Author: vm

The Movies of 2014

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Holy shit, remember when I had a blog? Me neither. Sorry for the radio silence – lots of Real Life(TM) nonsense went on on including moving, hustling, getting engaged, getting a full time job, Christmas in NJ, planning a goddamned wedding, the whole nine. I was reading on Facebook earlier about how disappointing the Oscar noms are and figured I could slap my thoughts about my faves of 2014 in here rather than blow up a Facebook status. Sound good? OK!

Those of you lucky souls who follow me on Instagram have probably noticed that between photos of booze and cats, I post a photo of every ticket stub for movies I see in the theatre. This is due to a couple of reasons – the constant deluge “of the now” realness that social media has enforced is slowly seeping into my brain, but it’s also utilitarian in a way; it allows me to keep track of the movies I see because I can’t remember anything that happened more than a week and a half ago. In short, I very much enjoyed in no particular order; Gone Girl, Top Five, Nightcrawler, The Gambler, Interstellar, The Judge, The Disappearance of Elanor Rigby Her/Him, The November Man, XMen Days of Future Past, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I’ll elaborate a little more on some of these along with the flagrant disappointments of 2014 in a bit.

FAUX AWARDS;
Best Achievement in Throwing a Goddamned Horse: The Rock in Hercules.
Most Eraserhead Realness Served in terms of Uncomfortable/Cold Feeling Homes: The Double.
Most Lewd Fun had in a Theatre: Filth.
Best Fun Sci-Fi Flick with a Female Character who shockingly wasn’t Made of Fucking Cardboard: Edge of Tomorrow.
Most Realistic Horrifying Gritty Violence: Blue Ruin.
Best Non-Ironic Nicolas Cage Performance: Joe.

THE GOOD;

  • Nightcrawler. Probably my favourite flick of 2014. This movie is written absurdly well, with Gyllenhaal as this bizarre misanthrope antihero with no real character arc and it STILL works. He’s an absolute fucking lunatic with LA as the co-star, and I couldn’t stop thinking about this movie once I saw it. It’s just a solid movie, a type that I didn’t think was made anymore. Truly enjoyable and tight.
  • The Disappearance of Elanor Rigby. This movie was originally intended to be two separate back to back experiences, one strictly from His POV and the other from Her POV. Thanks to the fucking Weinstein Company, we got some mangled slapdash ‘Them’ cut first before the original Her/Him versions were released in theatres here.. needless to say, this movie should be enjoyed in its original form. There’s so much depth to these characters and their experiences that the edited/combined version just misses the mark. The performances are fantastic and the story is heartbreaking, but ultimately satisfying, gripping, and real. These movies have stayed with me for months. James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain play really well off of one another, and I believe them existing as a couple.
  • Gone Girl. Jesus, this movie is fucking fantastic. I struggle to recall any movie that has ever improved upon the novel as source material; I enjoyed the hell out of Flynn’s book, and read it in about three days flat mostly on a flight back from Ireland in June. The casting of Ben Affleck opposite Rosamund Pike could not have been more perfect, and Fincher just makes this whole movie work. It’s sinister and upsetting, the dialogue and action are taut, and Reznor/Ross’ score is delightfully creepy. Plus.. it has an orange cat named Cheeto deftly playing the role of Nick and Amy’s cat. Aaaaand you see Affleck’s dick. Not bad!
  • Edge of Tomorrow. If you haven’t seen this movie, DO IT RIGHT NOW. It’s fantastic, it’s fun, it’s funny without being gimmicky, and the story is really great.
  • The November Man. Pierce Brosnan is always a delight, and I’m not just saying that because I grew up watching Remington Steele with my mom. It’s an action flick and is of course a little predictable, but still a totally fun experience that surprised me with how much I got into it. Brosnan’s still got it, and Cobra Commander from the fantastically awful GI Joe sequel plays opposite him so whatevs. Totally unexpected fun romp, complete with miscellaneously Eastern European villains.
  • Interstellar. Now, in case you haven’t noticed the inalienable truth, I’ll reiterate it here; the Nolans are not good writers. McConaughey does the heavy lifting and brings the relatable human touch to the Nolans’ otherwise typically sterile characters, and Hathaway manages to not be completely intolerable so there’s that. The robots steal the show, which says all you need to know about the Nolans. The movie is not flawfree, but the strange thing here is that I liked it more and more upon reading/thinking about it and a couple of additional viewings. This movie really grew on me. It’s also worth noting that the Hans Zimmer score is fucking MAGICAL.. I haven’t stopped listening to it.
  • Top Five. Chris Rock wrote and directed this movie, and it’s really, actually, funny with heart.
  • Joe. Every now and then, I am reminded that Nicolas Cage is an actor, and a great one at that. This movie is nuanced and stripped down, and he gives a hell of a performance. It was the first movie I wrote about on this blog, in fact!
  • Jersey Boys. Now, before you all think I have brain damage, this movie isn’t actually good; I know that. It’s camp and totally absurd, but it sure is fun. Sometimes I want a fun movie to take me out of reality for a couple of hours, and Jersey Boys is the movie for that. And I love the music! I feel the same way about the 2008’s Mamma Mia; it’s genuinely terrible, but still manages to be a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

