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Tag: 90s movies

  • Caught Stealing With a Hand in Pi: Darren Aronofsky’s Expertise in 1998

    As Xan Brooks of The Guardian pointed out in an interview with Darren Aronofsky, his latest film, Caught Stealing, “could almost be his parallel-universe first movie, given that it’s set in 1998, around the time he was shooting his actual first film, Pi, on the same East Side streets.” But beyond just that full-circle kind of correlation, there are many marked similarities between Pi and Caught Stealing…even though Aronofsky didn’t write the script for the latter. No, instead, Charlie Huston adapted it from his own novel of the same name, originally released in 2004. A year that found the masses still coming off the “high” of the late 90s. Sobered instead by the new realities of the twenty-first century, which weren’t at all what they had been made out to be as the twentieth century came to a close. Or, as Aronofsky puts it, “People were looking forward to the new millennium. It was going to be The Jetsons. It was going to be sci-fi.” Turns out, it was just going to be a shitshow. And one that greased the wheels for the current horrors plaguing the globe (though the U.S. in particular). 

    Granted, many were still generally feeling plagued (and paranoid) in the late 90s, as Aronofsky shows only too well through his main character in Pi, Max Cohen (Sean Gullette). Although a number theorist, Max is what “the suits” would call “unemployed.” But that doesn’t mean his time isn’t constantly occupied, mainly by an obsession with finding the numerical pattern in everything, even a number as chaotic, as unknowable as pi. And, being the type of person who, the more he’s told something can’t be done, has to do it, it’s no wonder that 1) he thinks he can find a pattern in pi and 2) among the initial voiceovers the viewer hears from Max is that when he a child, his mother told him not to stare into the sun. “So once when I was six I did.” The result was temporary blindness and, in the present, randomly occurring, debilitating headaches. Even so, it seemed Max found it worth it to prove something to himself. More accurately, to find out something for himself. 

    At the same time, denial and avoidance are imperative to the way he lives, functions. The same can definitely be said of Caught Stealing’s anti-hero, Henry “Hank” Thompson (Austin Butler), who descended upon New York’s Lower East Side after running away from his dark past in California, where, once upon a time, he had a bright future ahead of him. For he was slated to become a professional baseball player. That is, until he, like Max, engaged in the kind of self-destructive behavior that was to doom his once-bright future. And, also like Max, Hank might be viewed as “barely getting by” on the financial front. This during one of the last eras in New York when it was possible to just “kind of be there” without an actual career.  Or at least a career goal. But Hank’s lone goal is to forget, able to do so in part thanks to the alcohol perks of being a bartender at a dive called Paul’s Bar. With Paul (Griffin Dunne) filling in for the sort-of mentor role that Sol Robeson (Mark Margolis) fulfills in Pi.

    Hank’s only other “distraction” is Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), a paramedic who increasingly wonders just how serious their relationship is (on a related side note regarding Hank’s “emotional distractions,” there’s also, of course, Bud, the cat he’s saddled with early on in the movie). But at least Hank doesn’t come across as asexual in the least, like Max, who clams up if his clearly interested neighbor, Devi (Samia Shoaib), so much as approaches his, er, peephole. And yes, the POV shot from the peephole is among the pivotal filming techniques that Aronofsky uses to assert a “unique style” for his debut. Even if it is the sort of style most commonly associated with debuts: deliberately “esoteric.” 

    Aronofsky’s directorial signatures have, needless to say, been quite fine-tuned since then, with Caught Stealing exemplifying his ease with “slickness.” But not the kind of slickness that was so aware of itself in the late 90s (see also: The Matrix, which seems to have borrowed certain elements of Pi, if for no other reason than modeling the apartment that Neo [Keanu Reeves] lives in after Max’s). And yet, part of what makes Pi such a distinctively “of its time” product is its highly postmodern sense of self-awareness (complete with the voiceover trope that was so popular in “edgy” 90s movies—case in point, Fight Club). 

    What’s more, the soundtrack of Pi is so authentically of the 90s that it would be impossible to fully entrench Caught Stealing’s sound in that way. Try as Aronofsky might with the inclusion of such signature alt-rock hits of the day (with Madonna’s “Ray of Light” also thrown in for some added “1998 musical clout”) as Garbage’s “I Think I’m Paranoid, Smash Mouth’s “Walkin’ on the Sun” and Marcy Playground’s “Sex and Candy.” But he also deliberately ties Pi and Caught Stealing together with a sonic thread. Namely, through Orbital. In Pi, it’s Orbital’s “P.E.T.R.O.L.” that helps add to the overarching feeling of paranoia Max is spreading to the viewer; in Caught Stealing, it’s Orbital’s “Satan” that gets used instead. This along with David Bowie’s “I’m Afraid of Americans,” which casually plays in the background while Hank is hanging out with Yvonne. Because Aronofsky likely couldn’t resist the inclusion of such a timely track. Even more timely than it actually was in 1998 (though the “techno version” of the song was released in ‘97).

    Then, obviously, there’s the inclusion of Semisonic’s “Closing Time,” a highly appropriate track for a movie about a bartender. Though, of course, it’s about so much more than that. However, at its core, like Pi, it’s about a character who’s at the wrong place at the wrong time (the concept of “time” perhaps even extending to the very year he exists in), therefore entangling that character into a nexus of people that ultimately mean to harm him. 

    Hank has a much worse go of it than Max in terms of that form of abuse. Because, whereas Max does most of the harm (physical and emotional) to himself, Hank is so roughed up by the multiple parties in search of his next-door neighbor Russ’ (Matt Smith) key that it costs him a kidney. To boot, an obsession with “the key” takes on a different meaning in Pi, but it still means that multiple parties are fixated on getting Max to give them the information—the “key”—they want, just as it is the case for Hank and the literal key he’s found himself in possession of. So desired that even the Hasidim are after it, specifically the Drucker brothers (played by Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio). And yes, Judaism is an instrumental aspect of Pi as well, with Max, like Hank, eventually turning to the Jews for help when he finds himself in painted into a corner with the other people who are after him. 

    Taken to the temple by Lenny Meyer (Ben Shenkman), who he’s been having frequent conversations with about the Torah at the local coffee shop they both frequent, Max is told by the head rabbi that the 216-digit number his computer has been spitting out is “the key to the Messianic Age,” for it can crack the code to the true name of God. The rabbi then continues, “[The high priest] walked into the flames. He took the key to the top of the burning building, the heavens opened and received the key from the priest’s outstretched hand. We have been looking for that key ever since.” Key, key, key, always with the key in these two Aronofsky movies. Not to mention Coney Island, which features prominently in each film for the purposes of Max and Hank’s proverbial “epiphany scenes” (well, one of them anyway).  

    With the tagline, “Faith is chaos,” Aronofsky taps into something similar, narrative motif-wise, with Caught Stealing. Though its own tagline—“Small town boy. Big city problems”—reveals how much more commercial Aronofsky has become in the twenty-seven years since Pi. And yet, it’s evident that the twenty-nine-year-old who, per The Guardian, “subsist[ed] on pizza and liv[ed] in a fifth-floor walk-up,” who “was anxious and ambitious” and who “had his eyes on the prize” still does have it trained on said prize. In this instance, proving that he can still go back to 1998 as if it were yesterday. As if no time had passed at all. For that’s what many people, based on the present circumstances, do wish. Maybe, with the right combination of numbers, the right pattern, a time machine can be created to get us all back there (or, more likely, those with money back there). 

    Until then, Caught Stealing will have to suffice for those seeking, like Cher, to turn back time. For, while Aronofsky might claim, “I don’t want to be one of those old men shouting at clouds. Or shouting at the TV set, ‘Elvis Presley’s moving his hips and he needs to be banned!’ The world is changing. I’m trying to lean into the excitement. It’s time to shut up, stop complaining and dance.” Or, better still, stop complaining and provide music in a movie set in 1998 so that at least the music is more compelling to dance to. 

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Crow 2024 Is More Caca Than Caw-Caw, But That’s to Be Expected When Compared to the Original

    The Crow 2024 Is More Caca Than Caw-Caw, But That’s to Be Expected When Compared to the Original

    In a perfect world, remakes and reboots wouldn’t need to exist at all. Or if they did, the final product would be the result of truly careful, measured storytelling methods that only served to elevate rather than insult the original. Alas, as most know, the world is far from perfect. In fact, it’s as much of a shitshow as the one portrayed in Rupert Sanders’ version of The Crow. And as Sanders’ third movie as director, it’s done little to boost his prospects for directing in the future. This further compounded by his previous credits being Snow White and the Huntsman (mired in scandal when Sanders, then married, was caught having an affair with the film’s star, Kristen Stewart) and Ghost in the Shell. The latter being yet another remake that was panned for more than just casting Scarlett Johansson in a Japanese woman’s role (though that didn’t cause nearly as much outrage as her brief bid to play a trans man). Still, the reviews for Ghost in the Shell seem utterly kind in comparison to what’s been lobbed at The Crow, and from no less than the film’s original director, Alex Proyas, calling it a “a cynical cash grab,” then adding, “Not much cash to grab it seems.”

    True indeed, for The Crow made just barely under five million dollars in its opening weekend. It had a fifty-million-dollar budget to recoup. Unfortunately for the studio (Lionsgate), it couldn’t even manage to beat out 2009’s Coraline, which placed at number seven in the United States’ top ten box office (to The Crow’s number eight) after being re-released in theaters in honor of its fifteenth anniversary. The likelihood of The Crow remaining in the top ten at all during its second week of release doesn’t seem promising. All of which is to say: what the hell what wrong? That question isn’t too hard to answer.

    For a start, with a movie like The Crow, which has such a strong and devoted following, the OG fans of the film were likely never going to get on board with an “updated” (read: far more “corporatized”) version. Especially one that so often feels as though it desperately wants to check off multiple boxes in different genres. For there’s the “romantic” aspect of it, which often mirrors what Joker and Harley Quinn seem to have going on in the upcoming Joker: Folie à Deux, complete with Eric (Bill Skarsgård) and Shelly (FKA Twigs) meeting at a rehab facility called Serenity, the supernatural aspect and the Tarantino-level revenge and violence aspect. Something that FKA Twigs herself called out in an interview promoting the film, foolishly thinking that it was a good thing that The Crow has such “hodgepodge energy” by saying, “I was amazed at the juxtaposition between the front half, the middle and the end of the movie. It’s almost like there’s three genres in one. At the beginning, you have this incredible coming-of-age love story about these two outsiders who are just desperate to feel at home… and then in the middle, it’s this psychological thriller, and then at the end, you know, it’s kind of pure gore and horror…”

    In short, it’s all “kind of” whatever, trying to be everything to everyone perhaps because the writers were aware that it was never going to measure up to the 1994 version, so why not just try to appeal to as many audience members as possible? A “strategy” that, in the end, serves to appeal to no one. Save for, at best, those who have no knowledge of The Crow’s previous iterations as a comic book or Proyas film.

