52 Pick-Up # 27 – Wise Blood (1979)

Okay, I think that's the last of the fireworks. Time to get back to work.

Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up. It feels weird to still be explaining this at halfway into the year, but as a courtesy for any late arrivals, this is my year long project as an incentive to keep writing something weekly and going through some films that have not seen before.

Last time here, luck of the draw meant I spent the week of 4th of July with a Canadian folk horror movie that explored some of the complicated issues regarding colonialism and pacifism. For anyone who was wondering why I didn't go with something American, I hear you – and I've got just the thing this week, though whether you'll like it or not may vary.

This is one where I will start by saying, I had a misconception of this movie going in. Further, that misconception was what intrigued me to watch it. Having now seen it, I'm actually not upset that I was wrong – the outcome I got here still made for an intriguing watch. If anything, it might have gone darker than what I was expecting.

Which makes one of the more roundabout ways I've introduced a movie for this project, but I'll explain further just how I misread John Huston's Wise Blood shortly.

This actually will dovetail nicely with what has become the de facto 'pitch' part of these writeups. For the longest time, my main association of this movie was that it had a young Brad Dourif in a dark comedy playing what was, for all purposes, a preacher. Initially I took this to mean he was an overt grifter, separating the religious from their money in a full pantomime of that old time religion.

I had the right character type, but the wrong actor, and how Dourif ties into that is much more interesting.

Adapted from the Flannery O'Connor novel of the same name, Dourif plays veteran Hazel Motes returning to his home town after his service is concluded. After coming back to find his home abandoned and dilapidated, he sets off to find a new path for himself. This leads him into several adventures, including a friendly, if naive zookeeper (Dan Shor), a gladhanding promoter (Ned Beatty) and sidewalk preacher Asa Hawks (Harry Dean Stanton) and his daughter Lily (Amy Wright.) At first, Hazel's stance towards the Hawks is only lightly antagonistic, not having any patience for Asa's act. This changes after he moves in with them and becomes more keenly aware of just how much of Asa's persona is fabricated. Disgusted and disillusioned, Hazel begins trying to push his own belief movement – the Church of Truth Without Christ. 

As presented, the idea is not designed to antagonize, but merely out of Hazel's sincere feelings after his time in the war and from seeing the theater of religion up close – both from Asa and, in flashbacks, from his grandfather (voiced by director Huston.) Of course, Hazel's sincerity soon meets its match as people around him start trying to play his movement just like any other, be it in Shor's Enoch trying to find Hazel a new messiah figure despite the stated ethos otherwise or Beatty's Hoover trying to turn the whole thing into a moneymaking endeavor. 

As much as this is longer than some of my previous 'pitch' summaries, this still only touches about half the plot and only a handful of the individuals Hazel crosses paths with in his journeys. Which is pretty impressive because the movie never really feels overstuffed or drawn out. It moves at a good clip and each of the encounters stacks on the increasingly taxed Hazel, which is a great showing for Dourif and a good opportunity to remind that this was a man whose first break into cinema got him an Oscar nomination. While he found a welcome (and quite entertaining) place in genre work, this was a guy who came out of the gate swinging as a dramatic actor at first.

I bring that up both as a general beat of praise for him as well as the fact that his performance is a big part of why this movie works for me, especially given this movie is ultimately a dark comedy. I know it's a regular spot for me, but I can find myself picturing a lesser version of this movie – one where Hazel is a broader character, angrier, or so tightly wound that we get a breakdown on the level of the infamous Frank Grimes from The Simpsons. If I'm being fair, there's probably even directors and/or actors who could make that balance work and work well. Even having said that, I like the way Huston and Dourif take this. Dourif's Hazel is a buttoned up, guarded individual from the jump (as the movie demonstrates early on with how little information he chooses to divulge from his time in the war, actively keeping it to the barest of bare minimums). As he meets people, he tries to remain distant and aloof as a baseline, only really starting to act otherwise when people get too close or are simply too much for him. Even his moments of anger come with a degree of restraint (and, let's be fair, this is Brad Dourif here – if they wanted this movie to have big anger moments, he could deliver those and leave a smoking crater in the aftermath.)

That restraint is the part of this performance that really makes this whole thing work for me, specifically regarding Hazel's church movement. The way Dourif plays Hazel, his movement reads as one born not of cynicism, but of sincerity. This is a man who genuinely believes that shedding a lot of the more explicitly supernatural trappings of religion could help improve people's lives. As much as the movie lines it up that this could have been him expressly trying to get revenge on Asa, he's speaking of his views with an interest in reaching people, and becoming ever more disillusioned and disgusted as people either miss the point or actively try to game it in defiance of what he's trying to achieve.