 

THE BLAND;

  • God’s Pocket. I had some high hopes for this one, considering John Slattery directed it and Philip Seymour Hoffman headlined, but it was just another one of those forgettable “THIS IS MY NEIGHBOURHOOD AND YOU’LL NEVER BELONG BECAUSE YOU’RE DIFFERENT” steaming piles of nothing.
  • The Drop, another steaming pile of nothing, for a movie I hoped would be great. The late great James Gandolfini puts in a wonderful performance in this otherwise banal movie that I really cannot recall much about; it was just sort of.. there.
  • Birdman. Unpopular opinion, I know. Performances aside, this movie was a goddamned mess. I went into it with high expectations, had read so much positive critical acclaim, and it was just one of those blowhard Faux Arthaus shitpiles trying too hard to be edgy and artsy. Don’t even get me started on the fact that this movie’s “score” was nominated for a Golden Globe, a score that as far as I could tell had someone strap a drumstick and cymbal to a couple of dogs.
  • A Most Wanted Man. I couldn’t tell you a goddamned thing about this movie other than the fact that PSH had a German accent.
  • Snowpiercer. Eh. I enjoyed it while watching it, and then never thought about it again.

 

THE CONFUSINGLY AWFUL;

  • Inherent Vice. Holy shit what a letdown this was. Now, I am mostly hit or miss on Paul Thomas Anderson flicks because I think they’re lazily referred to as ‘character studies’ when they should really be categorised as ’roundabout messes’. I was genuinely hoping this would be another Boogie Nights (which is the only PTA movie I actually enjoy, come to think of it), but IV is inconsistent, rambling, and nonsensical. At least it wasn’t as horrendous as The Master, which gave me an actual migraine. The styling of everything in IV is great though, so at least there’s that. What an abject disappointment.
  • The Theory of Everything. This movie is not only awful, it is aggressively awful. It is infuriating. Hey, I’ve got a great idea! Let’s take Stephen Hawking’s story, strip it of any and all actual character, feeling, and science,  throw it into the Romantical Story(TM) garbage disposal with a love interest who manages to look constipated for the entire two hours she’s on the screen, and you get this fucking movie. Not really an actual spoiler, but that ending: where he’s next to his estranged wife and looks at their children frolicking around a fountain at fucking Buckingham Palace and has his computer say LOOK AT WHAT WE MADE I wanted to hurl my rocks glass at the wall.
  • Locke. What in the goddamned world was this movie? It just didn’t work for me. Everyone was shitting themselves over how wonderful and visionary it was, and all I could think was, did these people all have lobotomies? Dafuq?
  • Hercules. Aside from The Rock throwing the aforementioned horse, this movie was a mess AND it was boring. There’s nothing worse than an action movie that’s incredibly dull. How in the fresh hell does that even happen? It’s the worst combination.
  • Noah. Speaking of boring, THIS fucking movie. Granted, I would never have seen it had Nick not wanted to, but HOLY FUCKING HELL IT WAS BORING. Mind-numbingly awful. And one of the characters was named Ham, so I kept thinking about ham. That’s really all you need to know.

 

SO, that’s about all I have to say about 2014 movies. And hey, Mad Men is back on April 5th, so look forward to more content on here in the near future. Rock n’roll.

Thoughts on Mad Men s7e7, “Waterloo”

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 Cooper dropping postmortem truth bombs. image courtesy of Tumblr

Hey kiddos. Sorry for the insane delay in posting my thoughts on the Mad Men midseason finale. I was in Ireland for a fortnight, traveled for approximately 24 hours total to get back to Los Angeles, and then getting back in the rhythm of real life knocked me out. Seriously, it was an epic poem for me to get home and to get back at it already.

In the interest of pragmatism, I shoddily streamed this episode on my cave internet connection by way of China to my 13″ MacBook Pro while I was out of the country. MAGIC. Honest to god, this was so I could look at social media without being assaulted by whatever potential spoilers were undoubtedly lurking — and I finally had a chance to watch it on my normal-ass TV last night. So, here I am. Frankly I’ve been thinking about this episode daily for the past few weeks, and I have no idea where to begin. My notes are a total disaster. Like I’ve said before, there’s SO MUCH in this episode.. goddamn.

Hey, Ted’s back! And he’s a complete fucking maniac! We haven’t seen much of him this season, but what we have seen is a mopey teenager who’s totally lovesick and miserable in the Golden State. In a super dark sequence, he’s flying the Sunkist guys around in his little plane and alludes to death being the end of all troubles in life. He then shuts down the engines and makes the Sunkist guys shit their collective pants for a little bit to drive his point home. NOT GREAT, TED. This isn’t a good look. Ted is fed up with advertising and hates the LA office, and all that comes with it. He wants to quit and expresses this to Cutler and an hysterical Pete, which does not go over well. Sigh. More on Ted later.

