When Quentin Tarantino set out to adapt Elmore Leonard’s book Rum Punch to the silver screen, his goal was to subvert audience expectations and make the movie people thought he would make in his forties. His movies before and especially since are known for extreme crowd-pleasing maneuvers; flashy cinematic technique, violent revenge fantasies, and goofy cartoon worlds that support this. Jackie Brown, on the other hand, is a quiet, meditative work about a working class Black woman in her forties; even the heist that drives the plot and the violent climax are small in scope, and Tarantino limits himself to a single DePalma-esque split-screen effect.
JB is generally seen as, if not the Tarantino film for people who don’t like Tarantino, then a quietly underrated one; I get the impression he resents the movie’s reputation as what he ‘should’ be doing all the time, which is a result of it feeling ‘adult’. It’s a story centered around a woman who has long accepted that life is frequently uncomfortable, exhausting, and humiliating; Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) has no illusions that her life is going to become something opulent and empowering and is simply resigned to chasing whatever comfort she can get.
Look over at Ordell, one of the least cool characters Sam Jackson has ever played. Ordell is deeply needy, covering himself in cool outfits, babbling whatever cool thing pops into his head, chasing not just opulence but prestige; he wants you to believe he’s the coolest motherfucker you ever met. Jackie knows she’ll never get that respect or status; the condescension and needling she gets from the cops who pick her up, defining her by her race and gender and age and specifically defining them as weaknesses, are about what she’s gonna get.
Tarantino doesn’t make movies about victims. He makes movies about people who get victimized, but that’s definitely not the same thing; his characters aren’t just empowerment fantasies, they take innate power as a given. In Jackie Brown, that’s expressed in a very different way. Jackie is unfairly beaten down by a system actively hostile to her, but she a) still makes choices within it and b) assumes ownership over those decisions.
This is part of what draws her and Max Cherry (Robert Forster) together. The line I keep coming back to is “I’m fifty-six years old. I can’t blame anyone for anything I do.” Could you imagine Max blaming his current situation on his shitty childhood? Could you imagine any Robert Forster character even complaining about their shitty childhood? There is a bit of proud Puritan self-denial, not in Jackie Brown itself but in the response to it; I know a part of me enjoys this film because it chooses not to do the Most Immediately Gratifying Thing at every second of the film (“This film is good because it’s boring!”).
But this is a side effect of the film’s acceptance – even romanticizing – that things are not always going to be good or comfortable. Max’s job may or may not make the world a better place; on top of whatever you might feel about his place in the American justice system, he certainly fails to help Beaumant become a productive member of society. But the psychological benefits of setting yourself a task and accepting whatever outcome you get are all over this film; Jackie and Max are clearheaded in a way no other character is.
(I particularly think of Ray Nicolette (Michael Keaton), who seems coolheaded right up until he realises he has no idea what’s going on)
If there’s one place opulence is allowed, even encouraged, it’s in art. The soundtrack is embedded into this film in a way above even other Tarantino films. Jackie puts on the Delfonics and it’s like her crappy apartment instantly becomes as comfortable as any of the mansions or bars we see elsewhere in the Tarantinoverse. Actionable goals bring us peace and clarity to push through uncomfortable places in the world; beautiful art is where we go back to in order to clear our heads.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Movies watched!
A Christmas Carol (1999) – This is a 90s cable TV version (it’s a little strange to see “TNT presents” in fancy Christmas font) whose main recommendation is Patrick Stewart in the Scrooge role. Though it feels a bit like Captain Picard is having an extended go at the holodeck, Stewart is ever the pro and elevates even some prosaic TV movie filmmaking. Overall the filmmaking isn’t bad, using a few The Mummy-era computer effects but mostly sticking to analog costuming tricks. The movie’s biggest failing is its faithfulness to the novel. The books is infinitely malleable and wonderful, maybe one of my favorite books ever, but even in a short book the entirety of the Ghost of Christmas Future has some unnecessary detours. Just get to the gut punch and get us home for prizewinning goose (maybe early exposure to Mickey’s Christmas Carol influenced my thinking here). But again Stewart has his finger on the pulse of the material, playing Scrooge not as surprised by the things revealed to him, but terrified to see the truth catch up. May we all get another chance on Christmas morning.
Stewart preceded this with a one man performance/reading of the book that was for a few years a staple of the holiday season on Broadway and elsewhere. He has a deep love of the story, and stripped to Dickens’s words it has a power that CGI ghosts and the like don’t. It’s also a bit less sentimental, believe it or not. Adaptations keep the sweetness but lose the anger.
The Novice — this could’ve been The Boys In The Boat good! Disappointed in both The Ploughman and the inspirational movie industry. More at the Unwrappening.
