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Re-watch of a movie I haven’t seen in forever. The movie is way too long. The best part is the romance between Charles & Rosy, which is lovely. Then the movie switches to the Irish Troubles which is not so interesting & is way too long also.
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Rape is one of the worst acts a human can commit, particularly of those committed with any regularity. So that word basically means "one-of-the-worst-acts-you-can-commit-y."
Personally, I would change the word “human” to “man”. (I suppose a woman can rape, but I’m not familiar with this.)

Not sure if this is what you’re saying: are you saying that rape is worse when committed regularly? Rape is unconscionable whether done once or many times.

Not trying to start a “rape” argument here. Just airing my thoughts.



Personally, I would change the word “human” to “man”. (I suppose a woman can rape, but I’m not familiar with this.)
I think the broader term is proper because the point in question was unrelated to the gender of the perpetrator, so using any more specificity than is necessary just invites misunderstandings or follow-ups. Like this:

Not sure if this is what you’re saying: are you saying that rape is worse when committed regularly? Rape is unconscionable whether done once or many times.
No, that is not what I'm saying. The word "regularity" is preemptively guarding against some pedantic reply that comes back with "oh yeah, what about X?" With X being genocide, or something. I was establishing how horrible it is without getting sucked into an argument wherein we start ranking horrible things.

Not trying to start a “rape” argument here. Just airing my thoughts.
The discussion had already wound down, but these are pretty sensitive questions and it'll look weird if I don't reply to them.

That said, if there are two interpretations of something and one is weird or absurd, and the other is relatively reasonable, I'd hope people would mostly just assume I meant the relatively reasonable thing. But if they need to be asked, I think PM or post comment is the best way to do so.



That said, if there are two interpretations of something and one is weird or absurd, and the other is relatively reasonable, I'd hope people would mostly just assume I meant the relatively reasonable thing. But if they need to be asked, I think PM or post comment is the best way to do so.
Not sure why I would hide my comments in a PM or post-comment & I didn’t know the topic had wound down.

Not gonna discuss this further.



A system of cells interlinked
I'd like to get this thread heading back more towards posting the recent films we have seen, so let's not rekindle this flame that has already started to gutter over the past couple of days. Not sure where you could move the discussion instead, if a thread dedicated to the subject is warranted, or if that is just a thread that would get locked down anyway. I defer to Chris on this one, but let's get back to posting our recent films and mini reviews for same.
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Not sure why I would hide my comments in a PM or post-comment & I didn’t know the topic had wound down.

Not gonna discuss this further.
Okay. I initially wrote up a reply to the first bit, but Sedai's right, as he often is. If you (or anyone) wants to hear my reasoning/response, you/they can let me know.

I'm saying this because this is the nature of asking a pointed or sensitive thing in public: it creates an obligation to reply in public, or else risk looking like you're ignoring something important, which as a mod I obviously can't do.



Here are some things I have seen this month:*
Hard Labor - Not really a movie, but some average episode of Play For Today that was directed by Mike Leigh. Sarcastic Remark: “Thanks Criterion Chanel”

Three Women - Wonderful work of “art” directed by Robert Altman. What I liked about it were the interactions between Pinky and Millie along with the other characters such as the heartless pool staff. Of course Shelley Duval plays my favorite character and part of the movie as I was into her tough personality throughout the entire 2 hours.

Thank you Criterion staff for adding this to the lineup, I needed it.


High Hopes - Pretty nice British film I saw because I wanted to see a work that was directed by Mike Leigh. I actually quite enjoyed it even if the people in it were not quite as delectable as the ones in the Nouve Vague. One of the film’s themes was about social classes which I really enjoyed as there was a funny scene where the rich neighbor was bullying the old lady for her behavior(ex. Needing the phone or referring to the “lavatory” as the “bathroom”). The film’s score is also quite bluesy.


4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days - This is to me as Taste of Cherry is to Roger Ebert... This Palme winner is seen as a masterpiece by about everybody but I just saw it as another foreign film or “emperor without clothes” as Ebert would put it. This just did nothing for me. It certainly is passable as there are some good conversations. I needed something more exciting as a movie like this bores me. Alma & Elizabeth(Persona), Petra & Marlene(Petra von Kant), Celine & Julie, The Maries(Sedmikrasky), and several others make better female pair-ups in foreign films than the one(Gabito & Otilia) in this one.I guess this is more of a critic movie than one audiences do.

