Eyes Wide Shut (1999) - Stanley Kubrick

“A bored couple’s confessions open up a world of sexual obsession and debauchery. Be careful what you wish for.”Netflix. What? How did you make this movie sound like a Vince Vaughn movie and a DCOM at the same time…

I’ve seen 6 of Stanley Kubrick’s films. 2001 Space Odyssey was the first. The Shining is my favorite. A Clockwork Orange is the one I understand the least. Dr. Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket are in the middle somewhere. This one I would rank on the more accessible side… that is if I even understood what it was about.

Pretty much my only knowledge of Eyes Wide Shut was that it was crazy rich people being crazy, at least that was the understanding I got from a short Happy Endings reference in Season 3 Episode 23.

Nailed it. In the film, Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) is married to Alice, played by Cruise’s real life second wife, Nicole Kidman.

The first night of the film, the couple goes to a fancy Christmas party for fancy people, and both are tempted to be unfaithful. The second night, they smoke weed together and go into some deep talk about their relationship. Bill puts his foot in his mouth like 40 times, mansplaining the world to her.

In what I took as an act of revenge for oversimplifying female sexuality as well as putting her on a pedestal, Alice reveals a dark secret about their past.

Her story is the catalyst for Bill to go on a crazy adventure. There seems to be some mix of “I love my wife how could she do this to me” and “I’m gonna show her” at play. The whole movie is asking the viewer to question dualities in love and sex, as Alice makes very clear that she can have strong feelings of love for Bill as well as a carnal desire to cheat in the same moment. The long, slow scenes give some great drama to the weird crazy spiral of Bill’s night.

I don’t want to give away the fun details, but Bill’s desperation for some new experience, or some way to get revenge on his wife, leads him to a place he never could have dreamed existed.

I feel like I must be a little desensitized to batshit crazy sex scenes, but I definitely nodded along with this part in a “yeah this is exactly what I assume rich people are doing with their time” sort of way.

Bill gets in big trouble for not belonging to the society of sex-crazed 1 percenters. But his curiosity about the party does not go away, which gets him into even more trouble.

Look out for flamboyant Alan Cumming hotel concierge.

I think what’s really interesting is that while the focus of the movie is the weird, mysterious party, it is essentially a story about Bill and Alice’s relationship and what drives them to either distance themselves or come closer together. A confession by Alice triggers this rift, and Bill has to go searching for some kind of understanding of how to face the future of their relationship. I took it as his erotic adventures are sort of his journey towards forgiving his wife, but obviously it’s also a lot more complex than that. The Christmas setting also works to add an off-putting tone to the film, things are happy and jolly but they are also foreboding. There are a lot of references to rainbows as well, and the pull to finding what is at the “end of the rainbow.”

The film was censored in the United States (as it is on my self-proclaimed family friendly blog), and led to a sort of disappointing box office run. With a successful international reception, however, it is Kubrick’s highest grossing film, at $162 million.

Kubrick passed away four days after showing the final cut to Warner Bros, and there has been some controversy as to whether he was proud of the film or not, with most parties, including his daughter, stating that he was very happy with the finished product. Also some people believe the film is based on true events and those elite people depicted in the film offed him… dun dun dun.

It feels different than Kubrick’s other films, but I believe it has that same calculated cinematography, intricate symbolism, and suspenseful pacing that remind us what a great filmmaker Kubrick has always been.

Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013) - Abdellatif Kechiche

I’m sorry for not calling it La Vie d’Adèle, I went through my blog and I’ve only ever used the English titles for films so I need that consistency in my life.

A French coming of age film about two women who fall in love… that unanimously won the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival… how has it taken me this long to see it?

Um… I’ll tell you why, it’s 2 hours and 59 minutes.

Yeah… my reaction exactly.

But you can’t pass up a film that contains scenes which Variety calls, “the most explosively graphic lesbian sex scenes in recent memory.”

Blue Is the Warmest Color is a massive undertaking that charts the long and passionate relationship between its two main characters, Adèle and Emma. When the film begins, Adèle is a closeted 15-year-old high school student and Emma is an openly gay art student. They have a love at first sight moment!

Across years of intense sex, heated fights, and professional success, the film vividly explores the realities of falling in love while coming of age. Based on the graphic novel, Le bleu est une couleur chaude, by Julie Maroh, the relationship in the film is probably more toned down than the destructive and even fatal love of the graphic novel. But its scope and closeness to its characters is supremely impressive.

