Paul Reubens

Artistic genius lies in making the ambiguous meaningful. Paul Reubens, who died on Sunday, achieved this with his most famous role and creation, Pee-wee Herman.

I mean, what is Pee-wee, exactly? Is he a big child? Is he an adult who acts like a child? Is he a slightly perverted and imaginative adult? No one answer fits and arguably the character's appeal went into decline once pop media tried to box him in as a children's character. It's hard to say what the trajectory would have been because his, and Reubens', career was cut off prematurely when Reubens was arrested for masturbating in an adult theatre.

Although he was ridiculed for a long time, there was also a lot of public sympathy for him and, of course, now it seems monstrous that he was even arrested and made to feel embarrassed for something so human and, really, private, even if the theatre was technically public. It's no wonder he felt traumatised for years.

Part of the reason it was such a big scandal was that he was perceived as a children's character. But he didn't start that way. For many years, Pee-wee was an adult act, filled with sex jokes and innuendo.

But then he became a mainstream success. Pee-wee was the main character and Reubens was the star of Tim Burton's debut film, 1985's Pee-wee's Big Adventure, and that's how I discovered him as a kid. I was a big fan of the movie and became obsessed with the song "Tequila" featured in the film. I was six years old and I think I gravitated to the absurdist humour of the film, the surprising route it took through scary scenes and funny scenes and sweetly romantic scenes, the ambiguity in just what kind of story it was and what kind of character Pee-wee was supposed to be. The movie isn't really a "type" any more than Pee-wee and that made it exciting. Nothing fit together in an obvious way and yet it all made perfect sense on a deeper, almost subliminal level.

I appreciate the subsequent TV series, Pee-wee's Playhouse, more as an adult than I did as a kid. Now I can appreciate the ingenuity of its design and format but when I was a kid I usually turned off the TV when it came on, or found something else to do while I waited for The Real Ghostbusters or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to come on. It was a kid's show, it wasn't a dangerous rule breaker like Big Adventure, and I wasn't interested.

Pee-wee finally made a come back of sorts in 2010. It's sad now looking at Wikipedia and the list of all the projects Reubens tried to get off the ground with the character--a Playhouse movie, The Pee-wee Herman Story (a dark take modelled on Valley of the Dolls). I remember Jud Apatow was supposed to direct a new Pee-wee movie and gradually that project was shunted aside until it was taken on by a first time director and released on Netflix as Pee-wee's Big Holiday to little fanfare (I still haven't seen it myself).

To-day, many of Reubens friends and acquaintances are talking about what a good, kind man he was, how he had an extraordinary capacity for remembering people's birthdays. He must have been celebrating other people all year. He's well worth remembering himself.

X Sonnet #1723

A Grecian bladder holds the oats of Scott.
When black replaced the red, a label burned.
Forget the stripe, the crowd demands a spot.
A vase replaced in time's a vessel earned.
Adventures wound the tape for ice and snow.
Prepared to voyage late, she packed a flask.
But bourbon burned the dreamer's only beau.
So gin is all her heart would think to ask.
An errant smell arrests departing words.
But what could lurk beneath the rotten house?
An evil slug accosts the nervous herds.
No path avails the thin and thirsty mouse.
A bike's beyond the grasp of ardent hands.
A desert glow escapes the closing sands.

Go Go Gadget Lecture

What if AI takes the form of a doll with a massive chip on its shoulder? 2023's M3GAN runs with this premise into a depressingly lame movie. I say depressingly because this movie was extremely popular.

People call it a horror comedy. Not much of the comedy seems intentional. I laughed when M3GAN turned out to be super strong with no explanation. But it sure seemed more like lazy writing than comedic writing. Growling sound effects for when M3GAN is watching from the shadows don't make any sense, either, and seem like hackneyed cues put in so that people know it's a horror movie, like applause cues on a sitcom.

The production design is really bland, as usual for anything produced by James Wan. Lots of large rooms with blank walls and department store showroom furniture.

The film was written by Akela Cooper, whose writing for Luke Cage I don't remember being this bad. I guess at the beginning of the film there's some depth to control freak Gemma (Allison Williams), who's compelled to adopt her niece after her parents die in a car crash.

That car crash scene features the girl's mother sensibly pointing out a series of mistakes made by the father who becomes moronically defensive each time. "Why didn't you put chains on the tires?" "Hey, neither of us knew that was a thing until like ten minutes ago." This as they're driving up a mountain in a snowstorm. I guess that's kind of funny.

But the meat of the movie is insubstantial. M3GAN, created by Gemma for her niece to play with, is supposed to be the perfect toy and the little girl's supposed to be obsessively attached to her. But all the doll does most of the time is scold and lecture the girl, telling her to use a coaster or giving her a lecture on how condensation works. The big moment when M3GAN is supposed to show herself as uncannily perceptive and sensitive shows her recording the little girl recalling a memory of her mother. And then M3GAN sings a cheesy song. As far as I can see, she doesn't have much on Teddy Ruxpin. I guess maybe we're supposed to find this funny but I really think it was meant to be scary.