Current Palme Winner Rankings
1. Umbrellas of Cherbourg
2. La Dolce Vita
3. Pulp Fiction
4. Rosetta
5. This film

I will not miss it when it leaves Criterion at the end of the month but I certainly miss Pierrot le Fou which I have not seen yet.

The Mikado(1939) - It was alright. I found it to be stylistically pretty cool and I was a bit impressed with the color considering it being a 30s movie. I was humming the Tit-Willow song for a week after seeing it.


The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962) - Czech movies always give me this feeling that they are from another planet with this one included. I quite enjoyed the battles and voyages that the Baron, the Princess, and the Moonman went on. This movie was a good time indeed. I better watch the Terry Gilliam version now.


Jules and Jim - I start to feel that whatever happened to these two is whatever will happen to a friend and I when one of us gets married. The wife loses interest and the friend starts getting interested in her. The ending shocked me the same way Contempt did where two characters get killed in a car crash, except this time it is done out of malicious intent rather than it be an accident. I know Truffaut did 4 more films based off The 400 Blows, I wonder what a sequel to Jules and Jim would look like. Maybe Jules and Sabine or something beyond the lines.


A Woman is A Woman - Very stylistic and groovy sophomore effort by Jean-Luc Godard. This is the second film since The Young Girls of Rochefort where a reference to Jules and Jim is told. Matter of fact I think this film even referenced Lola which was another Jacques Demy film which he himself would reference in two other films(Umbrellas and Model Shop. This film is described as a musical comedy, but there were not any real songs in it. Also considering this a movie with a nightclub in it, this vibrant work is much better to me than the cold and despondent Exotica.


Up next - Paris Belongs to Us, Band a Parte, Shoot the Piano Player, and possibly The Long Goodbye which I have been thinking about since October ‘21.



Dr. Lamb (1992)

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I was happy to find a Cat III from my watchlist on YouTube uncut and with subtitles, but the movie was a little disappointing. It's about a true life killer and it's fairly well made, but overall it was pretty mediocre. Inconsistent tone and not brutal enough.





Beautiful Boy, 2018

Nic (Timothée Chalamet) is a bright, creative teenager, and the son of a successful writer, David (Steve Carell). But Nic's promising path toward adulthood is seriously derailed when he develops a drug problem. Despite support from David, stepmother Karen (Maura Tierney), and biological mother, Vicki (Amy Ryan), Nic yo-yos between sobriety and heavy use, leaving his family to feel helpless and unmoored as the consequences of Nic's drug use become more and more serious.

While I wouldn't necessarily say that this film's portrayal of a family struggling with drug addiction is breaking any new territory, what it does it does very well.

There are two fronts on which I think this film does a very good job. The first is the portrayal and understanding that recovery from drug use is not a linear path. Someone can have support, and resources, and a desire to break free of drugs, and yet still find themselves sliding back into familiar, destructive patterns. Years ago I read a book that I thought was very interesting called The Night of the Gun, written by a journalist who had spent many years dealing with serious drug addiction. I saw a lot of echoes othat story in this film.

I also thought that the film did a nice job of balancing the perspectives of the two sides of the narrative. From Nic's side, he is dealing with some combination of anxiety and a lack of stimulation that may have existed before the drug use but is certainly exasperated by it. Every time he gives in again, he seems driven there by a desperation he can't control. And every small misstep puts him right back on a familiar slippery slope. David's point of view is also very sympathetic. It's easy to armchair coach the whole situation, realizing that Nic needs boundaries and maybe even to be cut off to a degree. But it's one thing to say that and another thing to contemplate what it's like for a father to tell his son he can't help him. If his son OD'd that night, that father's last memory would be denying his son help, yes, even if he 99% knew that the "help" was just a circular way of getting more money/drugs. Trying to help hurts and not trying to help hurts, and there's no way to escape the pain. The film frequently flashes back to Nic's childhood, and we can see how for David, it must perpetually seem impossible that the path of his bright young child has led to this place of 2am hospital visits, theft, and lies.

