Slanted: The things you do to become the promcoming dance queen

★★★—Watched this last night at AMC Scream Unseen event. If you love Mean Girls and body horror, then you’ll probably like it. First off, there is a character named Cat Fisher, which caused me to audibly groan when her name gets said at the climax of the movie. Not where you want to be watching a movie when the shit starts to go down.

However, for an ok movie, this really disturbed me, and I’ve been thinking about it all day. The idea of completely changing who you are externally is nothing new. Hell, some people do it IRL. But this transracial concept is extremely interesting. Sort of touches on a lot—assimilation, belonging, beauty standards, race—and it’s heavy with metaphor. But it all felt a little obvious/shallow. Just sort of throws these ideas out there without any real emotional payoff, with a few exceptions, notably when the parents celebrate 10-years in America while their daughter goes to the big promcoming dance, which she is absolutely obsessed with. I get that maybe some kids do care about such things, but it is such a trope at this point that you really must do something extraordinary to subvert it. I feel that it had potential there but didn’t get over the hump. 

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That said, the performances were flat out stellar with the females being especially strong. Shirley Chen and McKenna Grace (just saw here in Scream 7) take turns as the lead. Both knock it out of the park. Vivian Wu plays the mom, who maybe stole the show. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan from Never Have I Ever is very good. Then there was Amelie Zilber, the alpha mean girl from the high school. She basically IS Regina George. Except hotter and more of a bitch. Good god she is fine. Kind of reminded me of Mia Sara. Her character was flat AF though with no emotional payoff. She is just kind of there, being horrible, and then suddenly not. 

Overall, the tone might be the biggest problem. In immigrant teen satire territory at times, but then with disturbing body horror thrown in making it not funny. Then it ventures into heartwarming, coming of age with a deformity with a meh, lame, run-of-the-mill ending. Result is some ick/WTF, and a feeling like maybe director Amy Wang either lost creative control and/or focus at the end. 

In the Heat of the Night - Norman Jewison - 1967

★★★★★-First ever viewing of this profoundly outstanding film. Skilled direction and compelling performances. Deserves its stop on the AFI Top 100. 

Set in a racially tense small town where a black detective, Virgil Tibbs, from Philadelphia helps solve a murder. That's the gist, but it's deeper than that, going into racial inequity in the deep South while telling a compelling story and not getting preachy. It refrains from contrived inspirational moments, thank fuck, and instead presents complex, flawed characters. Truly masterful filmmaking. 

Stars the Sidney Poitier as the black detective opposite Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront) as the racist sheriff. Commanding performances from both of them indeed. I got more impressed with Poitier as the movie went along. He drips poise and dignity. Sort of hard to believe he didn't even get nominated for an Academy Award for this performance. Feels like a glaring omission that he wasn't for a timely film about Southern racism. Though Steiger's performance also really blew me away as well and he definitely earned his Oscar. 

Others you might recognize include Lee Grant (Damien: Omen II, Mulholland Drive) who is a real beauty who holds her own, Warren Oats (Badlands, Stripes, The Wild Bunch), and a young Scott Wilson (he was Herschel in The Walking Dead,one of the killers in In Cold Blood, and had a small but memorable part in one of my favorite horror comedies of all-time in Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon).

As much as any movie I can think of, the setting is also a character in the film. Feels like an authentic, hot and grimy small Southern town. Every scene is vivid, gritty, and real. 

The racist stuff can be pretty hard to watch. People in this town just lose their minds seeing a black guy. Pretty disturbing that this is how it was and probably still is in some parts. Multiple attempts are made on Virgil's life. The most powerful scene, for me, was when he goes with the sheriff to question the richest guy in town. Out front there is a racist statue and he employees black people in menial jobs that he obviously doesn't think highly of. He tells Virgil, while in his greenhouse, “Of all the orchids in this place, you should prefer the epiphytics. I wonder if you know why.”

“Maybe it would be helpful if you'd tell me,” Virgil says.

