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That's fair.

I guess I just meant that for women (especially in thrillers or horror movies) the "stranger danger rapist" is a thing and it's not quite as much a thing for male characters. So you more often see overtly violent male characters in the bad guy role, while female villains are more often sneaky/manipulative. There are DEFINITELY exceptions to this rule, but I think that broadly the "lustful stranger" is more a scary thing for female characters than for male characters.

Rush Hour (1998).


4/5 Stars.



Rush Hour 2 (2001).



4/5 Stars.



I've always loved these films. They're silly and ridiculous but funny, easy to watch and very entertaining; sometimes that's all you want after a hard day at work, movie comfort food. The third one is just plain bad though, it's a Godfather Part III situation.

Sure. That’s what we call chemistry, and I guess it really can’t be explored on screen apart from just showing it. But I’d like to see a film that gives it a try. After all, very deep films about friendship (you and I both appreciate Moorhead & Benson) usually do manage to somehow address why these two people get along like a house on fire. At least a few short, paradoxical lines.

Haven’t seen either in a while, but I do remember they were high-quality adaptations. It was the first time I admitted to myself Keira could teach herself to act.

Yes, that’s kind of what I think it’s getting at. That men who demonstrate excessive care are creepy. It’s unfair, and sexist, and whatnot, but it works to create tension, that’s all I meant. Despite yourself, you find the protagonist’s attention to women profoundly weird long before he does anything. That’s been my experience, anyway. You actually find him more creepy the nicer he acts. That’s kind of the point of it, a little like Ripley (not that it comes anywhere near).

I wouldn’t argue with that. But the distinction between ‘You’ and things like ‘The Collector’ is the sort of naïveté the protagonist has about his actions (at least in season 1). It makes me think more of Norman Bates. I’ve always found narratives that try to get you to sympathise with the charismatic antagonist pretty interesting. Not to say you have to be on his side.

(I’m not selling it to you by any means - just trying to think why I liked it).

The closest thing to it, to my mind, is actually not ‘The Collector’ or Bates, but ‘Phantom of the Opera’. The Schumacher adaptation may have been awful, but the story exists in all kinds of forms, and I think the Phantom’s interest in Christine was always just as much about being petted and indulged by her as controlling her. ‘You’ is a bit similar. I felt it was pretty unusual. Not groundbreaking, or anything.

I agree that it's a gross double standard, but I think it depends on how you define "excessive". I know relationship where the male half is the more caring/demonstrative. What makes it creepy is when you sense that a person has a mental math equation about how it works. I'm trying to remember the quote, but someone said something like "Some men treat women like vending machines. You put enough kindness in and sex falls out." It's the idea that you can just do a certain number of nice things and by some abstract chemistry a person will then fall in love with you--like you can "buy" love with X number of kind gestures. That, for me, is what is often behind the "person seems more creepy the nicer he acts". It's because the niceness doesn't seem genuine.

I get what you mean. And I agree that when someone genuinely doesn't understand how to approach a loving relationship it is tragic. But I will always have more sympathy for the person who ends up on the receiving end of this kind of person.

Big Eyes (2014)

That is some seriously horrible dubbing indeed. If I ever watch that film again, I'll do it with Italian audio.

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MANK

****/*****

It’s a fine film that feels stifled by its relatively modest sensibilities.

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I think (and I’m trying to keep the conversation rooted in film rather than ‘life’ as such) there is a cultural expectation of reciprocity that goes both ways. That, in itself, is not sexist, it just is what it is. A person invests in another person, be it money, care or something else, and expects something in return. It can be sex, or it can be something worse. It certainly is a selfish, unreasonable expectation, but I’m wondering whether this isn’t just how the human mind works?

I remember reading The Help about 7 years ago. The film was fine, I didn’t like it much, but it was competently made, and Octavia Spencer is a treasure. But I also thought the subplot with what’s-her-name, Skinner (?) (the lady who writes the book) and the guy named Stuart (?) was surprisingly deep. It explored, albeit briefly, precisely that kind of reciprocity expectation that remains normal today. The Stuart person had invested his time in whatever-her-name-was. While he was described as a legitimately ‘nice’ guy, give or take (apart from his views on Civil Rights/the humanity of ‘the help’, which were the dealbreaker for her), I remember how well it showed her trying to extricate herself from his expectation that if he’s nice to her, there may be something there in future. It definitely is creepy and unwarranted, but I think people try to create guarantees in life, and that applies to anything. It’s the same way we make ‘deals’ with the universe/God/whatever you want to call it, as in, ‘If I do this, x must definitely happen. If I put in all this effort, I must get somewhere, promise?’ On a totally irrelevant note, what I loved about I, Tonya was how it annihilated that worldview.

