I strode on over to the Loews in Kips Bay today, pivoting my penny-loafers (I placed the pennies there myself) eastwards from the steps of my new office at Popular Science. I was en route to see "Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire."
I'd already heard things about the movie, sure, but I hadn't really read much on it. My old best lady friend from home, who's now a social worker in Houston, had told me how she and her co-workers had made a field trip out of the movie; on a planned group-outing, they'd opted to see this movie instead of growing merry at some Happy Hour -- and given her affinity for making me and others watch educational videos on the importance of psych therapy this summer (something I tend to find as rationally-acceptable as voo-doo dolls), I knew what I was getting into, sort of.
I walked into the theater a few minutes before showtime, and it was empty. I had my popcorn and Diet Coke in hand (go hard, or go home), and seated myself. In the next ten minutes before the movie began, only three bespectacled old women -- alone -- sauntered in and took seat before the big screen.
It's the day before Thanksgiving, I'm in a theater with three little old ladies who gave me quiet smiles as they passed me, about to see the most depressing (questionable) movie in a good long while. I was comforted by what my future holds.
The movie stars newcomer Gaburey 'Gabby' Sidibe(who's roughly my age, yet plays a 16-year-old) as a horribly neglected, abused, yet innately bright youth, Precious. At the film's start, we find she's about to have her second child -- by her own father. Her mother (played by Mo'Nique) routinely throws pans or glass projectiles at Precious's head or generally demeans her to an inhumanely degree (Mama G, take note!) She, Precious, is tremendously overweight, has hallucinations about being a lithe, light-skinned woman, and is just generally one of the most tragic figures of film in (my) recent memory.
Stylistically, I'm not sure if I loved the choppiness, the intermingling of flashbacks with blurred-in fascinations of what-could-be -- but, overall, it was a great tale to tell. I shed some tears into my popcorn, perhaps.
However, given my transient nature of late: Texas, NY, back to Texas, back to NY, new job, etc., I've been shedding tears like never before when I'm accompanied by my screens, silver or small.
When I was sick lately, I watched 34 episodes of Friday Night Lights; there wasn't one where I didn't have to sit up (weakly) and utter: "Grice, do not cry, you big baby. Do not."
I'm going to post my list of ... Lord, 20+ movies that I've seen lately, tomorrow. I'll just do stars-value. These old fingers can't type out all the thoughts!
Finally, the end of the first Online Netflix Project -- the final movie that day was "Kramer vs. Kramer," (1979) a flick starring Dustin Hoffman, as Ted, and Meryl Streep, as Joanna. Both are Kramers, and they're going through a divorce, poor Billy Kramer (Justin Henry) has to handle his own little fate.
The reason it was such a bizarre offering from Lady Netflix, is because old Hoffman so resembles Francois Cluzet from "Tell No One" from the prior stop on the 'Flix project -- not just a little, in a "Oh, he kind of looks like..."-way; no, this is a straight God-uses-templates type of imitation.
Ted is a hot-shot at a New York ad agency; the early scenes show him bustling around the office, talking things up to his boss, grabbing drinks with the right folks, angling to "bring home the bacon," as he puts it -- this was the 70s, so you have to suspend embarrassment for overused cliches.
We flash to Ms. Streep, packing her bags in their modest Manhattan home -- she tucks in little Billy, tells him how much Mommy loves him. She's characteristically able to be cold-ish and detached; that woman has a way with coming off as unemotional, while still being striking and altogether endearing.
Mr. Hoffman has to assume the role of full-time dad, all the while his boss is pressuring him, asking for 120% in order to justify the promotion he's offering him; Hoffster is torn between trying to remain the man he was, an all-star, with raising his little boy. We don't see Streep for a good hour.
His priorities change, she resurfaces and wants her kid back, he balks, she sues, there are court scenes.
It's quite good, and you get to see one of the first "It's my fault." dialogues from a child regarding a parents' divorce. I'll admit some heart strings were tugged, and I very well may watch it again soon. It's a very real film, despite its overwroughtness at times.
If my fingers could type fast enough, I'd explain that the following day I watched 7 movies -- Revolutionary Road, S. Darko (shoot me, please, shoot me), Dog Day Afternoon (let me live forever, please, let me live forever), Batman Returns (It was suggested by Madame Flix, I had to), Angels and Demons (friend dragged me), Ferris Bueller, and The Graduate.
The next day, it was similar.
I think I'm moving back to Texas -- perhaps it's too much talking to Mama and Brother G, but ... I've been writing my own fiction a ton, annnnnnd, it just seems that my characters flourish there. Why sit and be lonely in NY?
A couple nights ago was my best friend from Home's fake birthday (it's today -- Happy Bday, Indian!!!!!), so it was spent traveling uptown and downtown and then waaaaaaaaaaaay back uptown to Columbia to congratulate him on finishing his second year of law school. (Congratulations, again, sir -- and cheers to many a day spent with you this summer in DC. Wahoo. End of congratulations.) Then I spoke with Brother G about the tribulations of his life; today, my head still hurts.
