Obsession

Well color me obsessed. Hahaha. It’s difficult to talk about something I appreciate so earnestly, and I guess viscerally. It’s definitely the best movie to come out of America in the last 20 years, in my estimation. It speaks to our times, and also to the eternal facet of youth. I was just listening to Forever by The Little Dippers, and the next song to play is Pledging My Love by Johnny Ace, from the Bad Lieutenant soundtrack; I’ll watch Bad Lieutenant on Friday on the big screen for the first, and maybe only time in my life. I love that movie, and I love this movie. I never would have found out Bad Lieutenant was screening near me if I wasn’t looking for this movie, and also not if the theater I was looking to watch this movie at wasn’t closed today because of a septic leak. Now Blue Velvet by Bobby Vinton was playing. Three great songs used to great effect in three great movies. Obsession is remarkably able to tap into the feelings of the generation, with its choice of needle drops (Current Joys), character choices, and establishment of setting. Just the fact that Bear chose to bring up a childhood memory having to do with band class, and that now the four work in a music store, that’s great. On Bear, I think he’s a great, hatable, but ultimately sympathetic protagonist that not only perfectly suits the movie and its themes but the themes are intrinsic to who he is and flow outwards from him. Like a great Twilight Zone episode. I think it’s unreasonable for people on Twitter to want Curry Barker to come out with an official statement calling Bear a rapist. Bear’s greatest offense, which he commits again and again, is in fact his lack of commitment, inability or unwillingness to commit, and his slave morality. Right at the end, where the movie leads up to a decisive character moment/moral-inducing “happy ending,” it’s colored and thwarted by a gag (a gag of a gag). This ties into Barker’s comedy roots. Like Peele, I think it’s the same principle. I can’t believe Peele only made three movies, maybe he’ll make more, I heard the last two weren’t so successful financially. Speaking of financial success, that thing with the art director is weird. I can only imagine it’ll lead to a huge wave of crew members taking points on the back end working on indie projects, and then causing yet another stir once all those indies aren’t the massive successes this movies was and is. Not that money really matters, but I’m glad people are going out and seeing this movie, experiencing it, that this movie will be sort of entrenched in history for a while in that way, and that it’ll mean the people involved will have lots more opportunities; just not that art director, who I wouldn’t be surprised if they never work in Hollywood again, but if they do, I’ll go and see it, because while I don’t know exactly what an art director does, if this person contributed to Obsession I’m sure they’re a genius. And I mean that sincerely. This movie is amazing. I think a lot of it relies on Inde Navarrette, for obvious reasons. The whole thing really is more of an ensemble than the trailers might have you believe, I don’t really mean that in exactly the technical sense, it’s not Magnolia or anything, but everyone does their part, and does it so so so well; and that includes the director, and it includes Andy Richter, who I was so happy to see, and hear before I saw. But yes, Inde Navarrette; she’s got a name like DiCaprio and a face like Carrey. I just mean that her name is ethnic and potentially hard to spell or pronounce for some people, and also that she’s very expressive, not that she looks like Jim Carrey, like that one lesbian comic does on Instagram. I’ll watch anything she’s in, I really mean it. Loved her on Kimmel before I loved her in this movie. A great movie. Potent and cogent in its messaging. A great movie. I just love it. If it was a 4.5, like I thought it would be for a while, I would have said that’s because of the billion dollars scene proving that the one wish willow was true, and that it should have been left ambiguous, like that stupid bait tweet said, but I just can’t hide it anymore. I love this movie so so so so so much. More than any movie in the world? Hmph… yeah, I guess I do. It was so sweet in the beginning. The whole thing is really tragic. I thought it was scariest when she would snap out of it, especially that first time on the bed. I guess that’s not the first time because she did it outside the car. He ignored the warning signs and so brought it upon himself. Being a lech.