The shortest route across Big Seven Lake

Haven Hill

Hogbacks again

Film review: Freaky (2020)

We're in the middle of a bunch of prestige shows (Better Call Saul in particular) that have reached a point in their stories where things could very well turn grim, so it takes being in the prefect frame of mind to watch an episode.  Last night was not one of those nights, so instead we watched a dumb horror-comedy, by the same people that brought you Happy Death Day, by which we have previously been harmlessly entertained. Clearly these people like high-concept reinventions of the slasher genre, because, just as HDD featured a killer behind a grotesque baby mask, this one features a killer behind an African (I think) mask.  The concept this time, alluded to in the title, which is a reference to Freaky Friday, the Disney film where a mother and daughter swap bodies, is that the killer and one of his attempted victims swap bodies, as a result of him attempting the kill with some kind of enchanted Aztec dagger under a full moon (the details aren't too important). The extra catch is that he is hulking actor Vince Vaughn, while the victim Millie is a she, and is a fairly diminutive teenage girl.  So the bulk of the film involves us rooting for "her," played by a mincing Vince Vaughn, and against "him," a scary teenage blonde.  It's surprisingly easy to make the mental switch, and even more surprisingly easy for our heroine to convince her two best buddies plus crush that "she" has acquired a new body (the buddies are convinced when Vince Vaughn does the cheerleading-beaver dance that is her job in the cheer squad (she's in full costume, complete with awkward giant feet when the killer is chasing her pre-body-switch),

plus their special handshake/high-five routine, the crush is convinced when Vaughn can recite verbatim the love poem she had anonymously deposited in his locker [but, given that it was anonymous, couldn't the scary man have left it there himself?]).  Lest you missed the lesson about transgenderism, one of the buddies chides the other with "pronouns!" when he calls the killer-in-Millie's-body "she".  It is actually a good conceit - even the scene where the crush, a very fresh-faced well-scrubbed young man goes in to kiss the much-larger, stubbly Vaughn isn't so unbelievable that it's wholly comedic rather than partly romantic.  There's also the right balance of over-the-top gory demises (wine bottle shoved down a throat and broken, shop circular saw used to bisect obnoxious shop teacher) to make this a proper tribute to the slasher movies of yore, without the bad taste of anyone you actually care about biting it.  Mostly the people who bite it are rapey jock types or vile mean girls.  The only slight jarring note (assuming you're okay with the whole slasher genre to begin with) is when Millie and friends manage to switch bodies back just before the police arrive and Vince "formerly Mille" Vaughn goes down in a hail of bullets, while the girl who has spent the majority of the film being the personification of evil survives.  I think the film-makers realized they had to fix this, because there's the obligatory just-when-you-thought-you-were-safe-the-killer-comes-back final act, where you get to root for the girl in earnest.  One has to wonder about all the girl DNA that should be in evidence around the multiple gory kills.  Good thing the main local cop is Millie's own sister (who, along with her wine-sotted-because-grieving-her-recently-dead-dad mother never gets let in on the whole switcheroo business).  All in all, a top-notch modern B-movie and another dumb-while-being-smart diversion, perfectly serving its purpose.

Film review: Taxi Driver (1976)

Thomas is a big fan of the recent Joker, which, from all the reviews, is very much influenced by a couple of Martin Scorsese movies, Taxi Driver and King of Comedy.  So, before we give in and give Joker a watch, I thought it would be good finally to check out Taxi Driver.  I've sort of been meaning to since the incredibly quiet kid (Stephen Duffy - I remember his name because his namesake had a hit at the time) in my English A-Level class said it was his favorite film (two of the approximately ten words he said the entire two years - it's always the quiet ones).  Well... it's certainly... of its time.  Actually, in some ways, it's of an earlier time too, because the (rather intrusive) score is the last one Bernard "Psycho" Herrmann completed, and it sounds more 50s than 70s, to my ears.  Obviously the acting and content is very 70s - you couldn't have such graphic descriptions of various acts of sex and/or violence in any earlier decade, and you've got DeNiro (amazing) and Keitel (hard to take seriously, just because his face doesn't match the hair pimp getup he's in) at the height of their powers, not to mention a young and stunningly beautiful Cybil Shepherd and a young and almost puppyish Albert Brooks (and throw in Peter Boyle two years after Young Frankestein) and of course, a barely teenage Jodie Foster, and it couldn't be made 5 years earlier or later.  But man, is it slow.  It truly was the age when art movies could have mainstream success, because this one meanders.  Essentially, we follow DeNiro's Travis Bickle as he takes a job driving cabs, prepared to go anywhere (including Harlem, the Bowery, et. al. - and remember, the other way this is essentially 70s is that New York was at its very seediest) just because he is incapable of sleeping.  (And I'd be willing to bet that DeNiro, method as he famously is, stayed up for a week before filming, because he legitimately looks like shit.)  He drives around and sees Cybil Shepherd going to her job at the campaign office of a Senator running to be the (presumably, given his rhetoric) Democratic nominee for president, and falls for her. (Albert Brooks, much more suitable, is her co-worker who clearly also has the hots for her.)  He asks her out, she's intrigued (although, why?  He gives off seriously "dangerous creep" vibes) and agrees to go out to a film, so he takes her to the porn films he usually tries to go to sleep in front of on his nights off (having also struck out with the woman working the concession).  She is, fairly naturally, disgusted, and never wants to see her again, although he continues to pester her over the phone and sending her flowers, and shows up and makes a scene at the office after a while.  (I don't know if this is meant to be humorous, but when Albert Brooks is hustling him out the door, Bickle adopts a karate stance.  It made me laugh, anyway.  Apart from his service in the Marines, he surely is an incel forerunner.)   

