March 2023 Viewing Diary

Posted on April 2, 2023 by sheila

March was a bitch. Working on a big single project which sucked up all of my attention. Marathon not a sprint. I can’t do things half-way. This project was never ever out of my mind. I’m close to the finish line now, and of course … I got sick. Just like mid-term season in college all over again. I wore myself out. Just the way it goes. Hence, the truncated viewing list for this month.

Supernatural, Season 6, episode 9, “Clap Your Hands if You Believe” (2010; d. John F. Showalter)
I’m embarrassed I had never heard of the Plaidcast before. A podcast devoted to a rewatch of Supernatural (started in 2015 by Bethany Marroquin and Michelle Drake, two English teachers – and still going strong)! I am DIGGING it. I was alerted to it by a recent comment on my site on one of my Supernatural posts, saying I had been mentioned on the podcast and that’s why this person sought out my posts. I had no idea. So just out of curiosity I started listening. I was almost embarrassed at how many times I was mentioned, on how often the blog was referenced, even to them reading out sections of my analysis. FLATTERED. But beyond that aspect, I love the dynamic of these two women: their intelligence, and their approach, coming from a literature background. Dig it.) So this inspired me to re-watch one of my favorite episodes. With perhaps my favorite moment in the whole entire series.

Supernatural, Season 6, episode 12 “Like a Virgin” (2011; d. Philip Sgriccia)
I re-watched this one for this sequence alone:

Honor Among Lovers (1931; d. Dorothy Arzner)
I hadn’t seen this one! It showed up in the Pre-Code collection on Criterion Channel. I’ve always loved her films: Christopher Strong, The More the Merrier, The Bride Wore Red and Dance Girl Dance (released by Criterion with essay by yours truly). Honor Among Lovers is a charming film, featuring an inappropriate relationship between a boss and his right-hand woman (lol) – I mean, she really should be an executive. Fredric March carries a torch for Claudette Colbert, and they’re both just so appealing you fall in love with them. Arzner’s films are very character-focused and, of course, performance-focused. This is pretty early, cameras are still huge, but still: Arzner was innovative, her camera moves.

Unwelcome (2022; d. Jon Wright)
Strong start. Some silliness later. I reviewed for Ebert.

Fuck Me, Richard (2023; d. Lucy McKendrick, Charlie Polinger)
I wrote about this beautiful and VERY strong short film for my Substack.

MH370: The Plane That Disappeared (2023; d. Louise Malkinson)
This story has the potential to take over your whole life.

Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game (2023; d. Austin Bragg, Meredith Bragg)
I liked this. It’s a little movie about a little story, and – when done well – I appreciate these more and more. We’re in a stage of gigantism in our current entertainment landscape. Gigantism or message-driven. It’s such a bore. So I really dug this. And it cares about character development. I reviewed it for Ebert.

Ted Lasso, episode 1-3 (2023; d. M.J. Delaney, Destiny Ekaragha)
Watched with Allison. She was the one who introduced me to the series in the first place. Season 2, for reasons I can’t even remember right now, fed some need in me, some hunger? I don’t know. I watched it over and over again. I remember sitting in my bedroom watching it on my laptop which brings back the first couple of months in my new place. It took me MONTHS to get my house in order. I was completely stymied by the task. I hit a wall. I am not sure what was going on, but my “living room” was completely filled with boxes for EVER, because there were like 5 things I had to get done in order to put away the books, set stuff up. So I basically lived out of the OTHER room until I finally got my shit together and got my place set up. (Oh, and I’m about to move AGAIN. Maybe there’s a reason I resisted moving in.) Anyway, my life was chaos. I moved TWICE that year. I guess I just had had it. So I sat and watched Ted Lasso, season 2, maybe three times through? Over and over? There’s a larger story about Ted Lasso – why it hit, and why WHEN it was released (2020) was so key – and it’s been covered. But season 2 did that for me. I needed that comfort. I was so looking forward to season 3! And I was completely underwhelmed by the first two episodes. Not enough Ted! So much on Kiely’s new company, and her employees – I don’t care! Where are all the PLAYERS? Why isn’t Nate in every single episode? I mean … why do we only see him in one scene in the first episode? Don’t you realize how much we want to see how NATE is doing? Why are we focusing on all these side stories? Get me into the locker room. It felt very un-focused, and none of the storylines were grabbing me. Finally, in episode 3, some conflicts were introduced – conflicts having to do with Ted, and with Jamie Tartt (my favorite), and with a couple of the PLAYERS – and it feels like we’re getting somewhere finally. They seem pretty determined to give Kiely’s office a central storyline and it’s frustrating. More on TED, too. How’s TED doing? So. Episode 3. I felt a little bit more confident in what they were doing.

Slings and Arrows, Season 1, episodes 1-3 (2003; d. Peter Wellington)
God, I love this show. It’s been years since I’ve seen it. I remember almost every line. I adore it. “I’m Darren Nichols. DEAL with THAT.”

The Lost King (2022; d. Stephen Frears)
I could have done without the ghost of Richard III but it’s such an interesting story. And it’s still unfolding. NOW we need to know what happened to the two princes. Good GOD SOMEone has to know. I reviewed for Ebert.