One critic on Wikipedia is quoted as calling her a "gay icon" because she's "gorgeous and loyal but messy and insolent." If by "messy and insolent" you mean neat-freak who tries to take control of the household by murdering people. I feel like it's slightly homophobic to call every feminine psychopath that comes along a "gay icon".

M3GAN goes after one boy who tries to bully the little girl. She plays dead when he thinks she's just a doll at which point he takes off her shoe and hits her in the face before she comes alive and tears off his ear with the super strength she has for no apparent reason. It's weirder that he hit her in the face. When he took off the shoe, I thought he was going to molest her, which would have make more sense for the kind of boy he appeared to be. But I sense we can't even show a doll being assaulted now. We're a long way from I Spit On Your Grave. Too many scenes feel less like the writer intelligently imagining would happen and instead plugging in stock scenes, attuned for genre expectations and prescribed morals.

M3GAN is available on Amazon Prime.

Heaven and Hell on a Cupcake

Everyone's favourite demon and angel duo are back in Good Omens 2, the second season of the series based on a Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett novel. It premiered on Friday with one episode. It's aggressively cute and occasionally funny.

Although it's new material, written by Gaiman and John Finnemore (Pratchett passed away years before the show was made), it hearkens back to the 1990s in many ways. I don't know if this was intentional or if Gaiman and Finnemore just need to get out more. There's a subplot about two women falling in love and one of them is considered odd because she has a store selling vinyl records. Do Gaiman and Finnemore really not know how popular vinyl records have become in the past ten years?

I suppose that could just be part of the deliberately unchallenging nature of the material. Crowley's supposed to be a demon but he doesn't exhibit any truly bad behaviour, for example. The worse he does is drive fast while listening to Queen. People who want to feel like rebels without actually stepping out of line can watch the show and feel like martyrs for owning vinyl Queen records.

I kind of wish Aziraphale would act more like an angel, too. When the amnesiac Gabriel calls Aziraphale and Crowley his "friends", it made sense when Crowley denied being his friend but I felt like Aziraphale would've said, "Of course we're your friends." I did really like the scene where Aziraphale, as her landlord, forgave the record shop owner for not paying her rent. If even a softball show like this is willing to lampoon the ridiculous rent prices in the western world now, maybe we're a little closer to real action.

The costumes and sets are all really adorable. The street and buildings constructed around Aziraphale's shop make even the show's "real" world feel like a fantasy, underlining the impression that all of this is set in some softer, sweeter plane of existence where angels and demons alike spend most of their time having adorably awkward dialogue. Even Crowley's choice of beverage at the coffee shop, just six shots of espresso in a cup, is like a child from the 1990s' impression of an unreasonably strong drink.

David Tennant and Michael Sheen as the two leads are both really good, particularly Tennant. John Hamm returns as the archangel Gabriel and his guileless innocence is very cute. He's introduced, this season, walking naked down the street to Aziraphale's shop and, in this adorable reality, a naked man in the street causes absolutely everyone to stop and watch him. I don't think I could binge this show, at least not without a drink stronger than six shots of espresso, but the show's being released one episode a week. And maybe one little drop of this super sweet confection, like a miniature cupcake buried in frosting and sprinkles, is enjoyable on a weekly basis.

If you like twee, this show is tweer than Lamb Chop copulating with a Care Bear on a bed of cotton candy.

Good Omens is available on Amazon Prime.

Marilyn's Shadow

While I think vulnerability in artists and characters is good, and the willingness to be vulnerable can be admirable, I dislike the fetishisation of vulnerability. Into this category falls 2022's Blonde, a movie that revels in the misery of Marilyn Monroe's life, starting with the most pessimistic interpretation of the motives of people around her and then imagining things were even worse. In this film, based on a book by Joyce Carol Oates, Marilyn Monroe becomes the Sufferer and director Andrew Dominik presents one minimalist scene after another in which Marilyn, in a dark room or carefully reconstructed publicity photo or movie scene, is compelled to shed tears or is duped into smiling.

Marilyn Monroe, as a subject, is a bit like Alice in Wonderland. No matter how many films have been made or books written about or inspired by the original, there will always be more. Part of the reason is that there's a distinct feeling that every version, no matter how good, never quite scratches the itch. Marilyn Monroe and Alice in Wonderland both leave the audience with the feeling that there's more under the surface, that there are tantalising avenues to explore, but access to these paths are forever blocked. Not necessarily because there are secrets that can never be uncovered, but because the original subject so successfully suggests the beginnings of ideas and stories.

