June 5, 2014

I’m still mad for Middlemarch.

For the month of May, I continued to swim in George Eliot’s “Middlemarch.” I finished it about a week ago. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything more slowly. I also reread “My Life in Middlemarch” by Rebecca Mead, the book that started the whole decent into Eliot-filia.

I’m just… overwhelmed with love for this book (Middlemarch.) I think I’m happy I waited so very long to discover it. Well, wait. No. I actually feel that if I’d read this book at a younger age, I would’ve made some wiser decisions along the way. But that’s a moot point, I discovered it now. So here I am. I have no idea why it took me so long in coming round on George Eliot. I’m giddy over it.

There have been other authors that I’ve fallen for - and as I read through their books I got very anxious - knowing I was coming to the end. The idea that there would be no more Austen books to read, for example, felt almost like a panic. The same for Saul Bellow. And Patricia Highsmith. And Graham Greene. Ross MacDonald! Dostoyevsky! God I want to read all those books again. But there was this panic as I made my way through - knowing as I read the last one that I’d never be in that enviable position again, reading a novel of theirs for the first time.

But now I have Eliot! And I have a feast ahead of me: “Silas Marner,” “Adam Bede,” “The Mill on the Floss,” etc. All ahead of me! It’s like falling in love again after you thought you were too old for that to happen - and the flood of feeling - it’s quite intense, and a surprise. You thought you were jaded, but you’re giddy and childlike.

That’s how I feel.

But I’m not going to gorge!

In fact, after “Middlemarch,” I knew it was going to be quite unfair for any book right afterwards. So I had to choose my digestif with care. It couldn’t be absolute drivel. It had to engage my imagination. It had to be short and quick. It had to be light and uncomplicated. It had to be something, that when I thought of it as the book I read after reading “Middlemarch,” it would make me laugh out loud at the contrast.

And I came upon it!

Rob Lowe’s first memoir: “Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography.”

I listened to the audio version. Then I listened to his next book, “Love Life.”

And I was wholly absorbed by them. They’re good - he’s a good writer and thoughtful and funny. It’s interesting. I’m going to watch the movies of his I never saw - I never saw About Last Night, or The Outsiders, or St. Elmo’s Fire. So over the coming months I’ll watch them.

That’s another funny thing that I’m doing lately - seeing hit movies that I didn’t see when they came out - movies that absolutely everyone else saw - movies that became part of the culture - but movies I missed. And frankly, there are a lot of them. But the odd part is - I was a movie person! I have always watched at least 10 movies a month - many years many many more movies a month. But I never really made a point to see the popular movies, unless they were intriguing for other reasons than their popularity. I know that sounds painfully pretentious. But I didn’t feel that way - I just watched what I found interesting and what I found interesting was, for lack of a better word, the art films, the classic films, the obscure finds.

But now I’m watching these popular films - like the John Hughes movies - and finding them quite enjoyable. In this case, unlike my feeling about “Middlemarch,” I’m glad I waited. I can watch them more objectively now.

Rob Lowe’s second book, “Love Life” is not as funny as his first memoir - but it’s still fun and interesting. For some reason I felt his second book was more strategic, like he’s positioning himself to run for office.

God, he was so fucking funny in Behind the Candelabra, the Liberace movie directed by Soderbergh. And of course, in Tommy Boy and Wayne’s World - popular movies that I did see when they came out - for obvious reasons.

Sooooo, okay, let’s move on to movies, shall we?

Movies watched in May 2014:

1. Middlemarch, 1994, (BBC miniseries) directed by Anthony Page (3 times!)

2. Vera Drake, 2004, directed by Mike Leigh

3. A Touch of Sin, 2013, directed by Zhangke Jia

4. The Wolf of Wall Street, 2013, directed by Martin Scorcese

5. Life is Sweet, 1990, directed by Mike Leigh

6. Remorques, aka Stormy Waters, 1941, directed by Jean Gremillon

7. Topsy Turvy, 1999, directed by Mike Leigh (twice!)

8. Make Way for Tomorrow, 1937, directed by Leo McCarey (three times!)

9. Holy Matrimony, 1943, directed by John M. Stahl

10. Her, 2013, directed by Spike Jonze

11. In the Loop, 2009, directed by Armando Iannucci (twice!)

12. Christopher Strong, 1933, directed by Dorothy Arzner

13. High Fidelity, 2000, directed by Stephen Frears

14. Behind the Candelabra, 2013, directed by Steven Soderbergh

15. Merrily We Go To Hell, 1932, directed by Dorothy Arzner

16. The Cheat, 1931, directed by George Abbott

17. White Material, 2009, directed by Claire Denis

18. Naked, 1993, directed by Mike Leigh

 

Ohhh…. I know I say this every month, but I’ll say it again: So many great movies this month! What a month. It was delicious just typing them all in this blog. Not that I loved every one. In fact, one of them I didn’t like to an almost violent degree. I guess we could start there - with the most hateful movie I’ve seen in so very long. A movie so heinous that it made me reevaluate all the other wonderful movies this same director has directed and caused me to wonder his mental state. A movie that riled me up so deeply that I found myself glad that this director’s parents were dead, so they were spared having to watch this horrendous movie that their son directed!!!!!

