The Phantom Menace
I haven’t watched a Star Wars film in 30 years at least, but last night I did go to view PT Anderson’s The Phantom Thread. I feel like I am a very forgiving critic these days mainly because I have to force myself to leave my wife, home, and dog — not necessarily in that order — to go out to the movies. This year, I wanted at least to know why the films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar got their nods.
I am all on board for Get Out, because I am a white liberal male with a very guilty conscience. I grew up in Alabama, if my guilt needs any further explaining. Yeah the film’s going gets gory, but don’t those rich white liberals deserve it? If liberals they really are.
Speaking of liberal guilt, The Post works for me, too. I hear The Washington Post isn’t as liberal as it used to be, but don’t tell that to columnist Jennifer Rubin. Besides, watching lawyers and bankers get all funky as they see their precious preserves wither in the face of the 1st Amendment makes me want to have another double skinny soy latte.
I felt like a kid again watching The Shape of Water. My wife wants to kill me, though, because she keeps seeing Michael Shannon, his cattle prod, and a beheaded cat in her dreams. I keep reminding her that her dreams are always strange, and she keeps saying, “True, but I didn’t need the help.” Anyway, Guillermo del Toro made me long for the Saturday afternoon TV horror matinees of my kid-dom. Great reason to be young, again.
But not a teenager. I adored Lady Bird, but wouldn’t want to relive the angst of trying to find yourself amidst and against overbearing parents, indecisive boy/girl friends, and the in-clique that ate Sacramento. Still, as a former teenage eccentric, I felt the oddities of Lady Bird’s life deep in my gut. Too deep.
And then, I plan on taking my wife and dog up to Sylva, NC, just an hour or so from my home, because that’s where 3 Billboards Outside of Ebbing, MO, was really shot. I knew that wasn’t a Missouri landscape I was seeing, but I forgave the filmmakers because I have been in love with Frances McDormand ever since Blood Simple. I think it’s the shape of her mouth, the “I cannot believe anyone would f*ck with me” way it hangs open when she’s upset, betrayed, or simply disappointed, which she is a lot in this film. I’d probably vote for it if I had a vote, which I used to in the AA parties my wife and I hosted each year.
Speaking of my wife, she’s a really bad cook, so I will never be tempted to eat anything she concocts on a whim, or as a surprise, especially if that concoction concerns mushrooms at all. I spent two hours last night watching Daniel Day-Lewis in his supposedly final movie role ever. What a way to go out. It felt sort of like Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s farewell to movie togetherness, a movie I also wish I had never seen. I didn’t hate The Phantom Thread, but halfway into it, I started checking my email messages and my Alabama Crimson Tide app to see who the Tide signed yesterday on that holiday of holidays, National Signing Day.
When I returned home to the loving embrace of my dog and my wife, one of them asked how I liked the film while the other couldn’t stop kissing me. Since I had cooked supper — dirty rice out of a Zatarain’s box — I had no fears of either one being upset with me.
For tonight we’re eating leftovers and doing yoga, and other adaptations of modern American life. Maybe even watching the Winter Olympics because, as I said above, we are guilty white people.
And though I haven’t seen all the Oscar-movies yet, maybe now that I’ve seen Day-Lewis vomit his lungs out and ask for more, I’ve finally seen enough.
