{"id":161765,"date":"2020-11-03T10:32:47","date_gmt":"2020-11-03T15:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=161765"},"modified":"2021-05-02T11:05:09","modified_gmt":"2021-05-02T15:05:09","slug":"october-2020-viewing-diary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=161765","title":{"rendered":"October 2020 Viewing Diary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>American Murder: The Family Next Door<\/em><\/strong> (2020; d. Jenny Popplewell)<br \/>\nVery amateurish. Perhaps interesting to those who weren&#8217;t following the case as closely as I was. I&#8217;m STILL following the case. Chris Watts seems to think he&#8217;s going to be able to appeal his conviction, and thinks he will get out. Sir, you are never ever ever getting out of prison. This Netflix doc has no talking heads or interviews with the detectives or friends or whatever &#8211; it&#8217;s all just &#8220;found&#8221; footage &#8211; the body cam footage, the interrogation, the lie detector test, and all the social media posts. Which, yes, was one of the distinguishing characteristics of the story as it unfolded: we had more information, instantaneously, than we normally do. But &#8230; I don&#8217;t know. It left me cold. Your best bet if you are interested in learning about this truly horrifying and also compelling case (so compelling that the FBI and CBI detectives who had initially interrogated Chris Watts traveled up to his prison, post-conviction, to interview him AGAIN &#8211; because THEY couldn&#8217;t let it go.) is to head over to YouTube, and check out the documentaries uploaded there. Chris Watts. We&#8217;ll never get to the bottom of why he did what he did. Enjoy prison, psycho.<\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Hero-28-e1604408526180.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"420\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162883\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Leftovers<\/em><\/strong>, Season 3<br \/>\nThe ending flattened me. As I said before, when writing about the other seasons, this show was so out there in its conception and also its willingness to go far far beyond what is expected &#8230; that I literally did not know where it was going. It seems like some people had a problem with that, like they were just trying any old thing &#8230; but I disagree with that. I think they were far out on the edge of imagination, using all their powers to plumb the depths of the subject of grief and loss &#8211; that yes, in that environment anything DOES go. It&#8217;s not about the story-line, it&#8217;s about the subject itself. Phenomenal. Blown away. <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/the-leftovers-s3e7-kevin-and-patti1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162882\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>On the Rocks<\/em><\/strong> (2020; d. Sofia Coppola)<br \/>\nSofia Coppola gets criticized for the silliest things, things other directors are not criticized for. She&#8217;s criticized for nepotism, for privilege. Well, she can&#8217;t help the family she was born into. Would you rather she not get into the business, not follow HER dreams? Would you rather her say to herself, &#8220;It&#8217;s not fair to other people that my father is famous, therefore I will NOT do what I want to do with my life to give other people a chance.&#8221; What world do you live in? If you think that her last name wasn&#8217;t also a DETRIMENT to her being taken seriously &#8230; I mean, your bitchy comments prove the point. There are legitimate problems in the world. Children of famous people also becoming famous is so trivial I&#8217;m bored even writing about it. She is criticized for doing movies only about people who live in a rarified world of wealth and privilege. Well, but, that&#8217;s how she grew up, that&#8217;s what she knows. Just Imagine how much she would be criticized if she tried to do a movie about a working-class family living in Arkansas, or an immigrant family trying to make it. You know? What the hell is this woman supposed to do? She is also criticized for the low-key-ness of her work, like where is the drama, where is the climax? Well, but, that&#8217;s not what she&#8217;s about. That&#8217;s not her sensibility. At all. Other directors follow their sensibilities. She follows hers. I don&#8217;t know whether <i>Somewhere<\/i> will ever find its proper audience &#8211; it may be a very niche kind of film &#8211; but I consider it a masterpiece, and maybe her best film. It&#8217;s very European. Antoninini-esque. She is way out beyond her contemporaries in what she attempted in that film. And the overall reaction was a big yawn. This DISMISSIVE attitude towards her work is really aggravating. I wonder if some of my frustration comes from &#8230; well, here&#8217;s how I have thought of it. When you go to sessions at the Actors Studio, held on Tuesdays and Fridays, rain or shine, actors get up to work. There are usually two scenes per session. The actors work on their scenes, or monologues, or whatever. When they finish, the moderator &#8211; people like Ellen Burstyn or Harvey Keitel or Estelle Parsons &#8211; usually say, &#8220;What were you working on?