It's Harold and Maude's Illusions, I Recall...

I used to like this film a lot more when I was younger. But you know, you grow. You mature...

Seriously, I did love this movie when I first saw it in my mid-20s. Yet when I saw it again when I was much older, I found it a bit cartoonish. It wasn't so much that the movie had changed; it was more that my perspective was different.

When I first saw this movie, I was flirting with the idea of suicide. When I saw it much later, I had long ago put paid to any notion that I would ever deliberately kill myself. I still wonder sometimes if I'll die an early death due to my many health issues. But I'm no longer flirting with the idea of killing myself the way I used to do back in my mid-20s.

I still like the movie nonetheless. And though I can't help feeling a bit sorry for Harold's various "dates" throughout the movie -- most of which end up being scared away by Harold's attempts to use special effects to duplicate suicide attempts -- I must admit that I have more respect for the movie's ultimately pro-life message than I do the positive messages of most mainstream movies. Even Ruth Gordon -- an actress I usually find annoying in other movies -- came across very well in this flick -- even though the role she played (that of an eccentric old woman) was the first of many similar roles that she would play during the rest of her acting career.

Just the same, I'm glad they never made a sequel to this movie. Or worse yet, a remake.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Crush”

I have been researching a lot of old Buffy episodes in order to prepare for my latest Buffy fanfic story and I'm kinda surprised what thoughts come to mind watching such episodes nowadays that didn't occur to me when I first watched them. For example, there was a scene in this story where the vampire Spike kept professing his love for the title character over and over again, only to have his feelings mocked and rejected. Granted, this was a character who spent his first two seasons on the show trying his damnedest to kill the Slayer so it is kinda hard not to see why Buffy might be shocked by this latest turn of events. Then again one can't help but wonder how this reaction of Buffy's would be received by the TV audience if it were a female vampire -- like, say, Drusilla -- professing her love for Buffy instead of a more conventional choice like Spike.

Okay, it does not necessarily have to be Spike's ex-girlfriend Drusilla in the scenario I mentioned above but it is kinda hard to hear Buffy continually talk about how disgusting the idea of Spike loving her was to her without thinking of an obvious parallel in the real world. You could say that people no longer act like that nowadays but one would wonder how much of the idea that "people no longer act like that" is based on wishful thinking. Prejudices don't always go away easily and given the way many scenes in Buffy have rightly or wrongly been alleged to have a gay subtext, one can't help but wonder whether or not this is one of them.

Of course I might be biased on the whole matter because I've written quite a number of fanfic stories -- both serious and not so serious -- about the odd relationship between Buffy and Drusilla, and it has gotten to the point that even when I try to write a Buffy story that doesn't have Drusilla in it, she nevertheless finds a way to enter the storyline. In many ways, I find her more interesting than other female vampire characters on the show like Darla and Sunday because -- among other things -- she doesn't even try to act normal. She is not always as crazy as she pretends to be and she's certainly not as likable as her fans would hope but she is interesting to write about. I can't help but see her as kind of an anti-Buffy -- a woman who -- like Buffy Summers -- was cursed with an unwanted supernatural power and rejected by a mother who did not understand her gifts. I don't believe that it would be fair to argue that Drusilla is basically what Buffy would be like if she ever became a vampire but she is not as dissimilar from Buffy as I once would have liked to believe.

Anyway, there is another scene in this episode in which Drusilla tries to persuade Buffy that even a vampire has the ability to love. That said love is real and not a thinly disguised parody of the real thing. Again, one can't help but think of real-life parallels. And one doesn't necessarily have to confine such parallels to the gay community either. The deepest heterosexual feelings I ever felt were for a woman who was never my official girlfriend -- yet in my own way, I loved her more seriously than many of my more "official" romantic interests. And in her own way, she showed more affection to me than I ever received from many women whom I actually dated.

Anyway, we all have a tendency to read our own issues into the stories that we see on both the big screen and the little screen. And sometimes these readings are even true.

Edited to Add:

Further Thoughts on This Episode:

Cool! Drusilla traveled to Sunnydale via Amtrak. So odd to see an American TV show episode set in the early 21th century that had people traveling by train.

