Gemko Quibi: September 2023 (Patreon)

As a reminder: These are brief (though they always wind up growing longer and longer) thoughts on films that I'm revisiting mostly just because it's been at least 20 years and I’m feeling nostalgic and/or want to have a rating for them. Mostly stuff that's about to be removed from a streaming service to which I subscribe, so far. See the original post for a fuller explanation. (Quite a few this month, lots of expiring movies.)

She-Devil (1989, Susan Seidelman): 41/100

Previously seen: ca. December 1989, San Jose, CA (probably at Camera One).

Original opinion: Unrecorded, but it scared me away from Roseanne for decades.

Now: Haven't read the book, but by all accounts it goes much further into deranged black "comedy," closer to Kim Ki-duk's Time than to this merely unpleasant yukfest. Or maybe I just prefer to believe that Weldon didn't include such broad details as the large Dunkin Donuts box sitting on Ruth's nightstand. (We can see that she's overweight. Really.) This was Streep's first outright comic role and she almost singlehandedly keeps the film watchable, though the character as written here verges on incoherent; Mary's obscene wealth comes entirely from her romance-novel empire, as far as we know, yet she behaves as if she'd been born ultra-rich, having no clue e.g. how to do laundry. Also, incontinence gets one booted from a nursing home?! That can't possibly be right. Look for Mary pushing her glasses up with her middle finger when she tells Sally Jessy Raphael that her latest book has finally garnered her glowing reviews "from the serious critics."

Wild Things (1998, John McNaughton): 43/100

Previously seen: 2 July 2001, New York, NY (on DVD). Don't remember why.

Original opinion: Unrecorded, no memory.

Now: Less than the sum of its multiple, increasingly preposterous twists. Granted, I knew they were coming this time (probably knew the first time, too, given that I waited three years), but the initial hour or so in particular really feels as if it's just plodding along en route to some big revelation, even with Bill Murray on hand to provide sardonic cynicism. Nobody's psychologically credible in the least, one person gets drafted into the scheme for no plausible reason (apart from facilitating Twist #3), and the whole thing's so convoluted that they're still explaining it through the entire closing-credits sequence. None of which would be a dealbreaker were the movie good trashy fun, but keeping certain things hidden precludes salaciousness for a very long time. Never boring, never exciting. George S. Clinton's sinuous score deserved a more memorable context.

The Masque of the Red Death (1964, Roger Corman): 56/100

Previously seen: 12 September 1996, New York, NY (Film Forum).

Original opinion: "My first two Corman films [Sep 2023: House of Usher was the other]; these were both very enjoyable, albeit in a pretty hokey way. Neither one really has much of anything to do with the Poe story on which it's based (I re-read both when I got home that night). Masque may have influenced Greenaway's color scheme in Cook/Thief/Wife/Lover. (I doubt it, actually, but there is a strong resemblance in the color-coded rooms in both films.)" [Email to my friend Eric, 17 September 1996.]

Now: Having recently watched The Haunted Palace, which has almost literally nothing to do with Poe's poem (just quotes from it a couple of times), I'm not gonna ding Masque for diverging radically from its source. The problem is Francesca, who at a certain point (immediately following Prospero murdering her father!) unaccountably just seems to accept the situation, whereupon the movie completely loses interest in her. Retroactively creates the impression of time being killed until the personification of Red Death shows up. Color-coded rooms are still cool—love the suggestion that someone was tortured simply by being locked in the canary-yellow room for several years—and Price gives good unctousness, as always. Cringed when Juliana's initiation vision involved her being attacked exclusively by men of color, and her death by falcon is a tad silly. David Lee's magnificently bombastic score over the crimson end credits sends you out on a high note.

ANCILLARY PLEA: Long shot, but maybe one of you will know the answer. Decades ago, I read a short story in which a bunch of people visit someone's Poe-themed...I don't know whether it was a museum or an exhibit in someone's home or what. Anyway, all I remember about this story is that characters get killed in the manner of deaths from Poe's stories: buried alive, immured, sliced open by pendulum razor, torn apart by gorilla (I think that's from "Rue Morgue"), etc. They take part thinking it's a clever jest, and then actually die. As you might imagine, this is quite hard to google, as you just get links related to Poe's actual stories. And I don't know the author. Anyone else ever encounter that story? It's not at all important—I'm just curious about how I stumbled across it. Probably part of some anthology, though I mostly read sci-fi anthologies rather than horror ones. [UPDATE: It’s Ray Bradbury’s “Usher II,” from The Martian Chronicles, which I would have read yeesh about 40 years ago. Thanks to Matthew Butcher for ending my frustration.]

