April 2020 Viewing Diary

Almost Love (2020; d. Mike Doyle)
This movie really irritated me. I reviewed for Ebert.

Lovesick. (original title Scrotal Recall) (2014/2016/2018; d. Tom Edge)
Again. I finished it up last month and started a re-watch immediately. Johnny Flynn crush going strong.

The Fall (2013; created and written by Allan Cubitt)
I had watched this compelling Belfast police-procedural serial-killer-drama before, but in these uncertain days I have found a lot of comfort in re-watches, as well as binge watches. It makes me feel like there’s progress, somehow … that tomorrow I have more episodes to look forward to, and so time is somehow blocked out in sections. It’s been really weird around here. I am going into my third month now of isolation. It’s been … spooky, psychologically. Binge watching is good. As well as repeat viewings. Just because you kind of know where things are going. In an uncertain world that’s a good thing. Gillian Anderson here gives one of those performances that is the kind of acting I most admire: it is both very astute psychologically, while also creating a character where you are never quite sure who this woman is. She’s a mystery, and yet ANDERSON knows the backstory. There is much we will never know about this character. It requires great control to play such a woman – a woman who is always under control … until she isn’t.

Tigertail (2020; d. Alan Yang)
On Netflix now. I absolutely loved it. I reviewed for Ebert.

Slings & Arrows, Season 1
An old beloved favorite! “I’m Darren Nichols. Deal with that.” It’s so funny, with such great acting, and also so RIGHT ON about life in the theatre. It really is just like that, in so many ways. I love it so much. I will go on to watch Season 2 and 3, and so recommend it if you’ve never seen it.

Wanderlust, Season 1, episode 1 (2018; d. Luke Snellin)
It’s on Netflix with Toni Colette, whom I adore. This didn’t really get to me, at least not for my current binge-watch needs. I didn’t feel like I HAD to continue. I may loop back to it. Clearly great writing and great acting going on.

Unorthodox (2020; d. Maria Schrader)
Unorthodox, on the other hand, was compelling and emotional viewing. I have been joking on Facebook about how all of my ex-boyfriends have come marching out of the woodwork during this pandemic. All of the dudes I have written about here from time to time have reached out to check in. In some cases I haven’t heard from them in years. It’s been weird – they’re ALL doing it. I wonder if other people have experienced the same thing. They’re feeling nostalgic. The only one I HAVEN’T heard from is “Window Boy” which is true to form, and makes me love him even more. I mean, not LOVE love him, but, you know. Hearing from these guys is not a bother. It’s nice to hear from them. But all at once? Anyway, 74 Facts guy – the only one I have second feelings about texting with and if you’ve read the piece you can probably guess why, but I figure, what the hell because I’ve always been reckless, with him especially – texted me and told me to watch Unorthodox. That was all he said. Lol. After all the heartbreak and TORMENT we put each other through, it’s come to this so many years later. “Hey check out this show on Netflix.” But … I find this comforting somehow. Life is a serious thing and nobody lives forever and it’s okay to just swap texts like that. He’s the one who also texted me to watch Fleabag because “she reminds me so much of you.” I watched the series and was blown away – she really is me – or at least me when he knew me – that crazy wild 20something Sheila – full of humor and carelessness and sadness – I almost never “see myself” onscreen. Not entirely. I will admit that after watching the first scene (I don’t know if you remember it and I hesitate to even say this), I was like “Holy shit, what the fuck, he watched that scene and … thought of me??” I was torn between crawling into a hole in the ground and laughing out loud. But again, I think it was the overall vibe, not just one scene. And the final scene between her and “hot priest” at the bus stop: we had almost the exact same “scene”. I mean, some of it was almost word for word, So. Yeah. Fleabag. Holy shit. So anyhoo: Unorthodox was the next one. He, too, is binge-watching shit during this time. Based on a memoir by a woman who got herself out of the Orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg, it was often harrowing, and emotionally involving, with wonderful acting. There are many unexpected details. It’s not broad-brush. It’s one woman’s story. If you’ve seen the documentary One of Us, which I also recommend, you’ll recognize much of this territory. It’s the same world, only it’s a first-person account of how difficult it is to leave.

Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning (2020)
A follow-up to the explosive 2019 series. The stories are so awful I don’t know why I put myself through this. But it seems important, for nothing else than support the victims who went through such terrible terrible things.

The Innocence Files, Season 1, ep 1, 2, 3
The Innocence Files is a series about different criminals who spent sometimes up to 30 years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. With the revolution of DNA testing, they are now exonerated. The Innocence Project is the main focus here, and how these lawyers dig into these old cases. It’s not just a matter of “DNA says you weren’t there.” It’s often much more involved than that. They have to basically re-investigate these cases and prove them (or dis-prove them) all over again. Very emotional stuff. I think there’s more to watch, but this is as far as I got.

Endings, Beginnings (2020; d. Drake Doremus)
If Almost Love was about annoying gay people, here is its counterpart showing annoying straight people. Maybe it’s just the time, how we live now, as in RIGHT NOW. Just bad timing. Although I don’t know that I would ever have liked this.

Citizens Band (1977; d. Jonathan Demme)
My final column (for now, fingers crossed) for Film Comment is on Jonathan Demme’s wonderful CB-radio-inspired film Citizens Band.

Play It As It Lays (1972; d. Frank Perry)
Based on Joan Didion’s famous novel. Tuesday Weld: so good. A gorgeous film and somewhat hard to see – it’s on Youtube in its entirety right now so I figured I would grab that chance. I would love it if Criterion would release this one. And you should read Kim Morgan’s essay on the film.

Caliphate (2020; created by Wilhelm Behrman)
Another Netflix series, kind of a companion piece in a weird way to Unorthodox. About young girls who get caught up in radicalization, like those teenage girls who move to Syria to be with ISIS commanders, who are like pop stars to them. There are many different aspects to this series, it leaps around, from Sweden to Syria and back. It shows how this radicalization happens, until eventually this one teenage girl denounces her parents as infidels, and does her best to flee Sweden and get to Syria. On the flipside, you see a woman in Syria, who lived in Sweden, and who is desperately trying to get BACK to Sweden. Many of these actors have no credits. None. Zip. Zero. And they are all AMAZING.

Smashed (2012; d. James Ponsoldt)
You know, I had seen this before. I had vivid memories of it, especially the final scene (and the final shot specifically. Ponsoldt would repeat that kind of final shot/scene in his next film, the far better known Spectacular Now). I decided to re-visit after seeing Endings, Beginnings, which – it seemed to me – buried the lede about how large a role alcohol played in the characters’ lives. I referenced Smashed in my Ebert review. Now here’s an even weirder thing: I had no idea that Mary Elizabeth Winstead was the woman in Smashed, even though I remembered her performance so strongly. And Aaron Paul is excellent as the character’s husband. I have since become a huge fan of Winstead’s, because of her bold daring performance in All About Nina, which I reviewed for Ebert. I just didn’t go back and figure out she was the same woman who impressed me so much in Smashed. I’m not at all surprised. She’s hugely talented.

Unabomber: In His Own Words (2020; d. Mick Grogan)
A new mini-series on Netflix. Of course I remember all of this going down and how amazing it was when he was caught. But there is so much I did not know. This is a very good series, with interviews of all the main players, and it goes into his “radicalization” (speaking of Caliphate), including digging into these wacko experiments he was a part of during his time at Harvard. Where he was broken down and (seemingly) put back together. There’s no evidence that this is WHY he did what he did, but everyone said he came back changed. Wild stuff.

