I shared this story from my grad school time on Instagram and thought it was too good to be lost in the algorithm over there where “stories” disappear. I’ve always loved this anecdote, and it was a great lesson to pass on to young students. Plus: it just underlines Gena Rowlands’ primacy.
Mick Jagger accepted defeat. He knew better than to even try to compete with Alain Delon. Which is WILD when you consider who Mick Jagger was at this particular moment in time.
The Rolling Stone frontman couldn’t compete with Delon. He knew he wouldn’t win. Don’t even try, Chips.
Alain Delon thought, “A world without Gena Rowlands is not a world worth living in.”
I put a piece up on my Substack about Delon which I wrote years ago, and it was his beauty and how it operated in very disturbing ways. I re-worked it a bit. It’s not an in-depth role-by-role tribute, it’s really more a meditation on the most obvious thing about him and how much it was a part of what he did onscreen. One of my all-time faves.
My friend Dan wrote a great tribute on his Substack.
When you look like Alain Delon, you inhabit a special category, and what’s notable is just how menacing he made that “most beautiful of them all” category seem. During his headiest days as a movie star, and even long afterward, Delon would often refer to himself in the third person, as in, “But of course Alain Delon would do that,” and so he was hyper-conscious of his image as a pretty-boy tough guy in a trench coat who walked through life in a kind of trance, as he does in perhaps his most famous movie, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï (1967).
A little bit more on Gena on my Substack.
Gathered myself together, and wrote a tribute – yet another one, really – to Gena Rowlands for Ebert. I did my best. It won’t be the last time I write about her. We’ll be dealing with this career, trying to get a handle on it, for generations to come.
I miss her. I am grateful to her.
Good One is a good one. A REALLY good one. I reviewed for Ebert.
Over on my Substack I wrote about Lo Fi, a novel I fell madly in love with. It evoked my own life. My response was so self-centered. But a good book can do that. I highly recommend it: Lo Fi, by Liz Riggs (an affiliate link, if you feel like throwing some coins my way).
Anyone But You (2023; d. Will Gluck)
The fascination with Glen Powell continues. I’ve seen this maybe four times now? The NY Times did a whole ROUNDTABLE about Glen Powell, like: what is going on with this guy? It’s like THEY don’t see the appeal of him – he doesn’t fit their narrative – and so they aren’t prepared. Guys. He’s just the new hot leading man. We haven’t had one in a while. It’s a big deal for HIM, and I am happy for him, but none of this should be CONFUSING.
X (2022; d. Ti West)
Decided to catch up on this, which I missed the first time around. I haven’t seen Maxxxine yet, the final installment in this trilogy. Mia Goth is incredible, yes, and honestly it doesn’t surprise me that Shelley Duvall (RIP) is one of her idols: there is something reminiscent in her about Duvall’s oddity, and locality: you can tell she’s from somewhere specific, but she is also place-less and time-less. The film is scary, with its Deliverance-style dynamics, but it’s also a stylistic exercise. It has a true-blue ’70s aesthetic, especially in the filming of the porn scenes, but also in the casting, attitude, and atmosphere. It excited me. Yes, it’s an homage to ’70s films, and an effective one. Ti West is ambitious.
Pearl (2022; d. Ti West)
Ti West is ambitious, part 2. This is the second part of the X trilogy, which came out the same year as X. If X was an homage to 70s exploitation films, then Pearl is an homage to Wizard of Oz. You could throw in some other Technicolor classics, but Pearl is about a farm girl who yearns to get away, somewhere better, somewhere happier. The colors are blazingly sharp. There’s a lot of corn. There’s even a scarecrow. Pearl ups the ante. I haven’t seen Maxxxine, the final film, which is out now.
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957; d. Terence Fisher)
With Peter Cushing as Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as the “monster”. I had never seen this. It’s super good! Lee’s eyes are extraordinary: the pain in them.
Ru Paul’s Drag Race (2024)
Mitchell was with me for most of the month and I participated in his daily Ru Paul ritual and got extremely invested in all of the contestants (It’s an All-Stars season, and the winnings all go to charity). In one episode, they had to put on a musical based on Rosemary’s Baby. It was an absolutely banger.
Bros (2022; d. Nicholas Stoller)
Watched with Mitchell. Loved the rom-com-ness of it all, but also loved how it felt fresh, new, very much itself, very gay – with all the quirks and specificities of that dating/sex scene – it didn’t shy away from any of that, but it also was like a Hallmark movie. It was both. I imagine this was a very difficult balance to achieve. The film is so sweet.
