Starring: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd
Rated: R
Released: 1976
What I “know”: Robert De Niro is a taxi driver. He has a mohawk and says “you talkin’ to me?” which I only know because it’s the basic DeNiro impersonation for anyone doing one. Also, Jodie Foster is a teenage prostitute. Super psyched for a lighthearted tale here.
What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “After a cute political campaign worker spurns him, an unhinged New York City cabbie decides to assassinate her candidate. Meanwhile, he tries to protect a child prostitute from a smooth-talking pimp in this gripping tale of urban decay and insanity.” Well, yeah, this is going to be a real joyride. Getting out my weighted blanket real quickly.
First up: TRAILER!
1:35: These opening credits feel like it should have been for a 1970s cop show on network TV. They’re oddly calming, though I know what’s coming now.
2:20: Oh THIS is Travis Bickle. I guess I’d heard the name come up in the past but didn’t know it was this movie.
4:57: Cool, a future taxi driver getting dusk drunk on pocket alcohol. Just what I’m sure they’re looking for.
6:27: You know, with that little monologue about the scum on the streets at night, he could earn a prime-time spot as a talking head on a national “news” network.
8:05: “Every night when I bring the cab back to the garage, I have to clean the cum off the backseat. Sometimes I clean the blood.” Well, I was eating dinner.
9:42: Four candy bars, popcorn, and a soda for $1.85 at the movies? Man.
9:55: Oh, it’s THAT kind of movie? This dude’s a real winner.
11:20: Albert Brooks having a phone conversation with the button providers about whether “We are the people” is the same as “We are the people” is my favorite part so far.
15:37: Holy cow, that’s Peter Boyle! Still horseshoe bald, but with more, darker hair around the bottom. I know most of my posts have some version of “holy cow, that’s so-and-so,” but I literally know nothing about most of these going in.
24:23: A) Cybill Shepherd was freaking stunning; B) don’t have coffee dates with people who use the term “my possessions.” I don’t know why it struck me weird; it just did.
31:35: Awwww, little Jodie Foster! Wow, she actually was 14 when she made this movie. That’s insane.
35:00: HE’S TAKING HER TO A PORN MOVIE FOR THEIR FIRST DATE? Heavens, Travis. Also, Betsy, if a dude defends taking you there by saying “I see couples here all the time,” he’s saying he goes to that theater all the time. That’s like 8 red flags at once.
39:52: Annnnnd Travis Bickle is the father of the incels. He stalks her, takes her to a porno theater, then blames her when she deuces out on him.
I realize now how she is just like the others: cold and distant.
Travis Bickle
47:24: If they ever do a remake of this, I need Milo Ventimiglia to play Travis. There have been several shots in here where I did a double take. I think he’d do a fine job.
1:01:00: Bickle doing all the work to plan his weapons and stuff is the most uncomfortable I’ve ever felt watching a movie. And I saw part of “Natural Born Killers.”
1:07:07: If I was of the age that I would have seen this version of De Niro, I would have a real hard time seeing him in like “Meet the Parents” or “Dirty Grandpa.” He is very frightening.
1:11:01: There’s only like 40 minutes left and he hasn’t even talked to Jodie Foster yet. Jodie, come save his soul!
1:15:53: OH MY GOD, THAT’S HARVEY KEITEL. IN HIGH-WAISTED SLACKS AND A WHITE TANK TOP. AS A PIMP.
1:30:55: Gross, Harvey Keitel. Gross to the max.
1:36:12: The mohawk means he’s serious, and he’s ready to die!
1:39:16: In the annals of shootings, I think “suck on this” might be the worst way to preface it.
1:40:02: This just got much bloodier than I expected it to. I mean, I guess I should have seen it coming, but yikes.
1:40:42: THAT DUDE’S CHEEK MOVED when he was shot. Gross, Scorsese. Side note, Jodie Foster was all legs.
1:44:11: I like three cops standing in front of three dead people with a distraught young girl and like not trying to help her in any way. Not calling her out of the room, not entering to assist. Nothing.
1:46:30: Wait, Travis lived??
I would have cut that last bit. Have him go out and be done. I didn’t need to see Betsy again. That was a creepy movie, like “Psycho”-level creepy. I’m glad I’ve seen it, I guess, but it’s not something I’d watch again.
ALSO, while I was looking for clips to put in this, I found out the guy in the back of Bickle’s cab who’s going to kill his wife for being with a black guy … was Martin Scorsese? Jeezo pete.
What I “know”: Neo-Nazis. Like, so many of them. And a curbstomp heard round the world. And that this is going to frighten me probably more than any other movie I watch because, you know, 2018.
What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “A California neo-Nazi gets sent to prison for murder and comes out a changed man. But can he atone for his sins and prevent his younger brother from following in his hate-filled footsteps?” So wait, this is kind of a … redemption story? I mean, maybe? Time to buckle down for two hours of generational hate.
TRAILER!
3:05: That was possibly the least sexy sex scene I’ve ever seen. The Doc Martens were the best part.
5:48: This movie is shot very weirdly. I’m not technical enough to know what’s different, but it’s distracting. Unrelated, whose front door opens out?
6:28: Oh good, it looks like only the first few minutes were shot in weird, grainy, oddly timed b&w.
13:57: “He used Derek to recruit a slew of insecure, frustrated and impressionable kids.” The classic game plan.
15:22. Y’all. I just legit got chills. Like this whole TV interview could be happening RIGHT NOW. I don’t want to watch any more.
24:43: There are white supremacist hymns? What the hell?
33:21: So dude does 3-years-plus on a double murder charge, and his parole doesn’t include “Don’t associate with the skinheads any more?”
36:10: Does Donald Trump just quote from this movie in his speeches? “Our border policy is a joke. So is anyone surprised that south of the border they’re laughing at us? Laughing at our laws? … “It’s about decent, hardworking Americans falling through the cracks and getting the shaft because their government cares more about the constitutional rights of a bunch of people who aren’t even citizens of this country.”
42:21: I really, really, REALLY don’t want to watch any more. The whole riot bit? Like those are legit arguments I’ve heard when I was younger, that I never tied to white supremacy. I honestly never realized how much rhetoric I’d heard from people who ALSO didn’t know it was white supremacy talking points. I’m just gutted right now.
55:10: It’s legit scary how good Edward Norton is at playing psychopaths.
57:06: Seeing this Nazi party (just typing that makes me think of the “Forrest Gump” scene where Forrest apologizes for ruining their Black Panther party) just … they look ridiculous. And I know in the moment I’m sure they feel all righteous. But they’re a bunch of angry young white dudes with no ideas of their own.
1:05:00: Stacy Keach is creepy as hell. He’ll never be Mike Hammer to me ever again.
1:21:38: Guy Torry, stopping racism since 1998. Way to go, pal.
1:25:48: Soooooo the way the racist guys treat black people is by having sex with them? Like that’s what I’m supposed to take away from the shower rape scene? That they all secretly want to rape black men? That’s a terrible threat.
1:41:55: Not OK with the dad from “Boy Meets World” spewing racist stuff.
UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I watched the last 20 minutes of that movie with a constant churning in my stomach. I have no great summation, no deeper thoughts. I have only sadness and wariness.
Stars: Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas
Rated: R
Released: 1996
What I “know”: It was a critical darling. Everyone loved this movie. I also know it’s apparently 2:42 long. *sigh*
What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “Set against the backdrop of World War II, this Oscar-winning drama stars Ralph Fiennes as a badly burned pilot who recounts a tale of doomed romance to the nurse tending him. As his story spills out via flashbacks, so do secrets about his identity.”
OK, color me intrigued. Let’s do this.
TRAILER!
4:28: Do we eventually find out why he was flying through the desert with a dead woman in the plane with him?
6:03: I can not imagine many methods of travel after burning to a crisp in a plane crash that would suck more than “strapped to a board atop a camel with a wet cloth and a corn husk over your face.” It hurts me just to watch it.
10:21: I love that Ralph is over here, horridly burned, struggling to breathe, and he’s still giving this guy a hard time about being German.
11:25: Juliette Binoche is just French for “Julia Roberts,” isn’t it?
12:20: Dang, she lost her man and her best friend in the first 12 minutes of this movie.
17:31: When they were coming up with the makeup for Lord Voldemort, did they just base it on this movie and say, “take off his nose?” That’s all I can see when I see him, and I’ve never even seen the HP movies.
18:04: You know how you can just tell you’re going to dig a movie? I dig this one.
20:33: I’m sure there’s a rational explanation that I’m too dumb to get, but why is there outdoor running water at this abandoned castle where she’s caring for him?
22:42: COLIN FIRTH. Also, is Kristin Scott Thomas the dead girl in the plane? How does she end up in his plane? Why is she dead?