Joy Ride (2001, John Dahl): 57/100

Previously seen: 8 September 2001, Toronto, ON (Varsity 4).

Original opinion: B-. Here's my Time Out New York review.

Now: Evidently not much has changed in the past two decades, as my review (which I didn't re-read in advance) singles out the same sequence that grabbed me this time: Our asshole "heroes" hearing the muffled sound of a violent act they cruelly inspired, with Dahl slowly tracking into a painting on the motel wall between Walker and Zahn. That the painting looks ominous without directly connecting to the film's narrative (it's a storm-at-sea landscape) is indicative of a genuinely artistic sensibility that this sort of thriller rarely evinces nowadays. First 45 minutes are uniformly superb, then it kinda goes off the rails...though I still admire the perversity of pretending, for a surprisingly long stretch, that they've permanently escaped the killer trucker and we're now supposed to be invested in which of these two dipshits Venna (miss you, Leelee) might want to sleep with. Amazed that Zahn didn't place in that year's Skandies (after finishing 3rd in Supporting for Out of Sight)—hyperactive shtick's a bit familiar, but he does a remarkable job of selling the way that Fuller pressures Lewis into participating in his "prank"—and I'd probably be inclined to throw some points at Ted Levine's guttural voice-only performance now as well.

Party Girl (1995, Daisy von Scherler Mayer): 57/100

Previously seen: 24 June 1995, New York, NY (Angelika).

Original opinion: 2½ stars (out of four, not five—the Maltin scale). I launched my website about two months later, and my "review"—among the first handful I ever wrote—is short enough to quote in full here rather than link to: "Colorful and energetic, but a bit too aggressively 'hip' for me. I enjoyed the shtick about the library and the Dewey Decimal system, but while I thought the film had a lot of other good ideas, I didn't think it capitalized on them. (Example: sure, it's quirky to have your lead fall in love with a falafel vendor, but why not give the guy a personality while you're at it?)  I wasn't bored, but neither was I particularly interested."

Now: For one thing, I've since developed a fucking prose style, jesus christ. As for the movie, it's an irresistible concept—fashion maven gradually develops a passion for library science—rather clumsily executed; Von Scherler Mayer had learned how to compose a frame by the time I saw Some Girl(s) a decade ago, but this is one bland medium close-up after another between raves, and gets a bit wearisome. Posey's abundantly charming in her first starring role (this kicked off a stretch of several years during which it seemed like she was in every other indie film released), and apparently Party Girl was my first exposure to Liev Schreiber, who I must have just assumed was actually British. Kinda miss these very low-stakes comedies that exist primarily just to promulgate an attitude, and the nostalgia factor makes me less put off by the sheer fabulousness of it all (which is counteracted in any case by stuff like Mary organizing Leo's record collection, cross-referenced by subgenre; also oh hey that's the dude who later played Huck on Scandal; this is a big part of why revisiting these '80s and '90s films is fun even when they're still not so great). Time capsule dialogue that must be gobbledygook to anyone who's not well into middle age: "I Telnetted the NicerNet Gopher and FTP'd the most recent amendments."

The Perfect Storm (2000, Wolfgang Petersen): 39/100

Previously seen: 21 June 2000, New York, NY (most likely at the Warner screening room).

Original opinion: D+. Had nothing good to say in my website review.

Now: Hollywood's dire current state apparently makes me a bit more affectionate (or at least less hostile) toward lame blockbusters of yore. Petersen demonstrates basic spatial awareness at all times, and the digital effects, apart from that one mega-wave, strive to replicate the real world rather than nullify the laws of physics. What's more, after 15 years of being bludgeoned with superheroes, I sort of admire the risky choice to depict doomed characters who chart a suicidal yet entirely comprehensible course. Yet it's still mostly terrible, replete with hokey dialogue ("You're headed right for the middle of the monster!" "It would be a disaster of epic proportions. It would be...the perfect storm") and one-note characters (the Murph-Sully feud and post-rescue rapprochement is just insultingly contrived; poor Allen Payne, as the sole crewman of color, doesn't even get one note), with James Horner's pushy six-note refrain determined to batter you into submission. Biggest surprise was seeing how prominent John Hawkes is here (no less than Reilly or Fichtner); I'd have sworn I hadn't noticed him until Deadwood and Miranda July's debut.