    Funnily enough, one of the writers in question of The Crow 2024, Zach Baylin, was not so long ago nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for King Richard (which lost that year to Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast). So yes, it’s quite an about-face to go from Oscar-nominated to more than likely Razzie-nominated. As for his co-writer, William Schneider, The Crow inauspiciously marks his first writing credit on a full-length feature. It seems both writers ended up on autopilot after a certain point, mish-mashing the timeline of the narrative and eventually losing all sight of anything resembling “logical time” with an ending that not only reverts to a lazy “rewind” tactic, but totally excises the original killers in favor of having the two OD as a reason for their death (or, in Shelly’s case, near death). And, speaking of being junkies, Skarsgård and Twigs have way-too-perfect teeth to fit that casting bill.

    As for the Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) and Shelly Webster (Sofia Shinas) of 1994’s The Crow, let’s just say there was a lot more depth to their characters that didn’t rely on the sole “trait” of making them drug addicts. Indeed, Eric and Shelly aren’t junkies at all in the original, just two “ghouls” in love (with Eric also being a musician). As though to highlight how “emo” they are in their love for each other (Jack and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas-style) from the get-go, upon unearthing their bodies right after they’re murdered in their Detroit loft, Sergeant Albrecht (Ernie Hudson, of Ghostbusters fame) finds a wedding invitation for the following day, October 31st, prompting one of his fellow policemen to ask, “Who the fuck gets married on Halloween anyhow?” Albrecht replies, “Nobody.”

    That was the answer then. The answer now is: plenty of people. Some of whom were likely influenced by the “macabre” stylings of Eric and Shelly’s coupledom (later mirrored in such “unions” as the ones shown in Candy, Corpse Bride and even Only Lovers Left Alive). That sense of, “If you jump, I jump” (or, in The Notebook’s case, “If you’re a bird, I’m a bird”—an appropriate saying for The Crow). And yes, jumping off a bridge does come up in The Crow 2024, with Shelly asking Eric if he would, essentially, die for her. The answer is, needless to say, a resounding yes. But the “intensity” of their “love” for one another often feels forced rather than authentic—even though that’s clearly the aim of the actors involved. And yes, Skarsgård and Twigs seem to be doing the best they can with the material they’re given, with Twigs likely attracted to the project because it furnished her with her first opportunity to play a lead role. Though perhaps she might have been better off sticking to the periphery if this was going to be the result…

    As for the decision to add the demonic element into the mix (all in keeping with the trend of satanic panic this year) via Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston), it’s utterly underdeveloped—along with just about everything else in the movie. But this isn’t to say that The Crow 2024 lacks style where substance is totally missing. The soundtrack, visual effects and, yes, “aesthetic” are nothing to be balked at, even if they can never capture (or even dream of recreating) the genuine “lo-fi grit” of Proyas’ film. The effect, instead, is a prime example of what happens when a corporate entity tries to commodify something truly artistic: the authenticity is lost, blatantly so.

    In many ways, an “update” (or “reinvention,” as Stephen Norrington, at one point attached to write the script in the early period of its development hell) of The Crow was always going to be doomed. The film was already known for being “cursed” after Brandon Lee died on set after an improperly loaded prop gun killed him. What’s more, in trying to get a “reboot”/“remake” off the ground, a number of actors so ill-suited to the part (e.g., Bradley Cooper) became attached that any fan of the original couldn’t possibly have high hopes.

    A few years back, when the project seemed permanently foiled, Proyas hit the nail on the head in terms of addressing the core issue of trying to remake The Crow at all: “It’s not just a movie that can be remade. It’s one man’s legacy. And it should be treated with that level of respect.” Obviously, though, there wasn’t much respect for the original if they weren’t even going to include at least a nod to Sarah (Rochelle Davis), who served not only as a key thread of the film, but also its narrator, the one who tells the audience from the outset, “People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens, that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can’t rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.”

    Alas, “the crow” can’t right this particular wrong: The Crow 2024. Another one of its fundamental problems being what The Crow comic book creator James O’Barr boiled it down to: “I think the reality is, no matter who you get to star in it, or if you get Ridley Scott to direct it and spend two hundred million dollars, you’re still not gonna top what Brandon Lee and Alex Proyas did in that first ten-million-dollar movie” (Side note: it was originally a fifteen-million-dollar budget, with an additional eight added to it when Proyas decided to complete the remaining scenes with Lee with CGI and a stand-in.)

    But, if nothing else comes out of The Crow 2024 (apart from disappointment and tarnished reputations), there is certainly the silver lining that filming in Prague, with all its underground raves and nightclubs, ended up inspiring the sound and tone of FKA Twigs’ upcoming album, Eusexua.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “Daddy! Mommy! Save Me From the Hell of Living!”: Longlegs

    “Daddy! Mommy! Save Me From the Hell of Living!”: Longlegs

    As the 90s seem to be taking hold of the box office this summer (with Twister also reanimating as Twisters), it’s only right that someone should take a stab at what amounts to an updated version of The Silence of the Lambs and Seven. That person is none other than the son of Anthony “Norman Bates” Perkins himself, Osgood Perkins (formerly known as “Oz”). And yes, being a child of such a particular kind of actor has undoubtedly influenced Perkins’ overall “spooky” bent in terms of generally opting to make creepy films (some of his previous ones include The Blackcoat’s Daughter, The Girl in the Photographs, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House and, more commercially, Gretel & Hansel). That in addition to playing “Young Norman Bates” in 1983’s Psycho II. But, obviously, more than anything, the lives and deaths of Perkins’ parents would be enough to inspire him to pursue this genre.

    It was already bad enough that Anthony, his long-closeted father (though, of course, it was an open secret in Hollywood), died of AIDS in 1992 (along with Robert Reed a.k.a. “Mr. Brady”), but then, nine years later, his mother, model/actress Berry Berenson, died in one of the planes that was hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center. Really, shit doesn’t get more horrific than that in terms of parent-related trauma and loss. Which is exactly why one of the most standout lines from Longlegs is: “Daddy! Mommy! Save me from the hell of living!” This delivered hauntingly and, it goes without saying, memorably by Nicolas Cage in the titular satanic killer role.

    As for the nickname, well, it pertains to “Longlegs” approaching children with a life-size replica doll of themselves and, instead of bending down to meet them at their eye level, saying, “It seems I wore my long legs today.” The “jovial” saying usually directed at children (especially in a pre-twenty-first century era) is, thus, turned on its ear (or leg)—rendered bone-chilling in a way that one never thought possible, and all done so simply, too.

    Indeed, “simplicity” is the keyword for this film. As Perkins put it to The Wrap, in terms of conceptualization, “The basic step is to pick something that’s true. Write to a theme that’s a true theme for me. In the case of this, that true theme was, it’s possible for parents to lie to their children and tell them stories. It’s very basic and easily understandable. If you want to start building projects that way, it should be simple.” What builds out of that simplicity is a haunting, unforgettable story centered on a young FBI agent named Lee Harker (Maika Monroe, who, like Perkins, is also known for making mainly horror movies). Tasked with tracking an untrackable killer in the already ominous setting of the Pacific Northwest (rendering the supplemental Twin Peaks nod complete), Harker falls as far down the rabbit hole as Clarice Starling ever did. And, among one of her more unique skills (besides being what Karen [Amanda Seyfried] from Mean Girls would call “kind of psychic” and having a “fifth sense”), Harker is extremely well-versed in the Bible. A knowledgeability that leads her to decode Longlegs’ formerly undecodable letters to the police. Accordingly, Agent Carter (Blair Underwood), Lee’s superior, is starting to understand why he enlisted her to take on this case.

    Alas, the case quickly starts to take her on instead, permeating Lee’s entire life until it leads her down the path of having to question her mother, Ruth (Alicia Witt, who, incidentally was in Twin Peaks: The Return), about Longlegs’ appearance in Lee’s childhood decades prior, at a time when Marc Bolan and T. Rex would have been all the rage. As far as Longlegs is concerned though, T. Rex remains “king” in his world (well, apart from Satan) as he constantly belts out chilling ditties of his own in the style of Bolan. This, of course, was already foreshadowed by the opening title card featuring the “Get It On (Bang A Gong)” quote, “Well you’re slim and you’re weak/You’ve got the teeth of a hydra upon you/You’re dirty, sweet and you’re my girl.” “His girl,” unfortunately, extends to many children who grow up not fully aware that they’re under his spell (in this sense, there’s more than a touch of Charles Manson [no stranger to satanism and the occult] to the Longlegs character). Chief among them being Carrie Ann Camera (Kiernan Shipka, who also starred in Perkins’ The Blackcoat’s Daughter), the sole survivor of one of Longlegs’ killings, which always follow the pattern of infiltrating a family’s home and miraculously getting the father to slaughter his wife and children, with no signs of outside force anywhere.

    With Lee’s gift for what some might call “supernatural” intuition (though not quite to the extent of Phoebe Halliwell’s [Alyssa Milano] premonitory abilities in Charmed), Perkins adds another element into his elixir of ideas that are often incorporated into different sub-genres of thriller/horror films. As he described, “This movie is very pop. And it starts with reproducing Silence of the Lambs. If it’s pop art, then you want to adhere to certain indicators. And so the nineties became an easy indicator that we were in the realm of Silence of the Lambs and Seven. We were wanting to sit alongside the good ones and invite the audience into a safe space.” Of course, what’s also important about the nineties as the film’s backdrop is that it makes it much more difficult for law enforcement to track a killer without the modern technology of today. And yes, even the Longlegs of 2024 would be forced to have a phone, freakshow or not.

    But no matter what decade Longlegs existed/came of age in, he seems the type that was doomed to be a failure. And it is precisely that failure that turns him toward darkness, toward channeling his “talents” toward killing. Like the aforementioned Manson, Longlegs might not have become a satanic serial killer if his music career had taken off. As Perkins speculated, “Longlegs probably wanted to be a guitar player in a glam rock band called Longlegs. One day, the Devil started sounding through his headphones and through his records in the Judas Priest sense.”

    More than being a movie about a devil/glam rock-worshiping serial killer that targets children as the weak link for entry (a.k.a. possession), it is a movie that speaks to the ways in which parents lie to their children from an early age. All under the pretense of “protecting” them, of course (even from music like the kind T. Rex made)—but, in the end, that protection usually turns out to be a disservice. Especially as the child, in their “grown-up” years has to learn how to actually grow up after being insulated from harsh reality for too long. Again, Perkins knows all about this, better than most people, in fact. To that point, he would also state of this particular theme in the film, “It’s a bad world, and when Ruth finally comes out with her truth and tells the story, it makes me think about my own parents. That resonates as the most dynamic section of the movie; the revelation.” No biblical pun intended…probably.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Idea of You Is No Threat to Notting Hill or Even Music and Lyrics

    The Idea of You Is No Threat to Notting Hill or Even Music and Lyrics

    For those who didn’t think (or believe it possible) that there was such a thing as a “Coachella rom-com,” The Idea of You is here to fill this apparent void. And, although the book of the same name it’s adapted from, written by Robinne Lee and released in 2017, doesn’t involve Coachella, but rather, a concert at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, the same general premise of the “meet-cute” in question is still there. Though, for whatever reason, co-writers Michael Showalter (who also directed) and Jennifer Westfeldt (known for Kissing Jessica Stein and being Jon Hamm’s ex) thought it would be better to make that happen within the context of Coachella, an increasingly vexatious, overpriced music festival that, once upon a time, a woman like Solène Marchand (Anne Hathaway) never would have felt comfortable attending, let alone as a chaperone to her daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), and her friends, Zeke (Jordan Aaron Hall) and Georgia (Mathilda Gianopoulos). After all, “VIP culture” at the festival wasn’t a thing until at least after Madonna performed in April of 2006 (as many stickers at the time touted, “Madonna Killed Coachella”). Once that shift occurred, for those with the means, “there [was] no real roughing it at Coachella anymore,” as a 2015 L.A. Times article pointed out. And certainly not for a well-to-do, “middle-aged” white woman. 

