although I'm incredibly biased due to my religious trauma and general predisposition towards heathenry, thus finding the christian motifs and themes heavyhanded, I think Rue's turn towards christianity ended up being one of the things that killed her.
specifically, she had consistent tendencies to engage in reckless, impulsive and self-destructive behaviors due to her addiction, only now she began to see her survival despite grim odds as a kind of divine prophecy instead of what it actually was, incredible luck.
I think that lack of awareness is what made her trust Alamo on his word that the laced percs were for his back pain. she even seemed to hesitate for a moment when receiving the first pill, and only relaxed once the cash and full bottle came out. it wasn't as if she was totally unaware that the drugs could have been laced, having facilitated distributing adulterated product herself just a few episodes prior.
but having survived so many close calls I think had put her in the headspace of thinking the worst was over and that she had sacrificed enough to have finally won back the trust of Alamo, and that the trust could ever be reciprocated, even after having witnessed his short temper, petty nature and lack of trust in others, even towards his closest and seemingly loyal uh. goons. lol.
the series was full of these moments where Rue could have made the safer choice, become accountable, do the hard work of getting and staying sober, truly making amends in a way that mattered past lip service and empty promises, but instead she found another outlet and "easy" way out through redemption via Christ's Love™️, and while it did seem genuine, it was still a substitution for what she actually needed, intensive psychiatric care and rehab, structure, discipline, a loving community, ample distance from familiar habits and places, many of the things that the communal/familial homestead life in Texas could have provided.
as was alluded to in Cassie and Lexi's conversation, rather than just deal with and learn from the pain she endured, Rue sought easy relief in the form of the drugs yet again and for the final time. I thought it was an interesting and ironic twist that her death made Ali question and temporarily abandon his own faith as a result. Ali "didn't know what to do with the pain" just like Rue didn't, so he turned to numbing it. perhaps, as much of a reddit atheist cliché as it sounds, his faith was also an opiate of sorts. it allowed him to deal with all the grief of loss due to addiction that he endured because, again, it was part of a greater plan he wasn't privy to.
when Rue asks him how people could become so evil, rather than seriously unpacking it, he puts the burden on God, rather than taking a moment to reflect. if God wills it, then it can't be wrong. you just don't understand and it isn't your place to, you just have to have faith. but when faith isn't enough, sometimes all you have is vice, or in Ali's case, righteous vengeance...service.
Alamo realizing his lack of power and agency also comes as a pleasant surprise because this is a man who exudes confidence in everything from his outfit (itself a kind of uniform), to his posture, speaking habits and mannerisms to the entire business itself. his faith is in himself as a facilitator for pleasure and monetizing that desire, for "pussy" and also the American Dream, the fantasy and ideal of being self-sufficient, feared and respected, or as Maddie plainly puts it, "free".
but as Alamo knows and expresses, he isn't free. he cannot show signs of weakness. he can't express his loneliness or show affection in an authentic way, lest that opens him up to a vulnerability that could end up being a death sentence. instead he must craft intricate ways to thwart any attempts to seize his power, threaten even his own allies and employees, denigrate everyone who might even remotely be a challenge to him. in the end, he craves the same thing Rue did in her final moments, to be with and be loved and accepted by family. he doesn't get what he wants either.
no one does. Jacob didn't get his business off the ground and eclipse Cal. Cassie didn't get her fairytale ending. Maddie doesn't become a mogul and ascend the corporate ladder. Lexi lost her chance and desire to advance her creative career. Jules never got to apologize or see what a life with Rue could have been like. Ali, tired of losing people, ends up taking more lives than he saves. G lost his dick. everyone who had something to lose, lost it.
what's left is not much. a far cry from the lavish lifestyle of celebrities and influencers, or adult entertainment tycoons. but for what is left, Ali, or rather Martin, is grateful for, which is memory.
the appeal of drugs, obsessions and sex is perhaps that it allows us to temporarily forget that someday it'll all vanish, and forget the pain of having lost it and the anticipation of that grief. the evil of capitalism is that it takes advantage of this natural desire for relief and creates industries and institutions around it, many of them named in Martin's monologue, though curiously the church itself isn't named as one of the major sources of stigma and intolerance of "degeneracy", driving away people who need the most care, nor is the military, which stabilizes the unequal material conditions domestically and abroad through the threat of violent force and occupation.
