Steven Rubio's Online Life

putney swope (robert downey sr., 1969)

This is the thirty-third (AND FINAL!) film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2021-22", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 7th annual challenge, and my third time participating (my first year can be found at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-20", and last year's at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2020-21"). Week 33 is called "Past Hosts Week":

A classic category that has been in every Season in one shape or another since the beginning. Simply put, we pay our respects to our hosts of the past while also inflating my own ego a little.

This week's challenge is to watch a previously unseen film from either Monsieur Flynn's Movies to See Before Your End Credits list, kurt k's Personal Cannon list, or my own A Hundred or So of My Favorites list.

My last film from the 2021-22 Challenge, and I wish it had been better. I'm a bit surprised I'd never seen it. It's from a time when you'd think I saw it (I can remember ads for it at the time), but if I didn't see it, it disappeared from my view, and I've rarely thought about it in the intervening 50+ years. Robert Downey (there is no "Sr." attached to his name in the credits ... Jr. was only 4 years old at the time and not yet a big star) writes and directs, and he revels in poking us in the eye with what would later be called politically incorrect humor. Problem is, it's not very humorous, and the humor itself is sophomoric the way that men got away with more in those days. If it was a song, the lyrics would be by Frank Zappa, and I don't mean that as a compliment.

It's off beat, sure. It doesn't lack for creativity. And it's only 84 minutes. But it plays like something out of a time capsule, and if you want to see the kinds of movies that were being made in 1969, there are better movies than this one. (Here are a few right here.)

This ends my third year doing the Letterboxd Season Challenge, meaning I've seen 99 movies under the Challenge format. I like doing the Challenge; although I don't always end up seeing great movies, I see things I hadn't seen before from a variety of genres, and hey, it's only once a week. My favorites were:

• My Winnipeg, Week 2, Northern Exposure: Guy Maddin Week
• Beyond the Hills, Week 4, Romanian New Wave Week
• Shadow, Week 11, LSC Five Years On: Fifth Generation Week
• Time, Week 14, "I've Been Meaning to Get to it..." Week
• The Cloud-Capped Star, Week 17, Parallel Cinema & New Indian Cinema Week
• Elena, Week 23, Essentially Brazilian Week

It's no contest which was the worst movie I saw in the Challenge: Manos: The Hands of Fate, Week 18, One-and-Done Week.

film fatales #139: the runaways (floria sigismondi, 2010)

This is the thirty-second film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2021-22", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 7th annual challenge, and my third time participating (my first year can be found at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-20", and last year's at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2020-21"). Week 32 is called "Jukebox Musical Week":

Somewhat of a black sheep in the musical world, jukebox musicals have their place...for tourists. Wanna make a musical but know fuck all about writing music? Just retrofit some songs into the plot of your movie and you're golden!

As described above, the jukebox musical is one that does not have original songs, instead opting for a soundtrack consisting of (usually popular) songs. These can be from a single band or from a whole decade, but either way, somebody is ponying up for some usage rights.

This week's challenge is to watch a previously unseen jukebox musical film. Here's a list for those in need.

I looked forward to this one ... I lived through the Runaways, didn't have much of an opinion about them, but I recognize their importance and thought their story might make a good movie, especially with Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning involved. And while I wasn't familiar with the work of Floria Sigismondi, her background in music videos would seem useful for a film about a rock band.

Sure enough, the best parts of The Runaways resemble music videos, and not in an annoying way ... they fit. But somehow I forgot that, despite the trappings, The Runaways was just another biopic. And I'm not a fan of the genre.

The focus of the picture is narrowed, for better or worse, because it's based on Cherie Currie's memoir. The Runaways is less a story of the band, and more the story of the rise and fall of the friendship between Currie and Joan Jett. It's an interesting enough story, and Stewart and Fanning give their all. But the whole thing is too formulaic, as is true for most biopics, which is one reason I'm not a fan. Yes, a lot of what we see "really happened", but it's stuffed into the film to make a narrative that audiences will recognize from all the other biopics they've seen.

Stewart was still in the middle of making Twilight movies, so her move here away from those films is powerful ... I imagine she impressed even more at the time than she does now, when we expect her to be great. Fanning gets most of the Oscar-bait scenes, and more power to her. But Oscar bait is all they are. Meanwhile, Michael Shannon steals every scene he is in as Kim Fowley, and again, we're used to him now, but he wasn't yet Michael Shannon in 2010, at least as I remember. And Fowley himself probably would like to be the center of a movie about the Runaways, but I didn't really need to see a movie called Kim Fowley.

