Spellbound

A Woman Under the influence (1974) - Cassavetes What more can be said about John Cassavetes's A Woman Under the Influence, I mean really? The immediacy, the realness of it all. Gena Rowlands's performance is perhaps the greatest of all in the cinema history?

Always portraying working class people with eccentricities, people who are little bit out of the norm. I keep thinking that all the people who are considered being on the spectrum and there's a large support community nowadays, if Mabel would be perceived differently today than back then - at least the frustration of Nick (Peter Falk) would've been largely aleviated because a half of the film is about him not knowing what to do about his cooky wife, other than raising his voice and knocking her down. For today's standards, Mabel might not have that much filter when it comes to social interactions, but it's not too extreme to be that upsetting. It says much about Nick and misguided masculinity as much as her.

Overall, it's a great, affecting love story between two people. Also I have to say kids performances are also amazing, especially the little girl who plays Maria. The beach scene where Nick agressively dragging his children to 'have a good time', and Maria running away was so good. These women can not be contained! What a film! Instant favorite!

Streaming Lives

Love Streams (1984) - Cassavetes
Sarah (Gena Rowlands) is going through a horrible divorce. Her husband (Seymour Cassel) and their daughter don't want anything to do with her. She is not stable enough. For her, love never stops, it's a continuous stream. Then there is her brother Robert Harmon (John Cassavetes), a famous writer whose life is soaked with booze and one-nighters. They both are impulsive, nutty mess: they make rash decisions thinking as if they are the most logical solutions which always lead them into disasters. My favorite scenes with Harmon are the ones where hits up with a pretty lounge singer, insists on driving her home in her car while drunk, crashes her car and ends up chatting up with her mother, and where he gives his 8 year old son (of whom he hasn't seen since his birth) beer to drink and leaves him alone all night in a Vegas hotel. Sarah is just as crazy. She thinks her brother needs something to love in his life, something fuzzy and cuddly, so she goes to animal shelter and brings in the whole zoo into his LA house- two miniature horses, a hen and a dozen chicks, ducks, a goat and a dog. Harmon obviously is in no shape himself to take care of his nutty sister, but insists that she stays with him. But she is dead set on reuniting with her estranged family who doesn't love her any longer.

Cassavetes's world of the lives of mental, emotional wrecks is often funny and poignant precisely because of the character's complete lack of self-awareness. Both Rowlands and Cassavetes are amazing in this funny and sad film.

I Hate Kids

Gloria (1980) - Cassavetes

My goodness. Gena Rowlands chews up the screen and spits it back out in your face. Gloria is no nonsense middle aged broad up in the Bronx. When her neighbors, a mixed race family (headed by Buck Henry) gets wiped out by the mob, she is left with the only survivor, 6 year old boy with wild curly hair, Phil. And she hates kids (especially hates her neighbor's kids, she tells their mother once). Gloria has a shady mob connections from the past and many times throughout the film contemplates ditching the kid. But for some reason, she always ends up shooting her way out with the smartass Phil tightly attached on her waist. On the run, they change series of holdouts, showcasing sleazy NY in the late 70s. In true Cassavetes fashion, the dialog is nonchalant and action immediate. It's all Rowlands though. Not exactly a dog, but she is definitely not a typical Hollywood pretty. Can't see anyone else playing this role.