Movie Review | Heart of Midnight (Chapman, 1988)

This review contains mild spoilers about a major event that happens early enough in the movie, but there are bigger things in the movie I will only hint at. The idea is to create a sense of mystery and entice you into seeing the movie. Gee, these spoiler disclaimers sure can be long, can’t they?

Within the first few minutes of the movie, I was gonna considering making my review a throwaway comment about Jennifer Jason Leigh’s fashion sense, but before you know it, the movie as a whole hooked me and I think I ended up loving it. But first things first. In the earlier sections of the movie, we often see Leigh in a billowy shirt in a loud, green print paired with some high waisted trousers. This is an outfit not entirely unlike ones I’ve worn with some frequency, as I have a fondness for Hawaiian shirts (the collar on Leigh’s shirt didn’t look like the camp collar style those things traditionally have, but I could be mistaken) and for high waisted pants (for pear shaped gentlemen like myself, they offer practical benefits as they’re less likely to sag below the waistline, and I personally find the proportions flattering, especially if you’re wearing a jacket). So already the movie is off to a great start.

But I do think it’s worth noting the effect it has on a visual level, in that it gives Leigh a masculine or at least androgynous look, especially paired with her relatively short hair. This is something which becomes a bit of a theme in the movie, as Leigh’s appearance becomes more feminine as the movie progresses and she gets closer to unraveling the film’s mysteries. Leigh’s first real foray into dressing femininely is promptly followed by a horrific rape, and to the movie’s credit, I think it depicts the experience in harrowing but not sensationalized terms, and captures the glibness and skepticism of the cops on the case. (The lead cop is played by Frank Stallone, so you know you’re in terrible hands.) This is one area where the movie probably holds up well to modern conversations about the subject. There are other things in the movie that I won’t reveal that maybe do not, but I think the movie comes from a place of empathy. And I think the inability to reconcile certain things is kind of a recurring theme in the movie.

It also introduces the colour green, which is one of the two main colours we see in the movie. The other is red, which is on the opposite end of the colour wheel as green, and I’ll note that this movie does not take place during Christmas. Red has obvious connotations, and here is present in its boldest shades on the walls of the brothel/dungeon disguised as a hotel inherited by Leigh, as if to unsettle in its sinfulness. (Apples figure prominently in the movie as well, as an obvious visual metaphor.) So if green is its opposite, is it a source of comfort? Perhaps, like the jarring contrast between the two colours, the movie doesn’t reconcile so comfortably.

Enter Peter Coyote as a green-suited detective. When I was watching Sister, Sister, I was chewing over the kind of male presence that makes thrillers like this work. (This isn’t an erotic thriller like the other one, but it operates in similar surreal, psychosexually-charged territory.) Coyote would have been too old to play the lead in that movie, but I think his presence is perfect for this kind of material. Especially with his age and his tobacco-weathered voice, there’s something comforting about him, but there’s also a slight jitteriness, as if his ostentatious bomhomie is an act ready to fall apart at any moment. When he finds a gun with a live round and immediately plays Russian Roulette, it feels like the fabric of the film has been ruptured. A lot of the movie is in this mode, the milieu of the movie almost existing in our subconscious, the proceedings poking holes in our sense of literal reality.

When you think of movies that are dreamlike, it can be easy to cite some go to movies or directors. There are similarities here to The Shining and the work of David Lynch. (And a little movie called Corruption by the great pornographer Roger Watkins that maybe Lynch nor the director of this movie might have seen, but as far as I’m aware they’ve haven’t denied it either, so I’ll presume they’re guilty until proven innocent. Guilty of having great taste that is.) But in this specific case, I think what is most dreamlike about the movie is how it will present you with things, images or characters or plot points, that shouldn’t make sense together, that don’t reconcile easily. And the way it sits in that ambience and that emotional space helps it resonate long after it’s over and the mystery at the heart of the movie has been “solved”.

A few additional notes:

Leigh’s hair is impossibly blonde, Hitchockian blonde, simultaneously artificial and searing into your subconscious as if to become the very image you think of when blonde hair comes to mind.

I do think the dungeon setting and the eventual introduction of BDSM into the story is an interesting choice. On one hand, it is certainly played for sleaze and used to unsettle, as it often is in movies. But I think the fact that it can hold a certain allure, and can allow one to work through negative feelings, is a key motivation behind the choice, even if that might not actually be the case in the story. As a character asks late in the movie, “Would you rather be a victim or a participant?”

Brenda Vaccaro "Corazón de medianoche" (Heart of midnight) 1989, de Matthew Chapman.