“Because, like the Negro, they need care and feedin' and cultivatin'.”

Uh, yeah, thanks for that insight, bra.

When Virgil questions him about the murder, the guy slaps him. Virgil, without missing a beat, slaps him back. Incredulous, the guy asks the sheriff what he is going to do about it. When it's clear he isn't going to do anything, he says he could have had him shot for that not long ago before crying like a punk. We then get one of the many attempts on Virgil's life, this seemingly unconnected to the slap. 

So, yeah, great film. All this said, however, the end was sort of a letdown. Builds and builds and then it's over. Also, for a hot shot detective, Virgil's police work and theories seem pretty suspect. Still though. Best movie about the South I can think of. Available on the Criterion Channel.

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway's first novel from 1926. Meh. Expats living in Paris who go to Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and then later their slaughter. Bullfighting is, of course, the worst “sport” of all time (maybe except for gladiator fighting or American football). 

A modernist staple, I read this in high school. Hated it then. Hate it now. Based on people in Hemingway's "friends" going to Spain in 1925. Recounts their drinking, fighting, fucking. Shallow bullshit. The book is too long for such vapid dick-tickling. 

I vaguely remember talk of the whole point of the book being that these are young people of a "lost generation” not really knowing what to do with their lives. The novel then recounts something of a diversion for these moody, aimless sorts. Having reread it as an adult who has critically read a thousand or so books, I feel that is a cop-out. This was what he knew and fell into. The whole man-coming-home-from-war to a peaceful life with all the shit bubbling under the surface. These themes are better developed in his shorter work, in my opinion. So is his style, for that matter. 

I know the meditations on life and death are extremely moving and thought-provoking to some. However, it didn't move shit for me. "The few unsad young men of this lost generation will have to look for another way of finding themselves than the one indicated here," John Dos Passos said. That was a friend of Hemingway's. I'd rather read Camus, Joyce, or Kafka from that period. 

I find Hemingway to be the idol of masculine males I strongly dislike. Hunting, bullfighting, racist, antisemitic, meat-obsessed, sloppy drunk. What's not to love, am-I-right? Personally, I hate all of those things and anyone who imitates Hemingway in those beliefs. He is an embarrassing cliché of a dead white male firmly on the losing side of history.

All that said, there are things I really dig about Hemingway and his writing. He was a dog and cat lover. He wrote standing up and fucking lived. I believe his short stories are some of the best ever (though I may need to revisit them). “50 Grand” is probably my favorite. About a washed-up boxer who puts everything on his opponent. Gets punched in the balls. If he goes down, he wins the fight but loses everything. Stays up and nails the other guy in the nuts, giving the guy the win. I can think of no more appropriate metaphor for Papa's bullshit than this. It is fantastic. Plus, he is 100% my style icon. 

The most interesting part to me is the relationship between Jake and Brett. She should just be with him and have sex with dudes on the side, letting him perform cunnilingus so they can share some sexual intimacy. But Jake is Hemingway's stand-in, so I'm sure it wouldn't have worked out. 

In addition to the glorification of animal cruelty and what have you, there are a couple other things that make me hate the guy that pop up in the novel. When we read this in high school, I remember one of my classmates saying that Hemingway was obviously racist/antisemitic. Throwing the N-word and the K-word around (but also the treatment of black and Jewish people). Someone asked if that was the way it was back then. The answer is no. Yes, if you were a racist antisemite, yeah, which was more socially acceptable, but this was more than problematic even back then. 

The Robert Cohn character, who, with Bill, is probably the only person in the novel I'd hang out with. Cohn is pretty much always condescendingly called “a Jew,” save for when he's being called a “rich Jew” or “kike”. He is ostracized for being different, and we never forget that he is Jewish. “'Brett's got a bullfighter,'” the character Mike, Brett's fiance, says at one point. “'But her Jew has gone away .... Damned good thing.'” That seems to be the only real problem anyone has with him. They are annoyed by his presence. What is fucked is the character is based on a guy that Hemingway hung out with who thought of himself as Hemingway's friend. A guy named Harold Loeb, also a writer, was Hemingway's rival for the inspiration for Brett – Lady Duff Twysden.

