I developed symptoms, and took my first coronavirus test, this past Friday, on December 24. It was a home rapid test which I got from the drug store, and it was positive. Hence, canceled trip to family. But I was looking for some angle, so I tried two "professional" tests at the public testing center in North Miami. That was Sunday, December 26. The rapid test came back positive a couple of hours later, and the PCR, which is a better quality test, came back positive the next day (yesterday). I've been reading that tests may convert to negative in as few as 5-7 days in vaccinated people, one of whom I am. So, my plan is to go back to the NoMi center on Thursday or Friday this week, which will be about one week after I developed symptoms. I'm hoping by then, I might be negative. If I am, I can get the fuck out of here, and try to rearrange some kind of time with my family.
But since the crash of last Friday, it's been whatever work I could do from home, and movies. Ones I've seen plenty of times. Which ones they've been on which days is becoming a blur. "A Mighty Wind" was recent, but I don't remember if it was yesterday or maybe the day before. (I love all Chris Guest movies.) And then, of course, there were the two movies I streamed on Netflix and Prime, which one of my friends installed on my Roku. (When I say one of my friends installed them, I mean she set me up with her sign-in credentials. I don't have to know her user name or password. It's all already activated. I don't watch Prime movies unless she's here, because you usually have to pay for Prime movies, and I don't ask my friends to pay for my entertainment. But "Being the Ricardos" was free, even on Prime, so I watched it.)
I've had continuing conversations with other friends and BP neighbors about the two movies I streamed and didn't like ("Being the Ricardos" and "Don't Look Up"), and they certainly had perspectives that didn't come across that way to me. Hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
But I must admit that I was surprised that anyone wouldn't have loved "Big Fish," and that Mac Kennedy was as disappointed as he was. (But then again, he, and BrambleWitch, loved "In America," which I just found depressing, and an essentially bad, if well-deserved, commentary on America and life here.)
Mac seemed to conclude that "Big Fish" had it right as a story, but he didn't like so much of the imagination, and maybe some of the mystery, controlled by a film-maker, instead of imagined by the reader. He didn't say he read "the book," but he thought it would have been better left in book form than converted to Tim Burton's preferred fantastical imagery in a movie. That's just how Mac felt about it.
Anyway, until I can get a negative coronavirus test, so I can qualify to fly on an airplane, I'm sort of stuck. I've finished all the work that was available to me (except hooking up my new VCR, which I'm too annoyed to do right now), and I had no appointments scheduled this week (because I wasn't supposed to be here), so I'm looking for more movie recommendations. Absent that, it's back to my regular stash. Which isn't bad. (That's why I've kept them.) I could just use some less familiar stimulation.
You got anything?
PS: I already said I love Chris Guest movies. I also love Kevin Smith movies, and I even like the stupid ones, like "Clerks" and "Clerks 2." The off-the-charts best one is "Dogma." I never tire (well, I might have to start amending "never tire") of watching Sherlock Holmes movies -- the old Basil Rathbone ones, and the new Benedict Cumberbatch ones. And I have at least 100 or more other movies, all of which are great, and a significant number of which are on videocassette, which means I can't watch them until I set up my new VCR, which is a huge pain, because of the need to spend an hour or more snaking wires. Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, I do understand there was a somewhat recent TV series in which either Holmes or Watson was played by a woman, and it had a modern setting. But since I don't have regular TV, I've never seen it. I don't even know the name of the series, or for how many seasons it lasted. If it's available for free on Hulu or Vudu (which are on my Roku), I could watch that. I watched one of the Robert Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes movies, and I didn't like it. Too modernistic, and too violent.
Well, I think my taste in movies is VERY different than yours. One thing we can agree on: Sherlock Holmes. Love Sherlock Holmes and particularly the older ones. I did enjoy Sherlock and also "Elementary" which is the one you are thinking of. Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu (as Watson). Enjoyed both of those even though they are modern. As much as I love RDJ (Robert Downey Jr.) I really detest his Sherlock Holmes movies for the same reason you do. Terrible.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes: "Elementary." I'll see if I can find it somewhere.