32:26: Hey, Willem Dafoe used to look normal!
35:39: I don’t like their little flirting thing here. She is married. To Colin Firth. You don’t mess with that. Does she kill herself over their burgeoning love triangle?
38:00: Ugh, now he’s dancing with her and they’re both instantly giving bedroom eyes. NO. And Colin Firth has to watch it all! Ugh.
38:50: “Escort me, by all means, but following is predatory, isn’t it?” she says lightly. There is then like 15 seconds of AWKWARD silence as they dance and she realizes she is, very much, his prey.
42:43: Oh, Colin Firth, you can’t leave now. This is the worst possible time for you to leave.
44:47: Why is Willem Dafoe shooting heroin??
46:57: “I’ll probably marry him,” Hana says of the Sikh she just met. “Really? That’s sudden,” Ralph Fiennes retorts. FINALLY someone gets all this crazy timeline stuff is crazy.
52:40: Sure, the figures on the wall could be swimming. Or they could be flying. Or lying dead. You can’t tell from stick figures on walls, weirdos.
53:21: What was with the weird scene with the one dude hitting his head, the other dude making sure he’s OK, and Ralph Fiennes making shifty, judgy eyes at them? Is he a homophobe? Did he think there was some sort of dude-on-dude action going on in this ancient cave? Just seems like such a weird scene.
53:49: Oh, wait. Maybe there is dude-on-dude action! “How do you explain, to someone who has not been here, feelings that seem quite normal?” Hey, you do you buddy.
55:18: OK, so the dude on top of the car fell off. The dude driving the car (his flirting partner) swerves and rolls down the dune with Fiennes in the passenger seat. I get all that. Why did the second car drive straight down? Glad everyone survived, regardless.
55:54: So she volunteers to stay behind with Fiennes, while invoking her husband. Classy lady.
1:03:31: So their truck just has sand up against the side upon which the wind was blowing, but the other truck, on its side, is completely submerged under sand? I was wondering what that honking sound was. Those must be some airtight Jeeps!
1:11:05: Dang, Ralph Fiennes has some nice-looking eyes.
1:12:35: WHAT THE WHAT WAS THAT? She comes to him, like in a dream, he strides to her, she beats the crap out of him, he grabs on to her and sinks to his knees, and her hitting slowly becomes stroking his hair and she says “You still have sand in your hair.” WHAT IS HAPPENING?
1:12:49: This had better be a dream. Because he just ripped her dress open and they are in front of open doors and windows.
1:12:59: This did not appear to be a dream. He is now sewing her dress back together.
1:21:45: Thank you for a realistic sex scene in a movie. She’s making weird faces, they’re choppy … thank you. I mean, realistic aside from having sex like 10 feet away from a group of soldiers singing carols.
(insert 3-month break where I didn’t finish this movie)
1:22:23: I get that Ralph Fiennes has nice eyes. But you can’t be dismissive of dedicated Colin Firth in a Santa suit!
1:23:06: *Colin snuggling her* “What do you smell like?” She smells like Ralph Fiennes, not marzipan.
1:25:06: I don’t think I can express how bad of an idea Colin showing up to surprise her is. But he didn’t follow her cab? He just let her go? I guess it might not be a nearly three-hour movie if he had.
1:40:12: Well that whole thumb scene was next level gross.
1:42:52: They are not good with keeping their affair a secret. A.) His coworker guy is all “Pull yourself together” and now B.) He’s got his arm around her at some public movie showing.
1:44:31: HAHAHAHAH she walked into a support post after ending things with him. That was hilarious.
1:47:05: Maybe they should have taken Ralph’s drink away while he was up rambling about. Yeesh. Not a good look.
1:47:40: Also not a good look: Shoving a woman against a wall as you verbally assault her. No wonder she chose Colin Firth over you … for now.
1:48:32: And then following it up with a DEMAND she dance with you because you want to feel “what is yours?” Gross. So gross.
1:50:43: Oh good, Hana finally got it on with her Sikh husband-to-be. Oh, no wait, it’s even better! He’s showing her beautiful things! And then they got it on after that!
1:53:54: Oh, wait, apparently this is not the first time. She visits him every night. Good on you!
1:55:44: I have a really bad feeling about him inspecting this bomb, mostly because she had a bad feeling about it. Trust a woman’s intuition.
1:58:45: That was very suspenseful. I exhaled at the end without realizing I had been holding my breath.
2:03:12: MAYBE, just maybe, Hana, the reason he’s not letting you in is he saw the freaking bloody remains of his partner last night in an ambulance. Maybe he just needs you to give him a TINY amount of space. For a nurse, she’s not very observant. On the plus side, Kip’s posture is OUTSTANDING.
2:10:29: So Colin decides to go out in a blaze of glory and decide to kill his cheating wife and former friend at the same time, but he’s the only one who bites it? Well, I know she does eventually, but she lived through that crash despite being in the front seat? Yikes.
2:12:48: “I wouldn’t want to die here. I don’t want to die in the desert.” Well then maybe make better life choices. Because, spoiler alert, you very much do die there.
2:14:20: I know he doesn’t have a choice … he can’t just carry her for three days to the next town. But lighting a small fire on rocks and being like “I’ll be back in six days, here’s some water, food and a book for you to enjoy with your broken wrist” … I mean, that fire’s not going to last for six days.
2:21:17: Man, Ralph is really getting into the violence of everything. Not that poor guard’s fault you assaulted a dude. No need to choke this guy out. Now he has a broken leg, too, because he jumped off a moving train.
2:22:22: “So yes, she died. Because I loved her. Because I had the wrong name.” No, because when you were asked to spell it you grabbed a guy by the throat and starting cussing him up and down. Your name didn’t kill her. Though, I also think his plan of “I’ll ask for a doctor and a car and they’ll just give me both” was a longshot at best.
2:29:39: Did he lose the ability to speak? He can’t just say, “Dear God, Hana, kill me. Please.”? I mean, I get it. Dude’s been through a lot (most of it his own doing, but still, who among us hasn’t done stupid stuff for love?
OK, so I spoke a little early in saying I was going to dig this movie. I didn’t NOT dig it, but it was long and it dragged a lot. There really wasn’t a lot of THERE there; it was gorgeous and the underlying story was fine, but it could have been a 2-hour movie. I still don’t fully understand why Dafoe’s character came in so early. If he was there to kill him, why spend days and weeks around him?
This is the first movie I’ve done here where I think the choppiness inherent in this blog affected my enjoyment. Pausing it every couple of minutes to get a time marker and type so as not to miss anything did make this longer and choppier than it would have been had I just sat down to watch it.
What I “know”: I have literally never heard of this movie. I like Robert Duvall. That’s it.
What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “Alcoholic drifter Mac Sledge comes into the life of a lonely widow and her young son in the barren flatlands of Texas. But when Mac is revealed to be a once-famous country singer, he must face a painful past and an uncertain future.”
Good news: It’s only 92 minutes long!
TRAILER!
00:55: “Hey son, let’s stand out here on the porch and watch/listen as two people violently fight over alcohol in the next hotel room/apartment over. That will be great for your development as a worthwhile human being.” Like, she literally just stands there, looks down at her young kid, then keeps watching/listening as someone gets knocked out. THEN she ushers the kid back inside like “Well, show’s over, kiddo.”
1:54: Wilford Brimley’s in this? Woo hooooooo!
3:37: I have rewound and watched a sentence seven times and I still have no idea what he’s saying. It’s like “How about I just piece a lint for you, Lynn?” and she says, “No.” But I have no idea what he asked her. Why do movies INSIST on playing the intro song over actual dialogue? Ugh.
6:28: Room, meals, AND $2 an hour? In 1983 that’s like way more than minimum wage. That’s a great deal. She’s a terrible business owner.
13:02: I DON’T UNDERSTAND MOVIE TIMELINES. They have not spent any time together, really. They have not dated. They have not kissed. Yet he’s proposing to her out in this garden like “Obviously I totes love you. Marry me?” and she’s like “I’ve thought about it.” What is HAPPENING?
13:55: AND NOW THEY’RE MARRIED. Because the kid is getting bullied at school about having a stepdad. Like, I feel like the wedding/marriage thing is a pretty big plot point if the whole thing is him figuring out his life.
16:28: This reporter is a jacknut. Stop harassing the dude. You offered him the chance to comment, he chose not to, walk away. Don’t yell accusatory things through his screen door.
23:33: This band just learned the truth of “Never meet your heroes.” They were so psyched and he’s like, “I’m done singing. I don’t miss it at all.” *sadface*
26:40: Awww he did go see his ex-wife sing!