No Country For Old Men — Josh Brolin learns you can’t enter the same river twice (once as a murderous dolt in True Grit, once as a hypercompetent cowboy i.e. American here) but that the river goes to the same place no matter what. Certain opinions were refined — I think Chigurh is a total fucking tool and that first coin flip scene proves it, and there may be an article coming on this — but every time I see this I’m amazed at just how good it is without being trapped by its own brilliance. It’s a movie about isolation and death that brings together amazing artists (not just actors but longtime collaborators like Ellen Chenoweth on casting and Mary Zophres on costumes) all working at the top of their game without being ostentatious to make something that in its existence is a counter to the bleakness it portrays. What a fucking picture.
Dune Part 2 — have not read the book and last saw the first one what, two years ago? But I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked Part 1 then and unpleasantly surprised by how much I disliked this one. The first movie had lots of Rich Space Intrigue, a Game of Dunes, moving into underdog rebellion and discovery and that was cool shit, it felt like discovering a world that was massively and impressively realized. Part 2 is ticking a bunch of boxes, the sense of scale in both time and place is largely gone. Paul does terrorism, Paul does drugs, Paul does jihad, big fucking deal. None of this stuff has weight, in particular the allegedly apocalyptic religious angle, Villeneuve has zero juice in this regard. Would’ve liked to have seen it in the theater but at home a fair amount of the effects did not look that great and the last battle in particular is just stuff happening. The final duel is fine although pretty hilarious in the stunt doubling for Timmy, pretty fucking clear when that is going on. And then it just ends. No Country just ends too, with a dream recalled and a quiet tick; this ends with interplanetary warfare and a giant sandworm and it is so much emptier. I need to see the Lynch version, he might be incomprehensible but surely he is not this dull.
” he might be incomprehensible but surely he is not this dull.” – Prepare to be surprised. I saw Part 2 on the big frickin Grand Screen and it was charming to see bits of green screen still clinging to the edges of some of the figures in the first action scene – millions of dollars and newest tech doesn’t always separate you as far from Aliens as you’d like to think!
And if I thought you were serious about that opening statement, oh the knives that would be sharpened.
Hee hee, I knew that would get your blood boiling. Although let’s be real — I would absolutely watch a movie about a young woman trying to get on the rowing team and facing off against her toughest opponent, COLLEGE GIRL HITLER.
“…not this dull.”
No, there is actual color in Lynch’s film.
Some funny gags in No Country but one of the best is the trailer park manager with Chigurh, she has real rules to follow and isn’t fucking around here. He seems to respect her sheer authority by the end of the scene.
Inland Empire – the Christmas / New Year limbo seemed an appropriately odd space to finally watch this, the last David Lynch film I hadn’t seen. I put it off for years because of length and knowing that it would probably be slightly hard work and so it proved, this is a fascinating experiment and a great showcase for Laura Dern but it’s not my favourite Lynch mode by any stretch – I prefer a little more coherent logic to hang the weirdness off, and more weirdo humour mixed into the dread. Still found it quite compelling and I enjoyed the lo-fi digital cinematography more than I expected, it really suits the vibe.
True Grit – back to the Coens. I’ve always seen this one as a solid mid-level entry in their filmography, the only difference this time was that I think I this was my first rewatch since seeing the original John Wayne version, which has considerably more cat in it. The Coens are only forgiven for the lack of cat because their next movie balanced it out, but still why would you remake a movie and remove the cat? Monstrous. Otherwise, it’s pretty great – good characters, tons of fun dialogue, just a very solid Western. Interesting that it’s comfortably their most financially successful film.
Coen True Grit is pretty straightforward (especially after A Serious Man) with recognizable if not huge stars, and that’s before you get to every dad in America being genetically compelled to see a True Grit movie. So its boffo BO makes sense! And the Coens deliver all the expected Western goods but then hit you with that astonishing final ride at the end, going past straightforward into mythic — no one else would do this at this level.
That poor pony.
My favourite parts are (perhaps inevitably) the Coen-iest parts: Mattie talking grumpy older people into doing what she wants, Matt Damon getting shot in the mouth and declaring himself “theriously injured”, the “doctor” in the bearskin.
Which version of Inland Empire? I have the original DVD release which is very lo-fi. But I believe he went back and “cleaned it up” for the Criterion release to something more clear.
I have a Blu-ray but I’ve definitely had it sat on the shelf long enough that it predates the restoration for Criterion. Would be curious to see the difference, but the blurry pixelated vibes definitely worked for me in context.
Movies, and TV, and TV that Letterboxd thinks is a movie…
The Whole Town’s Talking – Milquetoast account clerk Edward G. Robinson looks exactly like a violent bank robber. Hilarity ensues, as does a delightfully off kilter romance with Jean Arthur. For the record, I still don’t know how my breakout star of 2024 is Jean Arthur. How did I go so long without her in my life? (Yes, I saw Shane long ago, but that is not the sort of movie you want to see Jean Arthur in.) Robinson is great both playing against type and playing his usual mobster character. But the plot loses steam and relies on a lot of people being stupid and there are things here that never pay off, like an overflowing bathtub in the second scene and a visiting spinster aunt who never appears. Directed by John Ford but there’s nothing here that rings one way or the other of Ford’s style. Which is fine by me.
