Thoughts on Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project

    On Criterion, I rewatched Matt Wolf's 2019 documentary Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, a film about a Philadelphia-area civil right activist and librarian named Marion Stokes, who recorded American television, like news programs, commercials, sitcoms and talk shows, twenty-four hours a day, from 1979, the beginning of the Iranian hostage crisis, to her death in 2012, the same day as the Sandy Hook massacre. She was capturing the beginnings of the twenty-four hour news cycle, and capturing wars and tragedies and cultural milestones, like the aforementioned hostage crisis, the Challenger disaster, the Baby Jessica rescue, the O.J. Simpson trial, the reactions to the Rodney King beating and the race rebellion in L.A., 9/11 and how different news channels were grasping the events as it happened, and many other major American news stories.

 

   I had seen this film on PBS years ago in 2020, and really liked it a lot, liking how she was both an activist who was involved in Philadelphia civil rights organizations, appearing on local TV chat shows, and was also a librarian, a former member of the Communist Party, and a cultural historian. She had this quiet assertiveness to her that I really liked, and chronicling American television history with her more than 70,000 VHS tapes, which were donated to the Internet Archive after her death to be digitized and preserved online. Her dedication may have been obsessive, and caused rifts in her family, but her background as a librarian and an activist made her personal project extremely vital to archiving cultural history through television, and educating audiences long after her passing.  

    She had a great eye for predicting trends, and when Apple came out with the Macintosh computer, she not only bought many Macs, she also invested in Apple when it was a fledgling company, and became wealthy through her life from her smart investments in the company. 

    As a fun aside, she was also a major fan of the original Star Trek, liking how the show depicted a multi-national, multi-racial group working together to understand other cultures, and she saw the Federation as socialism, which appealed to her personal beliefs. The film ends on a lovely shot of her sitting in one of the Enterprise's chairs in a museum reconstruction of the show's set.

    The director Matt Wolf also made the documentaries Spaceship Earth (2020), about a collective who built and lived in the Biosphere II in 1991, being both seen as environmental visionaries and a possible cult, and Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell (2008), about the multi-talented cellist and composer Arthur Russell, bridging pop and classical music and creating disco records. On Criterion, I watched two of his short films: Another Hayride (2021), about the new age guru Louise Hay, who taught self-love workshops to people with AIDS during the 1980s AIDS epidemic, fostering community, love, and support even if her methods to claim to cure AIDS were questionable; and The Face of AIDS (2016), about the controversial photograph of AIDS activist David Kirby on his deathbed with his family, which was used as a Benetton ad to spread awareness, which led to discussions about a corporation using the AIDS epidemic for capitalistic reasons and AIDS activists being split on the decision with the photo's publicity. Wolf is an incredibly talented documentarian with a variety of subjects in his films, with a thoughtful eye and a deep research in archival material, and I look forward to seeing more of his films.

Thoughts on Mixed Nuts

    On Tubi, I watched Nora Ephron's 1994 Christmas dark comedy Mixed Nuts, a remake of the 1982 French film Le Pere Noel est un ordure (Santa Claus is a Stinker), with a major ensemble cast led by Steve Martin, and featuring Madeleine Kahn, Rita Wilson, Anthony LaPaglia, Juliette Lewis, Robert Klein, Liev Schreiber, Adam Sandler, and smaller roles by Parker Posey and Jon Stewart as Rollerbladers, Garry Shandling as a landlord, veteran voice actress Christine Cavanaugh as a cop, Haley Joel Osment as a kid in one shot, Joely Fisher as Steve Martin's ex, and Steven Wright as a suicidal caller. The film was a big flop when it came out, especially coming after Nora Ephron's romantic comedy hits with writing When Harry Met Sally and directing Sleepless in Seattle, and coming out with a dark comedy centering around a suicide hotline operating on Christmas Eve, with a screwball comedy style to offset the bleak and dark comedy. I really liked it, for the great cast lineup and its mix of accepting the bleak and depressing and accepting it as part of life with good humor.

    The film takes place over several hours on Christmas Eve, in a costal California town as Philip (Steve Martin) runs a suicide hotline business called LifeSavers, and Catherine and Mrs. Munchnik (Rita Wilson and Madeleine Kahn) are his coworkers. They run the business out of an apartment, and the landlord Stanley (Garry Shandling) is going to evict them due to unpaid back rent, giving them until Jan. 2nd to move out. Philip is trying to figure out how to get $5000 together to pay the rent, but his girlfriend dumps him, and their state funding got cut, so they hardly have any options. They answer calls from suicidal people (including a really funny and dark moment from Steven Wright), hoping to get more calls because the holiday season can make people feel more depressed and lonely, and try to prepare for the inevitable of losing their jobs. There is also a recurring fear of a local serial killer called the Seaside Strangler, which has a big payoff in the finale.

