Life is but a dance inside the power plant

[sovay]

I was supposed to meet my parents this afternoon for the traditional selection of our deliberately secular Christmas tree. I was in bed. I hurt so much, I couldn't fall asleep until well after sunrise even with the hot-water bottle of a softly purring Autolycus curled up between my shoulderblades. What the hell do I have? I got my flu shot in September. Have some links.

1. Courtesy of umadoshi: "What Everyone Having Diarrhea on the Set of The Magnificent Seven Tells Us About Toxic Masculinity." The goofily provocative title is not just clickbait; the author actually makes it foundational to her project of appreciating Robert Vaughn's Lee in context of his co-stars' famous dick-measuring during the shoot. I like the movie better than she does (and I suspect I'd like it even better if I hadn't seen it for the first time directly after seeing Seven Samurai (1954) for the first time, but that's history) and I can't help but feel her analysis shows a regrettable absence of Charles Bronson, but she's spot-on about Vaughn. I imprinted on him with The Magnificent Seven. When he died in 2016, it's the movie I watched for his memory. I could have sworn I'd written about him, but it doesn't seem to have happened. He's so young, and so peculiarly beautiful, and so afraid.

It's not that he doesn't live up to the impressive dash of buildup that the other characters provide before his big reveal. He's not a disappointment. He's just . . . slightly odd. His accent is unexpected and unplaceable. His dress and mannerisms just a touch dandyish. His stare is more sad than steely.

Watching that unravel is bleakly beautiful. Whether it's his drunken, scenery nibbling breakdown amidst the shaken bar staff or his quaking but determined redemption in death, Vaughn is compelling in a way that his co-stars simply aren't. He's compelling in a way that the limitations of their characters don't allow for. I'd go so far as to argue that he's compelling in a way that some of their off-screen concerns didn't allow them to even consider, either.

2.Courtesy of moon_custafer: "A Professional Safecracker Reveals His Craft."

There are a lot of safecrackers, I learned, but the good ones, like Santore, live in a state of magical realism, suspended somewhere between technology and superstition. The safecracker sees what everyone else has been hiding—the stashed cash and jewels, the embarrassing photographs. He is a kind of human X-ray revealing the true, naked secrets of a city.

Weegee, eat your heart out.

3. I am stunned that Anthony Lane does not hate the new Mary Poppins, but he really doesn't: "'Mary Poppins Returns'—With a Spoonful Less Sugar."

In short, those of us who pursue Mariolatry—the worship of all things Poppins—are free to delight in this film. Indeed, it shifts a little nearer than its predecessor did to the spiky, peppery briskness of Travers's tales, and the whole enterprise exhales, as it should, an air of the politely mad.

I had no idea he felt that way about the books, either. That's appealing.

4. I wanted to rewatch Defiance (2008), which I remembered being on Netflix. It is no longer on Netflix. Netflix instead suggested that I might want to watch Schindler's List (1993). I did not want to. I keep feeling I should. It's having an anniversary. I should have an opinion. It was not my first Holocaust narrative, because I had access to Jane Yolen and also I accidentally read my grandparents' copy of Maus (1991) when I was about ten, but I believe it to have been my first Holocaust film. It was screened by my high school for our entire tenth grade class, in the science auditorium because that was the one with the projector; it was an all-morning affair, like an assembly; everyone stumbled out shell-shocked into the sunlight at lunch period and sat around the quad processing. I had stopped being capable of rational thought around the liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto, not because of that wandering touch of innocent child-red among all the black-and-white atrocities, but because the song playing over the atrocities is "Oyfn Pripetshik," which was sung to me as a lullaby by my mother, who does not speak Yiddish but passed on the sounds so faithfully that I can distinguish how the lyrics changed in her family's version. People talk about Spielberg as a puller of heartstrings, but that went for the hindbrain. In some ways my strongest memory of Schindler's List is not the film itself, but trying to explain to friends afterward why the scene had had such a visceral effect on me, since the song had meant nothing to any of them beyond more Jewish music on the soundtrack. I would have a much better armory these days for evaluating the film as a film, but I don't want to do that scene to myself again. Nothing else in the movie was as bad.

5. I have a little trouble not associating them with The Terror (2018), but I love these photographs of Nick Bondarev's Greenland.

