CANON OF FILM: "DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES"

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (1962)

Director: Blake Edwards

Screenplay: J.P. Miller

  

Is is strange that when I think of Blake Edwards, this is the film my mind first goes to? Not one of his comedies, not "Breakfast at Tiffany's", but the one dramatic film he made, and the one about alcoholism no less? I thought perhaps this was just a me thing, but honestly, I think there might be something to that. I had put off adding "Days of Wine and Roses" to this Canon for awhile, because on the surface, it does feel like one of the outliers in Blake Edwards's filmography, and I thought I should first get around to more of his comedies before I added this one, but,- well, a few things, one, I'm not actually that big on his comedies. I have to see more of them, but a lot of his material, it's still funny but it doesn't always age that well. I guess "Victor/Victoria" is still pretty good, but ehh,- "10" has always been a weird one to me. Eh, I guess "Operation Petitcoat" will get a laugh or two out of me, and honestly,- I've only seen the first "The Pink Panther" film, and-eh, it's honestly not that good. Apparently most of the sequels are apparently better, but the original is, just, not much of a movie. Peter Sellers is actually barely in it believe it or not, and he is the best part of the film too and if you don't know that going in, it makes the movie a much bigger slog than you'd expect, and even if you did know, it's still, kinda nothing for awhile.... (And, I don't know if this is a controversial opinion, but I just can't stand the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's".) So, that, and I just happened to come across it again recently and was stirred by how powerful and observant the film actually was. I thought maybe it was just how spectacular the performances by Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick are. Maybe it was the screenplay, especially for a movie that directly involves AA, it actually portrays that organization pretty bluntly, and doesn't exactly show that it as having a monumental success rate that other movies and TV shows tend to subliminally underline. But that wasn't it either. 

No, it was watching that recent "American Masters" episode "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames" recently, where it was revealed that, Edwards along with Jack Lemmon, after completeling the film and having quite a few drinks, then came to realize that they were both alcoholics making a movie about alcoholism. I had known about Lemmon's alcoholism, he famously came out publicly about his struggles when talking about the film during an interview on "Inside the Actors' Studio", but I wasn't aware Blake Edwards had decided to quit drinking and smoking after the film. In hindsight, it makes sense; Edwards was in the middle of a struggling married that was on it's way out, and the other thing about "Days of Wine and Roses" is that, it's not about one alcoholic, and their struggles, it's about a couple who are alcoholics. 

Two people, who essentially come together, because they're alcoholics. At first, Joe (Oscar-nominee Lemmon) is a social drinker, often drinking for work since he works in public relations and does have to organize a lot of events and parties for his clients, but eventually he meets Kristen (Oscar-nominee Remick) who isn't a drinker at all, but she enjoy chocolates, and eventually hanging out with each other, she begins drinking brandi alexanders, because they're like chocolate. (I have no knowledge of the accuracy of this, but it sounds plausible to me.) Eventually they fall in love while they're drinking together, and get married and even have a kid, but their drinking keeps getting them into trouble. 

The scene most everybody remembers is after they swear to stay sober by getting away from the world and they move into her father Ellis's (Charles Bickford) house, and working at his greenhouse. Ellis doesn't exactly approve of Joe to begin with, but they try and succeed for awhile, but then they fall off hard. And Joe, in a desperate, drunken stupor stumbles through the Greenhouse destroying all of the plants 'cause he couldn't find the bottle he had hidden in one of the plants. Even still, you expect for them to eventually come out on the other side of all this somehow, or at least, for Kristen to snap out of it and leave Joe for corrupting her, but it's actually her that never recovers. 

After multiple trips to the Sanitarium, Joe gets help and a sponsor from Jim (Jack Klugman) who convinces him to go to AA. (Which at the time, Alcoholics Anonymous wasn't exactly as well-known as it is now). He tries to convince Kristen as well, but it doesn't take her. She ends up leaving or being missing for days at a time. One time, finding her a real mess at a rundown motel, and not alone originally, and she convinces him to drink again, as that's how she relates to feeling good now, and feeling good being with him. 

Famously, the studios wanted the ending changed, but Jack Lemmon left for Europe after filming and didn't return, so the studios had to keep the ending, where, a barely sober Kristen tries to see her kid, who Joe, sober and working steady for the first time in years, takes care of her in a rundown small apartment. She's not ready to give up drinking for him, or her daughter, and he's not willing to start again to be with her. I guess, the idea is that, he stares at her down from the window of his apartment, as she turns away from the nearby bar and he tends to his daughter who wondering when Mommy will get well, but I also couldn't help thinking that, man, he's literally right looking out the window, overlooking that bar, and the bright neon sign to go, almost like it's taunting Joe, inviting Joe to go in. I guess, even when you're not on your addiction, so much of one's addiction surrounds that person's life that it's not always possible to ever fully get away. For all we know, he can fall off the wagon again one day and one day soon, and both of them are gonna be spending the rest of their lives trying to balance that struggle. The movie benefits in this regard from the time it was shot too, right around the time when the Hayes Code was starting to loosen up a bit. Also, the film just looks gorgeous, especially in the way a lot of those late '50s-early '60s film look, right when widescreen was just taking over and the cinematography looks so sharp. The movie got Oscar nominations for the art direction and costumes as well, and yeah, a lot of this movie shows that these two aren't- like, naturally down on their luck; they start off as movers and shakers, and they look like it, the quintessential young, up-and-coming couple; in another couple decades we'd call them yuppies. Seeing them slowly but surely see their clothes, looks and surroundings dissipate as their drinking overtakes them is really well-done here. Also, Lee Remick is one of the most underrated actresses Hollywood had. Lemmon gets most of the attention, but it's kinda stunning this was Remick's only Oscar nomination, (How did she not get nominated for "Anatomy of a Murder", and how are we not more pissed at the Academy for that snub?) and she is remarkable here. She came along at the right time, and always felt out of place and time; she always seemed like a Ingmar Bergman actress who accidentally ended up in Hollywood, especially in the close-ups. There's much of her performance that's great, but it's her close-ups really stand out; she was often compared with Marilyn Monroe, and other sex symbols of the time, but what they could do with their bodies, she could do as well, but she could it even better with just her face.

"Days of Wine and Roses" originated as an hour-long teleplay on "Playhouse 90", some even still argue that that version with Cliff Robertson and Piper Laurie and directed by the great John Frankenheimer is even better than the movie. Both are quite great, but I think Lemmon and Remick's work really make this special. The music enhances everything too, of course I can't mention Blake Edwards without discussing his longtime composer Henry Mancini. Him and the also great Johnny Mercer won Oscars for the title song. That title comes from the Ernest Dowson poem "Vitae Summa Brevis...", which foreshadows that "They are not long, the days of wine and roses, out of a misty dream, our path emerges for awhile, then closes, within a dream." I'm admittedly not a drinker myself, but I have been around a lot of drinkers, and no matter how they are, drunk or sober later on, they do seem to have a dreamlike quality in their inflections when they talk of those nights and events that might've been compromised through their boozy delirium. And I can imagine romances can feel the same way, especially when that's when/where they start. In the old days of film, if there was a couple drinking all the time, it was more like a fun prop or eccentricity, they were like Nick and Nora Charles in "The Thin Man" movies, but that's the thing, people rarely begin as drunks alone. It's kinda stunning that there weren't more films about drunk couples before "Days of Wine and Roses", and even today, alcoholism in film is usually portrayed as a singular, solemn experience; off-the-top-of-my-head, I guess the James Ponsoldt indy "Smashed" with Mary Elizabeth Winstead" is one of the few others that deals with an alcoholic couple, and even that's about one person struggling to get sober, but their aren't many others off-hand. 

