They Shoot Screenshots, Don't They?

I watch movies. I take screenshots and have thoughts; I don't want them clogging my desktop.

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The Big Lebowski (1998) Coen bros 

<3 tHe hOmIEs 

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The Last Days of Disco (1998) Whit Stillman 

Whit Stillman is cinema for intellectuals who love lexapro and tweed. The characters are droll, perhaps too smart; they tend to over-intellectualze at every moment; in fact, they are insufferable, and yet, I enjoy watching his films. But his characters beg the questions, ‘Does anyone actually talk like the characters of the Last Days of Disco or Metropolitan? And in the same self-aware breath, “Is this how I talk?” I am sure I did in my post-under grad cocaine era. 

The pacing of Disco is very similar to Metropolitan: disjointed and meandering. The pacing stands in stark contrast to the 80′s coke-fueled, nightlife backdrop. And yet, the pacing of the narrative is perhaps the most refershing part of the film. Contemporary asthetics and editing are at warp-speed. It seems as if every movie or show today is chaotic, under-lit, or full of neon lighting and claustrophobic close-ups. However, in DIsco the club is very well LIT; the framing is calculatd. Everyone is painted in perfect three-point lighting with a nice glossy hair light, it’s text book but it doesn’t bother me at all. I love it. It’s classic. It’s like a black Gucci dress. It’s chic. Not an LED or colered gel in sight! Just warm tungsten lights and static wides or mediums. 

Also, I love the films historical reference to the deeply homophobic disco demolition movement. In the film the anti-disco folks are painted as ghoulish and unfriendly and I thank Stillman for that. Disco deserves justice. 

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In the Soup (1992) Dir. Alexandre Rockwell 

A charming 90′s sleeper indie film about making 90′s sleeper indie films.

        In the Soup stars the Cassevetes fave, Seymor Cassel, who plays Joe, a life coach and grifter to the impressionable and aspiring screenwriter, Adolfo Rollo (Steve Busemci). The two form an entertaining and toxic friendship; that special and curious bond that only exists between executive producers and director. It’s not a memorable film by any means, but we can see the promise of Busemci’s acting career. At the end of the film I found myself hungry for Living in Oblivion, the 90′s Tom Dicillo film about a rag-tag bunch of filmmakers in New York City. Living in Oblivion also stars Steve Busemci. No doubt Dicillo pulled inspiration from In the Soup. 

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Where Are We? Our Trip Through America (1992) 

Directors: Jeffrey Friedman, Rob Epstein

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Where Are We? Our Trip Through America (1992) 

Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman

Our Trip through America is a roadtrip doc by two gay guys from the Bay Area that venture out of their little liberal bubble for an ethnographic adventure. The film isn’t exclusively about being gay in the early 90′s in America--it’s moreso a doc about American’s in the early 90′s and some of them happen to be gay. 

    It’s a good doc percisely because of its time stamp---that is to say if this doc was made today it would harldy stand-out as a streaming series. Digital cameras and the democratization of filmmaking, coupled with branded content and the desire for the authentic experience via real-life characters has blessed us with many fascimilies of Our Trip Through America that proliferate our media diet.   

        In the scene above, Brandi, a queen that performs at a southern gay bar outside of an army base, talks about the power of drag and the absurdity of homophobia haunting the military. It’s the best scene in the film. My big gay heart was brimming 

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Marnie (1964) Dir. Alfred Hitchcock

“Oh, men—you say ‘No, thanks’ to one of them and, bingo, you’re a candidate for the funny farm. It would be hilarious if it weren’t pathetic.“

I can’t believe that Hitchcock wrote this line while simultaneously driving Tippi Hedren bonkers. 

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Body Heat (1981) Dir. Lawerence Kasdan 

Kathleen Turner 😍

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Niagra (1953) Dir. Henry Hathway 

A femme fatale, a haunted war vet, plus some milquetoast newlyweds that look like they were plucked from a coco-cola ad, are all thrown into the mix of this formulaic but visually stunning technicolor noir. 

Niagra wears its Hays code American values on its sleeve. Watch! Marilyn Monroe, the femme fatale, punished for her lust, her killer outfits, her infidelity, and her inability to tend to her violent and shell-shocked hubby played by Joseph Cotten. Rose (Monroe) schemes to leave her hubby but her plot is foiled and she pays the price. Once again the wayward tarts of post-war America meet murderous fates in moody lighting. 

 Jean Peters character, Polly Cutler, is Monroe’s opposite--the answer to Monroe’s moral failings. Polly is a smart and caring wife, she is the all-American union girl and a brunette. Polly and her husband  just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; running into the wrong couple. 

