I just needed an alliterative title. No porridge was harmed in this post.
I am sort of working on projects. Some of which I will foist on here now and then. Mostly a screenplay I need to be reading over, then plunging back into. A novel to be published that needs a cover. A couple other novels started, in various stages of waiting for me to churn out some pages within their frames.
The Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane will be the next novel out. Three elderly sisters taking on cannibal biker gangs in what’s left of Fallon, Nevada after a world-wide conflict that didn’t go so well for anyone. It’s kind of Mad Max meets Doomsday meets that French movie with the three sisters. The Triplets of Belleville. And it’s funny. I think so. I had earlier versions that were grim, realistic, gritty and…it didn’t match the story in my head. This latest one does. A lighter-hearted absurd tale of an apocalypse narrowed down to small Nevada town. It started off as a tale about three sisters making plans to travel to see the grave of a childhood pet by a bridge.
And morphed into cannibals, end of the world, and scavenging.
I really like my characters. This one was easy to write. I wanted to write it. I had fun with seeing where it went. It’s a sort of dark faerytale. And such tales tend to be very dark indeed. At least the original versions do.
The screenplay.
It’s based on a short story of mine, from Oregon Gothic. About necrophilia. I am working with a woman from the Czech Republic who is a director and producer. She’s fantastic!! She truly is. She did a previous short film based on a brief play of mine, Traces of Memory and had to halt production on King Leer, due to the lead actress becoming seriously ill. So,Lucie Gukkertova plans on filming this next year. It’s called Prince Charming for now. I’m trying to remember everything I sort of learned from my one screenwriting class…yeah.
A new novel started. Based on a one act that no one ever wants to produce. Oh Savage Bliss of the Pirate’s Wench is where the characters contact the author and they work up a better story but…mm. Bored yet? Sure, it’s an old idea, done many time by better writers, sure, but hey, they can’t all be Sarte or Pirandello. So hey, what if this is actually a novel?
What?? Yeah!
And here’s where my mind took this off into a weird landscape of God, the devil, angels, demons and writers. Oh dear, already did a novel on that sorta thing except different. Am I doomed to explore whatever’s left of my faith? Dang a lang a dang!
The kitten is doing well. She now likes to go outside. She’s growing! Her belly is healed up, she’s a happy little thing. I did find a severed rabbit leg…on the picnic table. Blurgh.
I am writing some– just not in my usual gushy fashion. I do have projects lined up for spring. January was a good month writing-wise. New decade starting off sorta okay.
Constance Wu. J. Lopez, Lili Reinhart, Cardi B, Keke Palmer.
It’s a wee bit cloudy. I’m jonesing for some sesame pork, looking for potato starch at the boxstore of the damned AKA Wal-Mart. It’s a nope on the potato starch, but hey corn starch will do. I walk by the Red Box, slow. Joker is out. I’ve heard it’s great. I’ve heard it’s not great.
Please note that I tried another grocery store before venturing near the Great Box of Death.
I get the spray bottle and cheaply cheap corn starch. I decide, yes, I will rent some flicks. I got some small royalties in. I have to wait for the slow boomers poking at the screen to get done. I do mean poking. Muttering, snorting, poking at the touchscreen like something out of, well, a movie.
I rent two. Hustlers, with Jennifer Lopez. And yes, Joker, with Joaquim Phoenix. Actual physical have to take the movies home and then return them old-fashioned rentals, even! How quaint!
So. Hustlers. I have no idea what the story is. Something about sex workers? I remember, vaguely, Lopez was fantastic in it, a ‘real’ surprise. Um. She can actually act when given a decent script, y’all. Out of Sight, hello.
Hustlers, with Constance Wu as well in it, is the tale of strippers hustling Wall Street guys from about the 2000’s until the hustling hustlers got caught. Based on a true story. We get that these women are friends, they look out for each other, that they are trying to pay bills, take care of their kids and families, have lives. This is done subtly, just part of the conversations as they get ready for work in the dressing room or on breaks. At the heart of this film is the friendship that develops between Ramona and Destiny. And the question—how real is it? As Ramona knows all the tricks, is a slick, very good hustler who knows how to read the men around her to empty their wallets. Is she just using Destiny or is there an actual connection there?
Lopez plays a seasoned, been there, done that pro who takes the newcomer, Wu, under her fur-covered wing. And Lopez struts her stuff and then some. She gathers a gang as the fortune’s of the strip club decline, due to the recession that hits, and the four decide to hustle Wall Streeters without having to do much more than smile and drink. I don’t want to give away the plot more than that. There’s betrayals and trust broken and a truly quiet heart-breaking moment near the end. Well done. Well done, Hustlers!
Joker.
What can I say that has not been hashed out until the cows dance home covered with greasepaint?
I could not stop watching Phoenix. More to catch moments when he was just being, not ACTING. The story, eh. White guy gets ignored; already nuts, gets more nuts, sad, bang bang, Batman villain.
I should write movie plots for a living.
So a stray thought after the movie ended. What if Batman is a figment of Arthur’s imagination? What if there’s no Gotham superhero? What if Arthur made up an arch nemesis to make himself seem more important? As he spends the entire film doing what now? Oh yeah, imagining how important and loved he is.
