I watched two movies tonight. The second of the two was actually the homework thing. I've now seen a Gloria Swanson movie. I watched "Sunset Boulevard." I'd seen the famous climactic scene at the end a dozen times, various places, the whole "Mr. DeVille I'm ready for my close up..." thing. I knew it was going to be twisted, there's no way to get that scene without a seriously over-torqued psyche somewhere. And right from the get go they told you Norma plugged him. Poor bastard, he brought it on himself though, he should've known she was totally batts, should have taken the pistol away from her when he had the chance and called Max, who really did love her.
But he didn't, and his stupid macho arrogance got him killed. Hell's bells, if it hadn't been for that dumb as dirt establishment macho man arrogance he'd have been working on her from the get go to soften the years, defeat the vanity, show her she could still be loved and famous without the camera's. He could have kept the years coming home to roost from shattering her. But he didn't, he understood the desperation, the insecurities and the compulsive vanity eating the woman alive from the inside out and did nothing while taking her money, so in objective judgment he got what he had coming to him.
I'd say her pistol and DeMill's camera's played about the same, they both took a life even though the pistol did a much more merciful job of it. About the time he landed in the pool I was really kind of hoping she'd pop two into her own ribcage, and the famous "I'm ready..." scene would have turned out to be her dying delerium. But no, Hollywood wasn't that merciful to her character.
The first movie I watched was a odd little semi-porn piece called "The Orgasm Diaries." What a title. I'd caught just a few minutes of it on cable a few weeks back, this drunk as a hoot owl wonky looking dude standing in the middle of a photo exhibition among all the art folk minus his pants and whacking off to them applauding. Well, about that point the civil defense folks decided to run their 2AM test, and then the cable company totally fubar'd getting the show back, and I said phooeey on it and went to bed. But when I saw it on the rental rack I said "why not" and picked it up to find out how someone engineered the one scene I did see into a plot line.
That movie also involved what a camera can do to people. The wonky dude has an instinctive good eye with his instamatic, and a hot blooded girlfriend, and yea, they spend a lot of time screwing (very realistically, to realistic to even be very titilating... normal people clumsy sex, not the stylish forms seen between professional porn stars) and even more time bare ass, and he's snapping pictures all the while.
Plot line revolves around a set of pictures he loses that fall into the hands of a less than ethical connoisseur of the erotic who talks the boy into prostituting his woman with his camera.
She had no idea he was going to invite all the muckity-mucks to sip champaign and trade artsy sounding bullshit while looking at large format prints of her getting bopped. She slaps his face and runs out the door crying, he's suddenly drowning in shame and champaign and decides to take the show live for his patrons, which is where I came in the first time. Anyhow, of course the kids spend some desperate weeks, and yea, they're both suffering big time because of course they really do love each other, and punish themselves with some really kinky solo shenanigans, and in the end reunite. A happy if not really all that likely conclusion to the whole sordid affair.
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| Beauty of a Mother by Look Who's Back; DevArt |
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