27:22: And FINALLY Wilford Brimley is on the screen. Phew. I guess he’s the ex-wife’s … dad? Manager? I don’t know. But he’s running a song Mac wrote to her and maybe she’ll record it!
30:25: Well his ex-wife just ramped that up exponentially. I mean, I get the guy was probably a really crappy husband. Alcoholic, threatening … bad news. But he’s clearly looking good, not slurring, and just wants to see his kid. For her to tell him the girl doesn’t remember him, doesn’t think about him and doesn’t care about him is mean.
34:29: Ah, so “tender mercies” is part of his wife’s nightly prayer. Got it. I’d never heard the term before.
36:23: So poor Mac’s feeling impotent about his life, yells at his wife, and peels out of the parking lot. Dude’s not real great marriage material.
36:49: The “International Cafe & Truck Stop” is a shack on the side of a road with seating for like 20 people. And no parking lot that would hold a rig. I love the “international” part most.
47:27: Mac went from taking his song to his ex-wife, who still sells out little Opry-type places, to his wife just giving it to a wandering group in a murder van and being like, “Nah, Mac won’t mind if you sing this thing he wrote that he was hoping to sell.” Maybe he learned his lesson, because he just told her he didn’t care about that.
50:54: Awww the band took his song to a record company and they want him to sing it! Sweet.
52:52: His daughter came to see him! Man, Ellen Barkin WAS young once.
58:59: Why did he tell his daughter he didn’t remember the song, then start singing it once she was gone?
1:02:13: Ol’ Wilford just wrote a check, signed it, then crumpled it up and threw it on the ground. What the what? Also, I love the surprise of Mac when he finds out his daughter eloped and found out the guy was 30 and thrice divorced. She told you they had to sneak around, that he was in her mom’s band, and that her mom didn’t like him. Did you think he was 18?
1:05:04: OMG that baptism water is funky. Looks like our old pool in our backyard in Ohio roundabout May when we’d open it back up. Just green and gross.
1:08:17: He wasn’t lying. That song is cheesy. “If you’ll just hold the ladder, I’ll climb to the top.”
1:17:41: Oh no! His daughter died in a car accident. Poor plot point daughter. Does seem like a weird time (fewer than 15 minutes to go) in the movie to drop that little nugget.
1:27:52: So wait, I’m just doing the math. She had that kid when she was 17. He’s probably like 8-9 now? I’m terrible with kids’ ages. So she’s 25. Mac is 15 years older than her, so I’m supposed to believe Duvall is only 40 in this movie? I guess he was only 52 when he filmed it, but he looked 52. Still. Also, nice of them to clear up that whole “past family” thing for him so he could toss the football with his stepson and climb back to country music stardom without all that pesky “old family” stuff dragging him down.
I mean, it was a fine movie? Not sure how it ended up on my list. Nothing stands out about it to me, and I’ve never heard it mentioned before. Probably never will again. But at least it was only 90 minutes (which still takes me more than four hours to do for this blog hahah).
What I “know”: It’s a love story? And there’s some line in this was called back in “What’s Up, Doc” but I can’t remember what it is. And it’s one my mom recommended, which is why I added it to the list. You guys don’t understand, she hasn’t seen a movie that wasn’t on Lifetime in 10 years … she’s not a movie person.
What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “Privileged Harvard jock Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O’Neal) sparks the anger of his steely, demanding father (Ray Milland) by falling in love with and marrying plebeian Radcliffe student Jennifer Cavalleri (Ali MacGraw), prompting his disapproving family to cut off his inheritance. After graduation, Oliver lands a job with a prominent law firm, and the blissful couple has the world by the tail — until tragedy intervenes.
OK, full disclosure: I was reading the four “not fresh” reviews of “The Big Sick” this morning on Rotten Tomatoes (P.S. Go see “The Big Sick,” seriously) and one of them said “If, in Love Story, Ryan O’Neal had departed Ali MacGraw’s bedside to do a whimsical what’s-the-deal-with-toast routine, it would have been hard to stay invested in their drama.” So I know the tragedy hits her. Also, the start of this description REMINDS me of “The Big Sick” but I guess it’s also a pretty standard issue (parents don’t approve of romantic interest, high jinks ensue) in movies.
Negative points for using “plebeian,” however. Ugh.
TRAILER!
In that screen shot above, she looks a lot like young Angie Harmon.
Pre-title screen on the DVD: “This motion picture has been rated PG for some language and a love scene.” Oh, 1970. You were too pure for this world.
00:52: Well, I guess it’s not really a spoiler when it opens with “What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who died?” How am I supposed to get invested if the whole time I’m watching it, I know she’s a dead woman walking?
2:09: “What makes you so smart?” “I wouldn’t go for coffee with you.” “Well I wouldn’t ask you.” “That’s what makes you stupid.” *fade to coffee being poured.*
3:26: Ugh, she is insufferable. I hope I get to like her at some point so I can care when she dies.
6:39: Hey, it’s Tommy Lee Jones!
7:39: “I think I’m in love with you.” You’ve had one cup of coffee, two walks to her dorm and a hockey game in which you spoke for 30 seconds and she was horrible and you were horrible. What was happening in the ’70s?
9:20: Argh! I knew Ray Milland sounded familiar. He was Tony in “Dial M for Murder!” Blah.
9:56: And Oliver IV just called the Cornell bench “faggots.” Sometimes one forgets how much time has passed and then you hear words thrown around and it’s like “Oh yeah, that was totally fine back then.”
13:57: She just said “The million and oneth time.” Would you say “The million and fiveth time” or “The million and twoth time?” No, you say “Million and first”, you stupid broad. Ugh.
17:34: Thank GOD he finally said something to her. “Look, Cavalleri, I know your game and I’m tired of playing it. You’re the supreme Radcliffe smartass — the best — you put down anything in pants. But verbal volleyball is not my idea of a relationship and if that’s what you think it’s all about, why don’t you just go back to your music walks and good luck.”
21:00: WHY are they bending their books back on themselves? Filthy casuals (I know that’s the wrong usage, but it’s how I feel, so too bad).
26:27: No, Jenny, “Because” is not a good reason when you ask someone why they want to marry you. Especially when they bring it up as soon as you say you have a scholarship to leave the country for a year. That’s controlling. Man, there were no winners in this argument. I mean, I guess him since she forgot all about her future, but he was a complete bonehead throughout.
27:10: His teeny-tiny car with the steering wheel on the wrong side can’t be street legal.
36:33: “If you marry her, I’ll not give you the time of day.” “Father, you don’t know the time of day” *throws napkin on table and storms out like a child*
42:58: Her dad is awesome. He’s all fired up, going to fight for Oliver IV, finds out his daughter doesn’t want a Catholic wedding, doesn’t want a godly wedding at all, doesn’t believe in God, and will speak at her own ceremony and he’s just like “Oh, OK, that’s how things are now.”
49:05: Wait, how do they have a boat? They’re broke and he’s going to Harvard Law.
55:17: Man, Oliver IV goes from 0-100 real quickly. Rips the phone out of her hand, tells her to get out of his life, and she runs out. I’m guessing this is where she gets hit by a car or something.
56:51: I know I say it in every old movie, but it’s crazy to me that you couldn’t just call someone who ran out. I know I lived in those times but I don’t even remember not having at least a pager. He’s running all over town looking for her and there’s no better way to do it.
58:58: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” is stupid. Barbra Streisand was right. What kind of cockamamie stuff is that? He ripped a phone out of your hand and yelled at you for trying to be a better person? He should say sorry every minute for the rest of his life.
1:10:34: Wait, why is the doctor who is like their fertility doctor the one telling him, and not her, that she’s dying? A.) that’s not really his thing and B.) Pretty sure she should find out first? These are some shenanigans.
1:14:20: So hold on, the doctor actually talked to her and LIED? WTF? I am so angry about this I just called my mother (who can’t remember the details of a movie she saw 45+ years ago) to yell about this stupid doctor and how illegal that is and her response was, “It’s just a story.” Truth.
1:19:49: Half the time she looks like Angie Harmon and half the time she looks like Kendall Jenner.
1:21:44: I started crying during the “merry widower” part and I’m crying again when they’re getting hot chocolate. I literally didn’t realize how invested I was, especially after my anger fit at the doctor.
1:36:41: Through a constant stream of tears I type this: I don’t think that’s how cancer works. I don’t think someone goes from being that demonstrative to dead in like 30 minutes.
This was a really weird movie in that I didn’t honestly like anyone in it, but I was still ugly crying by the end. Like REALLY ugly crying. It was a gutpunch out of nowhere, and my concerns about knowing she died at the start were unfounded.
What I “know”: It’s romantic? It involves Africa? Robert Redford washes her hair at some point and my female friends have told me about that scene.
