Gabs Writes

Tag: movies

  • Fictional relationships that have turned me to goo

    Fictional relationships that have turned me to goo

    You know how sometimes you become too invested in a fictional couple? That’s me, currently. And while I have wild ambitions to fill this blog with smart posts that closely analyze media and show that I am capable of deep and nuanced thinking…uh, instead here’s a list of some of my favorite fictional couples!

    In case you were wondering, the cause of my current case of distraction is Our Flag Means Death on HBOMax. It’s a ten episode season of half hour episodes and is a goofy, funny little pirate show that somehow makes you really sad at the end? Give it a try and then harass HBO to renew it for a second season.

    An eighteenth century ship sails on the ocean during sunset
    The ships are comin’ in, captain! The relationships, that is. (Photo by Raimond Klavins on Unsplash)

    Or check out this very non-comprehensive list of some of my favorite fictional couples.

    A quick aside: This list was mostly for what was top of mind, but I did decide to do a quick Google search for some all-time great couples just to see if I was forgetting anything glaring, and some of the results were wild. And proof that not enough people have actually read classic novels. (Listen, Scarlett and Rhett are a very interesting couple but they are not goals! Cathy and Heathcliffe is the weirdest relationship goal you could ever have, please don’t! Who included Pip and Estella from Great Expectations? That’s obscure and also wrong! Also, the correct ship from that book is clearly Miss Havisham and her old wedding dress. If you would like more classic novel relationship hot takes, let me know and I will provide.)

    All right, with that out of the way, here is the list in question:

    Television

    David and Patrick – Schitt’s Creek

    Have I had out of body experiences because this particular relationship on this particular show makes me so damn happy? I’m pretty sure I have.

    In general, Schitt’s Creek is a show absolutely worth watching and anyone who has spent five seconds on the internet and been inundated with nonstop memes knows this already or is too annoyed to give the show a chance.

    Almost every last character on this show is an absolute delight. But David might be my favorite? And his relationship with Patrick is one of my favorite things in the history of scripted television and on my initial watch definitely made me cry at least thrice.

    Josh and Donna – The West Wing

    Okay. I know this is kind of problematic. Josh is sort of a huge asshole and flirting with the person who works for you is complicated on a whole number of levels. BUT Bradley Whitford and Janel Moloney have a lot of chemistry and I was still happy they ended up together.

    This is one of my early ships from middle school or something so my feelings about the The West Wing are considerably more complicated these days. Still! They are a formative fictional couple for me. I enjoy watching this emotionally constipated man realize he’s been in love with someone for like five years.

    Leslie and Ben – Parks and Rec

    Another workplace relationship but this one I still fully endorse. Leslie Knope is one of my favorite characters on television in general and Adam Scott is incredible? (If you haven’t seen Severance, you should. He is startlingly good in it.) I picked up this show when it was around season four, and I remember absolutely tearing through it at every free possible moment not just because it’s very good but also because I was dying to see the Leslie and Ben thing play out.

    Impossible not to love a “they have so much chemistry and really want to get together but are trying not to because of other reasons but can’t stay apart” relationship. Inject it into my veins.

    Books

    Darcy and Elizabeth – Pride and Prejudice

    This is my most basic opinion, but it’s not wrong. Also, all the classic literature lists that included Heathcliffe and Cathy as an iconic relationship but not Darcy and Elizabeth…huh?

    I personally like Jane Austen (very brave, I know). Her sense of humor strikes me just right and her characters are so fun to watch bounce off each other. And that includes the main couple in this book. Darcy’s first proposal and Elizabeth’s subsequent rejection of him his an incredible scene that should be put in a museum. The scene at the end when Elizabeth tells Darcy’s aunt that she and Darcy are definitely NOT engaged but she will also not agree to never become engaged to him just because she’s pissed off? Chef’s kiss! I love a man who comes back to propose because he heard you told off his mean, rich aunt.

    Also, yes, Colin Firth is the best Mr. Darcy and his smolder is very real.

    Remus Lupin and Sirius Black – Harry Potter

    My feelings toward this series have become pretty complicated in the past few years largely due to the author of said series being a mean person. In order to include the series, I felt it only fitting to push my favorite relationship of the series even though it has been explicitly rejected by the author. I don’t care. She can shut up because she is wrong.

    Lupin and Sirius 4ever.

    Yes, this still holds true if you are a Lupin and Tonks fan. People can be bisexual!

    Just, come on, the friendship, the hiding, the betrayal, the reunion, the cohabitating, the joint Christmas present? I wrote a lot of fanfiction back in the day. Don’t fight me on this.