Doctor Who, “Power of the Daleks” – The first serial with Patrick Troughton, and one of the lost serials recreated with recordings of the soundtrack and animation derived from still photography. The story is, like most six parters, quite padded and slow, but given that I’ve seen far too many Dalek serials, still packed with menace, surprise, and suspense. Out of the gate, at least Troughton’s voice indicates a Doctor who is clownish and absent-minded but cunning and sharp. And for all that people say things got darker in the 70s, or the 80s, or in the 21st century, this was always dark when the Daleks were around. The animation is very limited and occasionally crude, but if nothing else it does the Daleks justice, and where there was no way to show a factory turning out Dalek casings by the dozen in 1966, the animation can do that, and it packs a wallop.
Kojak, “Down a Long and Lonely River” – A friend of Kojak’s asks him to find her boyfriend, just out of prison and seeking answers from his ex-wife. As usual, twists and turns that lead to some sort of criminal conspiracy. Paul Michael Glaser, between Fiddler and Starsky, is pretty good. The most interesting part is the vote of confidence the show gives to the good that parole officers can do. For all its copaganda nature, this is also a show that believes in the possibility of reform, in some ways a descendant of The Naked City.
I’ll resort to my usual hyperbole and superlatives and say, this is the best Dalek story after Genesis. They are used so well here – Evil aliens given cunning and cleverness. They show actual intelligence and do some plotting. The first two Doctors were able to do this for some reason. The Daleks aren’t the drones plowing around yelling “Exterminate!” like they would become. “But we are your . . . friends” is chilling with the Dalek’s showing emotion, but not benign, it’s cruel and cunning. That line should have been used more. Also, the humans in this are despicable. Lesterson’s slow slide to insanity is dark. Good point too. While the animated reconstructions use the original soundtrack they allow for a more updated visualization than what the original probably had. Interpreting and enhancing but not changing the context, if that makes sense. There is also a disparity between the older recording and the new animation that makes it even more otherworldly, for me anyway. Too bad there won’t be anymore recreations.
What’s Up Doc? – This popped up after watching my Movie Gift, California Suite. The algorithm got it right since both take place in a hotel with intersecting stories to varying degrees of success and execution. It’s a homage to all of Peter Bogdanovich’s old Hollywood influences in the tradition of a certain kind of comedy that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s a Howard Hawks screwball for sure, but it also breaks into Buster Keaton at the end, at other times Mark Brothers’ antics and, of course, Bugs Bunny in the form of Streisand’s horny, anarchic change agent. The big cast and all the madcap chaos at the end reminded me a lot of It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Unlike many New Hollywood films there is nothing socially redeeming, commenting on the real world at the time or psychologically profound. It’s just good clean fun in its own world from a very tight and precise script by Buck Henry.
Football
So much football.
In new stuff:
Poppa’s House, “Throwback” and “Wig”
First episode: Poppa hurts his back and is stubborn about going to the doctor. Junior takes care of him for a while, then gets sick of it; Dr. Ivy offers to take over, but Poppa is suspicious of her and her motivations. Also, Nina gets Junior’s wedding ring cleaned, but he thinks he lost it.
Second episode: Poppa’s oldest friend has died, and Dr. Ivy and Nina are trying to get him and Junior to express their grief… Poppa, on the other hand, decides instead to get back out dating and present himself as much younger than he is. (You gotta see that wig.)
Both pretty solid, more or less the same the show’s been: Not groundbreaking, but a little sharper than a standard network sitcom with a laugh track, and unsurprisingly great chemistry between Damon Wayans Sr. and Jr, although Tetona Jackson and (particularly) Essence Atkins are great, too.
The Great North, “The Lies Aquatic Adventure”
Well, apparently Fox brought this back three days before Christmas and didn’t really tell anyone. The network does weird stuff with this show’s schedule. Also, the descriptions on Hulu are for the wrong episodes. Here’s what actually happened in this one: “Carissa takes Beef to a hotel for a romantic weekend, during which the family decides to clean and repair ‘The Mighty Kathleen’, which has broken down. The boat seemingly is stolen overnight, leading to Moon, Wolf, and Judy to brainstorm fantastical reasons as to the boat’s disappearance, so as to not upset Beef when he comes home.”
Naturally, the fantastic stories are ridiculous, most of all Wolf’s. It’s also quite funny how delighted Beef is once he grasps the concept of indulging in a romantic weekend at a hotel. Also funny that everyone remembers the time Judy farted at the state fair and a bird fell from the sky (“That was a coincidence!”)
I couldn’t read the name of the boat in the credits. I think Wolf’s shirt says “I can do it with a broken fart.”
Christmas stuff:
NewsRadio, “Stupid Holiday Charity Talent Show”
“How do I make this clear to you? THROWDINI!”
Superstore, “Managers Conference”
The one where Amy and Jonah use Glenn’s passes to go to a Cloud 9 managers conference and realize just how much contempt management has for floor workers. Also, a sweet resolution of the Mateo story with Glenn. (And Cheyenne’s hilarious punchline to it all at the end.)