&#8221; They don&#8217;t immediately weigh in with their &#8220;take&#8221; on what the actor did. They want to know: What were you working on? Because then they can craft their response to address what the actors was working on. Was the actor working on the drunkenness of the character? Was the actor working on the &#8220;moment before&#8221;? Was the actor trying to connect to the dialogue for the first time? Whatever it is, the comments should ONLY address those things. This keeps the session from derailing into &#8220;I liked it&#8221; or &#8220;I didn&#8217;t like it&#8221; &#8211; which is irrelevant and serves no one. Who the hell cares what you think? What was the actor working on, and did they succeed or not? This kind of thinking is so engrained in me from acting classes that it is in operation in my criticism. I am trying to understand what the artist is going for &#8211; and once I determine that (if I can &#8211; sometimes I can&#8217;t) &#8211; then I try to address whether or not they succeeded. This saves me from having ONLY my personal preference to rely on. It also saves me when I&#8217;m reviewing something that doesn&#8217;t seem to have been made &#8220;for me.&#8221; Okay, so it wasn&#8217;t made &#8220;for me&#8221;, it was made for 13-year-old boys. Let me see if I can figure out if it works on the level it is MEANT to work, not complain about why it wasn&#8217;t more made &#8220;for me.&#8221; Different movies work in different ways. Try to figure out the way it works. Or doesn&#8217;t. Or &#8230; it&#8217;s TRYING to work in this particular way, but it is FAILING to do so. That&#8217;s valid too. Anyway, I feel like Sofia Coppola has done enough good work, or at least interesting work, to deserve serious focus. Just accept her sensibility and stop demanding she do something else. Her thing may not be your cup of tea. That&#8217;s cool. Christopher Nolan isn&#8217;t my cup of tea. But I recognize that my way isn&#8217;t the highway. And if Christopher Nolan suddenly tried to do a bittersweet rom-com &#8230; that may not be in his wheelhouse, and he knows it, and he&#8217;s doing what HE wants to do, following how HIS mind operates.<\/p>\n<p>All of that being said as (lengthy) preamble: This marks the third time Coppola has worked with Bill Murray. I had always hoped they would come together again. She really really &#8220;gets&#8221; him. She lets him be. She lets him do his thing. It&#8217;s a gentle little father-daughter drama, and kind of kooky in its conception. The father encourages the daughter to basically stalk her husband, who is maybe possibly cheating. This is really about the father-daughter bond, and its complications. I wonder at the autobiographical potentialities of this.  I really enjoyed this. It&#8217;s gentle. It&#8217;s soft. Coppola&#8217;s stuff often is. She&#8217;s not going for the big moments, the climaxes. She can go through whole films without huge confrontations. <i>Lost in Translation<\/i>&#8216;s most important line &#8211; most emotion-filled line &#8211; is whispered. We don&#8217;t hear it. <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/OTR_F0311F_f-scaled-e1604408605333.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"378\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162884\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Goodfellas<\/em><\/strong> (1990; d. Martin Scorsese)<br \/>\nI re-watched this (for the umpteenth time) as I read Glenn Kenny&#8217;s new book <i>Made Men<\/i>, about the making of <i>Goodfellas<\/i>. I highly recommend the book!<\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/1504324939_Jimmy-Conway.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"272\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162888\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Out of Thin Air<\/em><\/strong> (2017; d. Dylan Howitt)<br \/>\nThis is on Netflix right now. A documentary about a notorious disappearance-case in Iceland in 1976, where all these suspects confess. But who really did it and what really happened? The doc is also a good primer on Iceland itself, and why this case was such a huge deal.<\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/backdrop-1920-e1604410296270.