Bigger Than Life

I’m halfway through the Queerty movie series, but I couldn’t face watching another one of those … er … worthy … movies tonight, so I’m watching a couple of blurays I got in the mail from Criterion instead.

I’ve almost forgotten how good blurays look after watching streaming movies for a couple of months. All that grain that’s been smoothed out to make the movie compress better, and correct aspect ratio, and no banding.

I mean, it’s 2-5x the streaming bitrate, so it’s just… prettier.

This is a very odd movie, though. I mean, I have absolutely no idea what it’s going to be about, and we’re ten minutes into the movie.

I just seen a couple of Ray movies before — Johnny Guitar and Rebel Without etc — but I think Ray was celebrated by the Cahiers crowd? And I can see why: This is very interesting. I mean, the framing of the shots and stuff.

This is very odd, though. It’s just about some random guy getting cancer? Or something? So it’s like a Sirk weepie, but without any… context?

I mean, it’s too bad that James Mason is all hopped up on cortisone… but… I feel like we haven’t really been given any reason to care? Douglas Kirk is always very careful to introduce the characters and make us feel for them. Ray seems to be taking it as a given that we’re caring about James Mason?

The cortisone’s kicking in!

The mirror shatter’d!

He’s so high.

Oh, OK, now I get what Ray’s doing — the more insane he’s getting, the more people agree with him. So subversive!

This movie’s got something for sure. But… it’s neither gripping not entertaining. It’s like the movie itself is an abusive spouse.

I love the cinematography and stuff, but.

Is Ray’s point here that American politics and religion is literal drug induced psychosis? Well of course it is. I guess this was a very subversive movie and all in the 50s, so you have to give props to Ray for that, but.

It just feels like a movie that’s making a point that could have been a tweet.

I’m such a Gen Z. Er.

Bigger Than Life. Nicholas Ray. 1956. ⚂

Brother to Brother

This looks pretty stylish. It’s in 1.66:1, no shakycam and the edits last longer than half a second.

But… er… the performances are kinda… er… earnest…

This is really well made. It’s got a nice flow, and it’s got great music going on the bits that need music, and it’s silent otherwise.

So is this a magic realism thing? After half an hour, it’s finally clear what the movie’s gonna be about — it’s this guy who was a poet during the Harlem Renaissance (i.e., the 1920s) who’s meeting up with this young gay guy?

(They didn’t have colours back in the olden days.)

I love all these shots from around Manhattan. But it’s such a choppy movie. There’s scenes here that are like “ooo” and then there’s scenes that are “zzz”, and it’s just bewildering.

The soundtrack is still fantastic.

But the magazine they’re publishing — Fire!! — sounds really cool. And there was a reprint in 1985? *shopping*

This may not be a “good movie”, but it’s interesting, and I’m glad I watched it.

Brother to Brother. Rodney Evans. 2004. ⚃

Blackbird

OK, hate this already. Because they’re singing with autotune! I know, I’m oldes.

OK, now it’s good.

But it looks like this is going to be about my least favourite subject ever? I.e., religious damage.

This is fun!

I guess:

As with so much of Polk’s work, Blackbird relishes in frank, gay sexuality and uses a mix of humor and drama to keep the plot moving. It also suffers from the same problems as much of his work: a story that gets a bit too didactic in places, sexual fantasies that at times seem at odds with the rest of the plot, and budget limitations that make the seams show.

And I have to say that some of the performances are pretty… bad…