Comments

[choco_frosh]

I am so sorry. Maybe you got a dud version of the 'flu vaccine?
Again, yell (well, text) if I can help.

[sovay]

I am so sorry. Maybe you got a dud version of the 'flu vaccine?

It's more likely I got a variant of the flu that wasn't covered by the vaccine, if this is flu. I'm not ncessarily rooting for it to be. It might just be a really unpleasant cold. It's just been weeks, and it wasn't like my health ever starts from neutral. I am simultaneously miserable and bored.

Again, yell (well, text) if I can help.

Thank you. I will.

*hugs*

[starlady]

Reading Anthony Lane is always an experience. I always feel like he lives on another planet and just files his copy whenever his planet approaches ours closely. Sometimes I agree with him 200% but more often I'm just baffled.

I hope you turn the corner on this illness soon.

[sovay]

I always feel like he lives on another planet and just files his copy whenever his planet approaches ours closely.

I love this description and have no impetus to disagree. I always enjoy reading him, at least, which is not the case with Richard Brody.

I hope you turn the corner on this illness soon.

Thank you.

[starlady]

Richard Brody lives on a different planet and his transmissions are usually unintelligible. A recent exception is his review of "First Man", in which he rightfully laid into it for a bunch of problems I didn't even realize he knew existed.

[sovay]

A recent exception is his review of "First Man", in which he rightfully laid into it for a bunch of problems I didn't even realize he knew existed.

That is some great stopped clock reporting. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

(Chazelle's characterization of Neil as the strong, silent, sacrificially repressed type also seems like a fundamental misreading of the historical Armstrong, who always seemed to belong more to the category of people who do crazy shit matter-of-factly, like Alex "Amydala? What amydala?" Honnold.)

[kore]

Richard Brody OTOH just makes me snarl. But he's sort of better than the NYT film critics.

[sovay]

Richard Brody OTOH just makes me snarl. But he's sort of better than the NYT film critics.

We overlap at Ida Lupino. (I agree with many of his observations about Outrage (1950).) Otherwise I don't understand why he even watches movies.

[kore]

We overlap at Ida Lupino.

Now that is a great sentence.

[sovay]

Now that is a great sentence.

Thank you.

[kore]

Anthony Lane reminds me a lot of Pauline Kael, except his style is much smoother and funnier and he doesn't seem to delight in being perverse for the sake of it. But there's that same kind of "What the hell print did you see" feeling a lot of the time.

[sovay]

But there's that same kind of "What the hell print did you see" feeling a lot of the time.

I've never been able to figure out why he hated everything by Guillermo del Toro until The Shape of Water. The fishsex was good, but it wasn't that good.

[kore]

he hated everything by Guillermo del Toro until The Shape of Water

WHA. Argle.

[thornsilver]

As a Jewish person, I cannot consume any fictional media that deals with Holocaust. I find it too disturbing.

[sovay]

As a Jewish person, I cannot consume any fictional media that deals with Holocaust. I find it too disturbing.

That is entirely fair.

[moon_custafer]

Andrew watched it when it came out, and has never wanted to repeat the experience. I’ve never dared (I’ve seen some documentary footage and that’s pretty much burnt into my brain now).

[sovay]

I’ve never dared (I’ve seen some documentary footage and that’s pretty much burnt into my brain now).

It's one of the things where it matters very much to me who is telling the story and what they are using the images for. And whether I am in the shape to look at them, but sometimes I am.

[gwynnega]

I really hope you feel better soon.

That's a great article on The Magnificent Seven. I haven't seen the film in decades, but this convinced me I should watch it again.

“Actually, Steve, I’ve got the biggest horse of the seven.” I called him Senior Jumbo.

McQueen shook his head. “I don’t give a fuck about your horse,” he replied.

This made me laugh out loud.

[sovay]

I really hope you feel better soon.

Thank you.

That's a great article on The Magnificent Seven. I haven't seen the film in decades, but this convinced me I should watch it again.

I've been playing the theme . . .