I imagine Joyce Carol Oates and Andrew Dominik researched Marilyn and were captivated by the idea of how much suffering the woman probably endured behind the scenes. Omitted entirely from the film are Marilyn's first husband, her tenacious struggle to become an actress, and her final completed, greatest film, The Misfits. Instead we meet a persistently passive Norma Jean, who can do little more than shed tears as her mother, overcome by madness, nearly murders her. A passive Marilyn is confused as a studio executive bends her over for anal sex in exchange for her big break. A passive Marilyn feebly discusses the complexity of her character in Don't Bother to Knock. A passive Marilyn drifts into a sexual relationship with the sons of Charlie Chaplin and Edward G. Robinson.

The only really sympathetic male character is Arthur Miller, played with real warmth by Adrien Brody. And yet, while the film pores dully over slow motion, recreated shots of The Seven Year Itch and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to show how Marilyn was exploited by a chorus of demoniac, slobbering men, Blonde doesn't even mention the film Miller wrote for her, arguably her greatest triumph as an actress, The Misfits. Blonde is not interested in what Marilyn accomplished or if she even had any real talent or positive contribution to the cultural landscape. It's little more than an excuse for the filmmakers to experience the simultaneous pleasure of delighting in a beautiful woman's suffering while caricaturing men--some of whom were probably truly responsible for that suffering, and others who were probably truly not.

Ana de Armas certainly bears an uncanny resemblance to Marilyn, though her nose and jawline are different, and she holds nothing back in the role. It's really a brave performance, if only the material were more worthwhile.

Blonde is available on Netflix.

X Sonnet #1722

Where apple dolphins play, the dinner cooked.
Around the party paper, people sang.
A joyous noise compels a nosy look.
Combustive kites propel a lofty bang.
With stable sets of colours, palettes melt.
Repeated pictures slowly soak the years.
Reduction rendered man below the belt.
Impressive scenes could lack a pool of tears.
Increasing names endorse the smokey meal.
Upon the seven seas a secret sucked.
Retreated houses ask a month to deal.
Another wind before the mill was ducked.
With dancing kappa, ponds were conquered first.
The world beyond endures persistent thirst.

Sinead O'Connor

Sinead O'Connor, who was found dead two days ago, was a revelation in her music video for "Nothing Compares 2 U". It's like watching Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire for the first time. It's such a remarkably raw performance, with such seemingly natural emotion immediate and on the surface.

She appeared in films a few times but never really pursued an acting career. I was particularly fond of her appearance as the Virgin Mary in Neil Jordan's The Butcher Boy, for which she also recorded her version of that classic folk song.

I listen to O'Connor a lot, I have most of her albums in my usual playlist. Like many rock stars, her first couple of albums are by far her best. "Nothing Compares 2 U" is a Prince song which she covered on her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. Her first album, 1987's The Lion and the Cobra, is one I've enjoyed listening to while making comics in the past. I'm particularly fond of "Mandinka".

For a song that seems to be about stripping and having no shame, it comes from an artist who was unwavering in her dislike of sexualised depictions of women. Her wardrobe was distinguished for being bulky and shapeless and, when Miley Cyrus appeared naked in the music video for "Wrecking Ball" in 2013, O'Connor wrote an open letter to the young star urging her never to allow her naked body to be used for the profits of men.

O'Connor was scolded herself often enough in her younger days. Prince, in his turbulent first meeting with O'Connor after the release of her cover of "Nothing Compares 2 U", told her not to use swear words in interviews. Her reply was to tell him to fuck off.

She was always passionate but no matter how passionate her opinions they were always subject to drastic change, a common symptom of people with borderline disorder, with which she was diagnosed. After identifying as Christian throughout her life, she converted to Islam in 2018 and announced on Twitter:

"What I'm about to say is something so racist I never thought my soul could ever feel it. But truly I never wanna spend time with white people again (if that's what non-muslims are called). Not for one moment, for any reason. They are disgusting."

She later claimed the remarks were merely an attempt to be banned by Twitter and that they were "not true at the time and not true now".

She attempted suicide several times. When one can remember having opinions which one might suddenly and vehemently hate, it's not hard to see how such an individual would be inclined to kill herself. Although the cause of her death has not been made public, I think most of us assume it was suicide.

Stories of her erratic behaviour were regular over the course of several years. There were reports of her going missing, of publicising her online dating profile. It's strange behaviour, but maybe not so strange when one remembers the behaviours of other rock stars. Was she really any crazier than Jim Morrison?

Morrissey blogged about her after her death.

