2000-08-24 - 16:18:06

After work yesterday, I saw "Cecil B. DeMented". It was fucking fabulous! I'd be extremely upset if a John Waters movie came out & I didn't like it. I don't really worry about it much. I haven't seen all his movies, but all of them that I have, I've loved. Amazing! I know there are other directors who I love everything by, but it would be taxing on my brain to think of them. Even Jim Jarmusch made "Night On Earth". Boring. John Waters deserves a cake and a pie and everything else for being always so great. You should go see it. It is like a valentine to the movies, & also Stephen Dorff & Alicia Witt are really fucking hot.

Ok but there is one bad thing which Ann actually warned me about before I saw it, & that is the villainization of the Teamsters. What the hell. I had a discussion a while ago with Dave about this, after I read a book of interviews with John Sayles. He mentioned a few times that it was hard to make union movies, & that he likes to pay everyone the same & the union specified that certain positions be paid so much that he then couldn't afford to pay everyone the same. He had a few other specific things that just kind of made it sound like it was unwieldy to use union labor, too many time constraints, etc. Dave said he'd heard similar things in interviews with Spike Lee. Dave thought it was really Sayles & Lee just not wanting to pay people union wages, & that whatever their concerns were, they probably could negotiate with the unions on a case by case basis.

What is this about? I know I shouldn't expect artists that I like to automatically be super progressive about labor. But, Waters? Lee? SAYLES??? I don't understand how union gets to be a bad word among cool filmmakers. I guess it is part of the ugliness of capitalism. You just want to create your art, but you have to become an employer of other people to do it, & therefore there become these conflicting interests of paying people decently vs. getting the movie done. I don't really have a big point to make. It just seems sad that three filmmakers I love have made this similar statement, and that the John Waters movie is actually able to reference it as a known thing, that Teamsters are the enemies of moviemakers.

The John Sayles interviews I read those comments in were from the beginning of his career when he'd only made a few movies. He could easily have a different view now.

Ok, the other thing I want to mention is something very beautiful I watched on The Sopranos last night. Everyone else has probably already seen this, but I just started watching it in reruns. When Richie Aprile popped Janice Soprano SO FUCKING HARD in the face, I was completely shocked. It was so so long that she just stood there, mouth bloody, obviously shocked herself. And then he sat down & started eating? And asked if she was gonna cry?? Oh my god. And watching it, your best hope was that she'd leave, or like Sydney advised her, hit him over the head with the heaviest thing in that kitchen. It was tooooo good when she neglected those options, & instead quietly left the room & returned pointing a gun. He spread his arms like there was no WAY she'd shoot him, no way her self worth could be that important to her. My favorite shot was definitely the first one right near the heart, because of the shock on his face. But the second one, while he was lying on the linoleum & she stood over him, that was gorgeous as well.

I know I have girlfriends who enjoy sports, & I don't want to use tired gender stereotypes, mostly because they are unfunny. And because I don't wanna infringe on Andrew's whole "toilet seat up/down" standup act. But I grew up around men who felt compelled to yell things & jump around while sports are on, & I spent a lot of time staring at them thinking "Wow. Tards." I think I totally know how they feel now, watching Janice shoot Richie. It was so exhilarating! How Buffy makes me feel sometimes, or Girls Town. I am all for making a sport out of shooting men who are beaters!!! I would sit in front of.....whatever the sports network is called, all day long & watch it. Yeah!

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