The Runaways is as good as most biopics, which isn't all that. Good performances help, but then, that's usually true with biopics, which often result in Oscar nominations for the actors.

jigsaw (fletcher markle, 1949)

This is the thirty-first film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2021-22", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 7th annual challenge, and my third time participating (my first year can be found at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-20", and last year's at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2020-21"). Week 31 is called "Classic Performers: Marlene Dietrich Week":

A German-American actress of the Golden Age, Marlene Dietrich was a staple of her era. Though most known for her collaborations with director Josef von Sternberg, Dietrich starred in a number of great films across her career, and here is our chance to examine what made her the star she was.

This week's challenge is to watch a previously unseen film starring Marlene Dietrich.

I don't know how else to put this: watching Jigsaw was a waste, especially considering the context. I chose an unseen Marlene Dietrich film to fulfill this week's challenge, only to find that Marlene had only an uncredited cameo (even "cameo" exaggerates her presence ... we see her walking out of a night club ... she's on screen about as long as Hitchcock is in his cameos). The movie wasn't very good, an overly-complicated noir starring Franchot Tone, his then-wife Jean Wallace, and a handful of "that guys". The cast was filled with trickery, for Dietrich was not the only famous, uncredited cameo. There was Henry Fonda and John Garfield and Marsha Hunt and Burgess Meredith and Everett Sloane and more. The end credits included the following note: "This picture was filmed with the obvious good will of many famous stars. The producers wish to thank them."

I have no idea who was friends with all of these people, who talked them into the cameos. They didn't help the picture ... in many cases, they were unrecognizable, at least to me.

Then there was the print. Jigsaw is one of those movies that fell into the public domain, meaning there are lots of crappy prints out there, including the one on Prime Video. Maybe the black-and-white cinematography was appropriately noirish, but I couldn't tell, with the scratches and the washed-out picture that made everything look grey.

Honestly, the only good thing about Jigsaw is that it was over in 70 minutes. I should have just watched Touch of Evil again.

film fatales #138: the joy of life (jenni olson, 2005)

This is the thirtieth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2021-22", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 7th annual challenge, and my third time participating (my first year can be found at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-20", and last year's at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2020-21"). Week 30 is called "Lesbian Stories Week":

Another weekly theme based on the list of a Letterboxd user, this week we take a dive into films that include lesbian stories, either directly or through theming. I am not one to speak on if all the films included fit the bill or not, but I trust the list's creator (who seems to be getting a bit of unnecessary vitriol for having an opinion), and hope you all give one of these films a chance.

This week's challenge is to watch a previously unseen film featuring a lesbian story as dictated by Sarah's list.

The Joy of Life is an unusual movie, thanks to the methods Jenni Olson uses to, not exactly tell a story, but to present a vision of San Francisco. The documentary has three segments, although I suppose some might quibble and say there were only two. At the beginning, a voiceover narration by Harry Dodge offers memories of loves past and present. Olson is credited as the writer, so it's up to us to decide if those memories are Dodge's, Olson's, or completely fictional. The narration is accompanied by landscape shots of various places in San Francisco. Olson doesn't often specifically connect the narration to what we see, but there is a general feel for The City, in both audio and visual. The middle segment has the narrator breaking down the Frank Capra film Meet John Doe. The transition is smooth enough, but I can't say I ever quite knew why we were learning about that movie. Finally, there is an extended look at the Golden Gate Bridge as a place where people come to commit suicide.

The narration is purposely flat, although again I don't know why. In the first segment, we are hearing about the emotional life of a butch lesbian, and the unemotional narration feels off. The talk about suicide also exists at something of a disconnect, but in both segments, there is a palpable feeling that what we are seeing and hearing is important to Olson. The film is dedicated to Olson's friend Mark Finch, who himself jumped off of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti turns up in the middle of the film as a voiceover reading one of his poems, which makes the film even more San Franciscan.