Kind of like the Buffy episode where she thinks she’s in a mental hospital just imagining she’s the slayer. [Normal Again, Season Six]
Buffy chooses her reality, we’re left a bit…oh crap, what if she’s actually just some insane young woman with these dark delusions? Then season seven happens and you sort of long for season six. For season six to reassure you most of season seven is just a fever dream from season two. If anyone gets that, they are true Buffy fanatics.
I kept waiting for the Joker to give me more, I guess, is my take on this. Yes, Phoenix delivers his usual stellar totally immersed in it performance. He’s ACTING. He starts at eleven and goes to twelve. He never let us forget that he’s ACTING DAMN IT.
Not. One. Time.
This is his There Will Be Blood on steroids role. He channeled his inner Daniel Day Lewish, and are we not entertained? Oh my gosh, imagine Russell Crowe in this. Or Tom Hanks! TOM HANKS AS THE JOKER. Oh my lordy, Hollyweird– MAKE THAT HAPPEN.
Back to Phoenix, who is this generations De Niro. Bwha ha ha ha. It snowed, I’m a bit giddy. There’s chocolate in the house. Okay!
It’s uncomfortably repellent to watch his character. Yet it’s reassuringly ‘this is every crazy guy since Travis Bickle’ at times as well.
De Niro appears in this as a talk show host—which is why I kept flashing to Taxi Driver?
I also had another THOUGHT. What if this is the director’s ode, subconscious or not, to Taxi Driver? I am so damn original it slays me. Get it, Buffy fans?
A lone, socially awkward man with delusions about life, women and fame, turns into a criminal/hero uneasy mixture while committing murders.
The lone wolf vigiliante gunman the peasants can rally around trope/archetype/American masturbation go-to.
The Joker torches off actual protests in a city run by rich fat cats, Bruce Wayne’s dad being the fattest cat of them all. Where the poor might actually start eating the rich at a moment’s notice. Gee.
Those opposing what the rich are doing are painted as thuggish criminals with clown masks on. Um. Gulp. The scenes with the throngs of what looks like men seem lifted straight out of a medieval painting about hell. Fire, leering demons with strange fixed faces, violence, chaos, destruction of property. Might as well call the clown-masked protesters Antifa and rake in the cash. Have narration provided by Handtitty or Fucker Carlsfart.
A Bosch? Not sure. The planned protests in Joker turn violent…
This film seems more about comforting those in charge, than upsetting any actual apple carts. It offers nothing new or insightful.
Do we sympathize with this repellent character or root for the repellent other side on all this? What are we supposed to do here?
All while setting up how a white savior in a bat suit will return Gotham to Law and Order and get those Family Values back into hearth and home.
Protestors, schmo-testors! Let them eat cake. They’re all nuts who just want to burn everything down. The Jews are probably behind all that…Sorry. I’m crossing my streams. Yes, that is a Ghostbusters call out. Yes, it is.
Sure, this film reads almost like right wing propaganda. Almost. Strangely, there’s three Wall Street guys, employees of Wayne Enterprises, who set off the clown stuff. With people shrugging, going, eh, who cares, they deserved it. Rather like the sentiments in Hustlers. I somehow picked out two Fuck Wall Street movies. Except. Wall Street wins in both movies. The hustlers face consequences, Arthur Fleck faces consequences, Wall Street hustlers and murders without a care in the world. Yeah. I need some cake.
note--The sesame pork turned out really good. So proud of myself there. And of course after spring-like warm weather, last night it snowed. Teach me to rent movies I have to old-fashion return to the nearest Red Box.
Three blackbird eggs, in the nest in the wild rosebush. Ain’t they cute?
I am dithering over a project. A project I will need to turn in eventually to my publisher. Yes, I have one. Stop snickering or giving me pitying looks at my delusions of being a real writer. Snort in your general direction, haters.
Okay. Sarcasm aside…!
Saint Lysette and Bloody Alice. It’s the third in my House trilogy. Alice in Oregonlandia is done, and in line to be seen by Kensington Gore’s editor/s.
Alice takes up about ten years after House On Clark Boulevard ended. The ‘tale’ moves to the world of Alice, Nancy’s daughter. Stuff happens. The end.
Yeah, I should write PR and press releases! For more money than the actual novelists ever get for their words, phrases and entire pages of words and phrases.
My mind went, hey, there’s a third book here. With everything neatly wrapped up, explained and then burned to the ground or somethin’. Cause. Trilogies. Every author should have some.
It’s like. That can of tuna on your shelf. Just in case.
I don’t like tuna so my can of tuna would have dust on it. But it would still be there in case I needed it for something. Maybe a sammich? I’d also have to have pickles, lemon, dill, onion powder, garlic…basically my tuna sammich would taste like anything but tuna. I like tuna melts.
I’m weird and contradictory. I realize that right now at this moment. Personal growth!
Dither.
I know why I’m starting this last opus over and over. I HAVEN’T DECIDED WHAT THE ACTUAL STORY IS.
I knew, vaguely, that Alice would have to return to that old house and…and something would happen that would not be what was expected by any involved. Vague, sure. But. That was the general story in my head and it seemed to write itself for Alice in Oregonlandia. House on Clark Boulevard had the same feel to it but different. Is that crystal clear to everyone??
I just got into ‘that groove’ that hits when you write. Whether it’s novels or poems or short stories or plays or manifestos about why tuna is gross.