ReplyDeleteToday's solution was "Chocolat." And it was an excellent solution. I have one idiosyncratic complaint. For some reason, which is not entirely clear to me, I do not like Johnny Depp. Whenever I see him, I'm way too conscious of watching Johnny Depp. He does not get his Johnny Depp self lost in the character, as, for example in this movie, Juliette Binoche, and Judi Dench, and Alfred Molina, and Peter Stormare, and all the rest of them did. And to give a different kind of example, Depp's character was Irish. He adopted an Irish accent. But he was conspicuously Johnny Depp. In "Snatch," Brad Pitt, whom I also normally don't like, did an excellent job of becoming exactly Johnny Depp's character in "Chocolat:" an Irish gypsy. I just really wish they had chosen a different actor for that part. Actually, any unknown Irish actor would have been perfectly good. Just not Johnny Depp.
PS, BrambleWitch, I very highly recommend the movie "Chef." Your boy (RDJ) is wonderful in it. And it's a great movie.
Ah, Chocolat! Love the movie and love Joanne Harris the author. The book Chocolat became a trilogy. I have read many of her books and many of them are a bit darker. I know what you are saying about Johnny Depp. It's hard for me to even know what I think about him now. In the 80s and 90s I had a trilogy of crushes: RDJ, Johnny Depp, and Kiefer Sutherland.
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me of a movie with both RDJ and Kiefer, "1969". I really like that movie and to me it is very accurate to how I experienced the sixties. I don't think it did well and I don't know what others think of it.
You might have started some trouble Fred, sometimes it is hard for me to stop talking about movies and books!
Let 'er rip. I'll get some good movie tips from you.
DeleteWell...
ReplyDeleteThere have been lots of actors who have played Holmes over the decades. For me, Rathbone was the best. I couldn't connect with Jeremy Brett, who did the Doyle stories for PBS. He was just too dry and uninteresting, and as with Johnny Depp, watching Brett play Holmes was just watching Brett. I liked a lot of the Cumberbatch stuff, and I thought Martin Freeman was a very good choice and style for Watson. I did not like Nigel Bruce as much opposite Rathbone, because they (the director) had him play that part in too bumbling a way.
I just watched the first episode of "Elementary." Jonny Lee Miller was just too intense, fast-talking, and seemingly out of control. The set-up is the same as all Sherlock Holmes set-ups, but the delivery just didn't work for me.
What happens to be interesting here is that Miller and Cumberbatch acted together in a National Film Theatre production of "Frankenstein" a couple of years or so ago. There were only two characters, and a stage essentially without set or props, and the two of them alternated from one night to the next as to which was Dr Frankenstein and which was the monster. And they each wound up playing Sherlock Holmes in unrelated productions.
We watched a wild new movie called “@zola,” based on real-life events as told by someone through 148 Twitter posts. Two young women travel to Tampa Florida to make some quick money ... and I'll say no more. It’s quite scary and at times hysterically funny… And the two characters are so endearing although terribly flawed, so you just can’t help but to pull for them every step along the way. The acting is fabulous particularly from the two young women, one of them is Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keogh. The movie is told and shot in fresh, exciting ways, that film fans should appreciate even if the subject matter disturbs. I’ve been thinking about the movie for several days, and for my money it’s one of the best and certainly most innovative movies of the year. I never heard of the director before, a young Hispanic woman named Janicza Bravo, but she's gotten some great buzz about this film and other shorts, films and TV shows that she's directed. Conversely, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, “The Lost Daughter,” is so painful to sit through. She needs to stick to acting out someone else’s script and direction. It was torture, and for the final third I was bitching out loud at the director for wasting a good story. Here's a trailer for @zola: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24KbaKlCDDI
ReplyDeleteWow, I don't know, Mac... This trailer has a number of components that turn me off. Yeah, "the subject matter disturbs." You didn't even say if they land on their feet, which would be the very least the viewer could want.
DeleteI won't tell you anything, Fred. The wild ride is worth the content, and I won't spoil it by sharing the ending. I would recommend just jumping in and enjoying the way this young storyteller chose to show the story visually. At times, it's a hoot ... even at times when you think, "I shouldn't be laughing at these people."
ReplyDelete