What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “Hoping to forge a better life, Denmark native Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep) enters into a marriage of convenience with a womanizing baron. But when the couple moves to Nairobi, Karen falls in love with a free-spirited hunter (Robert Redford) who can’t be tied down. Director Sydney Pollack’s lush period drama earned seven Academy Awards, including statues for Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography.”
Wait, TWO HOURS AND 41 MINUTES? Are there no editors in Hollywood? Yipes. Also, ugh on the period piece. Also, it’s 79 degrees in my house because I refuse to turn my a/c on this early and when I open my living room window, my dog barks at every freaking noise. Soooooo it’s not only Redford making me sweat.
TRAILER!
00:50: I sit next to a guy from Denmark in my office. I’m going to ask him on Monday if her accent is good. It sounds-ish like him, but who knows?
4:04: This green screen, where she’s talking to her lover’s brother about how they’re both losers and should just get married, is horrific. Photos don’t do it justice … I tried.
8:10: Ugh, those tusks. Just, ugh.
9:06: Nice deerhound.
9:35: I love that this lady brought china to Nairobi. You psycho.
12:50: Well, that’s officially the shortest wedding I’ve ever seen. I hope the Redford sex makes her loosen up and become human. Right now, ick.
20:42: That weird kissing power-struggle thing was weird. Like, really weird. I’m grossed out. I need Redford, stat.
26:59: My initial thought of “Hey idiot, if your horse is freaking out and running away, you should probably not ignore that warning sign” was quickly replaced with “Thank god, it’s Robert Redford!”
30:31: Redford looks really good for 50 in this movie. I’m partial, but still. I feel like Meryl Streep has always looked the same age, though. She’s 35 in this, but I’d buy her at 45 or 50, or 30. She’s hard for me to place on an age scale.
31:54: Poor Berkeley. He has no shot. Nice guy, but he’s no Redford.
34:55: I BLESS THE RAINS DOWN IN AFRICAAAAA. Sorry, had to do it.
40:10: “You’re not going to go and fall in love.” “Not with someone who’s always leaving.” She hasn’t read the Netflix sleeve, where she falls in love with a man who can’t be tied down.
46:14: I know it’s a way of life and all, but all these whips cracking on these poor animals is just killing me on the inside.
50:32: There are only like 8-10 Maasai, but they are intimidating as hell. Where’s Redford when you need him?
51:33: I was just thinking about the Africans, both the ones walking her entire trip while she rides a horse and the Maasai running across the desert, and how strong they must have been. Then the lions show up on my screen, I gasped … as I ate a handful of almond M&Ms and contemplated turning on my a/c. I am a very weak person. WHY ARE THE CATTLE/OX/WHATEVER NOT MOOING OR SOMETHING?
54:05: I’m sure that whole speech about oxen was awesome, but I couldn’t understand any of it.
58:09: SHE FOUGHT OFF A LION SINGLE-HANDEDLY AND HE GAVE HER SYPHILIS? Jesus, dude.
1:00:39: What is up with Redford’s tie??
1:02:17: Ah yes, the always awkward “You gave me syphilis” conversation with your husband. “And the others, whoever they are. I hope they’ve got it.” Good for you, Meryl.
1:03:08: I get the cinematography Oscar. Very stunning shots in this movie.
1:10:06: This had better be where their affair begins. We’re almost halfway through. Get to it!
1:15:27: Almost halfway through the movie before she even kisses him. This movie is ridiculous. I wish I loved it. I want to love it. But I didn’t need 75 minutes of her moving to Africa, planting coffee, helping the slaves, fighting a lion, etc. Ugh.
1:16:21: Some drunk idiot just shot two holes in the ceiling and you all just start singing along with her? What is happening in 1919?
1:17:04: “Someone has left her underclothes in the back.” Karen to her philandering, syphilis-infected husband as he drives her home from the New Year’s party. Bless that line.
1:25:57: What did he think the monkeys would do? Sit down and write dissertations on Mozart? Of course they’re going to mess with your record player, you weirdo.
1:29:33: That was it? THAT was the hairwash scene? I want my hopes back.
INTERLUDE: It is now about 40 hours since I started this movie, and my fourth attempt to finish it. That doesn’t say much for my enjoyment.
1:36:41: Those poor lions. All because you jackasses wanted to go wandering around the wilds of Africa. Ugh. I hate hunters and I hate hunting and I hate big-game hunting most of all. I know that’s not what this was (self-defense, I suppose, but they definitely didn’t HAVE to be there and the lions weren’t invading THEIR living space) but ugh.
1:40:15: I was just typing “the hand on the shoulder before walking back to her tent means ‘Bring your butt on'” when he showed up at the flap of her tent. It’s about dang time.
1:41:05: Dangit, they were showing sex in movies by 1985! I should have known … PG rating. “If you say anything now, I’ll believe it.” Been there, girl. Never good.
1:45:12: Mmmm mosquito-net sex.
1:46:39: Holy crap, that’s Iman! Berkeley gave up on the crazy Danish lady and is getting into it with Iman! Good for ol’ Berkeley, except for the whole dying part.
1:49:12: So this is the 1920s version of the “I’m giving you a drawer” conversation? Adorable. Also, he follows it up with, “Oh, and our friend is dying.”
1:51:45: Know what a great basis for a relationship is? Not seeing each other very often, no real conversation about your lives (just telling stories) and only focusing on the physical. Or wait, is that the worst basis? Hmmm.
1:52:53: So she sees a plane, knows it’s him, takes off, climbs in the plane, he says he learned how to fly yesterday, and she settles in? Gah. Also, why does the pilot sit in the back seat? That seems like a bad plan.
1:54:05: Imagine this picture in HD, and/or IMAX? Mind-blowing.
1:57:40: Bror: “You might have asked, Dennis.” Redford: “I did. She said yes.” HAAHAHAHH she’s not your property, you syphilitic ass.
2:05:10: See, this is the Redford character I hate (and it’s honestly almost all of his characters I’ve seen): He gets flippant when he’s uncomfortable. She’s talking about what she wants and desires from him and he’s just tossing off jokes and half-laughing. The worst. Though I did like “I do mate for life. One day at a time.”
2:06:44: That whole fireside scene where he’s being a jerk and she’s being open reminds me of my favorite guilty pleasure Redford movie.
I’m starting to think he plays the same guy a lot.
2:10:49: UGH. While her overarching point is correct (someone who isn’t willing to compromise doesn’t get to demand the other person give up what’s important to them), ending your sex bomb relationship with Robert Redford over a sweet girl who has never done anything to hurt you and probably wouldn’t bang your dude anyway is not the right way to go. Felicity wouldn’t do that, and I honestly don’t think he would either. Stop being a jealous wench, crazy Danish lady, or else you’re just proving him right.
2:13:13: I hope Dennis lit her coffee factory on fire on his way out of town. That would make me happy.
2:15:38: So in this great coming-out party for the new governor, they let rag-tag ol’ Dennis just hobble on in in his dirty jacket and ratty hat? And then he’s like “No, don’t stop her from begging, I want to watch too.”
2:19:40: I just got a little choked up at her speech to the one guy (sorry I can’t keep names straight) about on safari, her sending him up ahead to set up camp and build a fire for them to follow. And then him asking if where she’s going is far (it is) and him saying “Then you must build a big fire so I can find you.”
2:24:42: So the whole scene where he comes back and wants to go with her … ugh. You can’t be that steadfast and then just cave. Like 90 percent of other people see it as “Oh, he realized how much he needed her and that was more important than EVERYTHING HE HAS EVER BELIEVED IN” but I will never buy that. It just feels like a game of chicken he wasn’t prepared to lose.
2:27:03: Of course he dies in a plane crash before the “happily ever after.” Moral of the story: Don’t give up on your beliefs and what you want or else you will die in a horrible fire.
OK, so I learned from the closing credits that his name is Denys. I’m not going to go back and change that. Sorry.
I disliked this movie for the first 1:40-2 hours of it. I felt it dragged, was giving me WAY too much background noise that I didn’t need. I still feel that way, but less so. Probably the first 1:40 could be condensed down to an hour, making it a two-hour movie. Still would have dragged some, but most movies do. I feel really bummed for Karen, who lost her family’s money, her husband, her lover, her farm, her career, and her friends. And for what? Nothing. Another movie where no one wins … aside from maybe Bror, who snaked someone else into marrying him.
What I “know”: A pure and wholesome nanny raises a ton of kids while their rich dad tries to outrun the Nazis or something. I think the Nazis are involved. And it’s a musical. And I’m dreading it. And I opened up the sleeve saying “Please only be an hour and a half” only to see “2 hrs, 54 mins” staring back at me. I despise whoever added this to my list, though I suppose I should see it.