I’m not a fish person. I find the taste of fish gross and yucky. I’ll eat fish sticks but only if they taste more of the tarter sauce or whatever dipping sauce is available. I’ve never had lobster.
Living in the interior high desert [Southern Washington State, Eastern Oregon, Western Idaho] most of my life tends to keep me away from lobster binges. Can you buy lobster or find it where I live or have lived? Yes. Did the price of lobster tend to send me off to the lunch meat aisle to see what’s on sale? Yes. Do I think it’s cruel to boil those poor sea spiders alive?? Yes!!
Miz Bridge waiting for me to entertain her. Because hey, you’re not writing, she says. Let’s go dig or chase something!
Story. I’ve dithered here in Saint Lysette. It’s changed POV’s. Many times. I now have Nancy, Alice and Lysette all telling the story. Whatever the story is. Which I’m not sure. It won’t coalesce, even a little, somewhere in my foggy writer brain. It does but it’s campy garbage!
Gol darn it!!
I might as well add some clowns and reptilian overlords!! Not that there’s anything wrong with reptilian overlords. There is something profoundly wrong with clowns. Yes, I have fear of clowns. Yes, I do. There’s a fancy word for that even.
I think, therefore I am…sorry! I think I need to pick a path. Write to the end no matter the horrified faces I make as I write.
GET THAT MOFO ON THE PAGE YOU DITHERING DITZ!
Get a rough beast shaped up, that I can then go back through and despair over.
After all, I have scrapped entire drafts. Written better versions. Or worse versions. Dang it.
I must examine why I am dithering so. I blame tuna.
Oh if it were that damn easy!
What is the story. That’s what I need to crucify in place with big iron nails. Then watch it rise from the dead a couple times or something? Ugh. Must stop listening to atheist podcasts or atheists taking apart Christian movies made so badly they’re actually in the good column.
I’m also trying to get a screenplay done. A director from the Czech Republic found a short play of mine, made a short film out of it. Traces of Memory. It’s in actual post-production now, as I write this. It looks great. I’m pleased with it.
She also, Lucie, found my book of short stories, Oregon Gothic, and found a tale in there that she wished to turn into a feature-length. One based on…necrophilia. On a woman helping her boyfriend procure a freshly dead woman for sexual purposes.
Lucie wishes it more focused on their relationship. She has the general idea of where she wishes this to go and I am helping shape it out. It’s called Prince Charming so far.
I hope it doesn’t turn out to be another Serbian Tale. If you don’t know what that is or have never heard of it, great. Keep your ignorance. If you do know what that ‘movie’ is, then no, I don’t think Prince Charming is even in the same universe as that one. I’m being cheeky. I’m a cheeky little primate!
Humans are primates, after all, no matter what screaming manbeasts with Jesus tats and a pulpit say.
I am working on making the rather repulsive pair sympathetic. Understandable. Which gives the horror element an extra punch in the gut. Layers, y’all.
Must go force myself to work on…something. It’s almost my birthday. I might go to the hills for sustenance and soul feeding as I turn…gulp…fifty. And ponder on the smoking ruins of my life.
I blame it all on tuna.
The elderly cottonwood showing why it’s called ‘cottonwood’. The big seed pods burst open and look like what cotton does or something. I’ve never seen a cotton field outside of a movie. Or eaten a lobster.
Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau and Brie Larson as Carol “Captain Marvel” Danvers
[[note– I promise this is cheerful. Fluff. Absolute fluffy kittens and unicorn dreams. ]]
I went to the movies yesterday afternoon. Guess what I saw? Not the cute dragon movie. Not the anti-romance romance comedy that I will probably really enjoy when it finally gets to TBS or TNT. The one with Rebel Wilson. That one.
CAPTAIN MARVEL.
Yes, that’s the obscure art house pic I suffered through. As those art house pics generally demand that you SUFFER to get to the end without throwing up, falling asleep or generally giving up ten minutes in during the first of many twenty minute monologs on how swift life is by a teen girl working retail as her mother does crack in the alley out back.
There were other people there. Sigh. I go to matinees because they’re [A] cheaper and [B] not attended by other people. Okay, whatever! Popcorn rustles, comments flying about me, soda pop being sucked loudly through hollow plastic tubes. The sounds of cinema! I arrive just before the previews start, so I don’t have to sit there pretending not to be making snide mind comments about everyone else there. As you do.
Previews. Avengers!! Tony Stark in outer space giving some sort of Hamlet-like speech. Captain America filling up with HOPE that some Hail Mary plan will work against a [guy, thing, god, dancer, evil bad farmer, etc?] who just took out half the known universe. What’s this…a new avenger might join in to CHANGE THE GAME? What???? Yeah, I’m so going to this it’s not even funny. I’m a weak-souled consumer drone mind-raped by Hollywood’s Satanic influences. You heard it here first.
LION KING. Now!! I’ve seen the cartoon version X number of times. Yet! I’ve got oddly wet eyes, so there must have been a drive-by onioning. Shouldn’t a live-action movie about animals use, um, actual animals who are not…Stop that, brain! The heart is sobbing right now! Shut up, brain! Disney, how dare you pile on the pathos!! How dare you!