    Fortunately, it’s not as though the entire movie takes place within this presently bourgeois context (such an attempt would make for an even worse storyline). It’s only for about twenty minutes that the first act setup centers on Coachella. An act wherein, initially, Solène resigns herself to a lonely weekend of camping (though, in the book, it’s presented as an artist’s retreat in Ojai). Alas, as her ex-husband, Daniel (Reid Scott), is known for doing, he completely ruins her plans (just as he did when he divorced her for a younger woman named Eva [Perry Mattfeld]) by showing up to her house with Izzy and co.—after she already dropped them off at his—and asking if she can drive them there instead now that he’s had an Important Work Thing come up. So, he pleads, why not relish the VIP tickets he shelled out for him and their daughter? Along with the meet-and-greet package he bought for Izzy so that she could interact with boy band August Moon. A band she hasn’t been into since junior high, but such is the out-of-touchness of her father in terms of paying close attention to the ways in which she’s growing up at a rapid pace. As most teenagers do (especially now). Which brings up one of numerous key differences in the book: Izzy/Isabelle actually is still very much an August Moon fangirl. With regard to this detail, it helps that, in the book, she’s twelve…as opposed to being seventeen in the movie. Isabelle’s age in Robinne Lee’s version of the story also raises the stakes much higher in terms of Solène feeling responsible for her child’s emotional well-being. Because by the time kids are in their late teens, that ship has sailed. 

    Indeed, one of the many heavy-handed expositions that Showalter and Westfeldt emphasize in their screenplay adaptation is how much more involved and caring Solène is as a parent than Daniel. Even though she, too, has her own successful career to juggle: running a gallery in Silverlake. A noticeable neighborhood shift from the book’s setting of Culver City. But Silverlake is just so much “hipper” for the purposes of the camera…even if the majority of shooting took place in Georgia (namely, Atlanta and Savannah). This is perhaps a more overt way in which The Idea of You as a film reveals just how much it skimps on things. Including making an actual statement about the way older women are treated when they date younger men in comparison to the inverse of that: older men with younger women. Sure, there are some errant, overwrought lines delivered—like Izzy telling Solène, “The people on the internet that are picking you apart are disgusting. It’s ‘cause you’re a woman and it’s ‘cause you’re older than him [thanks for spelling it out]”—but, by and large, the message about double standards gets lost in this becoming a movie about catering to a forty-something female fantasy. The idea, not of “you,” but of still being appealing to much younger man.

    Among the generation about to enter Anne Hathaway’s age bracket, this is more of a concern than it ever was in the past (likely as a result of fewer women settling for “fading into the background” once they’ve reached “a certain age”). And also, perhaps, more of a moot point. Mainly because, if you have the money, it’s never been easier to appear younger than you truly are, with Samantha Jones’ prophecy of “mani/pedi/Botox” being totally normalized at this point. Then there is the recent “joke” (read: accurate assessment) about how millennials are looking younger than run-ragged, “overstressed” (a.k.a. overstimulated, visually) Gen Z. With millennials actually favoring a younger-looking style (see: Lana Del Rey’s coquette aesthetic or Paris Hilton’s puerile butterfly wings) as Gen Z actively ages their skin with hyper-use of glycolic acid-packed skin products that will sooner (rather than later) have the reverse effect on their complexion that these face washes and exfoliants are meant to have on non-teen skin. 

    Solène, being born to French parents (though grandparents in the movie), clearly has to worry less about skin issues with such heritage. And it’s obviously benefited her in terms of coming across as Izzy’s “big sister” rather than her mother. That, and she had her daughter at a relatively young age (a much younger one in the movie)…sort of like Lorelei Gilmore.

    Allowing herself to be swept away by Hayes’ British charm and wit (a decided false stereotype when it comes to British men), things escalate quite quickly, even though, in the current era, audiences might be hard-pressed to believe that a white boy band would have this much cachet. Because, if we’re being honest, the moment for white boy bands passed a while ago—at the latest, with One Direction (though, in truth, the heyday ended after Backstreet Boys and NSYNC). Even so, readers and viewers alike are meant to suspend their disbelief in terms of surrendering to the idea that it wouldn’t be a more BTS-inspired boy band that Izzy was obsessed with. Perhaps, undercuttingly, it speaks to a certain kind of racism in not wanting a white woman (or girl) to go for an Asian man. That would add an additional layer of “complexity” to the age gap element that audiences might just not be ready for. 

    The book itself does a better job of giving more dimension to the boy band, at least bestowing the fandom with a name…as all fandoms are now required to have in real life. In this case: “Augies.” Or “Augie Moms.” Solène doesn’t see herself that way at all, though fears she’ll be automatically pegged as one just because she got roped into the meet-and-greet. And yet, in the book, being able to observe Izzy’s excitement is both delightful and bittersweet, the latter sentiment addressed when she notes, “…it pained me to realize that Isabelle was now part of this tribe. This motley crew searching for happiness in five boys from Britain whom they did not know, could never know and who would never return the adulation.” That last part speaking to the intensity of parasocial relationships that has amplified in the twenty-first century with social media.

    In the years when Solène would have been a teenager, the magnitude of that parasocial dynamic didn’t seem as strong. Not when it was all about posters on the wall as opposed to 24/7 internet stalking. To that end, there’s a moment in the book where Solène mentions having attended New Kids on the Block’s Magic Summer Tour (which went on from 1990 to 1992) and how, even then, she couldn’t fully let herself give in to the “thrall” that boy bands cause among tweens and teens. 

    Maybe that’s why she can’t resist giving way to it in the present, agreeing to go to lunch with Hayes in the book after he does a less stalker-y move by calling her gallery instead of just showing up like he does in the movie. As a matter of fact, the stalking aspect so often normalized in more “retro” rom-coms (e.g., Say Anything, 10 Things I Hate About You, Love Actually, etc.) is alive and well in The Idea of You, with audiences apparently expected to ignore it because of how “hot” and “charismatic” Hayes is. Besides, he’s a “star.” He’s used to simply going after what he wants and getting it. Applying that same ambition to a decidedly averse Solène. Averse not because she doesn’t want to tap that, but because she’s older, more pragmatic and should “know better.” She’s not driven by the same carnal lust as someone as hormone-driven as Hayes, who is twenty-four in the movie, but twenty in the book (maybe the writers thought those extra four years added onto his life would make it less scandalous). In both versions of The Idea of You, Solène is about to be forty. It’s mentioned so many times (complete with a birthday cake that reads: “Lordy Lordy Look Who’s 40”), it would be hard to forget. 

    And yet, as The Idea of You would have people believe, it seems that one needs to be a forty-year-old American woman in order to be on the same intellectual level as a twenty-four-year-old British man. Accordingly, the repartee between Hayes and Solène is meant to be the foreplay neither can resist consummating. At the lunch they have in the book, Solène ribs, “Something in the water in Notting Hill?” It’s a lunch during which they actually go out to eat as opposed to Solène taking Hayes back to her house. The mention of this London neighborhood brings up the automatic thought of 1999’s Notting Hill, amongst the few other movies in the rom-com genre to explore a romance through a lens in which one of the people in the relationship is world-famous (unfortunately, Marry Me tried to rip off this concept with much less success). Specifically, an actress named Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) who ends up in her own unlikely tryst with a “normal” named William Thacker (Hugh Grant). 

    Another rarity in the genre, 2007’s Music and Lyrics, has Grant playing the famous—or erstwhile famous—one: Alex Fletcher, a former member of 80s boy band Pop! (an amalgam of Wham! and Duran Duran). He eventually falls for “normal” Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore), the woman tasked with watering his plants who he suddenly discovers is a brilliant lyricist. It might say something that there’s always a Brit involved in these types of relationships. Or that Hugh Grant is in both films in roles reversed. And yes, like Hayes, Alex is terrified that he’s just a joke, and that no one will ever see him as being capable of writing music that is anything beyond froth. Both Solène and Sophie assure each of their respective men that it isn’t true. Though neither man seems as keen to reciprocate much in the way of similar support. 

    For Solène, that’s particularly important, what with the ramped-up scrutiny she gets as a result of being much older than Hayes (though their age difference is pretty standard between many older men and younger women). Regardless, it’s evident that, despite all the obstacles—even when it comes to her daughter being mocked and harassed, too—Solène and Hayes will end up together. That’s the point of movies like this: to be reassured that, against all odds (even the highly specific odds stacked against an older, non-famous woman dating a young, very famous man), love will triumph. It’s what the likes of OG star-falls-for-normal movie Notting Hill taught us long ago. And yes, there are two ostensible nods to that movie in terms of the mise-en-scène that harkens back to Anna coming into the bookshop and delivering her famous line: “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” The first is when Solène goes to the studio where Hayes is recording a song (inspired by her, duh) and asks if he’ll give her another chance, and the second is a the very end, when Hayes comes into her gallery after they agree to take a five-year break and see if they’re still “hooked” on each other once all the scrutiny has died down and Izzy has gotten old enough to not be in school anymore. Needles to say, they are. 

    Along the way to this inevitable moment, however, the rockiness of their obstacle-laden romance doesn’t come across as all that high-stakes the way it does in the book. Even so, while the movie might not top Notting Hill or Music and Lyrics (though, for some bizarre reason, the latter has a lower approval rating than this Hathaway movie), The Idea of You can at least take comfort in being a notch above Marry Me.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Death Becomes Her: The Ultimate Female Aging Commentary

    Death Becomes Her: The Ultimate Female Aging Commentary

    In the early 90s, Hollywood was becoming more self-aware of its own ageism. Perhaps in a manner not seen since Billy Wilder’s groundbreaking 1950 film, Sunset Boulevard. The first movie of its kind to truly lambast “the biz” in a manner that had never been done before. So damning, in fact, that the luminaries of Hollywood were not ready for it, with Louis B. Mayer reportedly yelling at Wilder, “You bastard! You have disgraced the industry that made you and fed you! You should be tarred and feathered and run out of Hollywood!” In the wake of its release, other “anti-Hollywood” movies would follow, including 1952’s The Star, with Bette Davis in the lead role that smacked of Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) in terms of the whole “aging, irrelevant star clings to former glory that can never be recaptured” angle. Tellingly, the movie came out eight months after Singin’ in the Rain the same year (as did The Bad and the Beautiful, the story of an insufferable producer named Jonathan Shields [Kirk Douglas]). This, too, being a condemning tale of how fickle and merciless the industry is when it comes to tossing out “irrelevant women” without a second thought. After all, movies aren’t about making “art” (contrary to the MGM saying, “Ars gratia artis” a.k.a. “Art for art’s sake”)—they’re about the bottom line.