The result makes for a more subdued comedy, but also a much blacker one, as Hazel watches his well intended idea get wrestled from him and realizes there is no one he can really count on.

At this point, I have to take a moment to admit something: I haven't read any Flannery O'Connor to this point. I'm not sure how much of this is baked into O'Connor's work and how much was worked in by Huston. Having said that, if this is what O'Connor's style tends towards, this has me wanting to seek out her work. There is something very engaging about something that is, in many ways, very dark and nihilistic but also doesn't feel oppressive about it that helps make the comedy of this work.

So, to circle back to the start – this wasn't the movie I expected going in, but I still quite enjoyed what I got just the same.

And with that, July rolls on.

For those who have been enjoying the times shuffle results in wild tone shifts, oh, have I got a treat for you. Where are we going after John Huston's dark comedy about belief and human nature? Somewhere a little faster.

Or at lot faster.

A LOT a lot faster.

See you next week for Takeshi Koike's balls-to-the-wall sci-fi racing passion project Redline.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up # 26 – Clearcut (1991)

Whoo! Fireworks! Celebration!

Entry #26! I'm halfway there!

Wait, what?

Fourth of what?

Oh, sure. Yeah, there's that too. I suppose I can spare some fireworks there.

Speaking of, what movie got rolled for this one?

Oh.

OH.

I mean, good movie, but...oh.

Okay, let's start this again.

Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up. My year long challenge to keep writeups coming once a week and branch out with first time cinematic watches as I do so. With this entry taking things into July, I have officially hit the halfway point on this journey, and I have to say, I'm pretty happy with how it's come along so far. There's been some good, some VERY good, and even the movies I wasn't as wowed by, it was less 'this is awful' and more 'this just isn't for me.'

I feel like by commenting on that, I am calling down the thunder for something in the back half of this year, but I'll try not to dwell on that. For this week, I've got a movie I've had on deck for a bit thanks to the fine folk at Severin Films and their folk horror movie collections. It's a different sort of take on the genre and one that has just enough overlap to feel darkly apropos for the same week as the Fourth of July, even if this one is from Canada.

So, without further ado, it's off to the Canadian wilderness for Clearcut.

As a general pitch, Clearcut concerns one Peter Maguire (Ron Lea), a white lawyer acting on behalf of indigenous activists protesting a road that would lead to clearcutting trees through native land. At the start of the movie, Peter's case has been lost, and while he insists they can appeal (even if he himself isn't confident) the tribe doesn't share his already diminished optimism. As he considers his next course of action, the tribe's leader, Wilf (Floyd Red Crow) introduces him to a member of the tribe he's never seen before – Arthur (Graham Greene.) Arthur bonds with Peter over their frustrations with Arthur offering more extreme violent alternatives that Peter dismisses. What starts as a simple conversation soon spirals as Arthur enlists Peter first in kidnapping a logging manager, followed by a multi-day journey into the woods, where Peter's ideals will be put to the test.

Yes, this is a movie made in Canada, but damn if it's hard not to see the applicability of this story on the 4th of July weekend all the same. The conflicts presented here are far from unique to a single indigenous tribe, and one would be hard pressed to say America has been any more benevolent on this subject than Canada has been. In that regard, this timed up well as a dark but still incredibly relevant movie to watch, not just for the 4th but specifically for the 250th.

A large part of this goes to the ideological conflict that is the center of this movie. Make no mistake, while this is a great thriller and a subtle folk horror, that ideological struggle is the real heart of this, particularly with dealing with the complicated nuances around matters of colonialism, environmentalism, and pacifism. Much of this conflict is best embodied in Greene's performance as Arthur, and how he evolves from simply an angry native to an active challenge of Peter's entire belief system. Before I dig into that, I do just want to say – this is a great performance for Graham Greene, a man who was a consistent welcome presence as a character actor in indigenous roles for decades before his death. In fact, of the work I have seen him in, this might be my favorite Greene performance, playing against the stoic roles he was often cast as in a figure who grows from a seemingly straightforward angry man to the voice for generations of broken promises to his and other tribes. 

The folk horror element of this movie further lends to both Greene's performance and the ideological conflict at play. It's not presented as a major supernatural element, instead, the movie presents many smaller tells that Arthur may be more than the activist he appears to be. In that regard, it changes the nature of his role contrasted to Peter, simply from being an native lashing out and instead being a force that is taking this kidnapping and subsequent journey as a way to test, and ultimately teach Peter about the futility of the lawyer's insistence on a pacifistic approach to what is clearly becoming a losing battle.