There’s also a preview for a movie I’ve already seen soundly panned and ‘not wanted by anyone’– Dark Phoenix. Which is Sansa Stark getting all evil on Mr. Tumnus. There’s lots of screaming, explosions, people in extensive makeup with superhero hair looking truly magnificent. I wanted to see it. How evil does Sansa get?? Like, super-evil or just mildly evil where she kicks a puppy then goes to work for the ASPCA? I’m hooked! I also can’t wait until it’s on TNT in two or three years. Yay! Also, maybe the X-Men can call on Dani and her dragons to KICK DP’S bottom. Oh my, the crossover potential there. Game of Thrones meets X-Men. Somebody get on this one, stat!
Holy cow bells, that isn’t a still for Capt. Marvel! Sophie Tucker will play Jean Grey again.
I could just do a blog post about listening to people snack in the near-dark and my reaction to the various trailers.
Here we go:
Captain motherfucking Marvel.
That’s a Sam Jackson shout out.
Pretty much what you expect to happen, well, happens. Plot? There was an actual twist here that was pretty solid. I thought it went well. It was set up through memory loss flashes. Plus, any time you have a British guy in an American superhero movie…yeah.
Ooh, that was a sort of spoiler. Yikes!
But I had my suspicions. I don’t trust people who seem ‘nice’. They’re just not. In real life or superhero movies.
Carol, played by Brie Larson, was everything Girl Power needs. She’s fierce. She’s a fighter. She’s got hot hands…hands that light up and shoot lasers. Or fire. No, lasers.
She’s also a hothead who’s…wait for it…emotional. [I let out an actual WTF gasp at this.] Of course the Nice British Guy [Jude Law] hammers this one over and over and yet over again.
Our heroine also keeps having this memory of a female scientist [Annette Benning], being an Air Force pilot, having a life on earth. Vers, as she’s called now, lives on the Kree planet…here I just clocked out. More comic worlds I should know like the back of my hand??
God damn it, no thanks. I have enough crap crammed in my cranium at any given moment.
So we get Vers crashlanding through a Blockbuster after chasing the Bad Aliens, who are shapeshifters. Who can be ANYBODY, right down to their memories. Some of their memories…again, I checked out here, just rolling my eyes.
The movie took place in the Nineties. Ah.
Nostalgia, you tricksy blighter. Everybody laughed and sighed over the Blockbuster bit. The Blockbuster here in Ontario, Oregon went under overnight seemingly. In a day. It’s now a gym or get your taxes done here office front.
CM goes on a Journey of Discovery with Sam Motherfuckin’ Jackson, which is Great Fun. We get to see her Kick Ass. A Lot. She was a one-woman Rambo aboard the Bad Aliens ship, after all. Well, she beat the crap out of large groups of extras. Those scenes where Our Hero or Heroine [Yay, girls can be heroes, too! Yay!] takes on legions and just GOES TO TOWN on their bottoms. Yep!
So, we get the Plot Twist. We get the Betrayals. We get the Moments of Doubt. We get the If You Need the Suit You’re Not a Hero moment that all Marvel movies seem to employ unblushingly. [I just watched one of the new Spiderman movies, where Tony Stark says this to Spiderboy.]
Now. All of that? I still enjoyed the ever-livin’ crap out of this movie. I was glad I left my house to go see it. I enjoyed the heck out of the trailers. I could totally get away from how my country seems hellbent on installing an actual dictatorship…Her Emails! Lock her up!! Build the wall! Fake news!
I felt an odd Captain America type hope that a Hero Will Rise. And save us. From ourselves. So we don’t have to do it. Yeah. The Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free fully expect to be saved from themselves by some superhero unicorn sort that everybody can get behind…ha ha ha ha. Sob. Okay!
Oh my goodness, there’s the thing with the cat in Captain Marvel. Ha ha ha. There’s also the rather sweet shout out to Stan Lee in this movie. Ah!
To sum up this Not Really a Movie Review so much as a Sprawling Mess, I really liked Captain Marvel. It fired on most of its cylinders. She wasn’t the grim awfulness of a Gamora. She was more a combo of Starlord and Wonder Woman. While your head explodes for various reasons from that…ha ha ha. Done exploding yet? Okay!
She kicked ass. Lots of ass. In satisfying ways. Things Blow Up. In satisfying ways. There’s a pretty good dogfight battle with Best Friend of Cap Marv. I liked it, anyway.
And the quickie scene after some of the credits played…yeah. You sit there, along with a few others, waiting for it. Waiting for it. Ah! What??!! Holy crap, so going to Avengers! Satan, see you in a few weeks!
from the Theux Blog. This seemed closest to me this week. Peering uneasily down a never-ending abyss of movie criticisms.
I stumbled, innocently enough, across MFA film students taking down current or past films. I do mean in excruciating detail. Zealots. You know them, you’ve been around those megafans that rabidly argue the merits of the spaceships of the Stars Wars franchise with those of the Star Trek franchise versus the spaceships of Battlestar Galactica.
Oh the dreaded zip ties! Do not get these for BDSM play.
Right down to fuel used, size of screws in the paneling and square footage in the place where the pilot sits. Cabin?
I’ve watched several hours of these. I was perusing Jeeves and Wooster, as you do, then noticed, hey, a take-down of Fifty Shades of Gray. Not a take-down, a defense. Sort of a defense, the title implied coyly. Yeah. I fell. Hard.
Hook in brain, I let that wily talkative fisherman reel me into the world of minute, bitter, movie-hating killjoys.
Now! I actually enjoyed the roughly three hour take apart, don’t even bother putting it back together video…um, essay? of Fifty Shades. All three movies. It was informative and enjoyable.