As an aside – I gotta say, props to Cutler for being extremely dismissive of gormless Lou in the wake of Commander Cigarettes bailing. We all know his motivations are shallow at best, but calling Lou a “hired hand” was a pretty awesome slap in the face. Cutler was only nice to Lou in order to get Don out of the picture, and when that didn’t work, Lou is of no value to Cutler anymore. Damn, that’s cold.

The Moon belongs to everyone! I’m fucking thrilled that Weiner didn’t troll us all and gloss over the Moon Landing like a total dick. Fun fact: in middle school, I was completely obsessed with 1960s/1970s NASA (naturally, this made me super popular at parties). I sought out every damn book about the Apollo program that I could find at the Ramsey Public Library, taped every PBS documentary that was on, and completely immersed myself in the Space Race and that awesome historical period of innovation, exploration, and emerging technology. An era of hope.

However, all that reading didn’t quite expose me to what we see on display in “Waterloo” – the simultaneous wonder and fantastic dread that comes along with exploring an unchartered alien world. Everyone at SC&P is buzzing, “what if they don’t make it??” Peggy, Don, Pete and Harry are in Indianapolis to pitch to Burger Chef on July 21st. If the astronauts don’t make it or something goes catastrophically wrong on the 20th, that pitch is put on indefinite leave – not unlike Don’s predicament. Somehow, I never connected that so much business could be riding on the success or failure of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins making it to the surface of the Moon and safely returning home. Everyone at SC&P is on edge.

As an offshoot of the Moon Landing, that idea of unchartered territory has been running deep this season as well. The Space Race, Don starting from the bottom to work his way back up, Peggy delivering a massively important pitch on the fly, Roger becoming acting President of SC&P, and obvi, the Moon itself. These territories are all carefully explored as we follow these people on their journey throughout this season.

During the Moon Landing sequence, we see a few families taking it all in together. Roger and Mona along with Brooks and space-helmeted Ellery all watch together, takeout strewn about the coffee table. The Francis residence is brimming with guests watching the lunar landing together. Pete, Harry, Don and Peggy are their own family watching a motel television broadcast together, with only two beers to cut the tense anticipation of what may or may not go wrong.

These characters are all in flux and have each lost something this season. Roger lost his sense of worth, being snubbed by Cutler and shut out of most actual business proceedings. He couldn’t save his own daughter from that filthy hippie farm upstate, either. Pete has all but completely lost his family, and his life in LA is losing its lustre. Harry alludes to Jennifer demanding a divorce, but she hesitates once he drops the potential partnership bomb (get that money, Jennifer). Peggy just lost Julio, the upstairs neighbour kid who has turned into her surrogate son of sorts; she takes the news of his family moving out with a heavy heart which is fitting, since he seems to be around the age of her lovechild with Pete.

“I don’t want to go to Newark!”

“Nobody does.”

THIS TRUTH.

Don thinks he’s losing his place at SC&P in the form of Cutler trying his damnedest to give him the boot, via a boilerplate attorney letter sent to him as a last resort right before the Burger Chef trip. Following an awkward kiss from Meredith (fucking LOL FOREVER) and some distractingly dramatic music, Don makes a beeline for Cutler’s office and busts in on (another) meeting. He tries to get a rise out of Don by cutting him down to size as just “a bully and a drunk” rather than this alleged genius shrouded in mystery, but Don stoically absorbs it and leaves. I mean, I thought for sure Don was gonna headbutt Cutler, but cooler heads prevailed and he immediately shut the whole thing down like a boss. Good work, Don. He shows the letter to Roger, Cooper and the rest of the partners – whose names were all at the bottom, mind you – and they’re all shocked at Cutler’s actions. They take a vote on the spot and it’s essentially nullified. Bam.

Don has finally lost Megan, in their surprisingly sad phone conversation right before he left for Indianapolis. He tells her about that letter and being on the chopping block, and when he mentions that he can finally move to LA in an attempt to repair things with her, she isn’t having it. Their conversation about ending things is a stark contrast to his confrontation with Betty and their ensuing nasty divorce and aftermath; Don quietly reassures Megan that he’ll always take care of her, and she says that he doesn’t owe her anything. Is it really the end? Who knows. It feels like it this time.

In the wake of all of their personal shit, these people bond just a little bit while taking in this awesome moment together, sharing an unspoken connection in that drab motel room. As Armstrong takes his first tentative steps, everyone is awash in the glowing warmth of the television. You can hear other guests in the motel losing their shit and cheering as Armstrong exits that LEM for the first time. That connection they’ve unknowingly been yearning for, been starving for, is encapsulated in that moment.

