie could have wished for. They care for her and have her best interests at heart. They have hearts, and they make time and space for Maisie.
Some other notes about the film:
Maisie lives a sad childhood. Her parents are loaded, but she’s the one that needs to get cash for tip for the pizza delivery guy, make herself PB&J sandwiches for dinner, and tuck herself in at night when her mom is getting high with guys who will watch her old concerts with her. When she has a friend over for a sleepover, her friend is so uncomfortable from the chaos and lack of adults around that she cries and goes home early. Maisie can handle it because she doesn’t know anything different.
Maisie sees a kite at the beginning of the movie caught in a telephone wire. This is when she’s in the city, trapped in two gilded cages and unsure of what’s happening. At the end of the movie, at the beach, Maisie sees a kite flying freely in the air. This is when she’s comfortable with people who love her and each other, Margo and Lincoln, and she feels safe and secure. Shortly after, her mother agrees to give her space and leaves her with Lincoln and Margo at the beach house to go on tour. (This is not before trying to convince her young daughter to go on tour with her, bribing her with gifts and an attempt at showing her love).
This film is the children’s brand Jack + Jill personified, plus ABC Carpet and Home back in the good old days. They painted such an effective picture of what a childhood could look like. I’m obsessed with this adaptation and will watch it again (and maybe I’ll try to read the book again youjustneverknow).
Don’t think I said who played Maisie (whoops!): Onata Aprile.
Matt Dillon – Icon. Art house hipster whose oeuvre I was inspired to go through after watching Lars von Trier’s The House that Jack Built (2018). Somehow I missed The Outsiders which was a huge gap. My partner was shocked I hadn’t seen (or read) it when it came up as an answer on Jeopardy a week or two ago. We watched it and now I definitely need to read it. I’m a person that believes when a book was made into a film, it’s important to consume both.
Matt Dillon is friends with the Ronson children (from what I’ve gathered from Instagram), which is my barometer for measuring someone’s hipster clout. Theirs is a New York dynasty which I would say is comparable to the LA dynasty of the Coppola’s. (Francis Ford directed this movie – so it’s very incestuous, as well).
C. Thomas Howell – How did I not know about this guy? He’s still acting today, but apparently not in the genre of film or TV that attracts me, so I’ve missed out on him. He was perfectly cast in the Outsiders as a poet-romantic born into a family on the wrong side of the tracks. The idea of castes and good vs. evil is so rudimentary that when watching a movie I can start out a little offended, but a story surrounding this dichotomy can evoke real emotion when young boys are portrayed as emotional and emotionally fragile, dealt a bad hand and entirely undeserving of their fate.
Ralph Macchio – I hate to admit that I’ve only seen some of his movies: The Karate Kid (1984), My Cousin Vinny (1992). (By the way, Marisa Tomei totally deserved the Oscar for My Cousin Vinny, I’ve decided. I understand some think this award is controversial.) Macchio’s adolescent to young-adult acting will never be able to distract me from his big pouty lips or amazing Italian complexion.
Patrick Swayze – An actor with such amazing athleticism that directors seemed to make sure it was captured in all his films. His early death was tragic – truly a huge loss. His role in this film seemed small but his actions actually catalyzed the story (the moral of which, I think, is not to force young poets into violence. Also: domestic abuse must be avoided at all costs and cliques are bad.).
Rob Lowe – His part was microscopic! We needed more of him (we always do). Baby Rob Lowe is a treasure I can never get enough of. I’ll have to re-watch St. Elmo’s Fire (1985). (Here’s a take: The Outsiders is what I would want to describe as the poor man’s John Hughes flick. FFC is probably a more expensive director and yet what were some of those shots? Also I’ll never forgive FFC for putting his daughter in so many of his movies. Someone should have made him stop.)
Tom Cruise – ew. How his acting career took off after this, how Nicole Kidman ever agreed to marry him, anything about him, really, I’ll never understand.
Emilio Estevez – Hello, John Hughes crew! This family was everywhere in the 80s and I can’t complain. We love Emilio.
Diane Lane – I haven’t seen too many of her movies either so it took a good minute to place her from Under the Tuscan Sun (2003). (I need to stop undermining the legitimacy of this blog (lol) with these confessions.)
