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Day 19. 31 Days of Festive-Ass Flicks. [CALENDAR] Gremlins. Only two days late. [Spoilers, probs.]
I have seen Gremlins six or seven thousand times. My sister had a Gizmo growing up. (A doll, sadly. OH HOW I WISH MOGWAI WERE REAL.) I know this movie inside and out. But then I watched it this time. And it was like I had never seen it before or something. IT WAS REAL WEIRD.
I think this is one of those VERY 80s movies that sort of shaped the idea of what the 1980s looked like. Corey Feldman and Phoebe Cates and Zach Galligan and VW Beetles that won’t start and super racist stuff surrounding Asian cultures and the Jerry Goldsmith score and all small towns being the Universal backlot and puffy nylon jackets. It just feels really 80s in a good, nostalgic way like Goonies. Well, the racism doesn’t feel good.
I am having a hard time articulating anything interesting here, so I’m going to do that annoying thing where there are a bunch of notes in a list:
– Dads in movies that are inventors/entrepeneurs are always depicted as failures (see: Beauty and the Beast)
– HOW IS GIZMO SO CUTE?!
– How is no one TOTALLY freaking out that they have some new species in their home and it, like, sings and acts humanoid?!
– GIZMO IS SO CUTE I AM ACTUALLY TEARING UP. TEARS OF CUTENESS.
– No one is asking enough questions in this movie. NO ONE.
– The bad mogwai are dicks even when they’re cute.
– UGGGGGGGGGGGH STOP PROJECTILE VOMITING ON THE TRUMPET SITUATION.
– The gremlin pods are the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
– ONE NEEDLE? REALLY?
– Had to spend ten minutes thinking about nachos just to recover from the trauma of the pods.
– Mom’s a badass.
– Stripe is a dick.
– THIS MOVIE IS GROSS.
– The police are the only marginally useful people in this entire movie. COHERENT. The only people to ask questions about these weird things that basically didn’t exist before YESTERDAY.
– The Town Bitch’s fast ride up the stairs and flight through the window is the stuff my childhood memories are made of.
– So many dumb gremlin vignettes.
– “… and that’s how I found out there was no Santa Claus.”
– Gizmo’s disgust/embarrassment/fear/horror. EVERY TIME GIZMO REACTS I DIE.
– Gizmo in the Barbiemobile 4ever.
– THIS MOVIE IS DISGUSTING.
– And then after all of that destruction and terror, Gizmo survives and STILL gets taken away from his new friend. WHY IS THIS MOVIE SO MEAN?
I don’t have anything else coherent to say, honestly. I love that this is a holiday movie. Like, people sit down and watch It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story and GREMLINS. That’s great, that’s so great. And it’s very wintery and yule-y and wonderful. It’s just also really weird and disgusting. And good. BUT MOSTLY SO WEIRD AND DISGUSTING.
Up to bat on day 18 of 31 Days of Festive-Ass Flicks was The Preacher’s Wife [CALENDAR] which continued my three-days-late schedule of long-lasting failure that I still have not recovered from. From which I may never, ever recover. [Spoilers!]
Okay, so I took really extensive notes on this one for no discernible reason and I cannot figure out what even half of them mean. So, like, I LIKED THIS MOVIE A LOT. Which I didn’t expect AT ALL. Because… I’m an atheist! This was not going to give me good religious god-y feelings! And I’m not a Denzel person! And I hate long scenes of singing in movies. And I’m not big on Whitney’s acting career. And basically EVERYTHING was pointing to me not being into this movie. EXCEPT HOW I TOTALLY WAS. And I loved it! And I clapped and squealed. And I got really choked up and cried.
The first great thing that occurred when I was watching this was that the preview that played beforehand was for Beaches. And it had one of those really late 80s/early 90s voiceovers about tenderness and friendship and stuff. And it was the best.
The next great thing was that the choir in this sad church sang SO HARD for Jesus that they blew up the boiler. That was delightful.
Then there was this:
Because angels coming into the modern age need a handbook that covers modern things.