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"394\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162889\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>American Graffiti<\/em><\/strong> (1973; d. George Lucas)<br \/>\nA magical movie. It&#8217;s been a long time since I&#8217;ve seen it. I first saw it when I was around Mackenzie Phillip&#8217;s age &#8211; or at least the age of the character she plays. She was my &#8220;way in.&#8221; Paul Le Mat was my JAM. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=162448\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">I just wrote about him<\/a> and went OFF on angles and archetypes, because that&#8217;s how I roll.<\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/tumblr_nmjnbhdlhq1qfrhhpo1_540.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"250\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162890\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Supernatural<\/em><\/strong>, Season 15, episode 14 &#8220;Last Holiday&#8221; (2020; d. Eduardo S\u00e1nchez)<br \/>\nThe series is back airing episodes, only a couple more to go to complete this 15-year run. It&#8217;s been off the air for months. They shut down production only two episodes away from finishing. They have since finished filming those eps &#8211; after everyone went under strict Canadian quarantine &#8211; and so here we go, wrapping things up. I found a lot to like in this, but what I found to like is indicative of how far we&#8217;ve fallen. I hate the bunker, but I was glad this took place entirely in the bunker because it focused the script. I loved that it was just Sam and Dean. I&#8217;ve been hungry for that. I was also relieved that the larger arc &#8211; Chuck, Amara, worlds exploding &#8211; none of which interests me particularly &#8211; was not really present. This also, though, shows that &#8230; the team is really not in charge of what they&#8217;re doing. When I say &#8220;team&#8221; I mean Dabb et al. They don&#8217;t seem to have an idea of what they&#8217;re doing. Or they HAVE an idea and I just don&#8217;t like the idea. Or &#8230; I have a hard time even RETAINING the idea, it&#8217;s so Byzantine in its complications. Just one small example of how Dabb et al miss so many subtleties: there were many tie-ins here with <i>A Very Supernatural Christmas<\/i>, one of the most beloved episodes of the entire series &#8211; well, at least to those fans who don&#8217;t operate under the mistaken belief that the series started in Season 4. But &#8230; this episode missed doing tie-ins deliberately. They don&#8217;t seem to know what the series MEANS. Like: Dean and Sam and the holidays &#8211; that was the whole point of the earlier Christmas episode. Dean yearns for a holiday, Sam is Grinch-like. None of that was really explored here. Has their experience changed? Has their perspective changed? What does holiday mean to them? I liked the goofball energy &#8211; I liked the light-heartedness of it. Everything is normally so grim and earnest and suuuuper serious. Again, this show isn&#8217;t supposed to BE like that. And again, with the focus on Jack. At this point I&#8217;m like: stop talking about killing him. Just KILL him. Continuing to stand around TALKING about Jack is NOT DRAMATIC. <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/tumblr_6e8cd54027d47dbcff5eebae9d1a9231_997d0f8c_500.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"231\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162897\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Rebecca<\/em><\/strong> (1940; d. Alfred Hitchcock)<br \/>\nI re-watched this classic because I was reviewing the new one on Netflix. It&#8217;s such a melodramatic Gothic romance, and the emotions are all just so HUGE. <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/NaturalPassionateBoubou-small.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"363\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162898\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>I&#8217;m Thinking of Ending Things<\/em><\/strong> (2020; d. Charlie Kaufman)<br \/>\nI&#8217;m going to post what I wrote on Instagram. This kind of covers it: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Charlie Kaufman\u2019s I\u2019M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS flattened me. I was worn OUT. Tears streamed down my face during one sequence, and I was almost embarrassed even though I was alone. (I miss Hope!) Then 5 minutes later I was cracking up at the audacity of the very same sequence. But I was really unnerved by the film, really shook up. It made me think of Walter Benjamin\u2019s concept of the \u201cangel of history.