MOVIE DIARY 2023: CAN YOU BE QUIET FOR ONE GODDAMN MINUTE AND LET ME REST? WITH THIS GUN??
The new era of MOVIE DIARY 2023 is really gonna start kicking off here! This week, I’m bringing on my first special guest of 2023, Caroline Moss! Caroline and I are usually shouting about The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and other highlights of Bravo programming, so it’s always fun for me when I can get her to opine about movies. I wrote a little bit about M3GAN (2023) on the first MOVIE DIARY 2023 post, but this time around we’ve got a message from future Caroline on the future occasion of the 30th anniversary of M3GAN. THE FUTURE!!
M3GAN (2023) - dir. Gerard Johnstone
SPECIAL GUEST WRITER: CAROLINE MOSS
10 MUST-HAVES IF YOU’RE HOSTING AN INTERACTIVE SHOWING OF M3GAN IN 2053
Thank you so much for subscribing to my Old Hollywood Movie blog! You’re here because I fine-tailored the SEO to have this post rise to the top if you search M3GAN, M3GAN MOVIE, M3GAN LINES, WHAT IS M3GAN, L3NA DUNHAM M3GAN BASED ON?, M3GAN LIVE SHOW! Thanks for stopping by, and make sure you like and subscribe!
If you’re thinking about hosting your own M3GAN LIVE!, I’ve put together a shopping list so you can create a magical, old Hollywood experience.
Please read 600 words before you actually get what you came for, the shopping list for hosting M3GAN LIVE! I know, so many advances in technology but in order to get to the top of Google, we still have to tell you a long-winded story that you don’t care about before we deliver on what the headline promises. Don’t yell at me! Talk to Elon Musk (he bought Google and now the first 20 hits of ANY search just bring you to the Tesla homepage or a poorly designed geocities website with a swastika on it. President Trump, now on his 6th consecutive term in office, says there’s nothing he can do, and can we believe he’s 130 and still alive?)
I remember 2023 fondly. I was 35, the Covid-19 pandemic had entered the toddler years, and I had just subscribed to the AMC A-List. For $25 a month I could see up to three movies a week at any one of AMC’s prestigious movie theaters (some with recliners! All with reserved seating!). For $25 a month I could see renowned actor Nicole Kidman say, “heartbreak feels good in a place like this” up to 144 times a year.
Because the AMC A-List subscription paid for itself if you saw just two movies a month, I saw M3GAN in theaters not just once, not just twice, but four separate times. M3GAN, starring other renowned actors Allison Williams and Violet McGraw, was an instant cult classic.
Now the cult classic is COMING BACK in an interactive form (just like Rocky Horror Picture Show), and I have a shopping list of everything you need to buy to make your audience scream with delight. But not yet! Here are more words.
Now it’s 2053 and live performances of M3GAN are on the come up to celebrate the film’s 30th anniversary, with abandoned movie theaters dusting off their cupholders to host interactive viewings. People who weren’t even alive in 2023 are flocking to see M3GAN. They’re calling it “old Hollywood” and “vintage android chic so cute!” One 9-year-old granddaughter of a Gen-Z’er said, “It’s nice to be able to experience the olden days like this. I also love seeing the dated technology of a humanoid robot like M3GAN! So cute. Drop the makeup tutorial, M3GAN! It makes me feel closer to my grandma.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: She didn’t actually say this TO me, but I overheard her recording it into her iPhone 57 MAX embedded into her forehead, right between her eyes. Her grandma was unavailable for comment as she was shooting a “GRWM TO SEE M3GAN” video, which involved a lot of dabbing and sticking her tongue out at the camera. She also kept pointing her phone at movie posters of M3GAN and going, “Me AF lmao.” Aw, old people always make me cry.
Now we have a SHOPPING list so you can host your own M3GAN LIVE! experience!
M3GAN is the story of a #WomanInSTEM Gemma (Williams) who gets custody of her orphaned tweenage niece Katie (McGraw) and then builds her a humandroid doll (M3GAN) who takes over Gemma’s parental duties such as: paying attention to Katie. What you assume will happen happens; M3GAN becomes sentient. Because there is no real twist, the film itself can focus on more important things like dialogue and choreography.
