So this entrance in the #SideNiggaChronicles is a nice little gem. Can we talk about how this movie gave me a John Heard Thing? Should...anyone have a thing for the dad from Home Alone? Gonna go ahead and guess probably not. But it's happening so let's just move on!!
I really love Chilly Scenes of Winter/Head Over Heels. For several reasons.
1. It just like randomly has Gloria Grahame in it? Gloria Grahame is one of my fave old timey femme fatales. Mainly because she was never really a femme fatale. She looks and talks like a cartoon, but is still beautiful and super-entertaining to watch, so it looked like they never really knew what to do with her. And I just love that pretty much. It was random as hell (to me) seeing her here playing John Heard's character Charles' mom. And she's just so Gloria Grahamey in the role. I think we're introduced to her when she calls Charles telling him she's going to kill herself and then him and his sister go to her house and rescue her frail body from the tub. She looked simultaneously super-old and youthful all at once and was batshit crazy and like I said very Gloria Grahamey and this movie is just already hitting the spot immediately I don't even need any of the other great bits, but you give them to me anyway. Like,
2. Mary Beth Hurt's character, Laura, whom Charles ~falls in love~ with. Okay so, I don't even know if it's a love or lust thing here with Charles. Because Laura has like frizzy, krimped hair and just a pile of split-ends for bangs and looks like she gets all her clothes at the supermarket, I guess it has to be love. However, he's asking the broad to move in with him on their first "date", which isn't even a date. They just go to Laura's sad apartment and sit on her mattress, the only furniture. I guess it's love @ first sight for Charles and he just knows what he wants. He's nuts, but let's move on to how Laura was like never giving him anything.
So I related to Laura as the female ~romantic lead~ because, though I've never even really been close to being in a relationship if that is not obvious from this hellscape of a blahg, I imagine I'd be kind of like Laura? She was quite detached, and like an antithesis to Charles's sort of needy personality. She was kind of like...ummmmmmmm Give Me Space. To be fair, Laura is just separated from her husband. You have to wonder why she would go on a date with anyone after a very recent separation, but especially someone like Charles. But Laura is hard to read and this is what I like. I have no idea where her head is at. It's almost like the movie makes us be Charles. I don't want to be Charles, he's unhinged! But we are Charles. I'm sitting up here simultaneously getting my life from Laura both highkey and lowkey going the fuck in on Charles at all times, while also kind of being like...Man, Laura's a fucking bitch lol. But then Charles would say how he wanted to rape her or some weirdo shit and I'd get over that latter feeling EXTRA QUICK.
Laura didn't tend to explain herself too much. Or, she didn't unnecessarily speak when there was nothing to say. She seemed like if she didn't have the answers, she'd say she didn't and that was that. Which was not enough for lunatic and needy (Pisces??) ass Charles. I like that in one of the few scenes where we're actually getting an ~explanation~ or some sort of backstory from Laura, she says how she married her husband because he was nice to her. And he didn't have too many demands. If she wanted to work she could, if she didn't she could stay home. Seemed he left her alone for the most part. When she was saying this I understood how a man like that could be appealing. Charles says how maybe it's because he doesn't really care and I thought that's why maybe Laura couldn't make it work with her husband and also felt for myself how that type of attitude would initially sound great but then of course over time wouldn't you kind of want your husband...being in your business? Or else is it even really a relationship? You're kinda just roommates without the intrusion and concern, I think? But I also liked how Laura kind of clearly explained why she was choosing her husband over Charles, saying that...she felt she deserved someone like her husband, and that a dude paying attention to and loving her so...thoroughly like Charles would make her feel like a fraud. I just related a lot to everything she was saying but it made me feel weird, like that time I understood everything in The Bell Jar. Gotta make some changes...
3. Speaking of needing to make changes, I really loved John Heard in this and I solidly stanned him for a good, like, two years after the first time I saw this film. Had me watching all kinds of crazy shit cuz of this loaf of Wonder Bread. Cutter's Way was okay, but I think there was a movie with Goldie Hawn and J.Heard was trying to kill her? There were a lot of movies like that I think...? Oh, and Cat People. Lowkey I was into Cat People but I don't want to talk about that so let's just focus on my bae Charles okay!!! :'(
I think I liked Charles because he was very ~intense~. I always imagine I'll end up with some crazy type of dude like this. Just because I'm so opposite to all of that, I think, and my main thing is I want to be entertained (need to stay alone forever), so like, a guy like Charles would be really entertaining for me personally. What would make me leave would be him being all up in my business, oh and stuff like "jokingly" threatening to beat me. Yeah, it's a neaux 4 me dawg. But I am def into the intensity. It's...funny to me. Like it's a little made to be that way in the movie, but that's how it would be in real life, as well. To me. Some people would not...agree lol. Like...chill with all that. But I think it's cute. But it would get old maybe. Definitely it would to someone like Laura who has a whole family and isn't in the state of mind to be dealing with bs? Like she has a daughter. A stepdaughter which barely counts, but still!
But John Heard was so kewt in this! A cute thicq boi. Kind of wish...the government would make it illegal for me to watch movies. This is a book, right? I kind of want to read the book, just to see if we get more Laura, and a better ending? I hate the ending. According to utube comments where I watched this because I have NOTHING, NOTHING!, when this movie first aired on HBO it had a different ending where Charles is running and the movie ends with him running into Laura? Instead of him just running into a never-ending pit of despair??
YOU KNOW WHAT MADE ME MAD BUT ALSO I RESPECT LAURA FOR THIS? Was towards the end when Charles comes to her apartment after she's left her husband and puts the ultimatum on her like Choose Me or It's Over type deal. I respected both of them here, actually? Because Charles was acting like a little bitch the whole movie, so he finally gets his chess up and tells Laura he won't be waiting around for her to call him. Tell him if she wants to be with him or not. Then Little Miss Savage just stands there and doesn't say anything smfh lol. I love that they have the woman not giving in. I love it. But I think they make a cute couple and should get married and have babies and open a diner! What's your damage, Laura? lol, damn. But nah, Charles is pretty overbearing and like, just is non-stop existing lol. But he looks so kewt and thicc in his sweaters, why u being like this?? You have bangs, Laura! BANGS!!
But can we talk about that blind dude working at the concession stand? And barking at Charles to tell him what he was buying. Honestly? The true star of a film filled with a bunch of random, eccentric stars in their own right. Like almost everyone here was a star to me. Even Sam's bum ass, or that chick who worked in Charles' office. Maybe even Charles sister. She had a funny line but I forgot it but I remember it being funny maybe and she has Star~*~Quality. Watch the actress be dead smh. Anyway, 10/10 would recommend. Honestly it's more an 8/10. But just round up, don't be a bitch. Don't be a Laura.
What's good!!!
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