Counterprogramming

I haven't watched Contagion yet, but I have scratched that itch to terrify yourself indirectly, via other end-of-the-world/breakdown of society programming.

In the last week alone I've watched The Platform (discussed last post), Dr. Strangelove (only my second time seeing it -- I know) and The First Purge (a strong continuation of the series after Election Year, a personal favorite). I could and probably should write individual posts about each of those last two, but what can I say, I've fallen behind -- working from home has not actually, so far, afforded me the extra time I thought it would, in part because I've felt more tired at the end of each day, rather than less.

I decided to pivot to something more cheery on Friday night, but the viewing of The First Purge had something to do with it.

In that film, which came out in 2018, Marisa Tomei somewhat surprisingly appears as one of the only real names in the cast. You've got Lauren Velez from Dexter, but everyone else was pretty much new to me. And there were some good ones. I particularly liked the co-lead, Y'lan Noel, whom I could have sworn I'd seen somewhere before. Charisma out the wazoo.

But back to Marisa Tomei.

I marvelled how I didn't think she was ever going to start looking old, or if she did, she'd stay hot, just like Helen Mirren. Tomei is 55, if you can believe it, but in this movie, I wouldn't have had to squint too hard to think she could play 28. Now maybe that's heaps and heaps of cosmetic surgery, but it doesn't look like it. And I'm not going to google to find out.

And so it was that on Friday night, as I was flipping through my library of DVDs because streaming has become shocking from all the extra drain on the bandwidth, I came across the movie where she really was 28. Or, probably 27 when it was filming.

And until I started watching My Cousin Vinny, I didn't realize how much I really needed some counterprogamming.

I basically grinned from ear to ear throughout the nearly two-hour duration of this film, always a favorite, one I watched incessantly in the 1990s when I had it on VHS. But when I saw it in 2011, that was probably my first viewing of the 21st century, and this was my first one since then. Maybe I need to watch My Cousin Vinny more often.

Tomei won an Oscar for this role, of course -- I think of it alongside the one Kevin Kline won for A Fish Called Wanda as two of the times the Oscars have really surprised me by picking a performer only for their comedic ability. (Oh, and that's another movie I should definitely watch again during our home confinement.)

Tomei's performance is a lot more than that. I already had a thing for girls with New York accents from a couple summer crushes I had in the years before the release of this movie, but Tomei sent that affection skyrocketing.

Of course, I belittle her performance if I only talk about how it makes my toes curl. But the way she's charming -- in a bit of a vulgar way -- is just part of a fully realized character that feels considered down to the detail. Any number of the little looks she makes in this film are perfectly calibrated, but I think some of the gestures are even better. In fact, my favorite Tomei-ism is when, at the end of her very successful witness testimony, she extends her arms forward in a little preening gesture, her hands angled downward just at the end. Normally, preening is a sign of excess self-regard, but not here -- it's a physical release of her pent-up need to help her fiancee, which has been simmering unsatisfied the whole movie. And it's totally unconscious, or at least, it's unconscious in a premeditated way that only a really great actor can pull off.

I love that there's still a bit of the ballsy New Yorker in roles Tomei plays even now, most recently, as Aunt Mae in the new Spider-Man movies. She doesn't seem old enough to be anybody's Aunt Mae, but hell, she could almost be Peter's grandmother, given that she's 55 and Tom Holland is only 23. Two 16-year-old pregnancies would be all it would take.

Anyway, I came here to tell you more about the counterprogramming than the Tomei, but a person can get a bit carried away. (I'm a poet and I don't know it.)

But, back to the counterprogramming -- I intend to do more of it. Watching movies about the world ending or society crumbling have not, in the end, increased my stress level, I don't think. They may even help me cope. And I probably will watch Contagion again before all is said and done.

But the counterprogramming is magnifique as well.

Especially when it comes with a bit of hairspray and attitude.