{"id":129737,"date":"2017-08-04T08:43:40","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T12:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=129737"},"modified":"2021-03-21T11:48:50","modified_gmt":"2021-03-21T15:48:50","slug":"july-2017-viewing-diary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=129737","title":{"rendered":"July 2017 Viewing Diary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Six Figures Getting Sick<\/em><\/strong> (1966; d. David Lynch)<br \/>\nNatalie reminded me of this short film from David Lynch when we were discussing all of the vomit on <i>Twin Peaks: The Return<\/i>. I went back and watched it &#8211; it&#8217;s on YouTube &#8211; and it&#8217;s &#8230; hilarious? He definitely has some obsession with what comes OUT of us.<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zMZOgev1ErU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n<strong><em>The Hero<\/em><\/strong> (2017; d. Brett Haley)<br \/>\nSam Elliott has always been good and always a welcome presence. He is sometimes too easily type-cast. The voice! The stache! The old-school Western cowboy gangliness! But BOY is he having a time right now. He&#8217;s old. And he&#8217;s doing some REALLY interesting stuff. If you haven&#8217;t seen <i>Grandma<\/i> with Lily Tomlin (very good), he&#8217;s in only one scene but he nearly takes away the whole thing. He OBLITERATES the mood set up in the film, and it takes a while for the film to even recover. And that&#8217;s exactly right, that&#8217;s exactly what the scene was designed to do. I can&#8217;t recommend that film enough. In <i>The Hero<\/i>, director Brett Haley uses all of Elliott&#8217;s strengths, as well as using audience identification with his persona. He plays a voiceover actor, who once upon a time starred in a famous Western, a Western still fondly remembered. That was decades ago. Now he smokes weed and tries to connect with his estranged daughter and &#8230; drifts. Not much happens. And it&#8217;s not operatically self-important (like &#8220;Oh, &#8216;lo, how a great man has fallen&#8221;) &#8230; it&#8217;s quiet. A character study. <\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Blue Velvet<\/em><\/strong> (1986; d. David Lynch)<br \/>\nIt had been a long time since I&#8217;ve seen it. It&#8217;s good to re-visit. I saw it in its first release in the movie theatre. Will never forget it. I&#8217;ll leave to to David Foster Wallace to really describe what that experience was like for him, how it released him, opened him up. It was an extremely upsetting film, and it&#8217;s seared into my brain, as I know it is for many. Also: DEAN STOCKWELL. <\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gmsrO8xpe-w\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Big Sick<\/em><\/strong> (2017; d. Michael Showalter)<br \/>\nI thought it was just wonderful. Clearly a very personal story. It shows a demographic we haven&#8217;t seen in American cinema, at least not in this way. In this way, it&#8217;s a very important film. It&#8217;s also funny and tender and real with wonderful performances all around.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Wizard of Lies<\/em><\/strong> (2017; d Barry Levinson)<br \/>\nRobert De Niro as Bernie Madoff. I thought it was fantastic. Great acting. <\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Handmaid&#8217;s Tale<\/em><\/strong>, Season 1, Episode 10<br \/>\nI need to re-read the book. I&#8217;m not remembering a lot of this. I have spoken before about how they have opened up the narration, moving it away from Offred&#8217;s point of view, showing events she is not privy to. I understand the attempt. I think it weakens the story. But the whole thing has been fascinating to watch.<\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?attachment_id=130606\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-130606\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/tenor-1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-130606\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Keepers<\/em><\/strong> (2017; d. Ryan White)<br \/>\nWhat an incredible documentary. Nominated for an Emmy. I&#8217;m so happy. If you haven&#8217;t seen it yet, do yourself a favor. All 6 episodes are streaming on Netflix. Beautifully constructed. Holds its cards close to its chest. But the old-lady Nancy Drews who have taken on this investigation? I love them so much. True heroes. <\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Casting JonBenet<\/em><\/strong> (2017; d. Kitty Green)<br \/>\nI&#8217;m just not sure what I feel about this. Mainly because I can&#8217;t figure out &#8211; in watching it &#8211; what the attempt is, what the director is going for. And so I can&#8217;t really judge whether it succeeds or fails in that respect. There were interesting aspects to it. But it felt exploitive and I&#8217;m not sure why. <\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?attachment_id=130607\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-130607\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/some-of-the-shots-in-the-trailer-suggest-the-pedophilia-that-undercut-jonbenets-story.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"299\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-130607\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n<strong><em>The Road<\/em><\/strong> (2009; d. John Hillcoat)<br \/>\nI agree with Roger Ebert&#8217;s review. If you&#8217;ve read the book, then something is missing in presenting it visually. What is missing is THE thing that makes that book so harrowing. Cinema is a visual medium, blah blah &#8230; but the visuals here are superb. Amazing world-creation. But the ESSENCE isn&#8217;t there, because the ESSENCE is NOT visual and can&#8217;t be shown visually. It&#8217;s Cormac McCarthy&#8217;s WORDS that are the essence.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Austin Found<\/em><\/strong> (2017; d. Will Raee)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/austin-found-2017\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Reviewed for Ebert.<\/a> Has some good things &#8211; Craig Robinson &#8211; but it doesn&#8217;t really work.