One of my favorite novels of the last few years has been A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. It’s told with such a deft touch, never careening into camp and walking that sort of ambiguous line that reminds me of The Exorcist. The finale is particularly chilling as it manages to recontextualize the unreliable narrator who has been telling us their story. Since 2018 there has been lots of movement in pre-production on a film adaptation, and this week we finally got a leading actress cast.
The Seven Year Itch (1955) Written by Billy Wilder and George Axelrod Directed by Billy Wilder
Watching these later works by Billy Wilder feels like if David Fincher went from doing dark thriller movies to working exclusively in light comedies. They aren’t bad, but they are definitely not as strong as the earlier work. The Seven Year Itch is another film based on a stage play, and it feels like through the first half. It’s slow, and the main character thinks aloud constantly, which gives away the stagey-ness of the production. Throughout the film, I kept thinking of Mad Men and how this picture was pretty dated with its portrayal of marriage.
Wonder Woman by George Perez Volume 4 Reprints Wonder Woman V2 #36-45, Annual #2 Written by George Perez & Mindy Newell Art by Chris Marrinan, Jill Thompson Steve Montano, Colleen Doran, Jan Duursema, & more
George Perez’s reboot of Wonder Woman in the late 1980s is just so unlike anything else that came before or after. Wonder Woman was always a strange comic when compared to others, being a female-led title when such a thing wasn’t trendy. The world of Wonder Woman was so unique pre-Crisis and continued to be different when it came to the tone. In the early days, there was more of an effort to incorporate Princess Diana’s stories with the DC Universe proper. We saw that in previous volumes with Millennium and Invasion tie-ins. This period of Perez’s run felt like it was drifting away from the larger universe, become more insular with Diana’s supporting cast.
Sabrina (1954) Written by Billy Wilder, Ernest Lehman, and Samuel A. Taylor Directed by Billy Wilder
Sabrina is not my favorite Billy Wilder film. I’ve never been a big fan of the romantic comedy, but compared to modern fare in that genre, Sabrina is a masterpiece. This feels like the ur-text of romantic comedies, all of the serendipitous tropes and plot contrivances to work towards a happy ending. The plot couldn’t be more simple, but that is to the film’s favor, keeping the cast pared down so that time is spent developing core relationships. There are side characters that exist to provide comedic relief. It’s all very fluffy & light, a great tasting meal of cotton candy.
Star Trek: Picard (CBS All Access) Season One, Episode Four – “Absolute Candor” Written by Michael Chabon Directed by Jonathan Frakes
At first, I have been annoyed with the lack of Next Generation characters in Picard. But after doing the math, he was captain of the Enterprise for twenty-one years, which is almost the same number of years he’s been retired. I expect he’d drifted apart from his original crew as they received promotions and new assignments. These new people are lower on the totem pole and thus have less to lose. They lack extended family and therefore, can hop on a ship and journey out into space, not knowing exactly where they are headed and what they are in for.
Taste of Cherry (1997) Written & Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
For a film about such an intimately emotional experience, Taste of Cherry chooses to distance itself, placing the whole of the movie in an almost purely rhetorical realm. We learn very little about the personal life of our main character and not much about the people he encounters during his journey. Conversations orbit around significant existential questions, yet the movie is very much about the beauty of human existence and frailty. This is also a movie that Roger Ebert gave a single star to because he said it lacked any forward momentum, which I think was sort of the point. This is a piece of ambient cinema, and it defies Western expectations.
Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) Written by Christina Hodson Directed by Cathy Yan
I am not going to pretend I was excited in any way to see this movie. With the foul taste of Suicide Squad in my mouth and my opinion that Harley Quinn is not nearly as interesting a character as DC Comics is trying to make her, I knew I was going to dislike most of Birds of Prey, and I did. I won’t even go with the statement that “this movie wasn’t made for me” because it sort of was. I have loved DC Comics since I was a kid, especially the B-tier or lower obscure characters. Birds of Prey is chock full of them, and seeing a version of those characters on screen was mildly amusing.
Stalag 17 (1953) Written by Edwin Blum & Billy Wilder Directed by Billy Wilder
It’s strange to say that Billy Wilder’s film about Americans in a Nazi prisoner of war camp is the most light-hearted of his movies I’ve watched so far. But that is most definitely the case. I almost wonder if Wilder took a step back from the bleak tone of his previous work, especially after Ace in the Hole was received so poorly by American audiences. Stalag 17 is much more of a “cheer for the heroes” type of film, but Wilder still manages to make the main protagonist buck conventions.
It’s Valentine’s Weekend, so that means people are buying cheap chocolate and flowers en masse to profess their love for one another. Love is an emotion that’s been present in cinema since its inception. In 1896, William Heise released the short film The Kiss, one of the first publicly viewable movies. Since then, many stories have been told about people falling in and out of love, both comedic and tragic. Even some horrific. Here are my favorite movies about Love.
A Woman Under the Influence (1974, directed by John Cassavettes) John Cassavettes paved the way for independent film in America and made a name for himself as an iconoclastic director. His muse & wife was Gena Rowlands, who he cast as Mabel, the titular woman. Nick (Peter Falk) is her devoted husband, who notices Mabel’s behavior becoming erratic. While the film never labels Mabel’s condition, it’s clear she’s somewhere in the realm of bipolar disorder. Mabel ends up in an institution after attempting self-harm, and Nick thinks life can just go back to normal when she returns home. Cassavettes understood that true love could endure the most trying of circumstances, that people who really love each other can do so even when the one they care about doesn’t appear to love them back.
So I don’t really care about the Oscars. I think it was 2005 when they gave Best Picture to Crash that I realized the whole thing was pointless. As I’ve gotten into Film more, I’ve learned that the best films often get ignored by the Academy, so whatever. However, it was quite lovely that Parasite won Best Original Screenplay, Best International Feature, Best Director, and Best Picture. It was my favorite film of 2019, so I’m that Bong Joon-ho and his work are getting more recognition. I wish the actors had gotten some nominations.
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