Some Updates…
Been reading the Robin Williams Biography
-Watched the Hall of Fame Netflix special
+Thought maybe I wanted to be a comic after this. All so funny. Something about the non-conventional attractiveness of each artist helped me identify as them. They were true stars, with tons of talent and skill. They could be in the flow of an interview and use their material, or be present enough to come up with jokes on the spot. Their artistry made their personas seamlessly joined with their art. And with their guardedness and comedic “defense mechanisms,” I felt like I was watching artists be celebrated for things I do naturally. Robin Williams, Joan Rivers, Richard Pryor, and George Carlin were extraordinary people. Carlin is maybe the most “old-fashioned” in his style of the four, but you can sense that his rejection of the suit-and-tie-look, and his evolution towards comedy with political commentary, makes him an artist that changed the game. Probably at the same time the country was changing, making him culturally significant. Robin was a unique talent who could do anything and was probably under-appreciated throughout his life. People seemed to enjoy ragging on him for certain movies and his trademarked nice guy character, but he’s great in everything, and he was extremely generous with his time and money. A huge role model for me for sure. Joan Rivers is so funny, she was funny for a long time and she stayed relevant through her work on E! and on her YouTube show. She’s a phenomenal performer that worked hard and deserves her status as one of the greats, because it takes real artistry and hard work to keep doing interesting work for so long. And to think that before her, women didn’t have the same freedom to be as raunchy or candid in comedy. And Richard Pryor, he was maybe the funniest, to me, of all of them. Watching his specials, his jokes and humor seem to stand the test of time the most. Maybe I just like him more, but he was another trailblazer that was so real, funny and daring. Special people, all of them.
-Watched Jumanji
+Such great acting, it still hit me emotionally at the end. It did for me, contrary to criticism quoted in the book, what good family movies do: scare the kids, but not so harshly that it loses its lightness. Robin is great and so is Bonnie Hunt. Watching as an adult, I’m surprised by how much of it I still connect to. It’s not a perfect movie, but I feel what keeps it interesting is the grounded realness of the performances and the interesting retro cgi. It’s an entertaining peak into the 90s. And I think I had it in my head that Robin Williams wasn’t crying in this movie, but he is; there are a lot of real emotional moments that make his character compelling. Movie holds up because he’s a genius performer and not a sappy sentimental actor. The cgi monkeys look rough. Also, David Alan Grier is awesome, just a great actor. Bebe Neuwirth is underused in this. She’s great in Frasier and has a much different character in this movie that, unfortunately, doesn’t have a lot of screen time. It’s cool to see an early Patricia Clarkson performance. She’s great. I love this movie, for some reason it was played a lot during my childhood in the 00’s and it feels close to home. I almost feel as though I was alive during this time just from having seen it so much as a kid. Like a sweet old memory of mine that reminds me of cereal for dinner and staying up too late. Also, the father and son dynamic is deep. They express their love for each other, though they were fighting, and essentially became mortal enemies. That part still moved me, even if it seems sentimental. And as a kid, that part confused me: why was the embodiment of Robin’s mortal enemy the same guy who was his Dad in the beginning?
-Watched The Big Lebowski
+The dude abides. This movie rocks, every time I see it, it gets more interesting and funny. I laughed the hardest this time than ever before. I remembered lines and now, I hear them all as punchlines. Its a flippant comedy whodunit. No Country and Millers Crossing and Fargo feel much darker and sicker with their humor, but there’s something beautiful about the comedy in this one. It’s maybe not nihilistic. If the dude can stay true so can I. So can you. It’s a really great movie with a tone that feels perfect. Its an adventure, but its a mystery, but its a comedy with stock characters, that are somehow original. I just love this movie, maybe my 4th or 5th time watching it. I know others have seen it way more, but I just catch it on streaming when I can. I think it has a Rocky Horror-style fan base (RIP Tim Curry). I think the plot is hard to follow, but I happened to have the captions on, and you can see how every detail feels relevant. Every line matters, nothing is wasted. It’s so funny, unique and just bold in a way that you want great movies to be. For Donny to die and that be the end of the story is such a beautiful, touching ending that feels almost as non-sequitur as the jokes, and hits me just as strong. Everything about the plot seems to stop mattering because Donny dies. And the Dude abides. He stays true no matter what. He wants to smoke pot, bowl with his buddies, drink White Russians, and thats it.
I love this type of movie because I really want to be in a movie like this. I really feel that I can play a guy in a weird world like this. I love the Coen brothers, I hope I can make it in one of their movies before retirement. I also love Yorgos and Ari Aster, I really think I can fit into the tone anxiousness and deviancy that characterizes their styles. Also, these movies are awesome because they’re reaching out to say something personal from their stylistic choices. Each of them are really smart, so I don’t know what their process is like with the story, but I like that plots thicken, real thick, in their movies. And then you come out the other end of them with an understanding that these directors are expressing a real perspective. Ari Aster is an anxious guy who enjoys psychedelics, and has some things to say about his mom. Yorgos thinks about sex and love a lot, and how society influences our ways of connecting. And the Coens are thinking about what makes them American, because their Midwestern upbringing seems to influence their perspective on the rest of the country. No matter how different each of us are from each other, we all share the same stories of U.S. history and culture. Even if we had nothing to do with it. I saw a video essay that argued the Coen brothers were creating a modern American canon of mythology. Their idiosyncratic characters mix between being easily recognizable to wholly original and from “our time.”
Okay, cool. I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. It’s late, goodnight.
Rolling Ferro
