#lolitathon 2k23

[astxriai]

lolitathon pt. 2: watching lolita (1997) so that i may finally know peace

part one can be found here

quick recap (to be read in the voice of jeremy irons):

lolitathon part one, the viewing of lolita (1962), dir. stanley kubrick, unceremoniously concluded the afternoon last, receiving a rating of 1 1/2 stars out of 5. the author, in very low spirits, ventured out to touch grass and decided to postpone the second half of their acursed double feature until the next day. reader, today is that faithful day.

the previous evening, the author treated themself to robert luketic’s pièce de résistance, legally blonde (2001), and now with renewed bravery, we sally forth to today’s feature presentation: lolita (1997)

[astxriai]

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D

[astxriai]

for starters, you sick freaks posting lana del rey nymphet-core or whatever under the lolita tag need to sprayed in the face like they do for those little lap dogs until you learn how to behave

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D

[astxriai]

before i get into this, let me just say that i love tubi.

i’m watching this on tubi for free, and i have to stress, for the record, how unhinged their streaming library is.

where else can you find columbo, the scooby doo show, the teenage mutant ninja turtles, 14 seasons of degrassi, forgotten lindsay lohan flicks, hannibal, unlicensed true crime documentaries AND specials about the benefits of astral projection right next to each other? truly fun for the whole family!

lolitathon pt. 2: watching lolita (1997) so that i may finally know peace

part one can be found here

quick recap (to be read in the voice of jeremy irons):

lolitathon part one, the viewing of lolita (1962), dir. stanley kubrick, unceremoniously concluded the afternoon last, receiving a rating of 1 1/2 stars out of 5. the author, in very low spirits, ventured out to touch grass and decided to postpone the second half of their acursed double feature until the next day. reader, today is that faithful day.

the previous evening, the author treated themself to robert luketic’s pièce de résistance, legally blonde (2001), and now with renewed bravery, we sally forth to today’s feature presentation: lolita (1997)

[astxriai]

dance scene. this feels so pointless it’s starting to piss me off.

lolita has a lot of spiritual successors between the two official ones, some i’ve seen: (the babysitter with alicia silverstone in 1995, poison ivy starring drew barrymore) and some i haven’t (the crush in 1993, with an even younger alicia silverstone). it’s weird to see how the approach to the nymphet archetype changes over the decades while also staying the same in the WORST ways.

in poison ivy, she’s sympathetic. she’s got pathos and her hypersexuality is real, though it’s developed as a trauma response. other times, like in the crush, the narrative plays her straight as an evil woman in a girl’s body helplessly controlling an older man. in the babysitter, she’s the linch pin of a thriller but a very static character. her character’s passive role is not inherently a bad thing, but she is constantly sexualized by the camera in a way that has no purpose besides titillation.

all of these choices have their strengths and weaknesses or at least make some sort of sense. but playing it for laughs?? truly, truly bizarre.

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D

[astxriai]

whY IS THERE A LITTLE GIRL FOOT SHOT IN THE OPENING CREDITS 🗣️ A POX ON 🗣️BOTH 🗣️OF 🗣️YOUR 🗣️🗣️HOUSES 🗣️🗣️

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D

[astxriai]

mayhaps i hate kubrick. i’ve decide i shall wait until this is over to look up whether or not this is satire

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D

[astxriai]

oh, and taxi driver (1976)!

if lolita had been adapted in the seventies, jodie foster definitely would’ve been cast as delores. i really appreciate how taxi driver remixes the nymphet trope.

travis is appalled by what jodie foster’s character has been turned into and murders her pimp (from what i remember). his motivations are complex, tracking with the erratic behavior he displays throughout the rest of the film. it’s shown that travis isn’t saving iris purely for the sake of justice. he also has self-centered motives for rescuing her, whom he oversimplifies in his mind to fit into the narrative he has created for himself. he’s styled himself as a vigilante hero and his single-minded intensity ends up scaring the shit out of her.

her reaction to the pimp (or the john, idk) being murdered right in front of her is very real and shows very poignantly that she is a kid without using derivative, clunky schoolgirl imagery to get the point across. be like taxi driver.

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D

[astxriai]

me when i pluck out all of humbert humbert’s teeth with tweasers <3

disrespectfully, what twelve year old wouldn’t find humbert humbert completely reeeeeepulsiveeeeee. let’s be for real for a minute. in the book, delores was initially attracted to humbert because he had all of the features that young girls just developing an attraction to boys are drawn to (i.e. the clean shaven strong jaw, the pan-european accent, the aloofness). he focuses on this himself in his narration. i feel like that’s part of what lolita ‘62 is missing.

if lolita could be adapted as comedic (a tragicomedy, i guess) without being completely disrespectful of its source material, it would need to take advantage of the absurdity of the disconnect between humbert humbert’s perception of himself as this discreet, debonair gentleman and reality, aka the fact that he’s a neurotic creep makes everyone uncomfortable and projects his sexual desires onto little girls.

listening to jeremy irons’ performance (which was phenomenal), i imagined humbert humbert as alleged real-life creep ed westwick, largely because of his performance as chuck bass on gossip girl.

like humbert, chuck acted like he was hot shit and looked the part, but everything he said and did was a essentially a parody of the rich playboy image he was trying to evoke. as a result, in spite of all of his debaucherous behavior, he still comes off as a piece of shit teen playing pretending, in the same like humbert’s inflated self esteem makes him come of goofy.

also the cinematography is mid at best. stanley really phoned this one in.