Old Joy (2006; d. Kelly Reichardt)
I haven’t seen this since its first release. I love it.

Enys Men (2023; d. Mark Jenkin)
I can’t get this one out of my head. The film has as stubborn a hold on me as lichen. LICHEN, PEOPLE. WHAT IS IT. I reviewed for Ebert.


Alice Darling (2022; d. Mary Nighy)
I’ve been in New York for the last week or so and Allison and I watched this one. I thought it was extremely well observed: a story like this depends on the details and on the characters. Otherwise you just get your regular garden-variety “oooh scary controlling boyfriend” story. I really appreciated the care brought to this story. It’s abuse, but not physical. It’s coercive control, relationship as Cult, it’s truly chilling. And the FRIENDS. The film is really the story of this group of friends, and how two of them notice what’s happening, and exchange glances, and try to pull their friend out of the situation – a friend who doesn’t WANT to be pulled out. Every single moment is so specific. I have been pretty much every person on that screen (except the controlling boyfriend). I’ve been the friend exchanging worried glances and trying to draw a friend out. I’ve been the friend, in a complete state of crisis, and yet totally in denial and FURIOUS at the people who are worried about me. The film is quite quiet. The acting is excellent. Allison and I really liked this one and had lots of good talks as we watched.

Showing Up (2023; d. Kelly Reichardt)
My next review. Hence: my stroll down Reichardt lane in the past week. So I’ll say no more on that.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

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Review: Enys Men (2023)

Posted on March 31, 2023 by sheila

The trailer is not representative of the actual experience of the film. So feel free to check it out but just know going in that Enys Men carries the trappings of a horror – and it is at times legit frightening – but that’s not all there is. Mark Jenkin is a Cornish film-maker and Enys Men is his second film. I kind of can’t stop thinking about it. I reviewed for Ebert.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

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Interview with actor/director/teacher Ryan Czerwonko

Posted on March 27, 2023 by sheila

I’ve written about Adult Film before here, and had been wanting for a while to sit down and interview one of the founders, Ryan Czerwonko, about what he and his group are up to. Finally, we carved out some space to do it. It’s good timing, too. Adult Film is putting on a night of one-acts in April, and I’d love to encourage people in the New York area to go check out the work this group is doing.

In our interview, we discuss acting training, “helplessness culture” and how it’s impeding actors’ self-expression currently, Stella Adler’s script analysis, Tennessee Williams, John Cassavetes, “talent chi”, Eliza Hittman’s Beach Rats, our shared desire for working-class cinema, and more. Plus: Camille Paglia plays a huge role in this story and it’s always fun to talk to people about her who have actually read her, and not just seen some inflammatory headline in some click-bait article.

Once again, here’s the link (no paywall this time): Creating Space, Symbolically and Literally

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Review: The Lost King (2023)

Posted on March 24, 2023 by sheila

Ah, the Ricardians. I check in with them on occasion to see what they’re up to, because I love people who care SO MUCH about something, and who back it up with research – and – naturally – in 2012, I got really sucked into the Ricardian web again. The Lost King is about the events leading up to 2012, when Richard III’s bones – long-thought completely lost – were dug up underneath a car park in Leicester, the dig headed by a woman with no credentials or connections, a woman named Philippa Langley. (Her book about all of this is great.) I reviewed The Lost King for Ebert. The film has flaws, but it’s such a great story.

Here’s the painting I mention in the review. It makes me shiver with terror. What happened to them?

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On This Day: March 24, 1955: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opened on Broadway.

Posted on March 24, 2023 by sheila

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opened on Broadway on this day, in 1955. Critic Brooks Atkinson, one of Williams’s staunchest supporters, wrote: “[The play seemed] not to have been written. It is the quintessence of life.” Ben Gazzara became THE new actor in town, and Cat ended up running for almost 700 performances. Smash hit.

It’s one of Williams’ most difficult plays. So often in final productions huge elements are missing or vague or overplayed or underplayed. The work is so specific that if you’re even slightly wrong, you are TOTALLY wrong. (One of the best productions I’ve seen of it, and I’ve seen many, was at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in 2016. I wrote about it here. That “review” is really a work of script and character analysis.)


Marilyn Monroe, in the audience for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway

Williams was tormented by the writing of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He found it “messy”, and wrote in his journal that “the intrusion of the homosexual theme may be fucking it up again”. But he kept at it.

More after the jump.

Continue reading →

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Lucy McKendrick’s Fuck Me, Richard

Posted on March 19, 2023 by sheila

For my Substack: I wrote about Fuck Me, Richard, a new short film which just premiered at SXSW.