    Achilles and Patroclus

    I guess Achilles and Patroclus are technically a fandom ship because The Iliad never outright said they were a couple but um…I consider them canon. (And when it comes to Greek mythology, what really is canon, anyway? The Iliad is basically fanfiction.)

    Because I am a History NerdTM and a School NerdTM, my support for these two as a couple started in high school when I read The Iliad for the first time in Latin class. (In case you were curious, the previous sentence is a good encapsulation of who I am as a person.) And I have been shipping them ever since.

    Saying this makes me a bit of an Achilles/Patroclus hipster, since I was about them many years before Madeline Miller wrote The Song of Achilles, but I don’t judge. Also, The Song of Achilles? Good book.

    I don’t really recommend reading The Iliad unless you want to read a lot of gruesome battle descriptions and lists of how people are related to each other. But I do recommend you consider that after Patroclus was killed by Hector, Achilles had an all out grief fest, hosted funeral games, killed like half the Greek army, and then murdered Hector and defiled his body because of how upset he was. Just consider it.

    Also this:

    A black cloud of grief came shrouding over Achilles.
    Both hands clawing the ground for soot and filth,
    he poured it over his head, fouled his handsome face
    and black ashes settled onto his fresh clean war-shirt.
    Overpowered in all his power, sprawled in the dust,
    Achilles lay there, fallen . . .
    tearing his hair, defiling it with his own hands.

    Book 18 of The Iliad

    It is worth mentioning Achilles and Patroclus both brutally murder their fair share of people on the field of battle. So, like, iconic couple, but also…it’s complicated.

    Red and Blue – This is How You Lose the Time War

    This book is extremely good. I listened to the audiobook and the narration was also extremely good. And it’s short! Now I love a long book, but a novella composed of love letters opponents write each other during an intergalatic war that involves time travel is one of the best ideas anyone has ever had.

    There was a time when this book was getting recommended a lot and some people thought it was overhyped. But those people are wrong. I just love all the ways these characters find and consume letters to each other (sometimes literally consuming the letters in the process). It is somehow sweeping and epic and also deeply personal and just really lovely all around.

    Movies

    Danielle and Henry – Ever After

    This movie has been a favorite of mine since I first saw it in theaters when I was in the third or fourth grade. And I have watched it so many times since that I basically have the entire thing memorized. And it is still so good! And so quotable.

    Danielle and Henry first meet when she throws an apple at his head to stop him from stealing her father’s horse. Then, during their second meeting, she tells him off for being a rich boor. And he is about it. I love how this relationship centers around Danielle unabashedly speaking her mind, even when that involves insulting Henry, and he cannot get enough of it. I also like that he’s a rich brat and Danielle helps expand his worldview.

    The actors have really good chemistry and the relationship is believable. And all the side characters are so fun! The entire move is gold.

    Dido Belle and John Davinier – Belle (2013)

    Anyone else other than me remember this movie? I own it on DVD and watch it at least once a year and I love it a lot. In fact, despite being an aforementioned History NerdTM, I refuse to read about the real history of Dido Belle because I like the movie world and I suspect history is not as good. (Sorry, history, you’re a real one.)

    John Davinier is one of the most earnest men written into existence, and this movie is what helped me recognize that I am super into earnest men as characters and love interests. There’s a scene where he yells at Belle’s uncle in a carriage about how sincerely he loves her and every time my entire body threatens to explode with feeling.

    Don’t know what this says about me, but I recommend checking it out.

    Evie and Rick – The Mummy (and The Mummy Returns)

    These movies are good. There I said it. And Evie and Rick are a perfect power couple. The squabbling and coming together in the first movie is good and then the married couple wild for each other in the second movie is great! I love to see happily married couples on the screen (side shoutout to Thin Man movies for this by the way), even if they are chaotic and horny in weird situations.

    As a history nerd librarian, Evie is basically life goals and Rick is a perfect himbo. How can you not support the two of them?

    It also does the fun one-two punch that the Alien movies do, where the first movie is a sort of horror (liberally sprinkled with clips) and the second is mostly just action adventure (also with many quips). On a related note, I refuse to acknowledge that the third movie exists.

    Give me your opinions on these couples or share your own faves. Let me know if you would like some hot takes on classical literature. Let’s pretend the world is not terrifying and is instead gentle and comforting for a moment.

  • The Power of the Dog: Throwing off vibes

    The Power of the Dog: Throwing off vibes

    I had heard about The Power of the Dog several times in passing before I saw it. Mostly what I heard was that it’s good, it’s on Netflix, and I should watch it before finding out too much about it.

    So I decided one afternoon just to put it on. And, man! Was it weird!

