Bright Bright Red

Had the annual chili cookoff at work yesterday, so there was that nice break in the middle of the day eating a bunch of chili. They were low on hotdog buns, however, and the guy in front of me in line got the last one! Thought there might be more, but alas. When I got seconds I went back and got a hotdog and put it next to some cornbread as sort of a fake bun. Got off work a little early as I still had some remaining time from the deployment earlier this week. This was good as I had a little extra time to walk over to Studio on the Square for a night of Indie Memphis! The first movie was I Am Not Your Negro, about James Baldwin sort of focusing on his last project (which would have been about the lives of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. It was a lot of Samuel L. Jackson narrating by just reading Baldwin's writings and a lot of James Baldwin being interviewed on tv etc. and a lot of old movie clips. It was really really fucking good. Very heavily just based on his words and not really tied together much beyond letting those words flow and a loose sense of chronology based on the events of his own life and those of the aforementioned civil rights leaders. After that we walked over to Hatiloo to see And When I Die, I Won't Stay Dead which was a documentary about Bob Kaufman, the beat/street poet. Neither Mary Beth nor I were familiar with his work, but the documentary was really interesting and now I know something about him! Due to circumstances of getting two extra tickets after we'd picked the ones we're going to, Mary Beth picked one that was during the day yesterday while I was at work (Cameraperson) and one late at night, The Love Witch, with the option that one of us would go or we might buy an extra ticket or we'd be too tired and no big deal. Well, she was too tired, I wasn't so I went back over to Studio for it. It was scheduled to be late and the q&a of the movie before ran long so it started late on top of everything. I wasn't out til about 2 am. But it was worth it, holy shit! Incredible movie. It's shot on 35mm and maybe wasn't technically Technicolor, but it did have the color palette to match. It's an ode (parody would be close, but a little strong) to the sexploitation Technicolor movies of the late 60s early 70s, but through an ironic and feminist lens. Not sure I have time to go on and on about it, but I'd love to. Maybe I'll pick back up on it later, but we have to go grocery shopping before we watch a bunch bunch more movies! UPDATE: Back from the store. I've been talking to Mary Beth a bunch about it and let's see what I can remember. Scene I disproportionately laughed at compared to the rest of the audience: cops enter a closed bedroom and cover their noses and make disgusted faces and there's a zoom-in closeup. Just like in the typical scene of the era where there's a closeup of a dead body or body part with maggots or flies or other bugs crawling over it. A little audience shocker. Well, this was that but with a plate of breakfast that was left out with flies on it. The shot was just dead on and it cracked me up. Also, her urinating to make a "witch jar" and then cut to it's filled up an entire jar. The tampon was a good touch. It's also hard to explain how good this was. It's kinda similar to The Duke of Burgundy, but, though it is very stylized, it's not so much so in a "serious" way. It full on braces the bad aspects of the movies it takes from. The awkward, stilted dialog...but it embraces it and stylizes it in a way that's really really good. And not "so bad it's good." But yeah, it really walks this line that's very unique. Not all-out elegant and serious, not all-out goofy and schlocky, not all-out amateurish. I guess a skillful imitation of amateurishness might be a good way to describe it. There's the anachronisms that eventually seem less and less like anachronisms but instead the things that evoke the "real" era of the film seem like they might be the anachronisms. The dress and style and decor and objects are of that late 70s early 60s era. Things like modern cars pop up in the background. Then more and more they're in the forefront towards the end. There's dvds on the shelf in the background earlier on. And towards the end someone makes a call on a smartphone. Partly it sort of flips the era of the film, it also adds a timelessness to it, but it's more than that. The whole thing, of course, flips the theme of those movies: evil woman/witch/seductress/succubus seduces innocent or normal men and destroys them. In this she's the normal one and the men destroy themselves by their inability to handle her love or their disregard for her love (more or less). Anyway, anything else? I think I got it pretty good. Great great movie anyway.