Films I Want to See in (the Rest of) 2011

Right, so I take back my previous bemoaning of zero quality movies coming out this year. Goodness gracious, am I stupid. It's probably the second or third year that I've complained that there aren't any exciting or stellar movies coming out, and now my list is swollen with unexpected releases and I'm back to complaining that they'll probably release all of the good movies in a five-week period.

Anyhoo my list, with its main selling points beneath each title:

Martha Marcy May Marlene (Oct 7)

- Fine, I want to see what all the fuss about Elizabeth Olsen is, ok? Also the movie is supposed to be an excellent mind-fucker.

The Skin I Live In (Oct 14)

- Almodovar duhhhh

The Rum Diary (Oct 28)

- was not enthusiastic about this at all, but the trailer kind of won me over.

Like Crazy (Oct 28)

- See rhapsodizing in prior blog posts. Get ready to fall in love.

Melancholia (Nov 11)

- Kirsten Dunst's possibly Oscar-worthy role

- Lars Von Trier being anti Terrence Malick.

A Dangerous Method (Nov 23)

- Everything about it. Hell, I'm even incredibly fond of Keira Knightley for being in this movie, and the last time I liked her was in 2003.

Coriolanus (Dec 2)

- Ralph Fiennes is acting and directing. There's also Jessica Chastain and Vanessa Redgrave. I'm dying to see it just so I can know if Ralph Fiennes can finally get another Oscar nod after 15 friggin' years, and totally cheated out of two for The Constant Gardener and The Duchess.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Dec 25)

- Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara

- David Fincher <3

- Have you SEEN the trailer?

War Horse (Dec 28)

- Spielberg being sentimental. C'mon, you know you want to.

Drive (?)

- Ryan Gosling, continuing his "suave, awesome" phase, which we must hasten to catch before he gets moody again.

- Heard that the movie is freaking awesome.

Almost Sold On:

The Ides of March (Oct 7)

My Week With Marilyn (Nov 4)

W.E. (Dec 9)

The Iron Lady (Dec 16)

Of course, that's 11 movies that I "must" see, 15 overall, and the reality is that I'll probably catch less than half of these movies. Reviews can make or break my enthusiasm. But for once, my movie "to-see" calendar is spread EXCELLENTLY throughout the calendar, unlike last year. Maybe the movie biz learned something from Oscar Season 10-11, where about half of the Best Picture contenders were summer/early fall releases. If people really like a movie, they won't forget about it. Ok, they'll nominate you more if you release during awards season and their enthusiasm is shiny and new (True Grit) but they still have two months to realize that they don't like it THAT much (True Grit).

Like Crazy and Other Thoughts

I've neglected this blog ever since I've joined Tumblr, and it's likely that I'll move there full-time, but I think I'll keep this for awhile since it's still good for nice, long rants that I won't subject my Tumblr followers to (there I have real friends following me, this blog is more of a secret). Another reason for not coming back here is mostly because I haven't had anything fashion or film related to rant about for the past few months. Everything's been politics or Harry Potter, and for that, there's Tumblr - I'm just madly in love with so many of the tumblrs I've found. I've found my online idol in STFUSexists, a feminist (duh) tumblr that's run by this wonderfully smart college grad with an often scathing and irreverent sense of humor. I'm so glad I'm on her side, because reading her takedowns of the various misogynists and all-around idiots unlucky enough to cross her blog (and wrath) is terrible and awesome to behold. The girl can fucking school.

But in this case, I'm just talking a bit about a movie that's zoomed up to the top of my must-watch list ever since the poster and trailers were simultaneously released:

One, I had heard about this movie already, since it had won Best Picture at Sundance, but I was completely disinterested. It didn't help that its female star Felicity Jones was already being compared to Carey Mulligan. By then I'd just had it with all the annual mandatory Sundance It girls. To be honest, they all seemed more irritating than the last. It took me a long time to warm up to Carey Mulligan, and by the time it happened, Jennifer Lawrence was starting to get on my nerves, which was weird because I was a fan of her performance in Winter's Bone, but she irritated me all throughout awards season (why, I honestly can't tell), and her performance in X-Men was just grating. Have you ever just disliked a particular actor irrationally, just because they seem obnoxious, although there's no definite proof of it? Yeah, that's pretty much me and Jennifer Lawrence. Anyhoo, I was losing track of all of THIS year's Sundance It Girls - Elizabeth Olsen and that girl who wrote and starred in Another Earth and then Felicity Jones - yawnnn.