\u201d The angel moves forward &#8230; but it faces backward &#8211; looking back behind it. And what it sees is a millennia of ruin. As it moves through time, moving forward, looking backward, it sees more and more ruins being created behind it. All as its body moves into the future. That\u2019s what this movie made me think of. You&#8217;ll have to see it to understand why I say this. Benjamin&#8217;s view is not a hopeful one. In fact, it is one born of horror. Which makes sense considering the time in which he lived. Not to mention how he &#8220;ended.&#8221; But Benjamin&#8217;s view is not just pinned down in one era. It&#8217;s not a hopeful view of the world or of man&#8217;s chances in this world. I&#8217;M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS is also not hopeful, even though there are moments of crazy whimsy, and just the STRUCTURE of it is so dazzling it will keep you guessing, keep you interested, and not just interested but invested. The film deals with time, and the ravages of time. It deals with memories, and how memories work, and how memory is unreliable. Things change. You remember things differently. You find new perspectives. You maybe even try to re-write your own history, trying to find a better narrative, a narrative that will provide comfort, as opposed to nag you with regrets. In this respect, the film reminded me of my own life. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=159343\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">I just wrote that \u201cTsk Tsk\u201d piece<\/a> and I wrote it from a great remove from the events it described. Memory is fickle. I\u2019m sure I got a lot of things wrong (or \u201cwrong\u201d) and I\u2019m sure if he told the story it might be totally different. But as I was writing my way back into that &#8230; romance, no other way to put it &#8230; I was aware of the abyss of time between then and now. I tried to put that feeling into my writing. I have thought about the &#8220;Tsk tsk&#8221; moment for literally years, trying to understand it, and also trying to grapple with its import and impact. Was it really that huge? Well, right now, in this moment, yes, it does seem huge. That might change. Time erases things, time turns things into ruins (the &#8220;angel of history&#8221;). The movie evokes the spooky feeling of the first 2 months of my lockdown: The past happening alongside the present. The past rising up from out of the past, entering into my present. It made me feel like a ghost, like I lost substance. That\u2019s what the movie made me feel. Jessie Buckley (been a fan since <i>Beast<\/i> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/beast-2018\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">my review for Ebert here<\/a>) and Jessie Plemons (SO happy he\u2019s flourishing &#8211; <i>The Irishman, The Post, The Master<\/i> &#8211; I remember him in the great <i>Observe and Report<\/i> too!) They both give extraordinary performances. I\u2019ve seen a lot of pieces like \u201chere\u2019s an explanation of this movie\u201d, \u201cheres what it all means.\u201d People who don\u2019t know what the movie means should consider themselves lucky. To me it was almost a documentary. It&#8217;s surreal, yes, and you&#8217;re not sure which end is up &#8230; but for me, that&#8217;s my experience of reality a lot of the time, particularly when strong emotions come into play. Toni Colette and David Thewlis were superb &#8211; those roles must have been so fun. Plus: Jud from <i>Oklahoma<\/i> and Gena Rowlands\u2019 raspberry gesture in <i>Woman Under the Influence<\/i>? In the same scene?? A relitigation of Baby It\u2019s Cold Outside? (I\u2019m on poor Jake\u2019s side of that tiresome argument.) William Wordsworth\u2019s &#8220;Intimations of Immortality&#8221;? Pauline Kael? All in the same movie? I was not prepared for the LEVEL of identification I had with this film. I\u2019m still shook. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>See this film. <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/tumblr_e40a36312645faf43d8ae89443b7c573_caeeb9c3_500.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"337\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162901\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Opening Act<\/em><\/strong> (2020; d. Steve Byrne)<br \/>\nI loved this movie! <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/the-opening-act-movie-review-2020\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">I reviewed for Ebert.<\/a> I felt shy and thrilled when Cedric the Entertainer, on his Instagram page, posted a screengrab of the paragraph I devoted to his work, and thanked me personally. I ADORE his work and have for years, and I am happy to get a chance to pay tribute to it. <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/The-Opening-Act-Cedric-the-Entertainer-e1604413000117.