Someone asks, “What’s wrong?” You reply, “Family shit.” And that’s it. Conversation over. The other person gets it, and you don’t have to say another word. We practice this kind of avoidance as a defense mechanism, a survival tool that gets our emotional selves through the day-to-day, and I avoided Yi Yi when I watched it yesterday. Oh, I was interested, and I was engaged, and it’s impossible to see Yang working his quiet, therapeutic, empathetic magic without being impressed,…
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Collateral 2004
Nearly twenty years on, there is still no other movie I’d rather look at. A hazy shade of summer.
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Blood Simple 1984
On top of the screenplay’s many twisty-turny pleasures, it’s wild how much of Fargo and No Country for Old Men can already be felt in the execution. The Coens had a complete and immediate understanding of their own sensibility in a way few filmmakers can claim.
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The Night of the Iguana 1964
A curious case in which the movie isn’t stagy but the material can’t help but be. Try as Huston might to open things up, the film is handcuffed to Williams’ hothouse monologuing, often at the expense of deeper insight or dramatic momentum. There’s a lot of running in place. However, the performances often save it: all three leading ladies are excellent, and Richard Burton’s alcoholic lech is exactly as mesmerizing as one would imagine. THE BEGUILED draws plenty of influence from this, as does the Cuba Gooding Jr. subplot in RAT RACE. I will not be taking questions at this time.
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The Curse of the Cat People 1944
Given the themes of its revolutionary predecessor, The Curse of the Cat People functions almost effortlessly as an analogue for the early queer experience, a dark fantasy in which its young protagonist is literally haunted by a mysterious but empowering sensation foretelling the fact that she’s not wired exactly the same as most of the people surrounding her. That it all takes place in Sleepy Hollow and frequently dramatizes the Washington Irving lore for atmospheric effect made this an extra special viewing for me.
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The Seventh Victim 1943
Tourneur’s graceful touch is missed and you can definitely feel its post-production woes in the edit, but this one’s all about mood, and it’s got paranoid, pent-up, gloriously gothic atmosphere in spades. Roughly half the film had passed before I stopped laughing about Hugh Beaumont’s character being named Ward.
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Field of Dreams 1989
This movie shouldn’t work, but it survives its traditionalism and its goofiest elements thanks to sheer emotional sincerity, not to mention the fact that Robinson shoots Iowa as though it’s actually Heaven. Probably would’ve sold the land for Blu-rays, though.
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Summertime 1955
Katharine Hepburn is incredible in this. It’s one of the loneliest performances I’ve ever seen, quiet and full of longing until sparks fly, at which point the hypervigilance of someone who’s been alone too long and betrayed too often takes over. It’s startling because we tend to associate her with the electric confidence and verve she displays in movies like The Philadelphia Story, yet here she’s all vulnerability, and it’s beautiful. Her scene partner doesn’t make half as much of an impression, but that’s a minor gripe. “illicit affairs” Lean is simply the best Lean.
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Cat People 1942
Kinda need a second viewing to fully process this as a horror movie because the experience largely resembles Todd Haynes sitting you down to say fuck the normies and fuck the church. Which is fantastic! Kiss a blonde, kiss a friend, can a gay girl get an amen?