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Outsiders<\/em><\/strong> (1983; d. Francis Ford Coppola)<br \/>\nI just re-read the book after having a conversation about it with my sister (she teaches it every year to her middle schoolers). I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve read it since I was 15 or something, although I remember it vividly. Stay gold, Ponyboy! Dally! Sodapop! Darry! Two-Bits! The pure homoeroticism of it. The operatic emotionalism of it. And DAMMIT if that book doesn&#8217;t hold up. And DAMMIT I freakin&#8217; cried when Darry hugged Ponyboy at the hospital. You got me, Hinton! You wrote this book when you were 15! I hate you!! So after I re-read the book, I watched the movie. Again, I haven&#8217;t seen it probably since it first came out. It is shot so gorgeously by Coppola: he understands the epic quality of the story (to teenagers), and that the strong intense emotions had to be felt in the visuals. I mean look at this.<\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?attachment_id=130623\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-130623\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/19780708_10154946688182632_2103013946423805175_o.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1264\" height=\"523\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-130623\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/19780708_10154946688182632_2103013946423805175_o.jpg 1264w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/19780708_10154946688182632_2103013946423805175_o-100x41.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/19780708_10154946688182632_2103013946423805175_o-200x83.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/19780708_10154946688182632_2103013946423805175_o-768x318.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/19780708_10154946688182632_2103013946423805175_o-400x166.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1264px) 100vw, 1264px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\nStunning!  And then there&#8217;s Pony and Johnny stand against a pink sunset and Pony quotes Robert Frost, and their silhouettes are black against the pink and it&#8217;s all so overblown and romantic that you&#8217;d think you were watching a Douglas Sirk movie. The FORM fits the CONTENT. He does not condescend to the core audience, which were teenage girls and gay boys. He gives them what they want, and then some. Coppola at his very auteurist best. Okay, maybe &#8220;Rumble Fish&#8221; is his auteurist best, but this is pretty close. <\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?attachment_id=130608\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-130608\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/tumblr_mrhkzmL0JZ1sdlu9mo7_500.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"214\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-130608\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Wave<\/em><\/strong> (2008; d. Dennis Gansel)<br \/>\nThere&#8217;s an American version of this story which I saw a million years ago, I think even when I was a teenager and it played on television. It haunted me, an image of Fascist propaganda and how it works and how it took over a high school because a teacher wanted to teach the students a lesson. His experiment worked better than he could have hoped and he watches in horror at the results. This German version is interesting. It was streaming on Netflix. Because it&#8217;s a German film, there are some interesting connections made that wasn&#8217;t there in the American, where the vibe is like Sinclair Lewis&#8217; sarcastically titled book <i>It Can&#8217;t Happen Here<\/i>. Well, the Germans KNOW it can happen. The struggle the teacher faces with his students is their complacency: &#8220;We already went through that. It&#8217;s over. It couldn&#8217;t ever happen again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Twin Peaks: The Return<\/em><\/strong>, episodes 8 &#8211; 12<br \/>\nI continue to be in heaven that this thing even exists. And that it&#8217;s unfolding as it is. It&#8217;s major. I can&#8217;t get my mind around it yet because I&#8217;m too in it, but even when it&#8217;s frustrating &#8230; I LOVE it. I LOVE it beCAUSE it&#8217;s frustrating. Stop giving me exactly what I need, culture. Start challenging me. Start making me work. Start making me think. It&#8217;s just been a great experience and as Natalie said in the comments section &#8230; I&#8217;m already feeling anxious about it being over. I&#8217;ve been so into it. I&#8217;ve NEEDED it. I think we all have.<\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?attachment_id=130609\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-130609\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/giphy-1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"303\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-130609\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n<strong><em>The Sopranos<\/em><\/strong>, Season 1 &#8211; 5<br \/>\nYes. A re-watch. I haven&#8217;t watched the series since it was appointment-TV in its original airing. My roommate and I cleared our schedules for Sunday night. It&#8217;s an amazingly consistent series. Honestly, not too many bumps in the road. The biggest bump is &#8220;Christopher,&#8221; and that&#8217;s one episode. A total anomaly. But the great episodes (&#8220;Pine Barrens,&#8221; especially) are just as great as they seemed on first viewing. Re-watching I&#8217;m actually amazed that people were pissed about the ending. To me, the ending &#8211; its ambiguity, its quick and ambivalent blackout, its sense that the 4 characters at that table have compromised themselves so totally that they are completely lost (or, that&#8217;s the sense I got) &#8211; is there in the pilot. The show was not about its plot. It was about its MOOD, and its ethical and moral contemplations. A man struggling with his conscience. A man struggling to CREATE a conscience. I don&#8217;t pity Tony Soprano. I think he&#8217;s a monster. It is Gandolfini&#8217;s GENIUS that makes it not only tolerable to spend time in his company, but &#8230; morally edifying? At the risk of sounding like a Victorian spinster? Tony Soprano &#8211; and Carmela especially, in his entourage &#8211; make me think about things, question complicity, morality, etc. It&#8217;s very tough stuff. The boobs and guns and gangsters are totally peripheral to those main concerns.<\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?attachment_id=130610\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-130610\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/tony-soprano-final-scene.