My God. I can't believe I had never seen this.

The setup:

Eddie has one night before shipping out to Vietnam from San Fransisco. He and his pals all throw in $50 and spend the early evening looking for dates to bring to their so-called Dogfight. Guy who brings the "best", in this case "ugliest" takes home the cash. There are many similar or adjacent stories in this sub-genre of do-something-to-or-with-ugly-person (She's all That & My Fair Lady, 10 Things I Hate about You & Taming of the Shrew, Dinner for Schmucks...etc.) and none come close to the truth in this film. Credit is probably generally attributed to River Phoenix and Lily Taylor and their wonderful chemistry (rightly so!)... but the writing and the music and the supporting casts and sub-plots and the filming locations are all practically perfect. 

I had known of this movie for years but never sat down with it until I saw it on the Criterion channel. The setup itself is not one of my favorites...just somewhat off-putting for me at this point in my life. These days I try to avoid mean for mean-sake stories but the family was asleep when I got home last night, and I was out of ideas, so I threw it on not expecting much. But holy shit! Surprise of surprises! So many perfect little moments... the sweet thrill of getting to know someone and opening yourself up just little pieces at a time. Two immature but sweet and lost kids trading barbs, pushing limits; setting boundries and honoring them. And I'd say, after the first watch, it falls more into a different sub-genre that I truly love; Unexpected Frienship.

The music is used perfectly. Some great late 50s and early 60s pop fare along with some perfectly placed Dylan in the second act which bookends some grittier bluesy Van Morrison (TB Sheets) heralding in the more serious third act. 

Really too much to name in this movie but an abbreviated list:

• Fun scene in tatoo parlor
• Keeping cigarettes in socks
• The piano scene in the closed bar (the camera luxuriating on both Eddie and Rose)
• "Lock your eyes on the numbskulls and brain them!"

10 out of 10

***On a more personal note, a good chunk of the film takes place on Ballard Ave in Seattle (standing in for San Fransisco). The restaurant where Eddie first meets Rose was one of our favorite bars in Seattle circa 2018 (Little Tin sadly now closed). That whole strip is near and dear to my (and my wifes) heart as it was our neighborhood the few years leading up to Covid followed by our sons birth... so I guess sort of the last hurrah of that time of life. 

This was a fun and quick read that my friend Luke put me onto. I probably prefer Michael Shane, Cool & Lam, Mike Hammer, etc. but if you are looking for a not-quite-so-dated bit of private eye type pulp this Travis MCgee book will do the trick.

I'm in a Sci-Fi Book Club. The club consists of an older guy, an older guy than that, another guy even older than that, and me. For reference I'm 44. We've been meeting up at various bars for about a year and a half. It is a joy even when we don't spend the whole time discussing the books. Not all the books we read are good. Most are not tbh. Only maybe one or two have been great. Some get-together's last less than 2 hours but it is a wonderful distraction to hang out intergenerationally. LOL 

I won't wax poetic about future (and maybe past) entries of sci-fi book club but since this is the first time mentioning it I figured I'd give some background. I do intend to denote when a book is part of book club (or a movie is part of movie club). 

This go-round we read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (soon to be a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling!). I like the "Gos" fine (Drive for sure) but IDk if Hollywood will screw the movie version of this up or what. Probably they will. I did enjoy the book though. It hit me at a particularly tough time with reading-for-pleasure. I had/have started 4 or 5 books recently and not been able to finish due to boredom or chaos in the world or both or being a dad of a 4.5 year old... or a whole slew of other not-super-interesting or totally-standard person/human reasons. In any event... it got me out of my funk, so there is that. And that is a lot.

I do not love The Martian. Admittedly I have not read the book but the movie is meh. Matt Damon is definitely whatever. I normally love Jessica Chastain and she is under utilized (though that is probably story reasons and not director reasons). Fuck, looking it up again now, the whole rest of the cast are folks I also love... Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Michael Peña (HOMETOWN!).... 

Anyhow, Project Hail Mary. I got annoyed with plenty but it was a quick and engaging read and ultimately about friendship in the midst of hardship (the MOST hardship possible probably).... a few times I thought it could go a few different ways and ultimately it went the way I wanted which is somewhat lovely. I'm a big fan of melodrama from the 50s and early 60s and this had a lot of that but it also had a more optimistic ending than Written on the Wind, Leave her to Heaven... if they took place in space. 

Overall I'm glad this book is a thing. 

People should read more. Read anything ffs.

Good Stuff

• Rocky
• The somewhat "Hard Sci-Fi" math etc etc (but not TOO hard)
• Friendship

Bad Stuff

• Whatever... you go write a book

Holy Hell! What even is this Robert Altman?? So I guess the setup is like, frozen earth apocalypse and Paul Newman... "Essex", is trudging across the tundra with his pregnant gf (not sure about legal marriages in this frozen hellscape). Her name is Vivia. They make their way to a frozen, um, MALL(?) with no doors and its full of lots of dogs and people in furs hanging out around 55 gallon drums on fire like apocalyptic hobos. They go inside, or kind of inside. I guess all the doors are blown off or something. 

(Spoilers ahead)

So then they like go past a bar with a game being played by five people that Essex knows but he's like "I don't play that anymore" and it looks like a really stupid game but they all have little trinkets of their own like pool players with their own cues. So anyways, his pregs gf gets blown up almost immediately and he doesn't seem to care that much. A bunch of people give him `BOOZA` which I assume is alcohol. It must be really far in the future if people forgot the other hundreds of words for liquor.

Anyhow, he gets roped into the game QUINTET and shoot if he's not really good! Then the other players, all dressed like they are in the Decameron in Alaska, start BEING KILLED? LMAO. Some other bird tries to seduce him and she does kind of... No time for mourning. Oh, also the dogs seem to eat all the dead frozen people littered about Woodfield. I'm not kidding. Lots of dogs but like, if people are starving to death, why not eat the dogs?

The women all suck their thumbs too. I won't spoil the ending in case anyone actually wants to watch this but I don't know if I'd recommend it (except to like one or two maniac friends I have). 

Weird timing watching this one. I expected there to be all the trappings of an R rated High School melodrama... but I didn't remember, nor did I expect, the head of the FCC to hunt Christian Slater down and yell at him "THIS IS THE PROBLEM WITH FREE SPEECH". If only Hard Harry knew what even the older 18+ folks were dealing with regarding the FCC in present day...

I had to look up the one sympathetic teacher in the movie and was really tickled to discover it was Ellen Green who I loved in Little Shop of Horrors. 

Anyways, plenty to pick apart if you want to be unkind about it but plenty to still enjoy.

Good Stuff

• The soundtrack (Leonard Cohen, Bad Brains, Pixies, etc.)
• Good cast all around
• Christian Slater being very Christian Slater-y

Bad Stuff

• I'm not here to criticize