Parks and Recreation, “Christmas Scandal”
The butt-mole move was a bold play, Councilman Dexhart.
Suburgatory, “The Nutcracker” and “Krampus”
I’ve written about these every year for the past however-long, I’m pretty sure.
Also, we continued with “Junior Secretary’s Day” and “Yakult Leader”, which are not Christmas episodes, but honestly the show is just really good, and would be one of those shows people ultimately discover as a hidden gem if it were actually on streaming anywhere. You can buy it on YouTube or Amazon, I guess. If I redid my TV of the 2010s list, this would definitely be higher, as some of the sitcoms I ranked ahead of it turned out not to have the staying power of this one. And the cast is really good! Obviously a lot of talent in the adult cast (Jeremy Sisto, Cheryl Hines, Alan Tudyk, Ana Gasteyer, Chris Parnell), but the kids might be the ones who really shine– Jane Levy, of course, but this show should have led to much bigger things for Allie Grant, Parker Young, and Carly Chaikin.
King of the Hill, “The Father, the Son, and J.C.”
A Christmas episode particularly relevant with the news of yesterday. “Hated a baby?!”
Glenn’s one of the best dramatic characters on Superstore because he’s largely governed by a moral compass even compared to Dina or Amy.
Quick catch-up on the last few weeks:
Civil War
First time. Tense and thought provoking, alternating between a few big scenes of warfare and low-key observation of the both the big picture and the people who’ve tasked themselves with the observing. Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny make the heart of this as photographers in opposite sides of their careers, joined by circumstance and by similar moments when they’re face with a choice of what to capture for posterity and what not to. Terrific final scene too. Also, surprise Sonoya Mizuno! It’s been a while.
The Room Next Door
First time. Frist Almodóvar movie I see in the teather since La Piel que Habito, and it didn’t disappoint. Tilda Swinton as terminal cancer patient and old friend Julianne Moore have a subdued but potent chemistry, as the former trying to make some comfort for herself in the end and requests the latter’s help. This is a very subtle film, eschewing Pedro’s melodramatics and passion but keeping all of his style and heart, losing nothing in the transition to the English language. It also communicates so much through his deep love for bold colors and unforgettable architecture. And I was pleasantly surprised by John Turturro’s appearance here (it’s been a while), as well as by the many allusions to Joyce’s “The Dead”.
Secret Level
Season 1, Episode 10. “Mega Man: Start”. First time.
Uh, this is just the opening cutscene for Mega Man 2, augmented with an extra action scene, good animation, a decent remix and that’s it. Bizzarre choice.
Lioness
Season 2, Episode 7. “The Devil Has Aces”. First time.
Season 2, Episode 8. “The Compass Points Home”. First time.
The penultimate episode is all scheming as the original plan goes bust, then the CIA and the White House improvise some shit about hitting the Iranians with a chopper near the border with Irak and Turkey as they escort some Chinese nuclear scientists. The juicey stuff here is Zoe Saldana refusing to go into rehab and going along with the plan, nearly pushing her husband to the brink in the process. The last episode is the hit proper, a lenghty battle scene between Saldana and half the cast and the aforementioned Iranian army. It’s impressive stuff but telegraphed to death, and it’s hard to accept that none of the cast die despite the fighting going very bad at times. Also, Taylor Sheridan gives himself a role as a sniper who saves nearly everyone. What a guy. Oh, and at the same time Nicole Kidman and Michael Kelly talk the narco lawyer into going with them to México and replace his brother as cartel boss, which was not less ludicrous when Traffic or Sicario did it. At least Saldana gets back home and patches things with the husband, again.
Cien Años de Soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude)
Season 1, Episode 2. “Es como un temblor de tierra”. First time.
Season 1, Episode 3. “Un daguerrotipo de dios”. First time.
Just as in the book, incidents start to accumulate and paint a vibrant but strange picture, as the Buendías lose a son but gain many others, while losing themselves to alchemy and curses received and self-inflicted. All the while Macondo keeps growing into something indeed magical but with the potential for terrible fates. The filmmaking is assured and confident by this point, with a good sense of how and when to dramatize Gabo’s fantastical scenarios. Highlights in this stretch include José Arcadio going missing and his mother searching him for five months, Rebeca arriving from nowhere with her parents’ bones perenially jumping in their bag, the insomnia plague, José Arcadio Padre nearly losing his mind to the daguerrotype (he’ll get there), Rebeca and Amaranta’s romantic awakening and climactic, awkward dance scene to JAP’s broken, badly-tuned pianola.
a couple uncompleted things:
Babylon, about the first hour. Good so far. It’s Damien Chazelle going Baz Luhrman mode. It opens with an elaborate, equal parts grimy and glitzy (okay, maybe not quite equal) silent era hollywood party, the sort of thing that would have eddie manix covering up some horrible crime by fatty arbuckle. There’s an elephant. There’s coke. And there’s margot robbie as an aspiring starlet, like emma stone in la la land, but also with a somewhat trashy libidinous vibe, perhaps more like emma stone in poor things. It’s great. Robbie is very funny and my previous favorite role of hers was Tonya harding. So far lots of great dark, very dark, dry (but also wet?) (i’m sorry) humor and I’m looking forward to the rest.
das rheingold and the first half of die walküre. The 1980 bayreuth production is on youtube. I want to get through the whole cycle. We’ll see. Some preliminary thoughts:
– i’m fascinated by the way wagner chops and remixes the mythology. Combining the ring of andvari with the giant building the fort and ragnarok is a good touch and provides a narrative unity otherwise absent from the sagas, eddas, and leys.