You’re supposed to hate this movie.
You’re supposed to notice how abusive Christian is BEFORE someone tells you how abusive that rich creepy Edward Cullen wannabe is.
I also, um, watched one where the critic gave a rather nice defense of Stephanie Meyer. Of literature written for teen girls in general. Meyer wrote the Twilight books.
How we as a society hate teen girls and everything they do. So that very idealized and safe world of Twilight got MOCKED TO THE SEVENTH HEAVEN, of course. Meyer proved quite gracious and didn’t sue Erika James, who ripped off Twilight’s everything to ‘create’ Fifty Shades.
Which as everyone should know by now grew out of fanfic. Which James had scrubbed, supposedly, from the internet and fanfic sites. But as nothing ever dies on the internet, EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS more or less that Christian Gray is Edward Cullen, except with whips and zip ties.
Now, I did see a severe dressing down of Fifty Shades, from yet another couple of filmies, who knew a lot more about the BDSM world than James does or ever bothered to find out. They’re hot take is the movies are garbage, it’s an abusive relationship, neither lead can act, neither lead seem to like each other on screen or off, and DON’T EVER BUY ZIP TIES for BDSM purposes.
As they tighten and you can’t get out of them easily if there’s trouble or if someone’s struggling. Zip ties can actually kill you at worst or break the skin, cause physical damage not wanted…so don’t use them. We see in the first movie where Christian is buying ‘supplies’ at the hardware store. One of the things he buys is…zip ties. Yep!
Okay.
from Indiewire
So I watched that threesome of critiques, then watched other suggestions, then went down an actual rabbit hole. I clicked on why Captain America:Civil War sucks; suddenly all the heroes have new characters and are ignoring past setups and generally acting in unknown ways so there can be the civil war of the title.
Why Disney needs to stop ‘fixing’ their animated movies in the new live-action remakes coming out or already here. Hint, ahem, Beauty and the Beast, ahem, ahem. Fixing plot holes with even worse plot holes!
Why they were afraid Wonder Woman would be something something FEMINAZIS ON FULL PARADE ARGH. The two giggling cute bunny critics got the cold shits from a still of women on the set holding up signs that said Girl Power. Girl power. Girls with power. Save the world from girl power is the subtext of their reaction??
They were afraid it was gonna be the Feminist Manifesto that Burned Their Eyeballs and Castrated Them For Feminists to Turn Into Slaves of the New Feminist Order? Was that the subtext? The actual text from the two cuddle bunnies??
I watched a lot of these…yeah.
Henry Cavill as Superman and Ben Affleck as Batman in Batman V. Superman, Dawn of Just Man Candy Mostly
But what gets me is that I now, sort of, hate movies. Hate them!!!
I look at the movies I love, and hate them. I look at movies I already hate and despair bigly. Then, my own bitter snarliness breaks through.
I DON’T CARE IF THE SHOTS DON’T MATCH IN THE OPENING WITH SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE. I like what I like, you fucking movie zombieshits!
Every movie they–this is all the film critic film school original Star Wars fanatics youtubers I happened to click on–reviewed seemed made by amateur dead Labradors. They name dropped more than a starlet at a Hollywood party. [Obvious joke that set up an expectation yet fell flat in delivery.]
Obscure film critics, obscure camera operators, blah. Yes, I can appreciate a well made, perfectly written, perfectly shot film…[oh wait, there isn’t one of those yet.] but god damn it, I love the cheesy bad movies that just want to entertain ya. Not socially redeem you or teach you anything besides explosions taste better with a giant tub of corn and a diet Coke to suck down.
Every movie seems to be that.
Every. Last. One. It’s just a cynical cash grab these days, unlike the good ole days…oh boy.
Even high falutin’ Oscar Bait. Yeah, I went there…Yeah. A Star is Born. Explosion of emotions! Manipulations galore! Wheee. Ugh.
I actually did appreciate one of these film school sharks who made an effort to explore topics like the various King Kongs, Marxism [there are several versions of Marxism, but they all seem to hate jazz…] and Santa Claus. There’s research there, actual trying to connect the dots, interesting tidbits. I do love trivia and bad movies interspersed with better movies. Or movies that try really hard. Rabbit hole, rabbit hole.
Then I switch over to two ratty sorts giggling and cooing back and forth as they fart out why they hate Justice League. Like, it sucks, you know. You’re cute, no you’re cute, you’re cute, no you’re cute…
It wasn’t that bad, they actually had some real points but…ugh. I noticed all their reviews were along this line. [The same couple that advised against zip ties, by the by] She giggles, acts cutesy. [Oh. My. God. Stop, just stop.] He talked over her incessantly. I mean…yeah.
You know how that goes because that happens all the time. Mansplaining. There’s a woman talking? No, there’s not, because I, he-man and Wookie expert, iz talkin! She even does the patient wait to speak again bit. It was. Yeah.
He hates feminists and all that, she does, too. She agrees so fast with him I thought I missed it. Nope. Uh huh. I noticed that. I noticed that a lot, because it was a recurring theme in his reviews. She was just there to bolster him or play the zany backup. I noticed that, too. She cuddled various merchandise, acted the ditz while he was SERIOUS FILM CRITIC. I should probably stop noticing such super-obvious shit in a pair of canoodly film critics, eh?
