Wayne’s World (1992) and Us (2019)
I saw Wayne’s World at Bryant Park! Had a blast, what a classic! First time seeing it in its entirety. Full of great stuff. Comedy and acting lessons. I really enjoyed how silly it was. All the innocence and goofball-ery made this movie endearing. I feel like I’m a Mike Myers type. I enjoyed all the mugging and clowning to the camera. And I forgot how much of that I enjoy in his Austin Powers character. Which I watched a lot as a kid (I vaguely remember watching Goldmember in the theater). The whole bit with Cassandra where he humps the Knight and rolls his belly was gold. I love improvisation that feels like clowning, which is present, spontaneous, and almost at risk of being unfunny. He’s in his tighty-whiteys, he’s gotta be doin’ some humpin’. Garth is great, such a specific kind of character. I read on the trivia that Dana Carvey actually played the drums in the sequence in the guitar shop! Which is so cool, I love when actors have other talents that they can incorporate into their characters, very cool. Thats a great thing to develop between gigs because you never know when a skill like that can elevate a performance. It gives the movie layers because it broke its own flow, and its not a cheesy joke. Its a killer drum solo that shifts the movie into a theatrical experience like an episode of SNL. Suddenly Garth is complicated soul, a savant friend with pure intentions, but a lot of social anxiety that gets in his way.
These moments, including Alice Cooper’s and Tia Carrere’s musical scenes, mixed in with all the slapstick gags, pop-culture references, and playful absurdity created this “good vibes” effect on me. The movie felt like what Tarantino calls “a hang out movie.” It’s a great movie to watch with friends because it felt like the characters were also my friends. It’s got heart, too. I like that moment where things are suddenly falling apart, and Wayne is venting to us before he switches, turns to the camera with his big smile and goes, “It’s alright I’ll figure it out!” I appreciated this because it felt like subtle wisdom. Maybe that’s just what great comedy does, subverts your expectations, but I like to imagine when Myers has Wayne deny the possibility of a bad ending, he’s actually being true to life. The whole vibe would’ve shifted if we felt we were meant to be worried about Wayne, but he’s the hero. And when you’re the hero sometimes you can win when you look at things differently. I can imagine seeing this movie as a kid and holding onto that attitude just because Wayne did it. He owns who he is and isn’t taking it that seriously even when the situation’s worrisome. I loved it, and as an actor, I can see no greater achievement than creating characters people love like Wayne and Garth . This is a movie in its own time capsule, but that still party’s on. I keep it in rotation for the vibes. Cuz its just so chill. Anyway…Excellent!
Us was another great rewatch. I love where it goes and how crazy it gets. It shifts into an apocalyptic adventure, with an amazing twist, and a classic horror movie vibe. Watching it again, I felt rewarded by Lupita Nyong’o’s choices. Spoiler alert: She was really an underground, shadow version of herself that had escaped by kidnapping her “normal” self and trapping that version underground. Watching her again felt like watching someone experience trauma again. But her expressive eyes seemed to be rediscovering the trauma. I felt as if the character had assumed she would be capable of being at her childhood summer home, without being triggered, but once there, was taken aback by memories she’d forgotten. It’s all there without her having to say that. It’s really insane how amazing she is in this role. Her vocal technique and body movement for her “evil” version was so specific and theatrical, but so real. She’s sobbing as her “evil” version finally getting revenge for being trapped underground. It’s an unforgettable performance. Another reason to aspire to train at Yale so I could do deep, nuanced, and original character work like that. According to the trivia, she based it on RFK Jr. (lol, i think that’s a user being funny).
Everyone was so good. Tim Heidecker is great, and Elisabeth Moss is amazing man. She’s awesome, not in the movie for very long, but she also hits it out of the park. It made me wonder how Jordan Peele directs. How much time on set did Moss have? How nervous was she with such little time for her character, but with so many complicated emotions in one shot? I thought she killed it with that lip gloss scene because suddenly her shadow self gave her “normal” self a vulnerability. What kind of environment do Peele’s sets feel like? I would want to be an actor to enjoy pretending to live in these skewed worlds that are completely unique creations. Yorgos Lanthimos, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Christopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig, Guillermo Del Toro, and Lee Sung Jin are some that come to mind. I think Jordan Peele has said that he gives the actors movies to watch and I love that kind of collaboration between actors and directors. That’s really exciting to think that one day I could be in a role with a director who wants to share the vision like that. The other movies I saw that he recommended are Funny Games (2000) and Martyrs (2008) and they fucked me right up. I loved them, only saw them once, and I remembered them while watching Us. I could feel the sadistic appreciation for them in this movie. Funny Games is sicc and Martyrs is too, but it might take a couple of years before I rewatch them.
I like that this movie was about class. It gave everything else in the story, that could be sci-fi, an ominous sense of being hypothetical. And there’s a lot to unpack, I mean why is it that ballet connects the two worlds? What does that say about art and its role between the rich, middle-class, and poor? Great movie, a lot to talk about. A lot of micro-aggressions from white characters. Who’s in the helicopters in the end? Is this the only family to survive their attacking doppelgängers? What does that say about them? I sound like elementary school, and it’s late so I’m cutting it here.
Rolling Ferro