A couple days ago the promotion for "Like Crazy" started, and I was struck by the poster immediately. A wistfully nostalgic, sun-lit image of an ideal young couple, and the I WANT YOU I NEED YOU I LOVE YOU I MISS YOU in the Eat Pray Love font that's becoming so popular for movie posters across the board. I just stared at the poster for about a full twenty seconds, mentally swooning. A tale of nostalgia (it seemed), missed chances, unfulfilled, uncompromising and all-absorbing love.

It's funny, because I've read comments over the past few days that describes "Like Crazy" as a split between "Blue Valentine" and "500 Days of Summer", presumably because it's about two young, idealistic lovers who struggle along the way (imagine that), but the poster was so appealing because it seemed like neither movie. Not "500 Days" practically drowning in its own self-conscious post-romance hipness, or the confining grimness of "Blue Valentine". I totally fell in love, right there and then. To hell with unconvincing quirk and bitter realism! Give me epic, sweet, struggling, yearning, all-encompassing love. I just want to watch a couple fall in love in screen convincingly and not have to roll my eyes. Please. That's what anyone really wants, actually.

Then I saw the first trailer, and found the second a few days later. I posted both here, and the second one is more explanatory, but I love the first one because it's made in the vein of my favorite kind of trailers - kind of unfocused and vague, more of a video essay than a plot summary.

Judging from the trailers, I have a good idea of how it'll probably end (or maybe it'll surprise me), but I'm glad that I don't care. I just hope it's a worthwhile love story. And Felicity Jones (who also won Best Actress at Sundance), you look awesome in this. Incredibly freaking radiant and not in a contrived way (which brings to mind Carey Mulligan again - I, like everyone else, enjoyed her performance in "An Education", but I found the random mugging - just brief shots where she would smile for no reason or glance directly at the camera with a charmingly flirtatious look - somewhat arbitrary and inexplicable). And Felicity Jones is so pretty in this, it hurts.

Authenticity in Acting

Taking a break from my English paper for some rambling thoughts on authenticity and experience. It must be the caffeine in my blood - I'm not a big coffee drinker.

Where was I? Oh yes. Just thinking about what kind of movies I like and it somehow progressed to an internal monologue on actors, as always. I was thinking about the difference between the movies that romanticize and the movies that stir far deeper emotions. Generally, the movies deemed the greatest (Citizen Kane, The Godfather, etc.) have a tendency to leave an romantic impact that leaves the viewer mostly unharmed. Movies are fake, of course, but they can make a genuine and personal connection to the viewer, but the ones that mine the deepest are usually too strange or subjective to be universally praised. All the movies I've truly loved - Bright Star, a random Korean war movie, something else - have left me deeply hurt or vulnerable. And I don't mean "general crying and sorrowful emotions for the character", though that occasionally is the case - but rather something that settles in me and feels much stranger and stronger than conventional reactions. A couple of Jane Campion's movies, for instance, unearths this intangible longing, some sense of beauty and loss that - as strange as it sounds, and I'm not a particularly religious person - brings me closer to something like holiness, and I become so unbearably and inexplicably sad that I have to go distract myself. Other moments from movies of mixed quality stay with me over time and wound me in a way I can't even acknowledge. And most of the time I end up scolding myself, but I feel like I can be so easily seduced by cheaply romantic moments. That's why I love movies so much, and aren't we all? But I think that these rarer moments can count as authentic ones, because they always pass and I can't get quite the same feeling again from watching the movie. Or is that a contradiction? Ugh, it's frustrating.