Watching Adèle come to understand her sexuality in a seemingly conservative high school is powerful, as she tries failingly to hide this information from her classmates.

After a failed relationship with a male classmate, Adèle is kissed by a girl in her class who then rejects Adèle’s romantic advances. It’s sad and quick, but inside Adèle a spark is ignited. She decides to go to a gay club one night, where she sees the blue haired girl, Emma, once again.

They become friends, and love soon follows. They discuss art and philosophy, Adèle expressing her passion for reading while Emma wants to become a painter.

Crazy, Olympian-type sex comes next. Despite all the warnings, I was not ready for the intensity or duration of the sex scenes. Many critics (as well as trusted friends of mine) hinted at the “male gaze” aspect of the sex scenes, which are elaborately choreographed and include close-up shots I’d never though I’d see in my lifetime. There’s definitely an element of male fantasy that many viewers picked up on.

The duration may be a little bit more realistic than the average 1 or 2 minute sex scene we’re used to, but I’m not sure if that means it is justified in a 179 minute film. But maybe the goal was to purposefully discomfort me with the intensity, knowing how destructive and heartbreaking this level of passion would end up being for them? I just don’t know if I trust any lesbian sex scene written, filmed, and edited by straight men.

As years go by, Adèle and Emma move in together and live a happy life as a couple. But Emma’s success as a painter distances the two, with Adèle working as a teacher and regularly being questioned about whether she is “fulfilled.” The theme of social class is important in the film, as Emma comes from an upper middle class background where her parents welcome Adèle as Emma’s girlfriend, discussing art and culture and even making a point to question her decision to become a teacher.

The scene with Adèle’s middle class parents is markedly different, where Adèle’s father points out that Emma should have a more stable career than a painter, and both of them believing Emma is just Adèle’s philosophy tutor rather than her serious girlfriend.

Food is an important motif as well, pasta being Adèle’s food of choice until one scene where Emma teaches her how to eat oysters. Kechiche notes that these are both indicative of class as well as suggestive sexual metaphors.

Obviously blue plays an important role in the film, symbolizing both Adèle’s curiosity for something different as well as the sadness of the outcome. Picasso, the second most famous artist to have a Blue Period (Lilo Pelekai), is regularly referenced.

But despite the run time, despite the crazy sex, I found Blue Is the Warmest Color to be a beautiful film about love, heartbreak, and growth. From the minutiae of daily life of two women in love to the chaos of having it all come crashing down, everything is presented seemingly without pretext, giving the audience a chance to form their own opinions. I personally loved the ambiguity of the ending, as almost a mirror for the ambiguity of our own futures. We can’t predict where Adèle will go from here because not even she knows.

Braveheart (1995) - Mel Gibson

20 years ago we gave Mel Gibson two Oscars.

Braveheart is a big budget movie of the 1990s, or as I like to call them, one thousand white men in period costume. 700 years ago, William Wallace helped start the First War of Scottish Independence, which ended with King Edward I of England granting Scotland their… independence.

Let’s face it, no one enjoyed being ruled by England. Except Canada?

When King Edward I decides to institute a Jus Primae Noctis, meaning that any lord may take the virginity of any woman he chooses on her wedding night… it basically starts a spiral of crazy events that leads to a revolution.

According to Wikipedia, that never happened though. Just fun imagination on the part of the writers. Because nothing gets a man more riled up for rebellion than avenging his woman!

So William Wallace starts a rebellion, and becomes a very successful military leader. Then he comes into contact with the French Princess Isabella.

Who is married to King Edward I’s son, Prince Edward. Who is of course… flamboyantly gay? Because why else would Princess Isabella be so swept up in the rugged masculinity of a Scottish rebel?

Have we already forgotten about Murron?

Yes. Yes we have. Because this movie is 2 hours and 57 minutes. I always used to confuse this movie with Gladiator and now I get why.

There is also a colorful cast of noblemen, warriors, and villagers who fill this titanic picture.

The film gets most of its historical knowledge from an epic poem, and it definitely maintains that level of immensity in the film. Mel Gibson gives at least ten speeches about the importance of freedom.