Of course. I guess it shows these kinds of narratives ‘work’ on me, whereas you have a more deconstructionist approach. I really respect that. There are narratives which I start deconstructing immediately, but I guess these ones I just take at face value. No one is going to know what I’m talking about here, but I can’t not mention it.

There was this Russian book - and, subsequently, a film - in the broad Fifty Shades tradition, I’m afraid - called Dukhless/Soulless (2012), which was surprisingly well received. Rotten Tomatoes loved it. But if you’re aware of Russian/post-Soviet culture, you see how utterly awful this thing is on a meta-level. It’s about an absolute monster of a guy - I’m talking, every misogynist male lead bastard amplified tenfold, because this is Russia - who torments his female love interest for the entirety of that monstrosity, and then in the final act, goes to lie down on the train tracks, and she saves him. It also annoys the **** out of me that it’s described as a ‘comedy’ in some places, as most people would see it as a ‘‘‘thriller’’’ (triple quotes intended). I remember when I did watch it, I thought it was beyond awful, again, on a meta-level. The most extreme version of the vending machine parable: I’ll make you take care of me (i.e., I won’t actually be nice to you but super-mean), but the grand total of this uncalled-for attention will make you interested enough to save me from the train tracks.

Ender’s Game 2013

This movie came on very late last night as I was just going to bed but then found myself watching it for the second time. I love this movie and its ideas. I am unbeaten on some computer games but I wish sometimes it could have some real life use or implications, that in fact it takes much skill but is kind of pointless and wasteful. I was kind of renowned by my group of friends in high school on some games. Well here it is utilised and I feel a slight envy. I wanted to be Enders. I had no high expectations when I first watched this movie, I thought just a teeny movie but it’s a legitimately intelligent film and I like how it also plays with the idea of being perfect, so astute and highly tuned and how this is most prevalent in certain young people which in this world is fully realised. And that ending is such a WTF moment, epic and devastating but then ending with a ray of light. also by nearly all accounts a great book to film adaptation.

I can’t find any qualms with this movie at all for what it is, it achieves and give it full marks. Highly recommended if you haven’t already seen this little sci fi gem which truly the whole family will enjoy.

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Do you know what a roller pigeon is, Barney? They climb high and fast, then roll over and fall just as fast toward the earth. There are shallow rollers and deep rollers. You can’t breed two deep rollers, or their young will roll all the way down, hit, and die. Officer Starling is a deep roller, Barney. We should hope one of her parents was not.

La Cena (1998) Etorre Scola.
We spend an evening at an italian restaurant, and get to know the staff and customers. Comedy/drama.
7,5

Fellini’s Roma (1972) Federico Fellini.
A presentation of life in Rome, around the time Fellini grew up, up until he is a man, i think. For some reason i have neglected most of Fellini’s movies, and only other film i have seen is 8 1/2.

9

It totally is. And it is, to an extent, a reasonable way to approach life (even non-romantic life). If I am nice to other people, hopefully they will be nice to me.

But love is different from gratitude/appreciation. That's what I think is hard to capture on film. Love is that extra intangible that is NOT just a simple case of reciprocity. I think that most people understand how to cultivate relationships of care and respect (the very simple formula of loyalty + kindness + gratitude), but no one can manufacture love in another person.

I think that this is easiest to understand in a film when there's an explicit way that one character "completes" another. For example, in Secretary, where the two characters are literally the two halves of a functional kink relationship. Or in something like Haywire, where two characters develop a deep bond over their shared understanding/experience of a very specific, unique lifestyle.

But the love that most people feel doesn't come from the simple dynamic of being "completed" by another person, or at least not in a way that can be summarized as simply as the complimentary nature of the characters in Secretary.

The treatment of Meg Ryan's fiance, Walter, in Sleepless in Seattle is a great example of a writer understanding this. Walter is goofy and nice. Ryan's character even acknowledges that they make a lot of sense as a couple. He is capable of kind and romantic gestures. But she just doesn't feel that spark with him. Ryan's character hears Hanks speaking on the radio and something in her just clicks. The "why" is to some degree unknowable.

