Poor Things



I saw a movie on Regal Tuesday this week. It doesn't even need to happen on Tuesday at this point, is the funny thing. But it’s like how in prison, how the cellmates all get together on Superbowl Sunday in the commons and watch syndicated television while the game is happening. And then when the Superbowl actually airs there a few days later, they don't care. It doesn’t matter. It’s the day that’s special.

What the hell else is up? Nothing much. A lot of the time I will order a ticket for a film around when I wake up. It helps prioritize whatever else shit I have to do with my day. If I am seeing a movie at 7, I know what I will be able to get done in that time. Some grindmode type of shit, I guess. This will have been my third time purchasing a ticket for POOR THINGS on the Regal mobile app. The first one I refunded for no reason, and the second time I decided to see a different movie. More on that later.

I don't really care that much about this movie, because I just don't. I get all uptight when people talk about it, the same way I did when people would rave about THE LOBSTER or any of those other movies. It sounds crazy, but I don't like movies with this aesthetic very often. And I really believe that there is a set aesthetic within that can be defined at this point. Or, how about this - the general population who likes these movies are people with little stocking caps rolled up above their ears. If that says anything.

I saw THE HOLDOVERS on Friday. But that was on a Friday, so I decided not to review it. Also, I just reviewed the horrible ARGYLE, so I wanted a break to see a good movie, even if it was released in like October. THE HOLDOVERS was good, by the way. Maybe the best movie I’ve seen in theaters this year. Funny thing about it - I actually got a ticket to see POOR THINGS that day, but once I got to the Union Square Regal, I decided to walk into a showing of THE HOLDOVERS instead - they were replaying it for that weekend only, and I recently saw that my favorite movie reviewer, Brad Jones, put it at the top of his best movies of 2023 list.

So today, I got a 7 PM (7:20 PM) ticket to POOR THINGS at the Delancey Regal, of course.

I left my apartment at 6:35. I’ve mentioned it before - I am making an effort to be less punctual. I made it in time for trailers, which start 10 minutes after the official showtime. Remember! If you want to see behind-the-scenes stuff for streaming TV shows, arrive at the official time. For trailers, ten minutes late. For the film, twenty.

I brought a fingerboard with me. I’ve mentioned the seats at Regal Delancey being the best I’ve experienced in the city. The little tables that fold out in front of you are also good, either for holding your popcorn or doing quiet fingerboard tricks. There is a small guard around the table for spills that doubles as a curb. I’ve been playing with little mini skateboards most of my life, especially when watching movies.

I wanted popcorn, but I was 90 credits shy of getting a free one. I get credits for every movie, I think, and it seems like every three movies I get enough for a free popcorn. I tried purchasing a ticket for a movie on Friday, hoping it would get me enough credits for the corn, but nah. So I refunded that movie.

I got a seat in the very back row. The theater wasn’t packed, probably at half-capacity, and this was one of the bigger theaters here. This movie came out two months ago, I feel like. Impressive that it's still bringing in a pretty big audience. I guess it's Regal Tuesday: but most people I think are too smart to see ARGYLE.

The movie started at 7:25, bee tee dubs. 25 minutes past showtime!!! What in the fuck!!!

About POOR THINGS. The movie is a classic tale about a modern woman who moves to Bushwick, New York. She learns aboout love from many different forms of men, gets stick and poke tattoos on her inner thighs, finds herself moved by the impoverished, donates her money to charity without any research, and has a bisexual relationship with a woman who talks about socialism more than once. By the end, she has transformed into a full dependent modern day Brooklyn hipster woman, with a diverse open relationship and a turtleneck and everything.

No, I'm kidding, of course. It's kind of like a woman-centric version of the recent BEAU IS AFRAID with a more fantastical setting. They both have this Saunders-esque everyone-is-basically-dumb cynicism. In Beau's story, he was terrified of the world around him. Bella Baxter, played by Emma Stone, is a Frankenstein-like experiment, is more interested in experiencing it, with all the fucking and sucking that comes along with it. She is found dead & pregnant by Willem Dafoe's character, God (ok), who removes her unborn child's brain, and inserts it in her head. She is reanimated with the mind of a small child, and fingers herself at the dinner table, and hits people. She runs away from her life of comfort with God (ok) and travels the world with insecure and violent piece of crap Duncan, played by Mark Ruffalo, who coaxes her with cruise ships and a life of toxic love. They have a lot of sex and he is quite jealous and possessive of her, which she finds pleasure in, but learns from having a lot more sex with other men via sex work that there is more to learn from other people from other walks of life. There is a possessive love, like in Duncan, and a more nurturing, albeit a little conditional, safe love, like in Max, Bella's fiance. And then there are characters who talk about hope and philosophy and money and shiet too, amongst funny cussing and threats of violence towards women, children, and dogs. The central theme here is that men are generally angry and violent, I think, which is funny and true. But then the ones who aren't are just... Gay, I suppose. I don't know. It's a little on-the-nose. The straight men in it all want to kill others and harm themselves, and the non-violent ones are sterile. This conversation it too easy of a trap for a guy like me to walk into! So I won't be commenting on those aspects anymore.