That was the first part of my thought. Then in a bizarre way, I started transitioning from thinking about authenticity in movies to authenticity in actors. Take Kristen Stewart. She and a host of other young, precocious actors are undeniably good and sensitive, but they seem incapable of mining any deeper force of emotion. And though it's all about "good acting", I truly think that great acting has always been able to draw on genuine experience and emotion. All the great actors - from Brando to Dustin Hoffman and Greta Garbo to Meryl Streep - have in common slightly fucked-up early lives that surely lent authenticity to their performances. And I started thinking about Kristen Stewart's constant moping and angst in movies - and how strange, because isn't angst an emotion that's natural but insubstantial, and in our modern culture, mocked for being increasingly fetishized? She may be a smart, sensitive individual who's generally in tune with her emotions, but my theory is that she doesn't have the requisite pain of true experience. She's had too much of a good life insofar. As much as she defines herself as apart from the celebrity sphere, she's still part of the lifestyle and the inevitable complacency and coddling that irons out any surface-level angst pretty quickly. She, like other child performers, may have experienced a taste of pain and open emotions during childhood, but child emotions are just fundamentally different in expression than adult emotions. That's why, in my opinion, so many child actors are inferior adult actors, even if they are successful. Wisdom can't be cultivated through contrivance, and what was originally deemed precocity becomes a static quality that drags you down if it isn't expanded through natural progress. In my opinion, Anna Paquin has given the same exact "precocious" and child-like performance for the past fifteen years or so, I have a feeling that Dakota Fanning will head the same way.

Well, that was an exquisitely unorganized thought process - I was basically shitting my brains out onto the internet, but oh well, that's what a personal blog is for.

Movie Schedule and Oscar Thoughts! (Updated)

My god, I am simply dying to write my Oscar spreadsheet, but I'm going to try and actually base it on legitimate critique as opposed to wishy-washy cyber hype. So I'm gonna have to watch

- Another Year

- Black Swan

- The King's Speech

- True Grit (*so excited*)

- Blue Valentine (ditto. Ok, I am still susceptible to hype and I just want to see what all the bloggers are going on about)

- Another Year

- Winter's Bone (is that available on DVD?)

- Animal Kingdom

- How To Train Your Dragon

- The Fighter

- Made in Dagenham

- Somewhere

That's twelve movies to watch before Oscar nominations come in. Bring it!

But GOD they should just really spread the wealth when it comes to December releases. I firmly believe that part of the Academy's low-ratings problem stems from the fact that most people just haven't had a chance to watch half of the nominated movies before the Oscars come. All of the big contenders come out within a span of six weeks - True Grit, Black Swan, The Fighter, Somewhere, Blue Valentine, King's Speech - and most people go to the theaters about once a month. That's just ridiculous. Especially when there was that latent September-November period when, with the exception of The Social Network, everyone around me was complaining that "there are no interesting movies out right now". It would have been so much better if you had options like The King's Speech or True Grit around then, instead of cramming half a dozen movies into a rushed holiday season where they end up simultaneously fighting for (and ultimately splitting) the attention. Most people DON'T watch a movie on its opening weekend, and then hey - by the next weekend, some more interesting movie has come out. And then the next one, and the next one, until the original movie is relegated to future-DVD status.

And apparently this is AMPAS' new publicity technique - for a host, put up the most bizarre pairing as possible so that people will be enticed to tune in out of sheer curiosity. This is not going to go well. Really. Just because James Franco gives sexy and occasionally appealing performances does not mean that he translates to proper host material. He just lacks that common touch. I mean, have you seen that man on talk shows? Awwwkward. Screw "thinking out of the box", that doesn't mean crap if the decision is ultimately misguided.

That aside, I have't been able to resist my own bout of Oscar predictions:

*= locks

Best Actor:

*Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network

*Colin Firth - The King's Speech

*James Franco - 127 Hours

Robert Duvall - Get Low

Ryan Gosling - Blue Valentine

Best Actress:

*Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right

*Natalie Portman - Black Swan

Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole

Lesley Manville - Another Year

Michelle Williams - Blue Valentine

Best Supporting Actor:

*Christian Bale - The Fighter ****

*Geoffrey Rush - The King's Speech

*Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right

Andrew Garfield - The Social Network

The last slot is truly a tossup. A small, but extremely insistent regiment of fans for John Hawkes in Winter's Bone has been steadily growing louder, and though these kind of performances don't usually get much leeway til much later during awards season, Oscars has noticed in the past (examples: Michael Shannon in Revolutionary Road and Hal Holbrook for Into the Wild). Especially when that kind of buzz is so loud for an unknown actor. Great kudos. Then there's the oft-shunned Sam Rockwell, who got fantastic reviews for "Conviction" and surely will earn sympathy notice after being shut out for "Moon" last year. Then there's Guy Pearce, who despite Rush getting all the preconceived worship, was singled out in nearly every review I've read of "The King's Speech". The poor guy's like Gary Oldman 2.0. There's also rising support for Matt Damon in "True Grit", though we'll have to see how it goes. He'll have to be a real charismatic sonuvabitch to steal the buzz from others.

