The next time that you’re tempted to get mad at your Uber driver (or your Lyft driver, depending on which company you’re boycotting at the time), remember this video. Seriously, you have no idea what your driver may have just had to deal with. Sure, the driver’s picking you up now but, for all you know, someone may have bled to death in the backseat just an hour ago or so.
That is actually my number one concern when it comes to Uber. I always find myself wondering who was in the car before me and did they take a shower before entering a vehicle. That’s another reason why I refuse to consider using public transportation. I get that it’s good for the environment and everything but people are really disgusting sometimes. I mean, I’m all far saving the planet but people do all sorts of stuff when they know that they’re not the ones who are actually going to have to clean up after themselves.
For instance, the driver in this video — I mean, he’s got people crying in the backseat. He’s got people bleeding all over his car. He’s got a lot to deal with but, at the end of the video, we see why he puts up with it all and it’s a nice “awwwwwww!” moment. I like this video. If it was a feature-length film, the driver would be played by Jason Statham. Of course, I really wouldn’t want Jason Statham to be my Uber driver, just because it seems like he would constantly be stopping the car to get into a fight with other drivers. Add to that, I’d probably be tempted to ask him why he’s driving an Uber instead of making a movie and he’d probably get mad at me for prying.
If there’s anything that films set in the future always seem to have in common, it’s that there’s a lot of neon. In fact, the only futuristic films that aren’t full of neon are those films that take place after an atomic war, where everyone’s living in the desert and driving around on motorcycles. But even those films often seem to end with the promise that, once society is up and running again, we’ll get a lot of neon.
Personally, I’m hoping that I’ll spend my retirement years in a hot pink house with neon walls.
The other thing that the future always seems to have is a divide between the decadent rich and the rebellious lower classes, the majority of whom seem to spend a lot of time wandering down red hallways. Maybe one reason why everyone in the future always seems to be fighting is because there’s so much red around. Maybe if they used blue neon, everyone would calm down and accept their social status.
Who knows? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I imagine it should be the future in another two years or so.
Today’s music video of the day comes to use from Austin’s own Gary Clark, Jr.
The video for What About Us? takes place in and around a trailer park and it really does capture the feel of the place. Now, before anyone asks, I’ve never lived in a trailer park but I’ve visited more than a few. Trailer parks are often both ominous and hopeful at the same time. While you definitely see some people who have fallen on hard times, you also see a lot of acts of small kindness. There’s a community spirit to a good trailer park. When you’re on the outskirts of “acceptable” society, it’s always good to have people who you can depend upon.
This video was directed by Savannah Leaf, who also did the video for Clark’s This Land. The gorgeous black-and-white cinematography is credited to Isaac Bauman. Bauman has served as director of photography on several music videos. He’s got 66 credits listed at the Imvdb, including Avicii’s Broken Arrow.
First released in 2002, Murder by Numbers is one of those films that seems to be pop up on Cinemax every couple of months. It’s not really that good, though it has its fans because if features Sandra Bullock being all self-destructive and one of the film’s villains is played by a young Ryan Gosling.
Ryan Gosling is Richard Haywood, child of privilege. He’s handsome. He’s funny. He’s popular. He’s spoiled. He’s often high. And he’s totally psychotic. Richard wants to commit the perfect crime and, fortunately, so does his classmate, Justin (Michael Pitt). Justin is a fiercely intelligent introvert who spends most of his time reading and writing and playing with his computer. He’s got a crush on Richard’s ex, Lisa (Agnes Buckner). From the minute that Lisa showed up and started talking to Justin, I was concerned. I was like, “Is this another movie that’s going to feature someone named Lisa being murdered? CHERISH ALL OF THE LISAS IN YOUR LIFE, PEOPLE!”
Anyway, Richard and Justin do end up killing a woman, though not Lisa. They go through a lot of effort to frame the school’s pervy janitor, Ray (Chris Penn), for the crime. And they nearly succeed, though Detective Cassie Mayweather (Sandra Bullock) is way too smart to fall for their tricks. Unfortunately, no one believes anything that Cassie says because she has a shady past and a drinking problem. Even her sympathetic new partner, Sam Kennedy (Ben Chaplin), thinks that it was probably Ray.
Literally everyone on the police force tells Sam that Cassie is unstable and not to be trusted, which leads to an interesting question. If everyone’s convinced that everything Cassie says is wrong, why does she still have a job? Why do they still assign her to cases? It’s like, “We’ve got a murder that we have to solve! Let’s give it to that detective who we think never gets anything right!”
Sandra Bullock does her best to bring the self-destructive Cassie to life but she kind of runs into the huge problem that she’s Sandra Bullock and she has such a firmly entrenched screen presence that it’s difficult to take her seriously as someone who spend her free time sitting on a houseboat, getting drunk, and obsessing on the past. You really want her to give a good performance because it’s impossible not to root for Sandra Bulllock but she’s just too miscast. You keep expecting Matthew McConaughey to show up, playing a bongo drum and trying to cheer her up.
