Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)

Gotta love the seventies. Definitely the best decade for movies just in terms of like, mad ridiculous, interesting shit to choose from. And everything's filmed through some ugly, murky ass lens, so even the most boring, pretentious shit is intriguing. The seventies were just ultra-lit in every way. But tbh, let me calm down because if I lived back then I probably would have been complaining about how whack Star Wars is and how movies aren't like they used to be. "Where is our generation's The Philadelphia Story?! What is this Annie Hall shit?!". 

I wonder what people's reaction to Looking for Mr. Goodbar was back then? Like where did it fall on the scale? Were people like "Finally!" or more like "What these white people doin now?". Were people, even back forty years ago, tired of white bitches? Like was the sexual revolution already on and poppin' by the time this came out? Did it matter that Theresa was some good little Catholic girl who decided to ~rebel~ and turn up?? Like were so many millions of repressed Catholic chicks already turning up and Looking for Mr. Goodbar was the same ole same ole?? 

Movies are always behind what is actually happening in life, so I can see this coming out and critics lauding it as "revolutionary" or "brave" but like a lot of the general population being like "Girl, okay. Take your flat butt on somewhere with that". Idk, but for me today this movie seems...mad stark and like bold. It's like...mad shout-out or something lol. There are definitely so many old-timey opinions being bandied about (that people still hold majorly today, I think), but just the way Diane Keaton turns up in this movie--Honestly, just the movie's general overall turn up was invigorating to me. There's just something really unique and specifically expressive about it that I really liked even though there are all these typical tropes and stereotypes.

I was really excited to watch this, but I did not get what I was expecting. This movie was...way more disturbing than I thought it was going to be. I read a summary of the film that made it sound like a school teacher would be sluttin' it up in bars or something and there'd be weird seventies-era sex scenes. I was not expecting all of what this messy ass movie ultimately gave me. 

Like when I thought about Diane Keaton picking up niggas in bars I was honestly not actually expecting that lol. I figured she'd be posted up at Dave & Buster's or something and that dude who tried to rape Pacino in Scarecrow would sidle up to her and ask her if she "likes to party". Then they'd go back to his or her's place and proceed to engage in weird seventies-era white people sexual intercourse. And I'd be watching like, "plz stop", while at the same time getting my entire life. 

THAT IS NOT WHAT LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR HAD TO OFFER MY SIMPLE-MINDED ASS!!!

So the movie is about some chick named Theresa and jesus christmas why has it taken me this long to "start" this post thank god no one reads this blog except for maybe Hawthorne James (shout-out to Hawthy J!!). Anyway omg!!! *screams until the next season of Curb Your Enthusiasm finally fucking comes out* SO THE MOVIE IS ABOUT SOME WHITE BITCH NAMED THERESA PLAYED BY ONE OF WOODY ALLEN'S EX-BEARDS! Do they have a specific name for the bitches pedophiles get with to cover their baby-love?? I suppose "beard" can be used as a general catchall term for any woman being used as a mask to conceal a dude's...true proclivities. Anyway, this is why I will never succeed. 

Okay! So!!! Theresa is studying to become a teacher. She's in school and idk...Diane Keaton looks...very non-college age lol. Not like old or anything, but just not in any way a college student. But that's Whites™ for ya. Theresa has a crush on her teach. Sometimes Theresa daydreamed scenarios (r u me??) and I'd get confused what was really happening. Like she daydreamed fucking her teach and then actually started fucking him, but when she started up with him, for a while I thought it was another daydream and I was like okay when this daydream gon' be over lol. The longer it went on I was like oh maybe this is actually happening. Am I super-stupid or did the movie fail with this daydream versus reality thing? Prob the former. But also the latter a bit. 

Theresa loses her virginity to her teach, some douchey married dude who says things like "I want nothing to do with a woman after I cum" or some such poetry. I was completely disgusted by Theresa's little dinky ass affair with this dude. Theresa aint no Bo Derek, but she's still attractive - why she acting mad desperate? Aint like this dude Roy Scheider or anything, keep it moving! But this silly bitch don't even move on until he dumps her. What part of the game is this? I have zero ideas!!!

Theresa still lives at home. Her dad is mad loud, like dads are, and is always talking about how his mother had four healthy sons. Theresa's always reminding him that he had a sister, too. Theresa's mother said something once about the sister like "May, God forgive her" and I figured she probably killed herself. Which turned out to be true. It seemed to have to do with her complications from polio? And then her brothers being incredily horrible to her about it? Also this ties-in because Theresa had polio (oh wait actually it was a hereditary condition). So Theresa also had the disease that her aunt had that ravaged her life so. Is this why Theresa has low self-esteem? She definitely doesn't like when someone sees or touches the scar she got from spine surgery. CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW THERESA SPENT A YEAR IN A BODY CAST? No, too depressing. But I want to like...sift through all that and connect her experience there with how she's adjusting as an adult. And like explain some of her behavior. But I'm so dumb. And so tired. So stupid and so exhausted. Sigh, I'll just go on imdb later and see what them horribles over there have to say. 

Theresa moves out because she stays out late one night at her sister's place and she doesn't return home til the next day. WAIT LET'S TALK ABOUT THERESA'S SIS!! Katherine, played by Tuesday Weld. Katherine is the "pretty" "perfect" sister, which translates to: Blonde; didn't have fake polio. Katherine is a mess and a half. She aint have fake polio, so what's her excuse? She starts the movie out married to some dude and knocked-up. The thing is, she has at least two options for whom her baby daddy is, and neither are her husband. Girl smh. Katherine is lost, so the movie portrays her kind of jumping from thing to thing, or...man to man, really. 