This is truly the year of the paid-dues-actor: Nearly all the contenders for Supporting Actor, with the exception of Geoffrey Rush and Andrew Garfield, have been hailed as "underrated", solid, consistently interesting actors who have held a mix of lead-supporting roles and never gotten any recognition from any of the major award tents.

**** Out of all of the nominees, Bale's is probably the one whose nomination locked was guaranteed from hype levels of epic proportions. I mean, not that many people have even seen it yet. But just about everyone, including the lousy Oscar bloggers, have been chiming about "how he's going to win fo sho" and that he will definitely knock it out of the park based on this little random review from back in March, despite the fact that more mixed reviews came out later. Not be nominated - win. And unbelievably, he did win the NBR award a few days ago, which probably means that he's a lock. I don't believe he'll win, though. Ok, ok, right now it looks as if it's his to lose.

Best Supporting Actress:

*Helena-Bonham Carter - The King's Speech (finalllllly!)

*Jacki Weaver - Animal Kingdom

*Amy Adams - The Fighter

*Melissa Leo - The Fighter

????

This is probably the weakest field yet. All four are locks by default. There are rumors that Lesley Manville may be campaigned for Best Supporting Actress, which would probably succeed, especially since the Best Actress field is getting so crowded. Also: the year of the preteen actress. All the fanboys want Chloe Moretz to be nominated for Kick-Ass (not happening, dudes), and Elle Fanning for Somewhere and Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit shouldn't be ruled out. Peter Travers called Hailee Steinfeld "a star" in his True Grit Twitter rave but obviously, the last thing you want to do is take Peter "Hallelujah" Travers' word for granted. I swear studios should start paying him publicity fees for the amount of buzz he generates from his reviews (which somehow manages to come out weeks before everybody else's).

Updates: Jacki Weaver is definitely a lock, and possibly the frontrunner. Jennifer Lawrence's buzz for Best Actress is getting louder.

The Best Post Ever.

As an antidote for my awards-deprivation, I watched some old Oscar montages. Here are some of my all-time favorites (btw, the Oscar people taking down all the unofficial oscar videos on Youtube drive me NUTS. More videos = more publicity and fans, and don't take them down unless you're willing to replace them! Assholes)


Woody Allen's Tribute to New York:

Post 9/11 montage tribute made by Nora Ephron, also marking Allen's first-ever appearance at the Oscars. This was also the *first* Academy Awards ceremony I ever watched as a kid, and I had no idea who the shit Woody Allen was at the time. I wish the montage centered more on New York itself than the Important movies ("The Apartment" and "On the Waterfront" clips, for instance, are not entirely relevant to the city's uniqueness. More lights, less interiors) But the best part is Allen himself, busting the audience's gutss)



John Williams - Movie Score Medley
One of the best things you'll ever see. Seamless medley of classic scores. Dazzling.



1990 Movie Montage
Someone called this the "greatest film montage ever" and I have yet to see a worthy contender. There are clips from nearly a hundred movies, many of which I don't recognize, with Old Hollwood stars I don't recognize, and the best thing I can say about it is that its maker really loved movies.

wow.




2003 - Supporting Actress Montage

I only watch the first half of this clip. 75 supporting actresses, in fleeting glimpses. The music is just swoony and perfectly matched to the minute-or-so showcase of the playfulness, sadness, and sexiness displayed by these invaluable players. My favorite is the shot of Eva Marie Saint from "On the Waterfront" lowering herself in her childlike exquisiteness.




And screw montages, but my *FAVORITE* awards-show moment of all time:

Witty Daniel Day-Lewis + a losing Robin Williams + a very stoned Jack Nicholson = More Epic Than Avatar
If only the Oscars had these kind of moments. They would never have to worry about ratings again. Absolutely the funniest moment ever.

A Defense of Vera Farmiga in "UITA"

I feel like there's been a lot of internet backlash lately against Vera Farmiga's performance against Up in the Air. (Mostly by Laurent fanboys) Apparently the main argument of the opposition is that it isn't a "difficult role", and that she's "riding off the popularity of the film/basking in the glow of Clooney's charisma". 

So here's my defense for the lovely Vera.

