The Resident Bitch Prepares for the MoFo 2010s Countdown

Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino, 2017)
(Rewatch)

I first watched this film sometime in 2018 and was a little underwhelmed by it. I didn't really have any intention of watching it again but someone picked it for a Hall of Fame I was participating in so I gave it another shot and had a much better time with it. I want to say tonight was my fourth time watching and it has improved a little for me with each viewing.

I don't know if I would go to so far as to say that I truly love this movie, but it does a wonderful job of engrossing me in the story and making me fully invest in Elio's journey of self discovery. Timothée Chalamet did a splendid job of portraying the curiosity, confusion, and longing of a young man coming of age and summoning the courage to pursue what he wants. Armie Hammer is also wonderful in his role of Oliver, a man full of conflict despite his confident and arrogant exterior.

I also really love the look, with its muted colors creating a dream-like quality that fits the doomed love affair perfectly. Italy is often the setting for romance and for good reason. The music too, helps to capture the excitement of love and the heartbreak of loss. But one of the things that I most appreciate about this movie is that the only real enemies here are time and distance. While I appreciate realism in film, I also like film as escapism so it's really refreshing to get a more mainstream gay movie where its characters aren't fighting homophobia or the AIDS crisis. Their battles are just with life and circumstance.

I can't say for sure yet if this will make my ballot, but I suspect that if it doesn't make it, it'll be among the last to get cut.

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On this point, I think it's sort of yes and no.

On one hand, they aren't really having to fight overt homophobia and Elio's parents are supportive.

But there's a lot of implicit homophobia in the way that it's only spoken about in code, and it's seen as something that someone does and then moves on from to a straight relationship. Oliver repeatedly warns Elio that they could "get hurt" because of their relationship, and it's clear he's talking about the consequences of people finding out they are gay.

It's one of the things I really liked about the film. Like you say, the main enemy is just wrong place, wrong time. But I think that the cultural homophobia amps that up quite a bit. Being gay means that the likelihood of them being able to have stable, open relationships is very much reduced. Bias/prejudice can harm people even when it isn't beating them up in the streets or arresting them. Bias/prejudice can even smile at you and quietly suggest you move on and then cook you a nice dinner.

Well yes, the homophobia is not entirely absent - it’s sort of always there, lurking. But I just mean that relative to something like Brokeback Mountain, it’s not at the forefront of their problems.

It won't make my ballot but that was good and should do well.

Right. You can sink into the romance a lot more because you don't really worry that someone is going to, like, hate crime them while they are out and about.

Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria) (Pedro Almodóvar, 2019)
(Rewatch)

I first watched this in 2020 and had some reservations going into it. On the one hand, I love Antonio Banderas and given the accolades he'd received for the role I expected I would love his performance. But on the hand, I'd seen only two of the director's other films and had hated one and loved the other.

As it turns out, I didn't quite love this movie, but I did love Banderas's performance. My experience tonight has been much the same. This movie is quite unlike the other Almodóvar films I've seen. It's very intimate and personal. It's very bittersweet and straightforward in how it addresses the struggles of aging, disease, loss, addiction, and regret. It's full of melancholy and, though it does inject a little humor here and there, it is not a fun movie to watch, but it is absolutely a work of art - enhancing its story and performances with beautiful cinematography and gorgeous colors.

But as good as it is, it doesn't quite move me the way it needs to do in order for me to love it. I'm actually going to downgrade it a little from my previous rating and I won't be voting for it, though I do still think it's a very worthwhile movie. Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas will most definitely be appearing on my ballot with another film though and I'll likely watch that one next.

The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito) (Pedro Almodóvar, 2011)
(Rewatch)

I don't know how many times I've watched this movie now, but with every viewing I love it just a little more. It's sexy, it's exciting, it's unnerving, it's beautiful, and it's seriously f***ed up. And at the heart of it all are two powerhouse performances - Antonio Banderas as the plastic surgeon who is obsessed with perfecting the artificial skin he's created and Elena Anaya, as the volatile patient he holds captive in order test his invention. Both are absolutely captivating and combined with a great premise, gorgeous cinematography and a fantastic score make for an very fun and memorable movie-watching experience.

It will without a doubt secure a very high position on my ballot.

I have Pain and Glory on my watchlist from you having it as one of your choices for me. Even if it's not one of his best, I see Almodovar as a must see director.

The Skin I Live In will absolutely be on my ballot.

