What I've been watching
Vertigo, Scenes from a Marriage, Casino, Happy-Go-Lucky, Saiko! The Large Family, Uncle Boonmee, and Rango, of course
Vertigo (1958): Aside from the view out of Midge’s perfect apartment, SF in this movie feels so empty, like a PS2 game. But watching the movie after spending time in SF is much more rewarding. I assume Hitchcock also intended for the audience to wonder whether Judy is Madeleine for a while?
Scenes from a Marriage (1973): The mini-series. Many bits of accurate commentary on what relationships and marriage can be.
In the second episode, the female main character, Liv, is leading a therapy session with an older woman about her want for divorce. Liv is confident. And then the client says:
Something peculiar is happening. My senses - sight, hearing, touch - are starting to fail me. This table, for instance. I can see it and touch it. But the sensation is deadened and dry.
Camera suddenly moves to a close-up of Liv’s face and stays on her until the end of the scene.
Client: Do you understand?
Liv: I think I do.
Lady: It’s the same with everything. Music, scents, faces, voices. Everything seems puny, gray and undignified.
My response to relationship issues:
Accept that you do actually know yourself very well, and can predict your behavior and desires down the line, and can predict the outcome of this or that relationship. So do not let yourself and a partner that you like walk deeper and deeper into a one-way tunnel.
Not a single thing from Scenes from a Marriage has to be part of your life. This is very hard to achieve. I’ve conveniently ignored lots of things about myself when entering relationships. But thankfully we can prioritize doing a better job, because what other goal is more important?
Casino (1995): All the casino scenes are so engrossing. The peak of the movie is them getting the Japanese businessman back to the casino —
“Maybe you can get my money back.”
“No, no gambling.”
— and Nicky to Sam in the car:
“I’m especially not gonna involve you in anything”
But for some reason there is sooo so so much sad loud madness with the Amy plot, and it dominates the second half. Why do all that? Her robbing Sam’s house was cool.
“The feds were watching Nicky so long, they ran out of gas.”
“$100 to whoever hits the plane first!”
“I mean how could you get fitted that fast?”
“I’m not as tough as you think I am.”
“Yes you are.”
Happy-Go-Lucky (2008): Poppy has a bunch of David Brent in her. But what’s most interesting is her tendency and/or effort to affirmatively reply to everyone on almost everything, like an expert improv yes-and-er.
I notice this trait in people — not with Poppy’s intensity but with the frequency — and wonder if it’s tiring to do it, or if it’s energy-building, or if those are just the conversations they mostly prefer to have.
And in Happy-Go-Lucky you get to follow that kind of person and see: what are they like outside of those conversations?
“I’m on the outside of the triangle”
“Five-year plan? Like Stalin?”
Saiko! The Large Family (2009): Even if you know as much as possible going in and try to track it all, you won’t. There is so much, and some details, as you think you know them, clash with one another.
There is the mom getting angry at the kids in the garden, and the food related stuff, and the brother and his room and bat, but then there is everything that’s happening in the background, visibly, and do you actually know why the younger teenage daughter was hitting dad?
And the host is so good.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010): Total immersion. The sounds are unbelievable. One of the most meditative but still interesting movies I can think of. Letting yourself be enveloped by this movie feels like nothing else, and the 3-4 bits of humor are so successful partly because of what it’s like throughout.
The Balboa Theater in SF was playing Devil Wears Prada 2 in its other auditorium, and the theater is old and has bad insulation or something and a bunch of times we were listening to loud pounding music from Devil Wears Prada 2 while staring at magical Thai forest. It would’ve been pretty good if the Balboa Theater did not schedule Uncle Boonmee and Devil Wears Prada 2 at the same time.
Rango (2011): Everyone’s an animal with bullets and dirt. Good stuff. I can’t believe Rango is Johnny Depp, I didn’t “hear” him at all, he sounds like Seinfeld playing Barry B. Benson. The water plot is like the beginning of Mad Max: Fury Road. Rattlesnake Jake is insane and has probably terrified a lot of kids.