You’re going to LOVE this shopping list!
It’s “more funny than horror!” my friend Rachel Wilkerson Miller texted me, and the audiences in all four theaters I saw M3GAN in agreed. By my third viewing, it was clear that other people around me were on their second or third viewings. The first time I saw M3GAN everyone was quiet. By the fourth time everyone was laughing.
That’s what I call staying power.
NOW, the shopping list! Was that so bad? Oh it was? Grow up!
OUTFIT IDEAS:
Tee-shirt and big pants and sneakers for Gemma
Eileen Fisher lite for the therapist
Gossip Girl Heavy for M3GAN
TO BUY:
Old Amazon Alexa device (check thrift stores, your parents’ basements, eBay) (yes, we still have eBay in 2053)
Rubber ears
Lena Dunham (BYO)
Swipe key to the locked coding room
Robot named Bruce
Furby (this is the toy that the PURRpetual Pet was based on. Again, eBay)
Bow and arrow to shoot at the screen right before THAT scene
Old toy that is not actually a toy, it is a collectible, KATIE
A dog named DEWY!!
If you can’t find a dog named DEWY!! just rename your own dog DEWY!! for the day
Pizza with no vegetables
TO LEARN:
Choreography
Lyrics to Bulletproof
Jingle to PURRpetual Pets commercial
When to say “Heartbreak Feels Good In A Place Like This”
Thanks for stopping by, and again, make sure you like and subscribe!
Remember to like and subscribe!
Did you like yet?
Are you subscribed?
Hello?
Are you still reading this?
Caroline Moss is an author and the host of “Gee Thanks, Just Bought It!” a podcast about the things we buy that we love (and where you can buy them). Her first book, HEY LADIES!, follows a year in the life of seven best friends planning a bachelorette party through emails. She is also the author of the Work It, Girl! series for kids. Find her at GEETHANKSJUSTBOUGHTITPOD on Instagram.
The King of Comedy (1982) - dir. Martin Scorsese
Is this a lesser Scorsese? I don’t know, I feel like people really tend to talk up his other movies and this one is kind of overlooked or left out of the Scorsese conversation. Or actually, there was that brief period around when Joker (2019) came out when everyone was talking about how much it was just ripping from The King of Comedy, and now that I’ve seen this, yeah, I definitely see it. Sorry, I’ll stop, I’m not out here trying to talk about Joker of all things in TWENTY TWENTY THREE. Whatever, what I’m getting at is that when I think of Scorsese movies, this wouldn’t be at the forefront, but I think there’s definitely some shared DNA in here, particularly in his fascination with a man’s obsession and drive.
It’s kind of an atypical Scorsese movie, and it’s a really atypical Robert De Niro performance at the center of it. His Rupert Pupkin is so weird and at times uncomfortable to watch, but it’s so entertaining and fun to get swept up in the delusional passion/mania of a man who cannot take a hint to save his life. Unfortunately I do feel like you gotta hand it to him— the man’s got perseverance. He’s like one of those hustle culture guys but instead of getting into Amazon FBA schemes and calling it entrepreneurship, he’s using his bottomless reserve of self-belief to get a spot on a late night talk show to do comedy (honestly a step above FBA or peddling workout supplements in my opinion).
It’s great to see Rupert facing rejection after rejection with such aplomb, and it’s equal parts fun and frustrating watching people trying to gracefully turn him down. There’s no turning down this man gracefully! He’ll take the slightest opening and turn it into a hopeful new opportunity. The man has no shame. I was going to say he doesn’t understand social graces, but I kind of think he does and he just ignores them completely, which is way more insidious and enjoyable. Scorsese hits a nice balance with Pupkin. His journey is compelling, and maybe you catch yourself starting to root for this underdog a little bit, but you’d never ever want to be around this guy and you feel bad for the people that he forces his presence on. Who hasn’t been trapped at a party by a seemingly friendly guy who’s just talking at you with no end in sight about their comedy ambitions?