– I tried googling to see if lucas made this connection explicit, but siegmund/ sieglinde (and sigmund-signs and kullervo) definitely influenced him right? Indirectly through campbell or was he conscious about it when writing a story about an orphaned hero taking his father’s sword and falling in love with his twin sister?
– wagner adds that fricka hates siegmund for being wotan’s son and for interfering with the forced marriage of sieglinde and hunding. It’s a very zeus-hera-hercules dynamic. Which is funny since this, like the grimm brothers and like neuschwanstein is part of a conscious project of building a distinctly german culture. Wagner is still too greek pilled.
300
Watching this clarified why there’s a whole big chunk of fascist men in my generation. This hits all fourteen of Umberto Eco’s signs of fascism in its first forty minutes with a level of clarity I haven’t seen in any other Snyder joint; he hasn’t had either dialogue or filmmaking that hits the right balance between simple and complicated since (I particularly like his Michael Bay-like recognition that movement – even something as simple as a fire – in the background is inherently cinematic).
I lost interest in the second half, but the finale in which Butler’s character is brutally killed off is a strong way to finish its points. There’s a bunch of emotional appeals to fascism that crosses all political lines that this movie taps into. There’s the desire to be a part of something bigger than yourself; the formations and cult of heroism fix that nicely. Desire to deal with fear of death in the abstract and fear of pain in the present; the noble death and taking of suffering fixes that. And, of course, this has a horde of enemies at the gate that are simultaneously, paradoxically strong and weak.
I watched my Movie Gifts gift! 😀 More about it on unwrapping day.
Books read!
A Simple Plan by Scott Smith – as previously discussed, I read this as a noted hater of the movie adaptation in an attempt to further interrogate my feelings on a story people seem to really respond to. I guess I enjoyed the novel more than the movie but I had similar issues with both, they’re each just a gathering storm of idiocy in which pathetic people try to justify their ongoing murder spree. It’s absolutely prime material for a black comedy but this is somehow a straight thriller in which I just spend the entire duration lamenting how awful everyone is. I don’t feel the tension because I don’t care if and when the plan inevitably fails, everyone sucks and all the story does is make me feel kinda sad, but not in a worthwhile way. Blame shared between author and filmmaker, I reckon. I should probably read something I expect to actually enjoy next, but this WAS an interesting experiment, even if it probably seems as weird to you as “people enjoying this book / movie” seems to me.
Finished France on Trial, about Marshal Petain’s treason trial and the aftermath. The author, Julian Jackson, argues that the shadow of Vichy France lingered for decades, but seems convinced that even though the far right is alive and well, it no longer seems interested in defending Vichy or Petain. Not being French, I will take his word for it.
The Great When by Alan Moore – Other than the prose ephemera in Moore’s comics this is the first prose book of his I’m going to finish. A young man picks up a lot of books by Arthur Machen. Within the lot is a copy of Machen’s imaginary A London Walk: Meditations in the Streets of the Metropolis by Rev. Thomas Hampole. It’s a plot device used by Machen similar to HPL’s later Necronomicon. Now an imaginary book existing in the real world. We learn the book was taken from another London existing in a different dimension to the real world London. It’s the young man’s mission to return the book to the occult-filled Long London lying in another time and space. It’s very postmodern but sort of pulpy. The first chapter is “The Best Way To Start A Book” with Moore telling us about characters and plot points we haven’t even read yet. The font changes to italics whenever we are in Long London. He plays with language and his prose consists of very poetic descriptives. But as dense as Moore can be in his comics I was surprised at how easy it was to read without much heavy lifting. I DNF’d his earlier Jerusalem, it has some work to it. Now I want to go back and read it. Apparently Moore has four or five more books planned in the series. I think it’s being made into a TV series. About ⅔ in and thinking, Is this the best thing Moore has ever written? That might be a little far but this is fantastic.
Proposition 31, Robert H Rimmer
I found this in a Little Free Library and mainly took it home because it took an irritatingly long time to work out what it was actually about; it’s a fictional account of two couples who end up forming a polyamorous quad, climaxing with them deciding to attempt to pass the eponymous Proposition to legalise polygamy. It’s a very white, middle class, heterosexual take on the concept; one of the characters makes a passing reference to ‘homosexualism’ and the women come dangerously close to fucking multiple times, but otherwise they reject that.
