Your pseudo Lynchian social commentary movie isn't good.

I had some hopes the Neon Demon would be worth checking out. I'd put it on the list but only bothered with it today when one of the Red Letter Media guys gave it (too much I know now) praise. Spoilers, by the way. I'm here to vent, remember?

This seeks to be Mulholland Drive if that were about models rather than desperate actresses from small towns with little to no backstory or family to speak of. Only the tension created by Lynch was perfect and the mystery of Mulholland Drive was captivating. The Neon Demon becomes insufferable in its own desperation to create some kind of stylish, clever commentary on the modeling/fashion industry as a whole, and consequentially winds up being almost parody.

While the men in the film are framed as predators and leches, they wind up being less of a threat than our main character's professional competition. Keanu Reeves generally fails coming off as the vile motel manager. The hopeful photographer boyfriend is harmless, almost milquetoast, and only gets stepped on by our main, Jesse (Fanning).

Ellie Fanning obviously has a background in modelling so she's so convincing in this part from that perspective, but she's given fuck all to work with in the guise of crappy dialogue and a vague script that may have resulted in some improvisation. The heavy-handed cliches of her catching the eye of the otherwise the unenthusiastic fashion designer and wowing the agent who's seen plenty of girls before her who were only "good" makes her less compelling and more boring. So you don't care about what happens to her, especially when the narcissism kicks in. The visuals cease to be interesting or intriguing. There was a weird Zeldaesque triforce pattern that didn't pertain to anything, except maybe the trio who eventually descend on Jesse. Jena Malone is more capable than this too, she can do a lot but again she's doing the whole indie gay for pay thing, and while you find out she has more to her life as a makeup artist, being a mortician's assistant doing the makeup for dead bodies, you discover the real reason for this and you're left sickened by it. She has to be left alone with a dead body after Fanning rejects her aggressive advances (yes there's lesbian attempted rape here too) and the body has to fucking suffer for this rejection while you're supposed to be distracted by Malone fantasising over Fanning with the juxtaposing shots. The rating guideline describes this as aberrant sexual behaviour. I describe it as appallingly unnecessary.

The cannibalism aspect is only slightly more understandable when you think of the cliches of "you'll be eaten alive out there" or "bathing in the blood of your enemies", but again this is all done for cheap and schlocky grotesquery  and it's annoying. The occult overtones as well weren't all that creative, okay yeah the three "victims" of Jesse's success decide to join forces and be done with her, but there's no real sense of them being drawn to demonic behaviour until you see the tattoos on Ruby's (Malone's) body. The drawn out, laborious, self indulgent conclusion isn't a satisfactory payoff either. You have no feelings for anyone except maybe the hapless Gigi who's a plastic surgeons wet dream but fails to hold any uniqueness and thus loses the adoration of the industry, and you're meant to suppose that in her madness she goes along with disposing of Jesse. We discover the demon in the end, that being Sarah, but I found her more compelling when she was sulking from her rejection, and at least her taste for human blood is established here when she's lapping up Jesse's blood from an open wound. Sarah's played by an Australian model Abby Lee, and she had moments that were quite good, but again the dialogue is stilted and badly delivered. No one is given a chance to really shine here despite all of four girls being relatively or highly capable performers, most of all Fanning and Malone.

Don't go into this expecting pure abstract imagery or an interesting story line. Even the coven/witch/trio imagery is unimaginative if that is what it pertained to. The minimalist approach in terms of never seeing the adoring crowds at the fashion show, or really anyone in the way of extras for the fact it's set in LA, seems to hint more at a money saving aspect than anything. It's a pointless exercise and it would leave most sensible people bored, annoyed and/or disgusted rather than riveted or engaged. The score becomes overbearing, again with Lynch he knows how to use Angelo Badalamenti's scores effectively and beautifully in films, you're never inundated with it like you are with Neon Demon's techno/atmospheric soundtrack. I was extremely disappointed in this all around. You're not going to get an interesting think piece on the modelling industry, like I said, it plays almost like parody and can't be taken seriously at all.

How a Thumbnail Got Me Obsessed with a Movie

I get super bored when I'm looking for movies and a thumbnail of some young guy used for the movie Teenage Cocktail was, pathetically, enough to make me click. I didn't use an "accepted" service initially but after I found this on Netflix I've watched it probably once every six months since I found it.

The twist is a little loose and predictable but it's still the beginning of a harrowing denouement that's so hard to stomach after the very safe (by comparison) moments of the film. This is an amazing teenage romance story that doesn't play on the leads both being girls in the way you'd think.

