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stuff im watching and thinking about. everything i say is a spoiler so beware
december 4, 2023: the bear (christmas episode)
have been hearing people talk about this episode and i finally got to it. wowowowow so good. 2 big things stood out to me about it outside of the obvious "wow this is an incredibly good portrayal of a dysfunctional family." i thought that the actress that played natalie was being distractingly bad at acting during season 1(and i dont usually notice when actors are doing a good or bad job tbh!), but her acting was incredible in this episode. more importantly, though, it shows how the "daughter who always keeps the peace" self-image can actually be the perspective of someone who's kind of an enabler or people pleaser (not that i would know...). it was also natalie's comment to the mom that drove her over the edge, i think because the mom saw natalie as a punching bag in that moment. incredible writing
the second part that i thought was really well-done was the casting of the actors that were only in this one episode, specifically john mulaney and gillian jacobs. the bear started filming season 2 after john mulaney was kinda cancelled but not fully? and he was playing a role in the show that was kinda unclear in a similar way. he wasn't comic relief but he also wasn't a grounding presence. i also associate gillian jacobs primarily with brita perry from community and micky from love, and both of those characters were a little rocky but ultimately lovable, which was similar to her presence on this show, i think
outside of this episode, though, i think of the bear as being a love letter to food and the most beautiful aspect of the service industry, which is the ability to brighten peoples' day. in my silly little barista way, i feel like i relate to that aspect of the bear-- one of my favorite parts of my job is just the fact that im able to make people happy with the work that i do. customers and managers can be awful but the most enjoyable experiences with customers are, regardless of tipping, ones where the customer genuinely likes what i made them. i still remember this one time where a lady asked me to surprise her with a drink and i made her an oat milk pistachio, honey, & butterscotch latte (sounds weird but it's so good) and she was so happy. it makes me understand why people struggle to leave food service despite abuse and bad wages
september 28, 2023: whiplash
god i loved whiplash so much. ik it's a basic take but i loooooved the simplicity and the storyline. (i was in orchestra in high school and like...it wasn't nearly as bad as the movie & there was no abuse or anything like that. but bitches were throwing up in the bathroom before auditions & seating placements. it was stressful & there was SUCH a similar atmosphere with the borderline public shaming element, and even though i loved my orchestra teacher i still felt like it was kinda similar). the fact that jk simmons and miles teller had backgrounds in music shone through to me. like the tension in the room when someone fucks up and you know the teacher is gonna be pissed and find the person who was fucking up....god i remember that
the way that blood is used in the movie strikes me as so intentional. like there's shock the first time it happens, and then after a while you get used to it. it becomes normal to the audience to see. that's so fucking hard to do in less than 2 hours
the sexuality element in the movie was so interesting to me ! so many of the insults and personal attacks had to do with appearance & homosexuality in particular. some undertones there about fletcher and andrew's bond, maybe?
also in the end, fletcher was right about his proposition: he could not have pushed andrew too far. i have more to say about this but my edible just hit :P
september 2023: fleabag (sexhibition episode)
i saw the sexhibition episode last night and i can't stop thinking about it. idk how much of what im going to say is v obvious to everyone else but it feels like im having revelations about it so here we go! (spoilers ahead)
i felt like the episode was, like, a mini version of what happened to her with her friend-- when she fucked her friend's boyfriend. her stepmom handed her the tray of drinks and nobody questioned it. they only got angry with her when she started smashing the drinks on the ground. fleabag didn't defend herself about this either-- she never asked why she was handed the tray. she was presented with the perfect opportunity to put it down-- the "stolen woman" exhibit would've done perfectly. but she chose to smash the drinks ultimately.
in the same way, fleabag was given an opportunity to sleep with her best friend's boyfriend. she could have not engaged (like she could have refused the tray of drinks) or she could have refused in the moment (like she could have set the drinks down), but she didn't. and she was blamed for the act, and he wasn't (just like fleabag was blamed for smashing the glasses, but nobody brought up the fact that she was handed the tray in the first place).
towards the end of the episode, the guy who interviewed her for the job comes back and talks to her, and makes her feel ok. i think this guy represents her interactions with media-- there's a ton of media about fucked up white guys that you can sympathize with, like, for example, bojack horseman. fleabag has no media that shows the feminine fuck-up. she relates to the guy. but it doesn't represent the depth of her situation, or the complexities of carrying disproportionate blame, even when you're in the wrong.
I really love the show so far. it's difficult to watch because fleabag reminds me so much of myself and her sister reminds me so much of my sister. their dynamic is so incredibly similar to ours. but the show in general seems like the yin to the yang of the whole "you can do everything right as a woman and still be victimized/blamed" idea. while that's true, women still fuck up sometimes (shocker) and even when they deserve to be blamed for things, they still face disproportionate blame
~
### 7/17/2023: hellspawn short film
* spoilers ahead *
i used to watch shortoftheweek short films for a class i was in my freshman year of college and i still poke around there sometimes. hellspawn seemed like a straightforward, slow video to start to fall asleep to, but i was kinda startled by the meta-analysis scene around the 4:20 mark (lol). i honestly didn't love the horror scenes (w the raven gore and the scream-crying)-- i really like some horror but i just found this horror corny.
towards the end, one of the narrators talk about the effect of a 98% rotten tomatoes rating (but they're british so it's rotten tomAHtoes) and how it sucks to be that close to Perfection and fall short, but the true metric of creating something great is internal. it almost made me wonder-- was the corniness in the horror intentional? was it supposed to exist just for the creators' internal metrics of success? or am i reading too much into it.
overall i thought the message was that the conflict of creating any art is having to compromise profit incentive with vision, and both can't really be compromised if you want to live and also create honest art. i think there was also something about gender as well-- the performers and vulnerable, struggling artists were women, and the people in power in the studios were men. hmm
im convinced that the best feeling you can have with any piece of film is going into it with low expectations and being surprised with depth. it tickles the same part of my brain as solving a riddle, and this film did that for me. cool watch. lmk what u think <3