Longmire...

is terrible, which is too bad because it's a sort of detective / western set in Wyoming and filmed in New Mexico, which combines my favorite genres and settings with beautiful long shots of the landscape.

It's awful because of the writing and the acting, but the cinematography is pretty good, which really leaves me wanting to like it. That, sadly, is impossible, mostly because of the representation of Native Americans, but also of women, and of the mennonites, who they can't keep separate from the Amish, and even if they'd said "Amish" instead of "Mennonite" they wouldn't have gotten that right anyway.

I want to make a law for all of Hollywood: All nicely shot southwestern detective programming must be well written and at least tolerably acted because I wish to watch it.

[photo: Longmire - it would be too shaming to make eye contact.]

Room 237 (with Upstream Color spoilers)

Room 237 is a documentary about people who are a little obsessed with The Shining--and with their interpretations of it. When you hear the synopsis, you think it's going to be about lunatics--e.g. one of the subjects of the film believes The Shining represents Kubrick's confession to his role in faking the footage of the moon landing. What makes the movie interesting is that these people are decidedly not lunatics. They come across as surprisingly sane and ordinary. Each of them just happens to be a little obsessed with one idea.

I saw Room 237 a few weeks ago, not long after seeing Shane Carruth's new movie Upstream Color. It was not until I saw Upstream Color for the second time (after Room 237) that I thought of Rosemary's Baby when Amy Steinmetz's character cut her hair short. Haircuts are not so uncommon in movies (in fact, I once spent a very long time digging around a website someone had made that was just a catalog of haircuts in movies), so I didn't think too much about the similarity. But then at the end of Upstream Color, there's a scene where Steinmetz cuddles a pig, as if it were her child (which it sort of is).

My point is, a person wouldn't have to be very obsessive or nutty to get...preoccupied with finding evidence of the validity of an offbeat interpretation of a film. It only took me about an hour to find these parallels:

John Cassavettes and Shane Carruth look good in button-downs under pullovers. 

beds outdoors 

haircuts

board games as important props

Not pictured: long period of fasting followed by eating frenzy, cuddling and lullabying the hideous monster that is sort of her baby.

Some of these pictures are from:
http://metallicimagery.blogspot.com/2013/04/upstream-color-review.html 
http://veryaware.com/
http://www.zontikgames.com

Speaking of esoteric in-jokes

http://extension765.com/products/T027

If you were thinking of buying me one of Steven Soderbergh's new post-retirement line of film-inspired Tshirts, this is probably the one I want.

It is the only one I immediately recognized. Here's Slate's list of the sources.