The film also portrays the way that Nic's drug problem intrudes into the lives of all of his family members. Sometimes it is direct, such as when Nic steals, pathetically, the $8 that was his little brother's "life savings". But it also manifests itself as a kind of uncertainty, insecurity, and tension for the whole family. If David is perpetually being called away, or put on edge by late night phone calls, he can't be a consistent presence for his children. In one scene, an upset Karen gets into her car to follow Nic, who has broken into the house with a girl. As Nic finally outruns her in his car, she simply stops in the middle of the road and cries. It's unclear what she would have done or said if she caught up to him. And maybe she doesn't know herself. But we see how this situation has pushed the whole family to a breaking point.

I thought that the performances were all pretty good. I liked Chalamet's portrayal of Nic as someone just brilliant enough that maybe he believes his own bluster about moving to New York for a fresh start. Carell's David is written in a bit more of a choppy way, with more distinct "modes." There's the part where he's angry and yelling, the part where he's calm and researching drug addiction, the parts where he's sad.

A film that is overall well done, but not really a standout for me in terms of movies portraying the challenges of drug addiction.




In trying to find a picture for Beautiful Boy I just searched "beautiful boy" and failed to put in the year of the film, and thus just got a bunch of pictures of beautiful boys, LOL.





Hiroshima Mon Amour, 1959

In the city of Hiroshima, a french actress (Emmanuelle Riva) has an affair with a Japanese man (Eiji Okada) while she is in Japan to film a movie. As they grapple with their attraction and the necessarily short-lived nature of their relationship, the actress opens up about a traumatic experience she had during the War.

Some films leave you with the feeling that nothing you can say or write about them will be anywhere adequate to the experience. And, at the same time, a sense that maybe you don't totally "get" the film. Such it is for me and Hiroshima Mon Amour.

What I feel most strongly able to articulate about what I took from the film is the complex role that past experiences play with present ones. The actress has been marked, powerfully, by her experiences during the war as a young woman who fell in love with an occupying German soldier. Feelings of love and passion open up those memories and experiences, and she does not get to choose whether or not the bad comes with the good. The more wonderful her experiences with her Japanese lover, the more painfully she must reckon with the loss of her German one.

The sequence in which the actress slowly unfolds the story of her young love is spectacular. You come to understand why she would be so drawn to and captivated by Hiroshima, a place of destruction and survival, and anger that cannot find a target. There is such a complexity of emotions bound up in her memories, specific moments and vague memories. You can understand why it would be tempting for her to unburden herself to a stranger, to a person who has also experienced loss and suffering that can have no real resolution.

The visuals are stunning, opening with a sequence of entangled bodies covered in ash. It might be seen as a precarious thing to compare a person's personal experience to the bombing of Hiroshima, but the film is so subjective and tangled in the actress's memories, that it doesn't feel like a tasteless comparison so much as a way to reflect her anguish. The movie's use of flashbacks and a moving camera also put you into that highly subjective space.

The film is definitely skewed very strongly toward the point of view of the actress. I would have wanted to know more about the experiences and feelings of the architect. That said, the film is convincing in showing the chemistry and emotion between the two of them to the point that you entirely believe why it would bring up such a well of emotion in her, and why he would persist in pursuing her despite her erratic state of mind.

A really lovely film that already begs a rewatch for deeper understanding.




Avatar the way of water in IMAX 3d 5/5, I can see why the sequel got nominated for so many respectable awards! It is full of spectacular escapism! It's so fun to watch, the visual effects are incredible, and nobody uses 3d like the legend James Cameron! it was so worth nearly two decades of waiting for the sequel!




His Girl Friday - (1940)

I'd already seen His Girl Friday a number of years ago, and really liked it - despite the version I was watching not being the best audio and visual quality. Was looking forward to watching my Criterion edition, and it really sparkles as probably the best adaptation of the play, "The Front Page" I've yet seen. I would have thought it a terrible idea to turn it into something of a romantic comedy, but Cary Grant really makes it work with his sly comedic manner. I tell you, my attention is focused on his face - he's an actor who can let the audience know what he's thinking, even when it's at odds with what he's saying. The actual satire of the original story seems a bonus on top of the screwball comedy we get. The fact that Ralph Bellamy kept working up until the 1990s will always tickle me as well. A few decades later Rosalind Russell would play Rose in Gypsy. All up His Girl Friday is a great movie that moves at an absolute bullet train pace and gives it's characters plenty of room to shine. If anyone has any recommendations of more comedies from this 1930s/1940s era with Cary Grant, Irene Dunne or the likes in them, please let me know. I really enjoy them.

