Hilarity ensues, in classic Simpsons style, with jokes about her resorting to psychics, video dating, and artificial semination, and despite the sensitive topics, none of it is particularly dehumanizing, or make the viewer unempathetic to Selma’s plight.
The Saint, as it is always referred to by us, was very much a part of me, ingrained you might say, and even after all these years . . . But, you know, I never really thought of it like that then, it was always—well, it was always just there, like snow in the winter, the midsummer rains, time flowing like a river ever passing, never past.
Marlon Brando is Johnny, and The Rebels know
their leader’s cool, like in the first scene
at the Squaresville cycle race,
Johnny just strolls across the track,
sending riders sliding into bales of hay.
I or maybe you swung there and I took a lemon from
the tree and bit down hard and the juice tasted like a
burst of citronella or the way the hardwood smelled
in the early summer and the swing kept going back
and forth while the juice dribbled down my chin
The term “infant” in the statue’s name gave me pause because what I saw was a reproduction of a child, not an infant. The statues were standing and holding objects while wearing crowns. Anyone who has ever cared for an infant knows that infants do not stand upright. And, no hat is staying on a baby’s head without some kind of elastic chin strap, tape, or other assistance, yet these babies were balancing crowns.
Sometimes, I am all the sad music in the world;
some days, I even miss you. In another life,
I would have recognized you in my reflection
and let you hold my hand.
She smirked and we continued building. After a few hours we stood, my arm around her, admiring the crib we had created together. She leaned her head on my shoulder and mused, “I kind of wish our ghost was here to see this.”
I starved outside with the rest of the dogs, staring into diner windows—mind, body, and spirit consumed—barred from entry, wanting for crumbs. The narrative’s my own, but the story remains the same.
I wanted escapism to be
a doo wop song. But, instead
I used my money to
buy a salad from 7-11.
There is leopard print involved.
For, in another dress, Gram has seen
a leopard in its natural habitat.
They became friends.
In a corner booth, a man and
woman sit, guarded by an entourage
of empty glasses. What’s missing
is her partner; what’s missing
are his insecurities.
I don’t know if she regrets telling me
the names of all her cats and
snakes, or sending me nudes, or
saying she loves me.
FILM / Once Upon a Time in Film Scoring / The Psychic / Sean Woodard
Sean’s Once Upon a Time in Film Scoring column returns with an examination of the score for Lucio Fulci’s psychological giallo, The Psychic.
Desperate to see the bones beneath amusement, I began
in the garden, followed the bullmoose stirring
the air outside, his quiet right to be alive opened wide
It’s the sound of your head
getting slammed on a police cruiser,
and the sound you hear
when the power company shuts off your electricity
after a hard day of working.
The film truly kicks off when Georgia is diagnosed with a terminal illness. The shock makes Georgia realise she has been wasting her life waiting, and she needs to take advantage of the time she has left. She packs up herself, and all the money she has, and takes herself on a solo trip to the hotel resort in the Czech Republic where Chef Didier presides as head chef. This is the eponymous Last Holiday.
COMICS / Mr. Butterchips / Alex Schumacher / January 2020
Mr. Butterchips roars into 2020 just as pissed off as ever in the latest strip from Aex Schumacher!
100 WORD FILM REVIEWS / Little Women
The risk of any Little Women adaptation is to turn this multiple coming of age story into a treacly homily. Greta Gerwig sidesteps the potential for syrup, and while her adaptation is full of real warmth and conviviality, it gives equal narrative weight to conflicts and family triangulations. The decision to tell the story non-linearly might prove baffling to those unfamiliar with the book, but there’s an easy cheat sheet: the “past” is shot with an orange filter; while the “present” is a cool lonely blue. For me, the structure worked to give texture to the cyclicality and parallel struggles of women trying to exist in full color against the very limited palette of 1860s American mores. It’s a beautiful, heartfelt film, and the meta-textual twist at the very end gives us something to continue thinking about.
100 WORD FILM REVIEWS / Bombshell
In Bombshell, the women of Fox News jump on the #MeToo bandwagon, all while a dazzling Charlize Theron (Megyn Kelly) repeats that she is “not a feminist.” It’s a solid attempt to humanize the powerful women behind the major news network, but the film spends most of the time navigating shallow plot points, without getting into the true exploration of Kelly’s struggle. The better scenes feature Margot Robbie, the “evangelical millennial,” as an amalgamation of many victims, but even her story is left with dead ends. To sum it up, Robbie’s character said it best: it’s too little, too late.