That conclusion, as another welcome side, manages to thread a needle that often trips up movies dealing in topics like these – how to balance a story where you're showing flaws in multiple sides without coming across as a toothless 'all sides are kind of wrong.' Director Ryszard Bugajski is very interested in exploring the pros and cons of all sides, but toothless this movie is not – it acknowledges that these colonial forces do bring some things to the native peoples, but also doesn't shy away from what they have taken away from them – most notably in the movie's climax, in a scene where Arthur forces Bud, the kidnapped logging manager (Michael Hogan) to confront what his efforts will ultimately destroy. It's a moment that makes a striking contrast with Peter's journey as Arthur flat-out tells him to see and Bud, by his own admission, cannot.

If you're looking for something upbeat this 4th of July (and I can sympathize with that), you might want to wait on this movie for now. I would still say it is worth seeking out if you ever get the chance though. It wasn't quite the folk horror I was expecting going in, but what it was instead is a stripped down, engaging, at times intense look at the role and legacy of colonialism and whether this is something that one can peaceably deal with or can only meet with force.

For my part, this is up there on the biggest pleasant surprises of this project for me, alongside titles like Z, Wild Zero, and Marjoe (it's telling that only one of these isn't a downer, huh?)

And with this, this journey now officially concludes its first half, but there's still more to come.

For those dismayed I went Canadian for this holiday, don't worry – I'll be back in the ol' US of A again next week, and getting back in touch with that old time gri—er...religion.

So, see you all next week for a pre-horror Brad Dourif in John Huston's Wise Blood.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up # 25 – Bound (1996)

Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up, my year long, semi-random journey through 52 movies will be encountering for the first time this year. The fun of going in new like this means I'm just going off the immediate reaction.

In a case like this, that means me going 'Oh God, why did I wait this long to watch this?'

As I said up top, and somewhat at the end of last week, I wanted to do something specifically queer to round out June for Pride Month (and after indirectly dedicating three entries to Bleak Week, I wanted to do something besides the already on the books John Waters movie.) With this in mind, the time came to finally check out the Wachowskis' directorial debut feature, the 1996 neo-noir Bound.

As you might have guessed from the start, yes – I liked this one. I REALLY liked this one. Its reputation had me expecting good, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

But, I should stop myself before going straight into gushing. This has evolved something of a format, so on with the elevator pitch.

Bound is your classic story – girl meets girl, girl flirts with girl over several encounters before they finally act on their mutual desires, girl learns girl is under the thumb of a violent mobster, girl helps girl come up with plan to rip said mobster off, leaving him holding the bag at the hands of his peers, except his own violent tendencies cause the plan to rapidly spiral into a bloody double-cross which both girls now have to fight to get out of alive.

You know. Classic story. Or as classic as I can make it without getting too spoilery.

Get you someone who can (consensually) eye hump you as hard as
either Corky or Violet is doing to one another in this scene.

Like last week, the casting is definitely a point in this film's favor. In particular, the core three performances by Gina Gershon, Jennifer Tilly, and Joe Pantoliano. Gershon and Tilly as the movie's leading ladies, Corky and Violet (respectively) have a chemistry and tension together that hits early and stays constant throughout the movie. Especially impressive is how quickly it gets going, starting with a non-verbal moment the two share in elevator that is already charged before the two even properly introduce themselves. From there, the sexual tension escalates quickly, and even after it's consummated, the two play well as a couple linked first by desire, then, as the stakes raise, by keeping alive. Part of me wants to see if they've gone on to work together any time after this or not. Rounding out the trio, and another case of 'I expected good, but hot damn', I can see why Pantoliano considers Caesar some of his best work. He's had a lot of great roles outside of this, but there is a genuine sort of 'caged animal' menace he brings here I don't think I've really gotten to see him flex in other roles. Watching that played off of Tilly and Gershon does a phenomenal job of ramping up the tension of the movie's third act.

Unlike last week, where I feel like the casting really helped save a kind of rocky movie, this is a case where it takes an already good movie and enhances it THAT much more. Watching this there were points where I had to double check and confirm this was the Wachowskis' debut movie, simply because it's always a pleasant surprise when you see a first feature come together this well. Which isn't to say it doesn't happen, let me be clear. Not every directorial debut is weak, but it's rare they also get it this strong out of the gate. For every Eraserhead or The Producers, there's a Dark Star or Mondo Trasho (maybe a slight spoiler on that last one for next month.) Bound definitely lands more in the former camp, with the Wachowskis hitting the ground with a confidence and control over the noir style here that, again, gives the sense they would have had more experience going in. Honestly, I'd love it if they could come back to this genre, but I can understand why they might figure if, between this and the heavy noir influence on the Matrix movies after, they might feel like they've already done all they needed or wanted to with the style/genre to this point.

If this and Love Lies Bleeding have taught me anything,
it's that one of the best things you can do with your partner
is take an opportunity to set up a mutual enemy with a plan
that leaves them holding the bag.

Which, on the one hand, a bit of a shame. On the other, hey, makes a good case for appreciating how good their offering was already.