Tom Waits – He had THE smallest role in this entire film, but let me tell you how excited I get when I see his name in the opening credits of a movie. The most recent instance of this was Licorice Pizza (2021) by Paul Thomas Anderson. I need to watch Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) by Jim Jarmusch (there I go again!). Favorite Tom Waits song: Downtown train.
Others: Flea was in this movie as a soc? I didn’t register this. Wild. The author of the book, S.E. Hutton, was in this movie as a nurse? Let me tell you, the phenomenon of female writers using their initials rather than their full names to get published because decision-makers would think they were men is apparent, and so is the patriarchal mold of our society. I one hundred percent thought this book was written by a man. I assumed it was similar to Lord of the Flies or something. (My boyfriend read The Outsiders in school and then watched the movie. The class I was in didn’t have it on the list.)
5/5 would recommend to anyone else who didn’t read/see this in the K-12 system.
It’s not a film, but it should be! So let’s cast it. This article flirts with the idea, and of course Timothee would be the perfect Frances, but there are several other characters to cast and additional options. Time is a construct so in at least once instance I’ll use a past-life version of an actor. We’re also going to make everyone in the book – studious outcasts-by-choice that were actually described as being less than attractive – hotter, because that’s what Hollywood does. (And please excuse the formatting.)
Henry:
Finn Wolfhard
Star Wars-era Hayden Christensen
Bunny: Will Poulter
Frances:
Kodi Smit-McPhee
Timothee Chalamet
Charles:
Dane DeHaan
Douglas Smith
Camilla:
Cara Delevingne
Maya Hawke
Richard: Dylan Minette
Julian: Oscar Isaac
Cloke Rayburn: Alex Roe
The Corcoran family (not ordered correctly): John Mulaney (brother), Oliver Jackson-Cohen (brother), Alexandra D’addario (sister-in-law), Emma Mackey (sister-in-law), Guy Pearce (father), Anne Hathaway (mother) + whatever random children as nephews
Judy Poovey: Angourie Rice
Marion: Jessica Rothe or Julie Gonzalo (Cinderella Story-era)
Tis the season to watch Christmas movies. This is an oldie (obviously). I’ve been remiss in not writing about more old films because I consider (or at one point considered) myself something of a cinephile (see: the existence of this blog), but I know that I’m no film critic and the classics have been written about by people far more insightful and expert than I. But it is a shame that I wasn’t in the blog-posting mood when I saw for the first time Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, Afterhours, Eraserhead, La Piscine, or many others. But I’m here now to talk about Christmas in Connecticut.
First off, this movie is funny! I’m surprised at the humor in it, just like I was surprised by the humor of The Shop Around the Corner (and I’ve got a note about You’ve Got Mail at the end of this while it’s on my mind). It’s as though I don’t remember the other, non-holiday classics having zingers on par with those in scripts today. But they totally do. In Christmas in Connecticut, you’ve got a protagonist who’s lied about her charming Connecticut farm and perfect American family but, in order to keep her job, must throw things together quickly to make it appear as though she hasn’t been fooling everyone except her editor for the duration of her tenure at this magazine. She’s giving off serious Carrie Bradshaw vibes (except for how she’s writing Sue Ann Nivens content instead of sex and relationship advice). Our protagonist is a single girl who has spent six months’ salary on a mink coat and writes for a magazine while she works in her small New York City apartment. Once we get to the Connecticut farm, we realize she doesn’t know anything about children and can’t cook. (Hello, Carrie Bradshaw!) I appreciate how modern that is. Her back-from-war guest finds her attractive even though she’s quite the klutz and not the most motherly figure! He doesn’t know that yet. Additionally, the line, “Are you flirting with me?” is uttered, which seems a very turn-of-the-millennium phrase. I guess not!
The publisher of the magazine has a fantastically funny scene in which he marvels at how his employee’s baby – a baby girl with dark hair and a dark complexion the day before – has changed into a blonde baby boy. (We have learned that local mothers who work at a nearby factory drop their babies off for the maid’s babysitting services.) Barbara Stanwyck cries, “You’d look different, too, if you just swallowed a watch!” The situational comedy of this, which I don’t wish to describe further and trust you’ll watch to understand, is gold.
