HAND(Letter)ED(box) Reviews

Notes and drawings on movies I've watched recently

Roadhouse (1989)

Patrick Swayze plays the infamous “cooler” Dalton, a cowboy-like figure who is hired to keep the crowds chill in rowdy dive bars. He’s not just a man with his own code–he’s willing to disrespect codes of traditional masculinity to achieve his own ends. A bar patron challenges him to take it outside, and once they go outside Dalton turns around and says, “See ya!” He isn’t afraid to back down from a fight because he got what he wanted: the angry dude left the bar.

This movie becomes a showdown between different styles of masculinity. It’s flamboyant in both action and dialogue. Dalton is battling a rich man in town and his homoerotic cronies who aren’t afraid to flatten a business with a monster truck. Swayze is at his Swayzeist, throwing punches with grace like the son of a ballerina and a cowboy that he is. Some might remember his love interest Kelly Lynch from her role on The L Word as the iconic trans guy Ivan (watch Ivan’s performance of I’m Your Man). Patrick Swayze apparently broke 3 ribs making this movie.

The Holdovers (2023)

I didn’t think they made movies like this any more—mid-budget,character-driven period pieces about boarding schools. But for this kind of movie, everything is operating on a high level. The premise is that an unlikely trio–a cafeteria worker, a classics teacher, and a student–are stuck at a boarding school over the holidays. It becomes a movie about how intimacy and compassion can come in situations that start as a requirement. No one wanted to be there, but once they’re there, they can’t help but notice each other. Da'Vine Joy Randolph’s performance is the heart of this movie because she is able to appear both skeptical yet warm, suffering but not in a way she wants anyone to have access to.

Priscilla (2023)

Coppola is the queen of vibes, particularly the vibes of being a girl who is extremely mentally bored yet physically pampered. We watch Priscilla, a lonely teen girl, struggle to entertain herself in a pink, velvet enclosure. It’s beautiful, of course. Elvis is fun but psycho. Priscilla starts out a sweetie pie and becomes slowly sucked dry by Elvis’s chilly demeanor