As an aside, how much Betty realness is Sally exuding in this episode?? MY GOD. Her hair! Her clothes! Her makeup! Her mannerisms! The Francises have some friends staying with them, with their two sons in tow; a hot idiot (Sean) and a geek (Neil). Sally is instantly drawn to Sean, just like her mother would be. When he loudly declares that the Moon Landing is a waste of money and Sally parrots that fuckery to her father on the phone, Don delivers the smackdown; “You want your little brothers to talk that way?” Don is no cynic, and he ain’t got time for that sort of basic flop bullshit. She understands, and then joins Neil and his telescope outside. They share a moment after she sees Polaris, and she goes right in and kisses him. I love this moment because she totally ignores Betty’s oldschool wisdom of “you don’t kiss boys, boys kiss you” from s3e8, “Souvenir”. Once Neil runs inside at his mother’s call, Sally lights up a cigarette and echoes Betty’s mannerisms down to a T. However, she defies the Betty in her by going for the thoughtful Neil instead of the cynical hot idiot Sean. So great.

Watching the Moon Landing with his housekeeper, Bert Cooper’s last words may have been an emphatic “Bravo”, watching Neil Armstrong as he takes his first steps. Absolutely fitting for a man so great. Cooper’s death has been widely speculated for the past couple of seasons, but actually having it happen and seeing the impact it has on the agency is another thing entirely.

Roger’s Moon Landing experience is interrupted with an “oh shit” phone call, which I immediately thought was someone calling to say that hippie Margaret/Marigold is dead. Turns out it’s actually worse — Bert Cooper, Roger’s lifelong friend and mentor, died in his home that evening. This means that Roger has to finally step up to the plate at SC&P; he has some enormous argyle socks to fill, after all. The last exchange we see between Cooper and Roger is when Cooper tells him that Cutler has “a vision” for the company, while they argue over Don’s fate and what to do. Cooper tells Roger that he’s not a leader, which Roger takes to heart. I mean, Cooper’s corpse is still warm when Cutler firmly tells Roger that Don is done at SC&P since the partners no longer have the votes, hammering the non-leader point home even further. That motherfucker is cold as ice.

Roger Sterling has been a longtime favourite character of mine, and he really gets his shit together in this episode. We saw him have a bizarre sauna conversation with Draper-thirsty Jim Hobart in “The Strategy”, and once Cutler attempts to take control a lightbulb pops on for Roger. Why not use Hobart’s unrelenting borderline creepy thirst as a vehicle to return control of SC&P back to Roger? Bingo. Roger slaps together a merger of sorts with McCann, where SC&P would still be owned by him AND independently operated, but in the process shedding the CGC weight that’s still dragging the company down (read:Cutler), axing Harry’s non-partnership in the process. AND NONE FOR HARRY CRANE, BYE.

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Sterling the Redeemer. image courtesy of Tumblr

Don is immediately not on board with this plan, but still votes in favour of it happening for the benefit of the agency. He also knows that Roger is on his side, and will fight to keep his place at SC&P if and when it all goes through. All is not lost after all, Don! Roger breaks the news to the partners (and tells Harry to fuck off in the most hilar way possible), and while hesitant, they’re all on board by the end.. even Cutler. Ted takes some goading, as he still adamantly wants out; Don ends up being the one to convince him to come on board, since McCann won’t take SC&P without the “original Chevy guys”. Their short exchange is a really nice moment of growth, with Don showing him something real and honest, and seeing the positive impact it has on Ted. He encourages him to stay on board as creative, to get back to the brass tacks of what he loves to do and relish in the simpler things. Don speaks to him as a friend, and Ted is on board.

But oh man, that ending. Initially when I was watching it all unfold, I was thinking “What in the actual fuck? Has Weiner completely lost the plot??” This isn’t the first time Don has seen dead people, but this is certainly one of the least depressing ones he’s seen, on the surface at least. Cooper – socks and all – receives a grand sendoff with a song and dance number of “The Best Things in Life are Free”, an appropriate and loving nod to Morse’s Broadway past. A musical number featuring a recently deceased character is a risky choice for sure, but it makes a ton of sense in the overarching themes of this mini-season.

“But what is happiness? It’s a moment before you need more happiness.”

-Don, s5e2, “Commissions and Fees”

A huge theme in this show from the very start is the pursuit of happiness and what that means to each person we see — and if it can actually be done. Does real happiness exist? Is it a thing? These characters are all trying to forge their own paths in life and trying to seek out happiness however they see fit. Turns out Don has been doing it wrong all along, he’s been placing his definition and pursuit of happiness on the wrong things in the wrong places at the wrong times. As a result, we’ve seen his journey as something of a downward spiral and a hot mess. His outwardly idyllic marriage to model Betty and the classic 3 kids with a sprawling house in the suburbs, complete with a Cadillac? His marriage to the young, hot, fun Megan and his enormous apartment in the city? Turns out precisely none of these things brought him true happiness. As the characters on the show learn to focus more on the immaterial versus the material, a weight is gradually lifted.