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"394\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162903\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Vow<\/em><\/strong>, episode 9, &#8220;The Fall&#8221; (2020; d. Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer)<br \/>\nSome people seem irritated by the structure of <i>The Vow<\/i>. It&#8217;s not critical enough. It doesn&#8217;t condemn hard enough. I disagree with this. I also think its structure is part of the point it&#8217;s making. It wants you to get WHY these people joined this group. It wants you to feel the appeal. It wants you to understand why intelligent people could be so hoodwinked. These questions have crucial implications in our world, where critical thinking is NOT at a premium. I still haven&#8217;t seen <i>Seduced<\/i> yet, the new one, featuring India Oxenberg&#8217;s experience (SO glad she got out) &#8230; but I will. LOOK at the body language of the woman sitting to his left. He just got a sentence of 120 years in prison. Good.<\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/merlin_176832942_29b418fd-6fdb-4381-9781-f0ac85cbe015-mobileMasterAt3x-e1604413227887.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"392\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162904\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Rebecca<\/em><\/strong> (2020; d. Ben Wheatley)<br \/>\nGod, this was awful. I reviewed for Ebert. <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/tumblr_757c6b3201d8a3d34c11b6e7738cedd4_39e20350_640.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"262\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162905\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Killing Eleanor<\/em><\/strong> (2020; d. Rich Newey)<br \/>\nA film currently making the film festival circuit &#8211; it just won Best Narrative Feature at the Savannah Film Festival! It was written by Annika Marks (who also stars, who also produced). Annika played &#8220;Neve&#8221; in <i>July and Half of August<\/i>, the short film I wrote. She has been working on <i>Killing Eleanor<\/i> for about 10 years, and I hope to eventually interview her about that process AND about her relationship with Jenny O&#8217;Hara, the incredible actress who plays opposite her in the film. (Note to <i>Supernatural<\/i> fans: she played the ex-nun in <i>Mother&#8217;s Little Helper<\/i>, where the entire episode she spent in conversation with Jared Padalecki, and it was so good! Here, she takes center stage. Eventually <i>Killing Eleanor<\/i> will be available for all to see &#8211; as of now, it&#8217;s still in the festival route. Keep your eyes peeled, and I&#8217;ll be sure to give a heads up here. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=162615\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">I wrote about the film here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/ke5-e1604413612986.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"267\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162909\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<strong><em>Supernatural<\/em><\/strong>, Season 15, episode 15 &#8220;Gimme Shelter&#8221; (2020; d. Matt Cohen)<br \/>\n&#8220;I would never hurt you.&#8221; For me, that&#8217;s the only line that matters.<\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/SPN_Dean-i-would-never-hurt-you.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"373\" height=\"311\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162932\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Boys<\/em><\/strong>, Season 1 (2019)<br \/>\nI finally started watching. Both Jim and Mitchell are big fans. I am not into superheroes, like, at all, but they both said that this show basically interrogates and deconstructs the whole superheroes thing. The superheroes are the villains. Also, of course, I knew I had to watch it because it&#8217;s Erik Kripke&#8217;s baby AND Jensen Ackles will be joining the cast as Soldier Boy in Season 3. So whatever, I was quarantining in an undisclosed location, and I am filled with anxiety and stress and anticipatory mourning &#8230; and I also missed having <i>The Leftovers<\/i> to binge. I need BINGING in my life, it&#8217;s helped get me through the dumpster fire that is 2020. So I started the show and was hooked almost immediately. I also felt the whole Kripke THING in it. It&#8217;s similar to <i>Supernatural<\/i>, in that I can feel Kripke&#8217;s influence and sensibility, his love of cars and grease-monkeys and men &#8211; in all their mess and insecurities and failings, and how men fail each other, how manliness itself is something to at least LOOK at: what does it MEAN? Why does it get so TOXIC? (Phone call for John Winchester.) All of that is here &#8211; I mean, just look at the title &#8211; a very non-2020 title. But I really liked it. It&#8217;s difficult, thorny, entertaining. So okay, I&#8217;m in. Anthony Starr, as Homelander, is freakin&#8217; unbelievable. Great seeing Elizabeth Shue with a nice big meaty role as well. <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/tumblr_5846a675b82e59dc340ab3b01cc231f4_57cf075f_400.