But, if they ever want to come back to this (and hey, bonus points if said noir wants to go this queer and horny on top of that) I will not say no. More likely, I will be asking 'When's the release date?'

As an additional moment of plugging goes – if you can and haven't looked into it yet, the Criterion 4k for this takes a good looking movie and makes it look THAT much better.

No, I'm not getting paid to say that, though again – if they're offering, I could be persuaded.

But, that's business for a later day. With this, June comes to a close here and next week marks the official halfway point for this project.

So, what do I have on deck for the big halfway AND for the 4th of July?

How about some Canadian indigenous folk horror?

Well, too bad. Cause that's what I rolled and I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays this week with 1991's Clearcut.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up # 24 – A Dirty Shame (2004)

 Welcome back.

It's been an interesting few weeks here, hasn't it? Two weeks of very dark films interspersed with my unexpectedly downer read on Sex and the City. Feels like a strange tone to take as summer is getting underway.

So what say we try for something a little brighter this week, eh?

I'm thinking...let's go sexing!

Some of you are now thinking “Oh boy, here we go!” while others are going “Wait what?”

For the latter camp, this is my lead-in for saying we come to the penultimate entry of Uncharted Waters with John Waters's (to date) final movie – the prudes vs pervs satirical comedy A Dirty Shame.

I should be up front with you and say this won't be COMPLETELY devoid of a bit of a downer streak (as much of a downer as a John Waters movie has, anyway.) It won't be on the level of the last few weeks though – mostly just some thoughts pertaining to this movie's role in the larger Waters filmography and when in his career it was made.

But, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let me set the scene for this one:

PERVERTS ARE TAKING OVER THIS NEIGHBORHOOD!

That is either the rallying cry of ominous warning that hangs over the Baltimore suburb of Harford Road. On one side, the uptight, puritanical neuters (their term), the other, the free-wheeling, hedonistic perverts. In the former camp, we have the particular wound up Sylvia Stickles (Tracey Ullman) working through an increasingly frustrated (not that way - yet) day on the job. This all changes when a blow to the head unlocks something in Sylvia, further added to by an encounter with the charismatic pervert Ray-Ray (Johnny Knoxville.) Sylvia soon finds herself caught in the ideological tug of war for the soul of Harford Road between the neuters and the perverts as she begins to come to terms with her own now fully unleashed sexuality and her part in a larger prophecy among the perverts of a new sexual move to be discovered.

That's a story of spiritual awakening you don't get from most filmmakers.

It's a fun idea on paper, and there are definitely some entertaining moments in this movie overall. Which is why I kind of feel bad that, as an overall film, this is one in the camp of 'I wish I liked this more.'

I'll start with a positive note for this one – the cast wins this movie a lot of good will for me. Ullman especially is giving this movie a lot of juice with her balance between Sylvia's constant 'on her last nerve' puritanical side and then her swing hard the other way into depravity. As her spiritual guide into sexual exploration, Knoxville's Ray-Ray is equally worthy of praise: a sleazy, endearing bolt of lightning livening up the world of both Sylvia and the audience. Alongside them, the rest of the cast continue Waters's track record of being able to shine with his material – in particular, giving shout-outs to Chris Isaak as Sylvia's well-intentioned, but clueless husband Vaughn, and Suzanne Shepherd as the neuters' de facto leader, Big Ethel.

And when I say clueless, I mean Isaak is playing
'goofy straight' to the hilt.
Also, just to clarify - not a love triangle, but not necessarily
NOT a threesome waiting to happen in the context of this movie.

As fun as the cast is in this movie, it makes it a shame the actual film itself feels prone to some very abrupt stopping and starting. The first act hits the ground running and has a good momentum going, but once the movie introduces the idea of the ability to switch from being neuter to pervert and back again with a blow on the head, it feels like it stalls out on a lot of its initial momentum, with obstacles feeling more arbitrary than organic. When the movie's final act rolls around – with Ray-Ray leading a pervert uprising determined to go beyond Harford to take the country by storm – the movie feels like it's regained some of that lost momentum, but not enough to make that floundering middle a non-issue.

With that said, that final act was one that struck me in context, similar to the feeling watching Cecil B. Demented earlier this year. As I said before, this is still the last movie Waters has been able to make as a director. Officially, this wasn't intended to be his swan song, and he has tried to get other movies off the ground since, most recently trying to adapt his novel Liarmouth. Unfortunately, as he has also been very upfront about over the years, his big hurdle has been securing funding for these projects.

It's, sadly, not a unique story in the world of film. Even moreso when it pertains to directors with a very distinct vision and style that may not be the most financially friendly as a rule.