Yeah, HbtC has moments that make it worth watching for me but because it is so nonsensical (in exactly the way you've described and a few more) I'm not sure I would even sit through the whole thing anymore, rather I might do it in a double-feature on a night when I didn't have the full run-time to spend and just fast-forward through about 1/3 of the movie.
It kinda feels like Fulci filmed the scenes he wanted to film and then set about putting them together in some kind of way, in some cases filming additional sequences to tie them together and in others... not.
But it has its pleasures.

I wanted to comment that you are the first other person I have ever heard mention Ho1kC with relation to this, a parallel I immediately drew when I saw this film (I saw Zombie's film first) and immediately thought this was his inspiration. It is also my favorite part of the movie and I feel like if there had been a little more focus in this direction, Fulci would have really had something. It is funny that Zombie also, then, pops the top of this gag at the very end, but at least he alludes to it throughout so it makes a tiny modicum of sense.

I remember this conversation and it was a dark one.
I actually got chills reading it because I realized how true it was and how many men I've known (passingly, I'm pleased to say) or at least encountered who felt this way, that "nice" behavior toward women was supposed to be reciprocated with sex and/or appreciation/reciprocation and when it wasn't then it wasn't that the machine was broken (or that it's just not a real machine) but that the woman was transgressing, breaking the rules of how the machine is supposed to work. This includes a not so subtle suggestion that at that point it is perhaps ok if the man then takes what he has clearly paid for or at least bangs on the machine to try to make the sex (and appreciation/reciprocation) fall out.
Damn, I'm gettin' grossed out by it all over again.

Watch The Last Starfighter.

Yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head here.
It is reasonable, if you are nice to someone, to expect them to be nice in return, and if they aren't, that's probably on them.
It is NOT reasonable, if you love someone, no matter how ****ing nice you are or whatever it is you think you give them, to expect them to love you in return. And if you do, that's on you. And this can actually be a dangerous situation, for both sexes, although the physical danger is certainly greater for women.

Even outside of the horror/thriller genre, this rears its head in film.

For example, in Pitch Perfect, we are supposed to want the main character to get together with the nice guy. She is, instead, drawn to the DJ dude (it's been a while since I've seen the film). But I remember this scene where the male lead throws a little hissy fit because she doesn't like him. DUDE, she just doesn't like you that way! (Only it's a movie so at the end she does).

I think it's true that if you are a nice person who does good things you will find *a* person who loves you for it. But I don't think you can bank on compelling a *specific* person to love you for it. That's where it crosses the line into controlling and weird. And obviously someone (of any gender) trying to MAKE you be with them is really off-putting. I still cringe thinking about someone in high school who I was trying to avoid who managed to catch me alone in the hallway and told me "You know you want me." Or my poor, oblivious middle school self who was handed a rose by a boy in the middle of wood shop. And after saying thank you and how beautiful it was, etc (I totally did not get that this was an "I like you" thing, I thought it was a nice friend thing) I put it down on the table and he was instantly really mad at me (I guess I was supposed to . . . hold the rose while also assembling my cabinet?). I remember this deep confusion that I thought I'd done what I was supposed to, and he clearly expected something MORE and I just didn't know what that was.

And maybe that's what I find so hard about many romantic comedies. They so often begin with someone chasing after a specific person. I keep going back to Secretary, but part of why it makes sense is that these two people don't go out looking for love, they just happen to stumble across someone who is their compliment.

The absolutely great Brief Encounter does a wonderful job of showing how that initial spark (and an act of kindness NOT motivated by hoping for reciprocity) can develop into something deeper.

This explains so many of the head scratching moments. Dead ends and non sequiturs. I thought I had missed a scene or something but really didn't want to go back and rewatch.

Agreed. The name Freudstein is thrown around so much and his nefarious history teased that it makes no sense to trot him out at the last second.

That was probably what brought it to mind but, in fact, I've seen Leopard Man associated with slashers for years, and without much controversy.


Anyway, I may have jinxed the slasher thread by association

Hoax (2019)

I rarely bother with the Bigfoot films, but this one had at least a couple of recognizable names in it. It's not bad for a new B-horror, and it's positively campy. Nothing new, nothing great, but sort of passable 90 minutes anyway.