What I Watched Today

(random, rambling thoughts on today’s TV)

 

I Am Cait

I don’t blame Cait for being apprehensive about dating. Any woman getting thrown back into the dating pool at 65 would be scared. Unless you’re Tina Turner or some other mega-fabulous being. Cait and friends go to a club where gorgeous guys are pole dancing and dollar bills are being thrown around. Poor Cait is so uncomfortable, it reminds me of Benjamin’s date with Elaine in The Graduate.

Quote of the episode – Cait referring to the club: “In The Abbey they’re all packin’.”

Um…just because Cait is uncomfortable with the strippers doesn’t have anything to do with her liking/not liking men. Seriously, Jenny? Jenny can be pretty astute though, pointing out that Cait has always escaped her problems through work. IMO, it’s better than escaping through drugs. At least you make money rather than spend it. Cait suggests that being with a man might make a transgender woman feel like “a real woman.” When Jenny asks what she means by that, she says “any other woman you see on the street.” Jenny then gives her the advice we should all heed, that Cait is “normal” right now and a woman doesn’t need a man to validate her and make her a woman. I’m sure there’s a country song in here somewhere. Welcome to my world Cait.

What was interesting is that Jenny also said Cait has too much work on the brain. Wasn’t she the same person who suggested Cait be a one-woman educator for the masses? I’m glad she’s come to see that Cait does care about the rest of the world and not just what’s in her shoe closet.

One of the sadder things brought up tonight is how often transgender women are made to think they’re only good for one thing once their transgender status has been revealed. That men will romance them until they find out, and after that’re reduced to late night booty calls. The words that have been hanging silently in the air throughout the series are finally given a voice. Maybe Cait should date Candis. I think she should. Candis is the whole package. I’d date Candis.

Cait tells Candis that the worst thing is to not have hope for the future. I totally agree. Lots of pearls of wisdom tonight.

Fear the Walking Dead

Who is this kid with the acne – in other words, the 30-year-old they’re trying to get us to believe is in high school – who keeps skulking around and obviously knows something? Ok, now he’s talking. Conspiracy theories and how when society crashes, it’s like Lord of the Flies. He’s also gotten the knife back that Madison confiscated from him in the first episode. Except a pocket knife against a zombie is hardly going to be effective, especially a fresh zombie. The knife’s metal is quickly tested on Principal Artie and Tobias (the acne-faced kid) has a hard time getting it through Artie’s thick skull.

Curtis and his ex are looking for their other son who is not Nick. He’s at some kind of protest where things are about to get out of hand. Everything is getting dicey with dead people coming back to life and of course the looters are busy. It’s nice to know that some things never change. A tragedy has happened? Quick! Let’s steal some TVs! The three hole up in a barber shop. As it gets even creepier outside, there is no way Travis can leave to meet Madison, the plan having been to leave Los Angeles together. Madison is at home with Nick & her daughter, Alicia. Things are not going well outside there either.

Will Travis be able to get away to meet Madison? Will Madison be able to get away to meet Travis? Why is it 2 weeks until the next episode?

Snowpiercer   (WARNING: SPOILERS)

Just to prove I don’t just watch schlock, let’s talk movies. I caught Snowpiercer on Showtime over the weekend. It was so good, even though I was at home, I didn’t even want to get up to go to the bathroom.

Giving a Reader’s Digest Condensed version of the plot, in trying to fix global warming, a huge miscalculation has been made and brings on another ice age, killing all life. Apparently, however, there was some warning, because the survivors are now bound for nowhere on a gigantic train. The train (the number of cars never talked about, but in the graphic novel, it’s 1000+) is a microcosm of society, with the elite being in the front cars, and the dregs of humanity in the back. Kind of like your everyday flight on a major airline. It’s a nightmare living in the back – they’ve been on the train for 17 years now – so it’s time for a revolution.

As the group of rebels goes forward through the train, I was reminded of The Warriors (1979), where a gang has to get back to their home turf, fighting various rivals (in various costumes and makeup!) as they make their way through New York City. Snowpiercer is very detail oriented, and I was fascinated with the different cars and the different groups of people.

There are lots of great fight scenes, which made me wonder if those In the tail section (or “the shoe” as Tilda Swinton reminds them, while the people in the front section are “the hat”) had been watching Ninja movies and doing strength training all those years, since they have extreme fighting down to a science. There is also a very weird break In the action because the new year arrives.

A lot of the characters are weird, although I guess I’d be weird too, if I was riding a train for 17 years. I hate being in the car for more than two hours. Tilda Swinton is remarkable as Minister Mason, a somewhat androgynous second in command, chewing the scenery, using words like “hooliganism,” and spewing forth great lines, such as, “You suffer from the misplaced optimism of the doomed.”

One of my favorite scenes was in the aquarium section (an absolutely gorgeous set!) where sushi is also served twice a year, and It just so happens that this is one of the times. As the insurgents prepare to dig in, leader Curtis stops Mason from eating, handing her one of the protein bars that the rear cars have been eating for years. No doubt she knows what it’s made out of – insects – something Curtis and crew discovered along the way. Although truthfully, that’s supposed to be one of the best sources of protein. I know. You eat it then.

The train itself reminded me of Coney Island’s rickety wooden roller coaster, Cyclone, the scary way it bounced along the tracks at breakneck speed. None of the parts are getting any younger either, and when she blows, it’s a phenomenal scene. Somehow, I missed this in the theater. It’s a shame because it’s just the kind of film I like to see at the movies. Lots of special effects and blowing things up. It makes me feel like I’m getting my money’s worth, since it costs as much as a cruise for a ticket now. Thank God for the dollar store, so I don’t have to take out a second mortgage to get candy.

I can understand why, at the end, Curtis doesn’t want the job of overseeing humanity. My first job in NYC was with a place that took ticket orders for shows before TicketMaster was born. I was a supervisor for a while and I hated it. I didn’t want to tell other adults when they were allowed to have a bathroom break. So I know how you feel, Curtis.

The story was taken from a graphic novel, but I wish it was a “real” book because I have a few questions. The most pressing of which concerns a polar bear seen at the end of the film. If the earth had was uninhabitable, and all life dead (we saw this to be true looking out the windows throughout the film), where did it come from? It can’t be evolution, because there was nothing to evolve from except snow. Did God put it there? Did it fall out of the train? Will it eat those kids who survived?

Snowpiercer made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me watch it a second time. It was one of those movies where afterward, you don’t want to watch anything else, because you know it will pale in comparison.