End of Year Twelve

I’ve done this for 12 years now. That seems staggering.

So, clearly, I didn’t have the most productive December as far as this blog goes. Life intervenes sometimes—a brutal work schedule for a few weeks, a new class that requires all-new materials, the holidays and the fact that I’m taking over a chair position on a local commission has put my time at a premium. With things dying down, I figured I’d just wait to the end of the year to start back up again.

I still have a chunk of movies to complete the latest 1001 Movies list and a few to finish up the Oscars. Those are going to be the initial focus for the next few weeks, at least until the next set of Oscar nominations comes out. You can also expect some focus on 2021 films for a bit.

Other than that, new year, same me. Just more productive this year, I hope.

I'll Be Home for Christmas...

It’s been three weeks since I’ve posted here, which seems like an eternity. Work issues and other issues jumped up (nothing bad—just real life) and taken over for a bit. In a week or two, I’m moving in to a new position as the Chair of my local environmental commission, for instance. I’m going to be teaching a new class (completely new—never run before by anyone) class in January, which means creating new materials. And it’s the holidays, and while I have really wanted to not have my face buried in work and other things 24/7, it’s just not the case. I’m hoping things will calm down in the next week and we’ll go back to normal in January. That said, it’s a tradition to post 10 suggestions for the 1001 Movies list each Christmas, so here we go…

What I've Caught Up With, November 2021

It’s been since before Thanksgiving that I’ve posted; I think this is the longest I’ve gone between posts since I started, but I might be wrong about that. I think, like a lot of people, I’m struggling still with the idea of COVID; my days sometimes seem over before they’ve begun. I’d love to tell you I’m going to rededicate myself to this blog in the coming months, but who knows? I’m going to try to post more; that’s all I can say. That said, I did get through four “bonus” movies in November. Not all of them were new to me, but they were all movies that I’d never put up a review on.

Oh, Baby

Films: Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Format: DVD from Cherry Valley Public Library through interlibrary loan on basement television.

Dell over at Dell on Movies is doing his yearly Girl Week blogathon, and I've decided to participate. I'm hoping to participate several times, but I wanted to make sure I got in at least one review during the week.

Of the new movies added to the 1001 Movies list, Never Rarely Sometimes Always was the one that I looked forward to the least. This has nothing to do with this being a “woman’s” movie, but simply that it’s a difficult subject. Any relatively regular reader of this blog is going to be roughly sure of my politics in general, so it’s not going to be surprising that I am, for instance, pro-choice when it comes to the abortion question. That said, it’s not a topic that I love talking about. For me, it’s a bodily autonomy issue and a conversation where I don’t generally belong. So, a movie that is essentially “the abortion question” in the person of one young woman is a film I feel only vaguely qualified to discuss.

But that’s what we’ve got when it comes to Never Rarely Sometimes Always. Autumn Callahan (Sidney Flanigan), in rural Pennsylvania, discovers that she is about 10 weeks pregnant. Rather than being given any real counselling, she’s shown an anti-abortion video and talked to briefly about the wonders of parenthood and of adoption. She learns that she is unable to get an abortion in Pennsylvania without parental notification or approval, and her juvenile attempts at causing a miscarriage don’t work. Her third option is to go elsewhere. Eventually, her Skylar (Talia Ryder) susses out the truth. She steals cash from the grocery store where the two of them work and they buy bus tickets to New York city so that Autumn can have an abortion.

Help Wanted?

Films: The Assistant
Format: Streaming video from Hulu Plus on Fire!

I think almost everyone has had a job that has sucked to the point of feeling like life is no longer worth living. Most of us have cried over a job or stormed out, rage quit, or otherwise wondered what the hell we were doing with our lives. When the job in question is connected to what you want to do with your life, it’s a rude and terrible wake-up call. That’s what The Assistant is. A young woman working at a low-level job in the film industry gets a very hard lesson in exactly how terrible pursuing a dream can be.

Jane (Julia Garner) wants to produce, and pursuant to that goal has taken a job as a minor assistant of a New York film producer of some stature. While the initial thought is one of glamor and fame, Jane’s life is anything but. She shows up before dawn, handles countless menial tasks, and works well into the night. Her interaction with her boss (Tony Torn, who only appears as a voice on her phone) is generally abusive—she’s not noticed when things are perfect and is blamed for everything that might go wrong whether or not she was involved.

Shear Insanity

Films: The Burning
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

In the massive career of disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein, there had to be a beginning point. Well, here it is: The Burning, a 1981 slasher based loosely on the legend of the Cropsey legend from upstate New York. And yes, according to the Wikipedia page on this movie, Weinstein’s sexually harassing ways were in full force even at this early point in his career. Can’t keep a pervert down, I suppose.

Anyway, The Burning is very much a slasher in the vein of Friday the 13th. It’s worth noting that for all of the similarities—and there are a lot of them—this project was started before Friday the 13th became a thing. The parallels are surprising, though. We start in the past, where a collection of teens at a summer camp attempt to pull a prank on Cropsy (Lou David), the camp caretaker. Things go wrong and Cropsy is lit on fire. He survives his horrible injuries, and years later is released from the hospital. Naturally, he’s going to go on a killing spree. I don’t even know why I have to tell you this.

Getting a Head

Films: The Green Knight
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

I knew from the moment that the reviews started coming in that I would be watching The Green Knight eventually. On the surface, this is the definition of an Oscar film. The Green Knight has 89% approval on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and a mere 50% from audiences. It’s artsy, based on a classic story, and has a solid cast. This blog looks at seven different Oscar categories. I could see this nominated in four of them at the upcoming Oscars—Picture, Director, Actor, and Adapted Screenplay. I have no idea if it will be a contender, but I think it should be.

The Green Knight is a fairly straightforward version of the Arthurian legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Rather than spoil what the story is, I’m going to give the basics of the legend, since the film does a good job of sticking to the broad strokes of the story. At Christmas, Arthur and his knights are visited by The Green Knight, who offers a unique challenge. He puts it to the knights that he will suffer a blow from any one of them, if they agree to track him down and find him in a year (in the story, it was on New Year’s Day) and receive the same blow in return.