BUT, that doesn't mean I can forget to meander on the last two movies of the First Online Netflix Project.
Sweet Lady Netflix next suggested: "Tell No One," a movie I'd heard good things about, but I had no idea what it was about. Exactly what I like.
"Tell No One" (2006) is a French flick starring an extremely dashing François Cluzet, as a poor dear doctor whose wife was stolen and murdered after a romantic stint,
lakeside. Or, was she?
After being hit upside the head after swimming across a lake to go looking after his wife, having heard her screams, he falls back into the lake yet somehow manages to be found unconscious, comatose, on the shore. We don't get to see any of that, rather, we're placed eight years into the future, when he's become quite the chain smoker and has dizzying displays of alcoholism -- the man is in very bad shape, he lost his lady, after all.
Straight from a progressive Agatha Christie novel, it seems, he receives an email from an anonymous address, telling him to log onto a site at a certain time; but, be careful, "They" are watching.
Say what?
The email's subject line contains a message that only she and he would gain knowledge from (they've been a couple since they were children), but she's DEAD, so, who's playing these mean tricks on him?
He manages to log on after having to deal with some detectives he just can't shake; after all this time, they still suspect he's the murderer of his wife. When he logs on, the clouds part, the gods smile down sweetly and --
There she is, staring up at him from the entrance to some subway station, location unknown.
Well, well. Eight years, and now THIS? What's the poor man to do?
There's a ton of intrigue, a lot of Murder She Wrote, thugs, chase scenes, shoot ups, cover ups, found guns, smoking guns, fingerprints, lying fathers, oof. It was one of the better Clue, Crime, Mystery movies I've seen in a long while. Keep it up, Lady N'flix, I thought.
I really love this trailer -- it gives you a great idea of what the film is about ... to the point where you think to yourself it must be a failure, but it's not. It delivers -- and it's not my new, desperate love for Francois Cluzet coloring my opinion. I love watching him be chased, allllll hot and bothered.
Next up .......... a film starring the man who looks exactly like Francois! I couldn't believe it -- there I was, fantasizing about moving to France and finding my True Love, Francois, and Lady NF threw one at me starring his doppelganger. Dustin Hoffman.
God was so good to me that day -- but, I need more than gummy bears to sustain me, so time to leave my room. I've been watching "Martyrs" all morning, a great feel-good Sunday morning film.
I conducted an experiment yesterday. It wasn't really a conscious decision; rather, it was only after I drowned in a movie pool's deep-end that I had the idea, posthumously. In 10 1/2 hours, I watched four movies. I had an online Netflix journey.
I awoke around 7:30am and decided I'd sit down to some online Netflix viewing, since sleeping more wasn't an option. My choice? "Let the Right One In," that Swedish vampire movie everyone (that's relative) has been talking about for, well, an embarrassingly long time, but somehow I keep missing.
After a stark film about Swedish vampires at seven in the morning, I'd have to be able to sleep! Oh, delusion.
"Let the Right One In" (2008) opens with a shot of Oskar's (Kare Hedebrant) reflection as he stares bleakly into the Swedish snow that extends forever; he looks like a character out of "Village of the Damned," with unnatural-looking white hair, and matching skin. He's 12-years old and he spends his days snipping out articles of heinous murders and unspeakable deeds, daily assembling them into a little book -- a little Death Diary, say. Since he's the target of a bully and two lackeys at school, he also spends much time plotting sweet revenge. A little boy after my heart.
He's lonely. His mother isn't much of a presence, his father lives somewhere in another town, where he entertains questionable characters, may be gay and may be an alcoholic -- the scene explaining their relationship is very vague, and a little hard to understand. But neither parent is particularly attached, and so, Oskar is lonely.
Then Eli (Lina Leandersson) moves in next door. She doesn't go to school, but she dooooesss come out at night to stand barefoot in the snowy courtyard ("Aren't you cold?" "I've forgotten how.") and look eerie. They strike up a friendship after she schools Oskar on his Rubik's Cube, and soon they are trading Morse code communiques through the walls.
Eli lives with a strange, pock-marked man who's meant to help her, lighten the load a little for old Eli. There's a great early scene where he uses this contraption (almost as cool as Chigurh's in "No Country") that he carries around in a box with him to vaporize some acid substance, before administering it to the patient to make him pass out; for the bloodletting, he has his whole system down! Turns them upside down to let it all drain out. The acid is key in another great scene later involving the old man.
There's a lot of blood, a look at the inside of a slimy face, one shot of some crazy-looking private parts, a sweet and subtle love story between our two bloodthirsty stars -- all the while being very, very thoughtful. It is pretty fantastic.
So. the 12-year olds came and went, and while my eyelids were fighting the good fight to close, I sought out some tooth picks to foist them apart -- I juuuuuust wanted to see what Netflix suggested for me; She always seems to suggest such sweet things.
"Dark Days." Oooohhhh, that sounds up my alley, I thought, characteristically.
"Dark Days" (2000) is a documentary by Marc Singer about homeless people who've spent years building shacks, cooking food, becoming a community, doing crack -- all the good stuff we terrestrial creatures do, but they've been doing these things waaaay underground New York City, in an abandoned railroad tunnel.