Killer's Kiss (1955, Stanley Kubrick): 61/100

Previously seen: 18 August 1996, New York, NY (Museum of the Moving Image).

Original opinion: Unrecorded, no recollection. Definitely much preferred The Killing, which I watched immediately afterward as the second half of AMMI's double bill.

Now: Yes, The Killing is a much, much better film. But Kubrick's talent is unmistakable here, and I think Killer's Kiss might have been genuinely great had he (career-suicidally) shot it as a silent picture. People slam the performances, understandably; all three of the main actors look perfect, though, and their main liability appears to be that Kubrick instructed them to mumble everything, hoping it'd be less obvious that all of the dialogue was dubbed in post. (It's still extremely obvious.) Compositions are striking, wordless sequences (e.g. the elegantly constructed early scene in which Davey and Gloria separately prepare for the evening in their facing apartments) frequently sublime. At one point, there's a shot that I frankly don't even comprehend, technically speaking, in which the actor is clearly on set with other actors but then moves forward (without a cut) and somehow appears to be standing in front of rear-projected footage. Story's minimalistic to the point of barely existing, but, again, that would be less of a liability in a six-reel silent. Hokey, tonally ruinous ending was reportedly inflicted upon Kubrick by the money men. Call me perverse, I prefer this to several of the classics (Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Spartacus). Plus it's an absolute treasure of '50s Times Square footage, startling me with the revelation that Broadway's east side between 44th and 45th, where the Astor Plaza used to be and The Lion King still is, once hosted this utterly insane facade.

That's a goddamn actual waterfall behind the main sign, though it's hard to tell in a still photo. Here's the more oblique glimpse we get in Killer's Kiss:

I'd show what the block looks like today, but it's too depressing. (Though I'm sure New Yorkers of the mid-'50s found their Times Square inferior to that of 20 years earlier.)

Father of the Bride (1991, Charles Shyer): 47/100

Previously seen: 3 January 1992, San Jose, CA (Pruneyard).

Original opinion: Unrecorded, no memory. Hadn't yet seen Minnelli's original.

Now: My biggest laughs were the multiple times that Diane Keaton (okay, her character) actually tells Steve Martin (okay, tells his character) to fucking stop pulling fucking faces all the time (okay, she doesn't say "fucking"). His mugging's out of control for this mostly naturalistic context, and undermines the occasional moments of sweet sincerity; we're too conscious of watching The Jerk rather than an ordinary dad. And speaking of ordinary: I didn't yet know Nancy Meyers' name in '92, but all I could think this time was Holy shit this family is rich, even as the movie constantly stresses their financial worries w/r/t the wedding and juxtaposes them with their even more obscenely wealthy new in-laws. The consumption could not be more conspicuous. Anyway, mostly toothless, and while I did not concur with Dan Kois' recent-at-this-writing Martin Short takedown, he's correct about this particular performance, which, like fellow Martin's exaggerated reactions, is just Way Too Much. Best joke: Dad's gleeful enthusiasm upon learning that an old friend he hadn't seen in years recently died and so won't be costing them a plate. Weird frisson imposed by history: The wedding takes place on January 6th and that date gets spoken aloud repeatedly. Actor I hadn't realized I'd seen before, long ago: George Newbern, who's wholly forgettable as the generically nice groom but became seedily interesting in middle age (or at least as Charlie on Scandal, a show that apparently scooped up multiple folks who failed to make an impression on me in the '90s; see also Party Girl, above). Line every wedding guest should steal, provided they know that the person it's spoken to hasn't seen this movie: "You shouldn't look this beautiful. It's not fair to the bride."

Jailhouse Rock (1957, Richard Thorpe): 51/100

Previously seen: 28 December 1992, San Jose, CA (on laserdisc); 9 January 1998, Oakland, CA (Paramount Theater, as part of a friend's birthday event; later that night, at the party, I met a woman who became my girlfriend for the next two years).

Original opinion: Unrecorded both times. Maybe my friend recalls whether I complained.