The Joy of Life is experimental, and its "differentness" makes it important. It also played a role in the continuing debate about constructing suicide barriers on the Bridge.

pity (babis makridis, 2018)

This is the twenty-ninth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2021-22", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 7th annual challenge, and my third time participating (my first year can be found at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-20", and last year's at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2020-21"). Week 29 is called "Greek Weird Wave Week":

From Wikipedia:

"In the 1990s, younger Greek filmmakers began experimenting with iconographic motifs. In spite of, or because of, funding issues created by the financial crisis in the late 2000s, unique Greek films such as Yorgos Lanthimos's Dogtooth (2009), Panos H. Koutras' Strella (2009) and Athina Rachel Tsangari's Attenberg (2010) received international acclaim, constituting what has been called the "Greek Weird Wave".

Dogtooth, Attenberg and Alps are part of what some film critics, including Steve Rose of The Guardian, have termed the "Greek Weird Wave," which involves movies with haunting cinematography, alienated protagonists and absurdist dialogue. Other films mentioned as part of this "wave" include Panos H. Koutras's Strella (2009) and Yannis Economides's Knifer (2010)."

This week's challenge is to watch a previously unseen Greek Weird Wave film.

I'd only seen two films from the Greek Weird Wave, both directed by Vorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster and The Favourite), and I wasn't overly impressed. Pity had some interesting moments, mostly grounded in the performance by Giannis Drakopoulos as a lawyer with a young son and a wife in a coma. At first, Drakopoulos barely seems to be acting. He seems to be dealing with his grief by shutting down. When his wife remarkably recovers, instead of feeling better, the lawyer begins to miss the pity he received when she was in the hospital. He's at a loss, more so than when he was without his wife. At first, he lies to others, telling them she is still in a coma, and when that quits working, he resorts to extremes as he realizes he is addicted to grief and pity and sadness.

Pity is often quietly amusing, at least until things get extreme. The latter part of the movie feels a bit disconnected from what has set it up, and the lawyer's actions are unsettling in a way that is uncomfortable for the audience. Which may be the point, but it's not exactly a barrel of laughs watching it. I feel a bit awkward wishing that Pity was something different than intended, but in the end, my reaction to the film is a bit like the lawyer in the first part of the movie.

trilogy of terror (dan curtis, 1975)

This is the twenty-eighth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2021-22", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 7th annual challenge, and my third time participating (my first year can be found at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-20", and last year's at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2020-21"). Week 28 is called "Anthology Film Week":

Wanna feel like you're getting your money's worth? Just watch an anthology movie! You're usually guaranteed at least three stories within one running time, though it's up to you to decide if it's better than the sum of its parts.

This week's challenge is to watch a previously unseen anthology film.

The choices suggested in the above list stretched the concept of "anthology" a bit. Among the choices were D.W. Griffith's Intolerance, which tells four interlocking stories simultaneously, and Godard's Vivre sa vie, which has episodes but it not what I would call an anthology.

Trilogy of Terror was a TV movie that aired on the ABC Movie of the Week. That series had a few memorable showings ... Spielberg's first feature, Duel, was a Movie of the Week, as was Brian's Song, with James Caan and Billy Dee Williams. Trilogy of Terror came near the end of the Movie of the Week run. It teamed Dan Curtis, who created Dark Shadows, writer Richard Matheson (I Am Legend), who wrote the three stories adapted for the movie, and Karen Black, nominated for an Oscar for Five Easy Pieces, who was a busy actor in 1975, also appearing in The Day of the Locust and Nashville.

A lot of anthology movies are remembered for one episode in particular. Spirits of the Dead, a late-60s anthology of Poe stories directed by Fellini, Malle, and Vadim, is a standout primarily for Fellini's segment, Toby Dammit, starring Terence Stamp. Trilogy of Terror is no different in this regard ... the first two episodes are completely forgettable, but the third has become a cult classic. In it, Black (who stars in all three segments) plays a woman, Amelia, who buys a Zuni fetish doll as a present for her boyfriend. The doll comes to life and terrorizes Amelia. It's a combination of the claustrophobic setting in Amelia's apartment, concise editing, and Black's appropriate over-acting that makes it so memorable. I'm pretty sure I didn't see it at the time, but that little doll seemed to be everywhere, meaning I thought I'd seen it even though I'd likely only seen commercials for the film.