The book’s major thesis is that polyamory (and, to an extent, nudism) is a spiritually fulfilling experience, mostly because people form different relationships with different people. One relationship is based upon shared intellectual curiosity; another is based on one admiring the other’s maturity. I admit to finding that a compelling argument – it is, after all, my explanation for why I have no top ten favourite movie, because I love them for different reasons.
A strong undercurrent is polyamory as the solution to fears surrounding modernisation and capitalism. Several characters explicitly push their version of polyamory – more on this in a second – as an alternative to religion as a way to provide structure in people’s lives, and the characters end up embracing polygamy specifically because it provides financial security for everyone in a way their individual marriages did not.
The book was written and is set in 1968 California, and you do get the baggage as well as pleasures associated with that. The characters have very California Me Generation neuroticism, but the plot is both hard and fast enough to iron them out and make it feel meaningful (I spent an embarrassingly long time thinking this was a real account, and the fact that all the characters were clearly delineated and the plot moved very fast was my first clue otherwise). In a lot of ways, this book feels in the spirit of The Big Chill and like a dry run for Six Feet Under, especially in the precise way the characters speak.
The thing that ‘ruins’ this for me is that the character’s ultimate spiritual solution to their problems is a ‘corporate marriage’. Like, I get it all – it’s a practical solution that literally just is ‘marriage, but with more people’ – but they actually have each family member be a ‘shareholder’ in the ‘business’, and you can imagine how this disgusts me. It’s a very Mad Men kind of joke.
The Cinema, 1951, edited by ROger Manvell and RK Neilson Baxter
This is the second issue of an annual collecting essays on film written in 1951. This was an extraordinary thing to find in a Little Free Library – I practically cried at the chance to see my forebears write about the medium I love and see how things had and had not changed. For the latter, there’s frequent discussion about how American filmmakers tend to be much more aesthetically conservative; there’s an entire essay, in fact, about how in Britain, the main figurehead on a movie is the director, whereas in America it’s the producer.
The most interesting recurring trend in the book is how hyperaware everyone is that movies are simultaneously very young and yet have a deep history. The most frequent recurring theme is people complaining, in various ways, about how many filmmakers have fun playing with tools that serve no artistic purpose but are very fun. Nobody quite feels like the rules are set; people who argue in favour of a rule tend to waffle in that way you can when you aren’t actually sure what you’re talking about.
By far my favourite essays weer ones that explicitly set themselves up as historical documents; “A Turkish Journey” is by a consultant to documentarians exploring Turkey, whilst “Nought For Behaviour” is the life story of Jean Vigo, a deeply influential French silent director who took his own life at the age of twenty-nine. There’s also a wonderful essay by Helen van Dogen – even then, editing was seen as a woman’s career in film – explaining the practical aspect of editing.
Billy, Pamela Stephenson
This is Stephenson’s biography of her husband, Scottish comedian Billy Connolly. Connolly’s one of my all-time favourite stand-up comedians; this ends up a mixture of his life story and the process of his comedy. Connolly is remarkable for being a normal working class man, only moreso – Stephenson frequently notes his insecurity about being a ‘welder who made it’ as well as the fact that this is often his strength. In a lot of ways, his act is what grounds his chaotic life and thought process and is where he can truly be himself.
Connolly’s childhood is almost Dickensian in its poverty-driven misery, where the guy truly didn’t seem to have a happy experience until he was, like, sixteen. Abandoned by both parents (before his father returned to neglect and, uh, ‘interfere’ with him), beaten brutally by both his aunts and his various teachers; it says something that he found himself fitting in much better when he started working in masculine environments where the bullying was merely emotional.
Stephenson is a professional psychologist and frequently offers diagnoses of both Connolly and the people grew up around; she considers him to have ADHD in a time where people didn’t recognise that, and observes that the stage is where he can truly organise his thoughts. Connolly improvises every single performance, and the ample practice he sought out allowed him to develop bits and have things he could draw on when experimentation failed him. She observes how his time as a welder gave him figures and mentors to draw on for his act as well.
The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader
It’s amazing how, much like Deadwood, the things I do like about Narnia stories keep getting better and the things I don’t like keep getting worse. By the time I got a third of the way through, I’d become very tired of Lewis’s preachy, condescending horseshit. While he has much less influence on the genre as a whole than his buddy Tolkien, his narration voice has had a very clear influence on children’s books specifically; I realised Daniel Handler took basically Lemony Snicket’s whole persona from it, turned the morality sideways, and otherwise improved upon it in every way.
I also had the amusing revelation that everything Lewis was trying to do with his narrator here was successfully achieved by Arrested Development – an ironically distant narrator laying out the psychology of dimwits and laying out the information they’re either unaware of or ignoring. It works in AD because Ron Howard is almost completely detached from what he’s looking at; Lewis’s narrator seems genuinely outraged by things he’s seeing and is constantly nudging me in the ribs.