What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “In Rodgers and Hammerstein’s greatest collaboration, a feisty postulant named Maria (Julie Andrews) is sent to care for the unruly, motherless Von Trapp children. She soon tames them — and finds herself falling for their stern father (Christopher Plummer). Oscar-winning director Robert Wise used stunning Austrian locations to transform the popular stage musical into a cinema class in which the hills truly seemed to come alive.”
OK, ,maybe there aren’t Nazis? I don’t know. But what the hell is a postulant? I guess it’s the more formal way to say “nanny,” but whatever. Here goes.
TRAILER!
I saw the first 10 seconds while I was embedding that, and Julie Andrews’s hair makes me sad.
1:05: If two hours of this movie is just panning across mountains, I swear …
3:21: Great. The movie opens with a song. And not even a good one. The hills don’t have music. They have bugs and rocks. P.S. I don’t like nature. I like air conditioning and TVs.
10:16: Oh great, she’s a nun? And she’s the black sheep of the nunnery?
13:07: I’m glad they found a bunch of classically trained singers for this, I guess, but they should have checked to see if they could act. They can’t.
19:59: “Seven children. What’s so fearsome about that?” Honey, pull up a chair. I can make a doozy of a list. Then again, one child frightens the everloving junk out of me … so take that as you will.
23:57: “Wait here, please.” *new nanny goes around opening doors in the great hall to just kind of snoop around on the richies*
27:14: Holy crap, that whistle is annoying. He doesn’t have kids, he has well-trained dogs. And that’s only six kids. Why are they so Stepfordy?
27:35: Oh, there’s Kid Seven. She’s reading. I guess she’s forgiven from the military drill.
32:19: OK, you know what? Once they stopped singing and the kids were brats and she was lost, I was going to give it a shot. Then there was a frog. I have three fears in life: Frogs, bridges, and thunderstorms. Ugh.
37:59: This whole telegram business is making me nauseous. I get it’s rated G, and it’s from 1965, but holy cow. “Dear Rolf, stop. Don’t stop. Your Liesl.” Now, considering she didn’t do another “stop,” She’s actually saying “don’t.” “Dear Rolf, don’t. Your Liesl.” Much better. OH MY GOODNESS, HIS SINGING VOICE. MAKE HIM STOP.
48:22: And of course, now there’s a thunderstorm. Tell me on their long trip to avoid the Nazis that they also nearly die on a bridge. Please, give me the trifecta.
51:25: There are so many things about “My Favorite Things” that make me want to murder. Who wants brown paper-wrapped packages tied in strings? If you have snowflakes that stay on your nose, you might be dead. You shouldn’t be below freezing temperature. Why are girls in blue sashes make you happy? Who wants crispy strudel?
56:02: As someone who never even babysat, I don’t want to second guess a nanny (though I guess she’s new to it) but having a 5-year-old skipping on the edge of a cliff with a river below doesn’t seem like the best decision.
1:02:11: Aww, how cute. The cultish kids who have never sung have perfect pitch and they immediately pick up harmonizing. How lucky!
1:12:26: I will never understand how Fraulein (I’m not looking for the umlauts in here, sorry) Maria would ever fall for stick-in-the-ass Captain Von Trapp.
1:18:55: They just have a full-size puppet theater? And they’re all trained in marionette? How do they find the time between military drills??
1:21:56: So, I took my dogs out before this number and had “Do, Re, Mi” stuck in my head. I swear to all that is good in this world, if this stupid yodeling song haunts my thoughts and dreams, I will seek vengeance.
1:31:20: So grumpy old Meandad suddenly leaves his date and his party and goes out to the terrace, then cuts in on his son getting his arms broken by the nanny trying to do a spin move. Of course he does.
1:32:41: “What a lovely couple you make,” his girlfriend passive-aggressively says. Why can’t the girlfriend ever be likeable and he just likes the other person more? Why must they write them as cold, frigid bitches?
1:33:31: OH NO IT’S THE AUF WIEDERSEHEN SONG. (Two years of high school German meant I could spell that without having to look it up. Also, “Was kostet den Taschenrechner” means “how much is the calculator.” FYI.)
1:36:01: If I was at a party at some dude’s house and we all had to come out and watch his kids audition for “Austria’s Got Talent” or whatever, I’d be pissed. I mean, sure, they can sing. But that right there is an A-No.-1 party killer.
1:36:16: OMG THEY ANSWERED THE LITTLE BRATS.
1:37:58: “You flatter me, Captain.” “Oh, how clumsy of me. I meant to accuse you.” BURN.
1:39:40: “It’s not your fault he finds you beautiful. He’ll get over it. Oh, here, want me to help you pack? You ain’t got to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
1:40:05: “Please don’t tell the Captain that the woman tasked with raising his children has disappeared in the night and left them without a caretaker. I’d hate for him to be somehow prepared for that news.”
1:40:16: Ugh, Maria’s too nice. She should have gotten catty and rolled down to that party fully dolled up and beat that Baroness at her own game.
1:44:48: Only a two-minute intermission? I was hoping that would eat up 15 minutes of the remaining 70. Though I am enjoying the first scene back of the seven hellions bullying their potential stepmother.
1:49:48: This “greeting of the new mother” thing is more like a funeral procession.
1:55:07: The reverend mother (I don’t know if that’s supposed to be capped or not, sorry) is playing matchmaker? I didn’t think that was how things worked.
1:56:27: I’ve never heard “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” and I hate it already. So operatic. Why?
2:03:43: Well, well, well. Maria’s wearing the dress in which the Baroness said the Captain couldn’t keep his eyes off her. And so it begins … the nun becomes the homewrecker!
2:04:12: And the Captain comes out on the balcony. “Juliet, oh Juliet, wherefore art thou a nanny and not a baroness?” And the devil comes out, dressed in red. Not one for subtlety, are they?
2:05:00: “You have no idea the trouble I’m having trying to find you a wedding present. … Oh, I know, I’m enough …” Holy schnikeys, lady, try a little harder? Did she just go from getting him a fountain pen to a villa in the south of France?
2:05:45: “It’s no use.” Well, that’s about the harshest breakup line they could get away with in a G-rated movie, but that had to cut her. “Try all you want to, I’m in love with the virginal practice nun with the boy’s haircut who can sing like an angel.”
2:07:07: I give the Baroness credit for not lashing out and being a psycho, and I give him credit for not denying her charges that he’s going to get with the nanny.
2:10:29: I like that they had to kiss in a shadow since it’s G-rated.
2:11:44: WHY WOULD SHE START SINGING THERE? He’s nuzzling your face, weirdo. Go make out with him. I’m 99 percent sure I’d love this movie if it didn’t have 427 songs in it. Instead I’m just annoyed by the plot breaks for incessant singing. Does she still get paid as a nanny? Or is she just stuck with these kids forever with no remuneration?
2:15:12: NO. I want to see the children’s reactions. Don’t give me this slow fade into her in a horrible wedding dress with half a bush wrapped around her head.
2:16:23: Oh, I get it. The fence is the symbolism of her leaving her old life behind. Again, subtlety not the strong suit here.
2:17:04: It’s every girl’s dream to walk down the aisle with a soundtrack of people singing about you being a problem played over top.
2:19:03: NAZIS. I knew it. Man, I’m glad “Schindler’s List” is further down my queue. I’m about Nazied out right now.
2:22:36: Of course Rolf is a Nazi.
2:26:23: OK, so not only is this movie like 2/3 music, but they repeat a bunch of the songs over and over? Please, stop. So far it’s “The Sound of Music,” “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria,” and “16 Going on 17,” at least.
2:29:06: Man, they picked a really awkward time to go on their honeymoon. Now they have like four hours to pack up nine people and all their belongings and get out of Dodg … er, Austria.
2:30:58: Who was steering the car around the turn? And OH NO, NAZIS.
2:39:47: So wait, the game plan is to turn the crowd in this one building against the Third Reich for wanting to separate a man from his family? And they think that’s going to make a difference? I swear, if this is what fixes everything, I’m done.
2:40:27: Oh god, now it’s “Auf Wiedersehen” again? Ugh. Maybe this is the plan, to send them off into the dark so they can escape. Makes the Nazis look stupid (duh) but at least it’s more believable than them saying, “Oh no, people don’t like our decision! Forget the whole thing!”
2:41:47: But … they’re all sitting in the front row. In the front row, you can see outside the spotlight. They’d be able to see them all sprinting for the wings. Especially with the way the stupid kids kept looking back at the parents.
2:44:02: So there was even a Nazi guard down where all the acts were hanging out and they still got out? Man, that’s a dumb mistake.