What is this monstrosity, you may be wondering?

Well, I’ll tell you. It is The Wolf of Wall Street. And of course that director is Martin Scorcese.

I was up half the night after watching it, just pissed off, deeply angry that this movie had been made. It’s about a horrendous person who manipulates others and uses women horrendously, but it’s made with no point-of-view in particular, no insight, and in fact, celebrating this life - edging on delight. The “extras” on the Blu Ray showed Scorcese on one of the sets - a party set (there are many party sets) with topless women everywhere and Scorcese tells us how much “fun” he’s having making this movie, and how he never had so much “fun” on a set. My stomach turned. I am not writing as articulately as I wish I were about this, so I’m going to cheat a bit and link a New Yoker review that articulated my feelings exactly. The review is by David Denby. But here’s the fantastic second-to-last sentence.

“The Wolf of Wall Street” is a fake. It’s meant to be an exposé of disgusting, immoral, corrupt, obscene behavior, but it’s made in such an exultant style that it becomes an example of disgusting, obscene filmmaking.”

Let’s move on.

I had a reader of this blog write to me about the BBC mini-series for Middlemarch. I immediately bought it, and have now watched the entire 6 hour show three times! I watched it myself, then with Mulan, and then all of us watched it together. It’s so perfectly cast, Juliet Aubrey as Dorothea, and Rufus Sewell as Ladislaw - so exactly right. Ladislaw’s red coat alone is worth the price of admission. Doulgas Hodge as Dr. Lydgate - and oh! Robert Hardy as Arthur Brooke.

I went on a Mike Leigh bender during May - I’ve seen all those films before, but it was lovely to see them again. Topsy Turvy is one of my all-time favorite films. The audio commentary by Leigh is just delightful, almost as compelling as the film itself. Naked is so dark, so disturbing, and so beautifully shot - it’s such a mind-blower. Topsy Turvy - is this my favorite modern film? It might be.

When I say modern, to me that means a film made after 1959, the year of my birth. I have a plan that I hope to execute in the next months, on this website. I want to list and describe my favorite 59 films made before 1959. My favorite films made in 1959 (which happened to have been a spectacular year for film: North by Northwest, Anatomy of a Murder, Rio Bravo, Some Like it Hot, Floating Weeds - to just name a few! Then I was going to do this too: My Favorite 54 Films made after 1959. (Why 54? Because I’m 54. Then I’d add one every year…) And then a few top-top-top lists and a favorite. I’ve been noodling with my choices for over a year, but I haven’t organized them to post - yet…

Okay, back to movies in May.

I discovered Dorothy Arzner in May. She’s a film director who worked in the 20s and 30s mostly. She was gay - androgynous looking - and she brought a specific feminine point-of-view to her films. Christopher Strong is Katherine Hepburn’s second film, and she plays a pilot who falls in love with an older, married man. It’s quite good and so is Merrily We Go To Hell - which I thought dramatized the ordeal of being in love with an alcoholic better than almost any film I’ve seen.

I got In the Loop because I’m such a huge fan of the TV show on HBO, Veep. We watch every episode of Veep about four times around here, we are major fans of that show. In the Loop (a British and American political satire) is creator Armando Iannucci’s feature film. It cast includes James Gandolfini and some actors who ended up in Veep. It’s so cynical, but I find it aligns with my worldview. And it’s hilarious.

Her, I felt, was very average. I just felt - meh - about it.

High Fidelity I hadn’t seen since it came out. It really holds up! I showed it to Mulan as part of my films-made-around-here push.

Holy Matrimony is a film I’ve seen so many times. My mother was visiting so we watched it together. God - it’s just a lovely, lovely film. It’s a mistaken identity comedy, and a love story among middle-agers, and it stars Monty Woolley and Gracie Fields!

We watched Behind the Candelabra again because Mulan was doing a Liberace impersonation at her school. During one of the sex scenes Mulan turned to me and said, “Mom, I can’t watch this, what are you thinking?” She was kind of right, but other than that it was a great time and I think it’s truly a great film. Yesterday I watched Sunset Blvd. and noted all the similarities between the two films - but more on that in my June report.

Until next month…