Movies

Archive: Watching

Renting movies has been a blessed way to keep Charles from focusing so much on his discomfort.

Having watched Harold and Maude two or three times about '72 - '73 is a sure sign that I really liked it. It was a big cult movie for the bright and sensitive and I can't deny that my membership dues were paid up back then. Hadn't planned to see it again but hoped Ruth Gordon's relentlessly exuberant Maude would cheer up Charles.

And it was good to see the movie again. Harold's faked deaths were the kind of stunts I'd've loved to pull. Bud Cort's lack of later success used to puzzle me. Having seen Harold and Maude again left me unable to figure out if it was lack of luck or talent. The deaths were mostly the work of the special effects people. Mostly Harold is bored and mopey (Harold would certainly have a Live Journal). Cort's face was almost made to order for that. Since he gave me pleasure in the movie I can't help but wish he'd had better luck.

Yusuf Islam or - as he was known back then - Cat Stevens songs were used for the soundtrack. Easily twenty-five years since I've heard his music. As the first flush of nostalgia passed I decided that the music, despite its continuing popularity, really wasn't that good. We still don't know where the children pray but we do know they are facing Mecca when they do.

We rented Drift because it was gay, didn't sound depressing and was in English. With its multiple retellings and ending it just smacked of ambition. I don't care much for ambitious art unless the artist is a genius. To be fair it isn't the artist but folks in coming decades and centuries who get to decide that.

I was more impressed by the trailers. They were for other gay movies so I didn't hit the fast forward button. I knew of all the movies they were advertising and thought the packagers cheats. The movies are all foreign, all sub-titled. This was cannily concealed, aside from someone going "Oh!" they didn't show any dialogue or sub-titles.

Having only one working eye, sub-titles are too much of a burden for me. I can watch the movie or read it but not both. Since a couple of Visconti movies in the 70s I haven't knowing watched a sub-titled movie. With Visconti you have pretty guys amid pretty scenes, the dialogue doesn't matter much.

I knew I didn't want to watch Mystery Men. For a Ben Stiller comedy to vanish without notice is a bad sign. For the fans of Bob Burden (the comics writer whose ideas the movie was based on) at my shop to not mention it was a bad sign.

Mystery Men wasn't as bad as I thought but it was still a waste of two hours. Super Heroes don't lend themselves to parody. I think this is true of most low culture like bad science fiction movies. The unconscious silliness in the original just dissolves when someone tries to consciously manipulate it.

The only good thing was they didn't have a silent-era style speeded up sequence. That moment of false hilarity seemed to almost always appear in bottom of the barrel comedies.

Last night we watched about half of Metrosexuality. Rented because it is from British Channel 4 the source of the original Queer as Folk. Seems promising.

My recent days has been agreeably free of incident so there isn't much for me to write about other than what I've watched and read.