Then there was this amazing child who was playing a sheep in the nativity play:
Which. They clearly pulled in close on her in kind of a mocking way. Because she’s got these big glasses and her smile kind of creeps up her face and she’s wearing a bath mat. And I thought it was kind of mean, but I ended up thinking she was kind of awesome. Fuck the mocking of the moviemakers, this kid had sass.
And there was a lot of Denzel being awesome. Which I didn’t expect? When I think of Denzel, I think of serious Oscar guy Denzel and that’s kind of boring. And in this he was AWESOME. He was joyous and funny and, like, basically trolling the preacher at every turn. With a big heart! And wonder at a world that everyone around him takes for granted. And a very obvious, non-hidden attraction to the preacher’s wife. Which she DESERVES.
I really came out of this movie with a total appreciation and love for this kind of Denzel. More laughing, gleeful Denzel. Less Training Day.
The BEST part of the movie, BY FAR, is Whitney and Preacher’s small child Jeremiah and his best friend Hakim. Hakim lives with his grandmother and is going to be placed into foster care and Jeremiah is legit DEVASTATED. When Hakim is being picked up by the liaison/social worker, Jeremiah runs to his dresser and opens it up and gives Hakim his entire stash of Hershey’s chocolate and says, “They might starve you” all worried and scared. AND OMG I LEGITIMATELY CHOKED UP and was, like, wailing, “DON’T YOU TAKE HAKIM AWAY FROM HIS FRIEND. YOU TAKE HIM IN WHITNEY AND THE PREACHER. YOU GIVE HIM A HOME.” I was LOSING IT. And then this kid is like, “Who will I tell my secrets to?” all sad and resigned and I had to pause it because I couldn’t see the screen through my tears.
So yadda yadda the movie goes on and people are forever changed by Denzel and his incredible attitude and willingness to help those that are willing to take it and it is very warm and hooray for angels etc. And then they are getting ready for the nativity and Preacher is like, “Are you ready? Because there is going to be someone very important listening to you in the audience.” And Jeremiah is like, “Yeah, we cool.” And then Hakim walks in and Jeremiah FLIPS HIS SHIT. And literally yells HAAAAAAAAAAAKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM and jumps off the chair he is standing on to run over and hug his BEST FRIEND IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW MOVING THIS IS?! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?! FRIENDSHIP. FRIENDSHIP. FRIEEEEEEEEENDSHIP!! FRIENDSHIP IS THE BEST AND KIDS ARE SO SWEET AND THEY LOVE WITH THEIR WHOLE HEARTS AND THE SCREEN IS GETTING ALL HARD TO SEE AGAIN RIGHT NOW.
Then they walk out of the room together and Jeremiah is like, “I HAVE A SECRET TO TELL YOU” and it’s about how Denzel fixed the kid’s ambulance with his angel juju and gave it a siren it didn’t have before on accident OOPS.
It’s just the best. FRIENDSHIP IS THE BEST. If you do not agree that friendship is the best thing to watch in movies and television and stuff, get out of here. You are wrong. Friendship is everything. EXCUSE U IF U DISAGREE U R INCORRECT.
Here are some of my notes. They are largely nonsensical:
– saddest preacher of all time
– musical sermon punctuation
– yo they close the youth center for one day and this innocent kid gets in trouble [I have more about this in a later post, actually!]
– SKEPTICISM
– nothing moves a preacher’s struggle like a broken-ass church
– BEVERLY
– that judge is the worst judge
– EROTIC ANGEL ICE SKATING
– magical wiener of glory
– CRYING 5EVER ABOUT FRIENDSHIP
– making god angry by making himself a husband in pictures
– way too much singing SHUT UP
It has some weird posters:
In conclusion, IMDB users hate this movie (5.2/10), Rotten Tomatoes says people are not fond of it (5.9/10), but me and Siskel and Ebert are into it.
Day 17 of 31 Days of Festive-Ass Flicks [CALENDAR] was the first movie that had to be subbed in because of accessibility issues. I feel like a secondary name for this project could have been “Ways in Which Netflix Randomly and Suddenly Messes with Their Customers for What I Am Sure Are Real Legitimate Reasons but to Us Seem Totally Arbitrary and Mean”.