Far more convincing is Ryan Gosling, who plays Richard as the type of guy that we all knew in high school. You know he’s a jerk. You know you should stay away from him. But he’s just so much fun and he has so much money! Unfortunately, Gosling is so charismatic that Richard quickly becomes the only compelling character in the film. I mean, if you have the choice between watching Michael Pitt, Ben Chaplin, or Ryan Gosling, who are you going to go with? You’re supposed to hate Richard and hope that justice catches up with him but instead, you find yourself hoping that he’ll sneak out of the country and spend the rest of his hiding out in South America or something.
So, as a result, the film really doesn’t work. (It also doesn’t help matters that it’s directed in a rather detached fashion by the king of ennui, Barbet Schroeder.) But it’s interesting to watch, just for a chance to see a future star in the making. Gosling steps into a rather underwritten role and basically takes over the entire damn movie.
It’s also worth seeing for the scene in which Sandra Bullock gets attacked by a baboon. It’s a weird moment and Schroeder screws things up by mixing in a flashback to Cassie’s past but still, it’s a baboon attacking Sandra Bullock. That’s not something you see every day.
First off, I am a huge history nerd. History fascinates me the way that some people are fascinated by football or video games. I’m always interested in learning about the way the world used to be and I think one of the biggest problems that we, as a society, have right now is that too few people actually know much about anything that happened before they were born. For that reason, I absolutely love documentaries.
Secondly, my two favorite 20th century decades are the 20s and the 70s. If you think about it, both decades have a lot in common. In both the 20s and the 70s, American reacted to a national trauma by essentially saying, “Fuck this. I’m going to have a good time.” After the trauma of World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic, Americans in the 1920s reacted by retreating to speakeasies and idolizing gangsters and tycoons. In the 1970s, American dealt with the aftereffects of Vietnam and Watergate by retreating to discotheques and drugs. It’s all a part of the cycle of history. When confronted by a combination of trauma and humorless scolds (whether they’re preaching prohibition or governmental reform), many Americans will decide to seek pleasure instead.
(Interestingly enough, the wild parties of the 20s and the 70s were both ended by a combination of a financial crisis and a new presidential administration.)
The 20s and the 70s are especially relevant today because I think we’re on the verge of entering another decade in which people are going to pursue pleasure above all else. Right now, America is dealing with several traumas and while the humorless scolds may currently be getting the majority of the media attention, there’s a definite backlash brewing. People are getting tired of being told they have to do this or that they can’t say that. If the world’s going to end anyway, the thinking will go, we might as well enjoy our final days.
With all that in mind, it’s no surprise that I ended up watching the 2018 documentary, Studio 54, on Netflix last night.
From 1977 to 1979, Studio 54 was the Manhattan discotheque, a nightclub that was populated by the rich, the famous, and the coked up. Depending on which side of the cultural divide you called home, Studio 54 represented either everything that was good about New York in the 70s or everything that was bad. It was place where people could be themselves but only if they were famous enough or interesting enough to convince the people working the door to let them in. In Spike Lee’s ode to New York in the 70s, 1999’s Summer of Sam, John Leguizamo and Mira Sorvino may have been the most glamorous couple in the Bronx but not even that was enough to get them through Studio 54’s front doors.
Through the use of archival footage and interviews with some the people who were actually at Studio 54 during its heyday, Studio 54 shows how two young men, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, opened a nightclub in the sleaziest part of Manhattan and quickly became the undisputed kings of New York nightlife. Perhaps the only thing quicker than their rise was their fall. A combination of drugs, hubris, and the IRS led to not only Schrager and Rubell losing Studio 54 but also spending a year in prison. After they two were released from prison, they found success opening up another nightclub and several hotels. Rubell died in 1989, his official cause of death listed as being hepatitis and septic shock complicated by AIDS. Schrager has gone on to become one of the world’s top hoteliers and received a presidential pardon in 2017.
Though the film is largely built around interviews with Ian Schrager, it’s the deceased Rubell who dominates the majority of the story. As Schrager himself puts it, Schrager was an introvert who thrived behind-the-scenes while Rubell was an extrovert who loved hanging out with and being seen in the company of the rich and famous. One of the most interesting themes of the documentary is that, even though he made a fortune by embracing the LGBT community and its culture with Studio 54, Steve Rubell himself remained closeted. Rubell, the film suggests, created 54 so he could finally have a place where he could be himself in a way that he couldn’t be in the outside world. When we see archival footage of Rubell being interviewed during 54’s heyday, we see evidence of both his charisma and his decline. There’s quite a contrast between the fresh-faced, enthusiastic Rubell who we see at 54’s opening and the exhausted-looking Rubell that we see a year later, slurring his words and looking at the world with dark-circled, bloodshot eyes.