    This movie was my third brush with Jane Campion. I first experienced one of her films in 2015 when my husband and I decided to watch all the Best Picture nominees from 1994. We watched The Piano and spent most of the runtime in a state of confusion. We talked about it pretty extensively after it was over. And then I thought about it pretty much nonstop for days on end.

    I think it’s pretty telling that after watching the ’94 Best Picture nominees, The Piano is the one that lodged itself the most firmly in my mind. This is the year of The Fugitive, Schindler’s List, and The Remains of the Day. These are good movies! And memorable ones too. But somehow a weird little film about a woman and her piano and New Zealand is what stuck with me. (Apologies to the last nominee from 1994, In the Name of the Father. For some reason, we never got around to watching it.)

    A few months ago, I was looking for a movie to watch after having taken the day off work. A newsletter I like had recommended Bright Star, which had been on my Netflix queue for approximately five thousand years. So I popped it on.

    Then I proceeded to think about nothing but Bright Star for about three days. This, of course, included in-depth Googling about John Keats and Fanny Brawne. (I learned that so many people in Keats’ family other than him also tied of tuberculosis. And that several people in Fanny’s family did as well. I now want to read a giant nonfiction tomb about the history of tuberculosis.)

    Aside from the biographical reading, though, I also just kept thinking about the movie itself. It was gorgeous as hell and I highly recommend it.

    Knowing that The Power of the Dog was made by the same woman who made both The Piano and Bright Star completely tracks for me. Bright Star isn’t quite as weird as the other two, but all three have an extremely strong voice. And they are all shot in a really specific way. And they all kind of…linger after they are done.

    Rider on a horse set small against a vast landscape including large hills.
    The movie is basically this. But at the same time deeply unsettling.

    I found a lot to like about The Power of the Dog even though it was weirding me out at every juncture. The performances were very good (and what a delight to see Kirsten Dunst!). The strange menacing energy that Benedict Cumberbatch put off in this movie really worked for me. When I followed up watching this movie by listening to the episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour covering it, I loved that one of the panelists said a sense of imminent dread pervades the entire film. Yes! It definitely does.

    I also did some Googling after watching because I can’t stop myself. I quickly discovered that this movie is actually an adaptation of a book with the same name. That book, by the way, is written by a man named Thomas Savage. This is incredibly fitting and I love that fact.

    The fact that the move was an adaptation initially surprised me. But thinking it through, I do think it makes sense. Using all the information you can find in a book allowed Campion to sort of infuse the movie with this sense of being lived in. You can tell all the characters have a lot going on even if you don’t know what the hell that is. This might be laid out more explicitly in a narrative form that allows for things like that. But my guess is that the richness of the book allowed the film to do a lot while also having very little stated out loud.

    For that reason, I do consider this movie to be more of a vibe than anything else. You’ll get that sense of dread, the weird malice coming off of Benedict Cumberbatch’s character, and then a whole lot of other uncomfortable moments that give The Power of the Dog a distinctive feel.

    Also, I will say that I thought the pay off at the end of the movie was effective.

    Will you like The Power of the Dog? Couple things to consider:

    • Have you liked other Jane Campion films? If so, I think it’s likely you’ll be onboard for this one.
    • Do you like a movie that has more vibes than plot? If you require a more straightforward plot structure, this one might not be for you.
    • Do you like Westerns? Then you might like this movie depending on what you like about Westerns. A John Wayne movie, this is not. If you like a subversion of Westerns or something exploring the prototypical Western story, I’d say give it a try.
    • Are you a Kirsten Dunst fan or Benedict Cumberbatch fan? Probably worth a watch, then. I’m actually not the world’s biggest Cumberbatch fan, but I don’t actively dislike him, and I thought he was good here. (Although I cannot state it strongly enough how deeply unsettling he is.)

    I will also say that there has been some discussion and criticism of how sexuality is portrayed in this movie. I personally thought the film explored some of these ideas more in the exploration of what rigid masculinity and gender roles do to people who don’t fit within those boundaries and less as falling prey to the queer villain archetype. That being said, you might think differently! So just throwing it out there.

    If you have the time and any of the above sounds intriguing to you, I’d say go for it. If nothing else, you’ll get two hours of vibes and some impressive shots of the gorgeous countryside.

    (Go read more about my opinions on the Academy Awards if you want.)

  • Finding some value in the Academy Awards

    Finding some value in the Academy Awards

    It’s not really news that the Oscars are a hot mess this year. They’ve been a hot mess since, well, forever, as far as I can tell. There’s simply a baseline of pure nonsense associated with Hollywood’s most prestigious awards ceremony. Even now, when things are changing due to all the extremely valid criticism of the ceremony and the nominations process, things still tend to go sideways in unexpected ways.