Annie is the new girl at school, but the movie artfully distills this fact into a quick montage of scenes involving an altercation in the hallway and a chat with the rather hilarious guidance counsellor, who has a few golden moments in his interactions later in the movie. The cold open has already established our heroines are going to be in an accident. We introduce their nemesis early on too, and he's woven back into the story in the second act. Jules and Annie's relationship grows organically, but I feel one of the taglines for the movie gives something crucial away about Jules. She's definitely framed as someone who can be manipulative and we're worried for poor, wholesome Annie, even with her youngish parents (it's apparent Annie's mom had her very young and she's struggling being the cool mom who's not entirely cool with everything Annie does, including possibly having a girlfriend). Annie's dad is kindly but altogether too soft, the parenting dynamic is definitely not good for Annie with their "Won't tell your mom" and "haven't told your dad" lines. They have a younger son who's more well behaved, and annoying to Annie, but I love his performance and the dynamic between him and his dad. He delivers a pretty hilarious nun joke I won't spoil here.

Jules meanwhile has absent parents; a mother who took off when she was twelve and a dad we never meet. She's practically living alone, her doors are unlocked and she's out doing whatever she pleases. She's a dancer longing to escape their boring suburban town, and her plan to bail is brought up not long after she and Annie meet. Jules is already making coin as a tame camgirl who doesn't do much but lie around her underwear and a kitty mask, and convincing Annie to play along takes very little. But when things go awry and they need to make a quick getaway before the school hands down punishments for their alleged involvement in underage porn, they call upon Frank, the predator pool cleaner who's already got a history of cheating on his wife, to do them a few favours. Frank's son might look up to him but his beleaguered wife isn't too fond of their kid aspiring to take up pool cleaning with Frank. He's unhinged by Jules and Annie's deceptions and does little to nothing to save his relationship with his wife, but we don't see the catastrophe looming.

The ethereal, soft aesthetic of the shots matched with the gentle, synth-heavy but kind of kitchy 50s flavour soundtrack make this such a dreamlike journey right up until the nightmare ending. I think this has found more love via Netflix than it may have done after SXSW. All the characters seem real and flawed enough. You don't entirely buy Jules being abandoned but she's meant to have far less boundaries than Annie, and she just wants to be loved. She's not a tough girl. But you could question her motives right up until the very end.

It isn't making a statement on young parents (I'm assuming they're in their late 30s, as am I, could've had a teenage kid by now if I'd been knocked up at 18), it just works with the narrative her parents are young and don't want to be the assholes their parents were, but don't want their kids to wind up hurt. It's a very believable story, to a point. I think the ending had to be graphic to make the exploits of the two girls seem like they were too easy to get away with; or too good to be true. Frank's a product of his own shitty choices, and sadly, so are the girls. So the ambiguous ending makes sense. Nobody wins.

This wasn't a story you could tell with a boy/girl romance, but it doesn't demonise the same sex relationship aspect. It's touching and genuine and simple, and tragic.

Sequels we never asked for - late Halloween edition.

Hocus Pocus managed to cement itself as a Halloween staple and cult classic despite initially under-performing. 25 years later, a new generation of kids are all caught up in the spirit along with the original fans, which is great. And of course there were discussions of a sequel that now seems to have been reduced to a book.

Book or graphic novel sequels seem to be big now they're a safer, cheaper way of playing with an idea that wouldn't work as a movie or be as popular. Disney decided to release a book that was one part retelling of the movie with added pieces of info, and two parts new story that could've been a Goosebumps story with no relation to the movie whatsoever.

The reviews were all unanimous in regards to their relative dislike of the new story, it affected some ratings. The biggest complaint was making the main character (Max and Alison's daughter - I think they were playing to the audience's hope this high school romance actually survived) a lesbian. Which is fine, but according to sources, they oversold this aspect and probably wasted character development for another classic Disney "LOOK AT HOW INCLUSIVE WE ARE!" moment.

On one hand, I appreciate them doing this to a point, but they could've been subtle about it. Their sexuality shouldn't be such an all encompassing thing, LGBTQ audiences are already hip to pandering. But the book was aimed at a younger audience, so of course you had parents bitching about not having a warning about it. The book doesn't owe you a warning. Rating systems do not have "contains homosexual content" because if they did, people's heads would fucking explode. If you don't want your kids reading it fine, but they're going to find this shit out and just because you're uncomfortable about explaining that to your kids, doesn't mean life owes you a "gay warning" on every piece of media content. If these authors can't write well-rounded characters who just happen to be gay, you'll forever be criticised for overselling a gay character. If your dialogue ends up coming off as "Oh, and by the way did we mention...?" you have to shut up at some point. Gay people like other shit. They have other facets. Write a character who's into heavy metal, comics, role playing and reading who just happens to be gay. Their sexuality shouldn't really be the peak of their personality.

