"Accomplishments"In theaters: Jennifer Lawrence puts in a bravura performance as a woman in the throes of postpartum depression-then-psychosis in Die My Love, something exacerbated by her husband (Robert Pattinson)'s neglect, as the mental illness becomes more and more repellent to him (not an excuse, but still a reason). Sissy Spacek is also great as her mother-in-law who is also going through a change that leads to depression. Relatable to me on both ends, as I feel like I've dated this witty, but volatile, lady AND her being stuck in a house alone with terminal boredom and sensitivity to noise pushed ALL my damn buttons. Some beautiful cinematography, acerbic dark comedy, and oblique editing that makes you wonder what's real exactly are elements that don't always play nice with one another, but in a way, this a movie that, like its wounded heroine, refuses to play nice.
At home: Robert Altman's 3 Women is a step and a shade from his surreal Images, as it's based on a dream he had, and uses dream logic at certain points, though it's not as fractured as Images was. He's got a kind of Fates/Three Witches/Furies thing going with Sissy Spacek a childish teenager, Shelley Duvall as a liberated adult, and Janice Rule almost just a force of nature in the background, but pregnant and therefore the mother figure, but these roles shift as if in a dream. There's one particular moral inversion that occurs in the middle of the film that's a manifestation of that, but certainly not its only instance. At first, 3 Woman seems to be a straightforward character study of two roommates. Duvall talks a good game, but is obviously a tedious social pariah (something Atlman's trademark cross-talk highlights as she's so often ignored). Spacek has a big crush on Duvall, in a "I want to be you" kind of way, but the score keeps pointing to something being quite wrong with her or that we're headed for tragedy. Once the dream logic kicks in, things get wild, and psychoanalytical and literary symbolism create some interesting interpretations. There's really no one to root for, but for fans of enigmatic film making, there's a lot to pour over.
Another one of Altman's dreams turned into film, one's interest in Quintet is probably predicated on seeing what Robert Altman and Paul Newman would do with science-fiction, as neither is exactly known to dabble in the genre. Because as a story, it's fairly opaque and boring. "Quintet" is a gambling board game that everyone in a nuclear winter future is playing and whose rules are never explained though they sometimes mimic life - the "limbo" of the frozen wastes, the violent conflicts inside the city zones, are part of the game itself. But the film's existential vibe, loosely congealing as a murder mystery, tells us that, like life, no one really knows the rules, they aren't fair, and everyone is out to win at your expense. With humanity in its final death throes, we might as well step away from the table. It's grim, and held more interest when it was doing proper world-building early on. Its turn to ponderous, even pretentious, material left me cold. Speaking of which, great use of a dream-like, snowed-in Montreal Expo to represent this bleak future. In the 70s, it often played sci-fi environments (in the old Battlestar Galactica show, for example), but I've never seen it like this.
Loosely adapted from one of Kurt Vonnegut's best known novels, Breakfast of Champions is naturally a heavy satire on American society, borrowing its idiom from advertising to expose the shallow nothingness under the surface of "Americana". It's a frenetic, zapping-happy world where motivations are inspired by those of characters in ads, savagely taking swipes at boomer culture. The existential lead is Dwayne Hoover (Bruce Willis), a rich car salesman who, by virtue of being in television spots, is a celebrity - narcissism manifests as real to absurd lengths - and deep in the throes of a midlife crisis. His eventual answers will come from god with a small-case "g", i.e. Kilgore Trout (Albert Finney), a stand-in for Vonnegut himself, whose revelations are empty slogans. If the film feels like a mess to some, it's because we follow the conspiracy-enraptured Trout for the length of the film, without really understanding what he's doing in this eclectic narrative. There are a lot of fun, inventive bits, and if it's "in your face", it's at least done in a humorous way. I liked a lot of pieces, but wasn't over the moon about the whole. I kind of felt the same about the novel, honestly (my favorite Vonneguts lie elsewhere).
I had watched a couple of episodes of Taskmaster years ago, but it wasn't until recently (during Series 19) that someone convinced me to take a closer look. I went whole hog and started with the lesser Series 1, and promised myself I would drop it as an "Accomplishment" when Series 20 wrapped (I finished the backlog of episodes a couple weeks ago). So yeah, I became a little obsessed there for a while, as you do with popcorn television, and while there are a couple series where the comedians were perhaps not as funny as others, it's only really just a couple. Usually, I've taken to each cast quite quickly, and if I have a "type", it's the mums. I always want the ladies in their 40s up to do well, for some reason, and they often do! Now, I'm not about to jump into other countries' versions of Taskmaster (especially not the Quebec one, come on, I have my pride), but who knows what could happen while I wait for Series 21 to turn up on the youtubes?
From the World Cinema Project![Vanuatu] Based on a shockingly recent true story in the Polynesian nation of Vanuatu, Tanna feels like an ancient legend of tribal strife and the dangers of straying from tradition. The young people in the story are on the cusp of spontaneous modernity - the disobedient child who inadvertently sparks off the drama, and the young couple promised in marriage to another tribe daring to stay together even at the cost of igniting a war... or will their elders finally bow to changing times? It's very sweet, but also has the potential for tragedy. Vanuatu is a beautiful country, a land of lush forests and fiery volcanoes, and having actual Natives play the roles - not professional actors, but so authentic, you wouldn't know it - creates an otherworldly experience that I, for one, found quite engaging. Plenty of "cultural interest" on show, of course, but the story works as a doomed romance regardless.
