What more could a birthday boy want ⏯
New Kaufman, Scott, and Mulan, (sorry Nolan)
Ever since moving to Portland my birthday has been blessed with wonderfully timed movie and tv releases. Weeks after I arrived a cool local theater called Laurelhurst surprised me by showing my favorite movie, David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, on September 4th. Exactly two years later the final episode of Twin Peaks: The Return aired. A dream come true. And now, going into my 6th year as a Portland resident (!!) and 36th year on Earth (!!), Netflix puts out the one movie I’ve been waiting for the most. Today of all days! Gee, what can I say.
You could say what the movie is…
Oh! I’m Thinking of Ending Things—
You’re what?
Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, the weirdest and coolest screenwriter ever.
He did the one with two Nic Cages?
And a Streep. He also wrote Eternal Sunshine and Being John Malkovich and Synecdoche … and some other far out stuff.
Sounds pretty depressing.
Lol, yeah. But this is another adaptation, like Adaptation, except not a book about flowers—it’s a dark, psychological thriller, something I’d never have expected to get the Charlie Kaufman treatment.
You thought a book about flowers would get the Charlie Kaufman treatment?
Okay good point.
You want me to ask what the Charlie Kaufman treatment is, don’t you?
Getting super meta ... stories about stories where characters have identity crises and/or characters reference Charlie Kaufman or Kaufman movies or, notably, Kaufman may even write himself, plus a twin brother, into a movie where he’s adapting the very movie you’re watching.
Enough.
But now that I think about it, the somber tone of something like Eternal Sunshine might work well for this material. But who knows.
Anything else coming out?
Speaking of auteurs—
You always are.
Ridley Scott has a new HBO Max show called Raised by Wolves. It’s set in the future on planet Kepler-22, I think, and it’s about atheist androids raising human kids as colonizers. Philosophically, though, it examines the utility, or futility, of faith. And people blow up. Ridley Scott stuff. I’m not sure what to make of the first episode but I’ll watch a few more. The first three are available now to stream.
And then there’s Mulan on Disney+ Premier Access—
What, you get to board before other passengers?
For a one-time $30 upgrade fee.
I finally watched the original Mulan last weekend—with its biggest fan ;)—so most of my excitement for this remake stems from their excitement, but isn’t that what’s so cool about moving watching. Sharing your passions with others. Gooey part over.
This week in 1984 ... time to look back at an independent sci-fi movie where an alien, in the form of a Black man with three toes, lands in Harlem. The Brother From Another Planet was way off my radar, but from what I can tell this movie looks more arthouse—in a good way—than movies like C.H.U.D. or Buckaroo. We’ll see, and you can hear all about it by searching ‘New Release 1984’ in Spotify or Apple. Tune in Monday 🎧