I read the short novel (French, Mygale) this one is based on back in the early 2000s. When I watched the film I was like "Wait . . . this story seems awfully familiar!" They made some changes to the story--mainly to make the main character more sympathetic---but I think it's an excellent adaptation.

I'm one of those terrible people who almost never reads anything. My library card is almost exclusively used for borrowing movies and to keep my Kanopy subscription active.

LOL. I definitely use my card more for Hoopla and Kanopy (and borrowing DVDs) than for books, though I usually have a few books out at any time.

If it helps, Mygale is really short, like 130 pages or something. I read it in about two hours on a bus ride to a volleyball tournament in college.

That's like 130 more pages than I've read in like the last 3 years. The older I get, the shorter my attention span becomes. These days, anything longer than a MoFo or Reddit post just isn't going to happen and even then I just skim some of the longer posts.

ETA: I think it's more like 5 years. I'm pretty sure the last time I read a book was in late 2017 or early 2018.

Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson, 2016)

I hated everything about this. I typically avoid documentaries as a rule because it's very rare for one to capture and hold my interest so I wasn't expecting to like this going in. But what I also wasn't expecting was to have to sit through a montage of snippets and outtakes from a bunch of other documentaries with no narration and often little to no context given for what we are shown. The film jumps around from subject to subject and then back again, sometimes covering issues that I might care about if it spent any sort of significant time with them before moving on again, but it doesn't and so I never gave a damn about any of it.

I spent its entire length - which is under 2 hours but felt much, much longer - completely disconnected and just wishing for it to end.

The Secret Life of Pets (Chris Renaud, 2016)
(Rewatch)

It's been awhile since I last watched this and I'd forgotten just how much of a crazy mess it is. It ramps up the silliness and is a little too juvenile for me to love it, but it does have some genuinely funny and cute scenes and the animation looks great. I can certainly think of far worse ways to spend 90 minutes and it makes for some decent mindless entertainment.

Far From the Madding Crowd (Thomas Vinterberg, 2015)
(Recommended by @Takoma11)

I have some really mixed feelings on this one. This is a really beautifully shot movie with gorgeous landscapes and pretty people. The story is romantic and engaging. The performances are solid.

But holy crap was Bathsheba's idiocy infuriating and at several points in the movie I wanted to just reach through the screen and slap her. What exactly was funny about the valentine? And the soldier? Really? She had the sense to remain single and independent and didn't just give herself to the first man to make an offer. But then some jackass in a uniform comes along and all that good sense just went out the window because he's just so handsome. SWOON! Let's elope!

Ugh. Dumbass. Gabriel might not have grown to despise her but I kinda did.

LOL. While her marrying the soldier was super frustrating, I think at that point she had a false sense of security about her ability to manage things because of what she was able to do with her business. And if it weren't for the way that laws were structured, she probably could have.

After watching the movie I listened to the unabridged audiobook of the original novel. I think it's actually one of the better book-to-film adaptations, with only a few minor changes made. (Something that is strange to me is that they made some changes that actually make her less likable and the older guy who likes her less creepy. In the novel he does a lot more stuff to try and control her and manipulate her into wanting to marry him.)

I also like the idea that the film begins with Gabriel, who is a good guy, making a serious misstep in how he proposes to her. "I could buy you stuff!" and she's like "Yeah . . . I have stuff, but thanks." I really enjoy the journey that they take in falling in love. Despite her faults, I really enjoy Bathsheba as a protagonist.

I did find the way Boldwood was handled kind of... odd. Like they made him too reserved and respectful of her to the point where when he does what he does at the Christmas party it feels way out of left field.

I think that there are hints of the way that he is very controlling and basically the kind of guy who thinks "I'm nice and I like her, so she will be mine." Even after she owns up to the valentine thing, he persists in thinking she should be his. I think that his respect is masking the fact that he basically thinks he can buy her as a wife.

I'm trying to remember the exact detail because it's been a while, but in the book he actually pays the soldier to behave a certain way around Bathsheba. There are a few points where he pays people to manipulate Bathsheba and it's pretty icky. But I get why they cut a lot of that, because the book is really long and I think they did a pretty good job scaling it down to fit in a 2-hour runtime.

Also: I'm kind of in awe of your pace in this thread. I'm trying to get through the list of recommendations people gave me, and it's quite the task!

What's even more impressive is that Miss Vicky has a potato chip company named after her:

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