Day: October 11, 2021

The last special format release of T2 was a 3D version. (I think.) I don’t think anyone’s ever screened an 8K version. Excellent clarity. I watched this 1991 James Cameron film at least 10 or 12 times with the kids when they were toddlers, but I could go again if they could somehow project the same kind of 8K clarity that I’m seeing right now. (Credit Parliament Cinema Club 4K.)

Based on Stephanie Land‘s “Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother’s Will to Survive“, Molly Smith Metzler‘s Maid is a grim but compelling 10-part series about a single mom (Margaret Qualley) barely getting by somewhere in the northwest. Damp, rainy, ferries.

I’ve only seen episodes #4 through #7, but the sad fate of Qualley’s “Alex” character, it seems, is to be disappointed and undermined by those around her, On one hand she’s emotionally damaged goods, and yet she’s living on a sort of heroic noble island and therefore quite alone and isolated. 25 years old and struggling and perhaps stuck there until further notice.

She comes from a dysfunctional family (formerly brutal alcoholic dad, presently flaky hippie mom), has had a child with a sober dude who began drinking at age nine and who may fall off the wagon again. She’s treated brusquely by her cleaning business employer, and state assistance reps are their own odd trip except for the kindly woman who runs the abused women halfway house. Life is no picnic.

And yet — this is the interesting part — Alex constantly sidesteps romantic overtures from gentle, good-looking Nate (Raymond Ablack), a stable guy and a single dad of Middle-Eastern descent. Nate is easily the best option in terms of potential boyfriend material. The problem is that Alex doesn’t want to fuck him, apparently because he’s too stable and financially secure. Because she feels queasy about getting into an unequal relationship. Plus she doesn’t feel it.

There’s a moment where it appears as if Alex might be receptive to Nate’s delicate overtures. But nope.

Female Connecticut Friendo to HE: “I couldn’t escape the feeling I was watching someone who sees herself as a victim but actually isn’t. I really don’t buy Qualley in the role. She’s too pretty and too smart to only have the one option of cleaning homes. Like she could stay with her dad. She has that option. She chooses not to. She’s whining about not getting help from the government but she has options.”

HE to FCF: “Her dad was an angry alcoholic shit when she was a young child, but now he’s sober and it’s foolish to not give dad a second chance.”

FCF to HE: “She could get a job at the daycare place. They obviously need workers. She doesn’t have to clean toilets. It’s almost like she’s doing this shitty work so she can write that book.”

HE to FCF: “And she’s a monk. She not only rebuffs Nate’s advances but seems TERRIFIED by the idea of possible sex with him.”

FCF to HE: “And not to put too fine a point on it but when you’re a single mom like that you can’t just go around and be picky about everything. Hell, I’d go for that guy. He’s cute. He’s nice. Her daughter could have a home, a dad. She seems to only want to be on government assistance.”

HE to FCF: “She’s leading a tough life because that’s the idea behind the series. The series needs her to suffer and regard all men as bad eggs of one kind or another, and to abstain from sex. Until the end of episode #7, when she inexplicably fucks Sean. But she also blows off Nate, and this reminded me of a basic law of life, which is that if you’re a nice guy who likes a pretty girl, you can’t ‘nice’ your way into a sexual relationship with her. You need to BE ‘nice,’ of course, but ‘nice’ alone doesn’t get it.”

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In a new IndieWire poll, 137 critics have cited 15 films as the best they saw at four recent fall festivals — Venice, Telluride, TIFF and NYFF.

I am telling you straight and true that the failure of said critics to include Reinaldo Marcus Green‘s King Richard is incontestable proof that a significant percentage of these critics are living deep inside their own heads and anal cavities. Because King Richard, trust me, connects, and will almost certainly become a top Best Picture contender. The critics also included Spencer (a surreal, all-but-unendurable immersion into the misery of Lady Diana), Red Rocket (a respectable Sean Baker film that traffics in depravity and Texas trashitude), Bergman Island and Dune.

The #1 critics pick, Jane Campion‘s The Power of the Dog, is going to be hated by Average Joes and Janes. I called it “a chilly and perverse cattle-ranch drama that insists over and over that it’s a very bad thing for toxic males to suppress their homosexuality. Campion is a top-tier filmmaker but Dog‘s milieu is grim and stifling and melancholy, like the dark side of the moon. Yes, Benedict Cumberbatch is excellent as the enraged and closeted Phil.”

IndieWire critics hot 15 (:

1. The Power of the Dog
2. Titane (HE says distinctive, respectably self-owned, overpraised by Cannes jury)
3. The Worst Person in the World
4. Drive My Car
5. Petite Maman
6. Memoria
7. Dune (HE alert)
8. Red Rocket (HE horror horn)
9. Bergman Island (HE alert)
10. The Tragedy of Macbeth
11. Spencer (HE horror horn)
12. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
13. Parallel Mothers
14. C’mon C’mon
15. The Lost Daughter

If Hillary Clinton had won in ’16 she’d probably be in her second term now. The noise on the right would have been horrible every step of the way. But would we be three years away from a more-than-likely rightwing coup d’etat?

Overheard: “As Bill Maher, Robert Kagan and others have now demonstrated with far more eloquence than I have, Trump’s takeover is all but guaranteed. American democracy ends in January 2025. Because the fascist left and the fascist right are now working together. They are both cults that despise freedom of thought, and they both, increasingly, despise reality.

“The right is ahead on the reality score. On the 1 to 10 scale (1 being reality, 10 being total wingnut through-the-looking-glass fantasy), they’re at about an 8. The left is now a 4 creeping up on 5. (As Andrew Sullivan captured in his revelatory column this week, the trans issue is what’s pushing the left to a 6, 7, or 8.)

“But the bottom line is that they’re united. They both want to kill American freedom (just by different means). They are colluding, and they will succeed.”

Or, as a friend put it this morning, “HAHA!”

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In episode #4 of Mary Smith Metzler’s Maid miniseries (Netflix, streaming since 10.1), Margaret Qualley’s “Alex,” a recently split-up single mom, is asked by her daughter what Thanksgiving is.

Her answer basically means wokesters regard this late–November family holiday as problematic, due to the history of white settlers’ mistreatment of Native Americans. And yet…

History.com: “The [50 year] alliance between the Pilgrims and the {Massachusetts] Wampanoag tribe, remains one of the few examples of harmony between European colonists and Native Americans.“