The stakes through most of the movie are kind of low, which I really enjoy, and it feels appropriate that Rupert seems to raise the stakes in the third act through sheer force of will. Just as we get into a groove of watching Rupert get rejected over and over, he decides to escalate tactics and send the movie into a different direction by doing a little light-hearted kidnapping as a goof. Jerry Lewis does a phenomenal job as talk show host Jerry Langford, and a big highlight is watching his withering stare as Rupert and Masha (Sandra Bernhard) pull off the stupidest kidnapping/hostage situation. Bernhard plays Masha as an unhinged stalker and it’s hilarious watching her alliance with unhinged striver Rupert. I wouldn’t say they necessarily need each other, but they are so great at egging each other on. They’re such a force in that last third of the movie, pushing the entire thing over the edge.
That ending is pretty fitting too. I’m sure there’s an easy meditation about fame and celebrity holding a dark mirror up to the zeitgeist of America or how this ties into the idea of current day influencers or true crime fandoms or whatever, but all that seems pretty obvious and you’re smart enough to put all that together. You’re thinking it, I’m thinking it, we both saw the movie, we agree. We’re all living our lives on the internet in 2023. Mostly I just want to talk about the reveal that Rupert is actually a pretty ok comedian. The movie sort of leads you to believe that people are just being overly polite to Rupert and that he’s probably really terrible at comedy and that it’s all going to end with Rupert being predictably terrible at stand-up. Like, he’s not amazingly funny or anything, but it’s passable in Catskills comedian kind of way, which is pretty much what everyone’s been telling him with their gentle rejections. I just thought that was so funny and kind of a nice surprise (both that his comedy is pretty conventional and that those people were actually telling him the truth about his act). It’s fun to see Scorsese do something weird and a little silly!
EO (2022) - dir. Jerzy Skolimowski
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
This fuckin’ donkey, man. I was hesitant about this one because a movie about a donkey traveling around and bearing witness to the full spectrum of humanity? Plus it’s a Polish movie?? That just seems like a recipe for misery. And I was mostly right? But to write it off as an hour and a half of misery and tension would be completely unfair and inaccurate.
EO’s pretty simple: a donkey walks around for a while and looks at shit. In the process we see the highs and lows of humanity (it’s uh… a lot of lows), and we get to project our emotions onto this blank canvas of a sweet little donkey as he holds a mirror to humanity. It’s a really beautifully shot movie. We see so many breathtaking landscapes while following this donkey around, and when we get to the portions of the movie set in the cities, it feels cramped and tense, the unpredictability of humanity constantly looming over our guy EO. There’s danger lurking in the wild world out there too (mostly via some howling wolves in the dark woods), but you know, that’s natural danger, it’s a different situation than a bunch of soccer hooligans beating the shit out of an innocent donkey, or the looming threat of EO being turned into salami meat or something. Whenever EO is around humans I think we’re meant to worry because we as humans know that our fellow humans obviously don’t have the best track record when it comes to being, you know… good, and they’re simply not just going to make a movie where a donkey is just walking around having a nice time. I’m good though. I would make sure the donkey is having a nice time.
It’s easy to have a simple “humans=bad, nature=good” takeaway from this, but you know, those humans aren’t all bad, just… uh… mostly bad. We do see some good out there. Kasandra the circus performer seems to have a genuine bond with EO, those nice farmers with all those little kids provide an idyllic moment where people and animals are in harmony, that one veterinarian insists on healing EO after suffering that beating. The soccer hooligans along with that one dude who kills animals for the fur trade are maybe the most extreme examples of the shittiness of humanity, but most of the time what we see is sort of everyday banal shittiness. We see humans treating EO like a prop,or he’s just completely ignored while everyone’s got their own shit going on, or they’re just using him as beast of burden doing a shitty job. Actually, this was kind of my main takeaway from this— jobs are not natural and all of them fucking suck. Especially if you’re a little donkey that’s acting as a vessel for emotional projection!
Wow we did it! Another MOVIE DIARY 2023 in the books! Big thanks to my first special guest of MOVIE DIARY 2023, Caroline Moss! I’ll be back next week with another special guest, but in the meantime, why not hop onto the MOVIE DIARY 2023 Discord? I’m using it as a sort of comments section and forum for the blog. We’ve got a nice little community getting started, so join in for a little supplemental MOVIE DIARY 2023 experience!