the lunch yesterday was very long. we didn't leave the restaurant until after 4:30pm. after that we did some grocery shopping then went home and watched some netflix. nopalita brought over "trilogy of terror" and and we had "raise the red lantern".

as a child, "trilogy of terror" terrorized nopalita. she would describe this little evil character to us and we couldn't figure out what film it was. after years of searching, nopalita finally figured out the movie title but it was not available on dvd. once it finally became available, she put it in her netflix queue and waited for the right time because she didn't want to watch it alone. plus, after all the years of hearing of this little terrible creature, we wanted to see it too. well, this film is 3 short stories, all starring karen black. it was a tv movie in 1975 so it's very 70s horror, not exactly scary, just more psychological. what if this? what if that? things that were scary for back then. and that little creature was just hilarious. maybe if i say it as a kid i'd be scared. i don't know. but as an adult it was just too funny.

then we watched "raise the red lantern" (1991). it's surprising that i never saw this film until now with the international film classes i took and my constant browsing of the foreign film section when i used to rent video tapes. back in the day i did see "ju dou", which is by the same director and stars the same actress. both are gorgeous films but "raise the red lantern" is more subtle. the reactions of my friends watching the movie heightened my own experience. they treated it very much like a soap opera, i think, with the vengeful women. i'm not quite like that or into that, i should say. the film is about the wives of a rich guy. the film focuses on the relationship between the women. there are a lot of long shots and i don't think there is ever a closeup of the husband, to give you a sense of how unimportant his role is--we are drawn to empathize with the women. as always, i don't really want to talk about the plot because it is important for the viewer to go on that journey and i'd say that is especially important with this film. the film is divided into seasons. it starts in summer and ends in the summer of the following year. we notice how the main character evolves in each season. of course my alternative ending would be to have the third and fourth wives run away together! they would be a beautiful couple.