"Days of Wine and Roses" got this dynamic more right than the rest did. As much as I adore those other films,- like, you never feel empathy in Ray Milland's struggles in "The Lost Weekend", because 'cause he's so hell-bent on having more drinks, but also, 'cause it is so personally insular; it's more about how an alcoholic feels as oppose to the lives of others he's effecting with their drinking. "Days of Wine and Roses" is all about how drinking effects everybody's lives in the film. That's why this one still holds up and remains so powerful, we might not all have been alcoholics, but we've all seen and known how alcoholism effects others, and how those others' alcoholism can effect us; that's why it remains so powerful even today. 

It might have been nice to see Blake Edwards make more serious and dramatic movies, but considering this is what he comes up with when he does do it, I totally get why he would gladly spend most of the rest of his life just trying to make us laugh instead. 

THOUGHTS FROM THE "MIAMI VICE" TWITTER DRAMA AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHY I STRUGGLE WITH THE IDEA OF FAVORITES! (Eh, fair warning, this article goes places, and gets a little more personal than I normally wish to get, but, if you ever really wanted to know some favorite films of mine, they're at the end, but, it's a struggle for me....) )

I had mostly been staying out of the Internet Film Discourse lately, but I do occasionally peak back in and look around. And apparently there had been a surreal and strange discussion on Twitter regarding the film "Miami Vice". 

  

Yeah, that one, the film, "Miami Vice". Apparently, somebody on Twitter talked about showing his girlfriend his favorite movie. It devolved from there, and the point I first saw it, was a FB friend, who's a critic himself, posting a picture of a tweet that reads, and I'm gonna quote, but not name the person here: 

"As a queer Black woman if you tell that "Miami Fucking Vice" is your favorite movie, I'm DEFINITELY going 2 assume you are a meathead heterosexual with GODAWFUL tastes in movies. Your fake offense is giving Black Woman witch hunt & your bedazzled Klan hoods are showing."

I'm not even gonna pretend to try to dissect, or explain, whatever the hell that was. My only thought regarding it, just seeing this tweet of a tweet about the subject was "Wait, somebody's favorite film is 'Miami Vice'"?

Frankly this thought, just-, well, I didn't believe it. And it's not that I think "Miami Vice" is a bad movie, I actually thought it was good myself, but "favorite" movie, of anybody? No, why would it be? It's not interesting or memorable enough to be anybody's favorite. And if you do like it, than you'd probably just, like the show, 'cause the movie actually did a good job or recreating the feeling of the series, and if you like, the action crime stuff, there's too many other better, more interesting films you can have as your favorites. I didn't get either, meathead heterosexual or godawful tastes in movies, but I did come up limited knowledge or exposure to films, 'cause the only thing that made sense to me is that, this person hasn't seen a lot of movies yet and for some reason, his limited viewing experience, has somehow led to "Miami Vice" being the best of a weak bunch. So, I tweeted back, as much. 

I wrote: I'm not a queer black woman, but if somebody tells me that "Miami Vice" is their favorite movie, I'm gonna presume that person has only seen like four movies, and got really bad advice on which ones to watch first. I mean what other scenario is there?

I was a little taken aback that my friend pushed back on me on this. I literally stared at the screen for like about an hour and a half, but he thought my declaration was far worst than the original tweets that started all this discourse, and-, that's when I finally just decided to just dive into this ordeal, 'cause I had to figure this out. So, I looked through it.

https://www.distractify.com/p/miami-vice-twitter-drama 

The guy who claims his favorite movie is "Miami Vice" is Brandon Streussnig. I think I've read a few of his reviews and/or articles before; he's an freelancer who writes reviews for several websites and magazines on film, with a heavy focus on action films. He's also, according to his Twitter, he's a (frustrated sigh) Baytriot. For those who don't know, that's a colloquialism for being a Michael Bay fan. So..., that crime against humanity aside, uh, I'm not particularly a fan, but he talked about introducing his "favorite film" to his girlfriend, as some kind of...- well, I guess yeah, that can be, a big moment. It kinda does feel shitty that somebody would take that and make some kind of political assertion which was definitely not what I was trying to do; I just wanted the smartass observation and then go on with my life. But somebody commented on it, bringing in, a lot of baggage, and made a lot of jumps and leaps, apparently she really hated that movie and hates people who like that movie, which...- I mean,- I'm sorry her declarations are so outlandish that I don't even want to acknowledge them. Frankly, I think my original swarmy comment relates perfectly to her as well, if you're somebody who hates "Miami Vice" that much, I'd think you haven't seen a lot of truly awful terrible movies either. 

You see,- really, what strikes me weird, is just having any passionate feelings about the film. Until this was even mentioned, I barely remembered that "Miami Vice" film even existing, and again, I like it, I think it was a good movie, but I haven't thought about it since it came out and barely thought about it then, and really, if there is something particularly vicious about my comment, it's not really against any of these people's choices for favorite movie, it's that severe reaction to pieces of media, that, frankly is what I was really reacting too. It's been on my mind lately, 'cause as all this was happening, I was in the middle of watching the fourth "John Wick" movie. 

  

Yeah, that one. I'll write my review eventually, but- I'm sorry, I don't understand the popularity of this franchise. I've been trying, but-, and again I don't hate these films, I just, have never understood why anybody would react to them. Positively or negatively! What is appealing about this that you can't get better, or different, somewhere else. and yet, "John Wick" keeping being popular and everybody keeps overly-praising them, and I'm just like,- they're-, they're fine! What the fuck!? I kinda had a similar reaction to "Man of Steel"; I feel like I was the only person who had a fairly neutral position on that film. I saw it, wrote my review, and then forgot it right away. And then, like a goldfish turning around and being surprised by the little plastic castle, every time I turned around, it seemed everybody had a "Hot Take", and it hurt my head even trying to remember stuff from that film. That's why, I felt puzzled by the choice of "Miami Vice" as a favorite,.... I guess I'm warming up to that possibility of somebody liking it enough to make enough it their "favorite", but in the moment....-

(Long pause, depressed sigh)

Actually, no.... Honestly, that's not-, (Sigh) That's not even it really. When my friend said that my declaration was worst than the original, thing,...-, all that, he said that, "...If 'Miami Vice' is your favorite movie, than 'Miami Vice' is your favorite movie."

And I stared at that statement for hours. Like, I know, logically, he's right, but consciously it was not going through my head. Like, I was just doing, I'm trying to do mental gymnastics and jump through hoops trying to explain how I could think that, or perhaps, how I could possibly argue that.... 

Look, I'm lying to you all. This isn't an article about Streussnig or "Miami Vice", or "John Wick", or even about how movies can get severe reactions to others when I find almost nothing from them... That's just the jumping off, catalyst of what got me thinking about what I'm really gonna write about, and to be honest, this isn't even a good catalyst to bring this up, but...:

 

(Deep calming breath)

See, here's the thing: in all my years of running this bog, being a film student, filmmaker, screenwriter, etc., all that time, I've devoted to films and filmmaking there is no question that I fucking hate more than "What is your favorite film?" I have no idea how to answer that question. I just-, I don't get the question. I don't have, "favorites",- or at least, I don't think, "favorites" have any,- ugh, I don't even know how to put this, I don't see how favorites, relate to, the person. Does that make sense? Like, I don't think the answer to that, ultimately says anything about you. Or, at least, I don't believe think it should at least. Which is why that fucking question pisses me off so much, 'cause that's what they mean, when they say that. They're trying to figure out, your personality or something; like they're trying to see if their astrological signs match, and- like why?! Why would you think that?! Why would you think that matters? If anything, I'd be worried if people like the same stuff I like, and I do mean, "Like" in this case. Not, think is good, I'm talking about "stuff I like" here, and I do distinguish those two, I don't know why others don't, but even still, frankly I hate the stuff I like. 