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2001: A Space Peggy. image courtesy of Tumblr.

Back to Peggy’s Burger Chef pitch for a moment. As Don receives news of Cooper’s death, he pops the pitch to her side of the ring. He doesn’t want to land that business and then be immediately fired when him and Peggy worked so closely on it – if that happened, she’d receive nada. He gently encourages her when she doesn’t believe herself capable, and the resulting pitch she delivers at the meeting is magnificent. I was instantly reminded of the s1 finale “The Carousel”, and Don’s iconic Kodak pitch of the same name. She talks about the constant mess at home, and how television has impaired personal connections; dinner is supposed to be a time where you catch up as a family, and enjoy one another’s company. This ritual of a nightly family meal echoes our ever-present yearning to feel connected, to be a part of something. That baseline human want of a sense of community, of belonging, of family – this can be found at a Burger Chef table. That immaterial sense of belonging which we all seek is what’s really important in life, and Peggy puts it all out there for those executives in her pitch. Goddamn.

Those themes also fit right in with the evolution of “family”, and how divided some of these characters are becoming as their motivations are revealed. This episode confirms that Cutler’s only real motivation in life is money, the material – not that this is shocking, but watching him flipflop so rapidly with his opposition to the McCann merger as the cash value is revealed was an “….OH. well!” moment for sure.

So. Cutler, Joan, and Harry are in camp Cash Money Blang while Don, Peggy, Ted, Pete and Roger are seeking something different, something deeper. A sense of purpose perhaps, a love for their work, that lost sense of camaraderie and belonging at SC&P. I mean, money is still a big part of it for them (especially giddy Pete and his 10%), but it’s not the prime influence for them. This midseason finale draws that line of success between monetary gain and that of unbreakable, important bonds between people; after all, the most important things in life don’t cost a dime. Stick with the immaterial, guys.

The start of Don’s story this season was shaky for sure, but as he gains perspective on the shit that actually matters in life, he’s able to make a great deal of positive personal progress. Don is in fact able to overcome his past actions and slowly repair relationships with his colleagues/friends; he finds solace and success with personal fulfillment rather than a number or a title. He finds peace in going back to the start, writing tags and coupons, reconciling with his demons. As Cooper sings, “the best things in life are free”, this is actually sinking in for Don. It’s a fucking Christmas Miracle, you guys. Seeing the look on Don’s face as the gravity of this lighthearted sentiment hits home is nothing short of poetic; he’s been doing it wrong all along, but Cooper gently reminds him it’s never too late to get your ass on the right track. Stay focused, stay on the straight and narrow, appreciate the immaterial.

Ugh, I can’t believe we have to wait another goddamned year for the final 7 episodes of Mad Men. Stay tuned to the Den, kiddos; I’ll for sure have posts coming your way soon! But for now, that was an awesome mini-season. I’m sad to see Mad Men disappear from my TV until 2015.

Movies that Rule: Filth

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 yes, please. image courtesy of Shockya

Man, what a fucking movie this was. As soon as I saw a trailer for it a few months back, I knew I needed to see it — and I did just that this afternoon at the Sunset Sundance cinemas. Irvine Welsh is perhaps best known for penning Trainspotting, so I figured Filth would be profanely bizarre and hysterical, and it did not disappoint. This movie is brimming with joyful depravity and ludicrous amounts of high-octane language and sex, with the glorious backdrop of Scotland and near-unintelligible accents.

By the way, these are the IMDB keywords for Filth: Murder | Phone Sex | Corrupt Cop | Fellatio | Raised Middle Finger

Perfection.

I feel like I’ve had a James McAvoy mini marathon as of late, watching X-Men First Class on Blu-Ray and seeing X-Men Days of Future Past last week. Real talk: this guy rules. I first saw McAvoy on Channel 4’s Shameless on one visit to the UK in 2005 or so, and I was hooked. Then Wanted hit theatres in 2008, and though that movie isn’t anything stellar, it’s super fucking entertaining and over the top ridiculous. 2009’s The Last Station was playing at like.. 2 theatres in the US, and I happened to see it at the Angelika Film Center in Manhattan on a bitterly cold day. Last year, Trance came to cinemas and I was pretty much blown away. If you haven’t seen it yet, do it right the hell now; it’s a fun flick with a great premise. McAvoy is sublime and Filth is no exception; he puts on a hypnotic performance, really making you feel for his demented-ass character.

In the trailer, Filth comes off as a debaucherous adventure of obscene proportions. While that’s definitely true, the movie takes some truly dark turns and it actually manages to have a heart, which is refreshing. Some scenes are legitimately off-putting in the best way possible. McAvoy plays corrupt drug-fuelled detective Bruce Robertson, who will stop at nothing to get a promotion that he wants. He bangs around and plays mindgames, does a batshit amount of drugs, drinks like a bum, and is generally a complete fucking maniac mess. He’s into autoerotic asphyxiation with his colleague’s wife. He outs his colleague’s babydick status with a cock-photocopying “game” at the Police Christmas party. He consistently tries to out one of his colleagues as a possible homosexual in the rudest ways possible. His prank calls to his best friend’s wife Bunty are nothing short of monumental; they’re closely tied with Kathleen Turner’s Serial Mom prank calls in terms of absurdity and top-notch salaciousness. And obvi, he bangs her in her tacky jungle-themed living room while framing his best friend/her husband as the pervy prank caller.