In one scene Polly admits to Joseph Cotten’s character, “I am one of those logs that hangs around in the calm..” A Hays code line that roughly translates to, “I am more the Madonna then the whore.” 

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Female Trouble (1974) John Waters 

“Nice girls don’t wear cha-cha heels!”

It’s no fun to watch John Waters alone. 

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East of Eden (1955) Elia Kazan 

BEANS!!! 

Little known fact, the tik tok trend of screaming BEANS was started in the 50′s by James Dean in this beloved classic from director Elia Kazan. Though Dean was accused of trying to “out Brando” Brando in acting style, James Dean offers something far more endearing than Brando could. His scenes with Jo Van Fleet are stunning.  

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Clockwatchers (1997) Dir. Jill Sprecher

A comedic work-place ensemble film about four temps finding friendship and comradery within their bleak and surreal corporate limbo. The film is an understated commentary on office politics within late-stage capitalism. 

We have all four of these workers, that are essentially gig workers, with no benefits and agency at their place of work, and this level of precarity breeds a certain dissastifaction and paranoia within the office-- especially once an anonymous theif begins to steal little office trinkets: a beloved mug, a pen, the rubber band ball. Parker Posey’s character has these occasional rebellious outbursts regarding the injustices of the work atmostphere and her position as a temp laborer. Her reputation causes her to become the number 1 suspect and slowly the friend group begins to distingrate Toni Collete, who is the lead and the narrator, seems to fade into to the background in the film. Her acting is good but she is the neutral protagonist we effortless embody to watch the real star--Parker Posey. 

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Moonstruck (1987) 

It’s been a while since I posted or looked at this page. I’ll tell ya what my desktop is full of screenshots from 6 moths of movies. 

I am looking for triumph and redemption. I am Nicolas Cage as Ronny, the heartbroken baker, screaming 

“You want me to take my heartbreak, put it away and forget it?!!” 

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🥰 Gonna make Dyke Rage my stage name. 

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Monsoon Wedding (2001)  Dir. Mira Nair 

A multigenerational epic about love, marriage, and family drama. There is not one but like 5 different story lines packed into this film, yet is never feels bloated or too messy as it weaves them all together. My favorite plot line is the love affair between the working class characters: Alice and the Wedding Planner. Despite the film toeing the line of rom-com it never plays as cringy or cheesy, even the Polyanna moments read as genuine, constrasted nicely by the dark tragedy of Ria’s plot line. 

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Part 2: Romance (1999) Catherine Breillat 

This post is less about the cinematography and more about these insane lines. I love that Marie’s thoughts are, at times, these hyperbolic absolutes--she is in the process of processing--her lines are her emotional knee-jerks. She doesn’t perhaps alway mean what she says. We are watching her dig through for the truth. 

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Part 1 of 2: Romance (1999) Dir. Catherine Breillat 

If you GOOGLE this film, its genre comes up as Drama/Pornographic but this isn’t porn!! Sure the sex in the film might be real--but this is erotica. Don’t get it twisted by prudes who clearly don’t watch porn. Porn doesn’t have a steady stream of philosophical and heady dialogue layered over it, and rarely an emotional inner-dialogue from its protagonist. Porn is utilitarian. You sit down and get-off. In Breillat’s film you sit and endure and maybe get-off intellecutally. 

Anyway. I love Breillat. She is a bit of an edge-lord director. She makes films that spur overly-heated debates in college classrooms. 

The film is a protest of Romance, a decrying of it’s inadequacies particularly in the cis/hetero coupling. The protagonist Marie and her boyfriend Paul are in a constant state of antogonizing, so much so, they’ve normalized it, and they call it LOVE. There back-and-forth is terrifying, emotionally abusive, and weirdly familiar.  (I’ve see many people play out like Paul and Maries) Maire has an apetite for sexual discovery and a curoisty that repulses Paul.

            Paul embodies the male fascination and fear of women’s sexuality. Paul is conflicted by the Madonna/whore and allows little room for Marie, or any woman, to live in-between. The best image of Paul that stands as a summation of his character, is towards the end of the film when he is alone in the restuarant reading Bukowski. Yes--Paul is that guy. Paul is a fashionable man, intellectual, handsome, and charming but at home Paul is also manipulative, belittling, and an abyss of suffering, keen on swallowing Marie up with all his insecurities.

Then, Marie meets a less handsome, older man who ties her up and introduces her to the world of BDSM. Briellat introduces BDSM in a way that Lars Von Trier and Stephanie Meyers abosolutely failed to do. After Marie’s new sexual awakening, she escapes her relationship with Paul, and gives birth to a baby and a new idea of romance; she throws out the old delusions of love and lives in a happier, more sexually satisfying light. We hope? 

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Me and my girl after we get the vaccine