Let’s talk about how the set-up of this movie is inspired by the wish of a blonde, bimbo nurse, who is entirely being screwed over even though her intentions were good. She was nursing a soldier (veteran at this point? either way, hottie) back to health and wouldn’t give him the steak meals about which he dreamt until he treated her as though he was going to marry her. When they learned of his imminent discharge, it became slightly more obvious that he was not interested in her for marriage, but she thought this was because he didn’t come from a home where marriage would have become a priority for him. This nurse (who acts like a dumb blonde) writes to a magazine asking if her charge can spend Christmas at the home of their star cooking writer in the hopes that this time will make him realize he really does want to get married and enjoy a wholesome family life. So this man ends up in Connecticut for Christmas and falls in love with the Carrie Bradshaw character. I love the role Barbara Stanwyck plays in this but I feel bad for the poor nurse, since we have all fallen prey to the selfish shenanigans of a fuckboy. (I spoke with my mom on the phone in the middle of writing this and she protested that word. I think it’s appropriate.)
That’s where I am in the movie so far. Let’s see if it has a twist ending like A Philadelphia Story, in which she doesn’t end up with either of the two new suitors but her original husband, who beat her (right?).
And the P.S. regarding You’ve Got Mail: It’s so snobbish. We’re supposed to judge Parker Posey’s character for saying that insipid line about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (about how they looked so old but they’re our age), but we’re also supposed to judge Greg Kinnear for being too intellectual? Only Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are allowed to be reasonable? But Meg Ryan’s character didn’t vote? I was so put off by the Rosenberg comment and how we are supposed to view it in a certain way the last time I watched. (I’m defensive because I can see myself saying that at a party like that (if those parties still existed).)
Earlier this week I saw this film, the latest collaboration between darling Timothee Chalamet and Luca Guadagnino. I saw it with friends who are very reliable for seeing scary/disturbing/avant-garde films and when I met my friend before the show she gave me one of the biggest compliments ever, which is that “this girl never says no to a movie.” And it’s true. If you’re my friend, and the movie doesn’t star Rob Schneider, then I’m so in. And it doesn’t hurt for it to be showing at the Williamsburg Nitehawk Cinema where I’ll 100% be able to enjoy truffle popcorn and a cider during the movie, and there will be some super entertaining pre-feature video montage, etc.
So this film is fantastic. I have essentially no notes. I highly recommend, but only if you have a stomach for minor cannibalism (turns out it’s not a vampire movie, and that’s okay). The film is well-acted, well-paced, and beautifully directed. I really need to watch Guadagnino’s filmography. (He’s obviously the guy who directed Call me by your Name – fun cannibalism crossover if you have a dark and crass sense of humor – and an American remake of La Piscine.)
This is a road movie. Which is to say that it’s a beautiful story that takes place essentially on a road trip. I tried hard to remember the exact phrasing of this. But it’s important for me to know because my mother, a professor and Latin American film critic, has written about the road movie. (This was many years ago and neither of us could remember what the correct term was. I kept calling it a road trip film and she didn’t know what that meant. A cursory search on Google has led me to the conclusion it’s a road movie.) It’s such an excellent device to create a structure for the film and create a route for other characters to come into the picture. Our protagonists meets others along her journey. Some people offer company she enjoys while others offer company she wishes to escape. Time goes on and our characters, and their relationships, develop.
I immediately identified and classified this film as a road movie (calling it a road trip movie) upon the start of rolling credits. My friend said that road movies instill a sense of patriotism into a viewer, which is certainly interesting and definitely true. I am not one to wave an American flag and invoke eagle and gun imagery into anything, ever. But if you show me the purple mountain majesty above the fruited plain in a film while an inspired soundtrack plays softly in the background and a tender scene takes place, I’m going to feel patriotic. I’m proud of the fact that this country, with its many problems and seemingly insurmountable social and political and environmental issues, has some really awe-inspiring landscapes. And even in America there are people who love film, so that movies like this, about young love in cannibals (and young cannibals in love), gets green-lit.
We love a cameo by Chloe Sevigny. My friend loved the significant screen time given to Mark Ryland, who is having an end-of-career high. (And while she works in the biz, I was intrigued by the wording in her description “end-of-career” because he doesn’t seem too, too old. Others act for much longer. Who knows.)
I highly recommend Bones and All. It’s definitely in the style of the director, which I think I always want. His movies (that I’ve seen) are so touching. This movie is, of course, edgier. But you almost forget that you’re watching a movie about cannibals because of the other social elements at play. It’s practically just another coming of age film where people interact with people, and you develop hopes for how things will turn out in the end.