I'm still reflecting on the end and probably will be for some time. very likely, I'll rewatch the entire series and make a retrospective analysis. I expected Rue's luck to run out eventually and can't say I'm really surprised that it did, but as Cassie mentioned, that doesn't make it any easier. the lack of narration in the second half of the episode was as ominous as Rue's bible on Lexi's couch. even though she was gone, her memory still loomed over every scene. Mercy and grace finally won, but not without a cost.
Aika - "Pretty Please I Don't Want to Be a Magical girl" - @kianamaiart
Tammy - "The Three Tomes" - @thethreetomes / @breanimator
Sahara - "Wheels and Roses " - @fumichun
Ami - "Towards Galaxy's End" - @towardsgalaxysend / @kenzyxluv
What happens when you get 4 Black Animation Industry femmes/folks that love magical girls ? You get 4 BLACK magical girls with 4 different spins on the genre. Black girls belong in every genre, Black girls can go on adventures. Black girls can be loved. Black girls are silly, whimsical, witches , skaters , space vampires , and magical.
✨Black. Girl. Magic. ✨
(A celebration of the work of my friends/industry peers as we tell our stories the way we want because we deserve to be seen in all ways. You can watch all of these magical girls on youtube)
how life feels when you want video essays that aren’t just plot/wikipedia summaries and are made by people who have read at least one book in the last decade
tumblr user wizard0rb's video essay choice awards:
(note: i'm using the term "video essay" to broadly refer to long form videos on youtube. not all of these are essays)
The Other Half of the West (A Travelogue) - Noah Caldwell-Gervais
This one goes at the top of the list in the hopes that you read it first, it sticks in your mind the most, and you watch it in full. Genuine contender for greatest piece of long form content on Youtube. Noah makes videos about games as well, but this is his best work imo.
Metal Gear Solid 4 was a Mistake - Steak Bentley
The definitive take on an absolutely insane piece of fiction. Funny enough that you can enjoy it even if you don't know anything about MGS. Steak Bentley is genuinely one of the best to ever do it.
THE PISS SAGA | Short Documentary - Derek Milton
A brief investigative documentary concerning the bottles of human piss that keep mysteriously appearing on an electrical box in California.
who firebombed friendlyjordies? - friendlyjordies
0% clickbait- someone firebombed Australian Youtuber friendlyjordies' house, and this is the video he made trying to figure out who did it.
The Tyler Perry Video - F.D Signifier
I was struggling to pick a single FD video for this list (because they're all so good), so I went with his most recent one. Go watch this video and then go watch all his other videos.
a normal creepypasta retrospective - hazel
An exceptionally good retrospective on some interesting creepypastas like The Peeker, Gabbit Rabbits, ShareThis, etc.
The Unreality of Pro Wrestling: FINISH THE STORY - Super Eyepatch Wolf
I wasn't originally going to put an Eyepatch Wolf video on here, for the same reason there's no hbomberguy or Defunctland- I feel like most people are already familiar with his stuff. But this video made me go from not giving a fuck about pro wrestling at all, to being deeply invested in a fight between 2 dudes I had previously never heard of, so it makes the list.
NEED FOR SPEED - A Brief History - Noodle
I want you to close your eyes and enter the Theatre of the Mind with me. Imagine, if you will, a reality in which Sequelitis was extremely good, and also made by someone else. Now open your eyes. You were so powerful that you brought that vision back with you into the material world.
The search for the saddest punt in the world | Chart Party - Secret Base
Jon Bois of 17776 fame once again making compelling football media that is accessible to the layman.