She had only so much ‘self’ to give. She was dropped by her label after selling 7 million albums for them. She became crazed, yes, but uninteresting, never. She had done nothing wrong. She had proud vulnerability

"Proud vulnerability" is a good way to put it. However flawed her judgement may have been, she certainly understood her own appeal. She knew why people went to see her in concert. That vulnerability was something to be proud of. It's with that vulnerability that rock stars give us permission to be vulnerable ourselves, and thereby help us to see ourselves, to discover our own values. Few have had the guts that Sinead O'Connor had, though. Sadly, sometimes having guts means jumping into the fire and not coming back.

Alien Nation, FINAL

In thinking about last night's finale for Secret Invasion, I find myself reminded of Oscar Wilde's story "The Sphinx Without a Secret". It's about a mysterious woman who is observed visiting a house in secret only for it to turn out that her actions were done entirely to excite intrigue, that she in fact lacked any curious mystery in her life. At the bottom of Secret Invasion, likewise, there is nothing. The ruse doesn't seem to have worked so well as it did for Wilde's character.

There was a more or less decent fight scene between Gravik and G'iah of the variety She-Hulk recently told us we're not interested in seeing. G'iah and Gravik now channel all kinds of powers, mostly from the Guardians of the Galaxy, as evidenced by G'iah's unintentionally hilarious baby Drax arm.

I was reminded of an episode of Angel I watched recently in which Cordelia asked her hunky new alien boyfriend if his power, like Samson, was in his hair and the dumb lug innocently replied, "My power is in my muscles!" I guess dinky little Emilia Clarke is packing some, too, sort of.

Daenerys could crack a smile now and then, she could look angry. Clarke has chosen to play G'iah as someone who lacks personality, in seemingly inverse proportion to her newly acquired powers. It's hard to get excited for her. Grace Randolph argued that it should have been Talos who got the powers. Sure that would've been more satisfying.

Finally Fury, or G'iah in Fury's form, says no planet could be found for the Skrulls. Since this was the question on everyone's mind from the beginning, some attempt to answer it earlier would've been nice. I guess, since it doesn't make any sense, what with a whole universe of planets out there, the writers felt it best to let audiences fill in the blank.

Similarly, Varra wants to use her own name and shape, implying that Fury wouldn't tolerate them before, yet he accepts both right away, which makes sense since we'd had no indication before that he wouldn't. To paraphrase Tom Servo, "Ladies and gentlemen, we provide the scene, you provide the motivation."

And so another obscenely expensive Disney+ series slips quietly into the void. By the way, if you liked this premise, you might want to check out Rockne S. O'Bannon's Alien Nation.

Secret Invasion is available on Disney+.

Where's My Lagoon?

I read what I think was the newest Sirenia Digest this morning. It contained a Caitlin R. Kiernan story called "BLACK WATER (MURDER BALLAD NO. 14)". It's nice. A disturbing meditation on the Black Dahlia murder and connecting it aesthetically with Creature from the Black Lagoon. The first part reminded me that Caitlin had written about reading Edgar Allan Poe again recently in her blog as the first person narrator reflects on the motive for murder. It was good.

It's really hot here to-day, I'm mostly sitting in my apartment and sweating, trying not to run the air conditioner.

Last night I watched the new episode of the resurrected Futurama. It's very meta and unfunny but what did I expect? The show has to catch up with Rick and Morty which is growing stale, too. Billy West and Phil Lamarr sound really old.

X Sonnet #1721

With careful steps, affection wound the seats.
With hapless souls reserving senses late.
Beneath the knuckles, punchy breakfast beats.
We think of this as monsters pound the gate.
When high above his shoes, the man's a foot.
Assumptions spat the gummy ear to bears.
A thousand noses know where beaks are put.
But laughter coughs a lack of vital cares.
Examples zerged the syllogistic sins.
Extorted clams implore vanilla waves.
Exemptions cut the undigested fins.
Exported Davids changed to local Daves.
Expensive zithers spring for minor notes.
Examined tides disperse collected boats.

What Doesn't Change You Confirms You

Natasha Lyonne wonders how she could possibly be gay in 1999's But I'm a Cheerleader. Coming from a time when homosexuality was still a somewhat, kind of taboo topic, the film feels very softball to-day. Most of the jokes don't really land but the romance between Lyonne and Clea DuVall's character is really sweet.

With all the deliberately artificial sets and costumes, the film feels more like an idle fantasy between two girlfriends getting high together, giggling as they discuss what it would've been like if they'd met in conversion therapy.

Cathy Moriarty plays the strict headmistress, let's call her, of the conversion camp--camp being the key word here. Step one is getting inmates to admit they're gay, then conversion can begin. So Lyonne's character, Megan, is forced to reflect on the pinups of women she keeps in her locker at school and on how she dislikes kissing her boyfriend. Clea DuVall's character, Graham, is the bad seed who likes to sneak out and go to gay bars at night. Maybe the best way to tell you what kind of humour this movie has is to say that RuPaul plays one of the conversion therapists.