I know that sounds weird, but I wouldn't  want to be around those who relates that well to me. You see, that's why I don't interpret this as something that's like, a good things, "favorites", to me, mean, limiting oneself. Narrowing your view and perspective; it's making your world smaller. It's making your perception of others smaller. It always baffles me when I hear fans, talking about how they meet people and relate to them through similar extreme, narrow, interests, like what they're favorite things are and what they focus on. 

I don't believe, what I like, should then, infer what I am, nor do I think it actually does and to me, that's something that happens way too much. And it's a frustrating belief to have, especially when you are somebody who looks to seek out more and different, especially in art, and you constantly see everybody drifting towards the same shit. Frankly, it makes me starts hating the stuff they drift towards more, whether I actually hate it or not. 

Alright, again, this isn't an anti-fan blog of mine, I have plenty of those, but it is weird; am I only one who does think that this is so weird, that we do brandish ourselves, based on the stuff we like that other create? That we just naturally make that apart of us, and everybody around you just accepts it, and I don't like, just being accepted or felt like I'm understood based on shit like that. It feels like a pose. No matter what answer I feel like I can give to that question, even if I did have an answer, I feel like the girl that dresses like a punk rocker 'cause all her friends dress like that too. 

So, there. That's why, this bugs me, 'cause I don't have favorites. I have a critical analytical eye, and it bugs me when that's not the dominant way of observing stuff. It makes it seem like nobody gives a damn whether anything is good or not, and frankly, if you can't see or express why something is good, than I don't care why you like it. Like, is a germ of nature and nurture combinations, the randomness of discovery and chance; it's a side-effect of how we viewed the world, when the world was indeed, new and limiting to us. Seeing the rest of the world, still take to that as the default, always comes off as a simplistic and narrow view. To me, favorite equates to limiting, and frankly, I don't get why so many would limit themselves with things like favorites, especially when he realize exactly how subjective and bias something like that can be, when there is a whole world of art out there. 

I can definitely see how some of you might be reading this and thinking, that this is all bullshit. Another justification for anti-social behavior and that the unwillingness of a so-called (finger quotes) "film critic" and "screenwriter" to actually be willing to admit that they indeed personally like something, that they have favorites, is somehow the fault of the rest of the world, and not a personal psychoanalytical issue, that I'm just using this as a guard that hides my own personal psychological neuroses that get in my way of actually being able to relate to others as though they're human beings 'cause I'm not able to get over my own paralyzing social anxiety disorders, well,- I'm sorry to disappoint, but, that couldn't be more,...- correct.... 

It's-, it's-um...- tsk... yeah. That's..., that's what it is, isn't it?

INT. LONELY APARTMENT-NIGHT

Lights go dark surrounding ME, on his computer. He takes a lot of slow deep breaths, while he clinches his hands lightly above his nose, covering his eyes, realizing what he has to do. He sobs, he tries to hold it in, but some cries come out, his eyes slightly tear up. He changes the font and bold on his blog, knowing, he has to continue. 

It's been rough these last few years for me. I-um, while I was moving, I recently found some of my-eh, my old child psychologist notes. I don't know if I've ever actually read them before, but- they painted a picture of me. You see, my autistic brother is still in the hospital, and we're waiting for him getting a permanent placement. He's younger than me, and-eh, I guess, growing up, we-eh,- it became more and more clear we'd had to focus so much time and energy, medical and otherwise on him, over-the-years, that-eh, we didn't really get around to, continuing, getting me the help to work through/on my issues. I don't even, really think I realize they were issues, or problems...- or at least, that they were as concerning to the people and loved ones around me, as they were. Now, I read it, and it's like, "Oh shit!", I guess that really was concerning.... They said a lot of things, some of it, I'm not sure about, other things though, have felt really prescient. 

One of them is that, I have a hard time being able to be understood by others, and boy, have I felt that lately. I do remember, having a really hard time, sometimes,- I think we thought it was an accent or speech impediment. I think I just thought everybody was using me as the butt of a joke, but maybe not. I think that's why, it does feel like, I'm over-expressing myself, using so many words and all...-, 'cause what's a natural feeling to me, is just, not really often a feeling others connected to,- and-eh, it always felt like I needed to keep, searching and finding the words a way to express these feelings so they could understand, and I think people, especially when they're kids, they can be mean when they don't understand you....

(Frustrated sigh, holding back tears) 

And it makes it,- frankly, all those, bad experiences, and the struggles to connect and be understood by others, and when you can't always do it, frankly, it makes you not want to be personal. It makes you skeptical of those who are, and all the aspects of humanity that are needed to connect. It makes you cynical; it makes you critical. It makes, those failures you have when you do try connect even worst, 'cause-, you know, that your struggles to even try, are so much more difficult for you, and when, it doesn't work, you feel so defeated. When you feel like, you're trying, three times harder than you ever naturally would, and then you get told that you're not meeting them halfway, or that you're doing it wrong still..., and you're just stumbling to try to figure this out...- UGH!

(Holding back tears)

Oh god,- why is this...? Why is this so hard,- why is this so much harder for me? WHY IS IT, SO GODDAMNED INGRAINED IN ME, that what's natural and normal for others, is something that my mind and body, rejects so easily!!!!!!

(Extremely long pause) 

I don't know why, certain aspects of, revealing myself to others, being open about myself, is so-eh,- is such a struggle, but it is. It just is....

(Deep breath)

I wish I was able to have a favorite film that I'd be nervous about showing someone I care about....

INT. LONELY APARTMENT-DAYBREAK

Lights slowly turn back on. He looks around as the room brightens around him. After a moment, he motions to switch the font back, but then stops, and decides against it. 

Okay, let me...- let me, re-introduce myself. I'm David Baruffi, and I have lots of favorite films. I really don't think that, tsk, they mean as much to me or represent me and my-, whatever.... I don't know how to describe it, but I don't think my favorite films mean as much personally to me, as other peoples' favorite films seem to mean as much, personally to them, and frankly I don't even really, fully get why they do mean so much to those others.   

That said, here's some of my favorite films and why: 

Let's start with "Casablanca". 

 

I know it's a cliche answer, but goddamn it, I've spent literal weeks of my life, where I just did nothing but watch "Casablanca" on a loop, 'cause I couldn't fathom how their could be a better movie than this, and if left to my own devices there's a chance I'd still be watching it on a loop. It was my Grandmother's favorite too, but I love it; I quote it regularly, and it is so damn quotable. It really is just a perfect, brilliant script.

Next, I'm gonna cheat and go with three films. The "Three Colors Trilogy."

 

 

I could probably pick any Kieslowski film, he's probably my favorite director. I even put "The Decalogue" on my Top Ten of all-time list, and I go back and forth, but even few years I need to rewatch the Three Colors Trilogy. "Blue," "White" and "Red". They don't reexamine how I look at film, but reevaluate how I look at emotions. How I look, random events, and connect the physical and the spiritual worlds. I'm not normally that religiously inclined, to think things are so connected, but watching his films and these ones makes me feel like they are, and frankly I do love that feeling. 

What else. Um...- I guess "Back to the Future".

 

 

I feel stupid even saying that though, "Back to the Future" is everybody's favorite movie. Have you ever met anybody who hated it, or wasn't overly-fascinated by it? No, that person doesn't exist. 

Alright, here's a hot take, Frank Capra's best movie, is "Arsenic and Old Lace". 

 

A lot of this is that, I'm not terribly big on most of his other great films, but I love comedy, and few movies make me laugh consistently more than "Arsenic and Old Lace". I also love theater, and typically film people aren't supposed to like movies that are basically just film productions of a play, but I wholeheartedly disagree with that. I think some of the best movies of all-time feel like you're watching a play, and the best ones should make you want to see the play live, and man, I hope I do see a decent live production of "Arsenic..." one day. 