Which is why, even with that knowledge this wasn't explicitly his farewell, it's hard not to wonder if, in the back of his mind, Waters went into this with the possibility that this would be his final directorial rodeo. There's certainly context that would lend to that – this was his feature followed Demented, a movie which is as cynical of the state of modern film as it is defiant of the safe, sanitized sensibilities of studio shareholders. That Demented was seen as a box office dud may have meant Waters was starting to see the writing on the wall. In that regard, looking at the story and themes of A Dirty Shame, it's hard not to see this as the man issuing one last full-throated battle cry against the buttoned down, straight-laced and safe state of film. Especially with the film's conclusion of a pervert uprising culminating in a massive figurative (and eventually literal) sexual release of the people of Harford, and presumably the world.

In true 'just going for it' style - the ranks of the perverts
include a character named Fat Fuck Frank as well as the
above group identified as, you guessed it - The Three Bears
(Happy Pride, by the by!)

In that light, I guess I feel a little more sympathetic to this one. I'd still say it's coming in on the weaker side of Waters for me (see with the final rankings next month), and there's a lot of rough edges here that don't have quite the same charm of the old Dreamlander offerings, but there is still some scruffy charm here. Further, the idea of this as reading as Waters's final triumphant flip of the bird in the face of an industry he had read for filth less than five years earlier does make me respect the idea, if not the overall finished project.

I'd still love it if the man could come back swinging with one more movie, but if this does become the capstone on his career, it feels like a suitable place to close the book – warts and all.

Hey, not bad, even with a bit of a downer, this came out looking positively.

Now come on, universe, manifest that one more movie for him!

But, in the meantime, I've gotta be moving on here.

With one more week left in June, I will admit I put a bit of a thumb on the scale here as I wanted to get something else in here for Pride Month beyond my Waters theme. So I'm closing out this month with another movie I've had on the to do list for a long time now – it's the breakout movie that put the name Wachowski on the map, Lily and Lana's neo-noir directorial debut Bound.

Till next time.

52 Pick-Up # 23 – I Saw the Devil (2010)

Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up!

Wow, that felt like a weirdly enthusiastic way to start an entry for both a pretty grim movie as well as the third and final part in what has accidentally become a fun Bleak Week cycle here.

For anyone somehow just checking in, this is my year spanning project to keep myself writing and expanding my cinematic horizons with 52 movies I've never seen before. Some on my to do list, some tagged in by my wife who has been a good sport in this endeavor.

With this entry, I'm coming to the end of what has inadvertently become a fun, strange mini-cycle in this project. By sheer happy accident, the past few movies turned into a trifecta built around the art house theater custom known as Bleak Week, a week in which indie cinemas specialize in varying incredibly dark movies. That the week itself – sandwiched between this week's movie and Incendies – went to Sex and the City, wound up being amusing to me. That even before the writeup turned into a meditation on the movie as a snapshot of the last hurrah before the financial bubble burst.

So where do we go after war crimes and financial collapse? How about blood-soaked vengeance that no one walks away from happily?

To those of you who said 'Yes'? Good, cause we're going there anyway.

With that as our set-up (and I suppose VERY vague spoiler), let's get into the pitch.

Kim Jee-Woon's I Saw the Devil introduces us to two men: serial killer Jang Kyung-Chul (Choi Min-Sik, returning to the revenge genre from his earlier iconic work in Oldboy) and intelligence agent Kim Soo-Hyun (Lee Byung-Hun.) The movie starts as Kyung-Chul has killed his latest victim – Soo-Hyun's fiancée. Soo-Hyun, determined to avenge her death, first starts by wreaking terror on multiple suspects before finding Kyung-Chul. With his target located, Soo-Hyun isn't interested in bringing Kyung-Chul in alive, but rather has decided he will make the man suffer as he has. What follows is a violent, cold-blooded game of cat and mouse between the two men, first as we see how far from the path of law and order Soo-Hyun will stray in his desire for revenge, and then what Kyung-Chul is will to do to return to favor.

Again, gotta love how this trio sorted out. Right down to ending with the grimmest of the three.

And honestly? I really liked that it went that way.

I know, I know, it feels weird to apply 'liked' to a movie that is a fairly brutal, violent entry into the 'vengeance as a double-edged sword' subgenre. I swear, this isn't out of some weird sadism at the violent acts committed – in fact, there were a few times I was actually surprised to see the movie not pull a punch. In this case it came down to two things. The first – this is just a genuinely well-made, tense thriller further enhanced by two top notch performers in Min-Sik and Byung-Hun. The second is how hard this goes into that double-edged aspect of the vengeance. 

Additionally, coming into this with my last time seeing
Lee Byung-Hun being the dark comedy No Other Choice,
this gives me a whole other level of respect for his range.

