NOTES ON A SCANDAL
NOTES ON A SCANDAL
And Other Films We’ve Been Watching This Month
Notes on a Scandal (2006)
Let us journey back to the innocent days of 2006, where the 35mm filmstock is plentiful and indifferently lit, it’s normal to have eye wrinkles, and the studios are still making trash—excuse us, “films for adults.” Notes on a Scandal may star two Oscar winners, with a witty adaptation by Patrick Marber of Zoe Heller’s novel, but pedigreed trash is still trash. And we love it.
Notes on a Scandal is built around bitter, hilarious, unreliable narrator Judi Dench and a triple age gap plotline, including a criminal one between art teacher Cate Blanchett and her 15-year-old student. On this rewatch we marveled at the layered fragility of Blanchett’s role as a mother of a disabled child. It’s a quiet and vulnerable performance for Blanchett, until her explosive “Look at me!” freakout in Siouxsie-inspired mascara. And then there’s Dench as Blanchett’s closeted co-worker—and stalker—portraying herself as savior. What makes Notes on a Scandal so rewatchable is the nuance brought to Dench’s character. We see a woman in her 60s incapable of leading an authentic life become stuck in fantasies of her own design, and maybe all the other characters are stuck in their fantasies as well. Currently serving 10 months on Max.
Fear No Evil (1981)
The trailer for this regional gem makes it look like Rock ‘n’ Roll High School meets Carrie meets The Omen, with a miracle of a soundtrack featuring the Sex Pistols, Richard Hell, Patti Smith, and The Rezillos. Oh, and a young Joel Coen was the film’s editor. While Fear No Evil doesn’t live up to those billings, it is still fun, especially as it sets up the final battle between good and evil as taking place in Rochester, New York—because of course.
Andrew is an awkward high school nerd with a receding hairline who also happens to be the son of Satan. When you see him skulking on the roof of the school as Johnny Rotten growls, “I am an Antichrist” you truly believe this film could pull off the conceit as a radical teen angst statement. If that sounds serious, don’t worry, Fear No Evil is also as camp as a state park on the shores of Lake Ontario. There’s community theatre overacting (“My son is a devvilllllll!”), New Age angels hunting down Satan, 1980s visual pyrotechnics, and an explicit-for-1981 gay shower scene. By the end, Andrew transforms into a goth Jobriath, hissing and vamping in black chiffon as he enacts his revenge against his bullies. Reboot this with Timothée Chalamet stat. Currently available on Prime.
Pearl (2022)
Despite X’s great set-up and performances, Ti West’s mashup of 1970s hick horror and adult filmmaking didn’t quite come together for us on first viewing. That’s always the risk of a pastiche film. On the other hand Pearl—West’s lockdown made prequel—ends up a truly moving, unnerving story about psychopathy and how outsiders are made. It’s as if this is the second draft they were always meant to start with. There’s a Herzog-worthy pastoral unease to West’s 1918 Texas—men are away at war, the flu pandemic isolates people into their own worlds, and Mia Goth’s country girl Pearl dreams of dancing in Hollywood against the wishes of her icy German mother. The audience wants Pearl to succeed, except she is in no way sane and she knows it as much as we do. (We won’t spoil the scarecrow scene.) As a movie, Pearl is patient and loving with all its characters, even when it dispatches most of them in a climax that has the moral symmetry of a Flannery O’Connor story. Currently available on Prime.
Jack’s Back (1988)
Oh, you didn’t know that Road House director Rowdy Herrington made another film? You didn’t know it starred James Spader in a dual role of twin brothers searching for the killer who’s recreating Jack the Ripper’s murders in hair-spray soaked Los Angeles? Or that one brother is a beloved young doctor while the other is an ex-con who must use his street smarts? Or that Jack’s Back is a whiplash-inducing, inventive neo-noir that’s also a comment on the Reagan era? Praise be to Tubi, now you do.
Thank you!