Steven Rubio's Online Life

sabotage (alfred hitchcock, 1936)

This is the second film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Week 2 is called "Anxiety Week":

“Anxious-nervous, like he’s dreading it or anxious-excited like he’s looking forward to it?” I, like Nick from The Parent Trap, am anxious-excited for this week. Last year we featured the Polish Moral Anxiety movement, which featured films made in response to real-world anxieties. This year it will be the films themselves that provide the anxiety. Here we celebrate films that get under your skin and keep you on edge, whether it's action, horror, cringe comedy, or, uh, Stuart Little 2 apparently? I haven't seen it but I can only imagine the tension.

This week we invite you to make yourself uncomfortable and watch a previously unseen anxiety-inducing film.

I can't be particularly fair with Sabotage. I didn't realize it when I started the film, but I was tired, and soon I was struggling to stay awake. It only lasts 77 minutes, and I did manage to keep from falling asleep. But I'm not sure I really appreciated the suspense ... I wasn't anxious enough.

Sabotage was adapted from Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, and is considered by some to be Hitchcock's finest film from his British period. That feels excessive to me, even if I try to be kind in order to compensate for my sleepiness. It's certainly worth a second viewing after I've had some caffeine. But I found the buildup to the suspenseful scenes to be draggy, such that even at 77 minutes, it felt long. Sylvia Sidney and Oskar Homolka are fine in the leads, and I wasn't annoyed by teenager Desmond Tester. But I didn't care enough about the characters, the setting, anything. Still, as with even the worst Hitchcock movies, there is one classic scene, when the teenager is unknowingly sent off to deliver a bomb to Picadilly Circus station. For these few minutes, Hitchcock delivers the anxiety.

el norte (gregory nava, 1983)

I used to tell an anecdote about El Norte ... well, "used to" isn't quite right, since I'm still telling it, but this took place long ago and I'm not sure anymore if I remember it right. El Norte was originally supposed to show on PBS, but a positive reception at festivals led to it being released first to theaters. Thus, it was a couple of years before it made it to TV, which is where I saw it, so we're talking around 1985. So don't hold me to the accuracy of this anecdote, but as I remember, there is a scene where Enrique, an indigenous Mayan from Guatemala, is planning to escape to the north with his sister. A friend explains that once the border patrol figures out they are from Guatemala, they will send them back home, and he advises Enrique to pretend he is Mexican. The way to do this, says the friend, is to say "fuck" all the time, because that's how Mexicans talk. (This actually works when they get to the border into the United States.) Here is the scene:

Now, what I no longer remember is whether the dialogue or the subtitles were censored by PBS. My memory is, it was the subtitles, and the words "fucking" and "fuck" were missing from the titles. What was funny, though, is that the soundtrack wasn't changed, so anyone who either spoke Spanish or knew Spanish street language could hear "chingada" coming through loud and clear.

El Norte came from the team of writer/director Gregory Nava and writer Anna Thomas. The two received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Twelve years later, they were responsible for one of my all-time favorite films, Mi Familia, followed by the biopic Selena (which only Nava worked on), which made a big impact. Since Selena, though, Nava has only directed two films, written one, and created the TV series American Family. The last of these was in 2006. Nava is still with us, and is apparently a mentor to young film makers, but 2006 was a long time ago, and I can find nothing to explain his absence.

El Norte feels real. When the siblings get to the U.S., everything seems liberating, and Nava/Thomas allow us to experience this as the characters do. Eventually, reality sets in, but as in Mi Familia, we are meant to respect the experiences of the characters, both at home and in the States, with an emphasis on feelings ... there is no stinting on emotion.

geezer cinema: civil war (alex garland, 2024)

Your reaction to Civil War will depend, I think, on your expectations going in. I doubt I'm the only person who looked forward to a dystopic look at a near-future America, with clear parallels to the era of Trump. And that's not an inaccurate summary of the plot. What is missing, purposely so as far as I can tell, is a detailed examination of how America got to the point of Civil War. Alex Garland didn't want to "take sides", and he wasn't as interested in how we got there as he was is showing where "there" was, and how it affected his characters. So Civil War is less about the war, and more about its impact on Americans, in particular, journalists.

There is a lot of fine acting in Civil War, especially from Kirsten Dunst. Alex Garland has picked up quite a troupe over the years ... for example, half-a-dozen of the members of this cast were also in his mini-series Devs. They do what they can to enliven the interpersonal relationships between the various journalists, but I found those sections hit-or-miss, and I preferred the action scenes, which raised the film to another level.