    Perhaps the industry didn’t want to allow an entire genre to be carved out about itself right away, because it wasn’t really until the 90s that self-referential movies of a meta, satirical nature started coming out again. 1992 being the year of both The Player and Death Becomes Her. Then there was Swimming With Sharks in 1994, the tale of a dastardly movie mogul named Buddy Ackerman (the then socially acceptable Kevin Spacey) and the new assistant he abuses daily. Barton Fink and Bowfinger would provide bookends to the decade as well, each coming out in 1991 and 1999, respectively. Additionally, Hollywood provided the mid-90s “romp” Get Shorty and, two years later, another pièce de résistance of the genre via 1997’s L.A. Confidential. But out of all of them, Death Becomes Her was the most tailored release vis-à-vis addressing the lengths a woman feels she must go to in order to stay looking “forever young.”

    Of course, a resurgence in self-mockery didn’t mean Hollywood was actually going to do anything about its ageist proclivities in terms of making a significant change—a.k.a. rendering the industry as more friendly to the “aged.” To be clear, in Hollywood, “aged” means pretty much any number over thirty. Even to this day. The only thing women, actresses or otherwise, have on their side at the moment is the advancement of various anti-aging “remedies” (i.e., expensive creams and/or plastic surgery). But even those “tactics” tend to end up doing her a disservice as she can be equally as ribbed for her attempts at looking younger (see: the malignment of Madonna after her 2023 Grammys appearance). As Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) is by the time we reach the midpoint of Death Becomes Her. On her last legs as a “viable” (read: fuckable) actress, her long-time frenemy (but really just enemy), Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn), comes to see her at the beginning of the film, written by Martin Donovan and David Koepp, and directed by Robert Zemeckis. Because perhaps no one understands better than men just how much women are valued for their youth and looks above all else.

    Commencing in 1978, Death Becomes Her wastes no time in introducing its audience to the rampant ageism not only against women in general, but women in the entertainment industry in particular. Zemeckis sets the scene on Madeline’s opening night performance of Songbird!, a Broadway adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth (in truth, one wonders if Williams didn’t get his own inspiration from Sunset Boulevard). The irony here being that the part of Alexandra del Lago a.k.a. Princess Kosmonopolis was written for Tallulah Bankhead, who would have been fifty-four years old when the play first came out in 1956. Not exactly the “age group” Madeline would want to be associated with, and yet, a job is a job.

    After the audience lambasts her as they walk out, with such commentary as, “Madeline Ashton! Talk about waking the dead,” we’re given a glimpse of her supposedly cringeworthy (no more than usual for something meant to be set in the 70s) performance before Zemeckis cuts to her in her dressing room, staring at herself in the mirror as she reworks a famed lullaby into: “Wrinkled, wrinkled little star…hope they never see the scars.” Her lament over watching her youth fade is augmented tenfold as a result of being damned to see that youthful version of herself forever immortalized onscreen. Constantly making her yearn to be that girl again, as opposed to appreciating what she had when she had it. The same parallel can be found in Norma Desmond, with her boy toy/hired personal screenwriter, Joe Gillis (William Holden), observing the way she watches herself so lovingly onscreen. This prompts Joe to remark in a voiceover, “…she was still sleepwalking along the giddy heights of a lost career—plain crazy when it came to that one subject: her celluloid self.” The only “real” self, as far as Norma (and her delusions) is concerned.

    But Madeline isn’t so naïve. The Hollywood of the 70s and beyond would hardly allow her to be. Which is why she knows that when Helen reemerges after a seven-year disappearance from the public eye to throw a book party (taking place in then-present 1992) that Madeline’s been invited to—very deliberately—she’s fully aware she needs to look her best. Knows that it’s an opportunity to prove, once again, that she’s “superior” to Helen, if for no other reason than because she’s still “the hot one.” What she can’t fathom is that the entire motive for Helen to put on the fête is because she wants to parade just how amazing she looks and how well she’s doing to an ever-dwindling-in-importance Madeline (reminding the latter of as much when she tells her condescendingly at the party, “Gosh, I’m glad you came. I didn’t know if you would. I spoke to my PR woman and she said, ‘Madeline Ashton goes to the opening of an envelope’”).

    Even before arriving and realizing that she’s been outdone aesthetically by Helen, she senses the urgency of needing to go to her med spa and seek another treatment. But when her “specialist” refuses to give her the procedure she wants again so soon and instead offers a collagen buff, Madeline retorts, “Collagen buff? You might as well tell me to wash my face with soap and water.” Trying her best to keep her customer calm, the aesthetician then offers to do her makeup. Madeline balks, “Makeup is pointless! It does nothing anymore!” Not for “mature skin,” as it’s “politely” called in the world of foundation and concealer. She then verbally lashes the youthful aesthetician with, “You stand there with your twenty-two-year-old skin and your tits like rocks!” In other words, this bitch couldn’t possibly understand what Madeline is going through (but oh, how she’s going to). The scent of Madeline’s desperation is evidently potent enough for Roy Franklin (William Frankfather), the owner of the spa, to materialize out of nowhere in the same room and slip her a business card that contains only an address in elegant script: 1091 Rue la Fleur. Never mind the fact that L.A. doesn’t have French street names, the decision to name it after a flower is entirely pointed. After all, flowers are frequently used as metaphors (especially in poetry) to represent the “budding” of a girl’s youth (a gross phrase, to be sure) followed by the eventual decaying of that bloom. The one that makes her ultimately repugnant to men (and women) of all ages.

    Even so, Madeline persists in doggedly ignoring this reality—able to do so with the perk of having enough cash to pay a boy toy…à la Norma Desmond. Dakota (Adam Storke), however, is growing weary of Madeline’s cloying nature. This much is apparent when she shows up at his door unannounced looking for false comfort in the wake of Helen’s book party. Unfortunately for her self-esteem level, she finds that he’s with another (younger) woman. When she acts upset about it, he finally snaps, “I’m sick of this shit, you know that? I am doing you a favor here.” She asks incredulously, “Doing me a favor? I gave you—” “Yeah, you gave, I gave. Big deal! Somebody told me we look ridiculous together. How do you think that makes me feel? You never think about my feelings. Go find someone your own age, Madeline!” If Joe Gillis had been a colder sort, he might have said the same thing to Norma…except he knew all too well of her suicidal inclinations at the drop of a hat.

    With Dakota’s scathing rejection being the last straw, Madeline gives in to going to the address she was slipped at her med spa. A house that belongs to one, Lisle von Rhuman (Isabella Rossellini). To Madeline’s surprise, Lisle is already expecting her, having her muscular lackeys invite her in and then diving into her philosophical ruminations on aging, such as, “We are creatures of the spring, you and I… You’re scared as hell—of yourself, of the body you thought you once knew.” The one that’s changing and mutating like some kind of cruel science experiment. As Iona (Annie Potts) in Pretty in Pink laments, “Oh, why can’t we start old and get younger?” (otherwise known as: Benjamin Button’s disease).

    Lisle continues to make strange overtures as she caresses Madeline’s hand and muses, “So warm, so full of life. And already it ebbs away from you. This is life’s ultimate cruelty. It offers us the taste of youth and vitality…and then makes us witness our own decay.” With no amount of money ever being able to truly stave off that degeneration.

    Even our early forebears couldn’t help but be concerned with aesthetics amid basic survival concerns, considering the first plastic surgery procedures have been documented all the way back to ancient Egypt. And that’s really saying something when taking into account the lifespan for most people at that juncture. A majority was prone to dying young, with the average life expectancy in ancient Egypt being nineteen years old (which certainly meets the “die young” criterion presented in the book and movie version of Logan’s Run). Richies, like the pharaohs, however, could typically count on a longer lifespan (quelle surprise), usually between thirty-five and forty years old. And obviously, they would want to look their best while outliving the hoi polloi. There is something to be said for that same desire in the celebrity set, our modern version of the pharaohs, one supposes. They, too, are youth-obsessed for the same two-pronged reason: 1) being in the public eye means perpetual scrutiny/people seeking out flaws as a means to belittle the work itself and 2) they want the commoner to understand that they are not the same. Even if, as some would like to speculate, “I don’t think people want perfection out of celebrities anymore. I think they want celebrities that they can see themselves in.”

    But truthfully, the fact that Death Becomes Her remains as pertinent now as it ever was is a testament to that theory being another lie some prefer to tell themselves. That the film has also become a cult classic in the queer community additionally speaks to the gerascophobia of the gays. Per Peaches Christ, who has remade Death Becomes Her as Drag Becomes Her, “Let’s face it, gay men especially have this issue. It’s actually a real issue. It’s a real darkness in our community where we don’t talk a lot about the ageism that exists among us. And it’s a real thing.” But let’s not get it twisted: no one has it worse than women when it comes to aging and being cast out by (male-dominated) society as a result. So obviously, Madeline and Helen would take the potion offered by Lisle, regardless of what the potential ramifications might be—which is that they effectively turn themselves into non-bloodsucking vampires.

    While Helen’s motives for doing it stem largely from her competitive history with Madeline and wanting to prove that the only thing Madeline ever had as an advantage is her looks (now fading), Madeline’s drive to take the potion is emblematic of what spurs most actresses (and pop stars). They’re all clamoring to remain seen (as they were) amid fresher, newer “talent” entering the fray. And “being seen” has only become even more of a challenge in the attention span-decimated present. As for Ernest (Bruce Willis), who the duo tries to convince to take the potion as well so that he can patch them up for eternity (he’s a plastic surgeon-turned-reconstructive mortician), he doesn’t want anything to do with immortality. Thus, he tells Lisle, “I don’t wanna live forever. It sounds good, but what am I gonna do? What if I get bored? What if I get lonely? Who am I gonna hang around with, Madeline and Helen?” Lisle sticks to the crux of the sales pitch by reminding, “But you never grow old.” Ernest bemoans, “But everybody else will. I’ll have to watch everyone around me die. I don’t think this is right. This is not a dream. This is a nightmare.” Or, as the first verse of Thomas Moore’s “The Last Rose of Summer” goes, “‘Tis the last rose of summer,/Left blooming alone;/All her lovely companions/Are faded and gone;/No flower of her kindred,/No rose-bud is nigh,/To reflect back her blushes/Or give sigh for sigh!”

     So sure, staying young and vibrant has its pluses, but, in the end, caving to vanity means you’ll end up stuck with someone as narcissistic and soulless as the Hollywood machine itself. And the way Madeline and Helen end up in the final scene, it doesn’t appear as though the price they’ve paid for “youth” has been worth the fine-print consequences.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Bottoms Still Can’t Top But I’m A Cheerleader When It Comes to Queer Satire

    Bottoms Still Can’t Top But I’m A Cheerleader When It Comes to Queer Satire

    Being that the queer film canon remains shockingly scant after all this time, it goes without saying that the even more hyper-specific genre of satirical queer film is limited, in essence, to 1999’s But I’m A Cheerleader. Twenty-four years later, things haven’t gotten much more “ribald” or “perverse,” if we’re to go by what Bottoms is offering. Which is something to the effect of Fight Club meets Mean Girls with a dash of Heathers (that’s how the pitch would go, presumably). Compared to the latter movie solely because it, too, is set in high school and has a snarky, over-the-top (read: representative of reality, yet we must call it “over the top” to delude ourselves into thinking reality isn’t that grim) perspective. A.k.a. what people bill as a satire. This, of course, means caricatures of stereotypes. A stereotype, obviously, already being something of a caricature without needing to further amplify it. Unless it’s to make a point about some larger truth. Which Bottoms, in the end, fails to do.  

