One year when I was in college in Starkville, I came back to Birmingham for the summer. I drove my El Camino down to the place I considered the most beautiful I had ever seen—the Alabama Theatre. I asked Mr. Cecil Whitmire for a job, explaining that I would be happy just to be able to scrub out the bathrooms and take out the trash. They had someone for the bathrooms, he said with a twinkle, but could use some help with the trash.
Polaroid Land Camera with Fuji FP-100c film (2016)
During that summer I would spend hours polishing the brass rail which led from the magnificent lobby to the women’s and men’s lounges downstairs, haul improbably heavy film canisters up to the projection booth, and peeked into the ruined glory of the long-abandoned Lyric, shuttered before my even my father’s memory. I could run the sharp steps of the aisles with my eyes completely shut. I wasn’t scared of ghosts in that beautiful place—although some were, and I have a friend who knows she sat next to a ghost once, not far back from the stage.
Theatres remain one of my favorite places to go when I’m out with the Polaroid, and I’m always thrilled on the first trip to a town when I turn a corner and come across one—or, sadly but more likely, what was clearly a moviehouse or a drive-in thirty or forty years ago.
Site of the former Showtown Twin Drive-in, Monroe Louisiana, Polaroid SX-70 (2020)
The past two years I’ve pried back open my capacity to sit and be present for a couple of hours, and tried to learn more about this beautiful art form which has kept us happy in the dark for over a century. (A subscription to the inexhaustible treasures of the Criterion Channel helped). Here a dozen pieces of art which moved me in some way, in the order I saw them—I’ll return with another dozen or so in a few days.
Booksmart (2019, directed by Olivia Wilde). An incredible joy of a film which spread some joy into the chilly winter of the beginning of 2020. It was the soulful, bottomless eyes of Beanie Feldstein which brought this kind of coming of age to life. The main point hit me that reaching adulthood doesn’t mean success or maturity (as shown by the kids’ stunning but stunted teacher, Jessica Williams). Both Amy & Molly end up winning, but not how they planned, or by getting what they wanted. Instead the best friends emerge victorious because they try. I almost rewatched this the second it stopped.
Fleabag (2019, Vicky Jones). Who knew that even after watching both startling seasons of the series plus reading the script of the stage show that Fleabag herself could still shock & thrill? She would and she could. With no scenery or other (seen) characters, the titan Phoebe Waller-Bridge not only hold buts throttles your attention. Her mimicry and ability to just move is uncanny. Parts of this reminded me of a horror movie: it’s that intense. A different creature that the show, possibly even darker and more formidable, but smaller, and quick—perhaps, like a guinea pig.
Moonstruck (1987, Norman Jewison). Cher is gorgeous, almost gleaming, just like the city she walks—and she’s so full of life once she meets the wolf, Ronny. Everyone is real, feels alive, has their own story. But it’s Cher, always Cher, who is the story, with her newly-dyed pitch black curls seeming to expand every step she takes. Beautiful and comfortable like a deeply missed childhood home.
Oslo, August 31st (2011, Joachim Trier). Lovely, heartbreaking, and real, this movie portrays a young person trying to live life after getting sober. He fails, on the titular day, in his childhood home, a spectacular failure. Anders hits that very real wall many encounter in sobriety—that the drinking and the parties only covered up the problem. He does not have the ability to deal with what is there when nothing remains. This stayed with me long after watching.
Palm Springs (2020, Max Barbakow). Cristin Milioti’s beautiful, entrancing, and ravaged eyes snatch the show from Andy Samberg’s burnout schlub. I kind of agree with him—stay in there! A perfect summer movie, almost without consequence but deep enough to rattle around in the noggin afterwards.
The Adventures of Don Juan (1948, George Sherman). It’s not better than Robin Hood but nothing is—that’s the greatest film of all time, let alone swashbuckler. But a barely-aged Errol Flynn is in full command of his emotions here—and gleefully plays the comedic, woeful cad. Wonderful music, Alan Hale as the faithful sidekick, and bravery abounds—plus the smoldering Viveca Lindfors, new to me.
