47. What I Watched in November

For those of you who have been here for a while, I bring you...#WIWatchedW!

This is my initiative to get back to watching movies, a return to the What I Watched Wednesday (#WIWatchedW) microreviews that led to my initial Instagram following, and a new format (for me) that will become a paid feature next year, when I begin creating exclusive paid content (for those disappointed - I’ve been laid off since September and additional income helps!).

Minari (2021, dir. Lee Isaac Chung, rent on Prime)

I watched Minari due to (everyone groans) me knowing someone (of course I do) who not only worked on the movie but was integral to bringing its production to Oklahoma. (Hi, Dylan.)

Minari is a languid treatise on immigration, family, and chicken sexing. I wish I had seen this in theaters: its scorching summer day’s languidness would have been better savored in a cool theater, no pauses to answer texts, no pee breaks.

I received so much from Han Ye-ri’s performance and look forward to watching more of her work, but as I and the Academy recognized, the star performance is Youn Yuh-jung’s as Grandma Soon-ja. Soon-ja is not your meek grandma, not stern, not ladling you homemade soup with a gummy grin. She is funny and a prankster and frisky and finding her way with her grandchildren in a new place. I loved her, in all of her awkwardness. Her bold spirit reminded me in pain and sweetness of my own Gram, who I miss every day and who was (was? it still feels the wrong verb) loud and silly and ebullient and brave and all her own.

The unexpected component of this movie was David’s (Alan Kim, adorable, cheeks for miles) Elmo and Rocco dynamic with his grandmother for no good and goddamn reason.

I loved the act three Christina’s World homage. What a devastating shot that will stick with me for a long time.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992, dir. Fran Rubel Kuzui, stream on Max)
(rewatch)

I haven’t watched Buffy in many years now, though I know the hog cheer by heart:

If only Kristy Swanson had better politics…a Reese Witherspoon romcom queen we would have had! Stephen Root tossing detention slips upon the corpses of slayed vamps. Rutger fucking Hauer. This is the first thing in which I ever saw Rutger fucking Hauer. Rutger Hauer with his sidekick Paul “kill him a lot” Reubens as the Dracula and Renfield of my dreams, second only to Richard E. Grant’s Clifford and Roger Moore’s Chief in Spice World. Paul Reubens smacking Buffy with a trumpet. Paul Reubens with the dumbest death moans in history. David Arquette needed more screen time: the movie flies by, but I would have allotted for more time off of his perfect Bert Lahr impression at the dance alone. Hilary Swank is such a good bitch!! “Get out of my facial!” She is very good at being a bitch!! Why was she not on the shortlist for several attitudinal characters that inevitably and rightly went to Judy Greer?? Hilary Swank calls Luke Perry’s character Pike homeless, a member of the unwashed masses, meanwhile I’m sorry….that is Dylan McKay and no soul patch can ruin that. Again, we have a man that should have starred in 75 romantic comedies the patriarchy told us were trash until TBS and TNT and USA braved a valiant war to seep these back into our collective viewing and collective joy. Life is so terrible. Let us have a movie about sparring hairstylists called Split-Ends with Benefits.

My favorite stupid, stupid little line from Buffy’s mother:

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Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (2023, dir. Paul Briganti, stream on Peacock)

I haven’t laughed at every Please Don’t Destroy SNL sketch (the Timmy Chalamet rooftop jumper did nothing for me, questionable Hamas joke excluded) but this movie was as blissfully dumb and out-loud funny as the 2003 comedies we’ve all come back around to loving and pretending there aren’t problematic components out the ass. Foggy Mountain has two small fatphobic jokes but otherwise…this movie punches out without punching down. It’s stupid and stupidly quotable. Conan O’Brien in one of very few movie appearances saying “we’re closed.” Cedric Yarbrough is in this movie. Cedric Yarbrough, whose cover of “Brandy” on Speechless still makes me cry with laughter until my stomach hurts:

Matt and I erupted into the same slow clap when we heard the Office theme music. The first time, because we’ve already watched it again. We laughed and had French toast and it was a really lovely morning - you are cordially invited to jock our idea for your next planless Sunday.

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Road House (1989, dir. Rowdy Herrington, stream on Max)

I posted that I watched Road House for the first time and my DMs went crazy. Much like Lucille Ball’s deathbed goodbyes to Desi Arnaz, incredulous messages flooded in, the same question, with varying intonations and capitalizations:

“HOW have you never seen Road House?”
“How have you never seen ROAD HOUSE?”
“How have YOU never seen Road House?”