Things could be worse. Civil War is an intelligent, well-made, thought-provoking movie. But for me, Ex-Machina remains his best.

geezer cinema: didi (sean wang, 2024)

It was June 4. We went to a movie theater to see Furiosa. At the time, I wrote, "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." On June 19, I broke my ankle. We hadn't gone to a theater or had a Geezer Tuesday since Furiosa. Finally, two months, two weeks, and two days later, we went to a theater for Geezer Cinema #242: Didi.

The contrast between these two bookend movies couldn't be greater. Furiosa was an action-packed epic. Didi is a small indie film from Fremont, California, 30 or so miles from my house. It's a coming of age film from first-time director Sean Wang. Much of the cast is amateur, including many of the teenagers and Zhang Li Hua, who plays a grandmother in the movie and is Wang's actual grandmother. The pros include Izaac Wang as Chris (the titular character), who is very good, and the always magnificent Joan Chen as his mother. There is nothing new here, although giving us Asian-American characters is enlightening. But it's all well done. a promising beginning for Sean Wang, and a worthy return to Geezer Cinema for us.

 

film fatales #210: wicked little letters (thea sharrock, 2023)

Wicked Little Letters offers a fun, fact-based movie that gives co-stars Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley an excuse to show why they are popular. That it doesn't do more than that isn't a crime, but the result isn't quite as funny as you might hope. The premise is that someone in a small English town is writing vile poison-pen letters filled with dirty words. Colman is the recipient of them, while Buckley is the neighbor accused of being the author.

It's initially entertaining to hear the letters read aloud, as one after another stereotypical English person spouts obscenities. Buckley is delightful as usual as an Irish woman who swears up a storm, and she isn't the most logical suspect ... as she points out, why would she write the letters when she is perfectly happy to bark bad words to people's faces.

There's a subtext about women in the 1920s trying to emerge from the strictures of society, but it doesn't get in the way of the farce, which is perhaps a missed opportunity. Fans of the stars will be happy.

28 weeks later (juan carlos fresnadillo, 2007)

Sequel to 28 Days Later delivers. It had been a long time since I saw this one, and even longer since I saw the original, but my memory is that they are equally impressive. The zombies are truly frightening; although 28 Days Later wasn't the first fast zombie movie, it's the one that got the most attention at the time, and if 28 Weeks Later lacks the surprise factor of its predessor, its relentless terror is still nearly unbearable. (And yes, I know they aren't technically zombies but rather victims of a virus.) The cast is terrific, full of people we think of now as stars who at the time were better described as "known": Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Idris Elba.

 

beast (michael pearce, 2017)

Sometimes it feels like every time Jessie Buckley makes a movie, people say it's a star-making performance. Beast was one of her first features, and she is terrific as always. But that was seven years ago, and for me, she has long ago reached the level of a star. Not all of her movies are great, but she is always great in them. (And don't forget her great turn on that season of Fargo.)

Beast is a good one, not quite by-the-book genre work, with Buckley the best thing about it. I wouldn't start here if I wanted to introduce myself to her ... Wild Rose is the best example of what she can do, and Women Talking is far and away the best movie she has been in. But once you fall for her, Beast will satisfy.

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.

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.

film fatales #207: battle of the sexes (jonathan dayton and valerie faris, 2017)

Battle of the Sexes tells the story of an event that resonated at the time it occurred, but is perhaps not well-known today. Former tennis great and hustler Bobby Riggs challenged top women tennis players (a la Andy Kaufman in pro rassling) to big-stakes matches. His first was against then-champ Margaret Court, who he beat, setting up a 1973 match with Billie Jean King that got tremendous hype, a big Astrodome crowd, and national live television coverage. King had no problem beating Riggs, and her victory was seen, not just as a win for women's tennis, but a win for women (this was at the height of the second-wave feminist movement).

It's a good subject for a movie, and Emma Stone and Steve Carell do well as the two tennis players. The directing team of Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton made a splash with their first feature together, Little Miss Sunshine, which garnered four Oscar nominations, with two wins. I was not in the majority on that one ... I thought its supposed touting of the power of being different was ultimately only a desire to redefine "normal". Battle of the Sexes is an improvement on that, although it didn't get any Oscar love, and lost money while Little Miss Sunshine was a hit. The problem here is that I don't know that Battle of the Sexes is necessary. The story is worth telling, and the stars are good, but in the end, a documentary about the event could be just as useful (there was a 2013 documentary titled The Battle of the Sexes that didn't get a lot of attention). This movie was enjoyable to watch but inessential.