    One of the callers is from Chris (Liev Schreiber), a transwoman trying to escape her mocking family by getting LifeSavers to reveal their address so she can come see them in person. Despite that now a trans actor would be cast in the role instead of a cis male actor, Schreiber delivers a sensitive and touching performance, and the role is played straight, no mocking, and aside from a brief moment of Philip misgendering her, nobody treats her in a disrespectful way, the characters are welcoming to her and don't reference her being trans in an othering way. She dances with Philip in a fun and playful scene, and is wooed by Adam Sandler (seemingly playing one of his SNL characters instead of talking in his real voice) playing the ukulele and singing a silly love song. So I do like that for a 1994 Hollywood comedy they had a nice and kind treatment of a trans character.

    Felix (Anthony LaPaglia) and Gracie (Juliette Lewis) are a struggling couple expecting their first child, where Gracie runs a quirky little shop while Felix is an ex-con with difficulties staying straight, and they argue and get frustrated with each other, with her hitting him in the head with a fruitcake and him being concussed, having initially being brought to a veterinarian (Rob Reiner), then taking an overdose of dog tranquillizers and taken to the hospital.

    Mrs. Munchnik (Madeleine Kahn, in one of her final film roles, preceding Nixon, A Bug's Life, and Judy Berlin) is uptight and sticks to the rules, not having much sympathy for Catherine's bleeding heart attitude towards the callers, and clashes with the neighbor Mr. Lobel (Robert Klein) over his dogs. She ends up stuck in a elevator for hours, calling for help, and has a fun moment singing along with a toy karaoke machine from presents she opened up.

    A pre-fame Parker Posey and Jon Stewart pop up throughout the film as a Rollerblading couple trying to carry their Christmas tree home, only to have their tree destroyed twice by run-ins with the main characters.

    It's a screwy comedy that tackles a lot of dark humor and bleakness with a empathetic understanding, especially when people can be more depressed and have suicidal ideation around the winter holidays, as the forced happiness and family togetherness  to erase over blue feelings can make people feel even worse and more lonely. I do like that this film handles those issues with grace, contrasting a serious topic with silly screwball madcap humor, and the film has a great and talented cast to round out this story. I had heard of this film, but never knew what it was about until now, hearing it recommended on the Critically Acclaimed podcast for the episode "The Iron List #47: The Best Non-Traditional Christmas Movies Ever!", and I'm glad I checked it out, it's an interesting comedy.

Thoughts on May December

     Today at Film at Lincoln Center, I went to see May December, the new film by Todd Haynes, starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, with the screenplay by Samy Burch. The film is based on the story of the late sexual offender and teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, who assaulted her 13-year old male student, Vili Fualaau in the mid-1990s, became pregnant by him, and married him after she served her prison sentence. They were married from 2005-2019, well into his adulthood with multiple children, until she died in 2020 from cancer. 

    Her story was made into a 2000 TV movie starring Penelope Ann Miller, Mary Kay Letourneau: All-American Girl, and Haynes' film takes an interesting look into the story, with a fictionalized version of Letourneau as Gracie (Moore), who, decades after the tabloid story and her prison sentence, is living with her former victim/husband Joe (Charles Melton) in a Savannah, Georgia community in 2015, with a college-aged daughter and brother and sister twins who are about to graduate high school. Gracie speaks with a soft lisp, has billowy blonde hair, and mainly bakes pineapple cakes and sells for orders. Joe is 36, but comes off as if he's more like her grown son than her husband, and seems as if his life and having children just happened to him instead of him really feeling like an adult, not fully grasping that Gracie had sexually abused and manipulated him into a life he wasn't ready for, gaslighting him into thinking he was the seducer.

    Elizabeth (Portman) is a glamorous TV actress, who is starring in and producing a film about Gracie and Joe, and wants to make a story that depicts her as a more complex character beyond the initial tabloid sensation of her being a sex offender who preyed on a seventh grade boy. She comes to Savannah to meet Gracie and gather research on her motivations and story, as well as interviewing Gracie's current family and her ex-husband and older children from her first family. Gracie greets her with kindness, but often seems to stay a little emotionally remote, giving a polite surface and airy naivete that allows her to deflect any deeper questions Elizabeth may have about the psychology of her relationship with Joe.

    Elizabeth can come off as remote herself, more seeming like a beautiful star just dropping in on the normal plebeians, being admired by starstruck teens, and always thinking with one foot out the door, gathering notes on Gracie's community and practicing her mannerisms at home, like her lisp and feathery tone. She acts more like a reporter than like an actress, interviewing people and claiming to want to tell a honest story that shows Gracie as a three dimensional character, but others are wary of her intentions in capitalizing on a tabloid story from the 1990s to try to do a revisionist take that is more in Gracie's favor, despite the trauma that affected Joe, as well as realizing that Gracie is keeping her at arm's length and using her seemingly naïve persona to weaponize against others.