Meanwhile, the hilarious part were people were so bent about this being sexually driven when the original story obsesses over the aspect of virginity (largely male virginity, because we're not even discussing Alison's status, so are we meant to assume she's a megawhore and ineligible for resurrecting witches? They gloss over Dani being an obvious virgin due to age, perhaps the writers thought people would question this if they didn't bring it up. Way to not trust your audience, brah) No, the girls are painted as "practical" and too suspicious and the silly boy lights the candle. I think they were starved for the criteria on who could or could not light the candle, or were playing into some pagan attitude to virginity - it's a clause to spells and curses, I guess. I don't know. But these readers were acting like the movie was 100% wholesome and didn't bring sex into anything. You had boy-thirsty Sarah, Billy the cheating bastard, who we all end up adoring because he switches sides and looks after Dani, and someone in a Madonna outfit. Did Disney forget she almost got arrested because they didn't want her performing simulated masturbation onstage? It's got sex in it, people. It's pretty damn racy for a Disney movie. And other people mentioned the smashed cat and child eating as well. So... yeah. But then, most animations were selling love and marrying off sixteen year olds to the first man they saw.

I don't adore this movie, I have another sad, personal reason for loving it but I see why other people hold it dear as a Halloween tradition. Of all the holidays, Halloween makes the least amount of sense to me. I don't appreciate it's becoming a thing over here when it used to be glossed over. We didn't have enough houses on our street to validate trick or treating until I was in high school. We didn't do anything at school for it. I think I went to one haunted house thing. I don't like zombies or skeletons, I especially hate skeleton unitards. I liked witches and vampires but I had a huge problem with silly costumes and depictions of them. I refused to dress as a long nosed witch for someone's dress up party but managed to hire a fuckin awesome Morticia dress that some idiot spilled cordial on, which everyone else found fucking hilarious. (Apparently my anger was a source of huge amusement when I was fifteen). But I won't rob anyone of their fun I leave people to it. The 25th Anniversary special was cliched and hokey as fuck, I skipped through most of it, but the audience was largely millennials, who were (should've been) mostly virgins. Hopefully it made virginity cool for a while.

But this book is a pointless cash-in, it looks like a tome and I have no interest in reading it. It also got compared to my most hated book series. Apparently writing in present tense is no longer fashionable or acceptable. This book didn't have to try hard to be good, though. It simply had to exist.

Turns out, it wasn't worth the wait.

What Not To Watch

If you want me to recommend movies, it's easier for me to list what you shouldn't see. There are movies out there that exist to shock, or appall. They exist to make you uncomfortable, and pivot around an disgusting premise, like Human Centipede, which I personally refuse to see since I was filled with revulsion just from the trailer.

But I have a list which I'll present here with reasons why you probably wouldn't want to see these films. Most of them I did enjoy, but one caused a co-viewer too much distress to the point you're blamed for that. As in why did you make me watch that? I don't make anyone do anything (I hadn't known the explicitness of the content at the time, to be fair. I went in with a vague understanding of the theme). I tend to see these movies when I'm alone purely so I can't have other people affect my viewing with complaints. You'll also note none of the below are horror/slasher/thriller films. They're all dramas or black comedies.

A Serbian Film
I personally don't feel this movie needs to exist. It doesn't endear me to the plight of the country the subject of the film revolves around. By wanting to illustrate how Serbians are "fucked from birth", you have to condone deplorable things done to an animatronic baby, and a child. You have to basically watch a string of snuff films and you're expected to find the final scene "ironic". It's a genuine assault on the senses. Most of the worst frames in question are burned into my memory. If anyone had asked me if they should see this, I'd warn them and dissuade them, but if my warning fails to put them off I won't take responsibility for their future trauma. I brought this upon myself from a friend's Facebook status simply decrying "NEWBORN PORN". My mistake. But I do tend to want to see things to form my own opinion. (PS I don't need to watch/read everything to form an opinion over whether it's bad). I mentioned this film in my Duck Butter rant as a case in point I endured A Serbian Film and not this Netflix monstrosity.

The Doom Generation
First Greg Araki film on the list. I don't particularly think the acting in this movie is stellar, it's meant to be the second film of a trilogy that ends with Nowhere, which is markedly better but not great either, and beginning with Totally Fucked Up, which I've not seen. Doom Generation begins as a romp and ends with rape. We're meant to follow three disaffected youths on this misadventure that involves the FBI and leaves room for a threesome. I could probably watch this again but not enjoy it for it's overuse of weird cliches and running gags. i.e. everything they buy costs 6.66 and the threesome's last names are literally Red, White and Blue. (I only just now learnt this from the Wikipedia entry - yes I depend on this heavily without access to these films). I told people not to watch it when I saw they rented it and I hope they ignored me, but I also watched this in high school so I was 17 and it had an R rating. My mother decided to drop her stance by that age on movies after she wouldn't let me watch Terminator 2 at 9 and worried about my watching Gremlins at 7, when I wasn't bothered by the movie, but she took me to bed to read me a story, probably to make her feel better. Either way, you're not missing a masterpiece by missing Doom Generation.