This wasn’t just a subbing in a movie, this was, “Oh shit, this screws up DVD returns and throws off the schedule and oh oh. Shit.” Netflix pulled Santa’s Slay off of Instant and there wasn’t anything else I wanted/was willing to watch for a direct sub, so I had to order a DVD and swap around some dates and then because I was behind anyway (which is obviously my fault, not Netlix’s) it threw me off an additional day around the 16th because I had to wait for Meet Me in St. Louis. OH THE LIFE OF AN UNEMPLOYED BLOGGER IN THE MIDDLE OF A PROJECT. SO HARD.
Anyway, I ended up watching Black Christmas because I wanted to make sure that I got a holiday horror movie in here. And I watched the 1974 original instead of the 2006 remake because I don’t hate myself. [Spoilers!]
It was super, super good. And creepy. And unsettling. And quiet. And had a tiny body count compared to more recent (not just RECENT, but really starting with the 80s) horror movies ESPECIALLY because it broke the sort of accepted rule that someone’s GOT to eat it in the first fifteen minutes, if not in the first scene. This thing is SLOW, but not boring.
It set up a nice, pretty, yule-ish scene with the lights and the cold and frosty windows and the drunken sorority celebrating and then it starts to hover around uncomfortable with the first of the series of obscene/terrifying phone calls and then it just gets more and more uncomfortable. And it’s never really grisly, except maybe once, but otherwise the deaths are off-screen and subdued as the number of available victims dwindles.
I think one of my favorite aspects of this is that the police are TOTALLY involved in what’s happening — the missing girl and the phone calls — but it still keeps happening. We’re taught from such a young age by our culture that the police will protect us, that if we go to them, they will stop bad things from happening. But in this they don’t. They can’t. And I can’t help but feel that’s maybe a lesson we should all learn a lot earlier. These officers are largely well-meaning, they want to help, they’re interesting characters in and of themselves, but there’s nothing they can do to save these women. The calls are coming from inside the house. And even in the end as one stands guard to protect the sole survivor inside, the phone rings. And rings. And rings.
THAT SHIT IS SCARY.
I was really into the liberated women in this and the way they bumped against the men who didn’t want them to be. The first victim’s (Clare) father sort of implies that her being missing is better than her running off to a cabin with a dude. And she’s totally depicted as the pure one. Margot Kidder totally creeps her out and she clutches a cross in discomfort and shock/disgust. And she totally dies first. Jess is pregnant and utilizes her newly minted reproductive autonomy (Roe v. Wade, 1973) to decide to get an abortion and her boyfriend FLIPS OUT. Margot Kidder is IN CHARGE of herself and even though she’s drawn as the sort of… IDK, stereotypical 70s floozy? She is in charge. And she doesn’t care that other people judge her. She dies too — after asserting her sexuality and also getting a kid drunk.
The Chaste and The Promiscuous both die in this world. Interesting though is the difference in their deaths. Clare is suffocated with a plastic bag and displayed in a rocking chair, looking out over the winter night outside. Margot Kidder is stabbed to death with a glass unicorn in the only scene of truly visible murder and even that is subdued because of careful framing. The only gory emphasis is on the blood-covered unicorn in the killer’s hands. And then she’s found dead, displayed IN BED with another person (Phyl). SO FASCINATING.
Jess survives (at least the length of the movie) even though she wants an abortion. I feel like… we almost couldn’t get away with that now? I watch American Horror Story and, like, it took a billion damn episodes for them to even SAY the word abortion and it’s constantly, continuously condemned at every turn if not in words than in literal punishment of the women who seek them and the doctor that provided them. I don’t know how more than 35 years have passed since Roe v. Wade and we’ve gone fucking BACKWARDS on reproductive rights, but we definitely have. [If you didn’t know this was an extremely pro-choice blog, you do now! Unrestricted access to abortions for all people who can get pregnant.]
ANYWAY, this was a great movie. It was a great horror movie and a nice addition to the holiday season. ALSO, it was directed by Bob Clark who directed one of the most beloved holiday films of all time, A Christmas Story. And that’s really delightful and wonderful and he’s so skilled and awesome.