8/10
I agree. Great film. The rapport between C. Grant and R. Russell is very appealing, as is their lighting fast dialogue-- which had been insisted upon by Howard Hawks.

You've probably seen The Front Page (1931), the original film based upon the Broadway play, but if you haven't, I think you'd like it. Aldolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien played the main parts that Grant and Russell played later (Burns and Hilldy). And it was a good choice on Hawk's part to make Hildy a female in the re-make. "Page" is a very good picture, but I'd give the edge to "His Girl".





Catherine Called Birdy, 2022

Birdy (Bella Ramsey) is the youngest daughter of Lord Rollo (Andrew Scott) and Lady Aislinn (Billie Piper). With the household in serious financial difficulties, Rollo begins to shop around for a wealthy husband for Birdy. Birdy does her best to put off her suitors with absurd antics, but she may finally meet a suitor who will not give up on his matrimonial intentions.

It's been ages since I've read Catherine, Called Birdy, a book whose cover evokes strong childhood memories even if the details of the story had faded a bit in my memory. While the pacing of the middle act leaves a little to be desired, overall I thought it was a fun, feisty film.

The best thing about the film is probably that it contains no overt villains and no overt saints. Catherine, who does not have to work and who has a nursemaid and who always has enough to eat, is certainly someone who is privileged in the 1200s setting of the film. Movies about wealthy characters, especially those who have it a lot better than the people living around them, can seem a bit tone deaf. I thought the film did a good job of acknowledging Birdy's advantages while also keeping you on her side in her resistance to marriage.

Ramsey is PERFECT in the lead role. Movie versions of adolescent characters, especially those from books, tend to skew way too pretty or way too precocious. Ramsey looks like a real kid, albeit a snarky, whirlwind. And that's what works so well in the movie. Birdy is a kid. The fact that she's had her period does nothing to change that she is very much still in a child's mindset. She still wants to be tucked in and told stories and get to spend the day poking at mud with a stick. It does a good job of driving home just how ridiculous it is that someone wants to marry her off to someone, much less a someone in his 50s.

The supporting cast is pretty fantastic, as well. Scott and Piper are great as Birdy's parents. They care about Birdy, but they also feel that they understand the real ways of the world and that they can no longer coddle her. Scott in particular pulls off something pretty slick in his performance--and credit is due to the writing also--by always keeping Rollo on the edge of discomfort with the transactional way that he is treating his youngest child. It keeps his character, a man who is shopping his daughter around and also administers painful punishments every time she drives a suitor away, from being some one-dimensional patriarchal monster.

But the supporting cast extends well beyond Birdy's parents. Lesley Sharp is great fun as Birdy's long-suffering nursemaid. Dean-Charles Chapman is very funny as Birdy's older himbo brother. Sophie Okonedo twice stands out as a widow who marries into Birdy's family and offers the girl sound words of advice. Isis Hainsworth and Michael Woolfitt are good fun as Birdy's friends Aelis and Perkin. Paul Kaye makes quite a splash as Bridy's most persistent, and most disgusting, suitor. Everyone plays their role perfectly and it's a rich ensemble who all play very well off of each other.

The film explores the way that Birdy's crash course into the world of adulthood leads her to increasing offense and rebellion. She moves from learning what a virgin is to outrage at learning that virgins are worth more. At every turn, her awakenings regarding her own biology, sex, and lust quickly veer into betrayals as they are all couched in her body as commodity. And the more the people around her act like it's okay, the worse it seems.

I also liked that the film acknowledged the feelings and lives of those around Birdy. Part of what Birdy comes to realize is that other people also have desires and hopes and dreams. Birdy is given to a very common perspective issues---especially for a teenager!--that she is the center of her story. It doesn't occur to her to think about what her siblings or her best friends want for their own lives. A big part of her character growth is seeing herself as a part of a community, even if the actions of that community might sometimes be incredibly unfair toward her.

