Steven Rubio's Online Life

ouch

My ankle is broken in 3 places. Updates as they arrive.

music friday: crippled

Took a fall on our front steps. Can't do shit, hard to post anything. Here's this week's song:

https://youtu.be/ERxX_9R5Bo0?si=7TZwxppiIy-pX9Fi

willie mays

When I was a kid, and we'd go to watch the Giants play, we'd goof around like kids will do at a ballgame. But every time Willie Mays came to the plate, we had to stop goofing. "Watch,Willie's up!"

There are several statues of former Giants at Oracle Park, but one is central, the one of Willie Mays. You tell a friend, "I'll meet you at Willie Mays", and they know what you mean. Heck, the address of the park is 24 Willie Mays Plaza.

film fatales #208: the souvenir (joanna hogg, 2019)

I feel like I need a spoiler warning before writing about The Souvenir. I'm usually pretty good at avoiding crucial spoilers, but much of what works and doesn't work in The Souvenir comes out of a specific plot point. So, you've been warned.

Joanna Hogg directed Exhibition, which I liked, in part because of the fine job from former Slits member Viv Albertine. The Souvenir has an intriguing cast ... Tilda Swinton in a supporting role (and what actor in our time is more intriguing than Tilda Swinton?); Tom Burke, who recently appeared as Praetorian Jack in Furiosa and who played Orson Welles in Mank; and Swinton's daughter Honor Swinton Byrne in what is effectively her film debut. This is only my second Joanna Hogg movie, but I already feel like she has a recognizable visual style ... she's not afraid of mirrors, for one thing.

The Souvenir is a semi-autobiographical remembrance of Hogg's time in film school. The Hogg stand-in, Julie, begins a relationship with an older man, Anthony, and at first that relationship feels fairly straightforward, although from the start I wanted more time spent on Julie than on Anthony (in fairness, Anthony in the film only exists as part of Julie's world ... there is no question which character is at the center of the movie). The scenes of Julie and her film-school friends are fun, the scenes with her with Anthony less so, and we eventually learn a reason for this: Anthony isn't always a lot of fun because he's a heroin addict.

It's tough, albeit not impossible, to represent addicts in a movie. A greedy, flamboyant portrait risks romanticizing, but a down-in-the-dregs picture can become too dreary to watch. Hogg is closer to the latter approach ... Anthony is not the most interesting character in the movie, and his addiction doesn't really make him more interesting. But The Souvenir never falls too far into dreariness, because the center of the movie lies not in Anthony but in Julie, who is full of youthful life. I suspect I am asking too much of Hogg, for the character of Julie is believable and interesting and she is, after all, the focus of the picture. A movie like Sid and Nancy, where both people in the relationship are junkies, eventually pulls away from romanticizing because both characters falls into the dregs, but the vibrancy of Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb still jumps off of the screen. In The Souvenir, Anthony is a much quieter junkie than Sid or Nancy, and while Byrne gives a strong performance, it doesn't often call for "vibrancy". So The Souvenir is a more low-key film than something like Sid and Nancy, and I'm not sure it makes sense for me to even compare the two.

There is much to respect about The Souvenir, and it's easy to recommend it. I preferred Exhibition, but both of the Hogg films I have seen are encouraging. #148 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of the 21st century.

music friday: 1996

Sleater-Kinney, "Good Things".

why do good things never wanna stay?
some things you lose, some things you give away

Nas, "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)".

If I ruled the world
I'd free all my sons

Everclear, "Santa Monica". Cheating ... single released in December of '95.

We can live beside the ocean
Leave the fire behind
Swim out past the breakers
Watch the world die

Bonus: Crystal Waters, "The Boy from Ipanema".

When he walks he's like a samba
That swings so cool and sways so gentle

mona lisa (neil jordan, 1986)

I'm tempted to say there is nothing special about Mona Lisa, but that sells it short. It's true that the movie is reminiscent of other films, that it doesn't break new ground. But it is so good at what it does, it hardly matters you've seen it before.

Mona Lisa features Bob Hoskins in his only Oscar-nominated role. He is a firecracker who gradually shows inner depth, and again, there is something almost inevitable about this, but the way Hoskins plays it, you believe. In a similar manner, Cathy Tyson has a stereotypical role (high-class call girl), but she makes it her own in what amazingly was her film debut. The supporting cast is solid, with people who are either perfectly cast, good at their job, or both (Michael Caine, Robbie Coltrane, Clarke Peters). Meanwhile, writer/director Neil Jordan, along with co-writer David Leland and cinematographer Roger Pratt, create an atmosphere that invites us into its world.

the conformist (bernardo bertolucci, 1970)

I re-watched The Conformist for the first time in 50 or so years. I've often listed it as my favorite Bertolucci film (and I like a lot of them), even though my memories of it were pretty vague compared to others I'd seen over the years (I have a special fondness for The Dreamers, even though I've never thought of it as his best). There are subtleties in the film that perhaps contributed to the vagueness of my memories ... I never forgot how much I liked it, but never could pinpoint exactly why.