2:49:42: Awww good guy Nazi Rolf.
2:50:01: Oops. Spoke too soon.
2:51:52: That thing’s a clown car if it fit eight people in it.
2:52:38: Man, those nuns sure know a lot about cars to be able to pull [insert important parts here because I am not a nun and do not know much about cars] out of the Nazis’ cars.
2:53:18: That’s a really high mountain for a bunch of kids in knee socks and loafers to have climbed.
I MADE IT! I MADE IT THROUGH. And I was right … I would have liked that movie a lot more were it not a musical. I just … don’t like musicals (“Grease” excepted). I’m more open to “Singin’ in the Rain” than this one. Also, the whole Nazi plot was just kind of sprung. I know it’s based on a real story (but I’ve also read things about all the stuff they got wrong, like how the Nazis came in 11 years after they got married or something) but more than just a throwaway line at a party, they should have dealt more with the Nazis in the movie rather than just launch them in at the end.
What I “know”: Another movie I literally know nothing about. I’ve started the DVD player up, so I’m on the title screen, so I see a very … alluring Bette Davis? With a couple behind her? I’m guessing she breaks them up or tries to for some devilish scam. Also, it’s 2 hours and 19 minutes. Did no one have editors back then??
What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: Writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s sharp script anchors this story about New York City theater life, with Bette Davis playing an aging Broadway diva who employs a starstruck fan (Anne Baxter) as her assistant, only to learn the woman is a conniving upstart. The now-classic “All About Eve” won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (George Sanders).
Well, I’m intrigued. A “sharp script” is always going to be a positive for me, and this thing was a “short wait” on Netflix, so it’s obviously still popular. Or, more likely, they only have one copy they have to ship around the country. Oh well, here we go!
TRAILER!
3:20: Addison Dewitt, Sanders’s part, is a catty old hag, isn’t he? He’s giving the lowdown on everyone at this awards ceremony and he pulls no punches. He said the playwright’s wife had nothing in her history or life that should have brought her closer to the stage than Row E, center.
4:10: Ha! Margo pours liquor in her glass and waves away the soda water. Good girl.
6:45: Well, the women don’t like her. Men all clapping, Karen and Margo … not so much. I mean, having read the sleeve, I know she does Margo wrong. Maybe Margo and the wife are friends? Maybe Eve sleeps with the writer to get the part? No idea. P.S. “Playwright” is one of those words that I know is right, but when you write it a few times, it stops looking right. Like how if you say any simple word, like drawer, over and over, it starts to sound weird. Anyway …
8:44: A-ha! She is Margo’s best friend. And she’s apparently the one who lets Eve in the door. Good work on destroying your friend’s career, Karen!
12:45: Bette Davis’s eyes, those of songs, don’t do much for me … but I could listen to her voice all night. And Birdie with the early entry for “best spoiler of Margo’s attitude.”
14:30: Uh, Eve is giving off some strong stalker vibes. I mean, beyond the just “huddling in an alley and then doing SRO for every performance” thing. Margo says, “There are other plays” and Eve says, “Not with you in them.”
16:03: “It got so I couldn’t tell the real from the unreal.” Dude, this is where you escort her out of the room. They were too trusting in the 1950s. She moved ACROSS THE COUNTRY to follow a play Margo was in. Come on. My stalker senses are giving me a headache.
19:46: “Heaven help me, I love a psychotic.” Margo is my spirit animal.
27:58: I’ll tell you who doesn’t like Eve … Birdie. That lady is smart. She smells the opportunist.
31:34: Man, if “Single White Female” had come out in the ’40s, Eve Harrington could have played it.
37:35: Haha, Birdie’s face is all, “I tried to warn you” after Eve said she’d sent a telegram to Margo’s boyfriend for his birthday. Birdie is all of us.
40:28: WAIT, dresses in the ’50s had pockets? What? I thought that was a new-ish thing.
45:25: Holy crap, that’s Marilyn Monroe! That’s the prettiest I’ve ever seen her look. So pure and young.
55:40: Man, Karen is the reason everything keeps getting worse. Road to hell, etc., etc. Now she wants to make Eve Margo’s understudy and says, “I think [Margo]’d cheer.” Guess again, buttercup. She’s literally never seen her act a single second, aside from the four seconds in this movie she’s acted like a non-stalker.
59:08: Eve is talking crazy about how applause is like love and Karen just smiles like it’s the sweetest thing she’s ever heard. Karen is the worst.
1:10:47: “It is about time the piano realize it has not written the concerto.” Damn, Lloyd Richards. I mean, Margo’s being a bitch, no doubt, but Lloyd had no chill.
1:15:16: So Margo just basically quit the play and got dumped, all within 10 minutes? Well done. Time management skills, check.
1:24:58: Karen is THE WORST.
1:26:05: Or wait, Eve might be the worst. Lordy, she might as well just hitch up her skirt and ask Bill if he likes what he sees.
1:27:13: Bill handled that about as well as he could have, short of slapping her and calling her names. “What I want, I go after. I don’t want it coming after me.”
1:28:39: “We all come into this world with our little egos equipped with individual horns. If we don’t blow them, who will?” I can see why Sanders was honored. He’s the little observer for all of us.
1:30:17: Oooooooh Addison is coming for Eve. Coming hard. Hoisting her on her own petard, or something.
1:45:18: Karen tells Eve, “I don’t think you meant to cause unhappiness.” Oh, she very much did. Oh my god, she’s blackmailing Karen! I don’t know who to root for. I mean, they’re both terrible people. Bill is the only person in this movie who gives a shit about Margo!
1:55:12: Nope, never mind, Eve is the worst. Karen is just stupid.
1:58:50: I know I’m supposed to hate Eve, so well done, moviemaker? I mean, there’s not a lot of nuance to her, so I’m glad she didn’t get an award for this. But cripes, she just moves from man to man, power grab to power grab.
2:02:04: I mean, Addison is more responsible for creating Eve than even Karen, but man … that slap across her face felt due.
2:03:50: THERE’S MY ADDISON. He set her up, and he’s taking her down, hard.
2:04:54: “You are an improbable person, Eve, and so am I. We have that in common. Also, our contempt for humanity and an inability to love and be loved.” If he wasn’t using this as a way to hit on the woman he just exposed as a power-hungry liar, it would stand for a description of my dating history.
2:10:23: And Margo, line of the movie:
2:12:47: Why are there so many stalkers in this movie? Now there’s just some young girl who broke into Eve’s apartment? At least Eve … er, Gertrude … was invited in.
2:16:49: Man, talk about circle of life. The stalker becomes the stalkee. Is everyone in acting this insane?
I’m trying to do a little introspection as to how I love Scarlett O’Hara so much, but hate Eve. No clue. But I need to see more Bette Davis movies if she always plays sassy ladies. I lived for her, even if she was a little slow on the uptick.
Stars: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd
Rated: R
Released: 1971
What I “know:” Absolutely nothing. I’m assuming it has to do with like a closing movie theater? Or that it’s a metaphor for life? Don’t know. But finally saw “Crazy Heart” last week so I’m all in on Jeff Bridges right now, so this is perfect timing.
What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “There’s not much to do in the windswept Texas hamlet of Anarene, where the town’s only cinema is about to close forever. So high schoolers Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges) lust after incorrigible flirt Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd) while trying to chart their uncertain futures. When Duane heads for Korea after joining the service and Jacy gets shipped off to college, Sonny is left behind in a veritable ghost town.”
Well, sounds like I was right on both counts? It’s literal and figurative. I do hope this blurb is general studio-types overwriting things because I don’t want to watch high schoolers “try to chart their uncertain futures” as that seems very unlikely there would be extended conversations about that between 17-year-olds.
P.S. Why were movies so looooong in the old days? Like every movie I’m watching is 2+.
Trailer!
00:10: Well, the black and white sure does add to the bleakness. Yikes.
1:40: Why is that idiot sweeping in a windstorm? At least they picked people who could relatively pass for high schoolers, at least these two. Bridges was 22, Bottoms was 20. They look younger. Well done on that. If you’d asked me, I’d have never have guessed that guy was Bridges, though.
5:23: Oh, that wasn’t Bridges. Good. That’s Bridges, hopping off the truck. Recognized him immediately. Never mind. He also looks markedly older than the sweeping guy.
7:20: Why would anyone play high school football in that god-forsaken town? These poor kids are getting crapped on by every adult over 30 in town. Short answer, I know, is “It’s Texas.” But I guess I didn’t realize it was like that even in towns like that, even back then.
9:19: Mopey McSadface gets to make out with Timothy Bottoms? Weird. Also, gross that he keeps his eyes open to look at Liz Taylor while he’s making out with her, but I get it.