Then his attention moves on to Jodie Foster, whom he sees as somebody he should save.  But not before he buys two suitcases of guns from a squirty little "salesman" (who wears a suit and seems to sell everything from crystal meth (even back then!) to Cadillacs, and who assures him that he's getting a better deal than the "Jungle Bunnies" would (sidenote: the casual racism that pervades this film would be less worrisome (as in: just a realistic depiction of shitty people) if there were more than one black character who gets lines.  Scorsese himself drops the N-word as an unhinged cuckold who makes Bickle park the taxi outside the apartment of his wife's black lover and fantasizes about shooting her in the vagina.)) 

and bodges together a Rube Goldbergian device to propel one of them from his sleeve into his hand when needed.  The final stretch of the movie has him showing up to one of the rallies of the politician Shepherd's and Brooks' characters were campaigning for, clearly intent on shooting him, before his secret service bodyguard recognizes him as the weirdo who was hanging around an earlier one and he's chased off.  

From then it's off to "rescue" Foster's Iris by getting into a shockingly violent shootout with her pimp and various hangers one (fingers are graphically shot off).  When the cops show up to find him bleeding out, he smiles and puts two blood-soaked fingers to his temple, as Iris is screaming in the background.  

Now, if it ended there, I think it would be more palatable, but there's a tacked on ending that reveals that he's been hailed as a kind of proto-Bernard Goetz "hero," Iris's parents can't thank him enough, and he's back at his taxi driving job.  Even weirder, Shepherd's Betsy shows up to ride in his cab, and they chat about what a great guy her politician boss is.  Huh?  It almost seems tacked on by a nervous studio eager for a happy ending, but I'm sure I'm missing the point.  Anyway, it's easy to see how this film could be misread (say, by the guy who shot Ronald Reagan) although it's clearly a cautionary tale, much as the recent Joker is supposed to be.  Are we glad we watched it?  Well, now I've finally seen the "you talkin' to me?" scene in context, I suppose.  

And DeNiro is amazing.  But I worry about teenage Stephen Duffy, I really do.

Happy Birthday to me!

54! Which I prefer to think of as 18 for the third time. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe I don't. Anyway, Thai food for a treat (it used to be less of a treat but with today's prices...

Presents!

Wildwood Lake, always a pleasant dip

Big Seven, quick dip

Not hot enough for swimming, so that means Shiawassee

New Bidet!

Moving Thomas

Here's the kitchen of the apartment Thomas lived in for this, the final year of his 3 years at Ann Arbor Law School:

He was turfed out by noon today. I arrived at nine AM to help and had to stall for half an hour while he roused himself and STARTED packing. But he made it:

Film review: Citizen Kane (1941)

The first time this film entered my consciousness was probably about 1975 when I was given a Peanuts Silver Jubilee collection, which contained this number:

I now finally understand Linus's distress, because that's about as major a spoiler as you could imagine.  But it's a bit of a cheap stunt for a film that's supposed to be up there in the pantheon of greatest ever.  (And I don't get it: is it just child psychology?  Freudianism seemed to be in the air in mid-century Hollywood (e.g., Spellbound) so is it just the idea that his character was formed by the trauma of being sent away to boarding school?  Or is it just the first thing that was taken from him?  Or did he love it because it was what he used to punch the resented banker in the gut?  Could he have turned out better?  He certainly seemed to think so given what he said about how he could've been great if he hadn't've been rich.)  Another thing I need explaining: why does this film have such a great reputation?  I mean, some films with that kind of reputation, you get it when you see them - Seven Samurai, Seventh Seal, Night of the Hunter - but this one...  I mean, Welles is great.  He ages incredibly convincingly (you completely forget that he was 25 when he made this - which is also a testament to great makeup), there are very memorable lines ("You're too old to still call me Mr. Thatcher" "You're too old to be called anything else") delivered perfectly.  The cinematography is amazing.  And I know enough to know that some shots, like ones that pass through skylights into rooms, required cutting edge special effects... But.  I just don't care enough.  Did one have to know all about Hearst to get what was being parodied?  (Does knowing Soviet politics improve Animal Farm?)  Or does one have to care deeply about the lives of the rich and powerful?  It occurred to me that an awful lot of the films of the 30's were about the Rich, which always struck me as odd, given the depression, but maybe there's a parallel with fairy stories always being about royalty, despite being the currency of the peasantry.  But the 40's is suddenly about Film Noir, with seedy people doing seedy things, and this seems very fin de siècle.  Maybe I should've seen it in my teens when I went through a Gatsby phase, and then I could have seen the tragedy.  As it was, the fact that Kane shot himself in the foot and never got to be Governor because of a (comparatively chaste) affair with his failed singer girlfriend just doesn't move me.  I imagine a large part of its greatness is something you can only appreciate if you go to film school and learn the names of the techniques it pioneered.  And, as I said, I can certainly appreciate the many amazing set pieces.

Now I think about it, I think the problem is the Hamlet problem: because it's been so influential, it looks hackneyed, like Hamlet sounding like a string of quotes. But really we've just encountered the knock-offs first. And it is amazing that everyone in it was in a film for the first time, even Joseph Cotton.

Instead of being boring we went exploring

I set out intending to do a swim we've done a few times this Summer - in the reservoir in the Hogbacks. Well, we did do that, but we went a different way, going up the other side of the reservoir. This may not be repeatable because it involved leaving any and all paths and pushing through some brambles (to plaintive cries of "ow!" from Frederick). Still, while there were paths, they were very pretty.