It's not a universally set rule, but it's not an uncommon occurrence in these kinds of stories where that sort of blow back comes in the idea of the protagonist simply resorting to more monstrous means than those they are against to settle the score. It's even present in this to a degree, particularly early on as it becomes clear that Soo-Hyun isn't satisfied with simply seeing his fiancée's killer arrested or killed. Where this movie steps it up for me comes with the fact that the movie remembers the man Soo-Hyun is pursuing to this degree is still a violent, dangerous psychopath. Once Kyang-Chul starts to key in to what's happening, he starts pushing back. Instead of this simply being one man going too hard to destroy another, it becomes murderous one-upping. What started as Soo-Hyun determined to torture the source of his misery to death turns into him realizing he let a monster live too long, and realizing he can still lose more at this man's hands, turning into a race to see which man can destroy the other first.

It is bleak. It is cold-blooded. It is mean-spirited. And dammit, it worked on me.

It still feels genuinely weird to say that incredibly bleak tone is what I enjoyed about this movie, but there's no other way to put. There is just something about the grim balance that this movie hits that really resonated for me and I'm glad I finally got to watching it.

I'm also glad this was the movie of the three to close out this accidental Bleak Week cycle, going out on the darkest, and most final of the three movies.

So, for anyone who's been reading these and going 'Jesus Christ, could you lighten up a little?' lately – I've got good news!

Sort of. Depending your tastes.

There will be a tonal palate cleanser on deck next time as I make my penultimate foray into Open Waters. Next entry, I'm coming near the end with (to date, fingers crossed) John Waters's final directorial outing, 2004's A Dirty Shame.

Till next time!

52 Pick-Up # 22 – Sex and the City: The Movie (2008)

Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up, my year long challenge to keep myself consistently writing and engaging with films I haven't seen before.

I can't exactly say this was one for my to do list, but it is one I did invite on myself by virtue of giving my wife the wild card/veto option.

In hindsight, I should have realized she would be using this to test my limits and specifically trying to angle towards films outside of my general wheelhouse just to see what I'd do. In that regard, I commend her, because in this case, I got both a challenge as well as just a larger general experience.

Which is probably where I should start this review by saying that, before watching this, I had little to no experience with Sex and the City. There were bits I had gleaned second hand, either details from my wife or jokes about it on The Majority Report (host Sam Seder had a guest spot on the show back in the day) or American Dad! (See screenshot below – I get this particular joke THAT much more now.)

"This is Michael Patrick King's first draft of the
Sex and the City movie.
It's 700 pages!"

So when I agreed to watch this movie as my wife's veto pick (and the locked picks are turning into a wild list so far) I was also counting on her for general explanation/reference for a lot of what I was about to watch.

That's a lot of preamble for this one as my way of saying 'this was one it took me a while to wrap my thoughts around for a write-up, so please bear with me.'

So, to start with, the elevator pitch, comprising of the movie itself as well as the context points I was given for this. This movie was designed to serve as a big budget send-off to the hit HBO TV series. In particular, the focus being on Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie finally tying the knot with her on-again, off-again love interest Big (not his actual name and played by the...let's now say troubled Chris Noth.) This is the main focus, anyway, though all four of the leads each has their own storyline to work through.

It's a lot of movie, but I get it – it's an ensemble show and this was meant to be the curtain call.

Speaking of which – yes, there's also a lot of focus with the clothes. This is, as I've been informed, something the show sort of evolved into after its first few seasons as designers saw this as a good showcase, so with this movie as the big finish, it made sense that would also factor in.

Stick a pin in that, by the way. It's going to come back for one of my points later.

But first, I'll just say this – I didn't hate this. It's not gonna be among the best I've seen this year (and there have been some solid gems I'm glad I've finally taken off the list) but I also wasn't in Hell watching this. In fact, there were some things that I did find enjoyable to watch. In particular, the cast earned this a lot of good will (with special shout to Kim Catrall, continuing to elevate most things she's in.)

I feel like this can be best summed up as a 'It's not for me, and there's nothing wrong with that.' Which is something I'm kind of glad I got to experience in this run. Don't get me wrong, I like that I've largely been happy with what I've watched, but there is something healthy to encountering something that isn't bad, but just isn't really something you're meant to click with. For lack of a better way to put it, it's like a perspective check, and one I feel like I appreciate more now in the current age of film discourse where so many takes are of an all-or-nothing stance where a film is either the best thing ever or the worst. There's a place in the conversation for this sort of feeling, and it's good to be reminded of it.