    This year there are some changes that I think are for the better. The pool of voters has expanded as has the number of Best Picture nominees. I liked when the change happened that allowed the Best Picture nominees to go up to ten. But in order to hit certain thresholds, it seemed like a lot of years it was more like seven or eight nominees. That while the expanded pool is supposed to help more unusual movies get nominated, that wasn’t always happening either. (Listen, will I be bitter about having to watch War Horse for the rest of my life? Yes.)

    Three yellow jellyfish swimming upside down in deep blue water.
    Why does this picture show up when I search for Academy Awards? I don’t know, but it’s neat, so I’m sharing. (Photo by Georg Eiermann on Unsplash)

    I think it’s good to make it mandated that ten movies get the Best Picture nominee. While that does mean you probably have a weird or unworthy option creep in, it also allows for the less traditional choices. Would Drive My Car have been nominated without this rule change? I think it probably wouldn’t.

    Of course, the system isn’t perfect. We had the perfection of Moonlight winning Best Picture, but you know, Green Book, also happened.

    Awards shows in general seem to be in a state of peril. Ratings are falling. They all seem to be struggling to stay relevant. People are suggesting that they might not even exist in ten years. And if that happens, does it matter? Does a lack of Oscars in the world really cause some kind of void in the world?

    Ultimately, probably not really. (Especially because films will still win awards even if the actual ceremonies stop happening.) But there is something that I still sort of love about the Oscars. And I think it stems from mostly this: It helps me get a good general big picture of what’s going on in the industry and it allows me to see some pretty interesting and culturally relevant movies.

    Nobody is arguing that the Best Picture nominations are literally the best movies made in that year. Especially given that a certain brand of movie has a habit of getting nominated all the time and it’s extremely frustrating. But especially since the expansion of how many movies can get nominated for Best Picture, I’ve started seeing some really cool stuff.

    I’m not a super involved moviegoer. Before the pandemic, I’d hit up the theater a couple times a year for a movie I was really interested in seeing, like Knives Out but I don’t really go to the movies just because. This means, starting in 2011, when I started attending the Best Picture showcase, I was basically seeing a whole bunch of brand new to me movies all in a row.

    Movie theater audience watching a film.
    Imagine this for 24 hours. Except it smells funky and everyone is wrapped in a blanket and hopped up on 5 Hour Energy.

    For the uninitiated, the Best Picture Showcase is put on by AMC Theaters and is an event where typically you watch all Best Picture nominees either in the course of two weekends or over the course of a very long day. (This has changed a little due to the pandemic, but it might come back!) Because I’m a bit of a glutton for punishment and love an endurance challenge, I would go to the one-day event. This meant showing up at the theater at around 9 in the morning and then stumbling out around 7 the next morning.

    Some years the batch of movies is better than others but I always walked away from that event having seen at least one gem. Usually, as awards season rolls through, I have the best intentions of watching a lot of acclaimed movies, but I never quite get there. It’s hard to find the time and there’s so much to sort through. I’ve seen multiple rave reviews of Drive My Car, for example. Does this mean I’m guaranteed to watch it? No. Even if my favorite movie channel on YouTube names it their favorite film of the year, I’m still dumb enough to go watch Interview with the Vampire instead. (Which I don’t regret. It ruled.)

    But the Best Picture nominees offers me a finite list and the Best Picture Showcase offers me a concrete way to go watch some of those movies catching buzz.

    Over the years, this method has introduced me to movies like The Kids are All Right, Winter’s Bone, The Tree of Life, Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Philomena, Brooklyn, Room, Hell or High Water, Moonlight, Parasite. Would I have seen some of these movies regardless of whether they were nominated for Best Picture? Maybe! But that’s honestly a big maybe.

    Yes, I had to see War Horse and I reluctantly sat through The Wolf of Wall Street (no shade to anyone who likes that film, but really one of my most hated watches ever). But I really have seen some pretty gorgeous, funny, moving films I never would have otherwise. And I’m grateful for that.

    Without the Best Picture Showcase in 2021 and being absolutely burnt out due to, you know, everything, I’m trying to recapture a little of that Oscars joy. I’m aiming for the modest goal of watching all 10 nominees before the ceremony happens at the end of March. I’m also hoping to do little write ups about those movies. I will let wiser people than me continue to call the Academy out for all their bad choices.

    Meanwhile? I’m going to drum up some opinions about Don’t Look Up (too long) and The Power of the Dog (classic Campion weirdness).

    Share your Oscars opinions, if you have ’em!