Schrager, unfortunately, never comes across as being as compelling a figure as Rubell. In his interviews, Schrager is open about some things but there are other times when he seems to shut down. Schrager tells us about all the work that went into getting Studio 54 ready for its grand opening but, when it comes time to discuss his own arrest for cocaine possession, he becomes evasive. I guess that’s understandable because, really, who wants to relive being arrested? But since Shrager’s arrest set off the chain of events that eventually led to 54’s downfall, it’s hard not to regret the feeling that we’re not getting the full story.
The same could be said about this documentary as a whole. It’s frequently fascinating and I loved seeing all of the old pictures of people like Andy Warhol and Liz Taylor hanging out at Studio 54. If you’re interested in the McCathy era, you might want to watch this documentary just for the chance to see Roy Cohn show up at Rubell and Schrager’s attorney. And yet, you watch the film and you regret that it didn’t dig even deeper into both what Studio 54 was and what it represented to people in both the 70s and today. Studio 54 is a good place to start but, by the end of documentary, you still feel like there’s more to the story than you’ve been told.
“Oh my God, Adi Ulmansky stole that kid’s skateboard!”
Good for her! That kid didn’t look like he really appreciated his skateboard and she let him keep his ice cream cone so what’s he crying about?
“OH MY GOD! ADI ULMANSKY HAS GOT A CHAINSAW!”
And again, good for her! Sometimes, you need a chainsaw to get through this crazy world of ours. My Heart was included on Adi’s Shit Just Got Real mixtape and you know what? Sometimes, when shit gets real, you need a chainsaw!
As I’ve mentioned many times in the past, my BFF Evelyn and I absolutely love Adi Ulmansky and this video shows why. She doesn’t let anything get in her way and if she cuts her finger, she just uses the blood for decoration. All of us should be so strong.
Add to that, the black cat in this video reminds me of Doc.
Actually, I really enjoyed the 91s Annual Oscar ceremony this year. And you know why I enjoyed it?
There wasn’t a host.
For all the talk about how not having a host would be the death of the Oscars, the ceremony functioned just fine without an endless opening monologue. It turns out that the Oscars don’t need someone organizing a huge selfie. It does’t need someone demanding that the audience buy girl scout cookies. It doesn’t need Jimmy Kimmel bringing in random tourists or sending actors to crash the theater across the street. The presenters can do the job of the host just fine and, even better, they’re gone before you get sick of listening to them.
The show seemed to move quicker, though it still went over 3 hours. In fact, at 3 hours and 20 minutes, it wasn’t really any shorter than the previous ceremonies.
The audience seemed strangely subdued. Perhaps that’s because so many mediocre films were winning. Bohemian Rhapsody took home the most Oscars, 4 in total. Of course, not once was the name Bryan Singer mentioned. Singer was like Voldemort at the Oscars. In fact, you could kind of sense that people in the auditorium were cringing with every award that Bohemian Rhapsody won. They were probably imagining what some of the headlines will be tomorrow. “While patting themselves on the back for being woke, the Academy honored Bryan Singer.”
According to my TSL colleague, Leonard Wilson, there were boos in the audience when Green Book won best picture. I didn’t hear them but I don’t doubt they were there. Green Book isn’t a terrible film as much as it’s just a rather bland one. It’s a film about a different era that feels like it was made in a different era. Much like the last film to win without being nominated for best director, it seems destined to be forgotten.
(That last film, by the way, was Argo, which was an okay film — much like Green Book — but which isn’t exactly held up as a groundbreaking winner.)
The top moment for me was Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga performing Shallow. Lady Gaga’s acceptance speech was amazing. My second favorite moment was when Olivia Colman defeated Glenn Close for Best Actress. That’s nothing against Close. It’s just Close was such a favorite that it was nice to see Colman score an upset victory.
Now, we just wait for the ratings to come in. My fear is that the ratings are going to suck and ABC will be say, “It’s because we didn’t have a host! It’s because we didn’t do Best Popular Film! It’s because we didn’t give out any awards during the commercial break!”
Of course, the opposite is true. Despite some unfortunate winners, this was a pretty enjoyable broadcast. This was what the Oscars should always be like. We don’t need a host. We just need better nominees.
(In my opinion, Eighth Grade was the best film of the year. Of course, it didn’t get a single nomination.)
Well, this concludes another Oscar Sunday!
Thank you, everyone, for visiting the site today. With the Oscars now out of the way, we can focus our attention on the films of 2019! Let’s hope this year in film is a good one!
Today’s music video of the day is dedicated to everyone who will be going home with an Oscar later today.
I like this song. Whether it’s a Kia commercial or a David O. Russell film, this song provides the perfect score for just about anything. This is a song that inspires you to walk into a room and take over. It’s a song that inspires you to never settle for getting stuck in a traffic. This is a song that makes you want to move and the video captures that feeling perfectly.
I assume the video is a player on the Little Red Riding Hood story. I like the cartoon skeletons.
Through the Shattered Lens