Working Girls (1986)

It’s always striking to see a film that holds up so well in terms of content and yet is so tied to its time period in terms of aesthetics. I’m hesitant to use the word “dated”, because I think a film like Working Girls is aiming to portray an authentic version of its own reality, even if that reality feels unmistakably born of the 1980s. But the guiding philosophy of Working Girls seems to be that “sex work is work”, a phrase I only remember popping up in the public consciousness in the last decade or so. So to see a film that portrays sex work in terms of labor and workplace politics feels pretty remarkable, even if the hair, make-up, and name brands used in the film feel like relics of the Reagan years.

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Lenny (1974)

Aw man, I was so excited to finally check out Bob Fosse’s next biggest movie (as a director) nearly a decade after doing All That Jazz until today, when I finally had to sit down and watch it. That’s because I realized I didn’t account for two things: 1) writing about biopics is incredibly boring and 2) The Odyssey came out this weekend and it rules and kinda all I wanna do now is read about The Sea Peoples. But worry not friend, Lenny was more than interesting enough to have really woken me up and grabbed my attention against those perilous odds. I mean, what did I expect? It’s Bob Fosse.

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Five Easy Pieces (1970)

As I watched the Mariners absolutely shit the bed to begin the second half of the MLB season tonight, I couldn’t help but think of the main takeaway I had from rewatching Five Easy Pieces last night: expectations are a bitch. Now I didn’t remember this movie that well – it has been a decade since the first and only other time I saw it – I’m pretty sure my reaction to it was: boy, this Jack Nicholson guy is a dick. He’s surrounded by people who want to love him and he’s horrible to all of them. But now, I see it more as everyone wants him to live on their (honestly eminently reasonable) terms and he’s just not built that way. I still bristle at this character, but I see the internal tragedy better now.

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Donkey Skin (1970)

A lot of fairy tales are pretty weird, even despite the fact that they’re an inseparable part of most people’s childhoods. Filled with eating children and killing grannies and creepy little weirdos with unpronounceable names, there are a lot of strange things in these stories that get passed down to each generation. And yet, we as children take them at face value because as far as storytelling, they’re all we know at that age. So what does it look like when a director tries to make a film that evokes that childhood purity that one gets being read a fairy tale before going to bed? Well, that’s what Jacques Demy aimed to create with Donkey Skin. However, because it’s a fairy tale that has never been all that popular in English-speaking countries, it’s hard not to be struck by its charming weirdness.

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