confessions of an amateur cineaste

New to me:

* Thirteen Conversations About One Thing felt much longer than it really was. And really? It was not that long. I mostly Netflixed it for Clea DuVall, though, and she was amazing in it.

* I didn’t even finish Camp. I watched 45 minutes of it and didn’t care about anyone enough to continue.

* Mr and Mrs Smith is a romantic comedy directed by Alfred Hitchcock. (Yeah, I know!) It’s a classic screwball comedy with Carole Lombard. I’m pretty sure I saw it when I was small and watched AMC constantly, but I had mixed it up with My Favorite Wife, which I’m now putting a hold on at the library. Both films have legal marriage issues: in Mr and Mrs Smith it turns out that the paperwork is invalid and in My Favorite Wife the wife returns after being shipwrecked and declared legally dead. Totally screwy, but so much fun.

*… is that it? It may be it. I’m also watching “The Sopranos”, “Arrested Development”, and “Fawlty Towers”. More when I actually finish something.

(Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’s, like, two weeks worth. And I live alone? And have no life? And need background noise? Aiiee.)

Rewatches:

* Mermaids. I love it, I do. I also love Cher. Feel free to unfriend me now.

* Rushmore kicked off my mini Wes Anderson film festival. I still think this is his best, but I really adore The Royal Tenenbaums as well. (I have to say it is a little surreal to finish Tenenbaums and follow it up with a few episodes of “Arrested Development”.) Both of those I own, and I picked up The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou at the library, but I haven’t been able to finish it yet. It’s a beautiful film, but oh, Wes. What’s with the gay bashing? That’s just the first in a list of things that aren’t working for me. He’s in love with form, and I can respect that, but there needs to be life too.

* You know, I always forget that Ben Stiller directed Reality Bites. I watched it after Tenenbaums because Stiller’s such an odd actor for me. When he has the right material I adore him, but he really is in a lot of crap. Reality Bites, thankfully, is definitely not crap.

* Save the Last Dance is directed by the same guy who did Swing Kids. Huh. And, hee! It’s written by the same guy who wrote Step Up. Anyway. It’s a guilty pleasure dance movie. Julia Stiles is really not much of an actress, and yet I always like her. Maybe my standards are lower than I thought.

I’ve been waiting to see Snakes on a Plane for about a year now, and you know what? It was totally worth it. It was terrible in that really great way. Everything that everyone has told you is true. Go with an MST3King group. There are callbacks already. Huzzah! (PS Todd Louiso’s snake expert character made me explode with love. Yay.)

::

I deleted several emails about pass opportunities for Trust the Man because the title was terrible. It sounded like some sort of vaguely urban thing that I wasn’t at all interested in, but then curiousity got the better of me and I pulled it up on the IMDb. It turned out to be a romance thingy from the writer/director of The Myth of Fingerprints (which was overrated) but I thought hey, it’s free, and the cast was full of people I dig.

David Duchovny was great in it, the dialogue was snappy, but the ending was pure cheese, and the more I think about it the more problems I have with it, beginning with the title and ending with my feminist soapbox. Billy Crudup’s character’s an asshole, which is fine with me because I think -he’s- an ass himself. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character should have run off with Ellen Barkin when she had the chance.

Skip it, and rent some Woody Allen instead. Any Woody. Even bad Woody.

Having read the book, I was very much opposed to Under the Tuscan Sun and its vast ..um.. creative liberties, but then I found out that Sandra Oh plays a lesbian in it, and sometimes I am Just That Easy. And the movie was okay. Uneven. Not great. But it made me laugh a little & cry a little & wind down after a few rotten days, so that’s of the good.

(Um. Also, I am going to blame the fact that it was after midnight that I didn’t recognize Christopher. I knew I knew him from somewhere! And also that whoever he was in that somewhere, he Was Trouble!)

Also, Diane Lane is -gorgeous-.

* First two episodes of “Rosemary & Thyme” because a friend keeps calling me Rosemary and I needed to know what he was on about. Cute English detective show, but there’s a lot of tv I need to be watching and it is unlikely I’d pick this over the one with the kid with the EARS Hetty Wainthropp.

* I added Long Life, Happiness, and Prosperity to my queue because it was by the writer & director of Double Happiness & it had Sandra Oh. It was cute (and Sandra had some great lines) but Double Happiness is better.

* Hotel Rwanda was, of course, really great, and raises a lot of complicated thoughts that I don’t think I can do justice to in between Actual Work Things.

* Inside Man I had very much wanted to see in the theater, but I didn’t make it. Too bad! It must have looked -awesome- on the big screen. It looked pretty fantastic on TV, too. Smart heist films are love.

After much threatening, & sat me down last weekend and made me watch Schizopolis. OMG awesome. And now I have to see it again. Like you do.

Also, it is with great shame that I admit I have now seen Pinata: Survival Island for the second time. In my defense, it was the DVD version rather than edited-for-tv. And also, Pinata is still much with the funny. So there.

The Legend of 1900 was charming, Withnail & I is fabulous & deserves a rewatch, and The Stepford Wives (original, natch) was totally disturbing. Dude.

::

There’s a really beautiful line in Gentleman’s Agreement that I posted about in my regular journal here. The film is far from perfect, but it deals with a truer, more prevalent kind of prejudice, I think, than films like Crash. Crash & similar films are feel-good racism, portraying prejudice that is not a part of the way most people live. Gentleman’s Agreement deals with passivity, with allowing the jokes and the comments to pass, the affirming of white privilege, and the fear of upsetting society by protesting the poor treatment of others. It’s old, in places naive, but still timely for all that.

Stuff I’ve seen before:

* There’s a lot wrong with Rent, but I am enough of a fangirl that I adoreadoreadore the stuff that’s really right.

* 13 Going on 30 is still adorable. And has one of my all-time favorite dance sequences.

TV stuff

* “Jeeves & Wooster“, Season 3. They’re in America! It’s brilliant.

* “Love Soup“. Oh Tamsin. I will watch you in anything. I would have enjoyed it more sans voiceover, though. It’s one of my ‘things’.

* The pilot of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.” Three times. I can’t wait for the series to actually start, for I am FULL OF LOVE.

* In Good Company was boring, but Topher was very pretty. I was surprised to see Calvin Trager from “Sports Night” in it, and hey. I didn’t know he was married to Jennifer Grey. But yeah. I just don’t have all that much sympathy for Very Well Off People who suddenly have Money Issues.

* She’s The Man was just shockingly terrible. Really terrible, and not just in the bad teen movie sense. It was painful, but on the other hand, I am given fresh hope for my long-held dream of transferring Twelfth Night to the high school setting. Mine will actually be queer. Come to think of it, it might take real skill to totally de-gay that play. Huh.

* I have had The Dying Gaul on my queue for a while because hello, Peter Sarsgaard, plus queer, plus Campbell Scott, plus Patricia Clarkson. I heard mixed reviews, and I agree with them. But Sarsgaard was just brilliant.

* Despite my love for Eric Stoltz & Mary Stuart Masterson, I had somehow managed to never see Some Kind of Wonderful before. This has now been remedied. Big love!

* The League of Gentlemen Christmas Special was tremendously fucked-up, just as I hoped it would be. It looks like I can get the movie at Scarecrow. Must get on that.

* I expected to be disappointed, but Imagine Me and You charmed the pants off of me. I had to go back and rewatch the grocery scene, and I think I might have to buy it if I can find it cheap somewhere. Matthew Goode is the newest addition to my collection of secret boyfriends, and I had totally forgotten that Giles Anthony Stewart Head was in it. Hee!