The last feels most apt and was the most dispatched. For being an F-cup, I exude so much fucking gender dysphoria. I’m that scene in the live-action Scooby-Doo when Fred gets Zip-Zap-Zopped into Daphne’s body. One conversation with me, one time hearing me call someone (Joe Manchin; it’s always Joe Manchin) a “smegma stain,” and you can clock that I had to be Danny Zuko every time my girlfriends came over to listen to the Grease soundtrack on cassette and recreate the dances in 1998. It doesn’t matter whose house and whose cassette deck it was. I had. To be. Danny. I’m the get-behind-me, loudmouth pants-wearer, even in a dress. I don’t know what polypeptide serum is. I sit like Katharine Hepburn.

So it *shocked the world* that I had never seen this paean to the ethos that “dudes rock.” But let me tell you: dudes rock. Patrick Swayze and his Gene Kelly acro-fighting and his graceful, billowy pants rock. Kelly Lynch got them thangs and her uncle Red West rocks. Cody, the blind bar musician version of Basil Exposition, rocks in the sense of being a musical performer but also rules.

But the thing that rocks the most about Road House is when I realized who that incredibly fucking hot bouncer cooler picking up the phone was. “IS THAT SAM ELLIOTT??! Oh, bitch,” I proferred to Matt, accentuated with snaps as if this was a drag bar and I was watching some local Philly queen do an interpretive lipsync to Marion Cotillard’s Oscars acceptance speech.

To quote Rebecca Pahle for Vulture:

“He tells Doc that Dalton is “great coming out of the gate, but not much for stamina,” and Dalton’s response is an amiable chuckle. Dalton! He’s talking about your penis. Do something.”

How Kelly Lynch’s Doc didn’t coat the floor during their lil’ dance number I really do not know. HE FLASHED HER HIS CUM GUTTERS. I’m!!!!!!!!

Shout-out to

allison picurro

, whose Substack

Boy Movies

was a constant on my mind as I watched the movie.

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Charlie’s Angels (2000, dir. McG, rentable but of course I have it on DVD)
(I can not stress enough how many times I have watched and rewatched this one)

Yes, I did a Kelly Lynch double feature. She is one of the hottest women on Earth in this movie, which is an incredible feat when she is filming scenes in an office next to Lucy Liu and all 110 of her freckles, Drew Barrymore in a Steve Austin t-shirt, and Cameron “flip your goddamn hair” Diaz at her follicular best. Insanity.

You should never watch this movie or the sequel with me because I will recite the entire script at the screen.

The Chad was great.

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Athena (2022, dir. Romain Gavras)
Making Athena (2022, dir. Kourtrajmeuf, Benjamin Weill) (both on Netflix)

Another Dylan choice - he dubbed it “a visual feast” and he’s not wrong. The movie is a serviceable story of brothers flung into distinct, tragic oppositions by trauma and civil unrest, but what elevates it is the electronic Greek chorus of its score and the staggering single-take long shots, dolleyed drone footage, practical pyrotechnics, main performance and stunt work by local citizens of no acting experience, and the lack of green screen or CGI.

The making-of featurette is essential viewing to understand the laboriousness and loving intent of this art.

Watching a cameraman wearing just a t-shirt, no goggles, no elbow pads, bang his back against an open file cabinet door, yell “FUCK!” but still without pause carry on in his filmic pursuit of the actor playing Karim lent me a visceral appreciation for the gruel that went into depicting this story. That man’s grimace will linger.

Realizing how the boom mic operators and camera crew are allowing this movie its contrasting freneticism and languor, seeing guys on motorbikes handing giant, heavy cameras off (with one hand) to operators waiting in a moving van to continue the shot. Mon dieu.

I’m not at all surprised that Gavras is a veteran of music videos: Athena feels like an hour and 39-minute long music video, and an expansion of Childish Gambino’s “This is America” video. Also: he dates Dua Lipa! Hot!!!

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Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003, dir. Quentin Tarantino)
Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004, dir. Quentin Tarantino)
(rewatch for the first time in years)

I have the Pussy Wagon keychain on my keyring. I haven’t watched either volume in years now, but put both on one Saturday afternoon and the time flew by, with glee. I had a new appreciation for the technical choices Q made, the color grading(s), the costumes, the writing, Vivica A. Fox’s performance, Sonny Chiba’s performance (very gewd!!!), the animated O-Ren origin sequence and its rain of blood, the soundtrack: how seamless its transitions are, Uma’s eyes, Uma’s stance, Uma’s reaction to seeing B.B. and her mimed death drop. I love this saga and plan to watch both again soon.

This made me emo:

Perla Haney-Jardine in Kill Bill Vol. 2 and Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood.

Love you bitches,

TG