Thoughts on Cool Blue

On Hulu I watched an old movie called Cool Blue (made in 1988, released in 1990) starring Woody Harrelson as a starving artist who becomes obsessed with a mysterious woman he had a one night stand with, and while trying to find her, he uses her memory as a muse to fuel his artwork to be successful. I thought this was going to be a fun, quirky After Hours kind of movie, but it mostly felt half-baked and pointless.

Harrelson and a young Hank Azaria are fun to watch as a couple of broke losers bemoaning their poor existences at 27 years old, and it’s cool to see Azaria in a scrappy mode sometimes lapsing into his future cartoon voices, like when they do phone sex work and he talks like Moe the Bartender. But then later he gets this super melodramatic breakdown scene in a bar that felt way too much for this nothing movie, and felt more like an overwrought singular monologue audition scene than something more organic within the movie.

The female lead, Ely Pouget, had an effective distant cool about her, but her character felt empty. She has a jerk husband that she keeps disappearing from, but comes back to, just so he can rub it in her face about how she can’t survive without him. And at the end, she and Harrelson reunite and have this big dramatic argument as if they were a couple with history, when they hardly know each other and hadn’t seen each other in several months, it also felt weird and like the scene belonged in a different movie. The movie just didn’t seem to have any real focus to it, like it was trying to be this quirky L.A. comedy about weird locals and the art scene, but when Azaria asks Harrelson at the end what he learned from all of this and he doesn’t know, I thought, “Yeah, I don’t know either!”

Also, the movie had this random Sean Penn cameo where I could not get a read on what he was doing in this movie. He just pops up in blonde wig in a bar, talks in a German (?) accent before dropping it back to his natural accent, spits out some pearls of wisdom to Harrelson, and just exits the movie. It could have been cut from the movie and wouldn’t have made a difference.

So I wanted to like this, thinking it would be some fun weird obscure movie, but it just felt weak and underwritten, with some decent lead performances salvaging it.

Thoughts on Bill and Ted Face the Music

I liked Bill and Ted Face the Music, I thought it was sweet and funny, split into two time travel plotlines, and being remiscient of the original movies in a respectful way. I liked how the guys, as middle-aged rock has-beens still trying to fulfill their prophecy of uniting the world through one special song, still maintain their kindness and good heart, and have an incredible bond with each other, thanks to the amazing chemistry between Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, who feel like brothers in these movies.

It’s fun seeing William Sadler as Death again, and it’s weird knowing that the awkward dork that Death is was played by the same guy who, during the same era of Bogus Journey, blew up a passenger plane upon landing in Die Hard 2 as a cold-hearted kickboxing terrorist. I also really liked Anthony Carrigan as a sheepishly likable robot from the future and Samara Weaving and Brigitte Lundy-Paine as Bill and Ted’s daughters, who do their own Excellent Adventure story.

It was a relaxing movie to watch last Friday, and I liked how wholesome and innocent it felt, it was a welcome addition in the series.

Yves & Variations

This is a really lovely short documentary by The New Yorker about a Haitian man who plays the violin while working as a building concierge and sells paintings by Haitian artists. He’s very elegant and smooth, with adorable young daughters.

 Yves & Variation

Thoughts on Melancholia

In August, I broke a twenty-year streak of never seeing another Lars von Trier movie again. I watched Melancholia, and thought it was fantastic, and surprisingly not as difficult of a sit as I thought, despite that it’s about depression and the end of the world.

I really related a lot to the depression and melancholy that Kirsten Dunst’s character is going through, that feeling of sadness when you’re supposed to be happy, and others blaming you if they can see your melancholy through your happy front. She really captured that well, and deserved the honors she got for this role.

I liked how this movie was about accepting the inevitable, and coping through depression, and finding a still of peace when others are way more emotional. Like how Charlotte Gainsbourg’s character starts off picking on her sister and treating her like the scapegoat for family problems (like their mother being rude and inappropriate at Dunst’s wedding reception), then, as the end of the world becomes more real, she has to accept her mortality and need her sister for guidance.