9:55: Look, Mopey, you don’t get to be homely and bitchy. That’s why they talk about how ugly girls have great personalities. You don’t pull your tongue out of Timothy Bottom’s mouth and then start bitching he didn’t buy you anything for your anniversary. I get it, he should have remembered, but maybe have that conversation more than 2 seconds after he’s been exploring your teeth for cavities.
10:06: Man, Cybill Shepherd was gorgeous. I’d only seen her from “Moonlighting” on, but hoo boy. I mean, seriously. Shepherd’s gorgeous, Bridges is hot with those dimples, and Bottoms is beautiful. Whatever was happening in that one-horse town, it sure led to good breeding.
11:46: Well, hello again, Mopey. She’s bitching about how cold it is as she’s taking off all her clothes for Timothy Bottoms.
13:23: OK, everyone loses in that scene. I don’t blame Bottoms for cutting bait, but you can’t do it right after she fends off your advances down below. And you can’t end it by telling her she wasn’t very hot when you just wasted a year of her life. Boo to both of you!
14:55: I like the “sassy waitress who tells it like it is.” That being said, $4K in medical bills in that time would have been unbearable. It’s not great now, but 65, 70 years ago? Assuming this is set late 40s, early 50s if Duane ships off to Korea. Inflation calculator tells me it’s about $40K equivalent in 2016.
19:05: The Rig-Wam Drive Inn is a great freaking name.
19:50: Who’s the weird guy in the helmet and sunglasses who takes bets on HS football games and who has apparently pissed off Jacy’s mom?
22:06: “Everything gets old if you do it often enough.” Jacy’s mom is speaking to me.
23:56: Hey, it’s Cloris Leachman!
27:16: Bottoms looks like a young Paul Rudd. That’s what’s been eating at me. Paul Rudd with a little Richard Gere.
28:51: Holy crud, is that Randy Quaid? IMDB tells me it is. He has always had the same weird, hunched, weird, loping, weird walk.
30:35: Oooh a catfight! But a good question … why is he kissing his boss’s wife? Jacy’s mom is trash.
30:42: Cloris Leachman was 46 when this was released. There is something about her, in everything I’ve ever seen her in, where even in her younger days she still looked old. I don’t understand it. I could have guessed she was 60 in this movie even though time tells me that’s not possible. She’s a puzzle.
31:16: Why is everyone so mean to the prematurely balding pastor’s son? Poor kid.
31:38: Jacy just told Quaid to wait for her outside while she’s dancing with Duane. Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.
33:32: Jacy, you saucy minx. She’s one to watch out for. As her boyfriend basically tackles poor Quaid and challenges him to a fight, she sits in the car and just calmly watches.
36:49: SONNY, YOU DOG. You can’t go around making out with your coach’s wife over a trash can! Have some decency. At least do it around the corner.
37:52: Again with the sexism. Nude dude gets shown from the waist up, nude girl gets full frontal. #nudeequality
40:42: So Quaid and a bunch of strangers got to see her naked before poor ol’ Duane? Unfair! (I’d try to do a whole blog in Trump fashion but I don’t think I could pull it off)
42:15: If Sonny is supposed to be sympathetic in some way, they are failing miserably. 1. Forgets his anniversary, tries to go up girlfriend’s skirt, breaks up with her; 2. Makes out with coach’s wife; 3. Lets his friends strip his (autistic?) brother down and send him off to a hooker. I do, however, feel bad for calling him a sweeping idiot earlier.
44:36: Good on the old pool owner. At least someone’s looking out for Billy.
48:27: Right around Sonny’s second thrust, Mrs. Popper started really regretting her decision to bed the high school jock.
57:22: I’m glad Sam’s around. These boys need guidance and leadership and forgiveness and how to learn how to be men. Good for Sam.
1:01:32: Speaking of Trump, that dude who hosted the swim party just grabbed Jacy by the hoo-ha.
1:05:41: Well, that’s a kick in the gut. I had just come to appreciate Sam, and now he’s gone. Who’s going to lead these boys now? Their shitty fathers? No. Awww he left $1000 for the pastor’s son everyone was shitty to. Good for Sam.
1:10:46: OMG, Jacy just said “that tickles” when poor Duane was trying to perform for the first time. The burn that left must have haunted him for life.
1:17:06: Man, Jacy picked the wrong dude. Went off and got married. No wonder she leaves town for college.
1:19:40: Dude. A.) She’s 18 at BEST. B.) She’s apparently your friend’s daughter. C.) You’re already banging her mom. Stop getting all rapey. D.) Apparently guys back then just laid on girls and that was sex. WTF?
1:28:53: Poor Cloris. Married to a terrible man and now dumped by her boy toy for the town tramp.
1:30:26: “He didn’t do nothing to her besides get her to take her underpants off.” Good lord. That’s something, you weirdo. Now I know why everyone picked on the pastor’s son. Weirdo.
1:38:48: Oh, Jacy, you can’t just marry your ex’s best friend because you’re lonely. Silly girl.
1:47:20: FINALLY we get to the title of the movie.
1:53:55: OH GOD NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. That broom lying there and the cars all stopped and people gathering. No. Sweet little Billy did not just get hit by a truck. Holy crap.
1:56:38: So he just leaves his brother’s body lying there, on the sidewalk, with his letterman’s jacket over his face, and then hightails it out of town? WTF, Sonny? I mean, I get that there’s nothing there for him any more, but … well, at least call the cops or something.
1:57:46: He came back just to talk to his old married screwbuddy? What in the everloving tarnation is going on here?
1:59:58: Wait, how does she already know Billy’s dead?
OK, I have absolutely no feelings about that movie, good or bad. Duane, oddly, was the only one who actually showed any growth, and even that was minimal. This reminds me of “Boyhood,” which I despised because there was no point, no plot, no anything. Just ugh. So I guess it’s good I didn’t despise this movie? Parts were enjoyable, parts were hard to watch, parts were OMG. Makes sense Sonny would go back to the one place he felt safe when he’d lost everything else. Meh.
Stars: Sandra Dee, John Gavin, Juanita Moore, Lana Turner
Released: 1959
Rated: NR
What I “know”: I kind of cheated and had read the sleeve, or a close facsimile thereof, when Netflix’s original shipment to me was lost and I wanted to know if I wanted to wait for a new one or just move it down my queue. So I know it’s about a white mother who ends up living with a black woman and her daughter. I’m interested to see how it was handled in 1959.
What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: Lora, a white widow with a daughter, and Annie, a black single mother, move in together and face a huge challenge as they try to raise their children. Annie’s daughter favors her light-skinned father and comes to resent her mother’s black identity.
Well, now I’m even more intrigued. Not only is it about race relations, but it’s about identifying within the spectrum of being a black American. Also, I took the stars off the IMDB page, and it only listed three white people. WTF? So I found out who played Annie and added her. She’s one of the main stars, IMDB! P.S. I chose the 1959 version. Was unaware there was a 1934 version until afterward.
Trailer!
(Edit: I added the trailer after watching the movie, and man, they really focused on the wrong part of this movie.)
Even the intro screen, where you choose “play,” only shows the three white actors. Damn, 1959. Also, quick note, the white woman is widowed but the black woman is just a single mother? Yeesh. At least in the opening credits, Juanita Moore gets to be “And Presenting,” which is nice.
1:13: Oooh, Mahalia Jackson sings in this? Sweetness.
4:45: Well, that’s a meet-cute! White mother misplaces her child at a very crowded beach, black woman finds her, reports it to the cops, AND buys her a hot dog? How adorable. And now the two little girls have run off to destroy other people’s makeout sessions under the guise of playing tag.
5:50: So I obviously don’t know Annie Johnson’s whole backstory, and I appreciate her willingness to just roll with the “yes, she’s really my daughter” conversation, but how she ended up in Coney Island when she sounds like she’s from South Georgia … did they make all black actors back then either be southern or uneducated city folks? Either simple, or dangerous? I know it’s hard to watch and try to put myself in that time, as I never lived through it, but it’s off-putting to me.
6:39: Lana Turner is REALLY laid back as the child she thought she’d lost like 2 minutes ago is suddenly giving out their address to a strange man with a camera. Again, more innocent time, I guess, but … yikes.
9:18: So I’m partial to Annie’s daughter, Sarah Jane, since that’s my dog’s name, but they couldn’t even bother finding an actual light-skinned black actress? There’s no part of this girl who looks like she would come from Annie. I get Lora’s confusion now.
11:55: Annie is such a nice person, always smiling, and of course the Southern black woman says to trust in God. What else did I expect from a ’50s movie? I hope they give her some depth.
