Mountains Out of Molehills

My partner and I have a recurring joke. Sometimes, when I'm in our living room watching a movie, she'll randomly chime in from somewhere else in the house: "So do you like Steel Magnolias yet?" "No," I'll answer. "The estrogen isn't working," she'll snipe. Hilarious, eh? Here's the thing about switching genders: it doesn't really change one's tastes a whole lot. If you like dumb action films before transitioning, you'll probably still like them afterward. You won't magically start liking chick flicks if you didn't like them to start unless you're hellbent on really "performing" your gender. I still watch a ridiculous number of horror films, after all. I had this go-around with my therapist once. She recommended that I start reading certain types of books to "socialize" me. I was kind of resistant to this idea because the first book she recommended was horrible. I didn't even bother with a second. My preferred beach reading is still hard boiled crime novels.

But that's not to say that there's not an influence. There is, and it's subtle.

One of the bitterly funny things about joining an oppressed minority is that things that didn't bother you before really start to bother you after, whether it's because you shed the blinders of privilege or you feel the pinch of overt aggressions from the dominant culture. It's a hard pill to swallow, sometimes. I didn't grow up as a queer feminist. I was a middle class white kid who barely knew what feminism even was. My awakening came once I discovered to my sorrow that all of that stuff you hear feminists complaining about is very, very real and applied to me directly. I'm not proud of this, but late to the party is better than not showing up at all.

I got to thinking about all of this while watching Clint Eastwood's 1975 mountain climbing thriller, The Eiger Sanction, which, to be charitable, is not among Eastwood's more laudable films. It's a horrible brew of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and ableism, all packaged together in a way that would likely have resonated with a Men's Rights movement, had such a thing existed in 1975. Have you ever visited a comment thread when the topic was feminism? This film seems to have the same spirit of lashing out against the encroaching matriarchy feminism is obviously seeking to foist upon poor, put-upon, disenfranchised menfolk. But I'll get to all of this.

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Blood and Sand

I finally got around to restarting my Netflix this week. They didn't have the disc at the top of my queue at my local distribution center so they sent it afterwards and sent out an extra movie. I'm not complaining. The disc to which I was most looking forward was Street Angel (1928, directed by Frank Borzage), which I've only ever seen on crappy public domain VHS sources. Borzage is one of the great unheralded directors, and his work makes up the bulk of the Fox Murnau and Borzage box that came out last year, which Netflix claims to have. Unfortunately, that's not what they sent me. They sent me a public domain disc with a copyright date two years before the Fox box, and with a transfer that's among the most unwatchable things I've ever seen. I think I got ten minutes in. Imagine my disappointment. Grrrr...

Anyway, next in the queue was a Spanish horror film called Satan's Blood (1978, directed by Carlos Puerto), in which a young couple and their dog accept an invitation to come out to the estate of a man who claims to be the husband's old college buddy. Many Satanic hijinks ensue, including an ominous session with a Ouija board, a four-way, wife-swapping orgy, and a double suicide. For the most part, this film is an excuse to take advantage of Spain's then newly-lax censorship standards, and there's flesh aplenty in this movie almost from frame one. As for the rest? Well, it's a nicely nihilistic little film. It makes the most of its microcosmic setting. None of the actors is of much worth, but they are nicely apportioned for the numerous nude scenes. The ending seems a bit too Twilight Zone-y, and the film's conception of Satanism is very 1970s. Still, I've seen a LOT worse from Spanish horror of the period. Take that however you like.

I did another kung-fu movie night this past Saturday, and, again, we dipped into the Shaw catalogue. This time, we came up with a piece of insanity called Holy Flame of the Martial World (1983, directed by Chin-Ku Lu), which shows the Shaws trying to capture the lightning of the newly dawning HK New Wave in a bottle. The movie that this most resembles is Tsui Hark's Zu: The Warriors of the Magic Mountain, but as filtered through Shaw's stock players, stock sets, and stock direction. Just add special effects and completely insane fantasy elements and shake well. The result is completely absurd, the kind of movie that would play well to children if it weren't for all the bodies piling up. My favorite character in this is the guy whose main kung-fu technique is a demonic laugh that bursts organs, but I also love the Golden Snake Boy, a minor, but pivotal character played by Hsueh-erh Wen (a woman). Add this to the pile of transgender kung fu movies.


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Has there ever been another filmmaking career like Clint Eastwood's? Has there ever been a late flowering like his late movies? I'm trying to remember why I gave Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) a pass when it was in theaters, and the answer I keep coming up with is "because I was stupid, that's why." Holy cow, this was good. Eastwood's unfussy direction is perfect for this portrait of the Japanese before and during the battle of Iwo Jima, and he manages to get better performances out of his principles in Japanese than he got out of his English-speaking actors in The Flags of Our Fathers (this film's companion piece). This film doesn't try nearly as hard as its weak sister, and as a result, it conveys its themes with admirable grace. Ken Watanabe is the standout here, playing the Japanese general who gets command of the forces on Iwo Jima, and he's a paragon of military virtues. He's the kind of commander George C. Scott's version of Patton would have called "you magnificent bastard." Eastwood invites the audience to genuinely like the characters here, which is rare enough in an American WW II movie. That he manages to turn their lives into high tragedy is no small feat. This stands with the great Japanese war movies (Fires on the Plain, Black Rain). It may be the best WW II movie from Hollywood that I've ever seen. But don't hold me to that.