The opening in which various train passengers were attacked by an unseen assailant was well-done. So was the final fight scene, which involved a tied-up Drusilla getting herself loose so that she could attack a chained-up Buffy. If nothing else, that scene made me realize how rare it was to see a scene on this show where Drusilla and Buffy actually fight each other.

Poor Harmony Kendall attempted to win Spike over by doing the world's worst impression of Buffy Summers ever.

Dawn attempted to bond with Spike and annoyed the heck out of her big sister by doing so. Because apparently certain traits -- like befriending vampires -- run in the family.

Spike was easily one of the most popular characters on this show -- especially with female fans. But many of his actions on this show seemed at best questionable. For example, his attempt to persuade Buffy to give him a chance by offering to stake Drusilla seemed so obviously destined to fail that it was surprising that a smart guy like Spike thought of it. If nothing else, Buffy would have to have been insane to look at the way Spike was treating his once-beloved Drusilla and not see a vision of the type of treatment that she could expect from Spike if she ever chose to let him fall in love with her. And Spike was an idiot for not seeing that.

Poema de Mi Id

“Amor Prohibido (Forbidden Love)”

Your ring finger has a white circle
Not yet conquered by the summer sun.
I know my love for you, my darling,
Should be something that my heart should shun.

But I smile when I see your face
On a day that is frigid and gray
And I sadden when I must see you
Start to turn and walk the other way.

Science Fiction Quote of the Week

I know you’ve all laughed at the comic-book idea of some Martian monster lusting after beautiful white women. But has it ever occurred to you that a creature from outside might simply and honestly fall in love with you?
--Helen in Fritz Leiber's “The Ship Sails at Midnight”

Pop Song of the Week: "(I'm in Love with) the Creature from the Black Lagoon"

I'm sorry, Mr. del Toro, but apparently there really isn't anything new under the sun...

Though it is nice to see that actress Alice Pearce was notable for something other than playing Gladys Kravitz on the TV show Bewitched.

Six Feet Under and Could Have Been Kissed

Necrophilia is admittedly not a common subject to see in the movies, even in art films. Female necrophiles are even rarer a subject -- perhaps because like female exhibitionists, they seem like too much like a guy's fantasy -- especially a weird guy's fantasy -- to take seriously. Or perhaps it's more likely that we would like to think women are above that kind of stuff. After all, there's relatively little one could write about a man's sex life that one would not believe, no matter how weird it is. But women, of course, are supposed to be different. And anyway, if we have to explore such fantasies, wouldn't a film like Eyes Wide Shut or Nine and a Half Weeks seem like a safer direction to go?

In any event, the 1996 movie Kissed does attempt to go in such a direction -- though for a while, it seems determined to shadow the far darker movie Heavenly Creatures. It starts out with a young girl named Sandra Larson (played by Molly Parker) who is obsessed with death to the extent of devising her own private rituals to deal with it -- rituals so weird even her would-be friend gets freaked out by them. Eventually, she grows up and gets a job in a funeral parlor where she learns to subliminate her obsession with death by "kissing" the bodies of young dead males.

Of course, she does a lot more than just kiss them but alas, there is no verb in English one could use as an adequate substitute. "Embrace" sounds like way too mild an euphemism and a more sexually explicit term would imply that mere lust was Ms. Larson's sole motivation. Indeed, while the film does not pretend that Ms. Larson's horizontal activities are exactly normal, it does not pretend that mere sex is Mr. Larson's sole motive either -- unless one prefers to argue that Ms. Larson's obsession with death is merely a substitute for a more "normal" obsession with sex. And even then one would have to ignore the quasi-religious overtones of Ms. Larson's obsession -- though one might argue that Sandra would hardly be the first person to confuse sex with religion...

Anyway, Sandra eventually gets the chance to have a conventional sexual relationship, only to frustrate her would-be boyfriend with her apparent lack of interest. Then her boyfriend discovers her real secret and decides upon the ultimate solution to their relationship problems...

If there's one flaw in Kissed, it's that in the end, it settles for an all too conventional ending. Granted, they had to end the movie somehow but it still seemed strange that a movie originally focused upon a female character ended up being centered on the fate of a male character.