The film was directed by Jamie Babbit who's gone on to have a long and very solid career directing television. She's directed episodes of Gilmore Girls, The Orville, Only Murders in the Building, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, among many others. It's kind of funny seeing Lyonne playing someone who's supposed to be a stereotypical cheerleader when nowadays she's basically become Columbo. She's good and her innocent Megan with hard boiled Graham is a very sweet combo.

But I'm a Cheerleader is available on The Criterion Channel.

The Right Team at the Right Time

Obviously I think a lot of the criticism levelled at the MCU is valid, but I'd be a liar if I said I didn't think 2012's The Avengers is a great movie. Writer/director Joss Whedon so perfectly captured the tone and characters of Marvel comics and delivered them in such a perfectly paced ballet of dynamic action and dialogue it's little wonder the franchise can still run on fumes now.

I don't tend to re-watch a lot of 21st century blockbusters so when I see a new MCU movie or series I probably don't appreciate the experience a lot of people have, watching Secret Invasion, for example, with The Avengers fresh in their minds. But surely the diminishing audience for the MCU shows this juxtaposition doesn't always benefit the newest entries.

The Avengers is a film unburdened by many of the infamous issues facing big budget genre fare to-day. No writers more intent on pushing a message than on crafting a good story. No bottom of the barrel, inexperienced writers because Disney incredibly still thinks it can make profits off brand recognition alone. No sense of the intrusive tampering that gives us tonally bizarre moments like the "Boner" joke on WandaVision or the Wasp's nonsensical insertion into scenes in Quantumania. Whedon reportedly cut ties after too much interference on Age of Ultron and tiffs between the studio and Edgar Wright and others are well known. The Avengers, the culmination of that momentum that began to build with Iron-Man, was maybe the last time the studios thought they might as well let people with proven talent drive a franchise.

Whedon knows these characters and he doesn't just pop in character traits like infoboxes that pop up over the action. He knows who they are and how they would interact with each other and the environment. Of course, Thor, as a god, is not going to ask permission to extradite his brother to Asgard. Tony Stark is too arrogant to spend much time reasoning with him--though he's smart enough to spend a little, even raising his visor before two fight. Steve Rogers, who told Stanley Tucci in the previous movie that he didn't want to kill anybody, not even Nazis, is of course the guy who can mediate and make peace.

Black Widow got the short in the of the stick in most of the MCU movies. She seemed like a different person in every movie. Here, Whedon seems to be channelling Buffy, making Natasha someone whose everygirl reactions, like her shrug of acknowledgement when Tony points out to Steve he's still a pretty impressive guy when he's not wearing the metal suit, contrast and augment her hypercompetence. When she shows her hand with the interrogators in her first scene, she shows the talent and skill of someone who's spent years studying psychology and combat, and delivers casual lines with the provocative insight of a precocious teenager. Definitely Buffy, but with more psychology. It occurs to me now Whedon's Dollhouse series may have been originally conceived as a Black Widow movie.

Whedon knows we're waiting on tenterhooks for Banner to turn into the Hulk, and he teases us in almost every scene. Tony prods him, half-jokingly, trying to see if he'll change, a moment that also conveniently puts Tony in our point of view. At the same time we're being teased, it's also valuable for making us focus on Banner as a character. Is he angry? How's he holding it in? Is he holding it in?

Now with Disney's financial woes, do you suppose they're nearing the breaking point of hiring real talent and giving them free rein? We could quote from a DC movie here--Why do we fall? So we can rise. The marvel here is that the people in charge of these massive companies can be so stupid.

The Avengers is available on Disney+.

"May Be My Treasure or the Price I Have to Pay"

Now that I've read the magnificent original novel, the 1965 adaptation of She is even more frustrating. But it wouldn't be frustrating if there weren't things I like about it and top of the list is Peter Cushing and Bernard Cribbins.

All three of the male leads are well cast, actually, and could've been excellent playing closer to the original characters. Cushing as Holly isn't as brawny or as ugly as the character in the book is said to be but I think a little weight lifting and some makeup could've fixed that. There's not a thing wrong with Cribbins as Job the valet. John Richardson is bland and handsome but so was his character, Leo Vincey, in the book.

Strange echoes of their original relationship are retained in the film. In the book, Holly was a professor and foster father of Leo, who was bequeathed to him by a colleague along with mysterious artefacts. Job was Holly's servant. In the movie, the story has been moved to 1918, at the end of World War I (the book was published in 1887). Holly, Leo, and Job are soldiers, deciding how to return to civilian life. Job announces his intention to be a valet, Holly wants to go back to being a professor. The three in no way seem like soldiers, despite Peter Cushing's amusing attempt to be rowdy with a few topless dancers.

This also deviates from Holly in the book who's terribly awkward around women and whose lifelong unrequited romantic needs are an important part of the book's subtext. Cushing could've played that beautifully, alas, but he and Cribbins are wonderful as a sort of Frodo and Sam in the desert.