Art in the Pre-Apocalypse - Jacob Geller
My favorite video from a channel that pretty much never makes bad videos, Jacob Geller talks about living at the cusp of the end of the world. And also Final Fantasy
BONUS SINCE I'M HERE: OTHER NOTABLE YOUTUBE VIDEOS I ENJOY
these are just some youtube videos i like. no description because i think you should experience them without pretense
Badass swords AND grim reapers.
how to make pickle pepsi at home for free
Homemade dinosaur documentary
When the lights go out at night #shorts #viral
Drinking Orange Crush
Hermeto Pascoal - Música da Lagoa (Sinfonia do Alto Ribeira, 1985)
Center Core Never More
Lil’ Slimer - Online Video
My Movie
Japanese toilet experience 1
When you play games in your dreams, you don't use a controller, do you?
my collage of some of the films I watched/re-watched in March
There may not be any theme uniting this month’s movie round up, but that doesn’t mean you won’t find something to strike your fancy! For March’s installment, we’ve got four highly disparate films directed by women, three silent comedies, one overlooked Western, and a cut-and-re-cut master work of the silent era.
READ on BELOW the JUMP!
Favorite New-to-Me Films of March
(presented in the order in which I watched them)
As always, if any of these films catch your eye and you need content warnings, don’t hesitate to ask and I’ll do my best!
Mama Behave (1926)
[letterboxd | imdb]
Lolita has gotten bored of her fuddy-duddy, homebody husband, Charles. Via their faithful butler, Charles learns that Lolita wishes he were more like his outgoing twin brother, Jim. So, naturally, Charles schemes to impersonate his brother to prank Lolita and teach her a lesson. Things go as well as you might expect.
All around, Mama Behave might not rank among the best Charley Chase shorts, but Mildred Harris as the dissatisfied wife Lolita made the movie for me. As the short progresses, she becomes increasingly rambunctious and unruly. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Harris is the low-key star of the short, but Chase (and director Leo McCarey) gave her some solid gags to work with. I also appreciated the meta joke of Charles’ twin brother being called Jim! (Chase’s earlier shorts feature him playing a character called Jimmy Jump.) Mama Behave is simply fun!
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The Pony Express (1925)
[letterboxd | imdb]
In 1860s California, the shady senator Glen intends on seceding from the union and building his own empire out of the state. “Frisco Jack” Weston, a professional gambler and crack shot, runs afoul of the senator for his outspoken (and popular) pro-union, anti-slavery views. Weston eludes the senator’s thugs and ends up in Julesburg, Colorado. There, Jack gets inducted into the newly formed Pony Express, with the solemn duty of delivering mail across the western states. When Abraham Lincoln is elected president, Glen maneuvers to keep the news from reaching California as part of his secession plot. Jack suspects the plot and manages to get the news west anyhow and foils the senator’s scheme.
Broadly speaking, Western films are not my bag. I watched Pony Express along with a bunch of James Cruze’s other extant films when I was researching my recent Lost but Not Forgotten article on Beggar on Horseback. And, I should admit that March was not especially strong in terms of new-to-me films. Pony Express probably wouldn’t have made the cut if I had watched it in February! That said, the pleasant surprises outweighed unpleasant factors in watching this film for the first time. The primary positive was finding a U.S. Civil War film that’s firmly on the side of the Union. In Pony Express, there’s no both-sides-ing or lost-cause junk. (It bothers me that I’m measuring it with such a seemingly low bar, but the ameliorating way that many, many U.S. films treat the Confederacy has always been deeply disturbing to me!) Anyways, the secondary positive was Ricardo Cortez’s performance. I’ve seen a handful of Cortez’s films and never found him very appealing. But, in Pony Express, Cortez is great as Frisco Jack and believably charismatic. The film’s location shooting also serves as a point of charm. I do wish that Betty Compson had more to do in the film, but, superficially speaking, she is thoroughly adorable in her cowboy togs. As for the unpleasant factors, the film is not particularly enlightened when it comes to representing Native Americans. Based on what I had read about the film prior to watching it, I did expect it to be worse though. Honestly, it wasn’t nearly as bad as some other Westerns I’ve seen. If you’ve seen Cruze’s more famous Covered Wagon (‘23), I would rate Pony Express as on-par to slightly better. So, I won’t recommend this film without qualification, but if you wanted to branch out into silent Westerns, Pony Express is a pretty good one and its overt pro-Union stance sets it above some of its contemporaries.
