When I watch movies (I've said this before) I notice things other people don't. Movies affect me VERY strongly, and I will NOT willingly watch a movie about anything that will devastate me. Orphans, Somalia, extermination camps, slaughter - if it makes most people SAD, it will make me lose my composure, sob, and be depressed for days after.
A boyfriend once took me to see Jurassic Park when it first came out. He looked at me halfway through (sheer terror, the dinosaurs were jumping ON THE STAINLESS STEEL COUNTERS oh shit they are REAL!) and he whispered "they make movies for people like you" Yeah. I get a leetle bit involved, is what I'm saying.
Books too - a good book can have me living in the characters lives for days afterwards.
ANYwhoozle. So, it got me thinking and I have a list of movies you should see (or see AGAIN) because the under-story is so good maybe you didn't notice the first time?
1. Breakfast at Tiffany's:
Holly's walk-O-shame, the morning after a 'date'
This is emphatically NOT the movie you thought it was (possibly). Holly Golightly's real name was 'Lula Mae Barnes'. She was a child of the depression (in the book anyway), one of many kids on a dirt farm. She was very close to her brother, 'Fred'. She was 'sold off' in marriage to 'Doc' (Buddy Epson in the movie) when she was 14-years old. He was an old man already. She took care of his MANY existing children and was his work-horse wife until she ran away at 17? 18? to go to New York and escape the poverty. (He wasn't abusive to her unless you count that she was 14 fucking years old). She became what the author (Truman Capote) describes as an American Geisha - she dates much older men and they pay her $50 to use the restroom (back in the days when there was a maid in the bathroom to tip). This was a nicer way of paying for a 'date' although she looks like a whore to ME. She is desperate to find a way out and is clawing her way through people, looking to marry a rich man. She has almost no posessions, and will not make connections with any other people. Her brother dies and she about looses what is left of her mind. The book ends much differently than the movie - in the book Holly would NEVER have rescued that cat. She was in SURVIVE mode, nothing really all that nice about Holly.
Her boyfriend is a writer with a Sugar Mama (Patricia Neal). Both of these characters are whores disgusted with their lives who find each other.
2. The African Queen:
Hepburn is luminous. Bogart sez 'derrr'
Katherine Hepburn does an AMAZING job of going from the most uptight, religous zealot missionary, stick-up-her-ass spinster to an absolutely free spirit. Short sleeves and open neck (scandal!) no hat, having non-married sex in a boat on a river (SCANDAL!), finding herself as a strong, independent adventure loving HOOT. Sure, the movie is about Germans and Africa and WAR, and (again) the book is pretty different from the movie, but if you watch the beginning seeing her SO UPTIGHT that she would rather sweat buckets than wear anything but a proper English gown, and then watch as she peels her layers off like an onion - so good.
3. Arsenic and Old Lace:
*shudder*
Yes, this is a wacky comedy with Cary Grant (good lord is he handsome) but, watch again. His brother is a fucking psychopathic serial killer of a really horrible strain. The friend of the brother, played by Peter Lorre, is a disgraced doctor who performs horrifying ham-fisted plastic surgery on the brother after every grisly murder (and is very into cutting and pain). Watch this:
This movie is blood curdling for me. It isn't funny and silly, it's a very scary portrayal of a psychopath and his cohort. Me no likey (except Grant is fabulous, and his fiancee is so adorable I could just die.) SURE, hijinks's ensue but seriously. Watch the under-movie.
There are more, I'm sure of it. Have you ever watched a movie and seen what other people don't? (plot-wise, I mean)
I remember with Arsenic and Old Lace feeling sooooo relieved he was adopted! Wish we had that same sort of outcome. : )
ReplyDeleteQ's Sis
HA! Yes I felt the same way! from wikipedia: (at the end of the movie) "...he gleefully exclaims "I'm not a Brewster, I'm a son of a sea cook!" This is a Hollywood Production Code "bowdlerization" of the line in the play: "I'm a bastard!"
DeleteHe's relieved to be a bastard. NO SHIT.
I don't know that people haven't seen it, but both the book and the movie, "Ordinary People" was like that. It's a tough read/watch but the messages underneath are extraordinary (in my opinion.) My favorite books and movies keep me thinking for days and weeks and years. That was one of them. I first read and watched it in high school and I've never stopped thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteUh, lets see. One you should not watch and I will never watch again: Sybil. (Just the name gives me the god damned shivers).