For that matter, I can't help feeling a bit uneasy about the film's efforts to portray necrophilia as a "natural" impulse. After all, it's easy to argue that such a practice would be harmless if practiced by cute young women like Molly Parker but it's usually not women like Ms. Parker who go in for such a practice in real life. More often than not, such women are the victims of would-be necrophiles, not their kindred spirits. And it can be argued that necrophilia is the ultimate form of sexual assault since there is no way the victim could give consent even if he or she wanted to. And even if one were to make an airtight legal case on behalf of such a practice, there would still be something sad about a person who voluntarily chose to embrace the dead instead of the living. Even if the living are a bit hard to put up with these days.

In Rio, Romance Is for the Birds

I liked this movie well enough for the first ten minutes when it seemed like it would be the story of the sweetest relationship between woman and bird since Lesbia and her sparrow. But then they had go bringing another bird into the plot and then a guy.

They couldn't just leave female bookstore owner Linda Gunderson and her pet macaw Blu alone to find their own path; no, they had to go ahead and imply that both of them were missing something. Well, the two of them seemed just happy together. Happy, I say. And sure it's nice that Linda and Blu finally found happiness with others but jeez, all that trouble that they went through to find it. Frankly, Blu would have been better off had he stayed home in Alab -- er, Minnesota. Run, Blu, run. And for heaven's sake, ignore that Anita girl and don't stick to your own kind.

Movie Quote of the Week

Out. What a nice word.
--Paula Kelly, Sweet Charity (1969)

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

The Big Bang Theory: “The Adhesive Duck Deficiency”

At long last the show gives us proof that the seemingly asexual Sheldon is not quite as asexual as he seems. Of course, I should be embarrassed to admit I found this out via a rerun but I guess that is still better than waiting for the DVD.

Then again how exactly am I supposed to react to an episode that makes fun of a character for having had sex with his cousin when more than a few relatives in my family had actually married -- and on one occasion that I know of, had children with -- a cousin? Yes, they are aware of the laws of genetics. And most of them chose to marry said cousin after they had conceived all the children they want with a former spouse. And to be fair, not every cousin in my family seeks to marry another cousin.

Then again if it was good enough for Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, who am I to look down on the practice?

Death Be Not Loud

Oh, those wacky Latinos and their crazy funeral traditions involving respect for the dead. Don't they realize that the true purpose of funerals is for therapy and that any other consideration is just plain silly and old-fashioned? At least that is the way some British and Anglo-Americans see it. And are not their viewpoints the only viewpoints that are really worth taking seriously?

At least that is the impression I got from two movies I saw recently: 2004's Eulogy and 2007's Death at a Funeral. Both were critically acclaimed comedies that were supposedly to be great -- and both were at best just okay.

Of the two, I liked Eulogy best. Granted, a lot of that was because of actress Zooey Deschanel who has the ability to make even the most modest movie she is in seem more entertaining than it should. But she also has a good cast to back her up. Hank Azaria plays her father Daniel, Piper Laurie plays her grandmother Charlotte, Debra Winger and Kelly Preston play her aunts Alice and Lucy and Glenne Headly plays a wacky nurse named Samantha. Former TV star Ray Romano is also in it as Uncle Skip but the less said about him, the better.

Toward the beginning of the film, Ms. Deschanel's character, Kate Collins, is informed that her grandfather has passed away. Her grandmother assigns her to write an eulogy but Kate does not quite know what to say. She tries to quiz her father, her uncle and her two aunts about the man who was their father but what she gets is of little if any help. Even the local pastor does not seem to know the deceased that well. As you might guess, there proves to be a reason for that.

The movie generally tries to get humor out of a number of family secrets. For example, Uncle Skip still screams for his late father's attention and has two boys who are obsessed with sex and very much into immature practical jokes. Aunt Lucy still fights with her older sister Alice over her open lesbianism and the fact that she brought her live-in partner Judy (played by Famke Janssen) with her for the funeral. Daniel mourns more for his lost career as a child star than he does his late father and supports himself with bit parts in pornographic movies. Kate's mother is dead but still manages to have an embarrassing secret. Aunt Alice seems to have the perfect family -- one that talks way less than she does -- but she too has her secrets...

At first, I suspected that this movie was one of those films that critics love for striking all the right liberal notes without really saying anything new or challenging. The type of movie that would be quite shocking to my grandmother's generation but seems almost old hat to the more liberal members of my own.

