The Rubin and The Favorite
Mar. 9th, 2019 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatThank you for the Birthday Greetings.
Had a lovely time at the Rubin (although I did wonder at one point if my friend, Wales, could just come with a mute button...and I have a sinking feeling others have felt much the same thing about me in the past. So yes, I appreciate the irony.
Wales: I should stop talking. I feel like I'm doing all the talking. You should talk.
I burst out laughing.
Wales: So you agree?
Me: Eh, actually I've said the same thing on more the one occasion and felt the same way. ( I'm laughing because the universe has managed to find a way to put me on the opposite side of this conversation once again. Have to appreciate the irony.))
The museum was fascinating and it is fun to go with a friend who is appreciative of it. Six floors up a spiral stair case can be hard on old knees and hips. The Power of Prayer was by far the best -- with installations regarding Prayer wheels and interactive exhibits. One had a cityscape that kept changing, another was an energy mirror that you pushed. There was also a cage with flashing lights you went into and breathed to turn on the lights.
Other floors continued 4th-19th Century Tibetan, Mongolian, Chinese, and Indian art.
From areas such as Nepal, the Himalayas, India, China, and Mongolia. They had a disc that showed a specific linguistic style that was all phonetic, which one of China's Emperors insisted the entire country implement. Further down on the second floor was an exhibit showing how they created the hollow metal painted figurines of various deities -- they do it by creating a clay mold inside wax and then melting off the wax and pouring the metal alloy over the clay. (I think I'm remembering it correctly.) Then they break away the clay and clean the alloy, paint it, and it's done. Very detailed. Also showed how they made the paints (out of natural dies) and applied them to a canvas tapestry -- which looked a bit like a paint by numbers -- we have a sketch and then numbers for the areas of where you'd apply the paint.
I explained to Wales the yogi poses and wheel of life, and how in the Hindi tradition and some of the Buddhist traditions, life is not seen as binary or linear, but circular, where we are born and reborn up death or born into consciousness then reborn again until we evolve beyond it into enlightenment. The idea is we are energy beings, not just organic matter, and the energy is born into organic matter to learn and at each stage of the learning, we evolve and come closer. Add to that karma -- the idea of each negative act pulls in more and more negative karma, while each positive act brings in more and more positive karma. It's an interesting belief system -- and a different way of thinking. In Eastern Culture, circles are used a great deal. There are prayer wheels or spindles -- which people turn that have prayers on them. And wheels of life. It's not like the Western tradition which has a rather flat or linear view of life -- seeing it as a straight line. Honestly, I don't think Western tradition makes logical sense -- if you study natural recurring patterns and shapes -- the moon, the sun, the earth, cells -- all circles. Nature doesn't draw in a straight line. But anyhow, the art in the exhibit was interesting in how it had lots and lots of circles and shapes, and was less centered on the human form -- the figurines often had many arms and many poses, and sex and nudity was in many of them.
The spiral was used a lot, and the museum itself is sort of like a spiral -- you go up a spiral staircase -- and the art is housed in a circle around each flight of the stairs, with seven floors, including the bottom floor. Seven is a magical number of luck in the Buddhist and Hindi traditions.
The similarities with Western Culture are how they are finding a way of coping with reality such as it is -- the cycle of birth and death, the seeming impermenance of things, and the pain of life -- along with the accompanying joy. Each deity represents a different aspect of the human experience and desire or fear. And different regions or segments have different deities.
Highly recommend the museum. The gift store is a nice as well -- Wales decided she had to get me a gift.
Wales: I want to get you a book for your birthday. Pick one. But must be within reason...(she hunts a book she doesn't want to give me) -- like don't get this big one which is $60.
Me: Eh, not a problem. Don't really want a book. This is unnecessary. (But I look to appease -- appparently I'm taking too long, because she returns.)
Wales: Could you come up with something soon? It doesn't have to be a book -- there are cool stuff over here, such as laughing Buddha finger puppets. (I follow her to another section of the store.) I'm sorry to be too push, I am being pushy aren't I?
I'm sorry. But if I stay here much longer, I'll go bankrupt and buy out the store.
Me: Okay. (I wander into the area with candles and cute little wooden birds with brilliant designs, and that you can open and put stuff inside like a box of sorts.)
Wales (popping up with the Buddha finger puppet): How about this?
ME: I don't need that. But you can me one of these cute little birds.
Wales: How much are they?
ME: I've no idea. (We look for a bit...eh, it's $18.) Eh, maybe not. It's 18. I don't need anything.