I had sworn off watching von Trier films after the ending of Dancer in the Dark, in which the finale was so devastating and awful that I never wanted to see his films again. I also couldn’t finish Breaking the Waves as a teenager, finding it way too sad to get through, though I’m sure I could be fine with it now. So I just avoided seeing his films from then on, but felt like Melancholia would be one I would like and understand, as opposed to probably hating Antichrist or The House That Jack Built. I think he’s a very talented and challenging director, but I don’t feel up to being emotionally devastated by films a lot, I can only take that in small doses.

Thoughts on First Cow

I really liked First Cow, Kelly Reichardt’s new film that I saw in July, quite a lot. It’s a quiet character dramedy about two settlers in the 1820s who meet each other as former gold prospectors in the Northwest, and quickly develop a warm and deep friendship and sell cakes using stolen milk from a rich man’s cow. I liked the slow pace of it, the quiet chemistry of the two men, the warmth of the relationship between one of the settlers and the cow, and how the beginning and ending were bookended together in a fitting way. Next to Wendy and Lucy, it’s now one of my favorites of her films.

Thoughts on Clemency

Thanks to the podcast Switchblade Sisters for recommending the 2019 indie drama Clemency, directed by Chinonye Chukwu. Alfre Woodard plays a prison warden who carries out death penalty sentences, and the job is taking an emotional toll on her between comforting the families of the inmates, listening to anti-death penalty protests outside, going through routine procedures with inmates like last meals or last talks with loved ones, and watching them die.

Woodard is so great at just showing the weight of this job in her expressions and quiet moments, and how she feels lonely, yet, despite that her husband is pushing for her to retire, she sees it as her profession and compartmentalizing it to cope. Special credit also goes to Aldis Hodge as a death row inmate accused of killing a cop nearly 15 years ago, struggling with his emotions and feeling hopeless, and Danielle Brooks as his ex high school girlfriend who visits him and gives a great monologue about the choices she had to make for her own protection when he got arrested.

I saw this on Hulu, and am happy I checked this out, it’s an underseen film that shows another side of Alfre Woodard’s great screen performances.

Thoughts on Terriers

In July, I watched Terriers, Donal Logue’s short-lived crime show from 2010. The basic plot is two unlicensed private detectives (an ex-cop and a petty thief) pair up to solve local crimes, which start with stealing a woman’s dog back from her ex and turns into uncovering a sordid corruption scandal with a rich developer over property rights. I really liked the noir vibe over the seedy parts of its Ocean Beach, San Diego, CA setting, the great chemistry between Logue and Michael Raymond-James, the dark and witty comedy, Logue’s fantastic delivery as a guy who looks like The Dude but with a more cynical look at life, and how thoroughly engrossing the crime storylines were. I liked that it didn’t always take expected paths, and didn’t have easy resolutions, as Logue’s character Hank often took a dirty and underhanded way of investigating crimes and would make things worse or messier at the least.

I had heard of this show years after it was on, and I feel like it got lost among FX programming at the time. I don’t think it was marketed well, as the title and advertising made it seem like it was a show about dogs. There is a bulldog in it, but the title is a loose connection to the plot. Some commenters on AV Club said that a terrier can be described as a small dog who fights hard and doesn’t back down, and that could describe the guys. Still, it’s a stretch.

The show had a lot of talent behind it. Among the episode directors were Rian Johnson and John Dahl, and among the showrunners was one of Joss Whedon’s collaborators from his shows.

I also liked how much heart it had, and how the lead characters Hank and Britt were general losers who still felt human and sympathetic. Like how Britt is devoted to his girlfriend but is still falling into his own B&E past to investigate crimes and openly knows he’s not the brains of the operation. And how Hank is still mourning the loss of his marriage and being kicked off the force, using surveillance to check out her new fiancé, and has a lot of deep sadness behind his charming one-liners. It’s a show that I got into very quickly, and I think had it had a better title and been marketed better as a crime dramedy than ambiguously being about dogs, it would have had a better chance at having another season or two.