In that same vein, I tend to love movies that take place mostly in one location. Like, "The Breakfast Club". 

 

Every time I think that one might be a little outdated, I rewatch it, and yeah, there's some issues with it, but, I don't know, it still gets at something for me. It feels weird that their wasn't a movie like that before. 

I like that, I like "12 Angry Men". 

 

I liked the teleplay on that one before the film even. Um, I love the Before Trilogy. 

 

Those are more locations, but still, I like conversations in intimate settings. For instance, I don't think this one comes up a lot, "Dinner Rush". 

 

I'm only posting the trailers, but somebody post the whole movie on YouTube if you want to look it up, this is underrated classic. The whole film takes place in an Italian restaurant. And, yeah, maybe me being an Italian-American means that a lot of my favorite films, have some Italian aspects to them....

  

Yeah, I can't pretend isn't something that me and my family have referenced all the time. I do love this film; I used to keep some framed portraits of both "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part II". My family even started back east and then left out west for Nevada. We mostly came from South Jersey/Philadelphia area, so, "Rocky" is also important to me. 

 

(Shrugs) I am amazed how even the most cynical people go into "Rocky" and think they're gonna hate it. It's probably my favorite action movie, but it's also such a great love story. That's the Philly side of me. The Jersey side of me, that also loves movies that take place in the same place, loves, "Clerks." 

 

I like most Kevin Smith comedies, but "Clerks." hits close to home for me. Although, I guess it depends on the day, I might prefer "Dogma" depending on my mood. (Shrugs) Let's see, well, I can't leave this one out I guess.

  

This is more or less my love of Looney Tunes as much as anything, but man, this movie's still great. The studios keep trying to go backwards and recreate it now, but you're never seeing a movie like "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" again. Maybe this is why all the superhero crossovers have never satisfied me, I saw Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny crossover, why should I be impressed that Superman and Batman are together, or whomever? Still, I've talked about many of these films before, but here's one I haven't. 

 

  

See, I don't know if this is actually a "favorite", or just a movie I have a deep connection too; I watched this film on a loop pretty constantly. I think I kept expecting it to be a cartoon, 'cause the opening credits were animated and the cover of the VHS had Donald Duck masks, but eh, "Ruthless People" actually holds up pretty well. 

(Sigh) I don't know, is that enough? Is it too much? I can't tell. I can go one for hours. I either have too many or none at all in my mind.

Honestly, just doing this makes me realize that, and I hate to reiterate it but, yeah, I just don't like favorites. Not that I hate my favorites, I just don't like favorites in general. I thought I would like them more doing this, being this open,- trying to be more open about myself, but I don't like getting excited for stuff like that. Well-, let me rephrase that, I don't like, "Me", getting excited for stuff like that. I don't like how I am when I'm like that, 

I like critically looking at things. I like looking at art and trying to determine what they were trying to do, whether it worked or not, was it a good idea, was it the best idea, etc. etc. I don't get joy out of my personal favorites; I don't think it's noteworthy that I've spent weeks of my life just watching "Casablanca", or that, I spent much of my childhood watching old "SNL" reruns, or whatever it was.... I could talk for an hour on "Smokey and the Bandit," too but, is that something special about me, or just a side effect of how I grew up or what I was exposed to?

(Shrugs) 

Perhaps it might be special to others, but it's not to me, maybe it was at one time,... and perhaps that lack of excitement is why I do have trouble finding somebody to share my "The West Wing" DVD collections with. 

(Sigh) 

I'm not sure entirely why I'm like this, but I am. 

But, I'm trying.... It's a start. A re-start, if you will. 

MOVIE REVIEWS #205: "ARGENTINA, 1985", "DON'T LOOK UP", "ATTICA", "LOVE AND MONSTERS", "THIS IS GWAR", "THE PEZ OUTLAW", "PETITE FILLE (aka LITTLE GIRL)", and "REWIND"

Every day, I cross the Mojave. Sometimes I cross the desert back and forth, multiple times each day. I'm not the only one, there are several of us, every day, we travel. Me, I usually go by bus, but there's a lot of walking as well. The heat is frustrating, but I'm used to it; it's really when the weather shifts too rapidly that gets to me. 

That's mostly how my life has been lately. Right now, I'm living in a weekly, while I wait for my brother to be placed in a permanent home. Almost every day I go down to the hospital to see him. Sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for a few minutes as I got to get to work after. It feels like I'm always on the road, not just literally, but physically; it takes a toll. Anyway. that's what I'm going through now. I guess it's strange to be in my late thirties and to say that it's the first time living on your own, but that's my situation. If I think too long about how rough it's been these last couple years, I start crying. How rough it's still going to be. Eventually, once my brother is placed, I'll find a place near him, for a little while; I'll need to be near him while he and everyone else adjusts. 

I wish I could say that in the meantime, I'm enjoying watching movies and reviewing them, or at least watching other entertainment and all, but frankly I haven't even really had the time for that like I'd like to. Like I said, every day I cross the Mojave. Even around people all the time, I can help constantly thinking that this desert can seem pretty deserted right now, and I wish my mind was less occupied. I always thought this would be the time that I would buckle down, work on my writings, my movie ideas, my thoughts, but clearly, based on how rarely it seems that I ever post these things here anymore, that's not the case. I still have my GoFundMe, I'm not getting much from it, even though I can use and deeply appreciate even the smallest donations right now, but I'm just leaving it open until everything is actually settled for all of us. Clearly that's not right now. In some ways it will clearly never be, but my life is in flux right now and has been for awhile. I wish that my troubles and issues don't paint my reviews and articles when I do actually find the time to watch movies and publish my thoughts, but it feels like everything I do is awash in my own struggles, so if my reviews do seem, a little bit too pre-occupied recently, that's why. Perhaps even keeping this blog in times like these at all is a Sisyphean endeavor, but frankly, especially now, I need to be writing something. 

So, let's get to the reviews.

ARGENTINA, 1985 (2023) Director: Santiago Mitre

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I decided to google, "Last Nazi to be put on trial",- honestly that's something I occasionally do randomly anyway whenever anything like this comes up, 'cause it shows just how long, hard and difficult it genuinely is to use the justice system in order to achieve, well-, justice, for some of our most heinous, violent, insurrectionist, genocidal parts of our history. If you're at all still curious, eh, it was, last year. 2023, they prosecuted and convicted a 98-year-old man was a guard at a concentration camp, and he was prosecuted on 3,300 counts of aiding and abetting murder. Yeah, we are still finding and convicted Nazis from their crimes during World War II. (Look, I'm not saying, we should be backing Israel at all times, we definitely and probably shouldn't be some times, like, probably now, but-eh, it's not like they weren't the victims of the most abhorrent and egregious genocide in history, and that's still so recent that we're still prosecuting for that, not to mention every other atrocity they've been the victim of.)

That said, I probably shouldn't be so curious about it, because, there's been several other horrible government-led atrocities, because since then, there's been, so many, many, many others. Argentina for instance, between 1976 and 1983 was run by the U.S.-backed dictatorship, the National Reorganization Process. They were the last of a long line of military dictatorships in Argentina, and the Juntas as they were called, may have been the most vicious. They were the most recent, and when Argentina became a democracy, the first round of prosecution and trials began. 

If you don't know about Argentina's recent history,- um,... I don't know a lot myself, but I do know that, a lot of people went missing. In fact, nearly every other time I happen to see a recent Argentinean film, it feels like a story about this time period and regime and how gruesome they were. (Just to be clear, there are plenty of fun Argentinean films that aren't about this, "Nine Queens" or "Wild Tales" for instance, but still...)  Short story is that there were a lot of "forced disappearances" to quote the Wikipedia, and actually, in most cases, that could've been the best scenario, 'cause there were worst things, look up what happened to a lot of pregnant women during this time. "Argentina, 1985" is about the trials of the Juntas, the first ones anyway, the ones in power. This was the first time in history that a Democratically elected government investigated and prosecuted leaders of a military dictatorship, and in case you're wondering, this is something that also, like wrangling up Nazis for prosecution, that's in fact, still going on. 