There is one thing I will say did bother me about this. I will acknowledge this may also be partly the 'this isn't for me' talking when I say it but – damn, two and a half hours was a big ask for this one. Which seems weird to say as I've watched other long movies for this before – in fact, next week is coming in only a little shy of this runtime. In this case, I think it was one where I just felt it more at times – most notably the mid-movie trip to Mexico. I'm not saying the movie shouldn't have gone there, cause I see its function in the larger movie, but it also feels like it takes more time than it needs to wallowing in Carrie's misery, and setting up for a single scene pay-off in which someone craps themselves (which, in theory, I commend the ambition of, less so in practice.) There isn't really something I can really say is a case of 'lose it' in this movie as much as 'this could have been tightened up a bit.'

As I was requested on this, I will quote my wife 
on this scene - "Don't throw flowers. Throw hands!"

I can also see why it runs this long. At the time, meant to be the grand finale, so the impulse to go big is understandable. It's also something I do have to give this movie – as movies based on TV shows go, there is always that tricky balancing act where you want to capture the charm of the show, but you also want to avoid just feeling like you're making a jumbo-sized episode or what feels like several episodes cut together. I've seen some that clear this hurdle well (The X-Files: Fight the Future and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me) and others that don't quite get over it (production budget aside, The Simpsons Movie, I'm looking at you.) While I will admit I'm not familiar with the series to make the full comparison, just taken on its own, this felt like a case of recognizing 'we have a movie budget, so let's blow the scope up' in a way that largely pays off. I'm deferring in part to my wife on this as far as if this is an accurate reading compared to the show, and have been informed overall, yes.

Honestly? The most fascinating part about this watch has been, as I said above, just the general experience. More than just watching a movie, this was me getting a crash course in a series (I feel strange calling this one a franchise) I had very little prior experience or knowledge of in time for what was functionally their series finale. In that regard, it was a winding, strange, and sometimes fun deep dive.

By this point, I'm sure some of you are going 'You do know they made another one, right?'

Well, that's the other thing that stuck with me on this one.

See? I told you we'd come back to this.

So, there is one moment in this movie in particular that hit me and really stuck. The kicker is, it's a moment that happens entirely by accident.

Okay, not ENTIRELY. The scene itself is meant to be a moment of revelation for Carrie, but there is a detail in the scene, not relevant to the context of the story, but watched through the eyes of 2026, it hits VERY differently. Without going too deep into set-up, there is an early plot point of the movie where Carrie agrees to a magazine shoot for her wedding, a decision that turns what was meant to be a small affair into an oversized production. Later in the film, after this has led to Big jilting her at the altar, she finds the magazine again and realizes this may have been the problem. Now for the fun part – the magazine in question is under another magazine. That other magazine's cover talks of a looming financial bubble.

Screenshot to prove I'm not lying.

It was at this point that I found myself looking up when in 2008 this movie came out. This was just ahead of the crash. Which led to an interesting discussion with my wife about that timing, particularly paired with her pointing out how a big part of why the second movie is generally regarded as awful is the very tone deaf way it navigated that post-crash world.

This meta aspect lent an interesting feel to the experience of watching this knowing it was originally meant to be the end. Since then, they've had that sequel movie as well as a follow up TV series which, while it still has had some decent audiences, has never quite regained the momentum the original series had. With that detail it really hit home that this movie was, for this larger series, an end of an era. With the crash, this kind of a series (or more accurately what this series had become) would not land quite the same way, despite the game attempts of the people behind it to do so. Like a band still performing after a major member died, something was missing (this all before getting into the fact Kim Catrall declined to be part of the sequel series, but as far as this goes, that's more of a side note.)The performance continues, but as far as it was described to me, it never quite sounds the same.

In a way, I think that's the thing I'm most fascinated by in this movie. The fact that it is a very particular sort of time capsule taken just before things changed in a drastic way, and it's interesting to see in that light knowing how much of this would play very differently a a year or two later.

Huh...and here I started this joking about the relative absurdity that this wound up being the movie I wrote about for Bleak Week. I found a way!

Of course, it's also funny that this landed on that particular week as it's sandwiched between two fairly dark movies otherwise.

In the spirit of the shuffle pulling wild tonal shifts, we're going from the high fashion world of a pre-bubble New York to a blood soaked slice of Korean extreme with I Saw the Devil.

Man, this month is gonna be a wild one.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up # 21 – Incendies (2010)

Ah, the end of May. It's getting warmer out, plants are in bloom and critters are all out and about.

And over here, 52 Pick Up is...
Oh.

Oof.

I mean, this was good, but oof.

Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up, my year long documentation of going through 52 first time watches of movies that have been in some degree of my to do list.

As as I come in to the tail end of the fifth month of this project, it's been an interesting grab bag. Especially this past month, going from the wonderfully weird world of John Waters, to a Coen Bros screwball comedy, and last week's audaciously insane Wild Zero. It's been a fun romp of a month.

That I will now be closing out in a fairly bleak fashion, courtesy of Denis Villeneuve's Incendies.

