Okay, so I mentioned that I’d be doing a ‘best of the year’ movie blog and here, in March, it is! Now I watch a lot of movies, and in any other context besides here I’d be reluctant to lay out the full range of my palate. It also happens that my life-partner, being many years younger than me (which isn’t hard to to) didn’t grow up with the same films I did, so some of our watching was an introduction for her and a re-visitation for me. While we watched many old movies – including nearly everything made by Hitchcock, or starring Marilyn, Myrna, Ginger&Fred, Bogi&Bacall…. and African Queen. Besides the usual standouts, a few bear special mention:
Sophie's Choice – well, because Hellooo Meryl! Our first real introduction to a woman that I think—at her best—is the Gold Standard of modern acting. Bar none. Sometimes a film is for the story, or the images, and sometimes for the character, and sometimes for the acting. This is for the latter. And it’s a damnfine story.
Hopscotch – If you don’t know this, get it. Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson, being a very smooth old odd couple who ‘put it to the man’ while celebrating a lifelong romance. Just sweet and satisfying – and Matthau at his peak.
Some Like It Hot – “Well, nobody’s Perfect” except in many ways this movie is. Poignant too, on many levels, but too damn funny not to celebrate.
All About Eve – a very brave and raw performance by one of Hollywood’s most challenging and challenged bitches. Not a nice person to know on or off the stage, and she knew it, lived it, and shows it here.
American Graffiti – that prank with the cop car? I did that with my friends somewhere between the A&W at one end of town and the sketchy bar at the other end. This catches the edge of America before Viet Nam really slammed us. “Fandango” shows us what happened a few years later, and of course Apocalypse Now Redux shows us a bit of the in-country madness.
Salome's Last Dance – Ken Russell’s extraordinary presentation of Wilde’s play. Salome herself is a gift to the screen – a gift that sadly didn’t appear again. I don’t like the ‘frame’ of the play, but the play itself… as good as it gets for showing a film of a play. Except for Prospero’s Books, perhaps, but I didn’t watch that this year.
“The Girl With/who had a Dragon Tattoo and Kicked over a Fire” – okay the story is straight from Ken Follett and other 70’s Nazi conspiracy novels, but the acting… made me buy the set. I cannot fathom what made anyone think it needed remaking, any more than “Let the Right One In” did. geez people, learn some languages or learn to read!
Destiny – a very old silent film from Germany about a woman who has three chances to reclaim her lover from Death. Shows us a world and world views we don’t see now. Sort of a “Seventh Seal” without all the fancy angst. Clearly the production values are nil, but let it tell its story, and it’s a good thing to see.
Two versions of Alice in Wonderland. SO MUCH BETTER than any of the very recent tellings. Johnny, really! meh.
Malice in Wonderland – set in a British seaside community, with Tim Curry playing a Red Queen. well done and highlights some of the undercurrents in the story. (and yes I’ve read the book, have a 2nd edition, (with the Tenniel illustrations)).
Alice – the Czech stop motion version starring a taxidermy rabbit leaking sawdust, a little girl speaking directly into the camera, and animated cow tongues and then some weird stuff. Hard to watch for me, actually, but still I’m glad I did.
that led me to Lunacy, also by Jan Svankmajer. also hard to watch on many levels, especially as a lifelong vegetarian… but the stark consideration of insanity and the necessity of being insane to treat insanity meaningfully if fatally, makes a powerful film.
and that led me to The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes – if Rene Magritte was a film (not a film maker, but a film) this is him. visually perfect, something that cannot be done in any other media. a simple strange story which illumines and condemns human character.
Jar City – a bleak little film from Iceland, very suspenseful, and the title explains itself in a disturbing way. Somewhere around Smilla’s Sense of Snow and Tideland (well not really but I thought I’d mention that fine film anyway).
Water Lilies – not one for ‘coming of age’ at my age, but I really liked this one! It is so. very. French. Seeing those young girls slide into the water you see a millennia of careful dance training – juxtaposed to the awkward courage of the outcast and the plain girls.
Service -- Excellent film all set in a multi-story theater where a family shows porn and rent boys troll for pickups; a difficult day in the life of a screwed up and struggling family in Manila or somewhere in the Phillipines. The set alone!
Leap Year (Ano bisiesto) a lonely film about a plain girl seeking love in the big city—dark, bondage love—which she gets, and then puts to use. all filmed in her flat, mostly in her pajamas, her flannel pajamas. this is true cinema verite for me; sometimes it was sexy, but always potent.
Wayward Cloud & Goodbye Dragon Inn, and I’ll never sleep alone. too beautiful or weird to miss. throw in Kamikaze Girls for a palate cleanser! if you like pomegranate syrup on your caramel popcorn with edible flowers, that is.
Don't Look Back – a French suspense film sort of surreal that makes use of surrealism to tell a story of a woman discovering herself to be other than her self-image in mid-life. I liked the story and the way it was told, and the actress(es)
All the rest of my faves for the year are Anime – Usually part of the mix, but a strong part this year:
The Book of the Dead – an exquisite puppet film about a princess seeking a vision of Amida Buddha. Watch it.