    In contrast, But I’m A Cheerleader makes its point from the very outset of the movie, with a title sequence that plays April March’s “Chick Habit” (long before Quentin Tarantino ever decided to use it) as quintessentially hot cheerleaders jump up and down in a manner befitting the male gaze. Except that, this time, it’s being seen through the female gaze of Jamie Babbit’s lens. And the images of those cheerleaders bobbing up and down will come back moments later, when Megan Bloomfield (Natasha Lyonne) needs to imagine them in order to seem even vaguely interested in the tongue-thrashing kisses of her football player boyfriend, Jared (Brandt Wille). When she finally makes it home for dinner, the plates prepared on the table tellingly all have meat on them, except for one, an empty space next to the peas and mashed potatoes where Megan’s mom will plop down her “vegetarian option.” Her father then engages in saying a very pointed prayer about giving people the strength to accept their “natural” roles in life. Feeling exposed by that statement, Megan does her best to sleep the lie of her life off in her room that night as a poster of Melissa Etheridge watches over her. 

    And so, within the first five minutes, But I’m A Cheerleader we’re given far more satire through visual cues than what we get at the beginning of Bottoms, directed by Emma Seligman, who co-wrote the script with her Shiva Baby star, Rachel Sennott. Going from a college-age girl to a high school girl for this role. But that can all be viewed as part of the satire (like Greta Gerwig casting a “too old” Ryan Gosling for the part of Ken, citing inspiration from Grease’s casting choices for high school students). Funnily enough, PJ (Sennott) seems to throw shade at that switch by saying, “We’re not gonna be sexy little high schoolers forever. Soon we’re gonna be old hags in college.” This said to her lifelong best friend, Josie (Ayo Edebiri, twenty-seven to Sennott’s twenty-eight), who is far less confident about being “hot” enough (according to PJ) to talk to the girls they’ve been crushing on for years. For Josie, that slow-burn pining is for a cheerleader (because, yes, the But I’m A Cheerleader connection) named Isabel (Hannah Rose Liu, no relation to Lucy, though still a nepo baby by way of being daughter to the founders of The Knot). For PJ, her more sexually-charged, less “in love” attraction is to another cheerleader named, what else, Brittany (Kaia Gerber, nepo baby nu​​méro deux). 

    Rather than commencing with anything visually, the first few minutes are pure dialogue, starting with PJ saying, “Tonight is the fucking night, okay? We’ve looked like shit for years, and we are developing.” Their back and forth continues on the way to the school carnival PJ is forcing them to go to, the one that kicks off the school year, but, more to the point, serves as a way to glorify the football team through quaint notions of “school spirit.” These quaint notions are also present for a reason in But I’m A Cheerleader, thanks to Megan’s status as, duh, a cheerleader. As though hiding behind that ultimate emblem of “all-American-ness” will throw people off the scent of her true identity. Which should mark at least one notable change between 1999 and 2023: theoretically greater acceptance of queer people in high schools (just not Floridian ones). Which is why, when Josie says, “This school has such a gay problem,” PJ replies, “Okay, no. No one hates us for being gay. Everyone hates us for being gay, untalented and ugly.” In other words, being gay has never been “chicer,” common even, if you know how to wield it to your advantage. 

    And yet, since PJ and Josie haven’t been able to make their gayness “work” for them, they decide to capitalize on a fortuitous coalescing of events: 1) the assumption that they went to juvenile hall over the summer after PJ jokingly confirms a fellow reject’s guess about why Josie has a broken arm, 2) Isabel running away from Jeff in the middle of the carnival and seeking refuge in Josie’s car before the latter slowly starts the car and drives toward him, just barely grazing his knee, 3) Jeff milking this for all its worth (even though nothing happened) by showing up to school the next day on crutches and 4) the announcement that a football player from the Vikings’ rival team, the Huntington Golden Ferrets, attacked a girl to quench some of their bloodlust. All factors conspiring to make PJ’s idea to start a fight club in order to attract their scared fellow female students and therefore possibly lose their virginity to one of them (being a satire, whether or not any of these girls are actually lesbians seems to hold no importance for PJ and Josie—especially PJ, who perhaps rightfully assumes that everyone is gay). Yes, this is the entire far-fetched crux of the movie. Nonetheless, as it said, stranger things have happened. 

    And since “weird shit” is more accepted by the mainstream than it was in 1999, it bears noting that Lionsgate Films, known at that time for distributing more “indie” fare instead of low-budget horror or high-grossing franchise movies (e.g., Twilight and The Hunger Games), was the company willing to pick up But I’m A Cheerleader. In the present, things seem to have gotten slightly friendlier toward queers in that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (more specifically, its revived Orion Pictures imprint) chose to distribute Bottoms. Then again, that studio has been queer-friendly since at least the days of Some Like It Hot. Thus, what Bottoms posits about being a lesbian in high school in the twenty-first century is that it’s so normalized now that homo girls are perhaps saddled with the worse fate of actually having to make themselves interesting and cool beyond “just” their sexuality.

    Enter the fight club, sponsored by PJ and Josie’s horrendously uneducated English (?) teacher, Mr. G (Marshawn Lynch, a former football running back himself). Who doesn’t show up until after the first meeting, where PJ takes the inaugural punch from Josie to prove they’re “legit.” Knocked to the ground, she rises up with a bloody face and an expression that mimics the sentiment behind, “One time she punched me. It was awesome.” It doesn’t take long for word about the club to travel around, and, just as PJ planned, Isabel and Brittany start to show up. Before they know it, the bonds of sisterhood are being forged—complete with “sharing trauma” time as they all sit in a circle and express themselves emotionally after already doing so physically. 

    In But I’m A Cheerleader, that form of sharing comes in the “re-orientation” meetings, the first of which prompts Megan to finally admit she’s a lesbian. After all, the film is divided into the five steps of the “recovery” program at True Directions, the first being: “Admitting You’re A Homosexual.” Megan doesn’t feel all that great after the admission, looked upon by Graham Eaton (Clea DuVall), another lesbian she shares a room with, as delusional for thinking that she can be “fixed” now that she knows. For this isn’t Graham’s first time at the rodeo, having been harshly judged by her family for years, and currently threatened with being disowned and disinherited (the ultimate power play). Hence, the jadedness…and the freedom with which she eats sushi (done for the sake of the line: “She’s just upset because the fish on her plate is the only kind she can eat”). 

    Additionally, the hyper-saturated color palette and overall “are we in the 1950s?” vibe of the movie is part of its genius. And what amplifies its ability to expose heteronormativity for its absurdity (particularly during the scenes of “Step 2: Rediscovering Your Gender Identity”). Bottoms, instead, already too easily benefits from the Gen Z assumption that being gay is “no big.” Never seeming to stop and look back at what all the homos who came before had to endure for them to be in this place of “levity.” Which is why the idea that one could “make light” of homophobia in the late 90s is automatically more powerful than any satirical slant Bottoms could ever hope to offer. With existing further in the pop culture timeline so often being a bane rather than a boon, at least where innovation is concerned. 

    And it seems like Seligman knows, on some level, that Brian Wayne Peterson’s script is the standard for satirizing what it means to be queer in a world “built for” the straights. Ergo, a subtle nod to But I’m A Cheerleader that comes in the form of a diner called But I’m A Diner, where Josie goes on her first “date” with Isabel. Who is, again, a cheerleader. One who eventually shows us that she swings her pom-poms both ways. Indeed, in the same way that But I’m A Cheerleader ends with Megan making a grand gesture to Graham, so, too, does Bottoms end with Josie (and PJ) engaging in the grand gesture of beating up the Huntington football team as a way say they’re sorry for lying about going to juvie and starting a fight club solely for the hope of getting some snatch (which, of course, makes them no better than men). And while this might be more elaborate than Megan’s simple cheer at Graham’s “I’m Straight Now” graduation ceremony, it doesn’t change the fact that But I’m A Cheerleader remains the crème de la crème of queer satire, right down to RuPaul as an “ex-gay”/True Directions employee wearing a “Straight Is Great” t-shirt.  

    This, in part, is because But I’m A Cheerleader had (and has) the advantage of being of its time. Therefore, coming across as more avant-garde and powerful than Bottoms could ever hope to. By the same token, were Bottoms not released in the present, it wouldn’t have enjoyed the undeniable value of queer ally Charli XCX scoring the entire soundtrack, in addition to adding some of her own already-in-existence tracks, like “party 4 u” from How I’m Feeling Now. That said, the But I’m A Cheerleader Soundtrack is nothing to balk at, featuring such dance floor anthems as Saint Etienne’s “We’re in the City” and Miisa’s “All or Nothing.” And so, while Bottoms is a welcome addition to the lacking and challenging genre of gay and lesbian satire, it still can’t quite hold a candle to the masterwork of the category. Coming in as a close tie with 2004’s Saved!, itself riffing on the premise of But I’m A Cheerleader via the gay boyfriend who’s also sent to a “conversion therapy” camp plotline. Whoever releases the next effort, however, will now have to at least top Bottoms.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Doja Cat’s “Demons” Video Is the Scariest Thing Christina Ricci Has Ever Starred In

    Doja Cat’s “Demons” Video Is the Scariest Thing Christina Ricci Has Ever Starred In

    As one of pop culture’s main “Queens of Spook,” Christina Ricci’s presence in anything haunted, eerie, ghostly or generally “demonic” is usually a no-brainer (this being why she chose to join the cast of Tim Burton’s [highly watered-down] Wednesday in a role apart from Wednesday Addams herself…though no one will ever hold a candle to her 90s-era performance). What does feel a bit “off-brand” for the actress, however, is appearing in a Doja Cat video just because it happens to have a scary premise. And, to be sure, the Christian Breslauer/Doja-directed offering is probably the most chilling narrative (even if more than slightly filched from Poltergeist) Ricci has ever been a part of.

    Where other films of the beloved former child actress have always been in a more “light-hearted spirit” of scariness (e.g., The Addams Family and Casper), this particular addition to her “filmography” is a no holds barred fright fest with Doja in the eponymous role of one of the homogenous-looking demons that stalks the house. Opening with a “For Sale” sign that has a “Sold” sticker on it, the camera zooms in closer to said abode, its low angle pointed upward toward the bedroom before we find ourselves in the interior of that second floor, where an immediate homage to 1982’s Poltergeist can be seen as the static on the TV illuminates the room. The room that, we soon find out, belongs to Christina Ricci. Meanwhile, her children continue to sleep…totally unbothered by the demonic force that appears to relish plaguing only Ricci. Accordingly, a not-so-peacefully sleeping Ricci opens her eyes intuitively as Demon Doja crawls out from behind the TV, hangs upside down in the corner and proceeds to arrogantly demand, “How my demons look (how them demons)?/Now that my pockets full? (ayy, ayy, ayy, yeah, ayy)/How my demons look (ayy, yeah)?/Now that you bitches shook (bitch)?”

