Slog - The Stranger's Blog

Line Out

The Music Blog

« Qadhafi-Cracker | Who's to Blame? »

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

It’s All This Sunlight—Who Can Keep Their Schedule Straight?

Posted by on May 17 at 15:49 PM

Yesterday, I called attention to Amy Kate Horn’s suggestion that you go see Cirque du Soleil, but actually I meant to call attention to Dave Segal’s suggestion to go see George Clinton and Parliament at Chop Suey, which was last night, and Cirque du Soleil was what I was supposed to call attention to today, since that’s today’s Stranger Suggest

Sorry for that confusion. Say you went and saw Cirque du Soleil last night and are now casting around for ideas of what to do this evening. Here’s what I’d do. I’d go see La Mujer de Mi Hermano, a sexy, sexy movie set in Mexico City about some sexy, sexy people who are bored and rich and, you know, sexy, and have nothing better to do (what with all that money and boredom and muscle) than rip each other’s clothes off and ruin each other’s lives. It’s kind of soothing. Quickly: This woman is married to this man, but then she lets his brother, this guy, go down on her, and, well, things spiral out of control. Spoiler alert: one of them is secretly gay. There’s also a swimming pool and a lot of ambient music. It’s kind of stupid. Bring a date.

If that doesn’t sound appealing—if you like your movies smart and the opposite of soothing—I suggest heading to the movie store and renting John Cassavetes’ masterpiece A Woman Under the Influence, starring Gena Rowlands. For one, it’s a fantastic movie that not enough people have seen. (Went to a dinner party over the weekend and couldn’t find anyone who’d ever seen Gena Rowlands in anything.) Plus, A Woman Under the Influence is a good movie to see before you see Love Streams—also starring Rowlands, also directed by Cassavetes—a new print of which plays at Northwest Film Forum later this week.

More on Love Streams: At Friday night’s 7 pm showing, Love Streams will be introduced by Rich Jensen, of Clear Cut Press, and Calvin Johnson, of K Records. Then, afterward, there will be a debate about whether or not Love Streams sucks. There will also be free beer. Love Streams is a movie that has a lot of haters. (By the way, Love Streams is AWESOME.) Anyway, it’ll behoove you to have seen Gena Rowlands in something else. Something like A Woman Under the Influence.

UPDATE: Uh, OK, sorry everyone. La Mujer de mi Hermano is not playing anymore. It was playing at Meridian 16. It’s been pulled. Who knows why these things happen. I’m sorry for the triple confusion. I’m now going to find a hole to crawl into… where I will watch A Woman Under the Influence AGAIN.


CommentsRSS icon

Christopher . . . the confusion further lies with La Mujer de Mi Hermano not being liste in the movie times section. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I've been wanting to see it, but I can't find a time and place.

ah crap. You're right, Brad. Sorry about this. I've updated my post. Have you ever seen A Woman Under the Influence? I feel a bit like her today. Anyone want some spaghetti?

Bummer! I've been looking forward to seeing that movie all week, and now it's gone!

Is it gone, or has it just not started in Seattle yet?

may I suggest seeing Gena Rowlands in something other than Nick Cassavetes's the Notebook?

Hi folks--

La Mujer is indeed gone. It played Seattle for a week, and then it was pulled. Apologies.

It's clear Christopher should be released of his Julie-Cruise Director title immediately.

I'm sorry, what were you saying? I was enjoying hanging out in the sun at Aqua Verde and drinking a Mango Margarita with a hot babe from the Seattle International Film Fest ...

Christopher, you shouldn't have been surprised at the lack of knowledge about Rowlands at your dinner party. She was much bigger in indie films of the 60's and 70's, so 20 and 30 somethings who came up on Jarmusch and Tarantino for the most part wouldn't know about her.

Another great Cassavetes'film with a great performance from Rowlands was Faces-ragged filmaking, but a lot of hard edged emotional truth.

I agree, Faces is brilliant. It's a bit LONG for me, frankly, it just seems unending, but AWUTI flies by.

Neo-Realist, I don't know if you were trashing those directors as well as their followers, but Ms. Rowlands was in Jim Jarmusch's _Night on Earth_. Mr. Jarmusch has said he considers Cassavetes a genius & a major influence. He's right.

Another great one is _Killling of a Chinese Bookie_. The final image


of Mr. Wonderful singing "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" while throwing greasy, crumpled-up dollar bills at the audience is one of the more moving closing images in modern film. A personal message from Mr. Cassavetes to Hollywood, I would say.

Not a Cassavetes film, but Gena Rowlands was brilliant in "Gloria" (also stars Buck Henry).

Good lord, now I REALLLLY wanna see La Mujer. you tease.

Everyone should get to know Gena Rowlands, especially in AWUTI. To my mind, she is one of the greatest actors of our time- right up there with DeNiro, Brando, etc. "Gloria" is AWESOME!

"Gloria" was a Cassavetes film.

The great thing about AWUTI is that it's the ultimate litmus test for critics. People either love it or hate it. If you love it, you obviously apprehend the power of film, and sense all the nuances it can relate. If you hate it, you're a dillettante or trailer trash or both.

Needless to say, right wing christian nut-job Leonard Maltin doesn't like it.

Gloria is right about "Gloria". It is Cassavetes.

There is something alternately fascinating, endearing and creepy about the kid ("Phil") that had me mesmerized. And seeing Gena play the aging toughie moll was more than worth the price of admission. "Love Streams" I found totally unwatchable.

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 45 days old).