Wales grabs the pretty blue and turquoise green wooden bird I'd picked up and takes off with it. I'm like, alrighty then. So, I keep looking and decide to get some Chinese/Tibetan Tea and a marble magnet of one of the Indian poses. It's put in a bag and I look around, and cannot find Wales, who has managed to pull a disappearing act. I'm thinking did she go to the bathroom or decide to become a member? I know she didn't leave -- so she has to be somewhere. Finally see her, and she sees me.
Wales (looking at my bag, aghast): What did you do???
ME: I got tea and a magnet.
Wales (hugely): Oooh. Good. Stay there, I'll be right back.
On the train ride home she gave me her gift, it was the green/blue wooden bird in a really cool velvet cloth gift bag. Very nice of her. And when I got up this morning I was bemoaning the fact that I'd gotten no birthday gifts this year. I shook it off of course -- because honestly, most of the time I get things that collect dust. I'm apparently really hard to buy for. Also it's hard to buy things for people on demand, much easier to do it when you happen upon something they'll love by accident. Which is sort of what happened here. (I would not have gotten that bird for myself -- but I did want it.)
I do not recommend the Cafe Sera, rather disappointing. Not at all as advertised.
I got a argula and cauliflower salad, which was far more expensive than it should have been. The salad at the Morgan was cheaper and much better. I think the Rubin is struggling -- it charged for coat check, the Rubin didn't, and it cost less for tickets, also had less bathrooms. But it utilized its space better. The Morgan had lots of unused space and tucked the art into tiny areas. It does change though -- when I saw the Dylan Exhibit in the Morgan about fifteen or so years back, it did much better job with the space alotment, also the cafe was different.
I'm right now on a bit of a sugar high and getting the hot flash. Didn't have them during the day. I get them more at night, usually after I've had wine and sweet stuff. Hmmm -- wonder if there is a connection?
2. Rented The Favorite off of "Optimum" On Demand...and, it's an interesting movie, not at all what I expected. Olivia Coleman definitely deserved the accolades she got for that role -- which includes getting across a stroke, and severe gout. She plays an aging and somewhat crippled Queen Ann, who subtly wields far more power than either of the ladies vying for attention understand. In short they both underestimate the Queen, and both believe they are the puppeteers, when in truth she is the one with the strings.
My parents friends did not like the movie. Some hated it. They said it was crude.
Eh, I didn't find it crude. My mother and I have decided her friends couldn't deal with the explicit lesbian relationships at the center of the film -- which are rather explicit. Neither of us have any issues with it. Mother hasn't seen it yet.
It's a long-ass movie. I got a bit bored, to be honest and kept thinking...okay when will this move be over? Another Oscar-nominated film with pacing issues. Seriously this is the one thing that all of the Oscar nominated films had in common -- they drug in places and required a good editor. Every film that I've seen which was nominated, I wanted to cut thirty minutes out of it.
I thought the performances were very good and all deserved the attention they got. And yes, Olivia Coleman's jumped out at me the most -- mainly because most of her acting was of the physical variety, and that's harder to pull off. It's much harder to act without lines than with lines. (As many actors have told me and I've learned myself.) Coleman gets a lot across with just a look.
The story is about Lady Marlborough, Queen Anne and Abigail, Marlborough's cousin. Abigail comes seeking a position in Marlborough's household. She's been sold into female drudgery by her father -- who lost her in a card game. Women back then had no power and were property. Abigail journeys to her cousins and in desperation throws herself on her cousin's mercy. The cousin is the "favorite" of Queen Anne (and apparently, Anne's secret lover) -- she uses her relationship with Anne to wield power behind the scenes, control paraliment, who is prime minister, and keep the War Effort moving forward -- which benefits her and her faction and her vision for England. Marlborough brings her cousin in to tend to Anne's horrible gout. The cousin smartly decides to get some herbs to help with gout -- which is a tremendous help to the Queen and the Queen takes notice. Marlborough is encourgaged to take Abigail on as a personal hand-maid -- and Abigail rises in the household. She also becomes favored by a Colonel -- who lusts after her. She's smarter than he is and manipulates him into marrying her, gets rid of Marlborough so the marriage can go through without a hitch...and well, when Marlborough returns -- the Queen realizes Marlborough doesn't truly love her and is just manipulating her, gets fed up, and kicks her out -- Marlborough can't get back in because Abigail ensures she can't, so now Abigail believes she has the upper hand...
Uh. No. And the Queen makes it clear at the end, that Abigail from the Queen's perspective is no more than just another of her pet rabbits.
All through the film we see rabbits, in cages, the Queens babies. Which neither lady or favorite likes all that much but pretends to. They both use the rabbits to get the Queen's favor, but it becomes clear towards the end..that they are both just rabbits in the Queen's eyes.
