{"id":13604,"date":"2021-02-03T20:52:06","date_gmt":"2021-02-04T00:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=13604"},"modified":"2021-02-03T21:04:08","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T01:04:08","slug":"dont-throw-a-coin-to-your-hitcher-short-movie-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2021\/02\/dont-throw-a-coin-to-your-hitcher-short-movie-notes.html","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Throw a Coin to Your Hitcher!: Short movie notes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In the order in which I saw them, so pretty random.<\/p>\n

The Pajama Game<\/em><\/strong>: Beautiful ice-cream frocks! Early Fosse choreography (especially pleasurable in \u201cSteam Heat\u201d)! A bizarre and disturbing attempt to wring a rom-com out of industrial labor compromise! This frequently-charming musical about a corporate manager who falls in love with a union officer made me think of that Jacobin article, \u201cThe Romance of American Clintonism<\/a>,\u201d where You\u2019ve Got Mail<\/em> is a Valentine\u2019s card to antipolitics, a big chocolate box tied with a bow and left on Jeff Bezos\u2019s doorstep.<\/p>\n

There are two scenes that really sum up the politics of this unsettling confection. The union picnic is simultaneously carnival, and reminder that carnival is fleeting and most of your life will be work work work. It\u2019s a union picnic but it sure is not a Saturnalia, since their actual boss, the boss responsible for the Taylorist speed-up which is the subject of this musical\u2019s second song-and-dance number (???), is also there at THE UNION PICNIC to make a speech about how belts have to be tightened and they\u2019ve all gotta hit those targets! No wonder the workers lose their actual minds and roll around in the dirt like they\u2019re nuclear mutants in a candy-colored version of Population: 1<\/em><\/a>!<\/p>\n

The other scene is the one where 1. Doris Day convinces the other workers not to hold out for their stolen back wages (she doesn\u2019t know they\u2019re stolen but I think if you watch you\u2019ll agree that her immediate capitulation here is something her character should\u2019ve known was a mistake) and then 2. they all calculate the riches they\u2019ll be able to afford on their 7 1\/2-cent per hour raise. I think this is supposed to take place a couple decades before it was made, which is too bad because I had a joke (?) all lined up about how after 20 years they\u2019d have made an extra three thousand dollars\u2026 or twenty-two cents in 1977 money<\/a>. You\u2019re gonna buy your own pajama factory? In what country? Anyway go ahead and read the lyrics yourselves<\/a>, think about what you pay in rent, and cry.<\/p>\n

Stromboli<\/strong><\/em>: This was suggested by the same friend I mentioned in my most recent newsletter<\/a>, as a stunning example of prayer in cinema. Gosh he was right. In this movie a couple meet in a Displaced Persons camp after WWII, then marry and move back to the husband\u2019s godforsaken (OR IS IT) volcanic island home. It\u2019s Rossellini, my own favorite Italian director (Pasolini is me<\/a> but Rossellini is\u2026 good), and it builds somewhat slowly as we watch the wife hate her new home and writhe in the bonds of wedlock. Slowly, but steadily: There\u2019s a riveting early scene with the village priest, and then once you hit the fishing-horror scene, it is pretty much all unforgettable until the shattering ending on the black slopes of the volcano. \u201cMerciful God!\u201d<\/p>\n

The Little Things<\/strong><\/em>: This is a movie that will leave you wondering, \u201cWhat was the point of that movie?\u201d It clearly has a point. It is trying to do something! But what and why?<\/p>\n

The story begins with many a serial-killer cliche. Lol I don\u2019t actually remember them, and I wasn\u2019t writing them down because I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d review this, but you\u2019ll groan at multiple overfamiliar lines and beats. Denzel Washington is fine, if somewhat in need of caffeine, as semi-disgraced cop Joe Deacon. Rami Malek is serviceably tormented as the newcomer he takes under his wing as they make one last desperate attempt to solve the case which has haunted Deacon for years. Jared Leto is good, unstable but not to the point of caricature, as their main suspect. The direction is workmanlike, inoffensive. Etc etc etc. Oh wait, I remembered one thing, which could\u2019ve been homage but just feels like a cheap reference: the girl singing along to her car radio, oblivious to the fact that a serial killer has marked her for death. It\u2019s the thing where you keep the iconic moment but strip out its original nuances (the girl\u2019s plump face, \u201cAmerican Girl\u201d) and don\u2019t add any undercurrents of your own.<\/p>\n