    The film will be on Netflix in December, so I don't want to give away too much, but I really liked how this film featured Portman and Moore as complex characters who aren't really likable or sympathetic, both come off as guarded and putting up false fronts, both can be condescending to others (Gracie in telling her daughter that she is "brave" to wear a dress that shows her bare arms, insinuating that she thinks her daughter has fat arms; Elizabeth receiving a compliment from a fan about her show by saying it "means the world to her to hear that," when she in private told Joe she hated the show), both use their own glamour and beauty as a shield against others, and neither is really honest with each other or with others, they both come off as disingenuous and phony. Yet while Elizabeth distances herself from Gracie to try to mimic her voice and facial expressions for the character, she also begins to identify more with Gracie, as feeling like a seductress and manipulator, and being attracted to Joe for his adult beauty with his childlike demeanor.

    But both Portman and Moore are fantastic in this film, and do some of their best work in recent years. Moore has had a longtime collaboration with Haynes, with Safe in 1995 and Far From Heaven in 2002. Charles Melton, best known from Riverdale, delivers a thoughtful performance where he looks like a kid in a grown-up body, seemingly confused about how he got to where he is in life, not questioning much and following Gracie's lead from when he was a child, and slowly starts questioning the abuse and manipulation that has ruled his life, and feeling lost, having more of an epiphany about the uncomfortable aspects of his "love" with Gracie for over twenty years. He also raises Monarch butterflies and is fascinated by their metamorphosis process from eggs to larvae to caterpillars to being in chrysalis to being set free as butterflies. The metaphor isn't lost, as he seems mentally stuck as being a shy adolescent boy despite being in his late thirties, and not being able to escape from his past or arrested development.

    The film has a musical score by Marcelo Zarvos, adapted from Michel Legrand's music for Joseph Losey's 1971 drama The Go-Between, which plays like a 1950s melodrama score at times, sometimes to comedic effect (haunting piano music with a zoom-up to Gracie at the fridge, then she says, "We don't have enough hot dogs.") The music is a funny contrast that adds camp to the film, as well as heavy music to quiet scenes in a melodramatic way.

    I really liked this film a lot, it felt like a mix of being funny and dramatic, about examining how tabloid scandals can still be mined decades later to capitalize on trauma and antiheros, and featuring two female leads as complicated and interesting characters to follow.

Thoughts on Three on a Match

   On Criterion, I rewatched the 1932 Pre-Code classic Three on a Match (directed by Mervyn LeRoy), one of my favorite films of the 1930s. I had seen this decades ago when my mom gave me a VHS copy of it, one that had an intro from Leonard Maltin on it, and I liked how it was a film centering on three women, splitting off into different paths after middle school, and reuniting in unexpected ways. It also both depicts a woman (Ann Dvorak) who had been valued for her popularity and beauty only to feel bored being married to a rich lawyer with a three-year old son, and a woman (Joan Blondell) who had been a delinquent now working as a showgirl with more of a wiser look on life.

    The film's prologue shows the women as adolescents in the early 1920s, then cuts ahead ten years (with a lot of newspaper headline montages about notable events like the beginning of Prohibition, women's right to vote, and the early years of the Depression), with the women in their adult lives. Mary (Blondell) is a showgirl who is past her bad girl youth, finding stability in her life. Ruth (Bette Davis) is working a regular job as a stenographer. And Vivian (Dvorak) married a prominent lawyer and has a cute little son, but feels bored and empty in her life. 

    

Vivian and Mary have a chance meeting at the beauty salon, all three women reunite for lunch, reference the title ("three on a match" is from a wartime superstition that if three soldiers each lit their cigarettes from the same match, one of them would be killed or the third one on the match would be shot), and when Vivian decides to take a trip abroad, Mary and her gangster friends join her for a party on the ship prior to departure. Vivian, having taken her son with her, falls for one of the gangsters (Lyle Talbot), and instead of going on the trip, runs off with him and her son, causing scandal as a wealthy woman running out on her husband. Mary and Ruth work to find Vivian to prevent her from further ruining her life and concerned about her son being neglected, while Vivian gets into substance abuse with her new boyfriend, who is desperately broke and owes money to other mobsters.

    The film becomes more of a gangster film in the last third (the film is just barely over an hour long), and features a young Humphrey Bogart as one of the gangsters. Even though it's a Pre-Code film, the ending feels more like the kind of Hollywood notes given to punish a "fallen woman," and it comes off as hastily written and kind of ridiculous.

    But outside of that, I do really like this film. The women have great chemistry together, Joan Blondell is cute and sassy and smart, and Ann Dvorak was a knockout in playing a character who cracked under pressure to be beautiful and perfect and got lost in a bad romance instead. It's fun seeing Bette Davis in an early role before she became a huge star with Of Human Bondage just two years later, and outside of Talbot, Bogart is the only other gangster character that gets the most screen time as a typical hood. I'm glad I saw this many years ago, before I really knew about Pre-Code Hollywood, and it was fun to revisit this weekend.