But it proved to have a few good moments -- most of them starring Ms. Deschanel, who does a good job of playing straight woman to the other characters. She does not have the showiest part in the movie but she does get to play the one character who is closest to being a recognizable human being.

The other characters have their moments too. For example, I liked Alice's conversation with Lucy about the hopes she had for her baby sister, the scene in which Skip's sons acknowledged his affection but noted that words were not necessary, and the scene in which Charlotte presented Judy with some of her old wardrobe. In other words, the movie worked best when it remembered that its characters were part of a family and not characters in some zany sitcom.

As for Death at a Funeral, that film had a similar formula. A family patriarch dies, all sorts of embarrassing secrets come out and every other family member decides to use the occasion as an impromptu therapy session. The movie did improve toward the end when a lead character got the chance to give an genuinely moving eulogy. But it still seemed like much ado about nothing, if not a self-congratulatory excuse to make movie-goers happy that “at least their family was not like that.”

Oh, well. A lot of my family's behavior around the time of my father's death in 2003 would have seemed strange to outsiders too. Then again we did manage to restrain ourselves from making public spectacles of ourselves and we bent over backwards to work out every disagreement we had over my father's estate in a peaceful manner. Plus -- and I know this might sound strange to some non-Hispanics -- we actually showed signs of missing and mourning our late father. I know that is not the type of stuff that makes for a particularly entertaining movie but then I am not quite convinced that a lot of the antics that took place in Eulogy and Death at a Funeral were all that entertaining either. Perhaps it is one of those Latino things that others would not understand.

Comic Book Image of the Week

Is this the all-time best title for a comic book or what?


No, wait. Maybe this one is.


And to think they were sold at the same newstands as regular comics. Too bad they're basically romance comics and the titles don't necessarily mean what I would like to think they mean.

For that matter, neither title lasted all that long. Apparently there wasn't that big a market for romance comics back in the 1970s and both comic books changed to more conventional titles after the first four issues. In addition, they both also became conventional horror anthologies. So much for those titles.

But, hey! I can dream, can't I?

Damn It, Cesca!

And the award for Link Tonio Kruger is Least Likely to Share with His Sister goes to...

Seriously, who knew there were so many examples of that theme to be found in pop culture?

And that's without mentioning Wuthering Heights.

Top of the World, Sis!

I don’t know. Maybe because you’re me and I’m you. It’s always been that way.
--Ann Dvorak, Scarface (1932)

Mother of Mercy, could this line be the best of 1932’s Scarface? Okay, maybe not. After all, it does not exactly rank up there with “we’ll always have Paris” or “I am Heathcliff.” But it is still memorable in its own way if for no other way than the fact that that line is not delivered by the male protagonist’s wife or girlfriend -- it is delivered by his sister. And it says something about the spiritedness of Ann Dvorak’s performance as said sister that that scene does not come across as ridiculous as I would have thought.

To be fair, the entire movie hints at a rather odd connection between the title character Tony Camonte (played by Paul Muni) and his sister Francesca -- aka Cesca -- that goes beyond mere familial protectiveness. Whenever Tony sees Cesca kiss a boy, he gets jealous. He does not mind “rewarding” her for being a good girl by giving her part of his ill-gotten gains but he insists on “protecting” her honor despite her own wishes to the contrary. A gesture that seems even more hypocritical when he chooses to pursue Poppy, his boss’s blonde Anglo-American mistress. Apparently, Tony doesn’t mind pursuing his own version of forbidden fruit -- but he will be damned if he will allow Cesca the same freedom.

Although Tony’s mother is wise enough to suspect Tony’s true motive for being so zealous about his little sister’s honor, she is not strong enough to do anything about it. Neither Tony nor Cesca are inclined to listen to her, and since Tony is an up-and-coming gangster, forcing him to do her maternal bidding is hardly a realistic option.

Even Tony’s own boss cannot keep Tony in his place. Tony is bound and determined to gain as much power in the bootlegging business as he can get, even if it means trouble with rival gangsters and the cops. Toward the end, he manages to finally win Poppy away from his competition by literally disposing of his rival. But he is still not satisfied and keeps on pushing until finally his feelings for his sister prove to be his undoing.

The end shows a distracted Tony facing near-death from his own sibling until the arrival of the cops outside Tony’s residence prompts Cesca to have a change of heart regarding her brother. The two of them prepare to make a final stand against the cops but such a stand proves futile. In the end, Tony gets his long-overdue just desserts and justice is finally served. Sort of.