It's a fascinating film about power dynamics and how power cripples and isolates the wielder. None of the people are happy. They are all bored and frustrated and in the end, have less power than they think or are powerless. The Queen is powerless over her own body, Abigail over her situation, her husband over his wife and his, Lady Marlborough over her's and so on...their pursuit for power or lust for physical satisfication leads nowhere. And the only children we see are lots and lots of rabbits. The Queen lost all of hers, all she has left are the rabbits.
Rather chilling in a way. If it is power you seek -- watch out, in the end, you'll just be another rabbit in a cage.
I'd call this film a bit of a historical satire. Very dark. And at the end, I didn't like anyone much.
That said, I did like the film. And would rank it up there with Roma and Vice.
So rankings:
1. Roma
2. Black Panther
3. The Favorite
4. Vice
5. Black KKKlansman
6. Star is Born
7. Bohemian Rhapsody
As an aside, Wales loved Star is Born...she never saw the Judy Garland version, just the Barbara Striesand, so I give her a pass.
Had a lovely time at the Rubin (although I did wonder at one point if my friend, Wales, could just come with a mute button...and I have a sinking feeling others have felt much the same thing about me in the past. So yes, I appreciate the irony.
Wales: I should stop talking. I feel like I'm doing all the talking. You should talk.
I burst out laughing.
Wales: So you agree?
Me: Eh, actually I've said the same thing on more the one occasion and felt the same way. ( I'm laughing because the universe has managed to find a way to put me on the opposite side of this conversation once again. Have to appreciate the irony.))
The museum was fascinating and it is fun to go with a friend who is appreciative of it. Six floors up a spiral stair case can be hard on old knees and hips. The Power of Prayer was by far the best -- with installations regarding Prayer wheels and interactive exhibits. One had a cityscape that kept changing, another was an energy mirror that you pushed. There was also a cage with flashing lights you went into and breathed to turn on the lights.
Other floors continued 4th-19th Century Tibetan, Mongolian, Chinese, and Indian art.
From areas such as Nepal, the Himalayas, India, China, and Mongolia. They had a disc that showed a specific linguistic style that was all phonetic, which one of China's Emperors insisted the entire country implement. Further down on the second floor was an exhibit showing how they created the hollow metal painted figurines of various deities -- they do it by creating a clay mold inside wax and then melting off the wax and pouring the metal alloy over the clay. (I think I'm remembering it correctly.) Then they break away the clay and clean the alloy, paint it, and it's done. Very detailed. Also showed how they made the paints (out of natural dies) and applied them to a canvas tapestry -- which looked a bit like a paint by numbers -- we have a sketch and then numbers for the areas of where you'd apply the paint.
I explained to Wales the yogi poses and wheel of life, and how in the Hindi tradition and some of the Buddhist traditions, life is not seen as binary or linear, but circular, where we are born and reborn up death or born into consciousness then reborn again until we evolve beyond it into enlightenment. The idea is we are energy beings, not just organic matter, and the energy is born into organic matter to learn and at each stage of the learning, we evolve and come closer. Add to that karma -- the idea of each negative act pulls in more and more negative karma, while each positive act brings in more and more positive karma. It's an interesting belief system -- and a different way of thinking. In Eastern Culture, circles are used a great deal. There are prayer wheels or spindles -- which people turn that have prayers on them. And wheels of life. It's not like the Western tradition which has a rather flat or linear view of life -- seeing it as a straight line. Honestly, I don't think Western tradition makes logical sense -- if you study natural recurring patterns and shapes -- the moon, the sun, the earth, cells -- all circles. Nature doesn't draw in a straight line. But anyhow, the art in the exhibit was interesting in how it had lots and lots of circles and shapes, and was less centered on the human form -- the figurines often had many arms and many poses, and sex and nudity was in many of them.
The spiral was used a lot, and the museum itself is sort of like a spiral -- you go up a spiral staircase -- and the art is housed in a circle around each flight of the stairs, with seven floors, including the bottom floor. Seven is a magical number of luck in the Buddhist and Hindi traditions.
The similarities with Western Culture are how they are finding a way of coping with reality such as it is -- the cycle of birth and death, the seeming impermenance of things, and the pain of life -- along with the accompanying joy. Each deity represents a different aspect of the human experience and desire or fear. And different regions or segments have different deities.
Highly recommend the museum. The gift store is a nice as well -- Wales decided she had to get me a gift.
Wales: I want to get you a book for your birthday. Pick one. But must be within reason...(she hunts a book she doesn't want to give me) -- like don't get this big one which is $60.