Gadsden, Alabama, Polaroid SX-70 (2020)
Wild Strawberries (1957, Ingmar Bergman). Suffused with an end of life sadness that is almost palpable as the doctor journeys to receive his medal. As with Persona, which I watched last year, I’m shocked at how much David Lynch lifted in terms of the peaceful, yet ominous tone and the elements of horror—especially in seeing one’s own self dead. (I could almost see Agent Cooper in the coffin; couldn’t you?). Yet this movie actually resolves—unlike the work of Lynch—because it’s about living, not continued serialized bafflement. A film I suspect means very different things to people of different ages.
The Player (1992, Bob Altman). “Perfect!” I yelled after it was over, remembering how I’d had a postcard of Altman taped up by my bunk in Duggar Hall as a sophomore. A masterpiece which soars because it knows this is all rotten—not exhausted by that fact, but giddy with the fun of plumbing the depths. Tim Robbins is the perfect Fred MacMurray sap, down to the oversized suit—and you think he’s cracking under the strain, but really he’s straining himself to grow into it. He’s still young, with a lot of darkness to claim.
New things which struck me on this viewing, a couple of decades since the last—a beautiful, dazzling Vincent D’Onofrio is perfect as the almost-writer. Whoopi Goldberg makes a killer icy detective, and Lyle Lovett makes a deadly hunter. And how the cruelty and indifference of Griffin at the end contrasts with his genuine warmth and affection towards June. How incredibly vapid, fun, true, and still lovely it all is—“we hear 50,000 stories and can pick twelve.”
The Lady Vanishes (1938, Alfred Hitchcock). A compelling and subversively feminist tale of a woman in the world trying to convince others there really was a nice old lady. That’s no lady, but instead—well, I won’t give it away. Surprising stakes as it plays out.
The 39 Steps (1935, Hitchcock). Where we see the roots of the musical code in The Lady Vanishes, which really should have been used in a Bond film since then. A tale of desperation and—like its spiritual successor—the horror of no one believing you. Incredible shots of the Scottish wilderness, which looks as scary and forbidding as the Moon. Some scenes are as foreign to me, shot 85 years ago, they end up as strange as medieval England. The world seemed much wilder in these two movies, and more thrillingly dangerous—because you could get lost, and never found again.
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944, Frank Capra). Ladies and gentleman and others!! THE CHAMP!! Yes, it’s overstuffed—yes, it’s too long—but the glorious Cary Grant at his manic, kinetic best as the alternately horrified and terrified and happy Mortimer Brewster. His aunts are perfect, as is the dopey hopeful playwright beat cop, plus the genuinely scary Jonathan. A RIOT. My favorite scene is Mortimer scaring off the elderly caller. “YOU!!”
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000, Joel Coen). A gem. I have nothing else to say. Endlessly re-watchable, endlessly quotable, both dumber and smarter than you think it is, and hilarious. Has George Clooney ever been more smarmily charming, to the point he has even charmed himself? Plus John Goodman’s second-scariest performance (behind Barton Fink). And of course some of the greatest music of all time. For the Mississippian or the frequent visitor, there is also the joy of spotting where scenes were filmed or seeing people you now run into at the gym. In the end, I don’t care if the boys had read the Odyssey or not. I have, and I can tell you, this is it.
Charleston, South Carolina, Polaroid SX-70 (2018)
Alright, that’s plenty for this Sunday morning. I will go ahead and tell you that if you watch Happiest Season, I’m definitely on whatever side there is which ends up with Aubrey Plaza. Please let me know if you’ve seen anything which moved you especially in this year, or you think after seeing the list above that I would get a kick out of.
AS ALWAYS I am gorjusjxn on Instagram and you can see more of my photography at McCartyPolaroids. Happy holidays.