National Anthem (2024; d. Luke Gilford)
I really dug this, about the queer rodeo culture, something I really didn’t know much about. It’s lovely, and beautifully shot. I reviewed for Ebert.
Opening Night (1977; d. John Cassavetes)
Watched, again, for the 467th time, as I was writing this essay for Liberties.
Oddity (2024; d. Damian McCarthy)
Damian McCarthy is definitely “one to watch”. I reviewed his first film Caveat, and his newest film, Oddity, shares a lot in common with Caveat: the single location, the creepy objects, the innovative use of space / silence. Really good filmmaking. I reviewed Oddity for Ebert.
The Beast (2024; d. Bertrand Bonello)
So far, one of my favorite films of the year. A mind-fuck with an incredible central performance by Léa Seydoux. (Other favorites of the year, in my ever-shifting Top 10: #1 spot: Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – wrote about it here, Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera, Kidnapped (see below), and The Beast). Have a lot of catching up to do, but so far, that’s where we stand.
Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara (2024; d. Marco Bellocchio)
Harrowing. Infuriating. I don’t know if I could bear seeing it again. The title tells you what it’s about: in 1851, Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy, was taken away from his family by the Papal States to be raised as a Catholic. This was a common practice. In this case, a “concerned” maid secretly baptized baby Edgardo, and someone snitched. Five years later, the Church comes a-calling. The child was baptized. He is Catholic. Non-negotiable. The parents spend years trying to get him back. There is a Jewish group who handle these cases, making pleas to the Church: children have been returned, but you have to tread carefully. Meanwhile: what about Edgardo? He’s only six years old. How does he cope with what has happened? It’s an outrageous story and extremely painful and very very angry. Bellocchio is 84 years old. He was friends with Pasolini. He made his first film in 1965. To be able to direct a film like Kidnapped, when you are 84 years old, is breath-taking. Also in my top films of the year.
Twisters (2024; d. Lee Isaac Chung)
My niece Lucy and I went to see it and we had an absolute blast. Glen Powell 4EVA but also Anthony Ramos! Lucy loves him! So we were both very happy.
Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam (2024; d. David Terry Fine)
What a weird story. Gross. But … I mean … Backstreet Boys. NSYNC. Game-changers. Global phenomenon. But they deepfaked Lou Perlman’s voice and I am strongly STRONGLY opposed to that.
The Armstrong Lie (2013; d. Alex Gibney)
Allison and I watched this when it first came out and it took us 5 hours to get through it because we kept pausing to discuss. It’s fascinating because Armstrong is involved as an interview subject. A crazy choice. He’s still lying. He’s still angry. I mean, the whole system stinks, obviously, but he was such a huge part of it, and he was also vindictive.
Kneecap (2024; d. Rich Peppiatt)
A loosely fictionalized (I’m assuming, anyway) film about the rise of the Irish-language rap trio Kneecap. It was fun and interesting. The trio play themselves. I reviewed for Ebert.
She Came to Me (2023; d. Rebecca Miller)
Allison saw this and fell in love with it. I don’t know how I totally missed it. So much comes out now, and is dumped willy-nilly onto streaming platforms, and it’s not given a chance to see the light of day. And I see a LOT of films. I still miss stuff. Marisa Tomei, Peter Dinklage and Anne Hathaway star in this eccentric little story which somehow loops together the varying worlds of opera, tugboats, and nuns. You’ll just have to watch it to figure it out. Lovely performances. Flawed people. Grown-ups. Loved it.
I reviewed Kneecap for Ebert, a fun interesting fictionalized-ish movie about the formation/rise of Kneecap, the Irish-language-only hiphop trio from Belfast. The trio play themselves!
My next article for my Movies Before Breakfast column at Liberties Journal is one I’ve wanted to write for years: how John Cassavetes’ Opening Night and Tennessee Williams’ The Two-Character Play are the same work of art to me – in dialogue with each other and with me. Sometimes you need years to understand your own life, how personal associations and memories loop things together, and you’re not sure how or why. Happy to pay tribute to Regina Bartkoff and Charlie Schich’s unforgettable production of Two-Character Play (wrote about it way back when):
John Cassavetes, Tennessee Williams, and Intelligent Insanity