15:55: So the crazy stalker with the camera from the beach now shows up at the house and somehow knows the girls’ names, and he just scoops up Susie like they’re old pals? Slow your roll there, buddy.
17:31: She says, “I’m a widow” and he immediately gets up and moves next to her and she doesn’t flinch a bit. Then he shows another photo, he took of just her, and it ends with him saying, “Don’t you believe in chasing rainbows?” What a weirdo!
17:53: “My camera could easily have a love affair with you.” No. 1, he’s not talking about his camera. No. 2, she visibly melts. Don’t give into the creepy guy!
24:20: Now she’s being creepily hit on by the gross, slimy agent guy. Why is every man in this movie so horrible?
EDITOR’S NOTE: I started this on Dec. 6 and am now finishing it on Jan. 7. What can I say? I suck. However, when I planned to finish this tonight I thought I was halfway through the movie. Nope. I’m not even 1/4 of the way through the movie. Yikes.)
26:00: So we’re rejoining where she’s basically whoring herself out to this agent to try to get work. All she has to do is apparently be his date to a party, wear some creepy fur coat he keeps in his closet to lure blondes, and put up with his lascivious ways. He honestly said, “I haven’t been seen with a girl without a mink since the heat wave of ’39.” GAG.
26:08: And he just said, “I’m a man of very few principles, and they’re all open to revision.” SO GROSS.
27:27: GROSSSSSS. He just told her he had to sleep with anyone he wanted her to and pose nude for some gross dude who might hypothetically want to paint her naked. I hope this is the last we see of this guy. More Annie, please!
28:06: And in a not-so-subtle turn of events, we return to the apartment where Annie and weird beach photographer/stalker guy are sitting at the table, doing Lora’s work for her. Good vs. Evil. Standard stuff.
30:33: Why is she so trusting of the weird beach photographer? I know the movie expects me to have moved past this by now, or maybe not have been bothered by it at all, but it’s weird. HE’S weird. And the amount of Brylcreem or whatever in his hair is making me nauseous.
31:00: SERIOUSLY. “You’re so good for what ails me.” “It’s all part of the Archer service … day or night.” She’s obviously in emotional turmoil, you freak. HAHAHA never mind, Annie came over, gave a subtle head jerk, and he left. God bless Annie. She’s the only logical one in this whole movie, and I’m saying that about someone who moved in with a stranger who lost her kid on a beach.
33:50: OK, so Sarah Jane is somewhat spoiled for being a previously homeless child. But imagining what it must have been like back then, and to have “passed” with no one figuring it out … and then your obviously black mother walks into your classroom with your boots and umbrella. How betrayed she must have felt. I don’t even really blame her for the outburst at her mom, because kids suck.
36:08: “How do you explain to your child she was born to be hurt?” Oh, Annie Johnson, how your words and gentle voice cut me.
36:44: She just called stalker man “darling.” This is what I’m talking about with old movies. Like four scenes together ago, he was a stranger taking pictures of her kid. Now he’s her man? With no actual plot development to that point? They haven’t even kissed!
37:25: AND NOW HE’S PROPOSING? Cripes.
38:17: So the dude proposes and then, less than a minute later is all, “No need working. You sucked at acting. I figured you’d have given up on that by now.” UGH.
40:43: Conveniently, she gets offered a job while making out with him in the hallway. And this jerkwad is all “Nope.” Thank goodness she kind of stood up to him. I hate this guy so much.
49:35: So she sucks at this bit part, tells the writer the scene is terrible, gets bumped up to a bigger part, rocks it, and now the writer’s hitting on her too? God, didn’t any man in the ’40s keep it in his pants?
51:00: She wouldn’t sleep with the agent for work, but will sleep with the writer since he’ll do more plays with her? #situationalslut
55:49: So that Caucasian/Mexican actress is supposed to play a light-skinned young black woman? Her name is Susan Kohner and she apparently got an Oscar nom for this role, so I’m supposing she does it well.
58:06: Lora starred in every one of her boyfriend/husband/whatever’s plays for like 10 years, made him a ton of money. Now she wants to do a dramatic turn and he acts like a petulant child. These men are all the worst. I hope Lora and Annie go lesbian and live happily ever after.
59:18: At least he went to go see her show? But so did stalker guy, who’s been stalking her at all her shows. And now he’s like ‘look, I don’t need you, I got a lady’ … classic stalker move.
1:02:32: That whole “Stalker guy seeing Sarah Jane after 10 years” introduction was REALLY creepy. It got a little more normal, but still weird. Don’t be gross about a girl who was 8, weirdo.
1:06:29: “You know I still have you in my blood, don’t you?” STOP IT, STALKER.
1:10:30: So Sarah Jane snuck out of the house to hang out with her white boyfriend and is now talking about like running away with him so he never meets her mother and realizes she’s black? A.) She’s 18. B.) If they get married and have kids, she doesn’t think he should know that his children are biracial? “I don’t want anybody to know her.” I feel actually kind of bad for her, no matter how terrible she is.
1:12:02: Steve leaves because Lora just put his trip around the world behind her meeting with a film director’s representative. Good! You do you, Lora!
1:14:57: OK, the bullshit Sarah Jane just pulled with her talk of mammies and massas in front of Lora’s agent and the director’s rep made me feel less bad for her. I mean, yes, Annie has been a glorified house servant through this whole movie. But Lora also put a roof over their heads and she really, truly cares about Annie and Sarah Jane. That was just disrespectful.
1:18:24: I WAS NOT PREPARED for the dropping of the n-word. Man, you don’t really realize how you don’t hear that word on TV or in movies in that usage until it’s dropped on you out of nowhere.
1:18:47: Was also not prepared for the full-on beating Sarah Jane’s boyfriend just gave her. Jesus.
Warning: This is graphic.
1:23:42: Man, Lora is tone deaf. Sure, Susie’s disappointed she’s leaving. But Stalker Steve was so excited and surprised to see her, she gets a telegram saying she can still do the movie and she’s all “Hey, Steve, since that whole trip around the world thing might not happen for you, can you watch my daughter while I run off to do a movie?” I mean, I’m still #teamlora in terms of her career and doing it while she can, but man, you’ve got Annie. Don’t ask the guy whose heart you broke twice to take care of your kid while you’re an absentee mother!
1:29:45: OMG. So Susie’s in love with Stalker Steve, and Sarah Jane’s off dancing in a club for money? Good lord, these girls need parenting!
1:33:13: OK, the last comment was out of line. Annie’s done what she can with Sarah Jane, but she’s legally an adult. And I’m pretty sure in this last scene, after they leave the club and Sarah Jane runs off … she just literally broke her mother’s heart. And by literally, I mean figuratively.
1:42:46: I hope Sarah Jane goes home. That whole scene with Annie showing up in her hotel room and SJ finally breaking down and calling her “mama” was heartbreaking.
1:47:53: So now Lora is marrying Steve, and Susie’s upset. Maybe her and Steve should be together, what with them both being delusional weirdos and all.
1:51:19: “You’ve given me everything but yourself.” Oh, Susie, STFU.
1:53:36: No, Annie, you can’t die. Don’t die, Annie. (I passed on the easy “Dirty Diana” reference here because it felt cheap.)
1:54:44: Annie, the only actual human in this whole movie, just said, “Tell her I know I was selfish.” NO, ANNIE. NO, YOU WERE NOT.
1:58:14: I guess if I’d thought about it, and known Mahalia Jackson hadn’t shown up yet, I probably could have put this together. Dammit, Annie, you were the only truly good person in this whole flick.
(So the only clip I found of her from the movie was only 32 seconds long, so here’s the whole song, because everyone should listen to Mahalia.)
2:01:21: Sorry for your loss, Sarah Jane, but you kind of killed her, you know?
2:01:54: “Miss Lora, I killed my mother.” OK, at least she knows. Now I feel bad for the snark.
2:02:46: So totally out of left field, but it’s a sea of people saying goodbye to Annie, and there’s this one kid with his back turned to it, staring at a cake in a window. WTF? I laughed a little, I’m sorry.
The movie ended on the funeral? That’s weird, but totally awesome. I’m glad. Annie was, by far, the star of this whole movie. Stalker Steve got it right when he referred to her as “everyone’s Rock of Gibraltar.” I will say, this movie was much more a roller coaster of emotion than I expected. I was torn, at times, as to how I felt about almost everyone, except Annie (and Stalker Steve, but that’s probably just me). I can’t imagine what life was like in that time for a young woman like Sarah Jane, who only saw a way out of the life her mother had led. Or what it would have been like growing up with an absentee mom, like Susie did. While some of the scenes were straight-up old Hollywood overacted, and even the vagaries were somewhat clichés, I was glad they showed different sides of so many different characters. That’s not always a given. Two thumbs up!