1. Difficult role? Psh. Yes, it's not a typical Oscar-baity role with a crying jag scene, or even any exceptionally emotional scenes. On page, she's just a sexy woman who has a fling with Clooney's Ryan Bingham. Which makes it harder for her to make the role stand out. And she did.****

2. Basking in his glow? Psh. They have tantalizing chemistry, but Clooney never dominated any of their scenes. Were your eyes, in any of Farmiga's scenes, distracted from her face to stare at the much more famous movie star next to her? Clooney met his match in this one. Farmiga out-charmed him, out-sexied him. She was so confident and daring, that you felt like she was setting up the trap for him, the Lady outsmarting the Ladies' man. And if Clooney deserves accolades for being himself, Farmiga deserves it for being more than his equal as a female counterpart.

3. Her performance ultimately made the movie work. If the movie's message is that "life is better with company", then it hardly would have been effective if it weren't for Farmiga's interaction with Clooney. I'm thinking about the wedding scene, where her playful intimacy made the couple so endearing, so magical-yet-grounded, that everyone thought, "hell, why wouldn't you get married if your partner's Vera Farmiga/Alex?" It was clear to the audience in that moment that she was more or less Ryan Bingham's soulmate, which gives the character twist all the more devastating an impact. Put any lesser, replaceable-pretty actress in the part, and you just have a schmaltzy movie that ends up with you thinking, "can't Clooney just hook up with someone else?" instead of embarking a quest to find your own Alex (minus the married cheat part). 

Bottom line: She's pitch-perfect in every scene, she brings the character to full, sexy life without relying on either scene-chewing or "stare lifelessly and be mistaken as enigmatically beautiful and thoughtful" trick that is often mistaken for good acting. She's low-key, commanding, effortless and just totally, 100% Oscar-worthy.  ***2

She's looking at him, but are you? Probably not. 

**** One way I like to evaluate performances is by thinking, "what if someone else had played the role? Would it still be more or less the same? I picked Julia Roberts, who surely had the second-best chemistry with Clooney in the Ocean franchise. And UGH. I just winced a little at the idea. I don't see any of the same coy, slyly-stealing-scene mysteriousness coming across. So there you go.

***2: Thinking again about how most actresses either need some overly dramatic, hysterical scene, or soulful (but for me, yawn-inducing) staring that allows the viewer to think "damn, she's so beautiful" a la Melanie Laurent long enough to forget that she isn't doing anything special, in order to gain attention. Jennifer Connelly is often a victim of this method. So many actresses need something out-of-the-world. That just makes me so mad, and makes me love Vera's ordinary-extraordinary performance all the more.  

Fight Club Afterbirth and QT on Strangulation

Advantage of having the whole world on your side, a la Conan O'Brien? A kickass roster of interviewees who are actually interesting in addition to being famous. The past week alone saw Jeff Bridges, Ricky Gervais, Martin Scorsese, Colin Firth, Joel McHale of "The Soup" fame, and Adam Sandler (why is it that comedians are so much funnier than the movies they star in? It's like they forget the beauty of improvisation the moment they step on set). And the interviews were rich fodder for useless-trivia geeks like me. Apparently, Jeff Bridges talks to dolphins and Martin Scorsese is a near agoraphobic. You know what they say about geniuses..

One of the best interviews was Tarantino, who at one point reduced Conan into a minute of stunned, nervous chuckles, and I was in the same state. One of the most violent mainstream directors of all time, talking about his great skill with little kids? Tarantino-colored glasses can be quite frightening to peep into. 

(Kenneth the Page sees the world in muppets and Jack Donaghy sees the world in dollar signs. Wonder how QT sees the world? I'd rather not stray into that territory)

But thankfully, Conan actually seemed to be interested in the man's skill, not just his perverse social perspective, and so we got a nice little insight into QT's work. BTW, Tarantino just *has* to be on Inside the Actor's Studio someday. Think about it - James Lipton's meticulously researched, analytical probing + QT's enthusiastic, personal insights = cinematic bliss. 

I cringed when they veered into the topic of strangulation, but QT's take on it turned out to be oddly fascinating. I love how immersed he is into every psychological detail of a physical act. In this video review of "There Will Be Blood", he talks about the opening scene where Plainview breaks his legs, and about the implications of the unseen aftermath on the character. Here on Conan, he talked about how strangulation is unique to humans alone (opposable thumbs), and how the face-to-face intimacy is precisely what makes it such an inhumane and shockingly violent act. 

