AUGUST 30
I watched many movies this month! I have nothing else to say!
PICTURE OF THE CAT
ZINE CLUB
The title of this month’s mask is called You Should Still Wear A Mask, because I got really tired of seeing so many progressive people in my life abandon this really simple thing they can do to take care of their community. I printed out a bunch of copies on astrobright paper, and it’s going to be free at Boneshaker / wherever else I wind up leaving copies. If you want one let me know, and I’ll stick it in the mail. I’m going to put the whole text online, and the PDF if people want to print/make their own copies, but I don’t want to do that tonight. That can be another newsletter.
If me being able to make and distribute free zines is something you want to support, you can sign up for the Zine Club patreon here. This month I’m also going to send some cool marbled paper I made! Isn’t it fun to get mail?
WHAT I WATCHED
The last newsletter came on the eve of me going to see Barbie, which was a really fun film that I didn’t completely love. I was a very serious Barbie player to an age that I’m embarrassed to type out, and the dolls hold a special place for my heart, so I was totally primed to embrace this movie. And I think it’s really great! I love that a movie this weird got such a large budget and became such a big hit! I think that’s good for the world! But on first viewing the ending got a bit too mushy for me. The scene for they go into the voidspace to talk about the meaning of life was so earnest, when the things I enjoyed best were big goofs. Maybe I will feel different on repeat viewing. I saw it at the Riverview with my best friend, and we missed plenty of lines because people were still laughing at the last joke. It was a really wonderful cinematic experience, and it’s great that this picture is getting people into the theater.
To speak to the other half of this summer’s film phenomena, I also saw Oppenheimer, which was also great. My favorite thing about it was how it was a fantastic collection of guys. I had read the cast list before I saw the movie, but there are so many guys that I had forgotten them all. Halfway through Casey Affleck shows up, and he’s absolutely terrifying, and it’s great. All of the guys are great, but special shoutout to Josh Hartnett, the pride of South High, and David Krumholtz, who may have been my MVP. I am showing so much restraint not just listing all the guys to you! If we were talking in person that would not happen, I have loved listing off guys and seeing which ones my loved ones know.
My dad really hates Christopher Nolan, which is funny to me because Nolan is thought of as a very dad-core director. I made my dad go to Dunkirk with me, in Hopkins, in the middle of a snow storm, and he still complains about it, which on some level is fair, but also if he hadn’t seen Dunkirk he wouldn’t know who Harry Styles is, and isn’t it fun to know about Harry Styles? What my dad doesn’t like about all of Nolan’s non Batman movies is how there’s always some sort of late reveal the recontexualizes the film — not quite a twist, but a piece of information not given to the audience until late in — how the timelines fit together in Dunkirk, how the timeliness fit together in Tenet, the big reveal in The Prestige. I think The Prestige is very instructive in how to watch Nolan’s films. He’s doing magic tricks. There’s a misdirect, and then a reveal. I think the reveal in Oppenheimer will annoy my father less than most past Nolan films when he eventually sees it, which he will because it has Robert Downey Jr., who is one of his favorite guys. The reveal in Oppenheimer is once again about how the two timelines fit together, but it’s a less ostentatious trick than usual. I do think the two timelines, with their very distinct styles, works so well. I love how the color section is so subjective, really conveying how Oppenheimer is experiencing the world. And then the contrast between the very objective black and white sections, which appear so factual, but in fact information is being held back from the audience until late! Good filmmaking shit!
Also, I don’t want to spoil it, but the scene where Oppenheimer says the famous “I am death, destroyer of words” bit is just insane. Like… What a choice! It’s so funny! But I don’t think it’s funny to the detriment of the film? But with further viewings I might change my mind?
Beyond that I went on a whole Buster Keaton kick. I watched all of his silent features, and the handful of shorts that Blank Check chose to discuss plus a few more. Not a revolutionary thing to say, but Buster Keaton’s really cool! I also read Dana Stevens Camera Man, a very good book contextualizing his career. I do not have anything smart or original to say about Keaton, but I had a really great time watching these films, which are mostly in the public domain, and all easily accessible. If you haven’t spent some time with them I’d recommend it. Sherlock Jr. was probably my favorite, and a great place to start. It’s 45 minutes, and it’s genius.
Also, I want to shoutout Moonshine, a Fatty Arbuckle short that features Keaton. Stevens mentioned it, and I decided to watch it, and it’s so weirdly meta, I just loved it. The version available is not great, but if you have 20 minutes it’s a very good time.
I went and saw the 20th Anniversary re-release of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy, because I will catch up with Blank Check’s series on Park at some point. Love to see really bloody dental work on the big screen! The only film of Park’s I had seen before was The Handmaiden, which I adore. Oldboy has as much violence and weird sex shit, but it’s not also a lesbian romance, so I liked it much less, but was able to appreciate it as piece of filmmaking. It got me more excited to dive into his filmography, so I guess you can look forward to reading about that.
Then I finally watched Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk so I could listen to JD Amato be a real nerd about film technology on the Blank Check episode. Weird movie! I only half watched it while printing / assembling zines / doing chores, and it’s impossible to watch it in the manner Lee really intended, because it’s meant to be seen in 3D with 120 frames per second, which is ridiculous! Making this movie in that mode was a ridiculous thing to do! I really enjoyed listening to people talk about the technology, much more than I enjoyed the film itself.
SONG OF THE DAY
Joe Hisaishi, who’s Murakami’s guy, did a score for Keaton’s film The General, and it’s unsurprisingly great! I’ve been listening to it a lot, and whenever I feel like rewatching The General I’m gonna see if the library has the disk where this score is an option.