Claymore – a fascinating all-female cadre of cursed knights. I liked this for the story line and because the women, while mildly sexy looking were appropriately asexual given their story and their task.
Mezzo Forte -- dark girls and geeks against the government. outrageous hyperviolence and whatnot.
Mushi-Shi – a lyrical, bittersweet collection of water-color anime telling folk tales, not all with happy endings, but all beautiful.
Moriboto – another strong heroine story with a wonderful dilemma at the core of the story line: kill a child to save a kingdom? what to do and why? this was well plotted and deserved its length.
Xxxholic: A Midsummer Night's Dream -- not what I thought it was going to be. really a trippy “night locked in a haunted mansion” (think Harry and Malfoy having to team up in service to a dark Hermione). The photomontages is just fine.
Negima Magic – fun soft lolicon stuff – reminds me of Bleach 7 for some reason.
Queen's Blade – a good plot in spite of aiming for the largest collection of oversized boobs ever to flash the screen, including at the AVN awards… but I liked it!
Elfen Lied – if only she had been on Serenity … very well told arc, that ties up all its loose ends, sadly, in one season.
Finally, for TV I really liked the first season of the Fades – don’t see much mention of it anywhere…
That’s it!
I have to get rid of that Xmas thing. am planning to do a movie blog soon. am presently swallowed up in the details and detritus of moving my mom for the third time this year (she thinks she's going to Alaska, which isn't half wrong!)
now that we got that taken care of...
It's been a while, I know. partly because I really can't think of what to write here, and partly because my life has been quite messy these past months.
Primarily with my mom, whose dementia is getting her evicted from the second nursing home as we speak--or rather her personality is. Now that the patina of civilization has worn off, her natural mean-spirited self is shining through. She's a born-again who has no tolerance for pagans--which includes Lutherans, Catholics and Santa (note the anagram for you-know-who)... when I was 11 my grandma (the one who lived in that wonderful house) wrote me a letter apologizing for my mom's views. The rest of the family are pretty cool, actually, accepting various faiths, psychic phenomena and whiskey, as all good Scots (well maybe not the faith part) should. On another night I'll write about my uncle and his experiences in the desert, or my grandpa's poker skills (he won a factory from Henry Ford on a busted flush).
Meanwhile I have been fielding phone calls from the police, the fire department and anyone else mom thinks owns and operates taxis. Funny, but not 14 times in the middle of the night. We've had to give her a toy phone and have the staff call out on a cell. Finally found a "future phone" which only lets her dial specific people. If you have a foggy relation, get this for them. And be damned sure you get and read the POA (power of attorney) carefully! Mom put many loopholes in hers, so we can't pay her taxes until we prove she's nuts, and she's so nuts she won't tolerate taking the tests, so she wasn't considered non-compos until she finished a test, which took a lot of guile.
I did manage to find a nice place to stay in Estes whilst visiting said mom and got some fine hikes in amidst all her shenanigans. Now I'll be back there for some skiing perhaps.
thinking of the christmas season: i have very mixed feelings about this season: there are moments, perhaps every year, when something resonates for me, but so much of it is like the "money shot" in porn--the main feature turns out to be something you can barely stand to look at. much less look at repeatedly. or hear repeatedly.
but there are moments -- sometimes in the midnight mass pumped in from Rome, or sitting in the Catholic cathedral in Santa Fe - twice as old as the USA, or in Westminster... or in our little tiny homespun local church (where my Jewish wife is the choirmistress and the only reason to show up). or from a gift or a card, or the relieved eyes of a homeless person in the food line as we serve them... like I said, mixed. I think the purest moments have been with the Salvation Army. In spite of their unhealthy attitude towards gays (take a wild guess), they are acutely aware of who really has been naughty and nice amongst the needy in the community. Delivering Christmas food packages with a few gifts and clothes to these homes is perhaps the best way to spend the day that I know of. Any charity that helps folks is corrupt and imbalanced, but I am no angel either (or even Christian for that matter), but help is help, and tainted help is still largely help. so with that I'll go back to listening to my favorite seasonal music:
so Merry Christmas and to all a good night
well, I came and went; so this might turn out to be a proper blog for once.