Now: Despite having previously seen Jailhouse Rock twice, I'd somehow forgotten that very little of it takes place in jail (in my memory, the title number took place behind actual bars, not on a TV set), and that it's mostly a hokey star-is-born narrative not that far removed from Luhrmann's Elvis. Presley was never much of an actor, and I'm not sure how much credit he deserves for making Vince such a self-absorbed asshole; it does sometimes seem as that's very much by design (to the point where it's nearly impossible not to actively enjoy watching Huck beat the shit out of him toward the end), but then Peggy will praise him for declining to fight back, making it clear that the film's not really interested in alienating anyone (and how could I think it would be, really?). Apart from "Jailhouse Rock" itself, this is a mediocre collection of songs—his writers were already running out of ideas to complement his early style, such that "Treat Me Nice" is almost literally "Don't Be Cruel" + "Teddy Bear"—and I'm constantly distracted by Elvis' poor lip-syncing, which uniquely doesn't so much involve getting the phrasing wrong as just refusing to mimic the physical exertion with which he actually sang during the recording (presumably because that would distort his face in an unflattering way). Image is everything, to a ruinous degree. Record-biz machinations hold some appeal, and Mickey Shaughnessy gives Huck a gruff vulnerability that's more potent than the movie deserves. Surprised Vince and the starlet pose at Knott's Berry Farm (which I used to visit frequently as a little kid) rather than at Disneyland, which had opened two years earlier.

Mrs. Doubtfire (1993, Chris Columbus): 29/100

Previously seen: 30 November 1993, San Jose, CA (Century 22).

Original opinion: Unrecorded, definitely not positive.

Now: Bashing Robin Williams now feels unseemly, but this film (like many others) amplifies all of his worst instincts as an actor. Disguised as a woman, he manages to make Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Dustin Hoffman look subtle and naturalistic by comparison; out of drag, he leans obnoxiously hard on that icky moist quality that practically grabs viewers by the tear ducts. Pair him with Columbus—a hack who predictably trots out both "Walk Like a Man" and "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)", gives us a sad reaction shot of each child, one after the other, when Mom asks Dad for a divorce—and the result is just plain grotesque, especially during the would-be-farcical sequences involving impossible quick changes (none of which can exhibit the requisite precise timing, because even the fantasy concept of Daniel's makeup job is way too complicated for that). I involuntarily found myself on the side of every stuffed shirt who thinks Daniel intensely annoying, and wanted to applaud when the judge correctly denies him custody and recommends a psych evaluation; it's a sign of how far this film goes off the rails that "I'm addicted to my children" is clearly meant to be heartwarming rather than alarming. (Yeah, I don't have kids and hence don't fully "get it," but that's still not a good parenting metaphor.) Will give the film credit for at least acknowledging that Daniel's marriage can’t be saved, since a reconciliation would have been entirely in keeping with its antic-lachrymose tone. Fun fact: KTVU, the indie TV station Daniel works for, is real, was channel 2 when I was a kid (in San Jose, not San Francisco, but the transmitter was I believe somewhere in between).

[Next film doesn't really fit the format, but I may as well throw repeat viewings of favorites in here as well, when I've previously reviewed them.]

Bad Santa (2003, Terry Zwigoff): 77/100

Previously seen: 23 October 2003, New York, NY (press screening, probably at the Disney screening room; film still technically unfinished); 13 November 2003, New York, NY (another press screening, E-Walk); 17 June 2004, New York, NY (on DVD, "Badder" cut).

Original opinion: Consistently 77/100. Here's the Time Out New York review.

Now: Still 77. I watched the unrated cut again, since that and Zwigoff's cut (which I've only seen accompanied by the commentary track) are all that's currently available on Blu-ray; I prefer the original theatrical version to both, though my ideal Bad Santa would be theatrical + just the post-checkers line "You sit there and play like the dead lice are falling off of you and then suddenly you're like Seabiscuit all over the goddamn place," which I can't believe was ever elided. (Feel the same way about Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Give me the original version but add the Special Edition shot of a UFO's shadow crossing over Neary's truck, which why was that not there to begin with?) 20 years later, it's clear that we got incredibly lucky when Bill Murray and James Gandolfini passed—I can imagine the movie with either one as Willie, and it likely would still have worked, but Thornton has a bone-deep weary irascibility that simply could not be more perfect. Hadn't yet started watching Futurama in 2004 so I only just found out that Lois is played by the voice of Amy. No, I did not watch the sequel and have no plans ever to do so. They caught lightning in a bottle here, no surprise that such a coarse miracle couldn't be repeated.

Bachelor Party (1984, Neal Israel): 15/100

Previously seen: I don't really know. Wasn't in a theater, was prior to 1992. I'd guess sometime during the late '80s, either on VHS or basic cable.

