"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Posts Tagged ‘Todd Haynes’

May December

Monday, December 18th, 2023

I swear for weeks I knew Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore were getting acclaim for a movie called MAY DECEMBER, and I assumed it was about them falling in love. I was pretty thrown off when I learned it was in fact a story inspired by Mary Kay Letourneau, a teacher who in the late ‘90s went to prison for second-degree child rape of one of her sixth grade students, insisted he was her soulmate, gave birth to two of his daughters while incarcerated, then got out and had a 14 year marriage with him. It’s an infamous story worldwide, but especially in the Seattle area, since it happened here. It brings out all the dumb radio call-in show takes about “heh heh, that’s what most boys want ‘Hot For Teacher,’ right?” but of course it is complicated by his choice to stay with her after he became an adult.

In this film directed by Todd Haynes (FAR FROM HEAVEN, CAROL) from a screenplay by Samy Burch (COYOTE VS. ACME), story by Burch and her husband Alex Mechanik, something similar happened in Savannah, Georgia. Moore (NEXT) plays Gracie Atherton-Yoo, ex-convict and tabloid mainstay, now married to grown up Joe (Charles Melton, BAD BOYS FOR LIFE). She has a baking business and lots of friends, their oldest daughter Honor (Piper Curda, THE WRETCHED) is away at college, twins Charlie (Gabriel Chung) and Mary (Elizabeth Yu) are about to graduate high school. Portman (PRIDE + PREJUDICE + ZOMBIES [producer only]) plays Elizabeth Berry, a famous TV actress in town to spend time with the family as preparation for playing Gracie in a movie. (read the rest of this shit…)

Carol

Tuesday, February 9th, 2016

tn_carolCAROL is a story of love – long, drawn out, dangerous, afraid-to-say-anything love. Young Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET remake), working as a shopgirl, seems practically hypnotized when she spots customer Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett, INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL) in her fur coat, Christmas shopping for her daughter. When Carol forgets her gloves on the counter it gives Therese a reason to contact her, and they strike up a relationship outside of the store. Who does Carol think she is, Cinderella? Well, some of the men in the movie treat her like O.J.

See, this takes place in the 1952 (five years before CRYSTAL SKULL), when women falling for each other was treated like a shameful crime or a sickness. Carol recently split from her husband Harge (Kyle Chandler [THE WOLF OF WALL STREET], looking more and more like Robert Foster as each minute of the day passes), and he’s still trying to work it out. But when that’s obviously not gonna happen he threatens to use a confessed lesbian incident against her in custody hearings. That’s devastating to her because her daughter is the only thing that matters to her.

It’s a movie where women dance with men and look over at each other from across the room. They have to make up alibis just for being together. Saying Therese is her assistant. If they’re sitting at a table together and a dude comes over and starts talking to them they have to act like he’s not interrupting, and sit and listen to the motherfucker. And he has no idea. He probly figures they’ve been sitting together wishing for a man. (read the rest of this shit…)

Far from Heaven

Friday, November 22nd, 2002

FAR FROM HEAVEN is the lovingly crafted new film from Todd Haynes (VELVET GOLDMINE), about an upper class socialite house wife (the great Julianne Moore from JURASSIC PARK PART 2 and ASSASSINS) dealing with the shameful prejudices and social pressures of the time. When she discovers that her husband (one of the Quaids, I think Randy) kissing a man, she tries to be loving and understanding about it. Her friends joke about her liberalism and call her “Red” but she naively deals with it as a medical problem, and brings him to a doctor to be “cured”. Soon she strikes up a friendship with her black gardener (the president from that stupid tv show 24) and again tests the limits of her liberalism when she finds that both whites and blacks scorn their innocent relationship.

Part of what makes it work is that the styles of acting, the dissolve-heavy editing, and the music by Elmer Bernstein are all taken directly from the films of that time period. It’s as if Haynes had travelled back in time and created a movie that he wishes they could’ve made back then, dealing with issues no one wanted to face, ones that are still embarassingly relevant today. It’s all a perfect re-creation of the melodramas of Douglas Sirk. (read the rest of this shit…)