The first two-thirds of the film (which was shot with a 16 mm camera, on black and white film)follows half a dozen or so of these characters through their daily lives. They've all constructed these huts using things found upstairs, or, "on the streets," where we wasteful, slovenly nuts -- who pay rent and bills and value, oh, the moon -- have chucked out perfectly good plywood, pans, clothes, slow cookers, TVs, you name it. And, not only can they, in turn, sell these things, they can use them! Somehow, they're able to tap into some electricity, feeding off Mother Manhattan. Take that ConEd!
Every day, they surface and start their day of dumpster diving, during which a few of the characters seem really excited by their daily treasure hunt. Upon arriving to one empty can, a man tosses what little's left inside and says with a sigh, "Oh, don't you worry, things'll pick up." But it's not said with desperation, or fear that he'll go starving, it's his love of the game that's hurting.
It all didn't seem half bad (except for the rats), and there were times that I glanced around my little hovel and thought, well, if things don't pick up -- there's always this. Until the Bad Guys came: Amtrak was kicking them out. Sigh.
In the end, the documentary was certainly interesting and entertaining. Singer does a good job of mixing the sadness of the situation with the jokes, and each character's backstory was uniquely shocking and upsetting. One was a former convict whose daughter was later raped, dismembered and burned; one was a 20-something who'd been abandoned by his parents as a young child; and, of course, a few were down-on-their-luck crackheads -- a nice assortment. Singer's dedication to the documentary was also noble, driven by helping the community financially and eventually securing them all housing vouchers. Swell dude.
Here is a particularly sad scene, as one of the characters talks about losing her two boys in a fire.
After "Dark Days," I'd already decided what I needed to do -- I let Her suggest another to me, so smart Ms. Netflix, and then another. Where would She lead me? To great things, that's where.
But my fingers hurt, so I'll ramble on those, later.
I don't even care about my witless little reviews that I slaved over this past week; Steven Spielberg is in talks to remake "Old Boy." The clouds have parted and the gods are smiling down on us (me). Says Variety:
In the 2003 Korean original, a man gets kidnapped and held in a shabby cell for 15 years without explanation. Suddenly, he's released and given money, a cell phone and clothes and is set on a path to discover who destroyed his life so he can take revenge.
I wrote about my experience with "Old Boy"here. Happy Friday.
My Bloomberg reviews of "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas," "Role Models," and "The Guitar" are here. Meh.
Oh, dear Bloggle, why have I forsaken thee? So much to say.
First, I feel I've made a great decision living with the new boys I'm to be living with come Saturday. Calm, cool and collected ... that's the sense I get. Check.
Second. Two nights ago, I went to coffee (err, hot chocolate ... no stomach for coffee) with an old friend of mine. Spoke of ills of life, the outlook for better things, how to deal. One of those convos. Oh, how great I was feeling on my way back to my now-former apartment.
Got home -- this was Wednesday night -- and knew I had a deadline the next morning. I had to turn in three reviews.
Now.
I'd not gone out, not done a thing for over a week at this point. Dedicated my life to inundation of moving pictures and criticism and the researching of it all. Each night, post-work cum post-movie, I got home and got to work. I'd stay up til 4am, or later, figuring out what I wanted to say. Or how I wanted to say it in some grander context...
Well, post-hot chocolate, my eyelids were magnetized. They wanted each other. Sooooo badly. I decided that I'd put on a little Seinfeld to "rest my eyes" for juuuuust a minute. (Thankfully, I remember college so clearly that I caught myself from that easy trap and set my alarm for 3 a.m.)
I awoke to the worst sounding alarm, some ridiculous little jingle irritating my ear with its simultaneous vibration. Have I no tact? Clearly, no.
I couldn't get up.
I finally did, round 6 a.m. (maybe more like 4 a.m., I'm lying so I can disclaim the quality) and worked til I went into work and turned in the reviews.
I'll write what I wrote on another "wall," as it were.
"Shill-anthropy. Btw, I'm going to blog about this, but the editor I worked on these with skinned them like you would a poisonous snake. She gutted me. Cut the fat, and made me an anorexic critic. They're all still my words, but sheesh, for "space" we had to cut it down ... good lord. I will never work with her again. That's my disclaimer."
I know that a couple of work friends want to hear about how I stood up for myself (that's thrice, Grice) today ... and I'll write more on that later. For now, I'm speeeeeeent. And it's effing Halloween! My favorite of all holidays.
I'm a former Bloomberg News movie critic and Multimedia editor, research assistant at Popular Science magazine, and freelance writer. Four years ago, I re-entered the world of finance as a personal financial advisor. The early, embarrassing life as Harvard Crimson Editorial Chair rests here.
Nearly 10 years ago, I shattered my femur which left me somewhat hobbled and quietly resentful. Throughout my recovery, however, I got to watch a ton of movies, which was a considerable consolation prize.
I love movies and I live through them; so, this is my diary, as it were, about life through movie goggles.
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