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R.I.P. Dubravka Ugrešić

Posted on March 18, 2023 by sheila

I return to her The Museum of Unconditional Surrender again and again. A classic in the canon of books dealing with being forced to live in exile. But there are so many other books: Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, Culture of Lies, Thank You for Not Reading, The Ministry of Pain. She was identified as a “Yugoslav” writer, which – of course – became incredibly problematic for her after Yugoslavia broke apart and various monstrous genocidal nationalisms rose up around her. She now had no home. She had been born in a “country” that no longer existed. Suddenly, how you identified was of paramount importance. Differences erased: sameness prized. She was against the way things were going. She was against the wars in the Balkans. To say her stance was unpopular is to misuse language. It’s important to be specific with language. She’s in the Orwellian continuum. She received death threats. And in early 1990s Croatia/Serbia/Bosnia, death threats weren’t just idle words thrown at you across the internet. She was in fear for her life. Her “shunning” from the cultural community was violent and extreme. She felt she could no longer live in Croatia. She was in too much danger.

She said in a recent interview, “The majority of my fellow writers consider ethnic labelling as something unquestionable and ‘natural.’ For me it’s a form of cultural violence. I was not allowed to choose the nation with which I was associated as a writer, or whether I wanted to belong to anyone at all. I was forced to belong. When I expressed skepticism towards the very idea of belonging, I was attacked by my cultural community and expelled from it.”

She fled to the Netherlands, where she lived for the rest of her life, in a state of dislocation and exile. How does someone like Ugrešić “identify”? Again, the problems with language. When people bristle at “identity politics”, they’re often being disingenuous, granted, but her situation shows the dangerous end-game (or at least one of the potential end-games, in prioritizing “identity” and how one “identifies”.) Her identity was fluid. This was common in the Balkans. Bosnian, Serbian, Albanian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Yugoslavian … if you were a MIX, and most people were, what were you supposed to do in the upheavals that followed? Ugrešić said NO to all of it, came out against the war, and her refusal to submit to ideological/national groupthink- a submission REQUIRED of her – makes her a shining example of holding on to your individuality, in the face of real-life danger. She was an inspiration.

Writers forced to leave their homeland often struggle with writing forever afterwards, separated from the wellspring of place. Museum of Unconditional Surrender is all about that.

There’s a reason her name was bandied about year after year for a potential Nobel.

She said once, “I feel like I am smuggling neglected Central and East European literary values into World literature.”

That’s exactly what she did.

From The Museum of Unconditional Surrender:

But, nevertheless, the same year when the names of the streets changed, when the language and the country and the flags and the symbols all changed; when the wrong side became right, and the right side was suddenly wrong; when some people were afraid of their own names, when others, apparently, for the first time weren’t afraid of theirs; when people were butchering each other, when some were butchering others, when armies with different insignia sprang up on all sides, when the strongest set out to obliterate everything from the face of their own country; when terrible heat waves laid the land bare; when a lie became the law, and the law a lie; when people pronounced nothing but monosyllabic words: blood, war, guts, fear; when the little Balkan countries shook Europe maintaining rightly that they were its legitimate children; when ants crawled out from somewhere to devour and tear the skin from the last descendant of the current tribes; when old myths fell apart and new ones were feverishly created; when the country she had accepted as hers fell apart, and she had long since lost and forgotten her first one; when she was seared by heat in her flat, as it radiated from the baking concrete and the concrete sky; when the panic-stricken light of the television flickered day and night; when she was racked by the icy fever of fear–my mother, despite everything, kept tenaciously to her dogged ritual visits to my father’s grave. I believe that it was then that she looked for the first time at the moist gravestone and suddenly noticed the five-pointed star (although it had always been there, at her request) and perhaps for the first time she had the thought, feeble and exhausted as she was, that it might be possible to paint out the five-pointed star carved into the stone, and then she thrust the thought aside in shame and kept the photograph of my father in his partisan uniform in the album–as her own. It was as though it was then, suddenly confronted with the little star above my father’s name, that she really accepted her own biography as well.

When she got home she sat down in her baking flat as in a train; she sat there with no defender or flag, with no homeland, virtually nameless, with no passport or identity card of her own. From time to time she would get up and look out of the window, expecting to see scenes of the war-destroyed country, for she had already observed such scenes. She sat like that in her flat as in a train, not traveling anywhere, because she had nowhere to go, holding on her lap her only possession, her albums, the humble dossier of her life.

Giant.

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Review: Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game (2023)

Posted on March 17, 2023 by sheila

This was low-key, but also pleasing. It’s light. It’s not heavy. But effective nonetheless. A movie about Roger Sharpe, the man who basically went on a crusade to end the decades-long ban on pinball machines in New York City. I reviewed for Ebert.

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Review: Unwelcome (2023)

Posted on March 10, 2023 by sheila

An Irish fairy-tale-horror-story. You do not want to mess with redcaps. Even I know that. I reviewed for Ebert.

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Folie à deux

Posted on March 9, 2023 by sheila

Over on my Substack: riffing on one of my favorite subjects: the Folie à deux, in film, plays, books, and of course in life. Culminating in a discussion of Joël Séria’s controversial 1971 film Mais ne Nous Délivrez Pas du Mal (Don’t Deliver Us From Evil), never released in the States, inspired by the Parker-Hulme murders (beating Heavenly Creatures by 25 years). A haunting eerie film, marketed as horror/exploitation, but … it escapes those confines. It’s brilliant.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

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