I loved Margot Kidder and her snide-ass attitude. Telling the cop the exchange on the house number was FELLATIO. And “the Mormon Tabernacle Choir are making their annual obscene phone call.” So good. I also deeply enjoyed the cop telling the other cops the fellatio thing and how hard they laughed. “What? It’s something dirty, isn’t it?”.
Also, when Peter (Jess’s boyfriend) first shows up, I was like, “Is that Malcolm McDowell?!” because I was watching it all shrunk in a small corner of my laptop screen. It’s not Malcolm McDowell, but according to IMDB Trivia, the role WAS originally offered to him. So they just hired another dude that basically looks like Malcolm McDowell. You gotta do what you gotta do. Also Jess is Juliet in the really famous/boring version of Romeo & Juliet that all of our high school teachers made us watch. And when she worked with Steve Martin, he was like, “I LOVE YOU. YOU’RE IN ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOVIES.” and she was like, HAIR FLIP, “ROMEO AND JULIET?!” and he was all, “LOL NO BLACK CHRISTMAS.” A+, Steve Martin.
The last shot of the movie is really haunting. The totally unaware cop in front of the house and the ringing phone, the audience totally aware that the real killer is still inside the house with the remaining survivor. Totally creepy and excellent! But obviously the image that lives in infamy (aside from Clare’s head encased in a dry-cleaning bag) is that eye staring at Phyl through the crack in the door. So simple, so creepy.
So, Home Alone was three days late [CALENDAR] and I’ve seen it at least four million times and I love it? And I feel like maybe the universe says we should all be ashamed of how much we love it? And that’s dumb. [Spoilers!]
Because, dude, this is a great movie. It’s not, like, Citizen Kane or some shit, but if you haven’t figured out that “great movie” doesn’t mean “critically acclaimed” and “universally revered” around these parts, then you need to GET IT TOGETHER. A great movie is one you love to watch. That’s simple. And I’m sticking to it.
I don’t remember watching Home Alone when I was young even though I am totally sure I did. I’m pretty sure the VHS of it is still in this house somewhere right now, just lurking. But I think it was one of those movies that I sort of pretended to have no knowledge of because I was that douchekid who thinks that being pop culturally ignorant is cool and stuff. It’s not. And as an adult I believe in doing you and loving what you want and that wanting to be cool is stupid anyway. I was cool. I’ve always been cool. I am cool. I’m awesome. And it’s never been because of what I did or did not want to watch, read, or listen to. YO.
Anyway, I don’t have any significant memory of watching this all the way through until I was in college at least but I didn’t really develop an appreciation of it until fairly recently after years of watching parts of it over and over again on cable.
I want to be able to perfectly articulate why Home Alone works and why I like it so much and why it’s so beloved, but I can’t. Partially because it’s three am and partially because it’s inarticulable. Home Alone is good because Home Alone is good. It gives us the warm and fuzzies because it’s about family and love and making mistakes and atoning for them.
Things of Note:
– All John Williams scores sound the same, but “Somewhere in my Memory” is SO GOOD anyway.
– Whoa, wait, why is that pizza boy so cute? BABEIN’ PIZZA BOY CAN GET IT.
– LOOK WHAT YOU DID YOU LITTLE JERK
– HEY FULLER EASY ON THE PEPSI
– He is so lucky he wasn’t murdered by shelves. Imagine forgetting him and then coming home to his mangled dead body?!
– FUCK YOU IF YOU STEAL MY SHIT. BUT FUCK YOU PAINFULLY AND CRUELLY IF YOU FLOOD MY FUCKING HOUSE.
– HEY HOPE DAVIS HEEEEEEEY
– Kevin McAllister is a fucking engineering genius.
– Do children not ever purchase things in this town? Why does everyone look at him like he has two heads? Sometimes eight-year-olds run in the grocery store, dang.
– I miss John Candy.
– Love you, Santa.
– The scene in the church with the old dude and his reunion with his family at the end will forever make me choke up and get all weird.
– MONOGRAMMED DOORKNOB
– I will never get over how horrifying the foot injuries in this movie are. Burn my hand? Cool. Light my head on fire? Fine. Make me step on ornaments barefoot? EAT SHIT. Make me step on a nail? I WILL MURDER EVERYTHING YOU LOVE.