The aforementioned Fleur & co. did get to go to Colorado. In the end we ended up with Fleur, Violet (a big fan of IHOP); and about 10 other companions, including the ever-necessary dragon-rabbit car assistants. The Rabbit (Fresno) is for keeping track of things like filling the (rental) car gas tank before returning to the airport and other regulatory concerns; the Dragon (Smoke) is for blowing folk off the road who are annoying, or just cursing them. (His latest curse: your car will develop an annoying rattle that no one can find until three weeks after you sell it to your mother in law, at which point it will turn out to be something catastrophically expensive to repair. Don't mess with the Dragon. Ever.)
jocularity aside, for the nonce, dealing with my addled, bitchy, paranoid, nasty, scared, disoriented mom was no picnic, and isn't abating that much. we spent the better part of two weeks refitting her 'apartment' to wheelchair specs; and meeting for hours on end with PT, OT, Speech therapists, nursing aids, her social worker, etc., all in an effort to sustain her semblance of independence. The woman has not been told what to do since she was 3, and takes advice, confinement badly, very badly. I always thought my scofflaw nature came from my rebel dad; it turns out that some of it is also from my mom. She is supposed to wait for a nurse to help her out of a chair; she refuses to wait and gets up on her own--and then hits the floor. To alert them to her impulses, she has to sit on a pad that beeps when she gets up; she figured out that her three bibles and a thermos weighs enough to fool the pad! every nurse i talked to said "your mom is crafty!" (and "your mom is stubborn") watching, waiting for her to take the full turn into twilight consciousness wherein she no longer struggles against the tide is exhausting. I don't really resent repeating myself to her three, four, seven times a day, but I do worry about how long the nursing staff will tolerate it. She has already been given one notice that if she doesn't behave they're gonna throw her out. That will be a right mess for sure! My guess is that she will indeed get herself thrown out in hopes of living with my sister--who has NO desire to deal with her.
outside of days and days in the nursing home we did get to go hiking in the high hills of Colorado - Emerald Lake, Finch Lake, Ouzel Lake, Gem Lake, and Bierstadt. some trails were dry, but many still had 4 FEET of snow on them! Hiking on a hot day with the coolth of the snow radiating into the air with its winter-smells mingling with the late-spring aroma of the mountains is just the best. We mostly had fun; my wife and I certainly had a ton of fun; and we met a young woman from LA who I told should be on this site--whether as a model or a member, we'll see. We also managed to play some mini-golf, or "putt-putt" as we used to call it. ... and I found a desk -- a solid oak roll-top desk! the store wanted to get rid of it so they eventually sold it to me for 35% of the asking price (and this was not in Estes where everything starts out overpriced to begin with)! so that's cool!
oops--just got a phone which I must answer -- more later! (probably a bit more than later)
The aforementioned Fleur & co. did get to go to Colorado. In the end we ended up with Fleur, Violet (a big fan of IHOP); and about 10 other companions, including the ever-necessary dragon-rabbit car assistants. The Rabbit (Fresno) is for keeping track of things like filling the (rental) car gas tank before returning to the airport and other regulatory concerns; the Dragon (Smoke) is for blowing folk off the road who are annoying, or just cursing them. (His latest curse: your car will develop an annoying rattle that no one can find until three weeks after you sell it to your mother in law, at which point it will turn out to be something catastrophically expensive to repair. Don't mess with the Dragon. Ever.)
jocularity aside, for the nonce, dealing with my addled, bitchy, paranoid, nasty, scared, disoriented mom was no picnic, and isn't abating that much. we spent the better part of two weeks refitting her 'apartment' to wheelchair specs; and meeting for hours on end with PT, OT, Speech therapists, nursing aids, her social worker, etc., all in an effort to sustain her semblance of independence. The woman has not been told what to do since she was 3, and takes advice, confinement badly, very badly. I always thought my scofflaw nature came from my rebel dad; it turns out that some of it is also from my mom. She is supposed to wait for a nurse to help her out of a chair; she refuses to wait and gets up on her own--and then hits the floor. To alert them to her impulses, she has to sit on a pad that beeps when she gets up; she figured out that her three bibles and a thermos weighs enough to fool the pad! every nurse i talked to said "your mom is crafty!" (and "your mom is stubborn") watching, waiting for her to take the full turn into twilight consciousness wherein she no longer struggles against the tide is exhausting. I don't really resent repeating myself to her three, four, seven times a day, but I do worry about how long the nursing staff will tolerate it. She has already been given one notice that if she doesn't behave they're gonna throw her out. That will be a right mess for sure! My guess is that she will indeed get herself thrown out in hopes of living with my sister--who has NO desire to deal with her.
outside of days and days in the nursing home we did get to go hiking in the high hills of Colorado - Emerald Lake, Finch Lake, Ouzel Lake, Gem Lake, and Bierstadt. some trails were dry, but many still had 4 FEET of snow on them! Hiking on a hot day with the coolth of the snow radiating into the air with its winter-smells mingling with the late-spring aroma of the mountains is just the best. We mostly had fun; my wife and I certainly had a ton of fun; and we met a young woman from LA who I told should be on this site--whether as a model or a member, we'll see. We also managed to play some mini-golf, or "putt-putt" as we used to call it. ... and I found a desk -- a solid oak roll-top desk! the store wanted to get rid of it so they eventually sold it to me for 35% of the asking price (and this was not in Estes where everything starts out overpriced to begin with)! so that's cool!
oops--just got a phone which I must answer -- more later! (probably a bit more than later)