I recently watched American Horror story (season one) because it was free on my Kindle! And I HATE bloody/gory movies. But for some reason, I found a lot of hidden meaning in this show that I held on to and I've been thinking about it for days even though it was really horrifying.
oh glug ugh - Sybil. Yeah. That one freaked me the fuck out. They re-made it and it didn't get any easier.
DeleteThere is a story out now about Katie Beers (http://news.yahoo.com/20-years-katie-beers-says-kidnapping-saved-her-080144010.html) that is another horror of real life. People are (can be) so ghastly.
OH! Nearly forgot. So on Breakfast at Tiffanys. Funny story about that (and now that you've brought it to my attention I need to watch it again because I missed a lot the first go-round). My ex-roommate (the one who cheated me out of hundreds, if not thousands of dollars) fucking LOVED that movie. I think she felt she "related" to Holly Golightly. Probably in the "willing to sleep with any dick as long as it fed her money" category.
ReplyDeleteI remember thinking that I couldn't relate to her character at all. Not even a little.
ReplyDeleteSeriously. She was a hard-core girl. Her horrific childhood had made her that way - she adored her brother and was kind to Doc, but she wasn't going to let anyone else ever take advantage of her. She is a sympathetic character, but not someone I could relate to at all either.
DeleteAnything where the dog/horse dies destroys me. People dying, not so much!
ReplyDeleteNot sure what that makes me but don't care!
I catch mistakes like the watch changing wrists from scene to scene. Drives my daughter nuts!
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ReplyDeleteHolly was very skanktimonious.
ReplyDeleteIf I am going to make up a word I at least need to spell it right.
Hahahahahaha. That's fantastagoric.
DeleteSplendick. That's something me and my peinerschnitzel both like.
ReplyDeleteHahaha I got a good one
ReplyDeleteI watched the Little Mermaid recently and at the end when Neptune's all "I'm just sad to see my little girl grow up," as she sails off into the sunset, I was like...the whole movie wouldn't have had to happen if the dad hadn't been such a jerk to her at the beginning. If I was Ariel, I would be like, "Hey dumbass, thanks for throwing all my stuff out that one time. K, whatevers. Bye."
Lisa, exactly!! I have an entire post i could do about that fucking asshole Disney. That 'little mermaid' story is NOTHING like the movie. Spolier Alert: She DIES at the end, and the prince never knows it's her. It's sad and tragic and very well written. And yeah - he damn near killed her with fright, ruined her treasures, and then was surprised she left not only HIM, but the entire OCEAN to get away. huh.
DeleteI should do a whole post about Disney. He was a freak. An abusive asshole and a complete narcissist. But hey, his parks are damned CLEAN. They don't sell gum anywhere, in any disney park. So you (almost) never sit in it, or step in it. You got me thinking STOP IT LISA you know how I hate to think!! :)
Wow, I didn't know Disney was such an asshole or about the parks, though I've heard some rumors. I love Disney, the conglomeration. LIIIOOONN KIIINNNGG anyone? I AND II!
DeleteKurt Vonnegut Jr was also an asshole. I don't get why the hipsters wouldn't want to read his son's memoir if they like him so much. I used to read books by Kurt Vonnegut in high school, so when I heard a memoir, "Just like someone without mental illness only more so," came out by Mark Vonnegut, I checked it out. I was like, OMG HIS DAD WAS AN ASSHOLE. I always think of that when people quote Kurt: "Goddammit you've got to be kind." Well, why weren't you?
I re watched the lion king and i got to thinking why the HELL were all hyenas banished to the elephant graveyard the echo park of the animal kingdom. I mean for a allegedly benevolent king like Mufasa to exile and entire groups to slow death is kind of extreme. Look at Scar's call to arms "stick with me and YOU'LL NEVER GO HUNGRY AGAIN!" umm yeah doesnt seem so black and white now
DeleteMike, that is an EXCELLENT point. That movie is fucked up all around. But I do like the idea of exiling (sp?) criminals to an island where they can all live together. Sounds like justice to me.
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