Okay, before I go off into that rabbit hole…
I need to stop watching these. I don’t get anything done, and there’s SO MANY OF THESE. What did so and so say about Black Panther?? What’s their hot take on Jurassic World?? Why is Rei [Rey?] a de-evolution of the Star Wars heroine?? Has the Stars Wars franchise been Disneyfied??
The answer seems to be a resounding fuck yes fuckfuckfuck.
Maybe I should switch to indy art films. Expecting anything from your basic blockbuster…
Ah. There it is. I don’t expect anything from whatever blockbuster or event film I go see at the actual movie theater. I don’t expect anything but some pretty man candy and things that blow up.
I went to Wonder Woman to watch her KICK SOME ASS. That was pretty much the start and end of my feminist agenda there.
Occasionally I might even attend a quiet, prestige-like film, like BlackkKlansman. I might sneak off to Into the Woods.
I might go see Dumbo, this spring, all by myself, because I was sobbing just watching the trailers. [Baby elephants are sad! I grew up on this one. Baby elephants are sad!]
I know the work already that goes into film making. I have actually been on sets, seen what has to happen for a tiny short film. Feature length films, with lots of moving parts, balls gets dropped and then some at times. I’m oddly forgiving of this! I know if you get careless, it looks shitty. Duh.
I know that big films are ruthlessly made and marketed for the money these days. Art has gone bye bye! It’s obvious and yet…man candy and explosions. MAN CANDY AND EXPLOSIONS AND ASS-WHUPPIN’S YA’LL. I expect NOTHING from movies these days. Sad, isn’t it?
Maybe if we as a society demanded more of our readily accessible art, we’d have a better society. Maybe if we stopped giving our money to BIG EXPLOSION MAN CANDY IV, MAN CANDY’S CHRISTMAS BANG BANG then they [Hollywood!] might start making THE GOOD STUFF again.
Like: MAN CANDY’S GREAT BIG REALIZATION THAT HE NEVER TOLD HIS DAD HE LOVED HIM. I’d so watch that! That doesn’t sound like it has those nasty parasites called feminists anywhere near it!
Will I stop clicking on former film school sorts jawing about why the spaceships in the original Stars Wars are superior to the current spaceships of the Disney knockoffs?? Ha ha, no. I’m a creature of compulsion.
I’ll type out a bitter ranty rant then go right back to watching why J.K. Rowling is ruining her own creations film-wise. She’s the new George Lucas! It all swings round to Stars Wars. Every. Single. Time.
Those film-ruining pigslags.
Artsy shot of a rando stream in Eastern Oregon. I know the composition is all wrong but the intent was there. It almost succeeds in a Georgia O’Keefe meets Thomas Kinkade subgenre of post-post-modernist flair.
from Business Insider. Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her iconic role for Halloween.
I went to a movie yesterday. It’s the well-received latest entry into the Halloween franchise. Michael Myers, or Laurie Strode’s brother, escapes while being transported to some hellhole mental facility. Mayhem ensues. Laurie Strode on the warpath. Boom!
No spoilers from me, I promise.
A lovely day, yesterday. A touch cloudy but no rain, not really any wind. Sun. I went to the first showing. There was about two or so other folks there.
I arrived during previews. Saw the one for Glass, the sequel to Unbreakable or the third in the trilogy. Unbreakable, Split and now, Glass. Bruce Willis, James MacAvoy, Samuel Motherfucking Jackson. Um, yes. Yes, please. I don’t care what the story is. Or if there’s a story. Oh and Sarah Paulson. I’m hooked. I’m charmed. I’m big eyes and wanna see that.
Some preview for a movie that already came and went like a wet dog fart on a rainy day. Blarg.
Halloween starts up. Two earnest British podcasters seek to interview Laurie Strode’s brother, who remarkably, doesn’t talk. So he’s rather an odd choice for a podcast. Ahem. They’re into examining old crimes or something, for fresh angles. Whatever.
When does the rampaging start??
There’s some good stuff happening right off the bat. The new Loomis is an earnest sort, who cautions caution with Myers. He’s not, however, in the Loomis mold. As in Myers should have been quietly killed eons ago.
We only see Myers from the back, or slightly from the side. We never see the face. Which is highly effective. We see this boogie man has aged. Now. Is he a real man or something else? As anyone who’s sat through all the Halloween movies knows…he’s been stabbed, shot, stabbed and shot, blah blah, and always gets up again. Like an Energizer bunny playing Jesus. A really awful version of Jesus. Ahem!
Yet, he gets captured, somehow, alive,. placed back into some mental hospital to await escaping for yet another round of hide the big knife in the stupid teens.
Seriously, if you start taking apart the Halloween movies, you won’t enjoy them. That’s pretty much true of any movie lately. They seem to run on people not doing that, ever.
Don’t look too closely at the structure! Okay, I won’t!
But.
I enjoyed this outing.
My first glimpse of Jamie Lee Curtis in her most famous role…tears. She had lost everything, she lives holed up in the woods, behind lock and key and bars and video surveillance. She’s paranoid, twitchy, grim, overly prepared. She’s waiting. She’s in that closet from the very first movie that started all this madness– waiting with a coat hanger twisted into a weapon. Except this time she’s got America’s choice for any problem– a gun. Lots of guns. A cache of guns. We see her practicing. She’s rigged her house as well, for defense and offense. The state took her daughter away. Laurie has a granddaughter.
