Another perfect set-up in a stock du jour ... one day I'll actually catch one of these in real-time.
Movies Watched -- Ingrid Goes West (2017)
97 minutes so under the sacred 100 minute mark. Got it because it has Elizabeth Olsen in it and I like her face -- she has a plastic surgery nose without having had plastic surgery ...and I think she's talented. This movie was disturbing. I guess the message is that you should make an Instagram video of your suicide attempt to gain followers (sympathizers), and get a hashtag named after you. Sick stuff.
There were some class-based vibes that interested me... "Taylor" (E. Olsen) and her idiot brother, "Nicky," are rich kids (they have great teeth and snort coke after all). Ingrid, the mentally ill girl, is using the meager inheritance her mother left her to pose as someone who belongs in Taylor's set. I thought that she was running out of money, but somehow she comes up with another 50K to buy the desert house next door. That was a stretch but necessary for the climax, I guess.
Ingrid is kind of homely (imperfect teeth, imperfect skin) but she has big eyes and a great bod. Anyway... spoilers ... if Ingrid and the pothead had killed Nicky in the desert, they probably wouldn't have gotten away with it, so it's just as well that they didn't (though I sorely wanted it to happen). Pom Klementieff, a mixed-race beauty, plays "Harley Chung," a #CrazyRichAsian, no doubt.
There are some funny scenes, but overall this was just disconcerting, and the ending didn't work for me. Yellow rating if you're interested in the terrors of being a slave to Instagram.
Rex wasn't thrilled.
Lower, get down lower, Miguel. You mean, like, dee floor?
Trading Opportunity -- BLNK
Hindsight is 20-20 ... if I hadn't been losing money elsewhere, I may have caught this:
Movies Watched -- Call Me By Your Name (2018)
130 minute running time so at least 30 minutes too long. A homosexual love story. I guess the teenage boy had sex with the hot local girl as an experiment, but that doesn't make sense to me if I understand homosexuality correctly. I once had a poker buddy who was gay and I asked him if he ever fantasized about women, and he said, "ewwwww." But sexuality is something of a mystery so who knows.
Larry Gopnik was the kid's dad, and he told him at the end that he was gay, I guess, though he had a beautiful chain-smoking wife (who says they are "Jews of discretion," which made me laugh). And the older blonde guy (Armand Hammer, yes, an heir, supposed to be 24 here but looks closer to 30) the kid falls in love with tells him later on that he's engaged to be married (to a woman, obviously).
Anyway, gay love stories ain't gonna fly in Omaha, though the setting (an ancient villa in northern Italy) is really beautiful, and the teenage kid is appealing, since he has the Roman nose and plays piano and is fluent in three languages, at least. They have money and servants and great bones and thick wavy hair and cul-chah and everything is so fabulous and charming ... you want to puke.
Peter Rainer gets it: "... it’s rare to see a movie of this sort that is so markedly nonjudgmental, the lack of sharp conflict doesn’t make for a terribly invigorating experience. Although it ends on a powerful, bittersweet chord, the movie is a bit too determinedly soothing for comfort."
Exactly, no one has a hissy fit ... no smashed china, or schnozzes.
I like Kate Taylor's take: "... as the al fresco dining, the refreshing swims, the liberal parents and the forgiving girlfriend pile up, the effect becomes precious and the film shifts from languid to long ... this multilingual, almost-pre-AIDS idyll does not stretch credulity ... but it can try the patience." She forgot to mention the ridiculous gay couple visiting from Paris in their pastel suits.
My favorite critic, Rex, predictably loved it ... "rhapsodic and heartbreaking ... a masterpiece of subtle emotions, intense sensuality and breathtaking beauty." Oh, Rex, you old fag.
I wanna be bad....
Sign of the Times
Inspired after watching the latest season of Bosch, I'm (re-)reading a number of old Harry Bosch novels ... I liked this bit from The Burning Room (2014):
"[Bosch missed] the old Los Angeles Times. In 1993 it was big and strong, its editions fat with ads and stories produced by a staff of the best and brightest journalists in their field. Now the paper looked like somebody who had been through chemo -- thin, unsteady, and knowing the inevitable could only be held off for so long."
Bosch -- Season Four
I watched the fourth season of Bosch more or less in a binge. Ten episodes, around an hour a piece. It's good TV, not great TV. It's above average TV. Streaming on Amazon Prime. My screencaps with comments below:
Delta Towns Wearing Satin Gowns
Great song by Nanci Griffith ... can't go wrong name-checking Loretta and Merle ... this was recorded on September 11, 1991. That's Mary Chapin Carpenter in polka dots. I love both these women. The Indigo Girls sang their (one?) great song, Hammer and a Nail, at this show too.
When you can't find a friend, you've still got the Spotify.
Movies Watched -- Wind River (2017)
106 minutes so just over the sacred hundred minute mark. W.D. By movie, hard to watch. Well crafted and tragic ... a crime / mystery / thriller movie ... I love Elizabeth Olsen, totally blown away by her performance in Martha Marcy May Marlene, so a fan for life. Also stars Jeremy the Ugly Jason Bourne Renner.
One ridiculous standoff scene doesn't ruin the whole thing ... this is violent, ultra-violent. Vengeance, not forgiveness (or the Feds). And a tearjerker, won't be a dry eye in the house. It wasn't bad. I can recommend it. The first movie from 2017 that I can recommend, but be emotionally prepared ... it's going to put you through the ringer.
Guess I'm never gonna get to Ojai
Painted My Heart
Ranky Tanky from Charleston, SC ... never would have discovered them without Spotify's Discover Weekly:
Movies Watched -- Detroit (2017)
142 minute running time so way way way too long, 40 to 50 minutes too long. Made by Kathryn Bigelow, who is on my permanent shit list for working with the security-industrial complex to make her War Porn pic, "Zero Dark Thirty." Anyway, this is a re-creation / dramatization of some atrocity that happened during the Detroit race riots of 1967.
Apparently three black men were executed in cold blood by some Detroit policemen, but who knows the real story? Digging this up is just going to add fuel to the whole Black Lives Matter fire, while simultaneously cashing in on it. Don't get me wrong, I'm as appalled by racism and police brutality (murder) as the next guy, but I also appreciate a more nuanced take on historical events.
Red rating given the length, yellow rating if you're interested in one particular take on history.
Beaver Cleaver asks one more time: Where is the starter pistol?!?