Network

I'm still really sick, so unfortunately I'll have to keep this post short, which is a bit of a tragedy since I love this movie so much. I'm pretty sure I'm fighting the flu, and my god, I have not been sick like this in a long time. I don't think I've had the flu for like, 10 years, but I get a job and go to work for a month and I catch it. Last night I had a 104 degree fever and I was pretty convinced that I was dying, or that my brain was boiling inside my skull. I've been asleep for 2 days straight, only getting up to take more medication or hydrate, so I'm not really in a highly functioning state. I hope you'll excuse the lazy posting.

Network, directed by Sidney Lumet in 1976 is one of my favorite movies. It feels a little dated now, the look of it, but the plot feels so current. I'm too out of it to summarize the plot, so if you need one, head over here to read one.

Chinatown

I want to just preface this post with a brief...something. I strongly dislike Roman Polanski as a person. However, I can and do separate him from his body of work. The fact that he is a horrible person does not render his entire body of work invalid. I do not want to really talk any more about Polanski as a person, though. If you have thoughts about Chinatown or his other movies, I'm happy to hear them and talk about them with you, but I don't really to want discuss Polanski. I know that Polanski's actions are a touchy subject for some people, so I just wanted to make it clear that I'm focusing on his work, not him as a person, and I hope that others can do the same.

With that out of the way, today's movie is Polanski's 1974 film Chinatown. It's an incredible movie, and I always love watching it. It feels so timeless, it never seems to age or feel outdated to me. The acting is incredible, the writing is outstanding, and it's an all around great movie.

Bonnie and Clyde

I'm not feeling so well today, I feel like I'm fighting off a cold, which is a possibility. My boyfriend is sickly, so I blame him. Or maybe I just had a bit too much fun last night - my friend and I watched Furry Vengeance followed by The Human Centipede, which explains what sort of mood we were in. Either way, with a hot mug of throat coat tea (surprisingly delicious) next me to me, I want to keep this a little short and easy, so I can get back to relaxing.

Today I watched Bonnie and Clyde, directed by Arthur Penn in 1967. It was, if I remember anything from college, the first film from the "New Hollywood" movement. This was an American film movement that includes movies like The Graduate, Easy Rider, Taxi Driver, Chinatown, and Midnight Cowboy. These movies were unlike anything that had existed in Hollywood previously. Audiences were growing bored of historical epics and musicals, and younger people were watching more foreign movies to quench their thirsts. It was shocking when Bonnie and Clyde came out - it got a lot of negative critical reviews. But younger audiences loved it. It spoke to them - they liked the shocking violence and disaffected characters that they could relate to.