I’m behind on recording movies. I know I’ve seen a couple that I’ve forgotten about..Maybe it doesn’t matter, because maybe hearing someone recite movies they’ve watched is about as interesting as someone telling you their dreams. But here’s the last three anyway:
Last weekend Paul offered me a date night–since game night got cancelled– and I picked the movie. Belle. You should go see it. It was really good. And it was directed by a woman. I can’t name a single other mainstream theatrical release directed by a woman this year. It’s May. That’s a pathetic state of affairs, just by the way, but should make it easy to support films by women because you only need to do it a couple of times a year. Here’s a review from the Washington Post.
Last night I watched a documentary about Darfur called The Devil Came on Horseback. Also really good. Was I saying something in my last post about counting blessings? Darfur was a tragedy of such proportions there is nothing in my life to compare to it. There are people to whom fate has only been brutal. The thing with the Nigerian girls being kidnapped by the Boko Haram also falls into a similar category, and is really on my mind of late. It’s made me curious about Nigeria. I didn’t see any documentaries about Nigeria at the library, however, so pulled some about other parts of Africa.
Tonight I went to a screening of Palo Alto, a film directed by Gia Coppola based on short stories by James Franco. I almost skipped it, disheartened by a third generations of Coppola making a movie in my lifetime when it seems unlikely I’ll ever make one (or have my collection of short stories published after I’m already an international film star). But then I decided not to be a hater–and it was free, so I went, and it was sweet. I’ll attach some reviews below.
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Palo Alto was screened this year at 7 Days for the Geoffrey Gilmore event. Gia Coppola was brought in to talk about the movie after. I think having her talk about the movie and the process after tinged things for me: there’s a lot of rich white privilege wrapped up in the movie. It also seemed that James Franco chose her because of her last name (she and friends were fan-girling over him at a deli and caught his attention)–she’d only done fashion photography and he claimed he didn’t want to direct it or adapt it because there was no reason to do a good thing twice.
Undoubtedly the acting was wonderful and the movie was gorgeous (even if it did feel like she lifted a couple of shots straight from Sophia Coppola’s movies).
I could go on. Still 3 months later I’m thinking about the movie and I’m still conflicted.
(All is well here in Tallahassee. :))