The film does have some pacing issues in the middle. Once the dynamic is established--a suitor arrives, Birdy acts weird to drive him off--the film stalls just a little bit. Side plots about the people around her getting married/engaged are taken care of kind of hastily. But things definitely pick up in the last act, as Birdy must confront what it would mean to leave her family and strike off on her own. Fans of the book might not be enthusiastic about the way that the ending was changed, but I honestly didn't mind it. It's not as "realistic" as an ending, but who cares?

If I'd gotten to see this film as an adolescent/young teen, I would have loved it. It's just "adult" enough to feel like it isn't a little kids' film, but fun enough that it's not drab or too "real". The young characters actually feel and look like young people, it's genuinely funny in a great mix of banter and people stepping in poop. It's also got a really in-your-face soundtrack, which some people might not care for but I thought perfectly fit the vibe the film was going for.




Empire of Light (2022)


A decent cast, some period accurate snacks and a collection of themes in search of a plot.


I went into this mistakenly thinking it was set in earlier (maybe because one of the characters wears a hat on the poster) but its instantly clear it's set in 1980. A collection of characters work at a seafront cinema. Olivia Colman's manager is lonely, recovering from a mental illness and having a meaningless affair with her boss. Then she meets and strikes up a relationship with a new colleague.


There's nothing new or meaningful here. Racism is bad, mental illness and loneliness are sad and cinema is good, in case you didn't already know. It really needed decent script rather than a collection of tropes (if I see one more movie where a woman submerges herself in a bath to signify her emotional turmoil...). Several moments made me cringe. There's one good line (seriously, one). The music (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) is good. Mostly it just feels empty and a wasted opportunity.


The trailer for this was so vague. I had no idea what it was supposed to be about or what era it took place in. Now I am glad I avoided it.





Hiroshima Mon Amour, 1959

[...]
The film is definitely skewed very strongly toward the point of view of the actress. I would have wanted to know more about the experiences and feelings of the architect. That said, the film is convincing in showing the chemistry and emotion between the two of them to the point that you entirely believe why it would bring up such a well of emotion in her, and why he would persist in pursuing her despite her erratic state of mind.

A really lovely film that already begs a rewatch for deeper understanding.

For what it's worth, I encountered these lectures (or an earlier version/course of these lectures) probably close to a couple decades ago (back when you could get them through iTunes in your podcatcher of choice), and I'm pretty sure my now quarter-remembered recollection of them shapes how I view the characters behaviors in Hiroshima mon Amour.

https://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Au...and-Film/18193

Also greatly influenced how I viewed AI: Artificial Intelligence as well, but that's a story for another time.



I forgot the opening line.
I agree. Great film. The rapport between C. Grant and R. Russell is very appealing, as is their lighting fast dialogue-- which had been insisted upon by Howard Hawks.

You've probably seen The Front Page (1931), the original film based upon the Broadway play, but if you haven't, I think you'd like it. Aldolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien played the main parts that Grant and Russell played later (Burns and Hilldy). And it was a good choice on Hawk's part to make Hildy a female in the re-make. "Page" is a very good picture, but I'd give the edge to "His Girl".
Yeah, I'd seen that adaption before I originally saw His Girl Friday, but the image and sound quality weren't the best. On the Criterion edition of Friday they actually include The Front Page in it's entirety as a special feature, and I'm hoping it's a lot clearer and more crisp - I'm looking forward to seeing it again.
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I forgot the opening line.

By The poster art can or could be obtained from the distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45249015

Phoenix - (2014)

Saw three weighty, first-class films yesterday, so it was hard to know which one to lead with. I gave the honor to Phoenix, a Fassbinder-like examination of identity in post-war Berlin, where in a strange twist of fate a woman pretends to be the exact person she is. Nelly Lenz (Nina Hoss) is a Jewish lady who has survived the camps - she was shot, and her face destroyed, but survived. After facial reconstruction she is taken to Berlin and helped by a woman (Lene Winter - played by Nina Kunzendorf) who intends to take her to Palestine. Nelly wants to find her husband however, despite the fact that he may have betrayed her to the Nazis. Nelly's husband, "Johnny" (Ronald Zehrfeld) doesn't recognize her, but has a feeling she's a perfect candidate to help him get his hands on Nelly's inheritance - all she has to do is pretend to be Nelly. Nelly yearns to reconnect with Johnny, despite the fact he's a cad, probably sold her out, and treats her harshly. She aches for his recognition, and for some kind of sign that he's divined her soul - and holds out hope that he isn't the person he so obviously is. It's a film that gives you pause so you can question what makes us who we are - what others perceive us to be? Our own idea of ourselves? Or is identity just an illusion? Something we think we know, but is ultimately unknowable? This was a very well constructed psychological drama by Christian Petzold - the first film of his I've seen.

