My partner and I have decided to trade movies every Tuesday in order to make the other watch something they normally wouldn’t. I think it’s some sort of kinky permission game she came up with to provide a constantly shifting power dynamic in our relationship, but the verdict is still out on that.

Last week, she got me to watch Yul Brynner abs in the classic musical, The King and I. I hadn’t seen this thing since the first 30 minutes in music class in 1990. All I could remember from it was Ramses yelling at a white woman about Moses which was a fun piece of trivia for a 9 year old. The film itself is still quite a lavish spectacle even when viewed from the future. I live-streamed the whole thing and had this to say about the rendition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin at the end of the film:

It’s quite a hodgepodge to me who is no scholar. Felt like Thai flavored Japanese Kabuki theatre with an English vocal chorus doing gospel call and response … As delivered by a Puerto Rican actress playing a Burmese slave wife in a movie released in 1955 set in 1862…the shit is boffo is what I’m saying

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