JOB: "I'm glad I'm not an educated man, sir, if that's what makes you go off on a damn fool search for lost cities."

HOLLY: "Isn't that exactly what you're doing, Job?"

JOB: "Well, yes, sir, but I'm too ignorant to know any better."

The changes were obviously made in the interest of condensing the story. They weren't good decisions, not just for putting the characters in roles they don't act like they're in anyway. It also loses a lot of the novel's mysterious build-up. Worse is the fact that Leo meets Ayesha, the She of the title, almost immediately, in a house in Palestine where she gives him a ring and a map to her hidden kingdom of Kuma. In addition to losing the mystery, it also doesn't make much sense for her to ask him to come find her when she's standing right in front of him.

Ursula Andress is appropriately beautiful though she wants an air of authority. One of the extraordinary things about the novel is how Ayesha came off as truly brilliant, capable of considering strategy and adept at judging character. Andress just seems like a petulant teenager.

Christopher Lee and Andre Morell are fine in supporting roles. Rosenda Monteros as Ustane, Ayesha's unexpected rival for Leo's affections, is perfectly fine, though Ayesha's treatment of her is another thing that lacks the nuance of the novel.

As flawed as it is, I can still see myself watching this movie again. I'm amazed it's so hard to find and it appears never to have had a blu-ray release, despite having been one of Hammer's greater box office successes.

Twitter Sonnet #1720

Evaluations sever glitter ties.
Misfortune chopped the business man to meat.
Reduction cost the bull a dream of lies.
The people's prank deflowered Mary's seat.
Some thirsty desert troops have wrecked the bar.
For phantom queen, the golden cub embarks.
Her sweaty dream was near but miles far.
His train assays a list of vain remarks.
Emerged again, the floating damsel paints.
We walk to wharves without the grace of paws.
And look, the lonesome lady quickly faints.
In beauty's sky were eyes and feudal laws.
With brazen praise, the goddess lines the cliff.
The beach below belongs beyond an "if".

Tony Bennett

I'm not exactly a fan of Tony Bennett, who passed away at the age of 96 on Friday. I don't hate him, though. I listen to the Goodfellas soundtrack a lot and "Rags to Riches" is a perfect opener for that movie.

I certainly have to respect Bennett's longevity. He was still releasing albums up until 2021 despite having Alzheimer's (which makes me wonder how much those albums were his idea). His voice certainly didn't diminish noticeably, not so as I can notice, anyway, in this duet with Lady Gaga:

Do you think Gaga wanted to go to bed with him? She looks like she's aggressively sending signals in the video. That could just be performance but I wouldn't be too sure about the girl who wore the meat dress. It would've been a feather in her cap, one that just went up in value, I guess.

I would say his voice seems to have more range than hers in this song. This is likely a deliberate choice by Gaga but it sure makes him look good. How many singers stop sounding right after they hit 70 or so? He really didn't sound much different than he did in 1949.

To be Queen in Hell

Some battles are so hard, you forget they're not worth fighting. The protagonist of 1995's Showgirls has this experience. My experience was to find out how good this movie is, despite its reputation. People have argued about whether it was intended to be funny or if it's "so bad it's good." I'd say it's definitely the former, at least as far as director Paul Verhoeven is concerned. I think it's possible screenwriter Joe Eszterhas wasn't in on the joke. I think he might've thought he was making another Flashdance (which he also wrote). But the movie actually has more in common with Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, another movie with satire so deadpan that a great many people didn't see it for what it was.

Another thing that surprised me about the film was its energy. It starts with Elizabeth Berkley as Nomi Malone, walking briskly at a strip mall, and the camera pans from this bland location to a sudden, glorious panorama of snowy mountains.

This may be Verhoeven showing himself to be a foreigner, someone marvelling that American sleaze can exist side by side with natural beauty. Surprising juxtapositions occur elsewhere in the film, like when an innocent scene of Nomi and her friend, Molly (Gina Ravera), shopping suddenly cuts to Nomi naked onstage at the strip club.

Despite what many contemporaneous reviews said, the movie is very sexy and the eroticism works. American critics generally seem to be tone deaf when it comes to sex for some reason.

Berkley's performance is as bad as people say it is but I think Verhoeven cast her the way Kubrick cast Ryan O'Neal in Barry Lyndon. He wanted someone genuinely dumb. There's a certain kind of sincere stupidity I think is difficult for actors to mimic, it has to be real sometimes. Verhoeven has said in interviews that he told Berkley to go as big as possible with her performance. This combined with the constantly moving camera and the surprising juxtapositions in the first third of the film makes everything feel unstable and conveys an impression of Nomi as an unstable person. Which she certainly is.

