The English Patient (1996) - Anthony Minghella

Continuing to make my way through the 1990s Best Picture Winners (has anyone ever heard of Unforgiven?…. NOOO it’s a Western!!), I thought I would see this one while it’s still on Netflix.

The English Patient is simultaneously a love story set in the vast, unexplored continent of Africa during the years before World War II and a story of loss in the Italian countryside in 1944 up until the end of the war.

And yes I do use those descriptors of Africa ironically.

The movie opens on a plane being shot down in the desert, where one survivor is horribly burned but alive. Then, we are in Italy, where a Canadian nurse, Hana (Juliette Binoche), after experiencing the death of two loved ones, decides to stay behind and take care of a man who is disfigured from burns and does not remember his name. They settle in a bombed monastery in the countryside.

This is only gif of Juliette Binoche I could find from this movie! That’s her meeting David Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), who was a Canadian Intelligence Corps operative (thank you Wikipedia).

Meanwhile! Back in Africa in the late 1930s, the Royal Geographic Society is tasked with mapping out parts of Libya. There’s Geoffrey and Katherine Clifton, played by Colin Firth and Kristin Scott Thomas. And there’s Count László de Almásy, played by Ralph Fiennes. The Count and Katherine soon have an affair.

Drama! I wasn’t expecting the “I’m a socially awkward and actually pretty rude white man, but you’re going to fall in love with me anyway,” but surprise! It’s here. They pretty much hate each other the first moment they meet. The Count is self-righteous, pretentious, and annoying.

Meanwhile, Hana is taking care of this man who is slowly remembering his life before his accident, with the help of Caravaggio’s suspicions that he is a traitor and a spy. Also we meet Hana’s love interest, Kip (Naveen Andrews), a bomb diffuser!

Besides the 2 hour and 42 minute run time, I think that I liked The English Patient. It definitely didn’t have an impact on me, but it wasn’t intolerable to watch, like it was for some people in the 90s.

I cared way more about whatever Juliette Binoche was doing than about the stuff going on in the desert, which I guess is why she won an Oscar and Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas lost.

The English Patient did go on to win 9 of its 12 Oscar nominations though, including Best Picture, which is insane, and also the same number of Oscar wins as Gone with the Wind, a movie that is 1 hour and 26 minutes longer than this one!

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.

Halloween 2015 #13: The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) - Jim Sharman

It took me 40 years to see this movie!

If you’re as scared of Tim Curry as I am, this is the Halloween movie for you. I also thought it would be the perfect one to finish my Horror Movie-cation with, considering this year is the 40th anniversary!

The movie starts when two white bread folks leave a friend’s wedding together. But first they declare their undying love for one another.

They then drive into the woods, get lost, and wander into a nearby castle.

I can’t even count the number of gifs of people fainting I’ve used in the past 13 reviews.

The head of the house, Frank N. Furter, is a mad scientist who has created a creature for his sexual desires.

His name is Rocky. And yes, this did come out the year before Sylvester Stallone’s Best Picture winning boxing flick.

Mayhem, sex, and violence fills the rest of this loopy narrative. Wait, I totally forgot to mention it’s a musical!

The movie was released in London to decent audiences, but then failed to raise its numbers as it expanded. It even cancelled a Halloween premiere in New York City because of the lack of success of the previous screenings.

It did, however, begin a midnight screening circuit, where a cult following developed. The rest is history! Forty years later, it is considered one of the longest running films in history, making $138 million while regularly playing in theaters across the country. The cult status was probably achieved due to the interactive nature of the viewing experience, where the audience participates in callbacks that serve as their own additional script for the film.

Sadly, my first introduction to Rocky Horror was through Glee.

And then Perks of Being a Wallflower!

Not to mention, up until last night I had seen the film twice at actual screenings without ever having finished it. But now I have! It’s crazy to see how much the film has impacted our culture. It’s absurd, carnivalesque style is regularly referenced in LGBTQ (especially Bisexual) discourse, and its celebration of the abnormal is definitely a welcomed voice in the fringes of society. But it really is just a fun and crazy movie.

Rocky doesn’t care about your heteronormative bullshit.

And, not surprisingly, Fox has decided to remake The Rocky Horror Picture Show as a two-hour TV special, helmed by Kenny Ortega (of High School Musical fame). Laverne Cox has been cast as Frank N. Furter.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see if this lives up to the original!

And thus concludes my 13 Film Horror Movie-cation! It’s been a real treat to immerse myself in the exciting world of horror cinema this month, and now I’m definitely ready for Halloween!

Halloween 2015 #12: Let the Right One In (2008) - Tomas Alfredson

This and American Psycho are the only films from this century on my list.

The inclusion of this movie on several “Best Horror Movies” lists (#15 on Rotten Tomatoes’ list, with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari being #1) as well as it being on Netflix made Let The Right One In the perfect addition to my Horror Movie-cation list.

And it’s foreign! This Swedish film astonished everyone at a myriad of film festivals in 2008, and it is described on Wikipedia as being a “romantic horror film.”

Tonally, it actually does feel like a low-budget romantic indie. The story centers on the blossoming friendship between two neighbors, 12 year olds Oskar and Eli. However, Eli is not what she seems.