Oooh, it’s going to be the Strode women against their own brother, uncle and great-uncle. It’s family versus family.
When I realized this, tears. Tears.
You see, yesterday. In America. A bunch of bombs were sent to various high-ranking Democrats, news agencies blamed for all the fake news, and George Soros, who’s allegedly behind everything to do with protesting or immigrants or…yeah. Almost thirty seconds after this was reported, conspiracy theory/ies. The Democrats sent these bombs to themselves to drum up voters to vote for them.
Sympathy bombs.
None of the bombs went off, after all. They were, however, live actual bombs.
Now, I read where the IRA, in the seventies, were also inept and clumsy at sending out bombs at first. Then they got super-good at it. They improved. So.
I’m watching a traumatized older woman taking on the thing that traumatized her. It digs into some primal areas.
I watched a woman testify before the entire country about abuses done to her, then watched as that same woman got turned into a demon. Who now can’t go home because of credible death threats.
I watch as Nuremberg-like rallies demand an end to America as we know it, and embrace a one-party system with the boot on the neck of anyone who doesn’t agree with them on everything.
from Politico.
I watch as the basic framework of my country get torn down, turned into kindling, then get a match set to that kindling. Whooosh.
I watch as minority groups get targeted. The latest is transgender people.
I feel helpless and powerless. All the damn time. Anxious and angry and ready to embrace not only a vote them out mentality, but a I want to hurt them mentality.
See those that are humiliating and hurting others so gleefully right now be hurt and humiliated themselves. In public. So I can applaud and cheer.
I want so and so led off in handcuffs to the nearest federal prison. I want them led off naked. I want to see them whipped and chained and naked and trembling and afraid.
But hey, back to the movie!
It’s a deeply satisfying movie. It hits all the horror movie boxes quote well.
Menacing villain figure. You can’t get more iconic than Michael Myers. When he puts on that mask, you give a sigh of happiness. There it is! Ah!
We care about the people that are in harm’s way. There’s a great scene between the granddaughter’s friend and the kid she’s babysitting. It’s warm, honest, funny and sweet.
We get to know the sheriff, who was Laurie Strode’s babysitting charge on that infamous night. Now grown up and facing the same monster on the same holiday night.
We experience the skepticism and then utter terrifying belief of the two podcasters as they have their moment with Myers. It’s a doozy.
And then there’s Our Heroine, the equally iconic Laurie motherfucking Strode.
She’s mad, mean, focused and ready for business.
Hot damn!
She’s not shouting masculine-ish belligerent slogans into the air this fucking time. Oh no. She’s waiting to act.
The time for chest-pounding antics is over. She’s loaded for bear. A boogie man bear.
Yes, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. There were hints and outright LOOK AT THIS RIGHT HERE moments that hearkened back to the original. I didn’t roll my eyes at the dialogue. Much. There were clunkers, sure, but not that many that I remember.
There was actually not that much gore. Some but far less than other lesser made movies that skipped the scares in favor of showing gallons of faked blood.
This movie centered on two players who thirsted to face each other. And it worked. Oh did it work for this watcher.
So, my country might be on the brink of an actual second civil war but at least the Halloween movie got most of it right. That’s something. I’m glad I went. I’m a Jamie Lee Curtis fan from way back. I haven’t been to a horror movie at an actual theatre since…can’t remember when. I want to see Star is Born, yet I went to Halloween.
Which evoked the oddest emotional responses of actual tears.
Maybe I’m mourning for my country while watching an older woman take on the actual boogie man. Taking on her own brother. With her own daughter and granddaughter at her side.
Maybe I got a bit wet-eyed over watching an actual family feud taking place before my eyes. Fought with weapons, screams, blood and fire.
I really do hope this is the last Halloween movie. That this is end of it. That everyone now gets to rest. In peace.
from Movieweb. Granddaughter Allyson–Andi Matichak. Matriarch Laurie Strode–Jamie Lee Curtis. Daughter Karen–Judy Greer
Adam Driver and John David Washington in Spike Lee’s BlackkKlansman
I took a trip. To Meridian, Idaho. Why, you might suddenly ask yourself. To go see a movie. Why??
Ah, because BlackkKlansman was not playing in a town near me. Mama Mia 2, sure! Spike Lee film, no. That’s fine. You gotta show movies that will turn a profit, I get it.
I’m totally a capitalist. I have that word as my tramp stamp.
I found the place, with about ten minutes or so to spare. The directions from MapQuest were shitty. Why didn’t it just send me to Millennial Avenue, as the Majestic is RIGHT THERE. Why send me to this barely marked street, then give me WRONG TURNS? I swear to Baby Jesus and Satan’s Nipple Piercings the MapQuest site thought, hey, let’s do something funny to the hermit girl.
Great big nice place. Comfy red seats that reclined. Great!
About three people at that first showing. Wheee! Saw some very earnest trailers and learned Sigourney Weaver’s first name is Susan.
Susan.
Some things you can’t unlearn.
So. Briefly, the story– a rookie cop, in Colorado Springs, CO, infiltrates the local branch of the KKK, or the Organization, run nationally at that time by, wait for it, David Duke. Ron Stallworth sees an actual ad in the local paper and calls the number, setting up a meeting with the local good ole boys. Problem! Ron is black.