People who find her unconvincing have probably never met someone like her, or maybe they don't want to admit they have. But, oh, trust me, she is so true to life. This girl whose pride is a millimetre under her thin skin, is quick to anger, who has no compunctions about lying, who sees no problem with mentally erasing her past. She's ruthless and an asshole but her stupidity makes her kind of innocent in spite of herself so she can be a sort of heroine in this world of people who are bigger, smarter assholes than she is.

Director Jacques Rivette said of the film, "it's about surviving in a world populated by assholes, and that's Verhoeven's philosophy." Everyone is an asshole in this movie but Verhoeven's use of satire makes you forget it for minutes at a time, and then a punchline drops and you're reminded with another of those abrupt juxtapositions. A handsome bouncer (Glenn Plummer) at a club takes an interest in Nomi and starts trying to convince her she's better than the strip club, but even the strip club is better than the dishonest big show at the casino Nomi aspires to join, which is still a strip show, just one under a thin veneer of artistic respectability. He has his own aspirations of being a choreographer and musician and he wants her to be his muse. In the normal language of the rising star film, he'd be the moral centre, the guy who sets Nomi on the right path. But then, when she goes to tell him excitedly that she'd joined the chorus line at the Stardust Casino, she finds him at home, sleeping with another stripper. That still feels very typical until Nomi leaves the scene and he starts immediately telling the other girl all the things he'd said he was only saying to Nomi, "I can teach you to dance--I wrote this song for you," etc. Verhoeven undercuts the standard plotline even further when it turns out actually this guy is a terrible choreographer who gets booed and winds up having to work at a grocery store.

A funnier piece of satire is when two of Nomi's former coworkers from the strip club visit her at the Stardust. Nomi had stormed out of the strip club, bitterly proclaiming she'd never return now that she has the big job at the casino. But some time has passed and here's the fat burlesque comedienne from the strip club and you think, "Oh, yeah, I guess they were kind of friendly so this is a sweet reunion . . ." And then the manager from the strip club (Robert Davi) walks on screen, too, and the film maintains this tone of oh, look at all these old comrades she's meeting up with again. And she's smiling and happy and it's sweet. Then, as they're parting, the strip club manager comments, "It must be strange not having people cum on you all the time." It's funny because it's so wrong for the tone of the moment. It's also funny because it's an abrupt reminder that this is the guy who coerces girls into giving him blowjobs, that he's vicious, just a little more honest than the big wigs at the casino. But Nomi's so believably dumb we know it never clicks with her, she exists in the emotions of the moment, forgetting or intentionally erasing the events of days previous in her mind. This is how she continually falls for the manipulations of Crystal (Gina Gershon), the show's leading act.

In scene after scene, Crystal pulls some asshole move or says something snide, but then follows it up with some friendly word or gesture and Nomi, like a schmuck, always swallows the hook. It's the same with Zack (Kyle MacLachlan) who fools her into thinking he's a sweet guy by chewing out an underling who propositioned her. And all the time, we know how the normal language of these rising star movies work, how some people genuinely want her to succeed and others are just out to get her. Verhoeven shows us it's not so simple--or rather, it's much simpler. Everyone is ready to betray her, and maybe those same people also have genuine feelings of camaraderie. They're all assholes, but that doesn't mean they can't have some vague feelings that might be called friendly in a generous mood.

The movie is so funny, you could just die laughing.

Showgirls is available on The Criterion Channel.

Alien Nation, Episode Five

It was another short episode of Secret Invasion last night, only 39 minutes, including credits, and yet it felt like it had a lit of filler. I was reminded that a lot of these MCU shows were originally conceived as movies that were turned into mini-series and I bet that's what happened with Secret Invasion.

So Talos is really dead and the wonderful Ben Mendelsohn never even got a chance to work with a decent script. Well, he still has Star Wars and hopefully he'll be turning up on Andor season two.

I guess the episode wasn't truly filler, a lot of important plot points did occur, as I see now from reading the synopsis. Why was it so hard to care about them when I was watching them? I guess the main reason is the show has never managed to convey a sense of threat. Maybe it's due to a poor sense of the potential victims of Gravik's crimes. I think back to the best Marvel shows, like Daredevil and Luke Cage, and how their villains were cleverly woven into an environment, so you could see how they could do some damage. Considering the Skrull's power is shapeshifting and infiltration, maybe what the show really needed was to show how Skrulls were manipulating humans into harming themselves. That would be a great use of Skrull Rhodey, who continues to be my favourite part of the series due entirely to Don Cheadle's performance.

Olivia Colman is also pretty fun as Sonya Falsworth. I kind of want to see her square off with Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Valentina.

Secret Invasion is available on Disney+.