Catch Me If You Can (2002; d. Steven Spielberg)
What a crazy story, amirite? Leonardo has always been so good, and yet was underestimated for so long. Like he was a teen idol? He’s fantastic here. He really gets that gleam, that damage, that … desire to please his grifter-criminal father? Christopher Walken was amazing too.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957; d. Alexander Mackendrick)
A masterpiece. One of the most cynical – and yet truthful – movies ever made, about show business, success, and what it takes, the underbelly of all of it, the casual carelessness with which humans are treated. It’s freakin’ brutal.

Downfall (2004; d. Oliver Hirschbiegel)
The Hitler-freaking-out scene has been Memed to death. Here is one of them. The Parodies swept the world.

I hadn’t seen the full movie though, believe it or not. With Bruno Ganz as Hitler. It’s the story of Hitler’s final days, and mostly takes place in that bunker. It’s chilling. It’s told mostly from the perspective of the young secretary who volunteered for the gig, mainly out of curiosity, and was there almost until the very end. (The film ends with an actual interview with the real woman, now elderly.) I’ll just post here what I wrote on Facebook:

The film is amazing in how it re-creates the the palpable and stultifying vibe of what it is like when a man equates himself with The State. The supporting cast is what really makes this: the uneasy glances they exchange behind his back, the frustration with his increasing mental instability and CLEAR deterioration, not to mention his complete divorce from reality. And let’s not forget, the people around him were all war criminals themselves. But the film gives you such a clear sense of their uneasiness and also their helplessness, their inability to influence him, to get him to understand that Germany needed to surrender, to get it across to him that their armies had no more ammunition and “holding the line” meant everyone would die. Their leader, of course, did not care, and segued seamlessly from “all glory to the people of this country” to “this country is filled with losers, they didn’t deserve me, they all SHOULD die” . All of these generals looking at each other, maybe realizing they had backed the wrong horse: they were, war crimes and all, soldiers who understood combat. Now, some like Goebbels were true believers to the end (and Corinna Harfouch as Mrs. Goebbels gives a BRILLIANT performance). For me, the power in the movie is not just in Ganz’s performance (although it is a great one), but in the shimmering uneasy vibe of the people around him – the glances – the awkward silences as they watch their leader fall apart, with his left hand shaking uncontrollably – and yet no one by that point had the fortitude or sense of self or whatever to say “Screw it, I’m outta here.” They had so equated him with Germany’s glory that they couldn’t back out. It really gives a sense of the Cult of Personality… and how did people break that spell? (If they did at all. Mrs. Goebbels sure didn’t.) It shows the dangers of putting all your faith in a HUMAN. It’s all in those weird silences and the whispered conferences saying, “The man is losing it. What do we do?” A complete miasma of brainwashing, and the moment when that brainwashing starts breaking down. The film lays it all out.

Bill Burr: Let It Go (2010; d. Shannon Hartman)
I’ve been spending more time on YouTube these days than on Twitter or anywhere else. I just … like it better. The comments sections can be a shitshow, but I like the YouTube personalities, at least the ones I’ve tripped over. I do want to write about them eventually because I’ve found some really interesting people. Anyway, a couple of Bill Burr clips have been dominating on these people’s pages, and I’m not really familiar with him – except for one controversy a while back about one of his jokes – and I don’t pay attention to controversies like that. If he did something CRIMINAL then okay, let’s shut him down, but for a JOKE? What, you want to live in Stalins’ Russia or the Shah’s Iran where you could be imprisoned for making a JOKE? These are dangerous waters. Anyway, I was intrigued enough by the clips to go check out some of his specials (many are on Netflix). I think he’s great.

The Flood (2020; d. Anthony Woodley)
I reviewed for Ebert.

Supernatural, Season 1, episode 15 (2006; d. Peter Ellis)
Member how foolish I was when I first saw this and thought it wasn’t a very good episode? What the hell was wrong with me? This one is as deep as the ocean and I just MISSED it the first time around. I was so so wrong. I look back on my younger dumber self with amazement. Plus: let’s hear it for OFFICER KATHLEEN.