    With a backing beat that has echoes of Busta Rhymes’ 1998 track, “Gimme Some More” (which itself samples from the Psycho theme), Doja’s aggressive tone punctuates the sinister sonic landscape produced by ​D.A. Got That Dope (which doesn’t have quite the same ring as Mike WiLL Made-It). And as Ricci lies in bed seemingly paralyzed by a combination of shock and fear (so often one and the same), Demon Doja inches closer to Ricci while still on the ceiling. She then taunts her with such “flexes” as, “You look like me…in your dreams”—while said in the guise of a horrifying hellhound (this somewhat harkening back to the absurdity of Doja posting an unflattering photo of her face and labeling it a “thirst trap”). From the ceiling, she then ends up back at the edge of the bed, her claw-like hand slithering up the side of the frame in what itself feels like a nod to Freddy Krueger in Nightmare on Elm Street.

    And, on that note, the next scene takes place in the bathtub, where “Human” Doja (if there still is such a thing) sits in black, sludge-like water as the demonic hand again slithers out from the water, Krueger-style. Breslauer and Doja then pan up into the attic where Demon Doja and two doppelganger hellhounds revel in their general evilness, crawling around and growling at the camera.

    Having already directed Doja Cat’s videos for “Streets” and “Freaky Deaky” (which owes a great debt to Clueless and “Erotica”), Breslauer is no stranger to cultivating un certain aesthetic for Doja. One that often features vibrantly-hued cinematography that belies the seedy overtones of whatever theme Doja is focusing on (in the instance of “Streets,” that includes a slew of zombie-like men busting through concrete from beneath the streets to get a look at Doja writhing around on the hood of a cab). In this “Demons” scenario, that vibrancy still exists even if the muted color palette favors mostly blacks, browns and grays throughout.

    Incidentally, the one noticeable pop of red (the color associated with the devil Doja reveres so much these days), veering near pink, is the top Ricci wears after changing out of her pajamas and making a beeline for the video camera (more specifically, the kind of video camera that requires a VHS tape). Because, clearly, she’s going to want to document this demonic presence if anyone is ever going to believe her (this, too, smacking of Casper). Climbing up the ladder that leads to the attic with her weighty video camera in tow, Ricci catches a glimpse of Demon Doja in her human form again—this time wearing a shirt that reads: “Cash Cow.” Needless to say, this is an undoubted reference to 1) the fact that her first big hit was called “MOOO!” (during which she declares, “Bitch, I’m a cow, bitch, I’m a cow”) and 2) how she recently wrote off her last two records, Hot Pink and Planet Her, as unapologetic “cash grabs.”

    Pointing her flashlight in Doja’s direction, closer inspection reveals that she’s typing at a typewriter (will any of Doja’s Gen Z fans understand what that is?), in what appears to be another slight horror movie nod…this time, to Jack Torrance in The Shining. Among the “cheeky phrases” she’s writing out? “I’m a puppet, I’m a sheep, I’m a cash cow.” And yet, the animals she’s surrounded by in this scene are goats. This hardly seems like a coincidence as this particular animal is frequently associated with ritual sacrifice. And since Doja is on that dripping demonic titty lately, it makes sense. And yes, the other animals she mentions in her lyrics (cows and sheep) are also “favorites” on the ritual sacrifice front (you know, apart from virgins).

    Continuing her typing, Doja adds (in her version of Kendrick Lamar singing “Humble” intonation), “I’m the fastest-growing bitch on all your apps now/You are tired of me ’cause I’m on your ass now/You are mad at me ’cause I am all they slap now/I can nap now/Lots of people that were sleeping say I rap now/Lots of people’s hopes and dreams are finally trashed now/Lots of people say they met me in the past now/I done took the spotlight and made ’em black out/I done took the whole dick and blew my back out.” If that’s true, it still isn’t stopping Demon Doja from being diabolical through her physical movements as the video switches into “nightshot” mode in conjunction with Ricci’s video camera. All while her two now-awake children are downstairs watching the static on the TV. Because, indeed, the Poltergeist tribute remains the most consistent, with all the appliances in the kitchen going haywire as Demon Doja whirls around on a chair among her fellow demons.

    At this point, Ricci essentially throws her hands up in the air and flees the fucking scene with her kids. Recently-made down payment be damned. Better that than being damned herself due to staying in the house. It is here, too, that a deeper, more insidious symbolism arises if one is to look at the video as a study in how the proverbial white family is scared of any “black presence” that infiltrates its space. Of course, Doja doesn’t seem like the type to actually try at conveying this form of a Jordan Peele-esque statement, and yet, with “Demons,” it seems difficult to ignore such symbolism.

    Red-eyed and causing mayhem by simply “expressing herself” (however unconventionally), Doja is scaring the white folks because she’s Black and belligerent (ergo the appropriateness of a line like, “How my demons look?/Now that you bitches shook?”). A Black rage that can only be expressed by getting up close and personal enough to make someone like Ricci’s “character” actually notice it. For, once the white person closes their door, they’re even blinder than usual to racial injustice. And then, apparently, when they’re forced to be confronted with it, they have the luxury of still turning (nay, running) away from it regardless. As Ricci and her brood eventually do by the conclusion of “Demons.” But that seems to suit Doja just fine, with this result also being an additional metaphor for how little she cares about alienating (demonating?) anyone.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray’s “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” Pays More Homage to A Night at the Roxbury Than Haddaway

    David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray’s “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” Pays More Homage to A Night at the Roxbury Than Haddaway

    As the latest in an increasingly long line (no nightclub pun intended) of songs that have seen fit to extract 90s dance hits for a twenty-first century “update” (though not necessarily improvement), “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” alludes to its origin source in the title. That is to say, Haddaway’s chorus in “What Is Love” that finishes such a weighty question with, “Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me/No more.” But, clearly, Haddaway was hurting enough financially to allow David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray to sample his song. Just as Alice Deejay likely was in order to allow Kim Petras and Nicki Minaj to decimate “Better Off Alone.” Unlike the latter duo, however, the trio of “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” saw fit to pay more direct and correlative homage to a song that soundtracked most of the 90s (apart from the Mentos jingle).

    Originally released in 1993, the single became an archetype of the Eurodance genre that soon managed to warm the hearts of even the most tasteless and/or grunge-happy (an oxymoron, to be sure) Americans. Three years later, Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan would revive the track with their Saturday Night Live sketch, “The Roxbury Guys.” Playing Doug (Kattan) and Steve Butabi (Ferrell), the brothers’ signature was club-hopping from one L.A. hotspot to another as they struck out with women at every venue (via methods that would be decidedly non-#MeToo kosher today). Often joined by the host of the show, including Jim Carrey, Martin Short and Tom Hanks, the sketch proved popular enough to become fodder for the eighth movie based on an SNL sketch, A Night at the Roxbury (released in 1998). Regardless, the premise wasn’t really “meaty” enough to extend past the one-hour, twenty-two-minute mark. Even so, it left an indelible enough impression on the collaborators of “Baby Don’t Hurt Me,” who open their video, directed by Hannah Lux Davis, in much the same way as A Night at the Roxbury: with splashy club scenes shot in a manner that comes across in a way Cher Horowitz would dub “Noxema commercial”-esque. And, on a side note, Clueless’ director, Amy Heckerling, did co-produce the movie (maybe that’s why both Dan Hedaya, Elisa Donovan and even Twink Kaplan are in it).

    As for Doug and Steve, they don’t ever limit their evening to just one club (as Guetta, Anne-Marie and Leray do). This being something we see established when they commence at Billboard Live (before it became The Key Club) at 11:32 p.m., then head to the Mudd Club by 12:16 a.m. Striking out with the women there as well after a botched attempt to impress them with their story of encountering “Breakfast Clubber” Emilio Estevez, they head to the Roxbury, arriving by 1:24 a.m. (but first, they’re pulled over [by Jennifer Coolidge] for speeding while doing their head bobs to “What Is Love,” of course). As Ace of Base’s “Beautiful Life” plays during this scene, A Night at the Roxbury continues to immortalize what club culture in 90s L.A. consisted of. Mainly, waiting in line outside if you weren’t on the guest list. Hence, Doug’s insistence that once he and Steve open their own club, not only will they finally get in, but, “We’re also gonna treat all the outside wannabes just as well as any legendary television star.” Of course, such an egalitarian approach to clubbing wouldn’t take hold until now (when “elitism” in such a milieu has become all but impossible thanks to smartphones)—which is perhaps why Guetta, Anne-Marie and Leray have decided to use this moment to bring Haddaway and its place in A Night at the Roxbury back to the forefront.

    Thus, the presence of Doug and Steve-emulative dance moves amid a boxing ring inexplicably appearing on the center of the dance floor as two women stand in their corners waiting to fight…or have a dance-off. But no, turns out, it’s to fight (after all, it speaks to the title of “Baby Don’t Hurt Me”). Meanwhile, Anne-Marie sings, “I want you for the dirty and clean/When you’re wakin’ in your dreams.” A lyric that harkens back to Doug saying, “You can take away our phones, you can take away our keys, but you cannot take away our dreams.” To which Steve adds, “That’s right, ‘cause we’re, like, sleeping when we have them.”  Their dream, as mentioned, is to open a nightclub. Something as ostensibly “inclusive” as what appears in the “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” video. And probably something as pain/pleasure-oriented, to boot. After all, the original “What Is Love” is drenched in the tone of a masochist who can’t quit a love that’s obviously emotionally damaging. So when Anne-Marie says, “When you bite my tongue and make me scream…/We are burnin’ at a high degree/And you make me feel like it burns/And it hurts/Maybe that’s part of the rush/This is us.”

    The “This is us” of that hurt in A Night at the Roxbury is the growing pains that occur between Doug and Steve, as the latter starts to be more and more seduced by the normie life his overbearing father, Kamehl (Hedaya), wants for him. Complete with marrying Emily Sanderson (Molly Shannon), the daughter of the lighting store owner next door to Kamehl’s fake plant store. Because obviously their marriage would mean a lucrative business merger. But what does that matter to Steve, who really just wants to club all night like Doug?

    With “Baby Don’t Hurt Me,” the glory days that furnished being able to have such dreams are briefly glimpsed as, by the end of the video, everyone in the club is doing the signature Butabi brothers head bob to the beat that punctuated dance floors everywhere (without irony) in the mid-90s. In this sense, it’s hard to say if Haddaway owes a greater debt to A Night at the Roxbury or vice versa. Either way, the trio reviving the song here still sees the movie as being inextricably linked to it. One can’t exist without the other, apparently. That might be bad news for Haddaway, but it certainly helps revitalize the ever-dwindling collective memory of the John Fortenberry-directed film so often considered to be the perfect “hokey” pairing with Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (after all, it’s about two “daffy” dames whose lives are also built around clubbing in L.A.).

    In the final scenes of “Baby Don’t Hurt Me,” the fighters in the boxing ring have seemingly made peace while Guetta, Anne-Marie and Leray continue their head bobbing elsewhere: in the car. A vehicle that we’re made certain to clock as being a Lyft (thanks to strategic brand name placement). And if, somehow, they all happen to be Lyft drivers (or it’s just Leray, which somehow feels racist), it would be in keeping with the Butabi brothers’ way of life: “projecting” style only right before entering the club…while actually living at home with their parents and barely able to function in the daylight hours that solely condone “rational” behavior.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Dark City: The Matrix’s Underappreciated Precursor

    Dark City: The Matrix’s Underappreciated Precursor

    For some reason, Dark City remains little revered or appreciated not only as a standalone film, but as something of the unwitting source material for The Matrix. While the plotlines are theoretically “different,” ultimately the Wachowskis borrowed heavily (even if unintentionally) from the themes explored by Dark City director Alex Proyas (who co-wrote the script with Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer). Granted, Dark City was released just one year prior to The Matrix, so it could have been sheer coincidence that each “team” happened to have a similar style and narrative thread.