You see this most with Eustace; it was deeply embarrassing to have Lewis attribute literally every single philosophy he didn’t like to a lazy, cowardly shit. Conversely, my favourite parts of the book were Eustace’s journals, where I felt we were all at least on an equal footing – Lewis may have had contempt for the character, but we were at least on Eustace’s level with him.
Eustace also speaks to Lewis’s frequently lazy plotting. I practically cheered when he turned Eustace into a dragon because that’s the coolest fucking direction to take the character, and I was like, awesome, this will be a journey of Eustace learning to improve himself, just like Edmund in the first book! Except no, Aslan turns him back into a boy in like five pages. This book in particular just felt like one incident after another.
But what a series of incidents! This has some of Lewis’s most spectacular visual imagination; I was particularly struck by the pond that turned things into gold, and I was delighted by the Monopods. Lewis tends to work best when he fits his weird visual ideas into an old context.
Games played!
Got the cooperative expansion for household favorite board game Viticulture. Turns out, per my wife and daughter, I am not a chill cooperative game partner. What I thought to be encouraging they read as panicky. Turns out I needn’t have worried, we beat the tutorial mode in the end and now can focus our wine-influencing powers to world continents.
Visited a friend and ended up hanging out and playing Rock Band for a few hours as though we were in our 20s again. Of course this time we had our children in tow, which made for a fun time as they banged and picked their way through songs while my wife improvised on the microphone as she discovers in real time when you write out the lyrics to “Undone (The Sweater Song)” they’re actually quite dirty.
Will probably play Viticulture again in the next few days! A fun game that I need to rework my strategy on, unfortunately we were drinking wine when we last played so that crappy strategy is blurry.
Well, you can’t play without drinking wine, of course! The first game is always a tough go – when teaching it to others we always underline the steps to actually making a delivery because much like real winemaking it takes “years” to get it going and if you putz around for the first couple rounds it can come back to bite you. If the endgame has too much of a pinch for scoring actions (especially when there’s an even number of people so no additional spaces are opened up), we recommend the Tuscany expansion which gives several more places to score points.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – finished! A wonderful experience, both the main story and all the various side-quests. I ran into a few bugs, but they were mostly charming rather than annoying – otherwise it was just a blast throughout, the spirit of the original Indy trilogy beautifully captured in the main actiony / puzzley gameplay, the more on-rails set-pieces between major levels (the Shanghai one especially was just wonderful) and the various cut scenes. All of the characters are fantastic, and the voice-acting is first-rate. Kinda weird to be going from the small-team indie games I usually play to a blockbuster Indy game with more credited violin players than other games would have in their entire development team, but I think I picked a perfect game to go mainstream for.
“ I ran into a few bugs, but they were mostly charming” – Don’t play this game with Willie, is what you’re saying.
“Do not play with Willie”.
Good advice!
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown on Nintendo Switch
Explored the map for a long while before zeroing in on the big tree section. Came across a very tough boss, a queen witch with a large lance riding a large, masked wolf. Got wrecked a few times before doing what tends to always work in situations like this: let the game alone for a few days before returning. I changed my gear and fought her again, beating her after 20 minutes of retries, saving a wolf spirit in the process. Always nice when something like that happens. As a reward I got a new ability to pick up stuff and use it as bombs, so I started going around the map looking for places to use it on, which is my plan for next week (and the start of the year, I guess).
F-Zero 99 on Nintendo Switch
Played some more of the holiday event. As usual I had a lot of excellent finishes but it’s the very few crashes that stick in my brain, specially one in one of the secret tracks where I stayed within the first three places for most of the race before crashing out in the final section with first place in sight. Such is life.
X-Men: Children of the Atom – Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics on Nintendo Switch
Started an arcade run on the weekend, alternating between Psylock and Wolverine. Haven’t really got the hang of the moves, so I only made it as far as the second round. Still had a lot of fun enjoying the character animations, the great comic book stage art and the vibrant style. I would like to win some matches next week though. Might just start over in lower difficulty, though I’m already below the medium now.
We also played some Texas Hold ‘Em Poker on Christmas Eve with my in-law and his kid. Hadn’t played in a long time and I did very well, took less risks before the draw than I usually do and it led to some bigger wins. The kid folded first and his dad and I went head to head for a bit before calling it a night but it was a lot of fun for me.
I put in a decent chunk of time on Animal Well this last week, beating the game, and then going around cleaning up all the stuff I missed out on. There is a surprising amount of depth and hidden stuff here for such a small (at least in the sense of storage space) game. I eventually got to the point where I just wanted to try to clear through the stuff I couldn’t figure out and started looking up how to do so. But I still had a lot of fun solving the game’s puzzles. I haven’t quite done them all, but I’m pretty close to the end of the bunny puzzle (I did already get the “true ending,” although solving the bunny puzzle might result in an, um, true-r ending?)
I’m kinda interested in playing it again from the top at some point, just to see how it feels now that I’m more familiar with it. But once I’m done I’ll probably take a break from gaming for a bit.