Original opinion: Unrecorded, no memory.

Now: Here we have a comedy so dismally unfunny that Peter Buck declined to name it in the liner notes for Dead Letter Office. Actually, Bachelor Party's soundtrack is far and away its strongest attribute, with characters dancing to deep cuts like "Rehumanize Yourself" and previously unreleased tracks like "Windout"; the one other thing it has going for it, obviously, is young Tom Hanks, though he's only given the opportunity to be really funny in a scene where he's alone, goofing off in the kitchen and clearly improvising most of the jokes. Every bit of scripted humor aims for the lowest common denominator and fails to reach that height. The kind of movie in which someone says "I hear there's a full moon tonight" (or words to that effect, I'm not gonna look it up) and you already know someone's bare ass will be visible through the window before the curtains are drawn. Screenwriters can't even work out basic narrative beats—when Rick discovers that his fiancée is at the party, disguised as a hooker (I'm not using "sex worker" in this broad context), he has a golden opportunity to fix things by pretending not to recognize her and gallantly declining her services, saying that he could never betray the woman he loves...but nobody thought of that obvious ploy, I guess, and what happens instead couldn't be more lame. There's exactly one halfway decent gag: the climactic fistfight in front of the 3-D movie, with every action mirroring what's onscreen and punches knocking people into the audience members' laps. But that's literally three minutes before the end credits roll.

Making Mr. Right (1987, Susan Seidelman): 43/100

Previously seen: Another one I don't remember. Almost certainly on VHS or basic cable sometime around 1988–89, or maybe the first half of 1990. (Second half of '90 I was working in a video store and exclusively bringing home Maltin-approved movies.) [UPDATE, the following day: Should've checked my logs rather than relying upon memory. I actually saw this on 13 May 1995, during summer break at NYU. On VHS.]

Original opinion: Unrecorded, no memory.

Now: May have been a little distracted early on by the horrifying realization that only 12 years separate this film from Being John Malkovich, which is itself now 24 years old. He's considerably funnier in human form here, perfecting that testy shout; none of the android comedy quite works, and it didn't help at all that I'm Your Man recently came along and took this premise much more seriously (while still frequently being quite amusing). Mr. Right does have a strong (if predictable) ending—by which I mostly mean Jeff choosing to spend seven years happily alone in deep space (though this is still the kind of film that has him repeat "I'm not very good with people," to make sure we get it); Frankie falling for Ulysses is never really dramatized, merely affirmed by the script—and it's inconceivable to me that Magnuson never became a bigger star, as she possesses every quality that a romcom lead requires. Solid support from Glenne Headly and especially Laurie Metcalf, too; it's the screenplay that's lacking. Flummoxed by the scene of Ulysses shopping online, but googling confirms that this was in fact a thing in '87 (albeit used by very few, and probably not for brand-new automobiles). Is this where Charlie Kaufman got the idea to use "Happy Together" as Adaptation's requisite endorphin-spiking pop song? It's been used in many movies, of course, but it's specifically deployed at the very end of this one.

As a supplement, some brief notes re: movies I bailed on last month.

Dry Ground Burning (Joana Pimenta & Adirley Queirós): Watched 52 minutes of this quite long film without having the slightest idea that it's even partially nonfiction. (Apparently it's one of those hybrids that are all the rage, folks playing versions of themselves.) One could say that's to its credit, I suppose, and the pre-title sequence, establishing Chitara's oil-theft operation, piqued my interest both formally and (I thought) narratively. But all of the subsequent jumping around in time (or so I assumed; interviews with the directors suggest that they sometimes threw in details like "Léa's just out of prison after eight years" without worrying about whether that fits the rest of the chronology) seemed counterproductively opaque, and I never got to what's apparently a major political-campaign aspect. Aggressively political filmmaking that's just not for me.

Theater Camp (Molly Gordon & Nick Lieberman): Had high hopes, as Gordon's seemingly at least semi-improvised performance in Bujalski's There There was among my favorites of last year. (She's part of the onscreen ensemble as well.) Alas, I just didn't find it very funny. Same was true of Camp (excepting Anna Kendrick), so maybe something about rooting comedy in kids' theatrical ambition feels too fish-in-a-barrel, though even the teachers' pretensions here are well over the top for my taste. Maybe I'll watch the original short film at some point, since most agree that Theater Camp's putting-on-the-big-show climax (which I believe more or less replicates said short) is its clear highlight.