Friday Five: 5 Weirdest Movies I've Seen Recently
Friday, August 21, 2015
This week's guest is Kuzhali Manickavel. Kuzhali is the author of the excellent, brilliant and totally disconcerting collections Insects Are Just Like You And Me Except Some of Them Have Wings and Things We Found During the Autopsy. Her short story, "Six Things We Found During The Autopsy", is also collected in the brand-new The Apex Book of World SF 4.
Without further ado...
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And by ‘weird’ I mean I didn’t understand why I was watching them or I was watching them by accident. Also I didn’t always pay attention or watch the whole thing.
Welcome to New York
Not gonna lie, for some reason I thought this was a Philip Seymour Hoffman movie about bees. But as this movie progressed and there was no Philip Seymour Hoffman and no bees and lots of Gérard Depardieu having the sexuals with lots of ladies (LOTS. Like, LOTS), I began to suspect that neither the bees nor Philip Seymour Hoffman were going to make an appearance except possibly to have sex with Gérard Depardieu which might have been interesting but maybe not also. As far as I could tell, the only instances that Sexual Time with Gérard Depardieu was not happening was when they all took a breather so Gerard D could be rapey and when Jacqueline Bisset and him were yelling at each other. In the end, I have to say that the Philip Seymour Hoffman movie about bees might not actually exist.
The Outsiders
First of all, I’m very sorry - I know that these kinds of gritty American realism movies are not weird at all and as an Indian, I am actually the one who comes from the country of weird movies and if I knew any better, I would be writing about how weird Bollywood or Tamil movies are because they are so weird. Anyway, at some point in this particular movie, a plethora of very oily youths including Tom Cruise and Patrick Swayze and Matt Dillon all started jumping on each other and I thought ok they are all going to have sex now and I was ready for this to happen. This did not happen. As far as I can remember, they lived in a town filled with white people and Ralph Macchio. The poor people were oily and the rich people had white pants but both of them had feelings which I guess is the moral of this movie. Anyway, they fought each other and Ralph Macchio dies because someone told me he was the token POC in this movie which made me think gosh, that’s not something you hear every day.
The Judge
Because I am from another culture, Tom Cruise, Robert Downey Jr., and Matthew McConaughey movies all kind of blend together for me into one long movie about dudes and just what the heck is life and pretty ladies who love these dudes and just life and dudes and the life of dudes. I would say white dudes but that would be racist. Anyway, in this movie RDJ makes out with his niece and later is scared that he might have actually made out with his daughter but then he finds out that it was in fact his niece and he’s like, oh phew lol. In my country it’s not such a strange thing for uncles to marry nieces but in this movie, it is not ok so RDJ gets the girl, not this one but another one because this one is his niece which he can’t end up with but it’s ok because he already made out with her anyway. Also, somewhere in this movie, there is a judge.
Revolutionary Road
Again, my bad, for some reason I thought this movie was going to be about revolutions and I also thought this was Mad Men and it is never a good thing when you think a movie is another movie and a television show at the same time. The description for this movie says ‘…this mesmerizing and moving story follows the lives of a passionate young couple living in suburban Connecticut who decide to risk everything to pursue their dreams. They’re willing to break away from the ordinary - but can they do it without breaking apart?’ I don’t remember any of this happening but my friend said that was because American culture is different for us to understand. As far as I could tell, Kate Winslet was there at the beginning and then she was not there at the end so I guess the answer to their question is no.
This Ad For Emus
I think I’m supposed to say omg what the actual fuck for this one and also it’s not a movie. But sometimes you just want to see singing and dancing emus and know that raising them is easy and this ticks all those boxes. Honestly though, I’m just putting this here so that there is at least one “weird Indian thing” on my list.