Is this what Drake is referencing when he says “Everybody dies but not everybody lives” in Moment for Life? Crazy.

So Braveheart did go on to win Best Picture, Best Director, and a bunch of other Oscars. It beat Babe! It lost Best Drama at the Golden Globes to Sense and Sensibility though. It’s also #77 on the IMDb Top 250. Personally, I can’t sit through war movies this long unless they introduce Matt Damon in the final act.

Halloween 2015 #6: The Birds (1963) - Alfred Hitchcock

Now how could I have a Halloween movie-cation without a film by the Master of Suspense?

Based on the short story by Daphne du Maurier, The Birds is Hitchcock’s first film after Psycho (1960). In the small, Northern California town of Bodega Bay, a mysterious force causes birds to be unusually violent towards humans.

The first attack doesn’t happen until 25 minutes until the movie, but the setup is absolutely amazing. Wealthy socialite Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) meets a self-righteous lawyer, Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), in a bird shop in San Francisco. He casually mentions wanting to buy lovebirds for his kid-sister’s birthday, but leaves when the store doesn’t have any. Melanie uses the power of her thirst to track him down to the small town of Bodega Bay and flirtatiously breaks into Mitch’s house to plant the lovebirds.

My reaction exactly. And who wouldn’t do that for Rod Taylor? P.S. He’s Australian. 

But since Melanie Daniels is basically the 1963 equivalent of Paris Hilton, repeatedly mentioned in the tabloids for her less-than-ladylike antics, Mitch’s mother does NOT approve.

Which makes Melanie even thirstier, to be honest.

Anyway, Mitch convinces Melanie to come to his sister Cathy’s birthday the next day, where the real horror begins.

A group of seagulls violently attack the children, and things only escalate from there. For some reason the town is super unwilling to believe that the birds are working in groups to attack humans, even after a third attack leaves a man dead with his eyes totally pecked out, and a fourth attack takes place at the elementary school.

This is probably the best scene. One, because crows are scary as hell, and two, because the special effects make it so that you are forced to watch a bunch of child actors cry while fending off what appear to be artificial crows. 

The action subsides in probably what is the most boring scene in the film, where Melanie, Mitch, and several townspeople including an ornithologist debate the validity of the “attacks.” After maybe ten minutes of discussion, the biggest and most violent attack takes place.

There are explosions, there’s death, there’s Tippi Hedren in a phone booth. What’s so great about this scene is that we get the vantage point of someone who is safe yet right in the middle of the action. Melanie hides in the nearest phone booth as she is forced to watch people die all around her. 

It’s very gruesome. She can’t even look away! It’s all around her.

But this isn’t even the climax. Melanie, along with Mitch and his sister and mother, hide out in Mitch’s house for one last final attack. There’s so much suspense in knowing that the birds are going to attack but not knowing when. My heart raced the entire last 20 minutes or so. 

Also Melanie and Mitch do that fun thing where two straight white people hate each other yet they fall in love due to some kind of trauma involving animal attacks. You know? 52 years before Jurassic World came out?

She can’t mean that! He’s a man and she’s a woman! They’ll fall in love, just you wait. 

But joking aside, the movie is awesome. The one thing that left me creeped out was learning that Hitchcock developed an obsession with Tippi Hedren where he essentially ruined her career after she rejected his advances. They would only make one other movie together, Marine (1964), and after that she didn’t work for years because he refused to let her out of her contract. Sad stuff.

The Birds was nominated for an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, and currently has a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Halloween 2015 #2: Children of the Corn (1984) - Fritz Kiersch

Finally someone made a horror movie about the scariest thing there is… children!

In this frightful 80s horror movie based on a short story by Stephen King, a religious cult forms among the children of a fictional town in Nebraska called Gatlin. The cult worships a god known as “He Who Walks Behind the Rows” who says that anyone above the age of 19 must be sacrificed in order to secure a bountiful corn harvest.

But I’m above the age of 19! This movie should be required viewing for anyone who is celebrating their 19th birthday, I think that would be fun.