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D

[astxriai]

credit where credit is due. making it a police convention is hilarious. they way that the concierge introduced the ‘only one bed’ thing was so proto-fanfiction. perfect line delivery. quilty greatly amuses me. he really lays it on thick, and i love that he can’t help but flirt with humbert while he’s probing him for information about delores.

but, the movie’s hesitation to vilify humbert (eschewing his attempted drugging and bribing lo with clothes) is a sus choice though. why turn him sympathetic? it’s almost like somebody involved in the making of this thing finds him a little too relatable… hmmm…

sleep on that charlie brown thanksgiving ass cot boy, and leave that child alone. i hope this movie takes a sharp turn from the source material and humbert keeps getting foiled in his attempts to be a little freak.

NO NO NO NO GAMES GAMES SUCK WE HATE GAMES

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D

[astxriai]

a quick note for any twitter/reddit expats and tiktok natives who may see this: i won’t be censoring words (using numbers to spell words, etc.) in my lolitathon documentation. it’s generally unnecessary to use coded language for taboo topics on tumblr for algorithm purposes, and it’s actually helpful to spell everything out so that users are able to use filtering to block potentially upsetting content!

and back to our regularly scheduled programming: PUT THE CHILD’S TOES AWAY NOWWWWWWWW

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D

[astxriai]

it is absolutely nuts that i am expected to care about this whole humbert/quilty rivalry while delores haze, a 14 year old child, is literally being assaulted on the regular and that whole plot point is actively being sidelined in favor of fake moustache shenanigans!

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D

[astxriai]

the changes in tone are SO abrupt. there are ways quick changes in tone can be done well for dramatic effect (like the in gang confrontation in my neighbors the yamadas, for example) but here it’s giving whiplash, 2+ contrasting screenplays frankenstein’d together type vibes.

the theme of disillusionment with americana, which vladimir nabokov was sure to emphasize when talking about his vision for lolita’s cover is so pitifully underutilized. so is humbert’s narration. why even include it at all? it only pops at points where the movie can’t think of how to get its point across visually.

i’ll have to look into how much involvement nabokov had with the alterations made to adapt lolita for the screen. because who did this. who let this happen. how does one even manage to turn lolita into an aimless slog where an overwhelming majority of the emotional beats completely miss the mark???

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D

[astxriai]

i kind of wish they’d cast an older actress to play lo at seventeen.

in the book, it was really interesting to watch humbert’s attitude toward delores sour as she got older and began to physically mature. his resentment of her builds gradually throughout the second half of the story, and erupts so perfectly the moment humbert humbert sees his ‘lolita’ pregnant. he doesn’t get to freeze her in time as his nymphet like he did with annabel. he is forced to see her as dolly, the person, in a woman’s body. for her, aging is the ultimate act of freedom.

you don’t really get the full effect of that moment when delores looks the same at the beginning and end of the movie. what makes lolita the novel so impactful is nabokov’s use of language to create the detestable humbert humbert, which is one of the reasons why adapting it visually and in live action is so difficult. but let’s be for real, they definitely could’ve put a little more effort into making sue lyon look older after the time skip. at least they could have given her eyebags and a more convincing fake bump. but god forbid our teenage actress not look sexy for fifteen minutes.

anyways, i’m dissapointed by how dull and conventional this film’s ending is. boo hoo, shithead is sad that the girl whose life he ruined 1) isn’t hot to him anymore because she’s not 12 and 2) would rather live in a shitty house than pity fuck him again. the movie even has the audacity to play sad music over humbert crying and utilize visual language that frames dolly as a long lost love breaking humbert’s poor little heart for the final time. what are we doing. she’s a kid and he has a special spot waiting for him on the sex offender registry.

awful. first half was boring and sucked, and the second half was boring and insulting.

but was it ~satire~? i’ve decided that it doesn’t fucking matter. its critques are clumsy and kubrick humbert’s extremes aren’t exaggerated enough to drive home the ‘looks can be deceiving, even the gentleman is capable of horrendous evil’ thing home. in the movie, even before he’s lo’s sole guardian, the ramsdale townspeople find his behavior suspect.

delores never gets to express, even briefly, after their first time how humbert humbert physically hurt her because Code, undercutting the abject horror of what he did to her.

the commentary on post-war americana is weak and the “comedic elements” destroy all of the suspense the book had. to top it off, lolita (1962) never captures the essence of the unique mind-numbing torture that is driving past hours of identical corn fields in nowheresville, usa and how this destroys humbert’s preconceptions about america, practically a nymphet itself in comparison to dusty old europe.

overall, i’m disappointed. i didn’t expect to like lolita but i also didn’t expect to have this many gripes with it. this was my first kubrick and i’m gonna be for real, i do not have a high opinion of him as an artist or as a storyteller.

all i can say is that vlad nab should’ve been more stingy with his book’s film rights.

like and subrcribe for part two: lolita (1997), alternately titled “i believe in hell specifically because i want you to go there <3”

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D

[astxriai]

my itunes rental seems to have fade-to-black spots for commercial breaks. maybe this version was used for made for tv broadcasts?

but, like, did lo and humbert just casually have sex???? of course they can’t talk about it at all because hays code, but this is literally an adaptation of a novel framed by the unreliable storytelling of a sexual predator. why make the thing at all??? just to get horny shots of sue lyon, i guess.

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D

[astxriai]

the ramsdalers better have a threesome in the post-code adaptation. let’s sexualize the adults for once.

hi all, i just finished reading/listening to vladamir nabokov’s fucking book of all time, lolita (the version narrated by jeremy irons). arresting as all get out, but i recommend it if you have the stomach for the subject matter.

i yelled, i cringed, i died, i had to pause the shit at multiple points and brace myself to continue. super tragic and heartbreaking, but i was completely morbidly fascinated by it. and it is so carefully written. the prose is masterful. the whole thing was super fricking coconuts, as one might say.

anyways, i’ve decided that i am going to watch both film adaptations, probably today (i finished the book at 4am this morning in a fugue state). mr. hitchcock is first on the chopping block and i do not have high hopes :D