"Argentina, 1985" tells this story from the prosecution side. It's basically a straight-up historical courtroom procedural, even shot in many of the same courts and locations of the actual trials and tribunals. Told through the perspective of the chief prosecutor Julia Cesar Strassera (Ricardo Duran), the movie focuses mainly on the struggle of the prosecution as they tried to compete with the high-end attorneys that the defense had, as well as document as many of the stories of the disappeared as they could from their families and loved ones. This actually required finding college law graduates to fill their team, since they were the only ones without a reputation they needed to protect which made the more well-known and expensive lawyers back out of the case. And the case itself was a struggle, it even started with a bomb threat. 

"Argentina, 1985" is best when it's down to the story of the actual dynamics of the how they build and construct a case, and how difficult it is. It reminded of other similar procedurals like "Ghosts of Mississippi" or "A Civil Action", only on an even higher and riskier scale. The scene with all the Juntas outright refusing to recognize the courts' jurisdiction when getting arraigned was frightening. It's also stirring how much dictatorships of all kinds tend to take on a cult-like vibe. "Argentina, 1985" is an important albeit, way too recent history lesson, and probably should be a good tool when it becomes necessary to prosecute others who's misused and abused their powers while in office, whether democratically elected or not. It is perhaps nothing unique or special in terms of the narrative or beats, but it does them really well and tells a story that, unfortunately might be more prescient now than ever, and is unfortunately gonna remain prescient for awhile.   

DON'T LOOK UP (2021) Director: Adam McKay

⭐⭐1/2

You know, there actually is a comet that could potentially hit us. And soon, 12 years from now they think, at it's current projections. It's not gonna completely destroy us, but it's pretty damn big. They think it'll slam into the Pacific Ocean, and cause a giant ripple effect that would do things, like completely erode the entire California coastline, among other coastlines. I've seen Neil Degrasse Tyson even talk about this. It's only about a 1 in 40,000 chance it'll happen, and there's backup plans in place. Some want to send up ships to run next to the comet and move it out of it's current orbit. Some just want to blow it up. The point I'm making is that, for a movie, this obnoxious, it's not exactly that far off. 

"Don't Look Up" was by far the most controversial and divisive movie of the year in 2021. The people who loved it really loved it, it got a few Oscar nominations, including sneaking into Best Picture. Yet, it also made a lot of Worst Films lists too. A lot of people didn't like it in fact. I hadn't seen it, but I knew people who really loved it and thought it was hilarious. I heard the song from it and thought that was hilarious. And I loved most of Adam McKay's work; he's been the preeminent comedy director for awhile now, dating back to "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" and I've liked his previous forays into telling stories of political and cultural importance a lot. "The Big Short", about the housing crisis that led to the Great Recession was my pick for best film of the year when that one came out, and I liked "Vice", his biopic on Dick Chaney, quite a bit as well. That easily could've also made my Best list that year. That said, I haven't liked everything he's been doing lately. 

I might be in the minority on this one, but I didn't really get the appeal of "Succession". His highly-acclaimed HBO series; I'm not saying it's a bad show or anything, it's not, but I just, don't really get the mass appeal or all the critical acclaim it's gotten. Like, seriously, all those Emmys? Like, I get it, the people who are in the mansions on the hill and all that are just as ignorant, stupid and fucked up as we are, and they're all essentially greedy assholes.... It just felt so cynical;.... I have a friend who does love "Succession" and he compares it to "Shameless", another show that I appreciate way more than I actually like, and he's right, it's basically "Shameless" if everything took place in the Getty Villa or Hearst Castle, but I don't know, I feel like having too many of these truly vile and cynical takes on life, all aspects of life, you end up just filtering out the actual aspects of important stuff, like, media, and the government, and y'know, the complete and total destruction of the planet, and make everything seem so...- I don't know, perhaps in a different time and place I can appreciate this, but yeah, "Don't Look Up", is...- it doesn't work. 

It worked in the beginning, but then Meryl Streep's President character came onscreen, and I just had several questions. One, what is she playing? Two, why? And I'm not talking performance, she's Meryl Streep, she's great in this role, I'm talking, why this character? In fact, that's kinda the issue with the whole film, there's a lot of things that, he's making fun of here, and there's a lot to make fun of, but I don't really get why he's throwing in all this stuff he's making fun of. Like, why is this President, such a locust of a human being that she's easily bought off and manipulated, basically into selling the office to all her friends, and being the literal epitome of a ditzy YouTube influencer? I'm not saying, this couldn't be funny in another context, but why in this movie are these characters portrayed like this here? Even in "Dr. Strangelove...", Peter Sellers didn't play the President like he was a buffoon. Is she the female Trump? Is she, a-eh...- Hillary-type? Is she a Lauren Boebert-satire? I guess that's the closest I can come up with, but- I don't know what this is, why it's here or what is it commentating on? 

It got me asking another question? Who was this role originally for? I couldn't find that out, but, I could guess that say a Maya Rudolph might find a different take on this character? But, anyway,- that's what ultimately got me to the real problem with this movie...- it's in the wrong medium. "Don't Look Up", isn't a movie; it's a bunch of sketches.... 

Adam McKay was the head writer of "SNL" during much of the late '90s, and he was and is a good writer. Even this movie, is pretty well-written, but it's not written as a movie; it's written as a lot of long sketches. 

Like, imagine, the opening sequence, Dibiasky, (Jennifer Lawrence) finds the comet, realizes how big it is, informs her professor, Dr. Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and he does the calculations, and realizes that the comet, is too big and is heading directly towards us, and everybody completely freaks out! That's a great sketch idea! And if you saw that sketch, for like five minutes on "SNL" one night, you'd like that sketch. Let's say, later on in the episode, or perhaps, the next week, they continue that sketch, and then, these two characters, are being transported to the White House, to tell the President, and they're freaking out about having to tell the President it's the end of the world! That would also be awesome! 

Then, the next weeks, you'd see them in the President's office, trying to describe to her all the problems, and she's not getting in, and there's her cronies trying to usher them out or call them down....

For those who don't know, this isn't a new idea, a lot of older variety shows had sketches that actually did play out like small little series, with long-form narratives in the middle of TV shows, that you had to keep coming. Probably the most famous one is "The Family" sketches from "The Carol Burnett Show" that eventually evolved into their own series, "Mama's Family", but it's older than that; I think "The Honeymooners" to a degree qualifies for this, and especially in their early days, "SNL" would have a few of these over the years. Even kids variety series did stuff like this; "Rocky & Bullwinkle" were great at this, and from my childhood, I turned into every episode "Square One" just to watch that week's "Mathnet" episode. The more I watched "Don't Look Up", the more it felt like this should've been a very long drawn-out series-of-sketches during an episode of "SNL"; the weekly, "A comet's coming to destroy the world" sketch, the one that airs before the second musical performance by Ariana Grande but after the sketch that parodied how rancidly preposterous and chipper the early cable news show segments and hosts are. Until, that sketch crosses over when Mindy and Dibiasky go on one of those shows. Dibiasky freaks out by all the artifice that she becomes a meme, and Dr. Mindy gets sucked into the world by Brie Everhart (Cate Blanchett) the news reporter, and eventually gets brought into the President's sphere, under the guise of being able to destroy the comet, until she's influenced, by, another weird character that only makes sense if you imagine this as an SNL sketch, Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance). Mark Rylance is playing, some kind of Steve Jobs meets Elon Musk, meets, I-don't know, some kind of faux-deity-type, uh,- honestly, he actually kinda reminds of the Heaven's Gate guy-, the cult, not the film.... I get that he's an amalgam character, and he would make sense in a sketch. The black turtleneck, the talking about advancements in computing in terms of evolution towards the future, meanwhile he's just as money-hungry and bloodthirsty a CEO as anyone else, and he sees money potential in the comet hitting the planet. 