 =  ??? Cracked.com article on "6 Insane Fan Theories That Actually Make Movies Better". I don't mind analysis and parallels; some of these are actually pretty good, especially the Ferris Bueller-Fight Club allegory. Overanalysis can be fun, as long as it stays within the realm of casual conversation, and not insistence on the fan's part that his theory was the director's "original intent all along". 

Things I Learned Watching Avatar

1) James Cameron has a diabolical gift that makes the audience love his movies, overlooking dozens of plot holes, conveniences, predictability, cheesy cliches, and even a deux ex machina. All because he manages to bring out our inner child and/or romantic, the one who can't help root for the star-crossed lovers (though the love scene was a bit too much for me. I can't help it that I'm not intuned to the sexiness of blue-cat-people making out), and for the heroes. And I was totally engrossed even though I knew exactly was going to happen, like Grace getting shot, or Wes Studi's character dying, etc. Though "Take....my.....bow" did try my patience. 

2) My friend can be an unbelievable pain in the ass, when she sees imaginary clothes on naked people. She's an academic sort, hasn't watched that many movies, and today told me, in an impressive sort of manner, that she could see why Cameron spent ten years on such a complex and original script as Avatar, on the basis of his immensely sophisticated "energy flow" theme, and the hundreds of cultures he supposedly drew the rest of the themes from. 

3) Movies - storytelling, to be exact - come in different forms. I can enjoy the tightly wound, claustrophobic feel of 12 Angry Men, and I can enjoy the magical, flying-alongside-the-characters feel of Avatar at the same time. One's not necessarily better than the other. This might seem obvious, but I just wanted to reply to the rigid movie purists who claim that the lack of great dialogue/plot originality automatically disqualifies it from being a "great" movie. Cameron can't write dialogue for shit, but he doesn't need to because he's a genius at visual storytelling. I connected more with the characters during that single taming of the banshees scene, than I would with most angsty characters in a 3 hour drama.  

4) It's probably in my top five of the year. Shit, I totally sound like an IMDB'er now. 

5) People who get post-Avatar depression should probably go throw themselves off the earth and return that waste of a living organism to the earth. Flow of energy, right? 

You really don't deserve to live if you think Pandora is somehow worth appreciating and loving more than this:

Yay

Feeling good lately, as I've been on a roll of really wonderful movies. Sometimes I'll go through a drought, of "people-call-this-great?" disappointment, but I just loved everything I got my hands on lately. Plus some of my friends saw The Godfather for a class recently (God praise schools) and they both loved it as well, and one of them couldn't stop gushing over how insanely compelling and sexy Al Pacino was in it. Win. 

Reservoir Dogs - The most psychological and intense of the Tarantino movies I've seen so far - loved it, loved it. Never got the cult of Steve Buscemi until now. "You're acting like a first-year thief. I'm acting like a professional!"

Badass with a (relative) conscience - Harvey Keitel 

Almost Famous - A bit wandering at times, I feel, but nevertheless it's one of these passion movies that makes you want to step inside the protagonists' shoes for awhile. For a few minutes afterwards, I vaguely wondered why I had never considered the profession of rock journalist before; it was clearly the most exciting and viable option out there, before I remembered that I didn't know shit about rock and roll. Nada on the acting, though,

The Ballad of Jack and Rose - newest addition to my Day-Lewis spree, and even if it's not a particularly well-made movie, a fascinating foray that centered around an Electra-complex-like relationship between Jack (Day-Lewis) and his daughter, intertwined around the themes like misguided intentions and the power of parental influence. I liked the look of the hippie communes in it, and it was a reminder that I should see different movies more often - not just those with tons of critical praise. The most interesting movies aren't always the better-crafted ones. Jack and Rose, for all its faults, was definitely unforgettable. 

Those to look forward to - I've been spreadin' the joy (Reservoir Dogs) to my friends, so meanwhile I checked out a few from the library -

Raging Bull (this is part of my backwards-chronological journey into Scorsese. Mean Streets is thankfully in my Netflix queue - I need more Harvey Keitel)

Moulin Rouge - I only saw the end, and it all seemed preposterous, but it is one of these movies that people genuinely love, and it has endured over time, so I gotta check this out. 

Netflix - Boogie Nights and Sid and Nancy. (First one for my mandatory Paul Thomas Anderson education). 

Can't wait for all four.