Twitter Sonnet #1719

A judge's query twists the purse and coins.
With morning gone, the girl's routine was sunk.
Between embattled sheets were tender loins.
So dinner gathered late could choke a monk.
A lonely apple robbed a shaded room.
Becoming ice behooved the journal's ink.
To meet a mangled knife, the core would bloom.
And still the ghost is stirring round the rink.
We turned a millipede and made the grass.
With wavy hair, the creature took a page.
A hazy thunder scared the razor lass.
'Twas something gained for lost and lonely age.
Inventing pink and gold was metal girl.
No black or white but bronze became the pearl.

Spring Strayed into Summer

I found myself in the mood to watch 1949's Late Spring (晩春) again last night. Ozu Yasujiro is usually most highly regarded for his compositions but I'd say he also gets extraordinary performances from his actors. Now that I've seen him in more movies by other directors, I can appreciate how vulnerable and layered Ryu Chishu's performance is in this film.

Particularly memorable is the scene where he lies to his daughter, Noriko, played by Hara Setsuko, claiming he wants to remarry. The way his face twitches is so natural, and so clearly indicates he's not accustomed to lying to her. And you can see how painful it is that he's manipulating the situation to achieve an outcome neither of them really wants.

Of course, Hara Setsuko is amazing, too. She was idolised as the "eternal virgin" and that's certainly appropriate for her role here as a young woman who doesn't wish to marry and leave her father. But Hara's performance is more complicated than the shy and blushing youth most would associate with someone idolised for conveying virginity. There's an intensity about her, the beginnings of the frozen smile of someone used to bottling things up, yet at the same time she's remarkably unfiltered. She delights her former professor when she calls him "filthy" because he divorced and remarried. Not having embarked on the normal journey of life and love, her childish ideals have been allowed to calcify.

Naturally, the film's beautifully shot, too. This is my first time watching it since I moved to Japan and it's a different experience seeing the characters in Kyoto, visiting places I've visited myself, Like this rock garden at Ryoanji Temple:

Late Spring is available on The Criterion Channel.

Don't Trust Vampires

Poor sweet, ever unsuspecting Yvonne Monlaur in 1960's The Brides of Dracula. Even after she flees the castle in terror and encounters Van Helsing, she still wants to marry the handsome young Baron she'd found shackled to a wall by his ankle.

She trusts the Baron's youth and beauty, I suppose, over the elderly mother who locked him up, Martitia Hunt.

I don't think there's another Hammer vampire who seems so completely unchanged, personality wise, by her transformation. After Marianne (Monlaur) sets the Baron (David Peel) free, he of course turns the woman who'd kept him locked up, his mother, even though she'd also kept him fed with people she could lure to the castle. Hunt played Miss Havisham in David Lean's Great Expectations, I suppose her impeding vampirehood wouldn't have been much different. The life of a Hammer vampire was certainly not very appealing. She gets no super strength, no powers of hypnosis or transformation. She just gets a new restrictive diet and a deadly sun sensitivity. Immortality? Maybe, but it's a wonder any of these weaklings live a decade, let alone a century. This was all parodied wonderfully, by the way, in Andy Warhol's Blood for Dracula.

Jack Asher's department store lighting cinematography shows glossy paint on everything and yet there's a magic about that castle. No comparable American production could quite fill a place with ancient knick-knacks the way Hammer could.

I love how Marianne first talks to the Baron from a balcony in her room, seeing him in another balcony across a courtyard. We get an impression of a vast labyrinth of hidden passages and complicated corridors. This is definitely one of those movie homes I would love to live in.

I'm also particularly fond of Peter Cushing's heavy duty tweed outfits in this movie.

Jane Birkin

Jane Birkin, who died a few days ago, was a cool yet innocent screen presence. Wide eyed and eager yet also languid and dreamy. She was very sexy, too.

Serge Gainsbourg wrote this orgasm ballad for Brigitte Bardot, who also recorded it--beautifully. But I think it's a greater pleasure to hear Birkin's version.

She was underused in the stylish Italian horror film Seven Deaths in a Cat's Eye but her attitude and looks paired well with the gothic atmosphere.

She was dynamite, though, again, underused, in La Piscine.

But that may be the essence of one of those performers, like Marlene Dietrich or Sean Connery, whose coolness somehow makes it seem as though there's never quite enough of them in their films, even when they're the star. And now she's gone.

You may also have a Birkin Bag.

Twitter Sonnet #1718

From fire dreams the clouds forever held
The amber shade that looms above the world
From lost and brazen beasts, the maiden sailed
To helpless bays her fragile ship was hurled.
A lump revokes tomato dreams and teams
Of shameless shades remove the seats and beds
To strand the feet below the ragged seams
Of breeches cut before the fashion Feds.
For straightened thoughts and jackets strait restrict
The licensed lot of arms beyond the pale
Beyond the plan for love to now constrict
A grey and starchy skirt remembered well.
Surprised behind the painted screen a cat
Recalls the sleeping mind's imposing bat.