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Naked Acts (1996)
[letterboxd | imdb]
Cicely is a third-generation actress about to start production on her first film. Complications arise when Cicely finds out that she’s expected to do nude scenes. This challenge seems straight forward to others, as Cicely has recently lost a lot of weight and has been distancing herself from her mother’s work in exploitation films. But the challenge for Cicely runs much deeper, and causes her to tug at the ragged threads of the fabric of her relationship with her mother, her body, and her past.
Naked Acts is a fearless film. Through Jake-Ann Jones’ headstrong-but-nerve-wracked Cicely, we tackle issues of representation and self-image, coping with trauma and the physical manifestations of that trauma, and complicated inter-generational relationships and memory. It’s a whole lot to pack into 88 minutes and I’m supremely impressed with Bridgett M. Davis’ direction, especially seeing as it was her first feature. I highly recommend Naked Acts as an edifying, thought-provoking, and at-times cathartic cinematic experience, but with the caveat that it depicts heavy subject matter, including child abuse. So, make an educated choice on if/when you check this one out.
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Gigantes y cabezudos (1926)
[letterboxd | imdb]
Based on the zarzuela of the same name by Miguel Echegaray and Fernández Caballero, Gigantes y cabezudos tells the winding tale of humble Aragonians Pilar and Jesus, whose romance hits stumbling block after stumbling block after Jesus is drafted to serve in the war in Cuba.
As with Pony Express, in a stronger month of new-to-me films, Gigantes probably wouldn’t have made this list. It was charming enough though! I was unfamiliar with the stage musical and question the logic of adapting a musical to silent film. It’s an interesting exercise in storytelling tho, and maybe I’ll check back in here after checking out the musical. The local culture and scenery, including filming the festival of the titular gigantes and cabezudos, was a major charm point. The characters are well-limned and performed. Gigantes isn’t a laugh-out-loud type comedy, but its full of quietly absurd characters and situations. I also loved Carmen Viance as Pilar and hope to look up more of her work in future since she is a new face to me.
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Murdering the Devil / Vražda ing. Čerta (1970)
[letterboxd | imdb]
When “she” gets a call from engineer Čert, an old friend she remembers fondly from decades ago, it seems like a timely solution to her chronic loneliness. However, the man who turns up at her apartment doesn’t quite match up with the memory. To top it all off, Čert displays some disturbing eating habits, testing the limits of her tolerance.
Murdering the Devil was my favorite of the new-to-me movies I watched this month. But, let me start with a confession: sometimes I watch movies in pieces. I’ll watch half one night and the other the next. When I put on Devil, I intended to do just that, but it was so wonderfully strange that it kept me locked in right to the end. It’s stylish and bizarre, humorous and horrifying. I didn’t think this devil man could get any stranger but every scene brought a new terrible surprise. I won’t give anything away because I think if you want to check this out, you should have as little warning as I did. And you should check this one out! (Also, what range Jiřina Bohdalová had!)
——— ——— ———
from Dance, Girl, Dance (’40)
Top-Notch Re-Watches
Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)
[letterboxd | imdb]
Judy and Bubbles are members of a dance troupe struggling to land and keep their bookings. Respectively, one knows the value of art and the other the value of a dollar. The pair face challenges when they hit on a popular act as part of a burlesque review and when a depressed, newly-divorced millionaire with a drinking problem (and a still-in-love-with-his-ex-wife problem) enters their lives.