[Fiji] I was aware of the Native American gender identity referred to as Two-Spirit, but it exists in Polynesian culture as well, as "māhū". The eponymous subject of the documentary Kumu Hina is an engaging trans lady who identifies as māhū, and we follow her through her activism, her teaching of hula dancing (and in that thread, her pupil, a young girl who may also be māhū, and dances in the boys' line), and her love affair with a boy from Fiji (warts and all, and there are a lot of warts, but we can't fault the film's - and Hina's - honesty). It's about Hawaiian culture, and not losing it, and how it was more accepting than Western values have proven to be, so all these separate parts do speak to each other. More intriguing than most TV-strength docs like this.
[American Samoa] When your omniscient narrator doesn't really know anything, you get The Movement, an extended joke about people drink "ava" and forgetting to save the world. It could have been funny, but it's mostly tedious and amateurish.
RPGs: In Torg Eternity this week, we had to finish up our Amazon Island adventure, which was down to the final climax around a molten pool of precious "eternium", Amazon rebels, Nile Empire supervillains, oh, and a Gorgon hiding in the shadows, ready to turn you into statuary. And while the latter almost happened, this was mostly an exercise in the GM rolling like crap and the villains essentially getting in their own way and defeating themselves. For the next planned Act - in which heroes must sneak into Pharaoh Mobius's temple city and steal the plans to his new WMD - I was going to skip it and just say other agents got it in the meanwhile, but they I had a flash: I asked the players if they'd rather we cut to the chase, or if they wanted to play the Mystery Men (local pulp heroes) who were on the side-mission. They opted for the latter, which resurrected an old Rocket Ranger PC who had left the team, in charge of three of several offered pre-gens - Raven (she's Batman/Wolverine, and the players had met her previously), Ensign Egypt (she's Captain America if her were a sidekick type), and Rama Tut (a pulp sorcerer, so Dr. Fate). We only had time to get through the tunnels to the city, but I staged a fight so the players could get used to their new character sheets... and discover that they were far weaker than than their usual PCs. Or at least, didn't have the crutches those longer-serving agents did. But then, I WANTED this to feel like a suicide mission.
Best bits: So many villains falling into the molten Eternium, the Realm Runner mused that they could return super-SUPER-powered thanks to the Laws of the Nile Empire - nice idea. The sorceress who proved to be immune to the Demon Slayer's sleep powder was eventually shot and destroyed by the Deadlands Preacher, suddenly showing her true form as a desiccated mummy before she fell back into the lava. Summoning a reality storm around himself and the Gorgon, the Realm Runner at one point bounced her gaze back at her and turned her into a statue. As if the dice (and Drama Deck) knew the Eternium Pool would cause havoc with reality, they kept disconnecting the same two PCs, and at one point, the Demon Slayer might have transformed - for the third time this year - but when informed it would make him an Amazon, he dropped a card to prevent it (not saying he didn't want to play a woman, it seemed like the card was already in the air when I finished my sentence). Players starting to complain that the Nile Empire keeps threatening to bring down the roof of every tomb, cave or vault they go into (well, a dynamite stick will do that). Props to the Rocket Ranger for torpedoing through the tunnel traps, but otherwise, a LOT of failed rolls made the Mystery Men seem very feeble and accident-prone... suicide squad mode activated! Cliffhanger? The heroes pop out of the secret tunnels into the villain's chambers... and he seemed to be waiting for them!
Improv: "Lucid Dreaming"'s fourth and final tour date, up in the Acadian Peninsula lost its one female artist for health reasons, and was therefore a sausage fest (though one of our number if non-binary, at least). As usual, the audience voted for the type of show we were going to play: Fishing Story (which is also an expression meaning Tall Tale, in French), Medical Drama, or Fairy Tale. Tightest vote yet, but we ended up with the Fairy Tale, turning out a knight's quest to, first, find a sword, then defeat some dark power, all to "solve" the main character's fear of heights. Nick Berry was our lead, and they really brought it in at the end, turning the sword into a symbol of his confidence - having to find it, use it, and finally fear that it might turn into arrogance. The rest of us (me, David St-Pierre, and JS Arseneau) played every other role, from talking clouds to a Humperdink/Farquaad type of king, to burly Tolkien dwarves. The audience decided the big bad should be a single ant (our hero only wanted to go low because of their phobia). I played that ant as an anarchist anti-monarchist creature that teaches the hero the secret about the world (it's levels, you're always above something when you're below something else) and sent them to kill the king (which was also me - let's just say I had a lot of stage time in the third act). I had found an old mirror backstage and used it in a "mirror, mirror" kind of way, so Berry ended on his taking over the kingdom and gazing into their own mirror, the sword's blade. Like I said, they really made it come together at the end. But though I'm happy with every single show, boy am I glad the tour is over.
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