Robertson is slowly losing his goddamned mind and we’re all along for the ride. His wife (with daughter in tow) left him, most likely because he’s a legit crazy person, and he’s dealing with that trauma in the most fucked out ways imaginable. His taunting shrink appears to be a Kubrick/Gilliam/Lynch/Cronenberg orgy creation, portrayed by the always delightful Jim Broadbent. Robertson hallucinates horrifying farm animals along with his tragically dead little brother, and is heavily medicated as a result. He’s dealing with a lot of dark shit in probably the worst ways possible, but it’s wholeheartedly enrapturing to watch. He receives praise and kindness from a woman (and her son) because he valiantly tried to save her husband from dying when everyone else just stood around like dead-eyed cows; Robertson has no idea how to receive her positivity and gratitude and genuinely struggles with it.

Filth appears to be on super limited release in the US; though it was released in the UK and Ireland last October, it was just released here on May 30th. Even then, I was only able to find it in one theatre in the LA area which is sort of shocking because it’s fucking Los Angeles. But hey, it’s available on VOD. Go check it out! Seriously. Don’t argue with me, just go!

Thoughts on Mad Men s7e6, “The Strategy”

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Bob Benson and his shorts need a beard! image courtesy of Vanity Fair

Well, the penultimate episode of this faux-“season” did not disappoint. When I reread my notes for this episode, I found that I scribbled down a disproportionate amount of quotes from the characters alongside my thoughts. This episode has loads of strong character moments, and truth be told, if this happened to be the end of the series I would not have been let down. I was reminded of the greatness that is the s4 episode “The Suitcase”, arguably one of my favourite episodes of the series. “The Strategy” is rife with Hemingway references, Don/Peggy bonding, tantrum Pete cramming bottles into cakes, Bob Benson’s gloriously awkward beard proposal to Joan, Megan’s fondue pot, and above all, the idea of family.

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Vin Diesel won’t stop yapping about FAMILY in these movies. image courtesy of The Grio

As an aside, I adore The Fast and the Furious franchise in all of its magnificent, totally entertaining absurdity. As last night’s Mad Men emphasised the unconventional family you choose in life, I couldn’t stop thinking about Vin Diesel’s incessant parroting of the word “family” in those movies. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled programming..

Let’s start with the triumphant return of Bob Benson. I love this handsome weirdo, I can’t lie. He flies in from Detroit with some Chevy execs, and they’re apparently still just as out of control as when they shot Kenny’s eye out. Roused by a phone call in the middle of the night, Bob has to go bail out one of his Chevy colleagues. It turns out Bill is a closeted homosexual and gets his ass arrested for an attempted beej on an officer (REALLY), and Bob picks him up. The cab ride proves to be fruitful, as he lets Bob know that GM wants to take Chevy’s advertising team in-house for their doomed shitbox Vega. However, Buick would be approaching Bob with an offer soon.. so there’s that. Splendid. Bill also indicates that his wife is cool with him totes banging dudes on the side, and strongly insinuates that GM prefers the quintessential family man with a wife at home, the kids, that fence, etc. Does this archetype even exist anymore in 1969? More on that later..

This gives Bob an idea. He should ask his BFF Joan to marry him! Of course! He’s beloved by her and her rude mother, he can act as a father figure to Kevin, they could buy a mansion in Detroit, what could go wrong? Bob’s a fun guy with a lot to offer, but Joanie knows she deserves more.

Now. Bob’s engagement ring box is nowhere near as creepy as Ginzo’s nipple gift, but this scene is almost as awkward. Bob proposes (I was screaming), and confused, Queen Joan turns him down. She’s put in a super weird position, but handles it with grace and eloquence as only Joan can. She knows he’s obvi A Gay (which is extremely difficult in the 60s), and wants him to seek happiness and love with his preferred sex, and not just to have a beard and call it a day. How is that living? I mean, we all know that Bob Benson is Don Draper Lite, but Joan doesn’t know that. Her words seem to strike a chord with Bob, because she really cares about him, and a sham marriage wouldn’t do anything positive for either of them.

Joan and Bob have a nice friendship, and she lets him down really easily. Joan knows exactly what she wants, and she won’t be swayed from her own path in life. She’s done enough for the agency in landing Jaguar, and money as a lure is no longer appealing to her at this point. She’s accepting of Bob’s sexuality, and encourages him to seek love instead of an arranged easy way out. Their scene is strangely sweet in a way. He lets her know about Chevy jumping ship, and her concern immediately shifts to her career and future.