Dance, Girl, Dance is one of my favorite movies—and not only because I love Lucille Ball and her performance here as Bubbles, an endearing mix of caring and cynical, conniving and small-minded. The construction of the plot crescendos so perfectly that we end up feeling that same sense of relief/release that overwhelms Maureen O’Hara’s character when all the disparate threads come together at the finale. This is one film I especially like to recommend to people starting to get into classic Hollywood cinema. So, if that’s you, check it out! (Fair warning: there is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it instance of blackface in the film. It’s one of the film’s few negatives. But, as I mentioned, it goes by so quickly that a lot of viewers do actually miss it. I would be remiss to not include a warning anyway though!)
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Bound (1996)
[letterboxd | imdb]
Fresh out of the big house, Corky lands a legitimate job fixing up an old apartment building in Chicago. She’s drawn to her beautiful next-door neighbor, Violet. Unfortunately, Violet has an unhinged gangster boyfriend, Caesar. Violet cooks up an ingenious but dangerous opportunity to escape with Corky, but can Corky trust this person she just met with her life?
Be gay. Do crimes. And also Joey Pants is there. What’s not to love?
——— ——— ———
Greed (1924)
[letterboxd | imdb]
McTeague is making his way up in the world. Out of the mines, he’s become a dentist with an office of his own in San Francisco. McTeague’s best buddy Marcus introduces him to his cousin Trina, and McTeague becomes smitten. The two get engaged and Trina wins the lottery. The win seems like a blessing, but it destructively transforms all of their lives.
I rewatched this film as it was coming up often in other research I was doing and wanted to refresh my memory. It’s still astounding as ever. Even cut down so mercilessly, it’s amazing that director von Stroheim managed to get this made and released. So much of the darker, boundary-pushing, reality-stretching filmmaking in Hollywood that has come after Greed owes a great debt to it. After rewatching, I think I’d recommend watching the cut-down version first, rather than the restored longer version. While the restoration, featuring additional footage, summary intertitles, and stills, is great and important work, it tempers the impact of Greed’s whole vibe. Also, seek out a version with a good soundtrack. (Basically, don’t watch the version that is currently available on tubi.) Zasu Pitts also gives an outstanding performance in this film—maybe one of the best ever.
——— ——— ———
The Gold Rush (1925)
[letterboxd | imdb]
Unfortunate circumstance and unforgiving weather, places a hapless, would-be prospector in the company of two hulking figures. The first, Big Jim, is a prospector who has just staked his claim, but needs to make it back to town to make it official. The other, Black Larsen, is a violent criminal. Against the odds, the would-be prospector makes it to town and falls in love with a dance hall girl, who takes his affections a little too lightly.
Artful and sweet. I love Chaplin and Mack Swain’s dynamic in this. It put me in mind of Algie the Miner (1912), which I rewatched and gif-ed a few months ago. The city twink and the big bear who needs someone to look after him: a classic duo. Also, the giant chicken sequence gets me every time.
——— ——— ———
March Round-Up
In March I finally finished up my mega-post on the mostly-lost James Cruze experimental comedy, Beggar on Horseback (‘25). (And ended up talking a bunch about the limits of artistic experimentation in capitalistic, corporatized mass-media and how we judge artistic failure in a commercial artistic medium.)
(Mostly) Lost, but Not Forgotten:
Beggar on Horseback (’25)
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As for themed GIF and still sets:
(links in titles are to all gif/still sets)
Fragment from Beggar on Horseback (‘25)
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T.V. Transvestite (1982)
(which I talked about in last month’s round-up)
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and on the Twilight Zone blog, I marked the anniversary of the Ida-Lupino-helmed classic:
5.25 “The Masks”
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As for coming attractions, I’ve been working on another piece about Maya Deren that should be finished sometime in the next couple weeks (assuming life doesn’t throw me another curve ball). In the meantime, you could check out my cosplay and essay on Deren from a few years ago here! Also in the pipeline is the next installment of Best Films Before ‘24 about The Miracle Man (1919) and potentially a cosplay I was recently struck with inspiration for.
So, stay tuned for that and happy viewing for now!
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