This is an interesting time to be watching The Conformist, which draws a picture of fascism (or, perhaps better, a run-of-the-mill fascist) that resonates in 2024. Jean-Louis Trintignant's Marcello wants to be a fascist because he wants to go unnoticed, to be "normal". The subtextual connection between fascism and sexual "deviance" is as silly now as it was in 1970, but in Marcello's case, it's not clear that sex interests him. The most sexually charged scene comes when Stefania Sandrelli and Dominique Sanda dance together ... it's a scene you remember 50 years later.

I don't know where I got this idea, but I always thought the actor who played Fanucci in The Godfather: Part II was a non-actor cast because he looked the part. So imagine my surprise when Gastone Moschin turned up in a key role in The Conformist. (He's very good, too.) The Conformist looks gorgeous, as most Bertolucci films do. Shoutouts to cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and art directors Ferdinando Scarfiotti and Nedo Azzini. After all these years, I may still believe that this is Bertolucci's best film. #83 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of all time.

hit man (richard linklater, 2023)

Richard Linklater is one of my favorite directors ... the last time I made such a list, I ranked him as my 14th favorite of all time, between Miyazaki and Truffaut. The Before Trilogy, Boyhood, Dazed and Confused, A Scanner Darkly, these are wonderful films. One of the things about Linklater, though, is that he is capable of making a film that isn't great, doesn't try to be great, but is fun to watch. Not every film has to be a classic. Hit Man combines genres in an interesting way and has terrific chemistry between leads Glen Powell and Adria Arjona. It was a perfect movie to watch during some troubled personal times.

Linklater and Powell co-wrote the script, amazingly based on the true story of a fake hit man who works with the police. In the movie, the main character is a college professor who moonlights with the police, pretending to be a hit man in sting operations intended to trap potential "customers" so they can be arrested without anyone actually dying. This leads to a movie called "Hit Man" that earns its "R" rating as much for sexual content as for violence. The romance comes when Arjona's character tries to hire the hit man, but instead he helps her turn her life around, and they fall in love. There is an unreal lunacy to much of the plot, despite its basis in fact, but hey, screwball romances never worried about realism.

There is also an underpinning of philosophy, with the matter of identity being obvious. I don't think any of this would work without these leads, and without Linklater's ability to make something pleasurable about it all. The cast is full of people I thought I recognized but I didn't, which somehow made sense.

Like I say, sometimes you don't need greatness.

music friday: 1995

PJ Harvey, "Down by the Water". It's not that I missed the boat on Harvey, it's just that I never appreciated her as much as she deserves. I have been known to play "Rid of Me" videos over and over again, though.

Bruce Springsteen, "Across the Border". We saw Bruce twice on his Tom Joad tour, although I admit I've preferred the live E Street Band versions of many of those songs. This is my favorite song off the album. Bruce's idea of God is different from mine, but I love the ending of this song so much, I wouldn't mind if they played it at my funeral:

For what are we
Without hope in our hearts
That someday we'll drink from God's blessed waters
And eat the fruit from the vine
I know love and fortune will be mine
Somewhere across the border

TLC, "Waterfalls". The single came out in 1995, the album '94. Yes, Bette Midler recorded a cover of this one.

Bonus: Coolio, "Gangsta's Paradise". Coolio takes a piece from Stevie Wonder; the song ends up on the soundtrack to a Michelle Pfeiffer movie. Yes, Weird Al Yankovic did a parody, "Amish Paradise".

geezer cinema: furiosa: a mad max saga (george miller, 2024)

It's the Chemotherapy Chronicles. Due to my wife's current spate of chemo sessions, Geezer Cinema has been a secondary concern. This was the first time in nearly a month that we had a Geezer movie, and almost two months since we'd been to a theater. Furiosa made for a fine return.

A narrative seems to be growing that Furiosa is a failure. It's not killing at the box office, but then, neither is anything else, and as I write this, it has already made $117 million at the box office in less than two weeks (of course, it needs to make a lot more over time to make a profit). I also sense that people are upset that it's not as good as Fury Road. Well, there aren't many movies as good as Fury Road, which is only one of the best action movies of all time. Sure, Fury Road had a better "Metascore" (90, indicating "Universal Acclaim", more than Furiosa's 79), but that says less about any failure on the part of Furiosa than about the greatness of its predecessor.

Of the five Mad Max movies, Furiosa may be the best at character development. This isn't entirely a good thing ... it's the longest Max movie at close to 2 1/2 hours, and the first hour is basically setup, where we learn about Furiosa's childhood. It's not without interest, not at all, but ultimately, we came for the action, and it takes its time arriving. Finally, after that hour, Anya Taylor-Joy takes over the part from Alyla Browne, who does a fine job as young Furiosa. And, as if to calm any concerns about whether Taylor-Joy can effectively take a part made so memorable by Charlize Theron, there is a 15-minute sequence that took 78 days to film, resulting in what may be the best action scene in the history of the franchise.

Fury Road, of course, is effectively one long action sequence. That George Miller maintained the edge-of-seat thrills throughout is one of many things that makes Fury Road an all-time classic. But down the road, I am convinced Furiosa will live as a solid part of the Max saga. If I were to rank the five films, I'd go Fury Road, Road Warrior, Furiosa, Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome, placing Furiosa right in the middle.