While I'm not a Hemingway fanboy, there is greatness there. However, this is a "first novel" that's meh though it does put forth essential themes that he continues to explore. Come home from the brutality of war and keep on keeping on with your traumatized peeps. 

Holiday Inn is the greatest movie of all time

Holiday Inn. It's Christmas so I'm writing about the movie with the greatest Christmas song of all time. Love a musical. Loved this movie. Most of it, anyway. Then  we get to Lincoln's Birthday (which they celebrate in February, pretty sure they are confusing it with Washington's Birthday). Then it is holy shit. The Bing Crosby character, Jim, is trying to hide the Marjorie Reynolds character, Linda, from the Fred Astaire character, Ted, because he fucking sucks. But Ted is looking for Linda as a mystery woman he danced with on New Years and wants to steal her away. Jim's idea, to conceal Linda's identity, is for him and her to dress in blackface and do a minstrel show number of the song "Abraham". It is fucked up. AMC and other channels even cut the scene out entirely. Apparently former British Prime Minister Theresa May said Holiday Inn was her favorite Christmas film, causing controversy due to, you know, racism. I mean, other than that, it is a great film. But that shit is pretty much impossible to ignore or give a pass since it isn't like this was from the days of D.W. Griffith or something.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: With the combined might of Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and Irving Berlin working in its favor, Holiday Inn is a seasonal classic -- not least because it introduced "White Christmas" to the world.

Gist of the flick is that Astaire can dance and Crosby can sing. They both pursue the same ladies, Linda and Lila, played by Virginia Dale, who can do both, basically mesmerizing them with their insane crooning or dancing, depending on the guy. First it is Lila whom they go after. When she breaks Crosby's heart, he goes and opens a hotel that has large, extravagant holiday shows. This with the help of his new love interest, Linda. After the Astaire/Dale pairing falls apart, Astaire weasels his way into the Holiday Inn where he ends up dancing with and instantly falling in love with the Reynolds character. Crosby tries to hide her identity for a while but Astaire eventually finds her and more or less demands that they immediately go to Hollywood to work in the pictures and get married.

The plot barely matters as this is just a vehicle for Crosby to sing and Astaire to dance and those two do the shit out of those things. But if you pay attention to the plot, the movie is pretty fucked. You've got your overt racism. Then there is what a son of a bitch Astaire's character is. His modus operandi is basically wait for Crosby to get serious about a girl and then do everything he can to steal her, even as Crosby shows him insane kindness for someone who does this twice in the same movie. Dude needs his ass kicked and Crosby needs to learn to be a fucking man. Eventually, Crosby grows some balls and tells his "friend" to go fuck himself. He then gets with Lila or Linda or whoever and Astaire gets with the other one. Happy ending all around.

Of note, the song "White Christmas" came out of this movie. After Irving Berlin wrote it in some California hotel, he went back to the office and told his secretary that he "just wrote the best song I've ever written." Adding that "heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody's ever written!" Not a modest one, this Berlin. And, at least in pure numbers, he was right. The Bing Crosby version is the all-time best-selling single with sales in excess of 50 million copies. Was extremely popular with the soldiers away at war during WWII. Combined with other versions of the song, we are talking in the 100 million range. Crunched some numbers and did some half-assed internet research to put this in perceptive. A single goes "Gold" when it sells 500,000 units. "Platinum" when it sells 1,000,000. A single goes "Diamond" when it sells 10,000,000. Only like 20 something songs have ever done this. This is the only song that reached over 25,000,000. No one else have even come close. Not even half way to 25 mill. That is insane. For this alone, going to say that Irving Berlin won the movie. For creating the Christmas song to end all Christmas song.