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weather, movies, etc.
May. 13th, 2014 03:13 pmIn news from the desert southwest of the US, it has been snowing intermittently all day. The snow melts as soon as it hits the ground, but it's still a bit of a shock in the middle of May. And tomorrow's supposed to be even colder.
Some folks were curious about things I included in the movie/tv meme I posted the other day, so, some explanations.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp made my list partly to represent the whole genre of WWII films, because the world wars have been a consuming interest of mine for several years now, and at least a vague interest ever since I was a teenager. Colonel Blimp also has a number of qualities that made me pick it out from the rest. To start with, it's simply a very good film in all respects. And because it was made during the war, it lacks the mythologizing and sentimentalizing that crop up in many (not all) WWII films made in the 1950s and 1960s. It has a strong m/m homoerotic element (always a plus for me), but it also has interesting female characters with agency and personality--which is probably another benefit of its being made during the war rather than during the postwar backlash. I've written more about the film here if anyone's curious.
An anon asked whether I think Brideshead Revisited (the miniseries, not the dreadful film from a few years ago) is worth rewatching. I can only say "I don't know." I haven't rewatched it for years, and I'm not sure if I could stand to rewatch the whole thing because I want to stop while Charles and Sebastian are happy and Charles is less of a complete git than he later becomes. But Brideshead was so formative for me that I had to put it on the list. When I was a young teenager in rural Minnesota, the only television station we reliably received was a PBS affiliate, and the things I watched then--Brideshead, Monty Python, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy--marked me for life. They were a glimpse into another world, but they also resonated for me in a way that American TV never had (this was the era of Dallas, the Dukes of Hazzard, and endless reruns of Hogan's Heroes and the Andy Griffith show in afternoon syndication). In particular, Brideshead was the first really homoerotic thing I'd ever seen onscreen; I'd already developed a reluctant taste for m/m homoeroticism, which I fed on fantasies and any hints or implications I could find in any media, but in Brideshead it was all right out in the open, and with the emotions, at least, lushly detailed too. Brideshead gave me a fondness for men walking arm in arm, pairs of men punting on lovely English rivers, men wading barefoot with their trousers rolled up, and men wearing white flannel. Plus the show boosted my developing Anglophilia, so I think it explains a lot about me.
As for Hot Fuzz--I didn't like it the first time I saw it. But I couldn't resist Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's chemistry for long. I guess it's on the list as "what every buddy movie should be but seldom is"?
Finally, I listed White Christmas partly because I really love Christmas, and partly because I really really love Danny Kaye. I still haven't figured out how he managed to have a stage person that was that gay and still be beloved in 1940s and 1950s America, but he did. (And yes, I am convinced by the biographical claims that Kaye himself was gay or bi. Not sure whether I believe he was really having an affair with Laurence Olivier, but I badly want to believe it.) Anyway, in White Christmas Kaye and Bing Crosby have astonishing chemistry as showbiz partners and best friends, and the het romance for Kaye's character is so blatantly tacked on that I find it ignorable. Plus, there's a bit with Crosby and Kaye sort of in drag. Yes, really.
Some folks were curious about things I included in the movie/tv meme I posted the other day, so, some explanations.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp made my list partly to represent the whole genre of WWII films, because the world wars have been a consuming interest of mine for several years now, and at least a vague interest ever since I was a teenager. Colonel Blimp also has a number of qualities that made me pick it out from the rest. To start with, it's simply a very good film in all respects. And because it was made during the war, it lacks the mythologizing and sentimentalizing that crop up in many (not all) WWII films made in the 1950s and 1960s. It has a strong m/m homoerotic element (always a plus for me), but it also has interesting female characters with agency and personality--which is probably another benefit of its being made during the war rather than during the postwar backlash. I've written more about the film here if anyone's curious.
An anon asked whether I think Brideshead Revisited (the miniseries, not the dreadful film from a few years ago) is worth rewatching. I can only say "I don't know." I haven't rewatched it for years, and I'm not sure if I could stand to rewatch the whole thing because I want to stop while Charles and Sebastian are happy and Charles is less of a complete git than he later becomes. But Brideshead was so formative for me that I had to put it on the list. When I was a young teenager in rural Minnesota, the only television station we reliably received was a PBS affiliate, and the things I watched then--Brideshead, Monty Python, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy--marked me for life. They were a glimpse into another world, but they also resonated for me in a way that American TV never had (this was the era of Dallas, the Dukes of Hazzard, and endless reruns of Hogan's Heroes and the Andy Griffith show in afternoon syndication). In particular, Brideshead was the first really homoerotic thing I'd ever seen onscreen; I'd already developed a reluctant taste for m/m homoeroticism, which I fed on fantasies and any hints or implications I could find in any media, but in Brideshead it was all right out in the open, and with the emotions, at least, lushly detailed too. Brideshead gave me a fondness for men walking arm in arm, pairs of men punting on lovely English rivers, men wading barefoot with their trousers rolled up, and men wearing white flannel. Plus the show boosted my developing Anglophilia, so I think it explains a lot about me.
As for Hot Fuzz--I didn't like it the first time I saw it. But I couldn't resist Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's chemistry for long. I guess it's on the list as "what every buddy movie should be but seldom is"?
Finally, I listed White Christmas partly because I really love Christmas, and partly because I really really love Danny Kaye. I still haven't figured out how he managed to have a stage person that was that gay and still be beloved in 1940s and 1950s America, but he did. (And yes, I am convinced by the biographical claims that Kaye himself was gay or bi. Not sure whether I believe he was really having an affair with Laurence Olivier, but I badly want to believe it.) Anyway, in White Christmas Kaye and Bing Crosby have astonishing chemistry as showbiz partners and best friends, and the het romance for Kaye's character is so blatantly tacked on that I find it ignorable. Plus, there's a bit with Crosby and Kaye sort of in drag. Yes, really.
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