Me: Eh, not a problem. Don't really want a book. This is unnecessary. (But I look to appease -- appparently I'm taking too long, because she returns.)
Wales: Could you come up with something soon? It doesn't have to be a book -- there are cool stuff over here, such as laughing Buddha finger puppets. (I follow her to another section of the store.) I'm sorry to be too push, I am being pushy aren't I?
I'm sorry. But if I stay here much longer, I'll go bankrupt and buy out the store.
Me: Okay. (I wander into the area with candles and cute little wooden birds with brilliant designs, and that you can open and put stuff inside like a box of sorts.)
Wales (popping up with the Buddha finger puppet): How about this?
ME: I don't need that. But you can me one of these cute little birds.
Wales: How much are they?
ME: I've no idea. (We look for a bit...eh, it's $18.) Eh, maybe not. It's 18. I don't need anything.
Wales grabs the pretty blue and turquoise green wooden bird I'd picked up and takes off with it. I'm like, alrighty then. So, I keep looking and decide to get some Chinese/Tibetan Tea and a marble magnet of one of the Indian poses. It's put in a bag and I look around, and cannot find Wales, who has managed to pull a disappearing act. I'm thinking did she go to the bathroom or decide to become a member? I know she didn't leave -- so she has to be somewhere. Finally see her, and she sees me.
Wales (looking at my bag, aghast): What did you do???
ME: I got tea and a magnet.
Wales (hugely): Oooh. Good. Stay there, I'll be right back.
On the train ride home she gave me her gift, it was the green/blue wooden bird in a really cool velvet cloth gift bag. Very nice of her. And when I got up this morning I was bemoaning the fact that I'd gotten no birthday gifts this year. I shook it off of course -- because honestly, most of the time I get things that collect dust. I'm apparently really hard to buy for. Also it's hard to buy things for people on demand, much easier to do it when you happen upon something they'll love by accident. Which is sort of what happened here. (I would not have gotten that bird for myself -- but I did want it.)
I do not recommend the Cafe Sera, rather disappointing. Not at all as advertised.
I got a argula and cauliflower salad, which was far more expensive than it should have been. The salad at the Morgan was cheaper and much better. I think the Rubin is struggling -- it charged for coat check, the Rubin didn't, and it cost less for tickets, also had less bathrooms. But it utilized its space better. The Morgan had lots of unused space and tucked the art into tiny areas. It does change though -- when I saw the Dylan Exhibit in the Morgan about fifteen or so years back, it did much better job with the space alotment, also the cafe was different.
I'm right now on a bit of a sugar high and getting the hot flash. Didn't have them during the day. I get them more at night, usually after I've had wine and sweet stuff. Hmmm -- wonder if there is a connection?
2. Rented The Favorite off of "Optimum" On Demand...and, it's an interesting movie, not at all what I expected. Olivia Coleman definitely deserved the accolades she got for that role -- which includes getting across a stroke, and severe gout. She plays an aging and somewhat crippled Queen Ann, who subtly wields far more power than either of the ladies vying for attention understand. In short they both underestimate the Queen, and both believe they are the puppeteers, when in truth she is the one with the strings.
My parents friends did not like the movie. Some hated it. They said it was crude.
Eh, I didn't find it crude. My mother and I have decided her friends couldn't deal with the explicit lesbian relationships at the center of the film -- which are rather explicit. Neither of us have any issues with it. Mother hasn't seen it yet.
It's a long-ass movie. I got a bit bored, to be honest and kept thinking...okay when will this move be over? Another Oscar-nominated film with pacing issues. Seriously this is the one thing that all of the Oscar nominated films had in common -- they drug in places and required a good editor. Every film that I've seen which was nominated, I wanted to cut thirty minutes out of it.
I thought the performances were very good and all deserved the attention they got. And yes, Olivia Coleman's jumped out at me the most -- mainly because most of her acting was of the physical variety, and that's harder to pull off. It's much harder to act without lines than with lines. (As many actors have told me and I've learned myself.) Coleman gets a lot across with just a look.