The plot of the Amelia chapter is ludicrous, but that rarely matters in horror, does it? It's reputation is exaggerated, but it's worth seeing, and it is so much better than the other two segments that it would be nice if you could just watch that final third.

geezer cinema: the front page (lewis milestone, 1931)

This is the twenty-seventh film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2021-22", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 7th annual challenge, and my third time participating (my first year can be found at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-20", and last year's at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2020-21"). Week 27 is called "Best of the Best (Picture) Week":

It's no secret, the vapid pageantry that the Oscars facilitate; but I thought it might be an interesting exercise to see what would've happened had the Letterboxd community been the voting party each year.

This week's challenge is to watch a previously unseen Best Picture nominated film considered to be the best by the Letterboxd community.

As is clear from the directions for this week's challenge, The Front Page was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar in 1931 and didn't win. Director Lewis Milestone was also nominated, as was Adolphe Menjou for Best Actor. (Neither of them were winners. The winners were Cimarron, Norman Taurog, and Lionel Barrymore. Milestone could take solace from the fact that he had won directing Oscars the two previous years.)

The Front Page was a successful Broadway play in 1928, written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. It was a perfect choice for a movie version, since talkies had just arrived, and the fast-paced dialogue of the play would work well on the screen. Like the play, much of the movie takes place in one setting (a press room populated by reporters), which helped with the newish technology, but Lewis Milestone was also willing to try things that might be lively. (David Thomson refers to Milestone's "inventive, flashy technique that passed for style".) The Front Page is never visually stodgy, and the sound is also exemplary (this is nothing like what we see in Singin' in the Rain). Still, it was the dialogue from Hecht and MacArthur that drove the film.

The film has suffered from a couple of things it had no control over. First, there was another version of the play in 1940, His Girl Friday, that is a cinema classic. Director Howard Hawks had the idea to change the character of Hildy Johnson from a man to a woman, which changed the dynamics of the plot. Hawks also used overlapping dialogue to make his film seem even faster than it already was (Hecht and MacArthur intended for this, but Hawks pushed it to an extreme). There is no shame in being a lesser movie than His Girl Friday, but when that film is a remake of your own, the comparisons are unavoidable.

Another problem for The Front Page is that it fell into the public domain, resulting in a surfeit of versions of low quality. Luckily, the film was restored a few years ago, so we can see it in its best light.

The Front Page is enjoyable ... the stage play may be indestructible. But I admit I spent much of my viewing time wishing I was watching His Girl Friday for the umpteenth time.

film fatales #135: the last days of chez nous (gillian armstrong, 1992)

This is the twenty-sixth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2021-22", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 7th annual challenge, and my third time participating (my first year can be found at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-20", and last year's at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2020-21"). Week 26 is called "Southern Exposure: Gillian Armstrong Week":

Most well known for her period dramas, Gillian Armstrong is an Australian director whose work tends to focus on relationships, as well as on the lived experiences of women. As a bonus, her filmography includes both feature narratives and documentaries, so you have a choice here.

This week's challenge is to watch a previously unseen film directed by Gillian Armstrong.

I looked forward to this challenge. I've enjoyed several of Armstrong's movies over the years, especially My Brilliant Career, but haven't written about her work for some reason.

I had trouble figuring out the exact relationships between the various members of the unconventional family in The Last Days of Chez Nous, not because the screenplay was confusing, but because of the casting. Lisa Harrow, who plays Beth, the female lead, was 49 when the film was made. Bruno Ganz, who plays her partner, was 52. So far, so good. Miranda Otto is Beth's daughter, and Otto was 25, which works, except in the film, Annie appears to still be a teenager (and Otto looks young enough to pull it off). Finally, the wonderful Kerry Fox, who plays Beth's younger sister Vicki, was 26 at the time. How Beth ended up with Fox as a sister and Otto as a daughter threw me off until I finally decided to just go with it. The performances are all good, and others might not find the various ages of the various actors to be confusing.

The plot has elements of traditional melodrama, but Armstrong and screenwriter Helen Garner aren't interested in stereotypical characters, so the melodrama is underplayed, and the characters are engrossing in part because they seem like real people. Armstrong and cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson rely a lot on closeups that work best when the acting is less emotive.

Other Challenge choices included Charlotte Gray.

