but seriously though there’s good aspects, likethe audio of the person just before they’re killed in a bathroom as the door is being broken down conveys the utter distress really well and is well done, and genuinely haunting. but the serieshad the most extreme shock horror in the first episode so the creator just had to think of more and more depraved things to scare people. It’s one thing to defend
violent child murder but it gets harder and harder to justify stuff like (fair warning, this is the worst part of it) a fucking horse assaulting a person to death because ‘it scares me too! I’m not a creep!’
yup. there’s so much good analogue horror that’s really well done. something like GREYLOCK or the Mandela Catalogue, and they have complex cgi/vfx and live action sequences with genuinely terrifying concepts. This feels like it had no love put into it and was just made to sell merchandise. It’s like a band like Yes compared to some nu-metal band made to get rich. There’s little soul in one and the other has people’s heart and soul put into it.
It’s a dumb buzzword, but it’s supposed to refer to horror that is kind of like found footage, but with more old, like VHS style filters. There’s a lot more to it than that, but if you wanted a better explanation I’d recommend the wikipedia article (I wouldn’t usually recommend wikipedia, but it’s not overly biased or complicated so I think it’s a decent page)
So people are becrying the “death of Doctor Who” because it now has a non-binary character. I’ll admit that it was clumsily written into the story (they kind of give her a story reason for being non-binary, which I don’t feel needs to be there and is possibly offensive) but overall it hardly matters. At all.
I am so sick of this “too much woke” argument. It’s not about being woke, it’s about not being a c#*t. Just grow the f#@k up and get on with your miserable lives.
Finished Scott Pilgrim Takes Off the other day; that was pretty cool. Not quite what I expected. Hopefully my colleague will have time to see it
I liked the idea of the Evil Exes interacting with each other/befriending Scott & co. ; this is something I had considered and I think was unprecedented
I wouldn’t mind seeing a re-telling of the original story in this style; that’s what I thought it was gonna be. In fact, I guess you could say there wasn’t a whole lot of Scott Pilgrim in this story [relatively]. My favorites were Wallace, and Kim
Haven’t seen The Great Dictator or Take Out before but I am a fan of both directors’ work. Albert Brooks gets it (I hope he directs another film) and Spike Lee can be hit or miss, but when he hits he absolutely nails it. Malcolm X is one of his hits with Denzel at the top of his game.
I’m taking my two oldest kids to see the Boy and the Heron tonight. I’ve been able to avoid almost all pre-release information (although I sadly have seen a few stills just while doom scrolling) so I am at maximum hype levels. I’m hoping this will be a bit of a special experience for both of them as they are seeing a PG-13 movie, staying up late, and watching something from Miyazaki, a director whose work they love. I’ll report back later with thoughts!
Considering this film had no promotional materials in its original release, I am going to treat all information about it beyond my opinion as spoilers, but I’ll try to keep my thoughts on stuff shown in the first half of the film regardless.
The Boy and the Heron ends up being an Alice in Wonderland like story. Like Wonderland, a lot in The Boy and the Heron is speaking in metaphor. This left me with a movie whose metaphors I am still unraveling in my head. I feel like it took me several watches to understand Howl’s Moving Castle. I think this movie will also take several viewings to really understand. Despite walking away with more questions than answers, I do think that TBATH leaves you wanting to answer those questions.
Mahito, like Alice, does go to a fantastical land that is quite unique from other fantasy stories. Pelicans and parakeets fill each shot with splendor, malice, and intrigue. However, the titular Heron exists in both the fantasy and real world, but in both he remains interesting- as a character and visually. In fact, the film is full of beautiful vistas including one moment so sublime I immediately started crying. IDK if there was ever a question, but yes, Ghibli again creates a beautiful world that lights up the imagination.
This is a restrained Joe Hisaishi score as his music is sparse compared to Miyazaki’s previous collaborations with him. A lot of the music moves slowly and precisely only to be exploded by moments of joy or concern. It puts you in the same state that Mahito is in, frequently unsure if this world is friendly or antagonistic but often silently soaking in the environment. The American voice cast is pretty good. Like the Disney dubs, the movie has an impressive voice cast featuring Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh, and Willem Dafoe. Unlike the Disney dubs, the cast is not just doing their famous voice; there is no Christian Bale’s Batman voice in Howl’s or Tina Fey’s Tina Fey voice in Ponyo . The actors give strong performances untethered from their normal baggage. That being said, there is some fuzz on a few lines here or there. Look, G Kids and Disney have different budgets haha. That’s not Ghibli’s fault!
I’m still working out what I think of The Boy and the Heron, but I can say confidently that I like it. There are many questions from a metatextual standpoint that I don’t have answers to. What is the Heron? What is the other world? Why the granduncle? Did the granduncle realize that his great nieces and nephews wouldn’t actually be in his bloodline? What’s going on with the Wadawada and is that how Wadawada is spelled? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, but I hope you didn’t read this far if you didn’t see the film yet. I think the questions are a part of the point. And I’m excited to watch the film again and discover my answers.
Picked up the Matrix trilogy, La La Land, Band of Brothers, Shape of Water, and People Say I’m Crazy (first person perspective documentary about an artist with schizophrenia).
I’m waiting on my blu ray player remote to be delivered soon, then I can start watching them. Found a Sony blu ray player at one of my favorite thrift stores for $6. It works great just didn’t come with a remote.
I still haven’t found Ex Machina. I know if I buy it for $7 on Ebay I’ll see if at a thrift store the next day (always happens).
I enjoyed it. The visual language of the film might be my favourite since Nausicca (not that other films aren’t superb). I enjoy the way he tapped into the aesthetics of locations from his past work, creating disparate spaces that function symbolically. In particular the traditional architecture of the pre-Meji era that is bordered by Meji Restoration era mosernization, that then gives way to a type of pre-enlightenment European architecture that boils over with the film’s fairytale symbolism. But these spaces are more than just callbacks to his previous films, they function as allegory for Japanese historical trauma than then maps onto personal trauma. Naturally these are themes he’s tackled before but I very much appreciated the way he re-interrogated these ideas in this film.