I set up some game pads to play the NES super mario bros. I have never made it past 5-3. I have still never made it past 5-3. The 5 year old likes watching and shouting “mamma mia! jump!” She has not made it past the third goomba in 1-1.
I must have made it past 5-3, although I can’t even remember the last time I played Super Mario Bros. And when I played I’d usually warp from 1 to 4 to 8. (Sometimes from 1 to 3 to get the infinite-lives trick with the turtle shell on the staircase.)
Power Wash Simulator
I see the appeal, but not for me. I actually would prefer just to power wash something in reality – this is too close to what I actually do for a living. That said, I’m planning on diving further into weirdly hyperrealistic simulation games like this; I wonder how my life might have been different if I’d played more games like this growing up.
Ratchet & Clank 2: Locked And Loaded, known as Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando outside Australia for some reason
One thing that was interesting about the Ratchet & Clank franchise was how it apparently often got criticised for ‘more of the same’ when I think most fans would hold that as a strength. This develops the basic gameplay and lightly satirical humour; guns are now fully RPGified, upgraded after gaining enough experience points through repeated use. In response to criticism of Ratchet’s personality, they revamp him slightly; the game opens with him offered a military-style job in which he receives training that seems to mature him quickly. The overall story is filled with more twists; I enjoy the basic ‘bad guy is actually a good guy and vice versa!’ twist.
Did games like this even exist when you were growing up? I’m certainly older, and they certainly didn’t when I was, but I don’t even remember much of hyper-realistic simulation games being a thing until maybe the last 15 years or so?
I think there were truck driving games and even some lawn mowing games but yeah, the genre has really taken off the last decade. Nevertheless, I think it’s interesting to speculate – given the way I filter the world, if I had had access to these games, how would my way of thinking change? They’re essentially romanticising boring tasks in their own way.
I never fails to amuse me that Koei made an airport tycoon simulator back in the Super Nintendo, Aerobiz. They made two, in fact. And they were both great.
Hah, I forgot about Aerobiz! Never played it.
I dusted off Destiny 2. I have no idea what’s going on but I managed to make some cookies.
I also played way too much Marvel Snap but I do that every week.
I really like this analysis, it puts into perspective what distinguishes the movie from others and especially within the Tarantino canon. I think generally Tarantino has the exact kind of filmmaking skills I like, but isn’t interested in the same kind of audience I am, if that makes sense. My two favorite of his – this and Deathproof, if not outright disavowed aren’t his most celebrated. And his more decorated – Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood chief among them – aren’t quite on my wavelength.
Also the split shot is timed and used for maximum power, what a great scene.
That split shot is just perfect. (RIP Sally Menke, once again.)
I feel like his movies have recovered from her loss – Hateful 8 was a bit weak in the editing, but OUAT…IH comes around to its own new tone. But we’ll always miss the sweetness she brought to his movies.
I still haven’t gotten to OUAT…IH, so I’ll have to see what I think!
She was really incredible.
In my case his filmmaking skills and tastes were in synch with mine but I think we grew apart in the latter category in the 2000s for awhile. I do feel that his last two films signalled a reconciliation for me, but they haven’t had quite the impact thathis original L.A. Trilogy had on me. For the record, I’ve always considered Jackie Brown Tarantino’s masterpiece, and I think this article gets to the heart of why I feel this way.
There is an ongoing and likely unresolved debate over the best Elmore Leonard adaptation — Jackie Brown and Out of Sight are the frontrunners, but don’t sleep on Mr. Majestyk or 52 Pickup or Get Shorty or I assume Hombre — but Jackie Brown has the Most Elmore Leonard scene, the last interaction between De Niro and Fonda. I am always caught off guard by how quickly it happens and your analysis points out the dark humor here — these two are acting like children. This is back seat of the car behavior with back seat of the car consequences, but scaled up to adult level. This is also how adults act in the world when they’re not acting like adults and it doesn’t go anywhere good.
How come I haven’t seen Mr. Majestyk, 52 Pickup or Hombre but I have seen The Big Bounce? A lifetime of terrible decisions.
Jackie Brown or 3:10 to Yuma (1957) for me, although I guess I need to give Out of Sight another chance at some point lest it become my next A Simple Plan.
Oh man, he has Yuma too! I would say Mr. Majestyk is the one to really seek out, Bronson as a literal melon farmer kicking mobster ass. 52 Pickup is good but incredibly sleazy, Ron Jeremy has a cameo and he is 1. just doing what he does and 2. nowhere near the sleaziest dude on screen, to give you an idea.
Well, I guess TV isn’t being considered for the adaptation list, because, of course, Justified.
(Maybe someone will come along and argue for Karen Sisco.)
D’oh! Somehow didn’t see this.
Justified does pretty well at capturing Elmore Leonard Moments in its plotting, although yeah I’d put that moment in Jackie Brown right up the top.
Yeah, I remember the shock of that moment; it works perfectly for both of their characters and what’s been set up before, though. Like looking back at everything that builds up to a big twist or the reveal of the murderer in a really good mystery. Out of nowhere, but then so satisfying.