Wonderful scenery (can’t let go of it), excellent acting. It wasn’t too long of a movie (SO rare) and certainly not to short – truly the perfect length (and I never think that). I loved the outfits and the nostalgia that came from it being set in the 80s. (Another thing about this movie – it’s set in the 80s. Good decade for a road movie, don’t you think?!) I say go see it.
[Update: I’m changing the names of some of these posts because my attempts to be clever were cringe! So we’re just going with the film titles.] The Machinist was good. I remember trying to watch it a few years ago and literally couldn’t deal with the sight of Christian Bale being so skinny. Now, however, I can suck it up, and as long as he wasn’t looking straight in the direction of the camera and wasn’t shirtless or in boxers I still thought he was so hot. Favorite actor. Favorite American affectation (kind of wish he were American). I’m obsessed with the fact that his stepmom is Gloria Steinem.
Anyway! It was a great story and they really wrapped it up with a BOW at the end. That’s always nice, I guess. It was satisfyingly unsettling in an Uncut Gems kind of way. Of course, I couldn’t get Memento or Fight Club out of my head, and that sucks because when I watch a movie I want it to be unique enough where I’m not constantly thinking of Tyler Durden or Guy Pearce (literally not a moment of rest from those thoughts). My main question is that the clues were so dumb because this jabroni hadn’t slept in a year, right? Not immediately realizing that the hangman was spelling killer? That’s some idiocy predicated by a lack of restorative sleep, is it not? I’ve read a few reviews now that I’ve watched it and they don’t mention this (it’s probably not worth mentioning), but I thought the clues in Memento and in other movies are more believable. As in, it’s credible that they lead to a larger and more rewarding payoff in the end. You don’t think about how dumb the clues are that Guy Pearce’s character is struggling with (I should rewatch that movie). These clues were silly!
Love Christian Bale a lot. His voice was as beautiful as ever in this film despite his appearance. “If you were any thinner you wouldn’t exist.”
Here’s what I’ve got for what I think is my favorite movie and a film which somehow I’m ready and willing to share as my favorite movie when prompted on a dating app. First, its existence as a fairy tale gone wrong, which I guess is what the original black swan story is about. You’ve got this city princess – our protagonist Nina (Natalie Portman at less than 100 lbs, natch) – who lives in a gilded cage of an Upper West Side apartment with a mother who is way too doting and, as we learn, manipulative, resentful, and controlling. She calls the office of the ballet company when her daughter doesn’t come home immediately after practice and has unconditional access to her bedroom and personal space. Ultimately, she locks her daughter away on the opening night of her performance, which she thinks (or claims) is for Nina’s own good. Basically, we’ve got some evil (step) mother vibes here.
We’re all mad here
Then, there’s the mental decline of Nina. She certainly suffers from OCD as well as from body dysmorphia. She’s a ballerina, and they’re all wildly thin, but we see Nina purge in the Lincoln Center stage bathroom and refuse a slice of cake from her mother when she gets the part of the Swan(?) after letting the director (Vincent Cassel) sexually assault her. (Honestly, I dig a parallel storyline about an eating disorder when the real story is about insanity OR ballet.) I thought about how bulemia and anorexia are driven by a desire to be thin, but what if this girl is just constantly so nervous that her body has learned that it can never calm down, and she’s throwing up out of nervousness? That might be part of it? This girl picks her skin, or at least has hallucinations that she does, but then realizes she didn’t. And she scratches her back, which her mother of course is all over and clips her fingernails to ensure she doesn’t continue this self-harming behavior.
As women…
Let’s talk about the way this film discusses gender and sex. In a ballet company, dancers need to maintain unrealistic (and probably harmful) standards, which drives them to be competitive with one another within the company. And Aronofsky has no qualms about painting in broad strokes and saying that whoever is good enough AND sleeps with the director would become the lead dancer. There’s competition among females but also competition within Nina herself. Basically, a man is making a decision that will make or break her career, a life or death decision, if you will, and it’s pretty outside the realm of her control. From the beginning, you can tell this is a girl who does not get along with the other women in her company because she’s so obsessed with achieving perfection in her craft that she has no time for friends. Plus, her mom probably told her that with a mother like her, who needs friends? (But her mother hates her and is competitive against her, as well, pressuring Nina to have gotten a good part this year because it’s about time, and the reason she no longer dances is because her pregnancy with Nina cut it short. Yikes!) And then Lily (Mila Kunis also teetering below 100 lbs) comes along and Nina really starts to lose her shit. (For anyone who’s been in a bad relationship, though, can’t you relate? There’s one chick you simply don’t feel good about who you think is after what you’re hanging onto by a thread? Same thing could happen in a workplace. Women are constantly pitted against each other at the hands of men who have control!) Nina constantly needs external validation. She’s nuts but because of the nature of her upbringing, her mental illness was never addressed and her issues with herself and with other women are the tip of the iceberg.