See this is why the sketch of Dibiasky, frustrated and given up on life, thrown off the project for speaking the truth, hanging out with a bunch of teenage skateboarders outside at night so funny, countdown is coming, and she realizes how stupid everybody is, and just starts making out with the flirty teenage dirtbag Yule (Timothee Chalamet), is funny. There's a funny story here, there's even sharp satire here. It just doesn't come across like that, because this is the wrong medium for the story. In a sketch, these scenes that would normally be funny and sharp takes on the state of the world and ourselves, our government,- given a big budget and no benefit of the studio audience laughing along,- hypothetically, I guess they could be funny, but they come off as cringy. It gets better by the end of the movie, the closer to the apocalypse we get, but man, it takes a long time to get there. In sketch form, when you're not dealing with some of these characters for achingly minutes on end, they can be more palatable, but this movie dragged in the meantime. What you end up getting are really confusing and conflicting caricatures on the government and pop culture,- just things that don't-, they just don't feel right in this cinematic world. 

This is especially damning towards the end when it does start to work more as movie. I like the endings and how it both feels like other apocalyptic movies as well as undercuts them. The ending in particular feels a bit like "WALL-E" if the idiots who destroyed the planet actually survived, that's kinda clever. There's great performances here too, I like DiCaprio and Lawrence in particular. And that's the thing, I have no doubt that McKay, could tell this story straight, even dramatically if he wanted to; he can make "Fail-Safe" or "Dr. Strangelove...". Clearly he went more for the latter, but it's a matter of the choices he made, and I think he could've made better choices. More cinematic comedic choices, instead of sketch choices. He made them in the filmmaking. I've been going back-to-forth trying to figure out what film he's trying to make. I've mentioned "Dr. Strangelove..." a few times, as I was watching the movie I kept thinking about "Wag the Dog", but that's not the right comparison either; there's great satire in that film, but..., eh, maybe something like "The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!", that's an underrated little Cold War-era comedic gem, but nah, it doesn't feel like that either. No, the movie this really feels like is "1941". It feels like Spielberg's bloated attempt at an over-the-top political comedy. That movie is just too big and overblown, but the thing also was that, Spielberg isn't a natural comedic director, McKay is. It's kinda the opposite problem but the result is the same, the material's either too small for the budget or the comedy's not big enough for the filmmaking, and either way it's just too long. This movie, could've been cut by like half-an-hour and I think it would've been more appreciated,- or not even cutting, just make it go quicker. (Snaps fingers) Have more snappy comedy moments and quick-witted dialogue, go all "His Girl Friday" with it. McKay's serious films were paced better before,- I'm stunned this movie got an Editing nomination in hindsight, but perhaps they just worked with what they gave him? 

"Don't Look Up" is polarizing. It's polarizing me even, I can barely tell if I like it or not. I like the message, I generally like the messenger, but eh,- maybe in twenty years, if we're still around, I'll look at it again and regain a certain appreciation for it; some comedies do in fact age better with time, but eh, once I, and perhaps you, start realizing that this movie would play better as a series of sketches like I did, you really can't unsee that the biggest problem with the movie, is that, it is indeed a movie. It really does showcase the missteps taken in trying to take this is up from sketch ideas to movie more. E for effort and I won't begrudge anybody for liking it, but yeah, this needed a few more drafts and maybe more than that, just a different way of approaching this material. This could've and probably should've been funnier, and it just wasn't. Maybe fewer potshots at the vapidness of the culture at large, some of those jokes kinda felt mean-spirited and not necessary too. It's a good idea, good cast, good filmmaker, good writers, I'd even say it's good material, it just unfortunately made way-too-many of the wrong choices, approaching that material. 

ATTICA (2021) Directors: Traci A. Curry & Stanley Nelson 

⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

 

Back in 2003-ish, back when the American Film Institute still made that annual lists every year, they did one for the Top 100 Movie quotes of all-time. I remember not particularly liking that list, and I suspect if they did that one now, there'd be more changes than you'd think, but I do recall that on that list, at number 86 in fact, was simply the words, "Attica! Attica!" It's from the movie "Dog Day Afternoon". I wrote about that film before, it's in my Canon of Film. I talk about how "Attica!" has essentially become the iconic quote and scene from that movie, as angry, obsessed and scared man has failed to rob a bank, succeeded at creating a hostage crisis and becoming a star on the New York television for the day, at he manages to keep the police at bay, by screaming "Attica! Attica!" at them in front of the crowd and cameras all around. I wrote about how "Attica" was a successful prison uprising in 1971, at the federal prison, that was a cornerstone moments for the Prisoners' Rights Movement. 

You see, that's not actually, why he was yelling "Attica!" It's true, that, for a time, the prisoners took over Attica. They took most of the staff as hostages, and insisted on their demands of better treatment and conditions to be met. And in a way, a little while, they did accomplish their goals, not just in Attica, but statewide. A lot of them got reversed, and while I say they accomplished their goals....- well, it's because the protestors were massacred by the cops. That's why he was yelling it. 

Thankfully, "Attica" this documentary by Stanley Nelson, doesn't even mention that film. Instead, it focused in intensely on simply detailing from as many of the survivors and archival footage he can find, to just go through the events as they happened during those four days. And what happened after. The intensity of the film is striking as the events seem to get constantly gloomier and gloomier for the prisoners as they go on. How, at first, they were getting treated better, and the police were negotiating, but after one of the hostages died, all bets were off. No more shot at getting immunity for the uprising. Governor Rockefeller, on Nixon's advice, wouldn't come down to talk with the prisoners. 

Then, the massacre happened. It was reported at first that the prisoners had murdered the hostages, but even of the hostages that were dead, most of them were killed by the cops during the invasion. The autopsy revealed that the cops were the ones who were just going to kill everybody if they could, under the backdrop of the right-wing law & order culture believing that the criminals had to be the ones that were just complaining and worst off. "Attica" is a quiet sobering documentary that recreates the events of those days from every perspective and the successfully shows all the perspectives, of those days. The media, which documented it surprisingly soberly at the time, those officers and the loved ones of those who were held hostage, the police, who were at first conflicted, before eventually moving into action. It's the kind of movie that you can listen to like a book on tape and imagine the horrors, but gets more powerful when combined with the archived images. "Attica!" can easily become a forgotten footnote, a punchline in recent years, and frankly it needs to be more remembered and documented. In recent years, prisons are arguably worst than ever, especially with privatized prisons, but it's still bad in regularly and frankly, most of the rest of the modern world has caught up and realized that dehumanizing prisoners doesn't work. A lot of them don't have the issue of race often separating prisoners and guard or prisoner and society though. I don't know if "Attica!" will naturally make everything better, but it's good to make sure that everything is documented like this so that we all know what actually happened. 

LOVE AND MONSTERS (2020) Director: Michael Matthews

⭐⭐⭐1/2

Eh, I gotta be honest, as much as I can appreciate these kind of quirky, youthful, apocalyptic stories that have come about in recent years, and I usually like most of them admittedly, eh, I'm really getting tired of them too. Actually, I'm just generally tired of apocalyptic stories in general. Every time I see one, I feel like it leans into our worst tendencies. Our cynical nature that everything is too far gone and we're just laying down and accepting the inevitable as opposed to actually trying to envision a better world. I don't want apocalyptic tales of survival; I want futuristic stories of a better world that we've made and cultivated, through visionary technology and the advancement of humanitarian ideals. I want us to be inspired by what we can create or become and not doomed to settle; I find these stories so cynical, and frankly, along with all the over-abundance of superhero stories, fear that it's psychologically making us less inclined to achieve the simple things in the world that indeed we could easily do ourselves that would make the world better, and I like stories told in those worlds. More "Star Trek", less, "Planet of the Apes", as much as I do like most of the films in that franchise, (Both franchises of it). 

