Lady Comedy

I found a new hero and her name is Julie Klausner. I plan on making a post about her book, which I read this weekend, but until then...here's this video. I couldn't handle how hard I laughed at this. Other things I couldn't handle: how pretty Julie Klausner is, how much I wish I had hair exactly like hers, how beautiful that dress looks.

Also (can you tell I fell down the rabbit hole, here?) I found this really wonderful essay JK wrote on Hannah and Her Sisters. I've watched this movie multiple times and never once thought about how shitty Woody Allen was being to Mia. Quoth Julie: "Because the cruelty of using poor, fabulous Michael Caine to say what you can’t, in public, to your partner once she is out of character, exceeds the terrain of narcissism and bleeds into some kind of gruesome art. Making this movie to talk to Mia about her adoption hobby, her selflessness, and her general wishy-washiness was a poisonous simulacrum—like talking through one of your Barbies during playtime with your sister. And nobody should learn they’re adopted from Skipper."

Michael Caine

Do you remember a long time ago, when I said I was turning this into a fashion blog where I would highlight my favorite men's styles? Well, I forgot about that. Until now.
This is a favorite look of mine (and Alex's). It's Michael Caine in Hannah and Her Sisters, one of my favorite movies (and not one of Alex's).

There aren't even words for that hairstyle. And this coat?


Get outta town. That coat's amazing. I only wish I could find footage of him running while wearing it.
Michael Caine: fashion icon. Maybe someday this look will appear at Urban Outfitters, and all the young dudes will start looking like Michael Caine...but probably not, because I can't imagine anyone wearing that coat. Maybe this sweater, though!

Zelig

I done did it: I got a Netflix account. Now I'm wondering why I didn't do this long ago. I've filled my "queue" (I hate that word) with some real gems, like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (written, of course, by the great Roger Ebert). But my first choice was Zelig by Woody Allen.
It's not the most popular Woody Allen film, likely because it's really weird. It's a mockumentary about Leonard Zelig, a "human chameleon" who finds himself transforming into whoever is near him, be that person obese, handicapped, or an entirely different race. Woody Allen used bluescreen technology to place himself, as Zelig, into historical footage with old movie stars, sports stars, and, in one instance, Hitler. Mia Farrow plays a lady-doctor who takes on Zelig's case and, as is true of most Woody-Mia stories, ends up falling in love.
It's hard to come up with an opinion on this. On the one hand, it's clear that an enormous amount of time went into Zelig. In just the time it took to edit the film, Woody Allen made two OTHER movies (he is nothing if not productive). In addition to the technical aspects, there are multiple songs written about Zelig, as well as interviews with such literary greats as Susan Sontag and Saul Bellow. On the other hand, the movie doesn't really do a lot. I mean, there isn't much of a plot, really, but it's supposed to be a documentary. I laughed a lot, though, and Alex probably would too if he didn't hate Woody Allen so much. That's a shame, because the silly humor is pretty similar to David Wain's.
Here's a clip of some of the famous people interviews at the beginning of Zelig. I'm not sure who posted this video on youtube, but if you read the information on the page it seems like it was posted for a school assignment, possibly for an English as a Second Language film course. What a weird movie to watch for that purpose. And, really, the discussion question ("Do you like Woody Allen movies? Please explain") is a little weak.

Thought on Polanski

Did you guys watch The View today? I didn't* (even though, on my Mondays off work, I've been known to), but I read Lindsay's article about it on Jezebel. Alex and I have been talking a lot about this. There's always an icky, uncomfortable feeling that comes along with liking the creative work of someone who's done horrible things in their personal life. Well, I can only speak for myself, but I assume others would agree. It has always been hard for me to reconcile that some of my favorite films are made by a man who left his wife for her adopted daughter (I'm talking about Woody Allen, of course). And last week, we all learned about Mackenzie Phillips's incestuous relationship with her father, which makes enjoying the Mamas and the Papas all but impossible. Most of us aren't capable of divorcing an artist's creative output from the context behind it. I can't ever hear "You Look Wonderful Tonight" on the soft rock radio without thinking of Eric Clapton writing it for George Harrison's wife, nor can I hear "Lady in Red" without thinking about how the singer wrote it for his children's babysitter. I'm not even entirely sure that last one is true, but it's still all I think about.
What I'm saying is, it's difficult for me to think of Roman Polanski as someone who drugged and raped a 13 year old child. But he did.
Alex has a new business venture that's come out of all of this...t-shirts that say TEAM POLANSKI. He'll apparently have at least one customer, and that customer is named Whoopi Goldberg! Probably no one else though, aside from the entire country of France.

*I watched The Golden Girls instead. Blanche's daughter wanted to have a child through artificial insemination, hilarity ensued.

More of the Same

Um, holy moly. Just take a look at this and then get back to me.
My dream.
That is a Golden Girls cross stitch, right? I mean I didn't just dream that, did I? This person has a whole shop of this stuff, including Woody Allen and Tom Selleck. I obviously need to get a lot better at cross stich immediately.

This is about right.