The movie centers on a young couple, Burt and Vicky, who are passing through Nebraska when they accidentally mow down one of the cult’s dissidents with their car. They try to stop for gas but an old man tells them that the pumps are empty, so they drive into town instead. So… just like in the opening of 1974′s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

Anyway. Here’s Isaac, the cult leader. He is the prophet who speaks to “He Who Walks Behind the Rows.” Burt and Vicky eventually find the two children who are not partying it up Jimmy Neutron-style in Gatlin, Job and Sarah. The reason Isaac keeps Sarah around is because she is a seer, she draws pictures that are sort of prophecies that usually just include stick figure children stabbing stick figure adults. 

Also the actor who plays Isaac, John Franklin, went on to play Cousin Itt in the 90s remakes of The Addams Family.’

Vicky is soon taken hostage by Malachai, Isaac’s righthand man. Religious zealotry and gore ensues! The movie reminded me of Carrie in that Stephen King really seems to have a thing for people who take Christianity too far, but this one I think offered a much more positive message in terms of how one could follow the Bible without becoming a murderous psychopath. Also there are obvious metaphors involving the connection between sexuality and impurity, as most slasher movies make clear, sexual promiscuity leads to death!

Look out for A+ 80s digital effects, as well as long speeches about the wrongfulness of cherry-picking from the Bible.

Also fun to note, Linda Hamilton, who plays Vicky, went on to star in another 80s classic that was released just six months later.

Come with me if you don’t want children to stab you to death with farm equipment!

The movie received generally negative reviews, and it actually raised a lot of questions while I watched it. If the “death to all procreators” mantra is followed strictly, the population of the town population would dwindle until the youngest member of the cult reached the age of 19. Would that sole member have to sacrifice themselves in order to ensure a good harvest? Also do they eat nothing but corn?

Children of the Corn made $14.6 million of an $800,000 budget and inspired 8 sequels.

Halloween 2015 #1: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) - Robert Wiene

Okay turns out summer is a time for relaxation, so I took the summer off from seeing movies in the organized manner that I’ve done in the past, which led me to believe that I was off the hook from writing reviews. Some of my favorite movies I saw over past three months, however, have been Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011), The Hours (2002), Nightcrawler (2014), and Thelma and Louise (1991). 

But now I had the crazy idea where instead of me coming up with just a random list of films to make my way through (which would actually be my sixth time doing that, which is insane!), I am doing a themed movie-cation list. In October! Can you guess the theme?

And what better way to start a scary movie-cation list with perhaps the first horror film of all time? The German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, released in 1920, marks the so-called beginning of the horror genre. It tells the story of a hypnotist, Dr. Caligari, who uses a somnambulist (which is apparently a sleepwalker, like everyone knows what that word means?) to commit murders in the small village of Holstenwall. Dr. Caligari brings his spectacle to the town fair, where our protagonist, Francis, and his friend, Alan, first witness the bewitching gaze of the sleepwalker, Cesare. 

Scary, right? Well, Alan makes horror movie mistake #1, and asks Cesare how long he’s going to live, to which Cesare replies, “Until dawn.” Cue murder!

Also this awesome shot of their shadows. Who knew shadows could be so scary? I picture people in audiences fainting left and right, as they were wont to do in the 1920s. 

Those Germans really knew fear. The writers of the film, Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, have actually stated that the film is a metaphor for the German people’s penchant for dictators, and how they are easily seduced by a powerful leader into becoming mindless drones for world domination. Both the writers were pacifists who were distrustful of the German government after World War I, so the character of Cesare represents the German people who are forced to carry out acts of violence in the name of a mad authority figure. 

He reminds me of Peter Pettigrew. 

But there’s a lot of stuff going on in this film besides the subtext that is really impressive. First, the set design feels like it took a page of out Tim Burton’s book… well… okay never mind.

I’m not sure why this gif is sped up, but you can get a sense of the shadows and jagged shapes that make up this spooky visual style.

Also cool to note is that the film features a frame tale, an incredible precedent for the medium of film, despite having been around for centuries in literature (including one of the first horror books of all time, Frankenstein). In it, Francis tells an old man how he had to leave his hometown with his fiancée (the woman in the first gif), but they are still haunted by the events that took place in Holstenwall. 

The twist ending actually contradicts this setup, which leaves the viewer questioning the validity of any of the storylines. Who can we trust if not our protagonist!? Is anyone safe from the psychological damage brought on by World War I? Spooky stuff.

I have a list of about fifteen or so classic horror films that I will see for the first time this month, so follow along as I try not to give myself nightmares until Christmas.