The Joker...

I'm rewatching romantic comedies, having now seen It Happened One Night, When Harry Met Sally, and Moonstruck within the past two days. Also doing considerable reading about films like these, from the BFI study on When Harry Met Sally to the more theoretically charged stuff that brings in film theorists such as Laura Mulvey into the mix. Anyway, how the hell can you overlook Nic Cage in Moonstruck?


"Love don't make things nice. It ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die."

So I'm grading papers, and the Bob Fosse movie, Sweet Charity. is on TV. I've never seen it, and it's pretty good...until...this dance number comes on, and completely slays me:



What the hell was that?

I've watched it 5 times now. It's mesmerizing. I'm in love with the lead female dancer, Suzanne Charny. I don't care if she's 74 now.

It amazes that I can go see a movie with someone and have my mind blown (Widows) and they can walk out of the theater and say “it was alright.”

lol I know, it always amazes me, too

the more I've reflected on it the more I think it deserves another viewing.
I think I was just expecting something much different but thinking back on it there was def a lot of elements I like that I didn't really appreciate at the time.

I don't think it's gonna suddenly become one of my favs but def gonna give it another shot without the preconceptions I had the first time around.

it goes without saying it was beautiful didn't even think that was necessary to point out when it comes to the coens, godamn they know how to frame a shot.

if you're on a romantic comedy kick and like nic cage check out it could happen to you.

Rumor Control has it that she was portrayed by Ann Rheinking in All That Jazz.

Man, Widows was way better than I expected.

it was alright

That Sweet Charity clip makes me want to rewatch Austin Powers.

I've been thinking the exact same thing(s).

I haven't been wowed the first time with many Coen movies. Blood Simple and No Country are the only two I can think of. I had to watch Big Lebowski about 5 times before I saw the light.

They are my favorite working film-makers and I always at least enjoy their films on first look. But I’ve learned to expect to leave scratching my head and thinking, “Will I think this is a masterpiece in 5 years?”

Though the exact same thing.

damn can't believe I used was instead of were.
that **** drives me insane when I see it then I go and do it myself.

Ever want to watch two hours of Mark Wahlberg screaming at the top of his lungs in that reedy, whiny, high-pitched, fast-talking thing he does?

Well, Mile 22 is for you, my friends.

Instant Family It will make you want to foster children immediately or never want to foster children as long as you live. It's a good family movie that I enjoyed. Much better than I expected.

Creed II - An absolute must if you're a Rocky IV fan or a Creed fan. It fumbles around with a lot of the setup in my opinion, many questionable story choices and motivations that don't quite work, but it does ultimately succeed once the fight starts.

The fight itself was better than I expected, better than the previous movie (not as good as Balboa or 1).

Dolph Lundgren is excellent, all of that is handled far better than you'd expect it should be (especially if you haven't seen Rocky IV in a long time and are making the mistake I made of assuming it was bad).

Goosebumps were had at times.

A boy of around 12 was near me with (presumably) his dad and mom. I first watched the Rocky movies with my dad at around that age. Did the combination of seeing them, along with the father/son elements of the film, along with my father's death last year get me a little misty-eyed? Perhaps.

Shampoo (1975, Hal Ashby) - Warren Beatty stars as a hairstylist who gets around. It's genuinely funny at times, especially in one stellar party scene. The scene reminded me of about what I would expect from something like a Neil Simon play, with well-scripted chaos as relationships entangle and people jab at each other.

I would normally see a movie being play-like and too clever with its words as a bad thing. But this avoids that entirely because it largely substitutes excellent acting and facial expressions for the verbal stuff.

This was like 20 years later, he was no longer on Wall St.

I had the same thoughts with Hail Caesar and it still didn't quite get there when I saw it the second time. Lebowski I have seen 3-5 times and have not "seen the light" yet. For a non-Coen example, I've often repeated that Blade Runner took me multiple formats and decades before it hit.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (wrote some on it earlier) fits perfectly with what I discussed with a friend just last week. He asked me who my #1 living filmmaker is other than Lynch, and I said it's gotta be the Coens - they're who I'd be most excited for a new movie from* [other than Lynch], even though for me their filmography is pretty uneven. A couple are in my overall top 5 (NCFOM) to 10 (Burn After Reading) ever, a few I just don't get but really want to give the benefit of the doubt, and a bunch are at different levels in-between.

The 6 short films in Scruggs are like a microcosm of that. I'd put ~2 of them as literally some of the best Westerns ever, a couple that I "want to believe" in, and a couple in between.


*Oddly, this was with me not even realizing the new Coens movie was coming out that same week.

"best westerns evaa" eh? lol

The best Coens is pretty great: Fargo, Lebowski, No Country. Overall, their work strikes me as being quite inconsistent.

Shampoo arrived amidst Hal Ashby's run of Harold & Maude > The Last Detail > Shampoo > Bound for Glory > Coming Home > Being There.

That's a damn solid series of 70's era flix from a pass the blow but don't call me an auteur filmmaker.

Widows was....different.

I'm not sure I liked it very much, tbh. It seems that McQueen was going for the bare bones of everything: narrative, character, and emotion...with little in between. It was interesting but also seemed disjointed.

However, I think that's intentional, and I'm going to have to watch it again, I think, to have a chance of understanding what the point was.

Luther Campell stars in a remake of La Jetee:

well ok

Pikachu as Blade Runner

Trying to get in as many on Filmstruck these last few days. The Awful Truth was on tap this afternoon. It's a great Leo McCarey film, starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, as a couple divorcing and reconciling. I think tonight I might go for A Lion in Winter, which I've never seen for some reason.

Ooooh, I love A Lion In Winter....so evil