    After all, it’s often believed that the collective consciousness is tapped into the same zeitgeist at the same moment. And in the late 90s, the internet was becoming an increasingly prevalent and insidious force to be reckoned with (as no one could better attest to than Pamela Anderson). Whether they were fully aware of it or not, that “new reality” seemed to be weighing on both Proyas and the Wachowskis in various ways (not to mention Andrew Niccol, whose The Truman Show [released in 1998 as well] also mirrors Dark City at a particular moment when the protagonist reaches the end of the “city’s” limits). This being showcased through their brooding “anti-heroes,” John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) and Thomas “Neo” Anderson (Keanu Reeves) as they navigate through a world that, quelle surprise, proves to be a simulation.

    In Dark City’s case, the simu is created by a group of Hellraiser-looking aliens who want to understand if memories are what make a human, well, human—or if they’re fundamentally who they are no matter what memories they have. This experiment is conducted by swapping out each human’s “memory set” every night at the stroke of midnight via inducing a mass slumber (in such a world, Taylor Swift might never have created her concept album, Midnights). This means that no matter where a person is, or what they’re doing, they’ll fall asleep so that “the Strangers” (as the extraterrestrials are called) and their go-to human henchman, Dr. Daniel Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland, getting as close to playing Igor in Young Frankenstein as he ever will), can “imprint” them with a new memory a.k.a. a new identity. For who are we if not the sum total of our memories?

    Unfortunately for Schreber, he’s dealing with an anomaly of a human in John, who wakes up in the middle of being imprinted with the identity of a murderer, prompting Schreber to flee. Coming to fully in a bathtub, John has no clear memory at all thanks to the interruption of the procedure. In this way, he becomes a “glitch in the matrix” that is the Strangers’ universe. Or rather, their patch of city in an infinite universe, as we eventually come to find out. With John in the Neo role in terms of taking on a sinister entity that wishes to keep humans in the dark (very literally in this scenario) about the true nature of their (non-)reality, both Dark City and The Matrix effectively remake the allegory of the cave from Plato’s Republic. Fittingly, that allegory is placed after the analogy of the sun. As for the cave allegory, it essentially speaks to what Plato’s mentor, Socrates, said at his trial: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” To remain in the dark might feel comfortable (in a comatose sort of fashion), but, in the end, it’s a vegetative state. This allegory was repurposed by the Wachowskis in the form of red pill/blue pill, with the former color leading one out of the darkness of their ignorance, no matter how painful it might be to deal with the knowledge they had previously been able to block out.

    John and Neo are both “inconsistencies” in the world that’s been built for their kind by the overlords that control it all. As such, they differ from their fellow humans in that the latter has no desire to leave their prison, just as the people chained in the cave, because they have no idea that another form of existence can be possible. This is the only “reality” they’ve ever known, so why would they try to alter it? Once the knowledge of the false reality is gleaned, however, one can start to make their way out of the cave and into “the light.” For John, that light is realizing that they’re in a manufactured city floating in the ether of space and, for Neo, that light is realizing his body has been marinating in a pod while being harvested for bioelectric power by artificially intelligent machines as his mind is placated with the false reality (“the matrix”) shared by all the other humans in their pods. Again, the cave dwellers in the allegory might argue that remaining in the dark is preferable. To this end, one might say The Matrix isn’t an unintentional rip-off of Dark City, so much as both movies are riffing on what Socrates and Plato were saying centuries ago.

    As for the similarities in theme and aesthetic, Peter Doyle, the visual effects colorist who worked on both films, laughingly recalled, “…I do remember sitting with [the Wachowskis] after they had just been shown Dark City. Because when they came through town with Barrie Osborne, the producer, the film hadn’t quite been released yet, so they’d set up to have a look. And then everyone just sitting around laughing, realizing that they’re just about to make Dark City again but called The Matrix instead.” So yes, they did see the movie while in the process of making The Matrix, but no one thought much of it. After all, a genre like that was so niche, the assumption was that nobody would complain about having another film of that “breed” added to the scant pile (“beefed up” in 1999 with David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ and Josef Rusnak’s The Thirteenth Floor, released in rapid succession right after The Matrix). As it turned out, no one in the U.S. would really complain, for Dark City was destined to become an obscure 90s gem compared to the blockbuster status The Matrix would achieve in said country, parodied and copied ad nauseam over the next decade.

    In addition to the aforementioned titans of Greek philosophy, the influence of The Twilight Zone on Dark City can’t be underestimated either, with said show often presenting narratives where the reality experienced by the lead character was a fabrication of some kind (including the very first episode, “Where Is Everybody?”). As for the fabrication that is Dark City, Schreber explains to John and Inspector Frank Bumstead (William Hurt), “When they first brought us here, they extracted what was in us, so they could store the information. Remix it like so much paint, and give us back new memories of their choosing… Your entire history is an illusion, a fabrication—as it is with all of us.”

    With this in mind, the set design was key to giving audiences that “remixed memory” feel the population is experiencing. Per production designer Patrick Tatopoulos, “The movie takes place everywhere, and it takes place nowhere. It’s a city built of pieces of cities. A corner from one place, another from someplace else. So, you don’t really know where you are. A piece will look like a street in London, but a portion of the architecture looks like New York, but the bottom of the architecture looks again like a European city. You’re there, but you don’t know where you are. It’s like every time you travel, you’ll be lost.” In other words, since everyone is everyone (with “memory sets” being swapped back and forth all the time), then everywhere might as well be everywhere, too. As it increasingly is in “real life” thanks to the unremitting effects of globalization. Perhaps that’s how the Wachowskis also chose to view the similarities between their film and Proyas’ precursor to it: “every late 90s sci-fi neo-noir is every late 90s sci-fi neo-noir.” And yes, as though to highlight that point, they used some of the same “everywhere is everywhere” sets from Dark City for The Matrix.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Home Alone 2: New York’s Nothing But Fun on Borrowed Dough… Until It Runs Out

    Home Alone 2: New York’s Nothing But Fun on Borrowed Dough… Until It Runs Out

    Among the many “reassessments” of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, complete with its implausible representation of realistic geographic proximity, one that hasn’t really been called out is the idea that everyone “hearts” New York when Daddy’s credit card is still working. In fact, the only reason Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) doesn’t immediately despise NYC is because he “just happened” (thanks to the careful plot device curation of John Hughes) to need some batteries for his Talkboy. The batteries, of course, being located in his dad Peter’s (John Heard) man bag that Kevin ends up holding onto in the midst of getting on the wrong flight. And what else would Peter keep in there but his fully-loaded wallet? Here it bears bringing up that while everyone likes to meme about Peter McCallister being rich—because how else could he afford a house like that and all those vacations with so many mouths to feed?—the McCallister family is decidedly middle-class by 90s standards. The family only seems “rich” in the present because it’s impossible for most people to keep their head above water in this post-capitalist society still clinging to Empire “ideals” of capitalism. That said, money and exuding the appearance of wealth was arguably more important in the 90s—and easier to carry off for “average” people.

    Not to mention faux rich ones like none other than Donald Trump himself, who illustriously cameos at the twenty-six-minute-forty-five-second mark to give Kevin the oh-so-difficult-to-discern information that the lobby is “down the hall and to the left.” And yes, it’s a wonder Trump could manage to complete that scant amount of dialogue without biffing it. The reason for his appearance stemmed from buying The Plaza Hotel in 1988 for 407 million dollars (of money borrowed from banks—because Trump is the epitome of the “American dream”… being secured through shady means and fake money). It didn’t take long for Trump’s lack of business acumen (despite cultivating a reputation to the contrary) to show up in the form of renovating and operating the hotel at a considerable loss… specifically 600 million dollars’ worth of loss by 1992, the very year that Home Alone 2: Lost in New York would come out. Yet Trump, forever concerned with appearances, still had the gall to appear in the movie as The Plaza’s “owner” despite already negotiating a prepackaged bankruptcy deal with his conglomerate of bank creditors, ultimately “led” by Citibank. One that was arranged in November, the very month of the Home Alone sequel’s release. How poetic indeed.

    So it is that Trump’s appearance in the movie is emblematic of a larger truth about America in general and New York City specifically: it’s never about actually having money, so much as radiating the illusion that you do (see also: Anna Delvey). Kevin, too, embodies this with his confidence, the very word giving birth to “con,” which means both to win someone’s confidence and to have the confidence to believe in one’s own lies. As Kevin does when he approaches the front desk at the hotel with a whole backstory ready to provide that allows him to rather seamlessly use the credit card that will secure him so much ephemeral fun on this impromptu Christmas vacation. Sure, “Concierge” a.k.a. Mr. Hector (Tim Curry) is overtly suspicious because he’s probably jealous he never came up with such a scheme when he was younger, but suspicion alone is not enough to make one turn away potential income for their place of business. Proving, as always, that money—even the fake money known as credit—talks.

    Until, of course, it’s reported as stolen. A revelation that brings a Grinch-esque smile to Mr. Hector’s face because, like most broke asses, he gets his jollies from reining in those who might enjoy themselves thanks to money they didn’t earn. It’s from this moment (at approximately the forty-three-minute mark in the movie when the word “STOLEN” flashes on The Plaza’s machine after Mr. Hector does a check on it) forward when Kevin starts to understand just how much New York actually blows without money at one’s disposal. And sure, there have been many attempts, via various localized “free event” websites, to help people delude themselves into believing they can have a good time with little to no disposable income, but, after a while, you’re just that sad poor person who’s clearly only at the place in question because something about it was free or cheap (relatively speaking).

    To intensify the reality that having no money in New York is fucking bleak, Kevin then comes face-to-face with the notorious Pigeon Lady. She, too, has deluded herself into believing that the best things in life are free in the “greatest” city in the world, showing Kevin that you can be cultured even without money by taking him to the attic (where other discarded things are kept) in Carnegie Hall and declaring, “I’ve heard the world’s great music from here. Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Luciano Pavarotti.”

    But, as any insolvent person living in NY has found out, the loopholes to enjoy “free” activities have become increasingly few and far between. To boot, you’re never going to be “seen” without scores of dough, even if only on credit. That’s why the Pigeon Lady tells Kevin, “People pass me in the street, they see me, but they try to ignore me. They prefer I wasn’t part of their city.” And why? Because she’s moneyless “riffraff.” Might as well be dead if you’re broke—that’s the takeaway New York imparts on those who can’t manage “the grind.” Those who do find more “under the table” ways to survive are, in turn, met with fear and vitriol, as indicated by Kevin’s telling reactions to the prostitutes and deranged homeless people orbiting the periphery of Central Park (for, again, this was a period in NY history that was seedier, and far less sanitized than it is now, especially by Central Park).