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"215\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162910\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Craft<\/em><\/strong> (1996; d. Andrew Fleming)<br \/>\nIt holds up. Its aesthetic may be goth-emo-1990s but it&#8217;s amazing how far that aesthetic travels. Fairuza Balk &#8230; she should be a huge star. But at least we have what we have from her. A <i>sui generis<\/i> actress. Willing to go into the pits of darkness in her work. A quality I so appreciate in our current era of girlish smiley leading ladies. <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/giphy.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"269\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162918\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Craft: Legacy<\/em><\/strong> (2020; d. Zoe Lister-Jones)<br \/>\nHere is an example where I can see what they were going for, but they did not succeed. Everything they wanted to do is extremely well-meaning &#8230; and yet it assumes that the earlier film somehow DIDN&#8217;T address these things, or portray these things. I found it very shallow. The whole &#8220;female friendship is empowering&#8221; thing &#8211; spoken about by all the actresses and director in every interview &#8211; is pretty weakly done, and also eradicates potential conflicts. Nobody is a three-dimensional character. And there&#8217;s this unwillingness to explore darkness, to allow women\/girls to be dark, to have dark impulses, hostility, anger, rage &#8230; it&#8217;s very common right now and it is REALLY hurting screenplays. Of course I am all for girls feeling empowered in their lives, but NOT if it means a script-writer can&#8217;t create complex characters. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/the-craft-legacy-movie-review-2020\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">I reviewed for Ebert<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/tenor-1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"498\" height=\"203\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162919\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<strong><em>Supernatural<\/em><\/strong>, Season 15, episode 16 &#8220;Drag Me Away (From You)&#8221; (2020; d. Amyn Kaderali)<br \/>\nIs anyone else irritated that the childhood friend is named &#8220;Travis&#8221;? It&#8217;s along the lines of naming Danneel&#8217;s character &#8220;Jo.&#8221; There are a million names in the world. Why are you RECYCLING names? My favorite line is this was from the waitress: &#8220;We&#8217;ve got iceberg lettuce. With ranch.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/tumblr_5b366713865edd7513f7ccd4d825bb69_c3ef7cd5_540.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"265\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162938\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Murder by Numbers<\/em><\/strong> (2002; d. Barbet Schroeder)<br \/>\nI wrote a huge thing about my love of this movie years and years ago. It&#8217;s on here somewhere. But it was long ago enough that I put it on my pitch-list to cover in my <i>Film Comment<\/i> column, particularly Sandra Bullock&#8217;s work. I think it&#8217;s her best performance. And &#8220;underrated&#8221; doesn&#8217;t even begin to cover this movie&#8217;s status. It&#8217;s also the introduction of Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt to the screen (at least in substantial roles), and they are absolute PHENOMS. My GOD. I love this movie. Allison had never seen it and she and I have spent the last weeks holed up in a cabin surrounded by falling autumn leaves. So I made her watch it and it was so much fun. <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/original.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"303\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162920\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Nice Guys<\/em><\/strong> (2016; d. Shane Black)<br \/>\nIn a perfect world, this would have been the start of a hugely successful franchise. Member when franchises DIDN&#8217;T mean superheroes? (I feel the same way about <i>The Heat<\/i>. <i>Nice Guys<\/i> wasn&#8217;t a success &#8211; which baffles and enrages me &#8211; but <i>The Heat<\/i> was a hit. They should have milked that shit. Do more!)  