Plus, who in the fresh hell wants to live in Detroit?

Megan is in town from LA, as is Pete with Bonnie in tow. It’s funny seeing how being in New York affects them individually. Pete reverts to being a smarmy prat, but who can blame him? He sees his daughter once a year, and she doesn’t know who he is. Trudy is avoiding him, and Pete picks a rude fight once she gets home from a date, and eagerly jams his beer bottle into her shitty cake. It’s no roast chicken being launched out of an apartment window á la s2e12’s brilliant “The Mountain King”, but I’ll take it. It’s almost like being back east affected Pete in a way that he could not have imagined in the least.

During their secret shady conference call with Ted, Pete and Lou say that while they love Peggy’s pitch for Burger Chef, they insist that Don deliver it and instead, with Peggy playing the “mother” role. Hey, glass ceiling! Rude that they’d undermine her like that and go full-on traditional, saying that she’s the emotion and Don’s the authority, when it’s actually the other way around; Peggy rightfully corrects those motherfuckers. Plus, Pete telling Pegs to play the mother is SUPER awkward. Hey Pete, remember your gross lovechild?

Pete’s former life on the east coast is a goddamn mess and it’s getting to him. Something about that city seeps into Pete’s headspace like toxic goo, and he becomes neurotic, defensive, and condescending. Bonnie isn’t safe from it either. Pete’s been hinting here and there that she should play the more traditional role with him, but she gives precisely zero fucks about that housewife life. She’s sharp as a tack and sees right through his shit – “Don’t try to fuck your way out of this”. DAMN, girl. Shots fired. She then splits for LA early; Bonnie ain’t got time for that shit, she’s got houses to sell.

Pete is bound by the gravity of his name in that city, and in LA he’s simply free of it. He can be his own man. LA is the first thing he’s had of his own; he’s building something for himself rather than standing on the shoulders of his parents, throwing his name around, or being forced to rely on Trudy’s family. Pete may be struggling, but he’s finding himself and making his own way. As an east coast transplant in LA myself? I get you, Pete.

The way Pete acts reminds me of a nostalgic feeling I can’t quite place. It’s that feeling you get when you go home at Christmastime, and you’re living in your childhood home for the week or however long you’re there. You’re sleeping in your old room, sometimes your posters and knickknacks are still around, and things are just sort of.. off. At any age, you’re transported back to that fucked out headspace of being a kid/teenager, and you find yourself sometimes doing strange things like you did when you were a kid. Pete is for sure experiencing a lot of this in his former home in Cos Cob, and in his old stomping grounds of Manhattan. Being back east activated his asshole switch just a little bit.

Megan is more of the same, though far less brash than Pete. It’s clear that she’s not comfortable in Don’s part of the country and is working hard to get every last piece of herself moved out to the west coast, fondue pot and all. As Megan is tearing the apartment apart in search of her things, Don finds a newspaper from the day JFK is assassinated in 1963, and pauses for a beat. After all, this is the day that Betty decided to leave him and end their marriage.

Megan plays the good wife and sets up a lovely breakfast on the patio for Don, but it’s almost an illusion, an act. Her big/awesome LA hair is gone – she’s been wearing falls to add length. Instead, she sports her natural elongated bob in New York. The funniest part of this is that she’s so eternally thirsty for Don’s gaze, yet she misses all of the very clear signals that he wants her to move back to New York. He wants her there, and it’s plain to see that she has no interest in moving back east; this is a massive thing that he’s overlooking, as well. They seem to barely communicate – when Megan showed up to surprise him at work, one of the secretaries didn’t even know that Don was married. Awk.

Next week is the midseason finale; the hysterically vague episode description says “Don is troubled by a letter”. That better be divorce papers, girl. Just end it already, that marriage is disintegrating rapidly. Ironically, the likely reason Don won’t move to LA is that he truly wants to dig his heels in and repair his life and relationships in New York from the ground up. Too bad he’s neglecting his marriage as a result.

Let’s get to the real meat of this episode, the Don/Peggy stuff. These two have a rich history and are forever tied together in their creativity, their struggle, and ultimately their misery. They have more in common with each other than they think and I am so, so happy with this episode. I love when Don and Peggy fucking get along like normal-ass people. Though Peggy is at first antagonistic towards Don for thinking of another Burger Chef pitch on the fly and thus starting the chain reaction of her rethinking it, he manages to diffuse her anger with.. kindness and understanding. That’s certainly new. They spend Sunday in the office together, working on Burger Chef and bonding, just like in “The Suitcase”. This episode doesn’t have drunk Duck Phillips barging in trying to take a dump on Roger’s bizarre modern white furniture, though.

Peggy’s original Burger Chef idea is, for lack of a better word, dated. It focuses on that wholesome nuclear family with the mom feeling guilty about feeding her family maaaaad burgers, and how to create an ad that will give her permission to hit up fast food for dinner on the reg and annihilate that guilt (Ameri-caaaaaa). Lou, ever the dinosaur, loves the archaic idea of the mom asking the dad for permission (since that’s what people do) and making Burger Chef an a-OK choice for dinner. Ugh.