    In the years since this movie was released, even “alternate methods” of moneymaking in the “big city” have become progressively impossible. So it is that in the past couple of decades, the “I ‘Heart’ NY” slogan has given way to “I Can’t Afford to ‘Heart’ NY.” Neither could Kevin, in the end. For the conclusion of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is for his dad to unearth the amount Kevin charged to his room at The Plaza—a whopping (even now) $967.43 (ballooned to that price by the addition of a $239.43 gratuity). So sure, New York is all fun and wonderment on Daddy’s dime. Until, inevitably, Daddy cuts off the purse strings. For even he’s too broke for New York.

    Ironically enough, the movie’s beloved screenwriter, John Hughes, would end up dying in Manhattan. While taking a morning stroll on West 55th Street… just a stone’s throw to The Plaza. Perhaps he came across an obscene price point somewhere along the way that contributed to his heart attack, and made him realize that even when you’re rich, living in New York is financially untenable. Particularly when considering what one gets in return for all their payments (including the emotional ones).

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Despite Being A Satire, Drop Dead Gorgeous Accurately Mirrored Kirstie Alley’s Politics

    Despite Being A Satire, Drop Dead Gorgeous Accurately Mirrored Kirstie Alley’s Politics

    As is usually the case when a celebrity dies, all former political effrontery tends to be glossed over. This certainly held true for the likes of James Caan (who died earlier this year) and Doris Day (who died in 2019). Granted, these might be prime examples of “Old Hollywood Republicans” (because, believe it or not, it used to be much chicer to be conservative than liberal in that town), but the point is, no one brought up the political leanings that formerly made people cringe once these “icons” were dead. The same seems to go for Kirstie Alley, who was, as a Midwesterner, perhaps an unavoidable Republican. A reality that came to harsh light during the 2016 election, when she announced her intention to vote for Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton. Backpedaling after her declaration was met with verbal reprisals, she claimed, “I hate this election and I’m officially no longer endorsing either candidate.”

    “Endorsing” him or not, Alley still voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 (the ultimate sign of a “die-hard” [read: white supremacist] Republican). Being vocal about it again the latter election year when she tweeted, “I’m voting for @realDonaldTrump because he’s NOT a politician. I voted for him 4 years ago for this reason and shall vote for him again for this reason. He gets things done quickly and he will turn the economy around quickly. There you have it folks there you have it.” The pronouncement was met with a swift barrage of venom, including from the likes of Judd Apatow, who replied, “Shelley [misspelled as Shelly] Long was way funnier than you.” Alley went on The Sean Hannity Show the next day to continue to defend her stance, doubling down once more on her position. All of this is to say that, despite the 1999 mockumentary masterpiece that is Drop Dead Gorgeous being a satire, Alley’s role as pageant mother/head of the pageant organizing committee Gladys Leeman wasn’t that much of a reach for her to embody. Not politically speaking, anyway.

    Directed by Michael Patrick Jann and written by Lona Williams, the latter was highly inspired by her hometown of Rosemount, Minnesota (hence, the name of the town in the movie being Mount Rose, MN) for the story. Complete with over-the-top Minnesota accents that Alley was happy to accommodate as she said on-brand conservative things like, “I know what some of your big city, no bra wearin’, hairy-legged women libbers might say. They might say that a pageant is old-fashioned and ‘demeaning’ to the girls…” Her cohort, Iris (Mindy Sterling), chimes in, “What’s sick is women dressin’ like men!” Gladys agrees, “You betcha, Iris. No, I think you boys are gonna find something a little bit different here in Mount Rose. For one thing, we’re all God-fearin’ folk, every last one of us. And you will not find a ‘back room’ in our video store. No, no. That filth is better left in the Sin Cities.” Iris clarifies, “A.k.a. Minneapolis-St. Paul.”

    Gladys’ carefully-curated image as the perfect mother and homemaker is especially crucial this pageant year as her own daughter, Rebecca “Becky” Leeman (Denise Richards), will be competing. Which is why it’s also so important for Gladys to come up with an “original” theme like “Proud to Be An American.” So much different from previous themes like, “Buy American,” “USA Is A-OK” or “Amer-I-Can!” Although mostly confident that Rebecca has what it takes to win, Gladys isn’t so naïve as to discount the potential of someone such as doe-eyed, blonde Amber Atkins (Kirsten Dunst) or even Tammy Curry (Brooke Elise Bushman), the dyke archetype who beat out Rebecca to become the president of the Lutheran Sisterhood Gun Club. This win being precisely her motive for rigging Tammy’s tractor to blow up.

    The explosion turns out to be a foreshadowing of the comeuppance Gladys will get with another big kabluey at the end of the movie—this time of her own daughter on a giant swan. After fixing the pageant so that Rebecca would win (even though Amber was the clear favorite), it’s obvious the Leemans had no intention of ever letting Rebecca lose in that they had pre-purchased this massive piñata-esque float for their daughter to ride in at the celebratory parade. A parade, by the way, filled with scenes that mirror the most grotesque cliches of American stereotypes as perpetuated by Republicans. Ignorance abounding in shit-kicker aesthetics (from army camouflage to oversized khaki shorts) and behaviors (e.g., mocking a mentally challenged person with their overalls caught in a car door).

    At Rebecca’s funeral, reference to the swan being made in Mexico comes back as the pastor notes to God, “Maybe it’s your way of telling us, ‘Buy American.’” Or that Rebecca’s own win-at-any-cost mother epitomizes the sort of tactics that Trump himself would employ to “get the job done.” Ignore reality, ignore what the majority actually wants and just bulldoze your way to “success.” The “anti-wokeness” of Gladys Leeman—which comes out in dialogue like, “I said I’d move if a cripple came” (re: parking in a handicapped spot)—is an additional foil of Alley’s own nature, which would go on to reveal some very pro-MAGA, QAnon-sympathizing sentiments.

    Determined to wield her “blunt” persona as “telling it like it is,” it became increasingly evident over the course of the post-90s years (particularly with Scientology becoming less tenable for many outside observers and defectors alike, including Leah Remini, who clashed a number of times with Alley after leaving the organization) that her brand was less “freedom of speech” and more mumbo-jumbo. Including her response to the war in Ukraine being that she didn’t “know what’s real or what is fake in this war. So I won’t be commenting. I’ll pray instead.”

    Incidentally, Scientologists don’t subscribe to prayer. Something the aforementioned Remini was eager to point out in her back-handed tribute/condolence to Alley and her family when she said, “Although Scientologists don’t believe in prayers, my prayers do go out to her two children, who are now without their mom.” Another thing Scientologists don’t believe in is seeking cancer treatment before it’s too late, told by the Church that they can conquer such “ailments,” particularly someone who was at Alley’s Operating Thetan Level VIII. Yet another reason it feels all too pointed that fellow Scientologists Kelly Preston and Chick Corea also died of cancer in 2020 in 2021, respectively. And both, like Alley, near the Church’s Flag Building in Clearwater, Florida.

    While there’s no denying Alley had many beloved roles, from Mollie Jensen in the Look Who’s Talking trilogy to Diane Barrows in It Takes Two to Veronica Chase in Veronica’s Closet to a caricaturized version of herself in Fat Actress, her death doesn’t deify her enough to dismiss her often problematic politics. Of the same ilk that Gladys Leeman was only too proud to trumpet under the banner of “Proud to Be An American.”

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “Mouth” As The Soundtrack to Being Infected While Out and About

    “Mouth” As The Soundtrack to Being Infected While Out and About

    Among Bush’s often underrated oeuvre is a song from their 1996 album, Razorblade Suitcase. Although “Swallowed” was its lead single—garnering the most attention—“Mouth” would later gain traction after being released in 1997 on a Bush remix album called Deconstructed and being featured heavily in the trailer (and the film itself) for An American Werewolf in Paris that same year. The song’s particular suitability for the movie stemmed from, obviously, how one ends up as a werewolf—that is to say, through a bite-filled mauling.

    But beyond that, “Mouth” sounds endlessly well-suited to soundtrack a day out amongst the hordes. Though many continue to act as though the pandemic isn’t still “a thing” (and like a new one won’t come to roost)/it never even happened at all (much as those who endured the 1918 flu pandemic needed to party the next decade away in order to forget), the after-shock of coronavirus, paired with the sudden remembrance that it’s flu season, makes “Mouth” an all-too-relevant song. And, incidentally, it also shares album space with a track called “Cold Contagious.” So clearly, for whatever reason, “spread” was on the mind of Gavin Rossdale in 1996—perhaps it had to do with meeting Gwen Stefani the year before and worrying that their long-distance relationship would get him caught in the act of cheating by giving her an STD.

    With an accompanying video directed by John Hillcoat, the scene opens at ground zero of contagion: a diner. Specifically the now-defunct Jenny Rose Restaurant, located somewhere between Death Valley and Joshua Tree. To play up the tie-in to An American Werewolf in Paris, Julie Delpy, who portrays Sérafine Pigot in the movie, appears out of nowhere to extract Gavin from his languid musing over the menu (despite already having food and coffee). Do they know each other? Is this a stranger’s hookup? It’s all as nebulous as the decision-making behind the werewolf visual effects.

    Maybe, in taking him by the hand and getting him to drive her through the desert, the retroactive point is to accentuate how free one can feel when they’re not traumatized by recently enduring the effects of a pandemic. In other words, the late 90s were a blithe time. Even in the sense that AIDS had “calmed down” (at least in the eyes of the straights) and it was once again a seeming free-for-all. Mouths on mouths, bodies on bodies, whatever.

    Nonetheless, a sense of foreboding lurks throughout the mid-tempo “Mouth,” especially as Rossdale opens with the lyric, “You gave me this.” Something about it smacks of Isabella Rossellini as Dorothy Vallens in Blue Velvet screaming, “You put your disease in me!” That’s what we all do every day to one another, just by daring to go outside. To walk around, ultimately slack-jawed as we cough, touch our noses and then touch something else, talk loudly (in public and usually on the phone) for no good reason and generally radiate carbon dioxide. That’s all a mouth is, in the end. One big carbon dioxide/contagion-emitting hole. The human body a sack of emissions designed seemingly only to harm fellow flesh husks with its propensities for attracting and “giving back” disease. Particularly now that we’ve hit the official eight billion mark in bodies. So, indeed, “nothing hurts like your mouth…” running all over town and breathing whatever old- and new-fangled disease you’ve contracted and seen fit to spread.

    Other accusations related to infection are manifest in the lines, “Pollute my heart-drain/You have broken me/Broken me/All your mental armor drags me down.” Would that one had some physical armor to actually battle contagion, beyond a mask—for, as many vigilant mask-wearers have experienced, it hasn’t kept Miss Rona from sinking in regardless. Especially since mask-wearing isn’t enforceable and not everyone will do it. And, unfortunately, donning a hazmat suit is something that only Tyra Banks appears to be able to pull off.

    Just as “Comedown” from 1994’s Sixteen Stone would become synonymous with Fear, so “Mouth” would with An American Werewolf in Paris. And yet, it’s a song with more newfound resonance in the current moment. The only thing one can hear on repeat in their mind (once they’ve made the correlation) while confronting the public space—seeing all those maws ajar. Utterly uncaring and immune to what they’re taking in or giving out with that gob of theirs, so long as they get to where they’re going and they buy what they want to buy while doing it.

    Genna Rivieccio

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