[moon_custafer]

I heard once that while shooting Out of the Past Jane Greer, keeping her first trimester secret, got spotted by one of her male co-stars (forget if it was Kirk Douglas or Robert Mitchum) taking her morning-sickness meds and hastily claimed it was to prevent turista, whereupon he asked if he could have some, and spent the rest of the shot delightedly telling everyone in earshot how great the stuff was — he was eating at all the local restaurants with no trouble at all. I’m going to guess it was Mitchum— that sounds like a very Mitchum reaction. Eventually she had to send to her doctor for a refill and explain the pills were running out because her co-star was taking them.

[sovay]

whereupon he asked if he could have some, and spent the rest of the shot delightedly telling everyone in earshot how great the stuff was — he was eating at all the local restaurants with no trouble at all. I’m going to guess it was Mitchum— that sounds like a very Mitchum reaction.

Agreed.

[kore]

That does sound VERY McQueen.

[umadoshi]

I hope so much that you start recovering soon. ;_;

the author actually makes it foundational to her project of appreciating Robert Vaughn's Lee in context of his co-stars' famous dick-measuring during the shoot.

Sarah's writing delights me. ^_^ She's a really awesome person.

[sovay]

I hope so much that you start recovering soon.

Thank you!

Sarah's writing delights me.

I've never read her before! Her obituary for Vaughn was also lovely.

[umadoshi]

Sarah is a Toronto friend! ^_^ We're not super close, but I adore her. She writes about a variety of things, including a fair bit of #OwnVoices stuff about autism, and she used to be in a professional pillow-fighting league, which is one of my favorite random details about any of my friends.

[sovay]

and she used to be in a professional pillow-fighting league, which is one of my favorite random details about any of my friends.

Oh, my God, yes.

[moon_custafer]

Oh, man, I’d forgotten this town had a pillow-fighting league.

[julian]

I had a migraine yesterday and a slightly-differently-presenting migraine today, so it may just be that I'm sick, instead. But anyhow: I feel you.

The New Yorker link made me notice they have a deal going of $6 for 12 weeks (and a tote bag), so I schlorped that up, though I did it as online only because I don't read magazines when they come to my house. (I do at the library, or in the doctor's office. Or wherever else.)

[sovay]

I had a migraine yesterday and a slightly-differently-presenting migraine today, so it may just be that I'm sick, instead. But anyhow: I feel you.

*solidarity hugs*

The New Yorker link made me notice they have a deal going of $6 for 12 weeks (and a tote bag), so I schlorped that up, though I did it as online only because I don't read magazines when they come to my house.

Oh, cool! I'm glad you nabbed that.

[nineweaving]

In short, those of us who pursue Mariolatry—the worship of all things Poppins—are free to delight in this film. Indeed, it shifts a little nearer than its predecessor did to the spiky, peppery briskness of Travers's tales, and the whole enterprise exhales, as it should, an air of the politely mad.

I am heartened. Mary Poppins is my Artemis—"Is this a nursery or a bear-pit?"—and that Julie Andrews abomination disgusts me..

Get well.

Nine

[sovay]

Mary Poppins is my Artemis—"Is this a nursery or a bear-pit?"—and that Julie Andrews abomination disgusts me.

If it's done well, the part in the new one where they voyage into a blue-and-white china bowl should be your sort of thing.

Get well.

I am certainly trying.

[thisbluespirit]

1. You know, I think I watched The Magnificent Seven when I was much worse, a few years ago. I didn't even remember that Robert Vaughn was in it, although I must have noticed when I was watching it! (I don't take in much when I'm bad, so it was a wasted exercise in me just getting bored. I'm much betterer at films generally now, but I had to try every now and then, even if it was unfair on the films it happened to.)

4. but I don't want to do that scene to myself again.

And no reason you should! There are many other films in the world to evaluate that aren't so like to set off such a reaction. <3


(I have a weird relationship with Schindler's List myself - I don't know if you recall the meme that was going around when you first friended me last year, about what five films would someone have to watch to understand you, and that's one I can't do because the truth is, it'd have to include at least one Carry On film and Schindler's List, and I can't scare people away like that. But I watched it in (sixth form) college, also in a lecture theatre, although with only about 5 souls who were willing to stay on to see it, at the end of a year of Totalitarian states in history, so it was an odd context. It was like enough to all the horribly grim documentaries we'd just been sitting through to ring true, but people surived in it, unlike said grim documentaries, and that meant a lot at that point, when I was literally sitting around memorising various death tolls (Stalin & Hitler mainly, some Mussolini and Mao, plus we started the year by watching 1984 in class.) So I latched onto it in a way that's really awkward to admit now, but doesn't get any less true regardless.)