But then the plot begins to twist! And I ended up thinking that the point, the thing the movie was trying to do, was to tell a police story to a contemporary (imagined) audience who are much more skeptical of \u201ccopaganda\u201d than in times past. I do not think this movie is well-done. But I\u2019ve seen people wondering, \u201cAre we supposed to think the cops are still good people? What\u2019s the message here?\u201d And I\u2019m sympathetic to a movie that is trying not<\/em> to play into that awful cops-and-robbers game of good people vs. bad people. I think<\/em> this movie is about a public-health approach to violence (as described very well here<\/a>, with the occasional moral relativism or managerialism mostly flensed), but applying those insights to cops rather than to e.g. gang members. Violence and dishonesty spread like an infection. The cops think they\u2019re doctors, but they\u2019re really sick carriers.<\/p>\n

Other cop stories have done similar work: The Wire<\/em> obviously, but also the many cops-are-criminals mirrorings of HEART EMOJI Miami Vice<\/em><\/a> HEART EMOJI. But I reluctantly admit that it\u2019s still an interesting thing to do.<\/p>\n

The Hitcher<\/strong><\/em>: This 1986 thriller about a kid who picks up a mysterious stranger on a Texas highway is a silly movie. But not a stupid one.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot to like about this odd film, which will keep you in suspense even against your will. The fairy-tale quality of the setup, I\u2019m off through the woods to Grandma\u2019s house but Mother says I mustn\u2019t speak to anyone I meet on the way!<\/em> The glowing sunsets and sunrises as the days drag on down the endless highway: what Cormac McCarthy called \u201cthe evening redness in the West,\u201d in the land without help. The unsavory attention the Hitcher (Rutger Hauer!) fixes on his prey, and the moments when the prey shows a feral, febrile responsiveness of his own. The sudden swerve into bats crazy action-movie mayhem, just cop cars rollin\u2019 and explodin\u2019 from sea to shining sea. I liked all of that. But what makes the film, I think, is Hauer\u2019s soulful eyes. You feel like he\u2019s saying, \u201cThe thing they never tell you about being the Devil is how tired and sad you\u2019ll get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the thing the kid is thinking is just, \u201cPeople say that you can\u2019t shoot Death itself but\u2026 maybe they just need to try a bigger gun?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the order in which I saw them, so pretty random. The Pajama Game: Beautiful ice-cream frocks! Early Fosse choreography (especially pleasurable in \u201cSteam Heat\u201d)! A bizarre and disturbing attempt to wring a rom-com out of industrial labor compromise! This frequently-charming musical about a corporate manager who falls in love with a union officer made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[258,119,131,77,1481,264],"class_list":["post-13604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","tag-a-hard-man-is-good-to-find","tag-horror","tag-it-is-very-dark-you-are-likely-to-be-wrestled-by-an-angel","tag-prepare-for-life-in-capitalist-america-play-class-struggle-the-game","tag-roberto-rossellini","tag-work-is-a-four-letter-word"],"yoast_head":"\nDon't Throw a Coin to Your Hitcher!: Short movie notes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In the order in which I saw them, so pretty random. The Pajama Game: Beautiful ice-cream frocks! Early Fosse choreography (especially pleasurable in\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2021\/02\/dont-throw-a-coin-to-your-hitcher-short-movie-notes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Don't Throw a Coin to Your Hitcher!: Short movie notes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the order in which I saw them, so pretty random. The Pajama Game: Beautiful ice-cream frocks! Early Fosse choreography (especially pleasurable in\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2021\/02\/dont-throw-a-coin-to-your-hitcher-short-movie-notes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Eve Tushnet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-02-04T00:52:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-02-04T01:04:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Eve Tushnet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Eve Tushnet\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2021\/02\/dont-throw-a-coin-to-your-hitcher-short-movie-notes.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2021\/02\/dont-throw-a-coin-to-your-hitcher-short-movie-notes.html\",\"name\":\"Don't Throw a Coin to Your Hitcher!: Short movie notes\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-02-04T00:52:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-02-04T01:04:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/#\/schema\/person\/ca04686b93c92257f019070302a23415\"},\"description\":\"In the order in which I saw them, so pretty random. 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