Watching Don and Peggy figure this out is magical. I liked the visual switch of roles too – Peggy is in Don’s old office, with his old desk placed in the spot that he hated from that photo shoot in s6. She sits at that desk, while Don sits across from her. Peggy is expecting anything other than kindness and honesty from Don when she asks how he does it – what’s his creative process? How does his brain work? What does he have to worry about? His answers are striking and stark; “That I never did anything, and that I don’t have anyone.” Heartbreaking and so completely relatable. Don being that honest and open with her is a huge step forward.

They talk about how the traditional family is dead; everyone watches TV at dinner now, nobody sits down to a nice meal and has conversations anymore. How can they make this work in 1969? Peggy breaks down because she is simply exhausted. She’s done the work, gone above and beyond, but none of it feels right. She doesn’t know what she’s doing wrong, and then it clicks – change the conversation. What’s a place you can go where there’s no TV? Those people with whom you share a meal, with whom you break bread? Whoever you’re sitting with is family. Every table at Burger Chef is the Family Table.

The traditional 1950s Leave it to Beaver-type family unit is rapidly eroding. SC&P has to switch gears to advertise to this new normal, they have to evolve to keep up with the times. Just look at the characters here – Joan is a divorcée single mother with her own mother living in her apartment and has just been proposed to by her gay friend. Don and Megan are clear across the country from one another. Pete is still married on paper, but has essentially been ejected from his family by Trudy. Peggy is single, just turned 30 (“Shit.. when??”), living alone in her apartment in an up and coming neighbourhood. She’s estranged from her family because of her modern ambition and intelligence, and her mother and sister don’t understand her in the least. The people they’re trying to reach with the original Burger Chef pitch simply don’t exist anymore.

This episode is remarkable. While dancing with Peggy to “My Way” (of course), Don finally realises that he gets to choose his own family. He’d never really been alone if he’d bother to not be a complete narcissistic dick all the time. That scene with them dancing is one of the sweetest scenes in this show’s history; these are two people who truly care for one another, who are connected. Don is genuinely encouraging of Peggy’s talents and plays the supportive role to her very well, in an honest attempt to repair his relationship with her and move forward. He realises that she isn’t his competition, and instead wants to be her friend and colleague. He wants to collaborate and create shit with Peggy already. Move forward. Evolve.

This episode closes with an actually perfect scene – Don, Pete and Peggy all sharing dinner together at Burger Chef. These characters are all orphaned in their own ways, and now they are their own family. Pete tries his damndest to get Don back where he belongs at SC&P, a younger brother sticking up for his big brother. Peggy is at her wit’s end and Don helps her, coaxes brilliance, and talks to her frankly like a father figure. It’s a quick little scene but it’s immensely satisfying to see them enjoying one another’s company. So much Norman Rockwell and Edward Hopper realness.

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A Clean, Well-lighted Place. image courtesy of imgur

Hemingway’s short story “A Clean Well-lighted Place” is about a deaf old man who enjoys staying in a café all the live long day and night for the companionship. It’s a pleasant environment where he can have the coveted illusion of togetherness, so he doesn’t have to face that despair – the ever-present “nada” of life. There is a waiter who understands this man, who gets that many people are affected by that very same problem, countering the other waiter who’s super dismissive and blasé, and wants to go to bed already. The protagonist is presumed to not have anyone in his life, so he makes his own family to a loose extent, just like our characters here. Peggy, Pete and Don have seen and gone through some dark shit, so it’s natural that they seek out friendship and solidarity in one another now.

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One last bit – Meredith clearly gets her “winking eye alcohol suggestion” blatant wink faux talent from Lucille Bluth. Obvi.

images courtesy of Tumblr

OH! I almost forgot. Man, Cutler really has a humongous boner for Harry Crane and that damn computer. In light of the Chevy news, he seems pretty focused on making Harry a partner, an idea which both Joan and Roger reject (Don has his back for obvious reasons). Bringing in some massive computer does not a partner make, but Harry’s always been ahead of the curve when it comes to media. He’s intelligent and knows what he’s doing and has proven himself for at least a junior partnership. I guess he deserves it, but I bet he’ll be a smug dick about it all the way to the market.

And finally.. Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” dropped on June 14th, 1969. That means we’d better see the fucking moon landing next week, Weiner. I also want to see Ginsberg! Glad he was at least mentioned this week, but I definitely miss his crazed self on my screen.. not to mention Queen Betty and Sally. I’d even settle for freaky-ass Glen, I hope he didn’t get drafted; though that peculiar guy might feel right at home in Vietnam.

I will be out of the country when the midseason finale airs, so next week’s thoughts will be delayed until I can watch it! If any of you motherfuckers spoil it for me, I will lose my damn mind. Til next time!