By: Henry J. Fromage –
This week was pretty eclectic- delving into classic film for the first time in awhile plus projects from our foremost starlets.
715. Die My Love
Jennifer Lawrence and Lynne Ramsay (with an assist from bad husband Robert Pattinson and uncannily understanding mother-in-law Sissy Spacek) collaborate on this portrait of a woman way past the verge of a nervous breakdown. One quickly gets a sense that the rural isolation and postpartum depression are only a few of the ingredients in the stew of this lady’s malaise, and Lawrence rips and tears the scenery with wild abandon to get at emotional if not absolutely literal truths of human behavior. Three Beers.
716. The Color of Pomegranates
My wife caught some stills of this Russian-directed, Armenian-set feast for the eyes on Instagram and suggested we watch. Sergei Parajanov adapts the life of 18th-century Armenian poet and musician Sayat-Nova far with an eye not at producing a biopic, but rather a kind of symbolic-emotional portrait of the things that inspired his works. Drawing heavily from the iconography religious medieval paintings of the period, what is lacking in narrative is more than made up for in stunning imagery. Two Beers.
717. The Fall
Speaking of stunning imagery, Tarsem Singh’s masterpiece of color and setting was apparently inspired in part by Parajanov’s film, and is no slouch in the non-stop stunning still department, either. This blew my mind back in college, and I’m happy to report it holds up in its early Hollywood-meets-1001 Nights plot and fixations as much as in those visuals, which look better than ever in the new restoration MUBI is now hosting. Two Beers.
718. Wake Up
This nasty little thriller pits a bunch of young, dumb environmental activists who decide to vandalize a big box store on the absolute worst night- that is, the night that an already just barely hinged security guard with a hunting fetish reaches the end of his tether. This is the kind of flick where one bad decision just bloodily compounds another until you have to wonder if anyone’s getting out of this alive. Three Beers.
719. Eleanor the Great
I have to admit, I still find this a strange choice for Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, but perhaps she just couldn’t pass up the chance to work with living legend June Squibb, and who could blame her? Squibb stars as a Florida retiree who returns to Brooklyn to live with her daughter after her decades-long Jewish friend she lives with passes. When she accidentally finds herself in the midst of a group of Holocaust survivors, she tells a story that she knows well- it’s just not her own. The lies escalate from there, which strangely makes this rather dickish woman more sympathetic, not less. Johansson’s attempt to tie it all together falls a bit flat, but 98 minutes with June Squibb is never time wasted. Three Beers.
720. Bad Host: Hunting the Couchsurfing Predator
This Hulu true crime series recounts the efforts by a group of woman to bring a Italian police offer to justice for disturbing to outright criminal behavior while hosting them via the once popular site Couchsurfing. I did it myself way back in the day, both staying and hosting, but I’m sadly unsurprised to hear the lack of safeguards that enabled this man to drug and even rape the young women he hosted, then use his police officer’s status and the general difficulty in reporting crimes internationally to stifle any consequences- for a time. Two Beers.
721. One Night in Idaho: The College Murders
Another Hulu true crime series, this one delves into the Idaho College Murders- a senseless crime that still remains officially unexplained (although this makes a pretty good case that Kohlberger was an Incel, and ergo not the first serial killer in those ranks). It’s as much a celebration of the young lives that were taken too soon, though, far more so than a portrait of the human void that took them, as well as a tribute to those that brought him to justice so quickly with surprisingly little to start with. Two Beers.