And the Klan, yeah, is against any skin color but European. So Ron gets another cop– Darth Vader’s grandson, no less– to pretend to be him. He even uses his “white boy” voice on the phone, because yep, you can tell a black person from a real American just by listening to em butcher the King’s English. Jive talk, ya’ll. Hijinks ensue!
Topher Grace as David Duke
We get to watch Flip or Philip, who’s Jewish, hang around these good ole boys and good ole gals. Oh yes, the Klan doesn’t exactly like Judaism, either. Or immigrants!
The KKK does seem quite a boy-heavy operation in the seventies. The women folk pretty much bring in the platters of spray cheese and saltine bites. Then speak with real hope that they, too, will be able to yell rape during a protest or march…sort of exaggerating there, but not really. That’s the impression I got from those shiny Klan gals. The women libbers were going hot and heavy during this time period, that seemed absent from the Klan Barbies. Kind of like now…mm.
Something that stuck out, to me, was the contrast between Kendrickson’s wife [Ashley Atkinson] and Patrice Dumas [Laura Harrier]. The good wife versus the liberated, gonna change the world firebrand. Because we still have that to this day. Who is considered a good woman and who’s not. The sexism, mm.
The ones who act like ladies and the rest of em, eh, boys, dudes, mens of all kinds? We never seem to shed that one. Ever. Okay!
Watching Flip flip that holocaust denier [Kendrickson] with hey, the Holocaust was awesome sauce, amen. Uncomfortable barely manages to cuddle that moment. Oh yes, the N word got thrown around, whee. And all the other words we pretend don’t exist anymore and that no one says them. Whee.
There’s of course some violence planned, some good ole cross-burnin’, not wearing the hoods in public. The Klan remade for modern times! The same turd gilded over with shit glitter. Way to go, Mr. Duke.
from Wikipedia. The lynching of Laura Nelson. May 1911.
Then the ending, which marries what was going on THEN to what’s going on NOW. Boom!
Cinematography, it had that, a lot. I had to love that bright red VW Beetle tootling about town. Dang. The plaid and vests and guns against the Colorado vistas. My my.
The movie.
I liked it.
That’s my in-depth, went to college and everything take on it. Was it on the nose, in your face, not trying to be subtle? Well. Yep, yep, it was.
Every man I am related to has that shirt. Not even kidding.
And it worked.
If you can totally ignore the crap around you, you might say this movie was a bit too much or too broadly painted. If you can ignore the rather obvious rise of white nationalism in America and elsewhere, you’re probably at Mama Mia, we made a sequel! or watching reruns of Bonanza.
The racists were not presented as balanced or that deep. Cartoonish. Stereotypes. Except, eh. Well…!
Except.
I grew up to talk like that. I heard it a lot.
People don’t talk like that guy in the movie, I hear. And then I just laugh.
Yeah, people talk like that, people are talking like that right now, this minute. The string of words for people not white or Christian. The desperate frothing about taking back our country. The rabid weasel screeching about them people, them people. Build the wall! America First! Shithole countries. Actual Nazis are running for political offices in America. Nazis. Real ones.
Fuck a duck. Come on!
Jasper Pakkonen as Felix Kendrickson. This could be from my family Christmas Eve gala.
This happened near the ending of BlackkKlansman.
A story about a lynching, a real one, interposed with Duke, played by that guy from That Seventies Show. Who should probably get some sort of acting award, because he NAILED IT. That’s my professional writer take, uh huh.
Harry Belafonte telling a story about America.
Eerie, gut-wrenching, hands clenched moment. The hoarse tired voice of the storyteller [Harry Belafonte], the smooth reasonable speech about hating and killing people not of your race or creed [Topher Grace].
The back and forth between the two speakers. Taut, quiet film scene.
Breath being held to hear the two better kinda movie moment.
Remember that speech of Quint’s in Jaws? Yeah.
I was a kid when all that was going on with the fall out of the Civil Rights movement. The seventies where America started to lose her sparkle as the GREATEST THING SINCE JESUS.
The sixties gave us protests and love ins and freedom rides.
Seventies–Nixon bruising, quite badly, the “sacredness” of the office of the President of the United States. We can’t trust the president anymore. Watergate. Deep Throat. Washington Post. Oh. My.
Vietnam.
The end of good wages and the advent of insurance companies taking over health care. Thanks, Nixon!
I’m not a kid now. We have our own updated version of FatNixon, our own kneejerks to people losing their rights. Get over it, snowflakes. Lock Her Up! Make America Great Again. Drain the swamp. Free speech, libtards! Clean coal! The intolerant left. Witch hunt. There is no Russian collusion. Dogs. Animals.
We have those standing up for some stuff and things, in some cases silently kneeling. Which has set off a shitstorm of retread-ish screeches about hating the flag, the military and America itself. [Get a haircut, hippie!]
from the Mercury News
That same ole Klan shit now called Alt Right with fucking David Duke still here, still making those soft reasonable speeches about hating everyone not white or a Christian. Richard Spenser doesn’t have Duke’s charisma, ouch.
I think Spike Lee hit this one out of the park and hit the rotting side of the moon with it. I also picked up a new, horrible bit of slang. Mississippi wind chime. Guess what that stands for.
I don’t know the artist for this. All I could find was Hangman’s Tree but it did come up for a search for Mississippi wind chimes.
ANN WUEHLER 