8/10


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The Kid With a Bike - (2011)

I was very much interested in seeing more films from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne after watching and reviewing La Promesse in a Hall of Fame, and The Kid With a Bike is the second feature of theirs I've landed on. It's a very grounded and heartfelt film, with Cyril (Thomas Doret) - a 12-year-old boy who has been abandoned by his father, but can't quite believe that his dad has done that to him. Not only that, but his father has sold the boy's precious bike - and this thoughtless and cruel rejection has predictable psychological consequences for the boy. One woman, Samantha (Cécile de France), takes to him, but has to not only manage his troubled behavior, but contend with neighbourhood drug dealers who try to befriend the love-starved Cyril and get him to participate in violent robberies. Some scenes, such as when Cyril pays a visit to his father who he really adores, but wants nothing to do with him, are especially poignant. Cyril's father is so young, you have to reckon on him being in his mid-teens when he had him - he has written Cyril out of his life story, and wants to start again. With this boy's misfortune, can any amount of love make up for the love he's lost?

7.5/10


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The Irishman - (2019)

The Irishman hits some awe-inspiring peaks, but I have to wonder if it really needed to be 209 minutes long. Films like Seven Samurai and Lawrence of Arabia did need to be as long as they were, but if feels like The Irishman is a story that could have been told in two and a half hours and still had room for contemplation and the kind of wistful regret that registers every time we see De Niro's face towards the end. God bless Scorsese for bringing back Joe Pesci, who gives one of the best performances of his career - all the more impressive that he had nothing to prove and wasn't yearning for one last glorious Scorsese role. I really liked The Irishman a lot, though I'm sad to say that it was hard for me to see Pacino as Hoffa - but that alone didn't sour my experience. The film dragged at times, but delivered much all the same.

7.5/10



The problem as I see it is that there aren't strict lines between the things we're attempting to characterize here. Where does "wooing" end and coercion begin? Where does coercion start to trip into intimidation? Where does intimidation become threat? Obviously applying relentless verbal pressure to someone is not the same as physically holding them down, but they're not entirely unrelated dynamics


Characterizing getting a woman to have sex with you as something you have to overcome inherently starts to skew into non-consensual territory. (Though again there is nuance because sometimes a person is hesitant or unexcited about something but is happy ultimately that someone talked them into it. In the specific context of this film, Sandy is obviously happy about how things went with Danny.).


I still fundamentally disagree with you, Stu, in your initial comment about seeing "Love at first sight" and "Did she put up a fight?" as contrasting ways of talking about the same thing. We can agree that "Did she put up a fight?" is asking "Did she resist having sex with you?", right?
Not necessarily; I mean, going back and rewatching that scene again has actually made me more convinced that there's less anything concretely skeezy about that line, because I actually Mandela Effected myself into thinking the guy made a fist when he sang it (and possibly symbolized some sort of a physical struggle in the process), but he really just puts his hand over his heart Pledge Of Allegiance-style, as if to say "Was it hard to win her heart/love?". And in that case, it's such a vague sentiment that could mean any number of things, since as far as we know, he was just wondering if Sandy was difficult to impress while Danny was trying to woo her, and maybe he had to spend a lot of money on a fancy date before she'd give him a chance, or something like that?


Of course, there's no way of knowing for 100% sure what was meant by the line/moment without asking the songwriters/filmmakers, but until then, unless something more concretely problematic can reasonably be inferred on our own, why infer it? I mean, if you assume there's something creepy about a vague line, then of course it's going to, well, seem creepy, but why assume that without the additional context needed here? Because if you ask me, I think there are enough actual offensive things in older movies to criticize (including other things in Grease itself, like the message of conformity Crumb talked about) without assuming there had to be something creepy about such a vague line, to be honest.