“As I mentioned on Twitter this movie’s been sitting at the top of my queue for a while now. Reason being that its been there longest, so I tried to up its priority. But then with the whole work sucking donkey balls thing and then other choices fitting into available timeslots better, it kinda got pushed aside. Now I feel like such an idiot for doing that. It was soooo good.
Random fact about me that should be common knowledge by now: I like movies that are \m/ up. The more effed they are (provided that its sensical of course) the more I like it. Requiem For a Dream, Funny Games, American Psycho are just a few examples without thinking too hard about it. Now Sunset Blvd wasn’t quite at that level, but it definitely had the same vibe. And back in its day, yeah it prolly was about as messed up as it gets.
Its not that the plot was all that insane. It had some of that sure, Joe being trapped in the mansion, the weird creepy cougar relationship with Norma, but it was just the feel of the movie. The whole time you could just sense something was off, nearly to the point of being uncomfortable watching. But for me, that just draws me in more. Im practically salivating, so anxious to find out what happens next.
And Gloria Swanson’s performance as Norma really gave me the heebie jeebies as well. Not quite the same kind as Norman Bates, who we discussed a few days ago, but I think she’d be the one of the two more likely to give me nightmares. I guess overly strong women just scare me. Dont get me wrong, Norma (haha just realized the name similarity there) is a \m/ great character, but not one that I’d want to encounter again. Whereas I can watch Bates in Psycho repeatedly.
So yeah guess we can add this to the list of movies that makes me happy for the AFI project. Otherwise, I prolly never woulda ever seen it”