[Letterboxd list of Film Fatales]

film fatales #134: high life (claire denis, 2018)

This is the twenty-fifth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2021-22", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 7th annual challenge, and my third time participating (my first year can be found at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-20", and last year's at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2020-21"). Week 25 is called "Arthouse Sci-Fi Week":

So you take sci-fi, a genre known for its contemplation of human nature through the use of futurism, and shove it through the filter of thoughtful, less than accessible cinema, and what do you get?

A headscratcher, probably. But a good one.

This week's challenge is to watch a previously unseen Arthouse Sci-Fi film from Rob's list.

I didn't look forward to this challenge category, but looking at the Arthouse Sci-Fi list above, I found several movies I liked, including La Jetée, Children of Men, and Melancholia. And I've liked the few Claire Denis films I've seen.

My favorite bit of trivia about this film: "Claire Denis's first English language film after 13 feature films in French. She stated the reason she made it in English was that she simply couldn't imagine people speaking French in space, only either English or Russian."

The first time I read Faulkner's classic The Sound and the Fury, I was completely confused. The novel is written in parts, each of which has a different narrator. The first narrator is mentally disabled. When I began reading, I found that narrative hard to follow, and at first I didn't know about the narrator's disability, nor did I know there would be other narrators as the book progressed. The non-linear stream of consciousness left me befuddled. Once I had finished the book, once I understood the structure and had an idea of what Faulkner was up to, the novel became, if not completely clear, at least more understandable.

In High Life, Denis uses a non-linear structure, but she doesn't tell us she is doing this. We don't get the usual markers of "THREE YEARS EARLIER" or whatever that are so common today. And so I was confused at the beginning, much as I was in The Sound and the Fury. Eventually the structure becomes more clear, and if I watched the movie again, I wouldn't be thrown off by the opening. But it was unsettling, and while there is nothing wrong with that approach, it threw me off and made me wonder how I would get through the entire movie.

Denis takes her time, but once I connected with the flow of the film, I liked what I saw. The almost hallucinatory feel matched what I imagine life would be like on an endless exploration into space. The interactions of the various people on the ship are intriguing, and the open-ended conclusion is satisfactory. High Life isn't quite up to my favorite Denis movies (Beau Travail and 35 Shots of Rum), but it adds to the 100% list of Claire Denis movies I have seen and liked. Bonus points for casting André 3000. #379 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of the 21st century.

rampage (brad peyton, 2018)

This is the twenty-fourth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2021-22", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 7th annual challenge, and my third time participating (my first year can be found at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-20", and last year's at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2020-21"). Week 24 is called "Video Game Adaptation Week":

The problem with most film adaptations of video games is that it's hard to properly transpose the level of immersion from controlling to observing. But that don't mean they can't try! So why don't we give them a chance? Or another chance, to those certainly burned before.

This week's challenge is to watch a previously unseen film adapted from a video game. Here is a list that contains purely adaptations, and here is a list containing some documentaries and video game-adjacent films.

Can we really say a movie is disappointing when we know going in that it features The Rock as a primatologist who communicates via sign language with an albino gorilla, that due to Science Gone Rogue that gorilla becomes enormous, that he joins a couple of other altered animals on a rampage that destroys much of Chicago, and that the whole thing is based on a video game? But that was my feeling after watching Rampage: it was disappointing.

I am all for dumb fun, and I enjoy Dwayne Johnson. Johnson's earlier movie with Brad Peyton, San Andreas, is one of those pictures I will always check out if it turns up when I am channel surfing. But didn't get any of the kind of enjoyment I was looking for from Rampage, and so yes, it was disappointing.

It didn't completely suck. Johnson does whatever it is he does that makes him such an appealing action star. There were a couple of interesting people in the cast, like Naomie Harris (I got bored trying to search, but is Harris the first Bond Girl to star in a movie with The Rock? ... Granted, Harris has objected to the term "Bond Girl".) Jeffrey Dean Morgan was properly over-the-top, as if he knew he was in a dumb movie and thought he'd have some fun. Malin Akerman was an argument for the importance of wigs in movies ... I didn't recognize her, forgot she was in the movie until the credits, because she had dark hair. Best of all, Peyton and company had a clear love for kaiju (made me wish Guillermo del Toro was the director).

But still. I can't really put my finger on why San Andreas is so much better than Rampage. But seeing the latter didn't convince me otherwise.