Mondo will release Creature from the Black Lagoon 24x36 screen prints by Matthew Allison tomorrow, October 19, at 1pm EST. The standard version is limited to 215 and costs $80, while the black-and-white variant is limited to 115 and costs $110. It's expected to ship in February.

99X Live III - RAINN Songs (1997)

01 - Tori Amos - Silent All These Years - 00:00 02 - Goo Goo Dolls - Name - 05:31 03 - Dave Matthews Band - Satellite - 10:02 04 - Melissa Etheridge - I Want To Come Over - 15:34 05 - Better Than Ezra - Desperately Wanting - 21:22 06 - Joan Osborne - Ladder - 26:00 07 - Paul Westerberg - Love Untold - 31:48 08 - Tracy Chapman - Fast Car - 36:32 09 - Jars of Clay - Flood - 43:03 10 - Dishwalla - Counting Blue Cars - 46:46 11 - Jewel - You Were Meant For Me - 52:33 12 - Bush - Comedown - 56:08 13 - Barenaked Ladies - The Old Apartment - 01:01:20 14 - Fleming & John - Love Songs - 01:05:05

Includes my fav acoustic version of Tracy Chapman singing Fast Car.

Para salvar vidas, ella tendrá que romper algunos corazones… “Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. · Temporada 2”

Cuando Walter, el primer amor de la Dra. Lahela ‘Doogie’ Kameāloha, regresa de su gira mundial de surf, no es el mismo novio del que ella se despidió meses atrás. Pero ella tampoco es la misma chica. Eso se vuelve evidente cuando Lahela conoce a un chico rebelde en una moto todoterreno, Nico, y se enfrenta a una decisión: luchar por lo que sabe es verdadero o darle una nueva oportunidad al amor.

Todo se complica por las presiones de ser una médica adolescente. Por suerte, Lahela tiene a su familia, a sus compañeros de trabajo y a su mejor amiga, Steph, que están siempre para apoyarla.

Estreno: 31 de marzo de 2023 en Disney+.

La segunda temporada cuenta con las actuaciones de Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Milo Manheim, Alex Aiono, Emma Meisel, Matthew Sato, Wes Tian, Mapuana Makia, Jeffrey Bowyer Chapman, Ronny Chieng, Jason Scott Lee, Kathleen Rose Perkins, entre otros.

business call 📞

[DET @ TOR]

Spittin’ Seeds || DET vs TOR || 07/31/22 || For: @donttelltheelff​

literally how did we win that?

Okay. So. How about I give you the titles of my current works in progress and you tell me who and what you'd write them about and then I'll tell you who and what I'm writing them about?

So first one: Signs of Something More

Second one: Full of Southern Pride

I love this!!

Okay. Signs of Something More I think I could see this relating to... Maybe 1634!! So, like, Mitch and Auston have been very close for ages. On and off the ice, they just have such chemistry. But recently, they've been noticing little things that might not be purely platonic. Certain looks, certain thrills of excitement, certain subtle touches that just... ignite something within them. So yeah, I'd write this fic as like, them realizing they're in love with each other via little things like getting a little too close, being drunk and almost kissing, others asking about it, etc.!

Full of Southern Pride... Lmao my first thought is Matt Chapman just because he's from LA and for me that's southern. I know California isn't really a yeehaw state, but I could 1000% see Matt being into country music and shit. And he'd be proud of it, too. He'd love country music festivals, and wearing kind of country chic (flannels, tattered jeans, big belt buckles, etc.), and would just... embrace it lmao. This fic would probably be about him dragging the reader to a country music festival and getting them to embrace the southernness with him.

Grant to Park Hill church helps it have Easter gifts in the bag

In the bag: Rev Ruth Chapman (back row, centre) and parishioners at St Matthew’s, ready with their Easter gifts St Matthew’s Church in Park Hill has been awarded funding from a church charity, the Benefact Mission Money Grants, which will allow it to continue running weekly cafés where helping people’s mental health is a core mission, and which has helped it prepare hundreds of small Easter gifts…

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Dr. John Things Happen That Way (Rounder / Concord; 2022) Por Juan F. Trillo [Grabación de jazz]

Dr. John Things Happen That Way (Rounder / Concord; 2022) Por Juan F. Trillo [Grabación de jazz]

El álbum que hoy Tomajazz les presenta, Things Happen That Way, es una obra póstuma, un homenaje a la labor de toda una vida sobre los escenarios de aquel músico excéntrico que se hacía llamar Dr. John. Se ha publicado ahora, hace escasas semanas, a finales de septiembre, a pesar de que falleció en 2019, pero como reza el dicho, más vale  tarde que nunca. En cualquier caso y donde quiera que esté…

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