Criterion Month Day 20: Working Girls

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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Criterion Month Day 19: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

“There’s nothing I despise more than being entertained.” This is a quote John Cassavetes told scholar and author Ray Carney, later published in Carney’s 2001 book Cassavetes on Cassavetes. John Cassavetes didn’t make films to transport us. He made films to turn the mirror on ourselves, showing us the grit and drama of relationships, success, failure, and violence.

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Criterion Month Day 18: Lenny

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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Criterion Month Day 17: Murmur of the Heart

Murmur of the Heart (1971)

Last year, I dedicated an entire Criterion Month to “Horny Movies.” I reviewed films like Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour, Nagisa Ōshima’s In the Realm of the Senses, and Louis Malle’s The Lovers. I had a blast exploring not just sexuality in cinema, but how different countries and different eras portrayed it. So when I heard Malle had another “horny” movie in the Criterion Collection, I immediately added it to my list. I just wish I’d known the sexuality in Murmur of the Heart was centered around a teenage boy… and his mom.

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Criterion Month Day 16: Five Easy Pieces

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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Criterion Month Day 15: Donkey Skin

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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Criterion Month Day 14: Stolen Kisses

Stolen Kisses (1968)

While they seem like an invention of the 2010s, all these Criterion Months have taught me that the idea of shared cinematic universes actually goes way back. So it comes as no surprise to report that legacy sequels – a related and seemingly modern phenomenon – were actually invented by François Truffaut in the 1960s (eat your heart out, Richard Linklater). In between making some of the best movies ever made, Truffaut spent his career returning to his first film and its leading man, Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel, giving audiences a chance to check in on the troubled boy as he grew up.

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