The story is about Lady Marlborough, Queen Anne and Abigail, Marlborough's cousin. Abigail comes seeking a position in Marlborough's household. She's been sold into female drudgery by her father -- who lost her in a card game. Women back then had no power and were property. Abigail journeys to her cousins and in desperation throws herself on her cousin's mercy. The cousin is the "favorite" of Queen Anne (and apparently, Anne's secret lover) -- she uses her relationship with Anne to wield power behind the scenes, control paraliment, who is prime minister, and keep the War Effort moving forward -- which benefits her and her faction and her vision for England. Marlborough brings her cousin in to tend to Anne's horrible gout. The cousin smartly decides to get some herbs to help with gout -- which is a tremendous help to the Queen and the Queen takes notice. Marlborough is encourgaged to take Abigail on as a personal hand-maid -- and Abigail rises in the household. She also becomes favored by a Colonel -- who lusts after her. She's smarter than he is and manipulates him into marrying her, gets rid of Marlborough so the marriage can go through without a hitch...and well, when Marlborough returns -- the Queen realizes Marlborough doesn't truly love her and is just manipulating her, gets fed up, and kicks her out -- Marlborough can't get back in because Abigail ensures she can't, so now Abigail believes she has the upper hand...
Uh. No. And the Queen makes it clear at the end, that Abigail from the Queen's perspective is no more than just another of her pet rabbits.
All through the film we see rabbits, in cages, the Queens babies. Which neither lady or favorite likes all that much but pretends to. They both use the rabbits to get the Queen's favor, but it becomes clear towards the end..that they are both just rabbits in the Queen's eyes.
It's a fascinating film about power dynamics and how power cripples and isolates the wielder. None of the people are happy. They are all bored and frustrated and in the end, have less power than they think or are powerless. The Queen is powerless over her own body, Abigail over her situation, her husband over his wife and his, Lady Marlborough over her's and so on...their pursuit for power or lust for physical satisfication leads nowhere. And the only children we see are lots and lots of rabbits. The Queen lost all of hers, all she has left are the rabbits.
Rather chilling in a way. If it is power you seek -- watch out, in the end, you'll just be another rabbit in a cage.
I'd call this film a bit of a historical satire. Very dark. And at the end, I didn't like anyone much.
That said, I did like the film. And would rank it up there with Roma and Vice.
So rankings:
1. Roma
2. Black Panther
3. The Favorite
4. Vice
5. Black KKKlansman
6. Star is Born
7. Bohemian Rhapsody
As an aside, Wales loved Star is Born...she never saw the Judy Garland version, just the Barbara Striesand, so I give her a pass.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-10 12:10 pm (UTC)The most telling line in the movie was when Abigail is gloating over her triumph, and Sarah snaps, "You think you've WON?" Not as in, 'you haven't defeated me,' but as in 'this isn't worth winning.' Without the genuine affection Sarah had for Anne, the position of Anne's favorite is a nightmare. Abigail cleverly maneuvered herself into a deathtrap.
I've seen six out of the eight 2018 best picture films, and here's my ranking:
1. Black Panther
2. Vice
3. The Favourite
4. Blackkklansman
4. Green Book
6. Bohemian Rhapsody
Still want to see Roma; in no rush for A Star is Born.
All six movies had problems. I would have been satisfied if any of the top three (or Roma) had won.
Green Book and Spike's movie are tied on my list. That's a little joke on my part, but honestly, they had the same problems, but coming from different directions..
no subject
Date: 2019-03-10 02:23 pm (UTC)Actually I agree with your qualifier -- Sarah clearly cared for Queen Anne -- because otherwise there's no way she could have done all the things she did for Anne. Or put up with all of it. And they had a back-history, they'd grown up together, where close to the same age, and knew each other well.
Without the genuine affection Sarah had for Anne, the position of Anne's favorite is a nightmare. Abigail cleverly maneuvered herself into a deathtrap.
Yeah, that was sort of what I was getting at with the analogy to the rabbits...but I should have been clearer.
Anyhow, I agree Abigail didn't have a clue what she was getting into. That's what is depicted so clearly in the final scene -- Abigail thinks she is the one in control, that she's won. But really, she's at the Queen's mercy, and if the Queen dies -- she's out. It's a death-trap. The Queen can just as easily squash Abigail beneath her foot as Abigail can one of the rabbits. Except no one will question the Queen. And Abigail figures this out in the final scene.
Still haven't seen Green Book -- but my quibble with Black KKlansman was actually similar to my quibble with VICE, both are rather preachy and they are preaching to the choir -- also length. It drug.
Interesting -- I had the same discussion regarding Star is Born and Roma with Wales yesterday. She hadn't seen Roma, but loved Star is Born (apparently she related to the family dynamics and fell for Bradley Cooper). And her friends ripped Roma apart as a pretentious movie made by rich people regarding the lower classes (when she told me what they said about it -- I told her that's not the movie I saw. It doesn't focus on class as much as gender.) I persuaded her to see Roma, I won't persuade any one to see A Star is Born. (While I didn't necessarily dislike it, I didn't love it either -- it's okay.)