– JOHN CANDY FOREVER
– Dude, how did he explain ANY of this to his family? Did he keep it a secret until well into adulthood? How do you explain that you, like, cut down a tree and fucked up some burglars and DESTROYED EVERYTHING. Does Kevin McAllister suffer from PTSD later in life? This whole string of events would have made me catatonic.
– How totally 90s is that title screen?!
ALSO, I AM SO EXCITED TO COMPLAIN. Because Netflix sent me a disc SO BADLY DAMAGED that I missed basically twelve minutes of the movie. TWELVE MINUTES. Were I new to Home Alone I would be missing large elements of stuff! Not cool, Netflix, not cool. Gratefully, my wise computer alerts me when it is skipping damaged sections. You go Macbook Pro-Coco, you go.
So yeah, Home Alone = good. Wanting to be cool = not good. Or something?
So remember how I said being one day off wasn’t so bad? Well by the time I watched The Shop Around the Corner it was four days late. [CALENDAR] OOPS. [Spoilers!]
This was a pretty good old timey movie situation! It’s kind of cool to look at and there’s lots of fast, sharp dialogue, and I really like the supporting characters (Pepi and Flora and Pirovitch) and the way they interact and avoid and enable the romantic plot at the center of the story. Also Jimmy Stewart is beautiful and wonderful and I could listen to him talk all day every day. Please make love to me old timey Jimmy Stewart. Tell me I am pretty. Light my cigarette and tuck my hair behind my ear and stuff. Margaret Sullavan is also a babe duh.
So, basically, I liked this movie a lot because, BIG REVEAL, I LOVE You’ve Got Mail. And that movie is based on this one. And JUDGE ME ALL YOU WANT, but You’ve Got Mail is GR8. It is a good light-hearted romantic comedy. Plus Tom Hanks.
Sorry cynical, youthful Ash, grown-up adult you LOVES TOM HANKS. Don’t worry though, she still hates Forrest Gump so you can calm down.
So yeah, this one is similar! Except with handwritten letters and an anonymous newspaper ad! It’s like… You’ve Got Mail Beta. You’ve Got Mail 1.0. You’ve Got Mail DOS. If we made this today it would be Craigslist and text messages. [Wait, I kind of like that, let’s make this thing again.]
Three things I cannot get over:
1. DUDE. Why are they in Budapest? I can’t parse this thing out. Are they Americans living in Budapest? Are they supposed to be Hungarian? They have vaguely Hungarian-esque names, so is that it? Are they the children of Hungarians come back to the motherland? Why are Klara, Alfred, and the messenger boys the only people without accents? I CANNOT UNDERSTAND.
In all those 191,000 results, no one could give me a comprehensive, logical answer. I mean. WHAT IS THE DEAL? I am a big fan of multiculturalism and filming in other countries and all that good stuff. But this was filmed in CULVER CITY. In California. In the UNITED STATES. So what is the deal? [Do you see how hung up on this I am? I CANNOT LET IT GO.]
2. Dude. Mr. Matuschek was going to KILL HIMSELF. He had a gun to his head! Off-camera, but still. And Pepi had to fling himself at the shopkeeper to keep him alive. And a lamp loses its life as a consequence. SUICIDE. I can’t. In a CHRISTMAS movie. And I know it’s not just a Christmas movie, yadda yadda, but just the idea of this lighthearted romantic comedy with a major suicidal moment as its catalyst is kind of insane/awesome. This is the same thing I think every time I think about It’s a Wonderful Life. [Which I hate, won’t watch all the way through, and am constantly irritated by.] I just can’t imagine suicide-as-a-plot-element making it’s way into something considered a holiday classic produced now. And I am FASCINATED by it.
3. This:
SO WELL DONE. SO SAD. Klara reaching in, hopeful for a letter from her mystery love and finding nothing. SO SAD. REAL SAD. Not tears sad, but legit sad nonetheless.
So yeah, I dug it enough. I’d maybe watch it again. Jimmy Stewart’s corpse should call me.
In conclusion, sock garters.
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