It’s tempting to negatively compare this version of Scarface with the more famous 1983 remake by director Brian De Palma, but I must confess that I like this version better. Granted, Muni’s accent seems silly at times and his character appears to be way too much an Italian-American stereotype -- but it never provoked the same giggles in me as Al Pacino’s laughable attempt at a Cuban accent in the 1983 movie. Nor is Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance in that movie quite as compelling as Karen Morley’s performance as Poppy.

Ann Dvorak, of course, is in a class by herself, regardless of whether her character is leaning out a window to look at an organ grinder or trying her best to seduce a gangster. Even the potentially silly ending of her character seems more compelling than the fate of a similar character in the 1983 film -- perhaps because Hawks does not quite end her character’s story arc on a safe, reassuring note but manages to hint at an even more subversive relationship between the two siblings than even the most liberal of movie-goers would have guessed. A relationship so daring that even a provocative director like De Palma did not dare to depict anything similar on screen -- though George Lucas undoubtedly came close.

But perhaps I’m reading a bit too much into the movie. After all, most Latins -- Italian and otherwise -- that I have met in real life are at best indifferent to their little sisters or at least are no more affectionate to their female siblings than their Anglo counterparts. While I must admit to being somewhat fond of my own little sister, I am not that fond of my little sister. And I assure you all that my feelings for her are strictly platonic. Seriously.

Although I guess I should find it somewhat disturbing that I seem to be developing a taste in my love life for blondes -- and my little sister, of course, is blonde.

Then again she doesn’t resemble Ann Dvorak so I should rest easy. Right?

Right?

Song Quote of the Week

Aunque soy pobre todo esto que te doy
Vale más que el dinero porque sí es amor.
(Even though I'm poor, all this that I give you
is worth more than money because it truly is love.)
--Selena, A. B. Quintanilla III and Pete Astudillo, “Amor Prohibido”

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Runaway Bride”

Oh, great. A week after my breakup with my former bride-to-be, I broke down crying halfway through a viewing of Sweet Charity. Why? Because I had just gotten to the part when Charity's boyfriend was breaking up with her and for some reason, the scene evoked bad memories.

Yet weeks later, I'm watching an episode of Doctor Who that seems calculated to push all my emotional buttons and I don't even shed a tear. (I did cry the morning after, but I wasn't exactly thinking about the episode at the time.)

The emotional buttons in question:

1. Disrupted wedding? Check.

2. Bride-to-be who has issues with her parents. Check.

3. Reminder of a past girlfriend (Doctor Who's, of course, not the bride's, though that certainly would have made for an interesting subplot). Check.

4. Torrent of endless heartbreak. Check, check and check.

And yet again, I note, I did not shed a tear.

I don't know how to explain it. I still go off when I see certain reminders of my bride-to-be though I do not go off as often as I did two weeks ago. But it seems a trifle unfair to take it out on the show and I must admit that “The Runaway Bride” was one of the better episodes I've seen. (Someday, I'll give my thoughts on earlier episodes but not right now.)

Anyway, the story proved to be very entertaining. I must admit to having a soft spot for spunky redheads and while the runaway bride of the episode's title was not hardly the brightest companion the Doctor has ever had, she was certainly one of the most memorable.

I'm not sure what to say about the not-so-subtle anti-marriage subtext (after all the romantic rhetoric about marriage in Season One's "Father's Day" episode, this episode's take on marriage seems a bit harsh). Nor do I really want to comment on the subplot concerning a deadly single mother. (Yes, another single mom. Apparently the show's writers have a weakness for such characters.)

And what's with the episode's last-minute deus ex machina? Could it be connected to a future episode?

It's interesting to compare this series' “so what?” attitude to interracial relationships to the “let's shock the bourgeois” attitude seen in Borat. Of course, it would be argued that any series that has an alien as its protagonist and Earthwomen as its secondary characters would have to have a liberal attitude towards interracial relationships lest it suffer a charge of hypocrisy. After all, who would want to watch a show that expects you to buy the lead female character mooning over an alien but has trouble depicting a relationship between a black Earth man and a white Earth woman? Okay, some people probably would, but not the type that I prefer to know.