Black & White
This film is really driven by dualities. The white swan versus the black swan (obvious). This goes further with the dichotomy of Madonna/whore. Nina is a prudish might-as-well-be virgin, and Lily is sexually liberated and so for the purposes of a simple contradiction, a whore. Nina doesn’t go against the rules of her mother, which include going out at night and doing drugs, and Lily goes out at night, sleeps over strangers’ houses, and casually does ecstasy and smokes. She also comes from San Francisco, so we’ve got East Coast versus West Coast, too. Nina doesn’t eat, but Lily orders and takes a healthy bite from a cheeseburger when they go out. Nina is sheltered; Lily is free. Nina has a lesbian dream but needs to seduce Tomas to get and keep the part she wants. I haven’t yet mentioned Winona Ryder’s character in this, who is the ballerina Nina replaces as the Swan because Winona has aged out. Young versus old. When Nina is explaining the plot of Swan Lake to Sebastian Stan(Carter Baizen for my gossips) and thinking they’re interested in hearing about it and even attending rather than just hooking up that night, we see a girl who is naive versus one who knows what’s up.
Tensions rise
The two most interesting scenes in Black Swan are when Nina and Lily go clubbing, and then what happens Opening Night. When Nina and Lily go clubbing, Nina does drugs for the first time. She fucks two guys and then has a dream where she’s fucked by Lily. Here’s what I think about this: the entire film, she has hated the other women in the film and herself. This is a symbolic manifestation of self-love. She wishes she were Lily, who is so effortlessly Black Swan, aka: seductive (and Tomas won’t shut up about her which breeds insecurities at practice). Nina took drugs and she feels liberated; she’s glad that she went against her mother and decided to go out that night. It’s probably the first decision this timid little ballet dancer has ever made for herself. Nina’s dream was a delusion, but it symbolized a break from the rigid reality she’d been suffering in. And to disobey her mother and behave so freely was so against her nature that she didn’t realize how it would impact her – showing up late to practice and giving Tomas more time to realize how skilled Lily is at dancing.
Opening Night is also wild. The Black Swan half of Nina has been let loose. She’s still the White Swan, she always has been, but ever since her night out, her Black Swan is more present than ever (and it’s been creeping out throughout the movie). She’s nervous, so she fucks up and causes her dance partner (and IRL baby daddy and husband!) to drop her! She kills, or imagines she kills, Lily in her dressing room. There’s face-changing, shape-shifting. Nina is both the angel on her shoulder keeping herself scared and ashamed of her mistake, and the devil on the other shoulder telling her that her time is now. She can do it. In terms of the altercation, I think Nina murders the part of herself that says she can’t do it, that she thinks is keeping her from achieving perfection. The part that’s always strived for perfection but which she realizes is the biggest hindrance. Once that unpleasantness is over, Nina goes back on stage and totally kills it. She turns into the Black Swan. She lets her delusions consume her and the performance be all-encompassing. On the mattress that lands her fall, she claims she was perfect.
In conclusion –
Here are my takeaways/platitudes: ultimately, Nina dies. I think she literally and physically perishes after killing the part of herself that tried to hinder her (but we are the sum of our parts and you can’t actually just kill one swan!). She would rather die than risk a performance of the part that wasn’t perfect. Any future performance could turn into that, so Nina subconsciously decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Ultimately, Nina killed for the role, and she died for it. Being the Black Swan was so out of her wheelhouse – so terribly uncomfortable for her, that it killed her. I think this speaks to the parameters that govern our daily lives, especially as women. There is a duality presented to her throughout the movie, and she simply can’t handle it. People need to live in moderation, with various parts of life in balance. Otherwise things end in tragedy (even if that doesn’t mean a bloody demise on the stage at Lincoln Center and just an unfulfilled life). The internet says one of the dualities is obsession versus perfection. I say neither is great.
auteur hauteur 