Katherine marries some random dude she meets while on vacation having an abortion? Anyway, it's the home they share that Theresa visits one day and it's like Orgy Central. Theresa doesn't do an orgy cuz she's still playing goodie goodie, that is until she returns home later and her dad starts poppin' off on her for coming home late. Theresa packs her stuff and leaves. She gets some dingy ass apartment and the true turn up commences. 

She starts work as a teacher for deaf kids, which I thought was cool. I really liked the scenes with Theresa and her students, even though they had some White Savior ass nonsense with Theresa and a black girl student who couldn't afford a hearing aid and Theresa went to the girl's house and a fucking social worker was there threatening to snatch her mom's welfare coins if her live-in lover didn't move out smh. Anyway! Here is where Theresa met one of her soon-to-be paramours, James, the social worker. 

I thought Theresa was gonna smash James so he wouldn't take little Amy's welfare away and also maybe he'd get her a new earpiece. But that thirsty nigga just helped her without any favors. Sort of. He def inserts himself into Theresa's life after this, tryna play Boyfriend, but Theresa seems more interested in some grifting ass ponyboy named Tony. 

CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE FIRST TIME THERESA MET TONY AND SHE WAS LIKE TRYING TO PICK HIM UP?? AFTER SHE SAW HIM GOING THROUGH A WOMAN'S PURSE AND REMOVING MONEY???? Girl, you got the game entirely fucked up if you think that's cute, and you ESPECIALLY got it twisted if you think it's lol adorbs to bring a fucking transient thief into your home. Do you just give zero entire fucks? You must not care a diddly damn about your life. SMH FORESHADOWING!! 

Theresa fails to pick Tony's bird ass up the first time they meet because he finds a better sucker (host, mark, target, etc.). So she moves on with her slut-fest and begins casually, non-enthusiastically dating James, right? And then also begins a career as an accidental prostitute?? But she gets the game fucked up again and one of her johns actually steals from her and I'm just looking at Theresa like "Bitch, you went to college." All that book learning was obviously for naught. Or I guess you need street smarts to not get robbed by one of your clients lol no I'm being rude Theresa wasn't actually a proz, but why is Theresa's sluttin' about so depressing? Like was this movie slut-shaming? It defo was, right? Or...idk. Maybe it was just a happenstance account of one experience. 

Like, Theresa is dumb. She makes the ugliest decisions in terms of whom she chooses to smash. Prime example: Tony Tone. With his fake ass gambino, I got kicked out of The Outsiders ass accent. Boy, goodbye. He was mad annoying, and also a junkie?? Like why was he doing karate kicks and playing with a lightsaber knife?? Whose child is this, and why did Theresa drag him back to her lair, only for him to turn up when he realized she wasn't as much of a mark as he thought/wanted her to be?

Even "sweet", "nice guy" James turned up! Erryone was turning up on Theresa! What was that saying about her? Like what was she attracting? Or am I being misogynistic by blaming her for the actions of these crazy ass men? Was this movie commenting more on the horrible state of the patriarchy and how fucking messy dudes are and I'm confusing it for slut-shameyness? Maybe. Because I think the source material was written by a woman. That doesn't mean she can't be misogynistic, I just have high doubts that a female author, writing about a woman and her relationships with men, wouldn't critique the men, and the state of men in general. So I'm chilling on my "Are they judging single women who have casual sex and don't want kids?!" bs lol. For now.

Can wE TALK ABOUT THIS GODDAMN ENDING?! I was...honestly disgusted. I hated it, tbh. That was like one of the most ultimate endings to a movie I've ever seen, but it made me mad lol and like I COMPLETELY SAW THAT COMING when Theresa, yet again, was picking up some dude in a bar smh. Should I stop judging Theresa for picking up dudes in a bar? Nope! You're the Pikachu, bitch! Niggas' s'posed to catch you! It's not the other way around, but anyway!! It's not like I think Theresa sitting around waiting for a nigga to ask her out would have prevented her from getting stabbed to death. I just feel like...why seek death? You know? Why actively chase it?!

Can we talk about how hot young Tom Berenger was?

NOPE! LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW HIS GAY ASS CHARACTER STABBED THE HECK OUTTA THERESA CUZ HE COULDN'T GET HARD!! This was so extra. And apparently this really happened to a woman? Like this story was based off a news headline about a murdered ~lonely, single woman~?? How did they know she got stabbed cuz she was tryna fuck some dl battyboy and he got enraged at his...incompetence and took it out on her skull and body?? Idk, but shit like this prob happens all the time. But could that midnight cowboy not have been any more obvious and cliché? Lol what was Theresa thinking. Wasn't that boy wearing a whole damn ass jean ensemble while playing pinball in a bar? What is this - The Accused? Theresa, girl, if you don't take your ass back to them deaf kids and find a nice, Catholic husband who will make your neurotic ass some chamomile tea and draw you a bath! Just stay in your lane and you won't get slashed! Or not. That's not even true for women. Bitches prob get killed by their chamomile tea making, bath-drawing husbands every day. Well, such is life, I suppose. Why am I allowed to have this blog? Idk, but this movie was lit. Def recommend. Warning though that the ending will 100% give you an epileptic seizure. Like they were whilin with that it was like two whole minutes of flashing lights and stabbing motions lol smh. It's actually not funny and thank god the seventies ended and we got AIDS.