Allison had never seen this one either &#8211; so we stayed on the Ryan Gosling train, to revel in this movie. I wrote a little bit about it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=117462\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/tumblr_oiilap8rcZ1tsj2bno4_500.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"194\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162921\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>In the Land of Women<\/em><\/strong> (2007; d. Jonathan Kasdan)<br \/>\nNow it was Allison&#8217;s turn to show ME a movie. I had scrolled through this before, to watch Kristen Stewart&#8217;s scene, for one of the pieces I wrote about her, but had never seen the whole thing. Allison loves it, so we settled in. It is a lovely movie, with wonderful performances from Stewart, Meg Ryan, Olympia Dukakis and a total crush-worthy Adam Brody. I loved it. <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/ca94d2d89ddd7c8fa663cf23750a99ee.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"206\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162922\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Skeleton Twins<\/em><\/strong> (2014; d. Craig Johnson)<br \/>\nAllison and I share a deep love for this dark beautiful movie. It wasn&#8217;t marketed correctly. And therefore audiences didn&#8217;t groove to it. They went in expecting a wacky comedy. Instead, they were &#8220;forced&#8221; to watch this complicated painful story about a truly fucked-up pair of twins (Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader). While it has hilarious moments, it&#8217;s really about how these two survived their childhood &#8211; or &#8230; really, neither of them did. They both struggle along with lifelong damage, but the damage manifests in different ways. Both of them are SO GOOD as is Luke Wilson. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=90415\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">I wrote about this movie here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/3CPd.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"265\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162923\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Undoing<\/em><\/strong> (2020; d. Susanne Bier)<br \/>\nDammit, this was so GOOD. Allison had already seen it, but then re-watched it with me. We love watching things together. We stop and start so many times it would drive other people crazy. We only watched the first episode, and were horrified that we had to WAIT for episode 2. So spoiled have we become with binging. I NEED to know what happened. And I will reiterate what I said last year: Hugh Grant &#8220;went away&#8221; for a while. <i>About a Boy<\/i> was a signal of things to come. But in the past couple of years, he has suddenly blossomed into an older man who is doing all KINDS of radical things in these GREAT character parts. No more leading-man stuff. I mean, maybe he&#8217;ll do that again, but he&#8217;s just been showing up so HARD in all these great projects and kicking everyone&#8217;s ass around him. <i>Paddington 2<\/i>. If you haven&#8217;t seen it yet, I don&#8217;t even know what to say. You don&#8217;t need to see the first Paddington. You don&#8217;t even have to care about Paddington. It&#8217;s just a wonderful wonderful movie and he is UPROARIOUS in it. Best of all, he reminds me of the character actors in classic Hollywood, people like Walter Catlett or Thomas Mitchell &#8211; these versatile dudes who could do subtle but could also do BROAD. Then he did <i>Florence Foster Jenkins<\/i> &#8211; he was practically the best thing in it &#8211; plus <i>A Very English Scandal<\/i> &#8211; again: phenomenal work from him. It&#8217;s thrilling. And here he is again. I am already so INTRIGUED by this series. Directed by Suzanne Bier, no less!<\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/f2acd70448cecb50273907ada03caae1d7-the-undoing.1x.rsocial.w1200-e1604416685539.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"420\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162924\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Miss Stevens<\/em><\/strong> (2016; d. Julia Hart)<br \/>\nI so loved this movie when I saw it in 2016. Because Lily Rabe was in <i>The Undoing<\/i>, I mentioned this movie to Allison. She had never heard of it. Nobody has. It should have been bigger. This kind of movie just doesn&#8217;t have a chance to &#8220;be big&#8221; anymore and our cinematic culture is the poorer for it. This is early Timothy Chalamet too &#8211; well, we&#8217;re still in the early stages, in general &#8211; plus Lili Reinhart &#8211; who is also excellent. But LILY RABE. This feels like a 1970s-era movie, and Lily Rabe would have been a huge leading-lady star in the 1970s. Seek this movie out. It&#8217;s excellent!