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The Movie Diary
3 years ago
General
TRICK OR TREAT, SCOOBY-DOO! (Audie Harrison, 2022)
Yes, kudos and more kudos on Velma FINALLY coming out, but have you noticed the Scooby franchise has become so self-referential that nearly every gag in this movie is a riff on the series' 55-year history? The animation looks great, and those wildly exaggerated facial expressions prove that REN & STIMPY's seismic innovations are today's animation mainstream. But in the end it's really just another Scooby-Doo movie, and they'll be cranking these things out long after I'm dead.
PLEASURE (Ninja Thyberg, 2021)
Turning yourself into a commodity -- in this case, an exhibitionist sex worker -- has its contrarian perks. "Bella," a young Swedish woman (first time actor Sofia Kappel), comes to LA with the goal of becoming America's #1 porn star, and we viewers get to observe the highs and lows of her single-minded pursuit of a very particular kind of fame. The movie doesn't judge Bella's choices, awful as some of them are -- it simply shows us a strong-willed young woman navigating a career path that would destroy anyone less sure of themselves than her. Sex work therefore comes to seem interchangeable with almost any other profession built on the blood and sweat of striving for success, which is precisely the point.
MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE (Nagisa Oshima, 1983)
It's a love story in which the penalty of tenderness is death. The setting is a Japanese POW camp in 1942, and the doomed lovers, eccentric British major Celliers (David Bowie) and inflexible camp commandant Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto), are locked in a battle of wills, with much-abused bystander Col. Lawrence (Tom Conti) stepping between them as a helpless referee. Celliers and Yonoi are allowed a quiet, visually arresting liebestod, leaving the story's ending to the supporting characters, inhabitants of the gross, material world, trying to make sense of a transcendent passion. Merry Christmas indeed.
SISTERS (Brian De Palma, 1973)
A low budget American International horror film about twin sisters, one of whom is a homicidal maniac. It's pure pulp fiction that includes a sinister doctor running a private sanitarium/freakshow, a courageous reporter fighting the patriarchy, the mutilated body of a black man concealed in a white sofa, and a Bernard Herrmann score that cost more than anything else in the picture, and was worth the expense. So why did I keep nodding off towards the end, just as the movie was reaching its bloody climax? Why did I just not care about any of these characters, or any of their bullshit?
Great camera work, though.
Yes, kudos and more kudos on Velma FINALLY coming out, but have you noticed the Scooby franchise has become so self-referential that nearly every gag in this movie is a riff on the series' 55-year history? The animation looks great, and those wildly exaggerated facial expressions prove that REN & STIMPY's seismic innovations are today's animation mainstream. But in the end it's really just another Scooby-Doo movie, and they'll be cranking these things out long after I'm dead.
PLEASURE (Ninja Thyberg, 2021)
Turning yourself into a commodity -- in this case, an exhibitionist sex worker -- has its contrarian perks. "Bella," a young Swedish woman (first time actor Sofia Kappel), comes to LA with the goal of becoming America's #1 porn star, and we viewers get to observe the highs and lows of her single-minded pursuit of a very particular kind of fame. The movie doesn't judge Bella's choices, awful as some of them are -- it simply shows us a strong-willed young woman navigating a career path that would destroy anyone less sure of themselves than her. Sex work therefore comes to seem interchangeable with almost any other profession built on the blood and sweat of striving for success, which is precisely the point.
MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE (Nagisa Oshima, 1983)
It's a love story in which the penalty of tenderness is death. The setting is a Japanese POW camp in 1942, and the doomed lovers, eccentric British major Celliers (David Bowie) and inflexible camp commandant Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto), are locked in a battle of wills, with much-abused bystander Col. Lawrence (Tom Conti) stepping between them as a helpless referee. Celliers and Yonoi are allowed a quiet, visually arresting liebestod, leaving the story's ending to the supporting characters, inhabitants of the gross, material world, trying to make sense of a transcendent passion. Merry Christmas indeed.
SISTERS (Brian De Palma, 1973)
A low budget American International horror film about twin sisters, one of whom is a homicidal maniac. It's pure pulp fiction that includes a sinister doctor running a private sanitarium/freakshow, a courageous reporter fighting the patriarchy, the mutilated body of a black man concealed in a white sofa, and a Bernard Herrmann score that cost more than anything else in the picture, and was worth the expense. So why did I keep nodding off towards the end, just as the movie was reaching its bloody climax? Why did I just not care about any of these characters, or any of their bullshit?
Great camera work, though.