Comparing it again to the A24 BEAU IS AFRAID, this feels like an A24 movie, however it isn't. It's the editing style that gives it that feel, with 70's-style quick zooms and weird fisheye shots and title cards that remind me of indie aesthetic graphic design from the Obama administration. Like how we view Garden State and shit like that as "early 00's quirky indie movies," this kind of movie dates itself immediately in its own subgenre. But it is a fun movie to watch, for the most part. I love the main cast. I'm love Mark "The Ruff" Ruffalo's performance here. He plays his bratty, childish character dopely, and is responsible for 75 percent of my laughter in the film. E. Stone is my favorite actor throughout my adulthood, and yes, if she were mine, I would perhaps be violently jealous too. Her character here is rarely played sexy, beyond that she is objectively stunning, but she is more often saying funny stuff too. The movie is mostly comedic, but then there are little things sprinkled about capitalism, socialism, shit like that. I wish I saw this earlier, so I didn't feel like I was probably rehashing thoughts about the movie that already exist in text. I liked it, OK? I just don't want to have to talk about it anymore, if that makes sense.

After the film, my friend Will invited me to meet him in Times Square to hang out and perhaps eat a cheeseburger. I planned to go home first and write my review, but I have been making an effort to do things when invited, especially when it involves people I like cracking jokes and things like that. I told him I would be there in twenty.

We met at Bryant Park, and then walked through one of the greatest places of all time, Times Square. I try taking the train here pretty often. Over the summer, I went here six weeks in a row. The energy is nuts. I don't know what it does for me, but it does something. I always feel calm after.

Mid-February can be finnicky in New York. It was in the 50's several days before. It was cold; not unbearable, but chilly enough to keep people inside. It wasn't crowded by the Times Square definition, but there were still hundreds of people walking around, eating Raising Cane's and shopping at US Polo ASSN. I've always wanted to visit at sunrise, and see what the crowd is like. I rode my bike through during COVID-19 quite a bit, and that was one of the coolest vibes I ever experienced. I crashed my bike here during lockdown - like thrown over the handlebars-type crash. I felt an immediate embarrassment, but after looking around, realized nobody was out to witness it. I have a Stockholm Syndrome like thing with COVID-19. I think about that time very often. But I am aware that we Millenials speak of the pandemic a bit too much, sometimes.

I've never gotten to walk up the bleachers there. On this evening, it was very much available. So that was a nice thing to cross off my list.

We walked around, talked about our little lives, and the creative process, etc. I had told him about the movie that I had just seen. I tried giving him a brief run-down, but the thing about 'quirky' movies like this - you feel like a corny dumbass when explaining it. Imagine my dread when having to write it in review-form, as seen above.

I didn't get popcorn or Cookie Dough Bites like I often do when I see a movie at Regal, so I was feeling a bit you-know-what. There are three different McDonald's to buy cheeseburgers from in the area. I installed the McD's app on my phone, and found a deal on a free 6-piece McNugget with the purchase of a Double Cheeseburger. I spent 6 dollars. I sounded like such a boring asshole afterwards saying that that wouldn't have been a deal at all ten years ago. Right? That would have been like, 4 dollars at most. But yeah, what a useless thing to say. What is my solution, for them to make the food cheaper? In my entire life, I have never witnessed that happen - I have only seen things increase in price. So I guess I have to make money, or just steal little things that are unhealthy with a 500-calorie count. I would prefer to do both.

Will shot a lot of photos of me fingerboarding at various spots in the area. They can be seen here.

Skateboarding is nearly impossible here at this point. There was a small window during COVID-19 (again) that people could skate freely. I always think of clips of Kyota Umeki and Troy Gipson doing flip tricks in the NOAH video perhaps? What a fucky time, that was. WTF happened in that era? They and then like a week later the whole team left. That completely kills me. So savage. I like those clips, though.

There is also footage of Shawn Powers skating it in the daytime, which is just fucking crazy. He is probably the best NY skateboarder ever for shit like that. I don't know him personally, but I feel like I can always tell in his footage that a lot of thought goes into his stuff. Which is funny, because I feel like he comes off as dumb to people. When someone says they don't like his skating, I'm like, OK... we aren't friends. I think he's a street skater in the most literal sense. And also, this is a completely insane statement, but I feel like he was the first skater in the 2010's to skate light-wash jeans. Go watch his part in CAVIAR.

We went to Russian Samovar for Borscht and drinks before parting ways. We have been here together before, although I don't know why. It's a random place.

I think I got on the train around 1, with an hour-long transit to sit through. There are these crazy long walkways at the 42nd stop that reminds me of one of my favorite horror movies, MANIAC. There is a scene where Frank Zito, played by Joe Spinell, murders a woman in the bathroom of a desolate subway station at night. It was filmed at the Columbus Circle stop, which is crazy. MANIAC is one of the most grimy horror movies I've ever seen. I watched it on AMC late at night as a kid and I felt so dirty after. That and THE NEW YORK RIPPER. Both killers in both movies are really good. I feel like there could be some correlation to be made between them and POOR THINGS, but I'm over talking about that one.

Enough with all this dark talk, though. But that's the kind of mood change that happens in New York. One minute you're surrounded with tourist types, eating nuggets, littering on the sidewalk, and the next you're completely alone and underground, imagining what it'd feel like to be stabbed in the chest.

New York isn't not scary, I'll say. A homeless, and - let's say he's crazy - for the sake of brevity - and to paint a picture - a crazy homeless guy in a bunny suit walked by me as I sat on the train, and softly put his hand on my head. He didn't even acknowledge me as a person, more like a guard rail or something. He just put his hand on my hair, and continued on his travels. It felt violating initially, but after a second thought, it felt like a blessing of sorts.

Another great Regal Tuesday, and I only spent $6.50 for my entire evening. 50 cents for the movie fare, and 6 dollars for dinner. Not bad. New York can be enjoyed without having to have money, it just takes a little frugality.

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