Or in this case, a land of radioactive monster superanimals-monsters? It's the end of the world and the animals, due to human error when trying to destroy a giant asteroid that was threatening Earth. Okay, I'll give the movie a little credit here, in that it takes a very obvious plothole from "Armageddon" and makes it end the world. Anyway, the humans have moved to live underground in colonies, and one such colonies includes Joel (Dylan O'Brien), a lonely young man who was in high school when the monster apocalypse happened, and lost both his parents in the original attack. His colony is full of paired-up couples and survivalists who have begun adept at keeping their colony safe by the outside world while also able to canvas out for surviving ingredients, gardening seeds and their only surviving cow. He's not a particularly good shot with the makeshift crossbows and other weapons they've created. He's mainly the cook, and the only person in their underground bunker colony who isn't coupled with anybody. 

He does eventually, through an old CB radio, he decides he must brave the outside world and head to a Coastal Colony to see his old high school girlfriend Aimee (Jessica Henwick). Hence, the love aspect of "Love & Monsters". From there, the story becomes a more traditional tale of traveling through the deserted lands in a post-apocalyptic pilgrimage tale. It's a good pilgrimage; I was mostly entertained, and like a lot of these tales, it's about the characters we meet along the deconstructionist way. He meets Clyde and Minnow (Michael Rooker and Arianna Greenblatt) a couple of survivalists who live on the surface and give him tips and training on how to survive. It probably gets a little too, emotional when it really isn't at around here, but I like these characters, and I like the connections. 

Along the way, there's several other monsters and experiences until he does get to Aimee's colony, and they kinda run into an extra plot at the end, that's a bit arbitrary, there's an obvious liar reveal. (Shrugs) I don't know, a lot of the comparisons to the movie noted "Zombieland" as an obvious comp, and yeah, that's the movie I was thinking of too. "Zombieland" was genuinely unpredictable though. The characters were more interesting and mysterious and the fact that their was a zombie-based world meant that, there was almost no chance of real connections to the past that the characters would be seeking out. The only ultimate goal was survival and there was only multiple ways of determining the best course of action to achieve that. "Love and Monsters" does have the slightest connections to the past still around, and it leans into that. There's nothing inherently wrong with that as a narrative, but it does limit the story and the possibilities of what could happen. It makes the story, the relationship and whether or not, if he gets there, which we all suspect she will be there, we're more interested in whether or not she'll be with someone or be someone else, or whether he can get the girl, and then what then? It's still the apocalypse and even if he gets her, will they be happy? 

It's fine on it's own, and overall I'm recommending the film, but when you do realize and think about the influences, it does feel like a lesser film and idea. They definitely put a ton of work into the film. The movie got an Oscar nomination for the special effects, and it definitely deserved it.   If you like romance with your wild radioactive bugs and monsters, than I guess "Love and Monsters" is good enough. It's probably not for me, but I can appreciate it. 

THIS IS GWAR (2022) Director: Scott Barber

⭐⭐⭐1/2

I must confess I've never listened much to Gwar, but I've known about them for years. The first time I saw them was on "The Jerry Springer Show", and I remembered more or less just being perplexed by them at the time. I didn't get them, but I also think that was kind of the point. They showed a few clips of their appearance on Springer, as well as another appearance they had on Joan Rivers's show, but the first time I really, got them, was not a show they aired a clip of in "This is Gwar"; it was from VH-1's "Where Are They Now" show. Mainly 'cause that was the first time I saw them, out of character. Honestly, I think that helps me appreciate a lot of the shock rock artists more, seeing them outside their performance characters. That might just be how I relate to music; I find music more interesting and compelling when there's less artifice involved in the production of it. I'm not saying that I'm one of the weirdos who preferred non-makeup KISS or anything, but seeing Gwar as human beings for the first time, helped me in appreciating what exactly they were doing, and I think this really helps with shock rock. 

I actually met a few people in shock rock bands weirdly enough, one of them, actually was friends a few people in Gwar, including Dave Brockie who, when I knew this person, was still mourning his passing from a heroin overdose. "This is Gwar" details the origins of the band, and interviews, what seems like nearly every living important member of the band; there's actually quite a few members and several changes in the band have occurred and honestly, while I think Gwar still tours, I don't think any of their original members do. Which, I think makes sense. Gwar, basically originated as a crazed film school project that somehow morphed into this depraved satirical punk rock band by taking the costumes and effects they were using for the film and creating a band out of it. The film itself never got finished, but the band took off. I mean, they did have a dinosaur on stage, no matter the quality of the music, that's gonna get people's attention, and frankly that was the most normal and least obscene thing that the band did and had on stage. 

Like, I said, I never really got it, but I could appreciate it. Gwar, really is basically more of an artistic collective than a band, but actually the musicianship is pretty strong and a lot of their music has held up over time, but Gwar really is more of a  brand than a band. What is Gwar exactly without the outrageous Viking costumes or the bloodsplattering beheadings at every concert? It's a special effects extravaganza; I'm not at all surprised a lot of the members of the band found outside careers in film and theater, often designing things like sets and effects. 

Gwar is an odd strange entity in music. "This is Gwar" does a decent job at showing how it was this strange passion project that morphed into a surreal shock rock band. They never earned much money, if they did, they poured it into their production on their tours and their music videos which, for the most part weren't shown much on mainstream music video outlets, but were beloved by those in the know. Even the Grammys recognized them a couple times. At one point, they mentioned that they thought they were gonna be the Walt Disney of Metal, and that's kinda what they did evolve into. Their were bands who cared about the performance aspects of rock & roll, in particular metal; I mean, Alice Cooper was putting on gorefest nightmare fuels at his concerts from back in the '70s, but he was more about the performance accompanying and interpreting the music; the music always came first with him or other similar acts. If Gwar has an influence still felt in the community, and I believe they do, it's that they reversed that dynamic, and made the outrageousness of the gimmick and the show outflank and overpower the music. 

Even they and their fans will tell you that the joke of Gwar is that they're actually pretty good at music. 

THE PEZ OUTLAW (2022) Directors: Amy Brandlien Storkel & Bryan Storkel

⭐⭐1/2

You ever, once-in-a-while, hear an obscure fact, somewhere out in the ether somewhere, that you know, is a thing, but it's so obtuse that you don't think about it, or recall it, and then suddenly you're like surrounded by that fact? No? Just me? Yeah, that would actually explain a lot now that I think about it,- so anyway, Pez collecting is a thing. Yeah, pez dispensers. People collect them. I bet people aren't terribly surprised by that, people collect a lot of weird things, pez dispensers are something that's been around forever and are a fun little toy that holds candy, I'm sure everybody has kept a few around here and there, and some are pretty big collectors of it, right? Um, actually, Pez and Pez Dispensers are actually a huge goddamn deal and some pez dispensers can be sold on the market for thousands of dollars, easily. In fact, European pez dispensers, ones that are made and sold only for the European market, would rack up lots of money to American collectors. "The Pez Outlaw" is a brief documentary about Steve Glew, who spent years travelling back and forth from Europe, around the Croatian area, and on the border of a war at times, in order to smuggle in knockoff European dispensers through customs in order to sell them on the open market in America. He got so good at this, he got to the point of the Pez company trying to go to extreme lengths to go after him. 