Besides a few frightful scenes in which Eli must satisfy her taste for blood, the film really focuses on developing this relationship. Oskar is bullied regularly at school, and Eli is lonely and afraid to let Oskar in (which I’m assuming is where the title comes from?)

I do NOT slay!

But while these two develop a strong connection, the town is busy panicking about the murders taking place. The balance is an interesting and spooky one.

The vampires in the film follow the main rules we all know: they survive by drinking blood, they can’t let light touch them, they don’t age, and they can’t enter a place without first being invited in (oh maybe that’s where the title comes from). Also, I hadn’t seen this one before, but cats can’t stand them? The best part about this movie is how human it makes these traits, as if Eli truly is a child dealing with these obstacles in her life. I mean it’s definitely no mistake that she’s at an age where most girls enter puberty.

But the story is great, subtle in ways that American horror movies usually don’t dare to be. The last scene is filled with a powerful tension that has been building up since we first met Oskar.

I had no clue while watching this, but Eli’s voice is actually dubbed because it was deemed too high for her part. The film skirts around the subject of her gender, which I think is an interesting way to subvert the idea of them being romantically involved. It feels like a coming-of-age story about friendship.

Scary but heartwarming, Let the Right One In is a cool movie all around, and definitely worth the watch while it’s still on Netflix. Plus it has a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes!

Halloween 2015 #11: The Fly (1986) - David Cronenberg

If you or a loved one is experiencing physical or romantic attraction to Jeff Goldblum and you want these feelings to stop, watch The Fly.

I can’t believe this movie exists! Someone just thought, “What if a human turned into a fly?” and this nightmare was born. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is great, but so terrifying.

Basically, Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) invites a reporter, Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis), over to his apartment to show her his amazing invention. It’s a teleporter! Thank god, no more LA traffic.

But after weeks of failed experiments where the teleporter cannot properly transport organic matter, Brundle decides to drunkenly use the machine on himself. There is, however, one small problem. 

The teleporter fuses the DNA of Seth Brundle and a stowaway fly. Thus begins a very slow and horrifying transformation, which includes a sequence where Brundle actually believes himself to be physically superior because of his newfound strength and energy.

Obviously things get much much worse after that.

Veronica straddles the line between a complete rejection of the hideous monster and a lingering love that she developed for the old Brundle.

But Brundle starts to lose his mind over the course of his transformation. 

Which makes it difficult for him to engineer a solution to his problem. As he becomes more physically a fly, he becomes more mentally a fly. Veronica wants to help and also wants to run for her life.

The final scene is incredibly graphic and disturbing, and apparently wasn’t even the most gruesome scene in the original cuts. According to Wikipedia, there was a famous sequence where Brundle teleports a cat and a baboon together and then an unbelievably deformed creature emerges from the Telepod. It attacks Brundle and he must kill it with a metal pipe. But early screeners found that this caused audiences to lose sympathy with Brundle, making the rest of the film fall flat, so it was cut. Also one audience member was confirmed as having thrown up during the scene.

But the film as it is works well to keep you feeling sorry for Brundle all the way to the bitter end. Not to mention the amazing, Oscar-winning special effects by Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis elevate the film from disturbing and silly to truly nightmarish. Something about 80s practical effects is just so great. Nothing CGI ever looks as good.

The film has a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes (compared to a 95% for the 1958 original version). But this version is definitely a classic in its own right. 

Halloween 2015 #10: Eraserhead (1977) - David Lynch

When I put this movie on the list, I was only 50% sure it was a scary movie. Now I’m 100% sure.

I mean. It’s not a “horror” movie, exactly. But it did scare me. It’s off-putting, it’s gruesome, it makes you think, “What does it all mean?” And nothing is scarier than that.

When I used to think of Eraserhead, I thought of the above gif. That’s literally all I knew about it. Crazy hair, dust flying everywhere.

Eraserhead tells the story of Henry Spencer, who goes to dinner at his girlfriend’s house and finds out that she had a baby. Well… a creature.

It looks like if ET and The Thing had a baby. Henry and his wife move into Henry’s gross apartment and try to raise this thing together.

That’s his girlfriend on the left.

But this is David Lynch! Not Knocked Up! Not Juno! This is actually David Lynch’s first film, which he made while he was a student at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. So it features some serious surrealism.

The line between reality and dreams is irrelevant, and the film travels between the two many times. The sound actually does a lot to blur the distinction, with an industrial soundtrack that works to make the whole experience of watching even more haunting. Lynch has said that he was inspired by the darker parts of Philadelphia to create this atmosphere, since he partly grew up there.

One of Spencer’s main dreams is of “Lady in the Radiator,” who sings songs while also stomping on sperm-like creatures.

Sometimes I get frustrated when movies don’t make sense to me, but I did like this one. It’s very unnerving, which I can tell is what it intends to be. It sets out to make me feel something and it succeeds.

Eraserhead played at midnight showings for years, and praise for it started off small but only grew overtime. It now has a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it helped launch Lynch’s career as the preeminent surrealist director of modern film. So go watch it!