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"642\" height=\"355\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-130610\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n<strong><em>Birthright: A War Story<\/em><\/strong> (2017; d. Civia Tamarkin)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/birthright-a-war-story-2017\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Reviewed for Ebert<\/a>. Abortion documentary. Eh. It&#8217;s okay.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Girl Without Hands<\/em><\/strong> (2017; d. S\u00e9bastien Laudenbach)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/the-girl-without-hands-2017\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Reviewed for Ebert.<\/a> Such stunning animation. Beautiful film.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>To the Bone<\/em><\/strong> (2017; d. Marti Noxon)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/to-the-bone-2017\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Reviewed for Ebert<\/a>. I didn&#8217;t really care for a lot of it, although Keanu Reeves is in it, and that&#8217;s always a good thing.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Shane<\/em><\/strong> (1953; d. George Stevens)<br \/>\nMitchell was here with me and we watched <i>Shane<\/i>. Neither of us had seen it in a long time. We had some amazing conversations about it, which maybe I&#8217;ll discuss here eventually when I have time. Our conversations had to do with masculinity, the tropes thereof, Stevens&#8217; commentary on it. For example, Stevens doesn&#8217;t put music underneath the big fight scene in the bar: it unfolds in all its stupid pointless brutality with nothing &#8220;pumping it up&#8221;. And so the fight instead of heroic looks gross. Men being stupid. Men being gross and territorial. Big BORES. Which is part of the point of the movie: these men sniff out something &#8220;different&#8221; in &#8220;Shane&#8221; and want it gone. What do they smell? Is he not &#8230; masculine enough? But boy he&#8217;s quick with his guns. Men have clumped up and behave in the most limited and conventional way possible and Shane does not play by those rules. And they want it GONE. (It&#8217;s Billy-Buddy-ish.) Everyone picks up on the different-ness of Shane. The kid. The wife. (Jean Arthur in her final role.) The husband. (Van Heflin). All three have a crush on Shane. Shane is sexually ambiguous. He is filmed that way. He is completely mysterious, a projection screen for others. It&#8217;s a great entry in the queer canon. The next film Mitchell and I watched together is the film below, and we realized that the two would make a PERFECT double bill. <\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Everybody Wants Some!!<\/em><\/strong> (2016; d. Richard Linklater)<br \/>\nGod, I loved this movie. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/everybody-wants-some-2016\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Reviewed for Ebert.<\/a> Mitchell had never seen it. I own it. It was 900 degrees outside and my study is air-conditioned. It was a perfect day. And again, the film has a lot to say about masculinity, although Linklater doesn&#8217;t find it as gross or unappealing as Stevens does. Linklater is gentler. BUT. BUT. During the fight at the disco bar, Mitchell noticed immediately that the song Linklater had playing underneath was Donna Summers&#8217; &#8220;Bad Girls.&#8221; COME ON. We were ROARING. I think Mitchell&#8217;s favorite line might have been, &#8220;This shirt makes me fuckin&#8217; sad.&#8221; We also guffawed at the line: &#8220;From disco snatch to country poon!&#8221; I HIGHLY recommend watching <i>Shane<\/i> and <i>Everybody Wants Some!!<\/i> back to back. <\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?attachment_id=130611\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-130611\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/tumblr_o41arwb1fg1rgtsvqo1_500-1461951822.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"250\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-130611\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n<strong><em>Supernatural<\/em><\/strong> Season 3, Episode 4 &#8220;Sin City&#8221; (2007; d. Charles Beeson)<br \/>\nIn preparation for my next re-cap! The show goes all Western-Tombstone-Virginia City. Major Briggs from <i>Twin Peaks<\/i> and Scully&#8217;s dad from <i>X-Files<\/i> (Don S. Davis) shows up as the big-wig in the town. Pretty small role. The episode has a lot of problems, mood, tone, plot &#8230; but the center scene &#8211; Dean and the demon &#8211; is extraordinarily written and performed (and filmed). Two actors in a confined space having to create this thing together, this scene. Many dips and sways and swerves. It&#8217;s gorgeous.<\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?attachment_id=130612\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-130612\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/4c3f310df30ba3228ef2d60d0238221f475feb1d_hq.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"280\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-130612\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n<strong><em>The Incredible Jessica James<\/em><\/strong> (2017; d. Jim Strouse)<br \/>\nReally enjoyed this. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/the-incredible-jessica-james-2017\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Reviewed for Ebert. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Six Figures Getting Sick (1966; d. David Lynch) Natalie reminded me of this short film from David Lynch when we were discussing all of the vomit on Twin Peaks: The Return. I went back and watched it &#8211; it&#8217;s on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=129737\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2627,4,31],"tags":[93,1156,2493,2206,1307,493,1492,78,2292,333,1308,2263,2489,2637],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129737"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=129737"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158436,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129737\/revisions\/158436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=129737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=129737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=129737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}