But, you know, there are more options now, and Netflix should give them to you!

[sovay]

I don't know if you recall the meme that was going around when you first friended me last year, about what five films would someone have to watch to understand you, and that's one I can't do because the truth is, it'd have to include at least one Carry On film and Schindler's List, and I can't scare people away like that.

What about the other three?

So I latched onto it in a way that's really awkward to admit now, but doesn't get any less true regardless.

That makes sense to me. I'm not sure it's awkward. Movies are meaningful to people for all sorts of reasons. When I was searching my journal to find out if I ever wrote about Vaughn in The Magnificent Seven, I found a film meme I'd done in 2006 when I really watched almost no movies and it was incredibly strange to re-read, because all of it was true then, but so much of it is not true now. But I've seen more things now; I've seen things that mean more. When I said High Plains Drifter was my favorite Western in 2006, I wasn't wrong.

[thisbluespirit]

What about the other three?

Now, that's the more difficult bit! The other two are clearly going to have to be there, but the rest are more movable.

Probably The Mummy, maybe The Lady Vanishes (1938), and Gosford Park, because one of my favourite types of films are ensemble films, and that's definitely my favourite out of those. But ask me on a different day, and you'll probably get a slightly different line-up... :lol:

That makes sense to me. I'm not sure it's awkward. Movies are meaningful to people for all sorts of reasons.

Yes, indeed. If we're making casual lists online, though, it does tend to need to come with the explanation as well. And, yes, things do change, of course! I'm gradually watching more films as well, but that was a big emotional keystone film in a way that isn't so easily replicated later on in life, although it can still happen on occasion. I rather hope never again quite like that, though. (My main aim for history at uni was no more totalitarian states, unless they let you do 20thC China, but no UK uni I looked round had any modules on Chinese history. I kept asking them as I went, though. But I did manage to avoid any more dictatorships for the following three years!)

*reads your meme* Wow, Meme OP was far more into people's sex lives than seems justified for a film meme! :-D

"Favourite dead actor" (only one? Ah, lol. Quite.)

[sovay]

I'm gradually watching more films as well, but that was a big emotional keystone film in a way that isn't so easily replicated later on in life, although it can still happen on occasion.

I'm not sure there's an expiry date on that kind of experience. I have films that just knocked me off my feet as recently as last year. (Psycho! Wasn't expecting that one.)

But I did manage to avoid any more dictatorships for the following three years!

Mazel tov! Don't read our news!

"Favourite dead actor" (only one? Ah, lol. Quite.)

Yeah, that list hasn't gotten any shorter since.

[thisbluespirit]

Mazel tov! Don't read our news!

If only!

Yeah, that list hasn't gotten any shorter since.

I joke that what I like in a guy these days is a really good obituary, but it's not even funny any more.

[alatefeline]

<3

Not very words, sorry. <3

[sovay]

Not very words, sorry.

Still appreciated.

*hugs*

[alatefeline]

*hugs*

[selkie]

You know me; I only remember the jokes in Schindler's List. I haven't consumed Holocaust media since becoming a parent. It makes me too angry to be productive for several hours and it doesn't help anybody. We survived the reading of Number the Stars until the quote from Kim Malthe-Bruun, which was too real.

Take it easy on yourself. There's only one of you in this dimension.

[sovay]

It makes me too angry to be productive for several hours and it doesn't help anybody.

I just wanted to watch some partisans, you know?

Take it easy on yourself. There's only one of you in this dimension.

I am doing what I can.

*hugs*

[kore]

I am trying to fight off a migraine, so I totally sympathize with your corporeality issues. Bleah.

It was screened by my high school for our entire tenth grade class, in the science auditorium because that was the one with the projector; it was an all-morning affair, like an assembly

.....oh man, I can see why educators might think that would be a good idea....and yet.

[sovay]

I am trying to fight off a migraine, so I totally sympathize with your corporeality issues. Bleah.

*delicate fistbump*

.....oh man, I can see why educators might think that would be a good idea....and yet.

I'm not even sure it was a bad idea. But it was definitely one of those things you can't take back.