Rewatches

Well, it's officially December now, and time to rewatch that It's a Wonderful Life to get in a Christmassy mood. There's so much detail packed into every scene, though some parts feel annoying and outdated like the black maid Annie speaking in such a stereotypical way; I suppose it was better than Capra portraying the town as all white, but young Harry spanking Annie feels disrespectful and sexist rather than playful. After the school dance, when Mary loses her robe, I'm annoyed that George spent so long talking about the "very interesting situation" and even saying that he ought to sell tickets. He was kidding, but still, she was upset and didn't appreciate his joke. He gives her back her robe when his Uncle Billy tells him about his father's stroke, though, and Mary forgives George enough that she fondly remembers the night as romantic; four years later she's made a cross-stitch of him lassoing the moon. I suppose, like Disney's disclaimer on its old movies, we should keep the classics intact and use the bad parts as teachable moments.

Starting with his father's death, George gives up so much, never going to college or his honeymoon. He even lets his brother Harry take another job, even though there was no true crisis at that moment, so maybe it could be argued that George subconsciously wants to be a martyr making sacrifices for people or is actually scared that traveling the world and trying to find another job would actually be a disaster. On the other hand, George Bailey is such a saint that, even in the midst of a tense emotional moment with Mary while on the phone, George has the presence of mind to insist that Sam Wainwright open his new plastics factory in Bedford Falls instead of Rochester.

Seeing It's a Wonderful Life again reminded me of when I was in high school, a teacher brought up the movie and explained the scene with the run on the bank. I hadn't ever understood before how the Bailey Building & Loan was different than Potter's bank. I just assumed it was down to Potter's villainy and the Great Depression, but it's also a difference in the financial institutions themselves. I found a couple of articles about this economic aspect, explaining how banking laws have changed since the 1940s, making smaller banks vulnerable to getting bought up and how Potter totally got away with keeping the $8000 that Billy accidentally handed to him. George Bailey runs his Building & Loan almost as a not-for-profit, making very little to build those Bailey Park houses.


Anyway, I also rewatched Knives Out and noticed some new stuff I missed the first time. I said before that the decor of the Thrombey mansion reminded me of the movie Sleuth. It's clearly intentional, because they actually included a creepy mechanical figure called Jolly Jack Tar the Jovial Sailor. This sailor could move and laugh at the push of a remote; it was featured in the 1972 film, as a commentary on the crime writer's love of pranks. (That's why I did suspect that maybe Harlan Thrombey somehow faked his death.)

Also, during the early suspect interviews, the oldest daughter Linda tells the detectives that she has "secret way of communicating" with her father Harlan, that you had to find a game to play with him. I didn't realize that she meant this literally, that he sends her notes written in invisible ink for her to reveal. I should have guessed when I saw the ostensibly blank note, or at least after Ransom made a big deal about him playing Go with Harlan, and that it was meaningful that Marta also played Go with the old patriarch. We also glimpse Linda with multiple other notes on that same stationary, with writing on it. So apparently she never told her husband Richard about the invisible ink, and he never saw her reveal the ink before. He really thought the note was blank and that Harlan had bluffed about telling Linda.

Another clue I picked up on, was when Marta got caught on the security camera driving in her car but not leaving the estate. She only realized her mistake while Blanc and the police were watching the videotape from that night, so Marta ejected the tape to make it look like it messed up on its own. The police weren't worried. They didn't think that the VCR fried the tape enough to make it unwatchable. They just asked to take the tape to the police station so they could transfer the video to digital media. Marta volunteered to take the tape; later she hands it back to the police and there's a close up on her. I realized now that she took a refrigerator magnet from the security office and used it to magnetically erase the video tape. That's why we get a close up of the magnet, and why the police later say, to their surprise, that there's something wrong with the videotape.

Amazing what you can pick up on a rewatch, especially with an intricately plotted movie.