Part of it is their fault, they never registered Pez never was put on the list of items to be verified through customs, so all he really had to do was get ahold of them, and that included finding the factories and getting the pez from the factory. He claims that there were some people high inside the company that were helping him out.... Honestly, it's kind of an interesting story, I just don't know if it's a movie. 

I think I would prefer "The Pez Outlaw" as like, a 40-minute short film. There is a somewhat compelling afterstory when he tried to design his own Pez dispensers and Pez basically ripping off his designs and selling them for cheaper to make him bankrupt, and the fact that he started this lifelong endeavor to help subsidize his wife's illnesses and bills is heartfelt, but "The Pez Outlaw" is one of those harmless documentaries that gets made and nobody can really bash them for being bad, but they're not exactly great either. These kind of docs get well-reviewed as this film is too, but eh,- I don't know, there's definitely compelling stories out there about people who care greatly about stuff on the far off fringes of very specific niche interests, "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" for instance, comes to mind, but, eh, I don't know, this isn't on that level. I guess I could be nicer to it, but eh, for me, I wish Pez was better. Dispensers were cool, but the candy itself was never that good.

PETITE FILLE (aka LITTLE GIRL) (2021) Director: Sebastien Lifshitz

⭐⭐⭐

It's been difficult for me lately trying to figure out how to review movies for awhile. Personal issues mostly, things are on my mind.... But, it's particularly tricky to review "Petite Fille" or "Little Girl". Mostly 'cause I'm not sure what to review here. Frankly, it's kinda odd for a documentary, in that, there's not much, in terms of like...- well, it's just oddly filmed for me. It kinda feels more like it's scripted than most docs, even more than ones that are blatantly scripted; I saw one review compare it to a Dardenne Brothers film; that's not a terrible description, but honestly I don't think it's that narrative, it's more like, they shot a lot of scenes and the characters just talk, but like, not to the camera, usually to the doctors or others involved.... (Shrugs) Perhaps it just feels weird to me because of the content.... 

"Petite Fille" tells the story of Sasha, a 7-year-old boy, who has always been aware that he's actually a little girl, just born in the wrong body. So, there's a lot of controversy recently with this topic, so,- look, I'm totally in favor of anybody exploring their gender fluidity or whatnot. I know that gender is not genitalia-based, hell I think gender might arguably be fluid, and hell, sometimes I suspect gender as a binary concept, is itself, something that we made up more than something that actually exists perhaps. I mean, at one point, we all start as female, and then in the womb become either male or female, or whatever other gender their is; trans, I guess? My point is that I think that it's important to explore all sides of that personally. That said, I'm not entirely sure, when, we should explore all those things. In my mind, before puberty, feels too young. 

And I'm not saying that because I think Sasha isn't firm in her commitment that she's a girl, or that she's even wrong for having such strong feelings so young, but that said, we are having several reports out there of people who've altered their genders, many of them young, through such processes as hormone treatment and surgery, and then later regretting it. Bill Maher thinks it's because kids are trendy little edgelords and now that trans and gender fluidity is trendy, they jump in before actually thinking out the possibilities. I think that's a part of it, although I also just think that it's possible that some people just don't know what exactly they are and just come to a wrong conclusion sometimes. Or perhaps, they thought they were one other thing, because they only figure that it was the only other option and once they realize their were other possibilities, of who they could be, they realized that that new option might fit them better...- I don't know, but something tells me that, whether or not it's your first or your last change-of-gender, either you should be really, really, really sure, at that moment that it is absolutely what you have to do to help yourself be complete and happy, and I don't know if I trust somebody so young to be so confident about that. I don't know if I trust somebody 3x older than Sasha to be that fully sure, honestly. 

So what happened, what's the results? As far as I can tell, it was the best choice for her and the procedure's a success. Honestly, there doesn't even seem to be a lot of difficulty for her, most of the troubles and conflicts of were spoken of and not really shown. Honestly, I just found those scenes, I don't know-, it felt too stagey I guess....- I feel like there are better movies out there on the subject, like "Born to Be", the wonderful documentary about the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, but I do like just, seeing this documented case over time and what to make of it. But,- I don't know, for somebody so young.... 

You know what it is, this is, Part 1 of a film. What's really gonna be interesting is, the sequel, like ten years down the road, what happens to Sasha and who she's become since this. I think I'd like to see that more than this film personally. 

REWIND (2020) Director: Sasha Joseph Neulinger

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Home movies are strange. I'm not even sure that they really exists anymore, not the way that, they used to exist. The giant camera you'd put on your shoulder, those old VHS tapes,- the look of a home movie is so different from even looking at something shot on a modern phone camera..., it always feels like it's from another planet as oppose to another time. Now, you can argue that the modern Tiktok and Youtube videos are just as artificial as those from the home movies of the past, and we'll probably look at the picture quality of those projects a lot differently thirty or forty years from now, but-nah, there definitely is, something off-putting about those old home movies. I remember my family shooting a bunch of them, and I remember even trying to shoot one when I was a kid. I'm sure it's on some VHS somewhere in my garage, but I don't remember being particularly proud of it or anything. Now, I kinda just wish I had it to remember all those who've passed and those memories, but for the most part, our home movies weren't hiding some awful realities.

For director Sasha Joseph Neulinger, these home movies represent a falsehood. It's not the first documentary I can think of that uses the contrast of home movies and old photos that depict supposed happier times to reveal the darker underbelly underneath; off-the-top-of-my-head, Daniel Zwigoff's "Crumb" is probably the most notable and earliest film I can think of that uses this effect. That's not a fair comparison though, "Crumb" itself seemed to be a movie where you had to look, not only underneath the subtext but even it's main focus seemed to be slightly unwilling to even let himself in. A better comparison to "Rewind", would be "Capturing the Friedmans" which also utilizes home movies to undermine a shocking secret within the family, in that case, it was a widespread child molestation charge against two of the family members. "Rewind" is different in that, the story is told from the perspective of the abused; Sasha and his sister as well as other family members were sexual abused by several members of his family, including a renowned and beloved cantor. 

I don't know how much I should go into the details of what eventually transpired and the eventual investigations and prosecution of Sasha's family members, as well as the secrets of the family that, him coming forward with these accusations revealed. What I will say is that, what "Rewind" brings is kinda of a lucky draw in that Sasha's father was a TV director and ended up documenting a lot more home movies than others might've; in my mind, at least until it became unfeasible, we made, maybe one home movie a year, unless there was like, a wedding or something we needed to document. So, we get something kinda more interesting here, we see the aftereffects of the abuse, resonating in some of the footage. The changes in the behavior of Sasha and his sister over the year, especially as he became more angry and starting acting out much more after as a preteen. It's the kinda thing that usually you would only recognize in hindsight. We're kinda starting to see some of that now in real life. As I was writing this review, that docuseries on HBO about Dan Schneider's and others predatory behavior on the sets of many of the Nickelodeon show he was producing got released and suddenly a lot of people have been going back and looking up some old interviews and stuff, and I think I saw one Tiktok video comparing an interview Amanda Bynes gave when she was twelve with one that occurred just a year or two later, during which time, according her at least, Schneider raped and impregnated her and forced her to have an abortion, and yeah, there's- there's clearly a behavioral shift in her, and considering some of her antics in her life post-fame, it definitely feels like, in hindsight, something happened. (I haven't seen the documentary yet,... I might later,- but, yeah, from everything I had already long heard about Schneider and all,- there's nothing that would surprise me right now about what happened on those sets.) 

So, yeah, looking at something like "Rewind" is kinda fascinating. Disturbing and troubling to watch, but-, you know, there's an old myth that some think the camera reveals a person's soul; it was a popular Native American belief back in the early days of photography, but-eh, you know, sometimes it feels like they might've been right, you just have to know where to look for it. 

Hence the issue with home movies, they around to document the good times, but it always seems to be the things that occur when the camera's off....