3 movies and 3 books i liked recently
Saturday, 9 November 2024 22:42CONCLAVE (2024)
RATING: ★★★★★
COMMENTS: I fucking LOVE this movie!!!!! It was utterly riveting from start to finish and I have been desperately trying to get everyone I know to go see it. The cast is amazing - so many excellent Random Guys From That One Thing I Know And Also Stanley Tucci. This movie is obviously not shy about its satire of the Catholic church, so it proceeds with total freedom to be dramatic and tense and moving and at times incredibly funny. I saw an early release attended mostly by people 60 and up, several of whom walked out once it became clear that this was not a film about the righteousness of Catholicism. Great sound design on this thing as well: hushed conversations completely bass boosted in surround sound plus startling staccato strings for the somewhat minimal scoring. Cardinal Benitez slay forever. Also the Italian cardinal who was constantly vaping in front of beautiful religious institutions. A movie that makes you say DIVA! in your head 500 times per viewing.
HIGHLIGHT: If there was only certainty, and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts.
BIG EDEN (2000)
RATING: ★★★★★
COMMENTS: This movie is sooooooo sweet. Pike is an early 2000s romcom love interest of all time….TO ME!! The concept of a small town basically conspiring to get him together with Henry is delightful. I also love Pike having a Greek chorus of middle-aged fishermen that hang out in his shop and meddle with his love life. George Coe as Henry’s grandfather absolutely shredded my heart. Both lead actors are so charming (and Eric Schweig is insanely handsome). The side plot about making out with your repressed, closeted, and divorced childhood best friend that makes you feel bad about yourself is so ahead of its time in terms of pop culture relevance. This is also the only movie in the world that knows about the indescribable beauty of every general store in a rural Montanan town of 10 people.
HIGHLIGHT: Why can’t you see how much love there is that people just want to pour on top of you? I can't help but think that your grandma and I didn’t do right by you somehow. I feel like maybe we taught you something wrong. Because you won’t tell me who you are. Did we teach you shame? Did I teach you that? ‘Cause it would break my heart if I had. Can’t you see what a good job god did here? Can't you see how beautiful he made you?
THE SUBSTANCE (2024)
RATING: ★★★(3.5)
COMMENTS: Exited this movie convinced I would be having visceral body horror nightmares for the foreseeable future, but thus far have managed to avoid this completely. I rated this lower because I think the whole thing went on about 20 minutes too long. Otherwise it was a 4 star movie for me (probably). This movie of course sparked lots of #Discourse about the #Meaning of this film but I think a lot of the chatter still managed to miss the mark a bit. The insanity of female beauty standards is the VEHICLE not the MESSAGE; this a movie about the absolute soul-rotting power of self-loathing and the violence of self destruction. Which is applicable beyond the prism of physical appearance. But also I think we are all just taking it too seriously. So many tweets about how it’s soooo ridiculous that Elisabeth/Sue doesn’t respect The Balance. Remember you are one, the ominous voice of The Substance Hotline repeatedly reminds her. Well guess what: someone who was capable of respecting the balance would never do the drug in the first place. Despite how it seems, despite where the message comes from, at the end of the day you are the one destroying yourself. Also; Margaret Qualley’s completely unhinged delivery of CONTROL YOURSELF is the line-reading of the year.
HIGHLIGHT: The Monstro Elisasue transformation which made me audibly gasp and say Oh My God No outloud in the theater.
WOLF HALL BY HILARY MANTEL
RATING: ★★★★★
COMMENTS: This is one of those books I have long avoided reading because I just knew that it was going to completely absorb my life. It took me a while to get through this book, but I simply could not pick up anything else in the meantime. I don’t know why I loved this so much, to be honest. It was all just so compelling. This will make sense to almost no one, but Thomas Cromwell is very AMC’s The Terror James Fitzjames to me. My wonderful doomed and charming un-canonized saint. Also, there is genuinely crazy 16th century old man yaoi to rotate in here if you want to. Lastly, this book contains one of my favorite/one of the funniest insults I’ve ever come across in a novel: You nobody from Hell, you whore-spawn, you cluster of evil, you lawyer!
HIGHLIGHT: “Have you made a good confession?” / “My lord cardinal, I was a soldier.” / “Soldiers have hope of heaven.”
HIGHLIGHT: What is clear is his thought about Walter: I’ve had enough of this. If he gets after me again I’m going to kill him, and if I kill him they’ll hang me, and if they’re going to hang me I want a better reason.
HIGHLIGHT: “Sometimes it is a solace to me,” Henry says, “not to have to talk and talk. You were born to understand me, perhaps.”
HIGHLIGHT: “Do you know what I say? I say I don’t know one man in England who would have done what you have done, for a man disgraced and fallen. (...) I say, it's a pity you ever saw Wolsey. It's a pity you don’t work for me.”
HIGHLIGHT: Later he will hear that Frith and the boy suffered, the wind blowing the flames away from them repeatedly. / Death is a japester; call him and he will not come.
THE SCORPIO RACES BY MAGGIE STIEFVATER
RATING: ★★★★★
COMMENTS: I think I was 15 the first time I read this. For the past couple of years, I have made a little tradition of rereading it every November in honor of the opening line: It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die. There are a few cringe moments but overall I feel it holds up (though I am clearly biased). Somehow, every year I notice something I missed before, or am moved in some way by moments I have completely forgotten! In 2020, I realized that Gabriel and Peg Gratton were clearly having an affair. This year, I noticed the moment very early on in the book that Finn gets the idea to gamble all the money on Puck at the end. George Holly is still my favorite non-POV character by a mile - the older I get, the more I appreciate him. I also have soooo much more sympathy for Gabriel now that I am his age. When Puck finds out from Father Mooneyham that Gabriel has cried repeatedly in the confessional…it really pierces my heart. Anyways! This book completely kicked my fucking head off when I was 15. To me it is the near-utopian ideal of a heterosexual YA romance; Puck and Sean touch like once or twice and instead spend most of the book participating in an insane psychosexual torture dance. Like, why is Sean tucking Puck’s hair into her sweater when they take his evil horse that killed someone yesterday out for a ride the most romantic thing that has ever happened? Their first kiss happens at a funeral. What a novel!
HIGHLIGHT: “I don't need another horse. I just––” / Holly follows me, and though I don't turn around, I hear his voice clearly. “It's just that he's not yours.”/ I'm not certain I want to have this conversation. “It's not that he's not mine. It's that he's Benjamin Malvern's.”
THE IDIOT BY ELIF BATUMAN
RATING: ★★★★
COMMENTS: Something about Batuman’s writing style is so funny and mesmerizing. Selin is such an interesting protagonist - she is an idiot but in such a specific way you can only be at 18. There were so many throwaway lines that made me burst out laughing in real life. I loved this for how readable and how particular it was. I honestly can’t think of much to say - I just had a good time. I think there is a sequel (?) which I hope to pick up soon.
HIGHLIGHT: That was the best thing about college: it was easy to leave. You could be in the place where you lived, having an argument that you had basically started, and then you could just say, “See you later,” and go somewhere else.
HIGHLIGHT: Svetlana had written about whether love was a game you could get infinitely good at, like in French novels—whether it was a matter of playing your cards right—or whether it existed between certain people in some kind of current and you just had to tap into it.