I'm going to apologize up front – this is a movie where I'm going to be trying to avoid getting too into the details, as functionally this movie is as much a mystery as it is a character piece and a tragedy. It won't ruin the movie if you know some of the details, but it does help keep the momentum on that first watch.

One more note while we're being up front – while this is one to go into without knowing too much, I will give a courtesy warning. This movie touches on some heavy themes, in particular war crimes and sexual assault (neither is presented in an especially lurid light, but still, they are there and the movie isn't ambiguous about it.) I'm saying this here because these are things that it feels, if I may be blunt, dickish to blindside someone with. It's still worth seeing if you think you can handle that, and letting the story unfold on its own, but if that's a hard pass, no judgments if you sit this one out.

And with that disclaimer...

Like I said above, Incendies is, alongside being a character piece, presented as a mystery. The movie begins following the death of Nawal (Lubna Azabal), a woman from an unnamed Levantine country (the movie, and the play it's adapted from, were inspired by the Lebanese Civil War and one particular prisoner from that war, Souha Bechara.) We're introduced to her twin children, Jeanne and Simon (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin and Maxim Gaudette) who have been informed their mother has left instructions that she is not to be given a proper grave until they deliver two letters – one to their father they have believed dead, the other to a brother they had no idea existed. While Simon is initially put off by the whole endeavor, Jeanne sets to work trying to find the identities of these people. Her efforts lead her to dig into her mother's past as she does so. The viewer then follows Jeanne, and later Simon, as they inquire further, learning of the secrets and tragedies that their mother went through before they were born.

That's about as far as I can take it without getting into spoilers, humor me.

The instinct to try and avoid spoilers has, I admit, made this another movie where finding a particular aspect to discuss has been a challenge. Especially as that mystery, and the momentum it gives this, is a big part of what drew me in in the first place.

Which is interesting for me as, in reading up on this, much of the mystery is unique to the movie version.

As I said above, this movie is an adaptation. In this case taken from the play of the same name by Wajdi Mouawad. Curious, I decided to look into this – particularly since, as film adaptations of plays go, this is one that it somewhat surprised to me learn was a play. I can see elements that would play on stage, but the execution feels very much designed for film in this case, particularly compared with some other attempts to transplant a play to film (Aronofsky's The Whale comes to mind, a movie that it isn't at all shocking to learn is based on a play, as the trappings feel very bound by the 'single set stage' aspects of the material.) Reading up on comparisons between Mouawad's play and Villeneuve's movie added to my interest from both sides of this particular translation. While Villeneuve keeps much of the core story, he also makes some very striking changes to accommodate the medium (one particular reveal that Mouawad appears to set up early, Villeneuve holds till the end, making for a genuinely shocking drop when it comes.) Adding to the changes in structure, there are also extensive revisions to the dialogue, with whole scenes being rewritten, either for dialogue, structure, or both.

Maybe it's the fact that I was taking part in a general discussion on adaptation in film earlier this month that has this prominent in my brain, but I am struck by the choices made in this particular version and how they measure up to what I'm seeing about the original. In particular, and with that discussion in mind, looking at this in the question of 'which is better?'

Without having seen the original play (though I must admit I now want to), the sense I get in the comparison isn't so much that one is better than the other as much as each is better for its particular medium. A number of the changes Villeneuve has made feel specifically like they were done specifically to play to the medium of film and the freedoms and limitations that allows for. Things like the fact he has a broader visual canvas to play with (which is at times used to haunting effect in this) but in turn, he is beholden to a more rigid structuring, even as the movie finds its own ways to explore the narrative shifting between the past and the present. There are elements and lines Mouawad has that I can see working incredibly effectively on a stage that would feel forced or clunky in a movie, just as there's things Villeneuve does here that a stage performance would be hard pressed to capture.

Despite those differences, the movie ultimately reaches the same core that the stage play is reaching for – two siblings discovering the horrific past their mother tried to keep buried in life, only discovering it after her death when they are tasked to help her say the things she couldn't at the time. I can see why this was the movie that really put Villeneuve on the map, both for how it translated its source material as well as helping highlight a lot of the skills that would define many of his subsequent movies.

I'm glad I watched this one and I can tell I'll be thinking of it for a long while after this.

Which is probably for the best, as it may be a good long time before I feel like I'm game to revisit it.

On that happy note, it is time to bid adieu to May and get ready to kick off June as the halfway point is fast approaching.

And just how am I kicking off the informal start of summer?

After pulling June's shuffle, my wife has decided to invoke her veto power, in a move that she has since confirmed was chosen to try and test my specific limits of 'this just isn't for me.'

I have to admit, she brought the big guns with Sex and the City – The Movie. But, that's a discussion for another week.

So, until then!