<\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/source.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"268\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162925\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Queen&#8217;s Gambit<\/em><\/strong> (2020; d. Scott Frank)<br \/>\nIt was a snowy bitter-cold day. Allison and I settled down to watch it, a fire crackling in the fireplace. 9 hours later, we emerged. I think we might have stopped for lunch &#8230; but not really. We could not stop. &#8220;Sheila, we have been watching television for nine hours.&#8221; &#8220;I know.&#8221; That&#8217;s the power of this thing. It hit me on such a deeply satisfying level I&#8217;m still vibrating with it. It&#8217;s basically one of my favorite genres: underdog-sports-movie, only here the &#8220;sport&#8221; is chess. Ana Taylor-Joy is one of the best new actresses on the scene, and she has something her contemporaries don&#8217;t have &#8230; maybe it&#8217;s a bravery? A not giving a shit whether or not she&#8217;s likable, relatable, or even understandable? (Jessie Buckley, mentioned above, is the same way.) She was so good in <i>The Witch<\/i>, she was a DREAM in <i>Emma<\/i> and here &#8230; my GOD it&#8217;s incredible. Now the best thing about watching this with Allison is she is a chess fiend. She said there were periods in her life when she was so into chess that she would walk down a New York sidewalk and perceive everyone around her as chess pieces, the pavement stones as squares on the chess board &#8211; she felt everyone moving around her like a chess match. There was one memorable day when we sat in the lobby of the posh W hotel, had huge glasses of red wine, and she tried to teach me how to play. So you haven&#8217;t LIVED until you&#8217;ve watched a chess movie with someone who knows the game. She kept pausing it so she could analyze the board. She would explain to me what was happening. Sometimes she had to envision 4, 5 plays ahead in order to understand the import of the moment. It was SO MUCH FUN. As of now, I have no more to say &#8211; I&#8217;m still absorbing it &#8211; I will for sure watch again. In my opinion, it doesn&#8217;t make one false move. <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/tqg-107-unit-01315rc-1604094799.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162926\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/tqg-107-unit-01315rc-1604094799.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/tqg-107-unit-01315rc-1604094799-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/tqg-107-unit-01315rc-1604094799-400x267.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/tqg-107-unit-01315rc-1604094799-100x67.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>I Want My MTV<\/em><\/strong> (2019; d. Patrick Waldrop, Tyler Measom)<br \/>\nAllison worked at MTV during its heyday in the mid-late 90s. She had been telling me about this documentary &#8211; many of the people interviewed she knew. I met Kurt Loder through Allison. This documentary was on A&#038;E and was a fascinating look at the birth of this ENTITY which then took over the world (for better or worse, mostly worse in my opinion). It&#8217;s hard to fathom just how much it changed the world, it changed music, it changed movies, it changed everything. Reality TV. Thanks, MTV! But how it BEGAN is so interesting, it was the OPPOSITE of corporate. And then there&#8217;s the whole &#8220;we don&#8217;t play black artists&#8221; thing &#8211; which is indefensible and was also addressed in the documentary. That David Bowie interview &#8230; WOW. <\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DadWiv.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162927\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American Murder: The Family Next Door (2020; d. Jenny Popplewell) Very amateurish. Perhaps interesting to those who weren&#8217;t following the case as closely as I was. I&#8217;m STILL following the case. Chris Watts seems to think he&#8217;s going to be &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=161765\">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":[319,457,2544,2555,2587,2493,2546,1266,2548,503,2498,1988,1508,2639,333,2566,328,442,433,2448,2263,2637],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161765"}],"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=161765"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162939,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161765\/revisions\/162939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=161765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=161765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}