Mysterious Skin
Second Greg Araki film, which I did enjoy but haven't watched in many years. It's as confronting as Happiness, or Palindromes to a lesser extent, which I'll add to my list here for the sake of argument as a double bill. It's one of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's best movies. He took to this role with finesse, while Michelle Trachtenberg is much less compelling and was probably at the end of her Buffy stint so I always found her so hit and miss in terms of dramatic acting. Mysterious Skin is graphic as it is touching. Depictions of pedophilia always make for problematic films, you could hint at Lolita for a comparison, where the child is more the instigator or willing participant, but in this case the child is the victim despite their predilections, the adult is the perpetrator, and the victim has to console another child who had blacked out the abuse and mistook it for an alien abduction. It's a maturer film and handled well with the arc of the two boys realising their actual victimhood through a series of incidents throughout the film. There isn't a solid narrative per se, but I do like this film and if you're willing to see beyond the explicit content to the story itself, it's worth the journey to the end. But it's difficult and discomforting so I wouldn't blame anyone for checking out before the end of the first act.

Happiness/Palindromes
Both films are from Todd Solondz, another of my favourite directors, and both feature pedophilic themes. If you go back to my review of Palindromes, you'll get a rundown on how I felt so I won't go much further into this. I think Happiness is the harder of the two films to watch. You can only identify with the main characters on a small, fundamental level because they're presented as real humans with needs and internal conflicts who are in search of love but from literally all the wrong places. But the needs of one character, once they're played out, you can't sympathise beyond that point. It was suggested the molestation of the boy wasn't carried out when we cut away, but the person who said this missed vital info in the following scene of the boy's arrogant, homophobic father actually getting mad at the boy for not realising what's happened. It's the father's comments to the pedophile about his son acting like a gay that crystalise the pedophile's plans to have the boy sleep over. And the pedophile commits another act of indecency which gets him caught and arrested. Again, it's a confronting film and most of the laughs come from unease. Philip Seymour Hoffman could do no wrong, his pervert character whose wish to rape Lara Flynn Boyel's character, (who is desperate for something horrible to happen to her to lend authenticity to her maudlin poetry), is so close to being granted that the opportunity turns them both off completely, thus further humanising him. The stories intertwine through the three sisters, Joy being the most sympathetic since she fails to keep a relationship and is conned into sleeping with a student from her adult education class, all the while being pitied by her sister, the oblivious wife of the pedophile, for being single. The two of them look up to Lara Flynn Boyel's character for being rich and successful despite her dissatisfaction, but as in transpires, none of them have a perfect life. There's plenty going on in this film but whether you want to endure it to find the humanity within the main characters is another matter.

Ken Park/Kids
Films with controversy attract me as well. I knew about Kids when I was a kid, but I hadn't really understood how involved it was in terms of visuals until I saw it, I just knew of the controversy. Ken Park was banned here, I believe it still is, and a predominant movie reviewer was arrested for trying to screen the film for a small audience, the charges being dropped due to the backlash over the overwrought censorship laws in Australia. I've watched both films a couple of times. Kids is remarkable given a kid basically wrote it, but I never know how to feel about Harmony Korine's movies. (I still think of him as a kid and he's in his 40s now). Larry Clark has pervy eye - there are shots in Bully that are obscenely unnecessary. He seems to justify his films containing teenage sex as art but you can't trust this completely. However, ignoring that teenagers have sex, do drugs, run around at night and disobey their parents (be they ineffectual or oppressive) is a gross oversight on the viewer's part. It's ten o'clock, and yes your children are fucking their brains out, probably contracting illnesses due to poor sex ed practices, and are possibly even overdosing in bathtubs. They're probably down the skate park rolling joints and beating other kids with their skateboards. Kids was a wake up call style movie, and yes, the protracted rape scene in the end is very uncomfortable to watch considering the consequences being played out. Shot around the time the AIDS epidemic was still a major issue, where the misconception of it being a gay disease kept people complacent, Kids had a hell of a lot to say about the fact children weren't immune from this and covering their ears or turning a blind eye was a huge mistake. You're left with the opposing factors of Rosario Dawson's character being unsafe in her promiscuity and not getting infected, and Chloë Sevigny only having unprotected sex once with the shitty boy Lothario Telly, who's already carrying the virus and is running around town nailing virgins because it's his thing.(the irony with his character being he thinks sucking nitrous is dangerous). So then you're stuck in a "race against time" narrative before Telly hits up his next conquest and subjects her to the same fate. This thread keeps the film from being completely exploitative and shocking for the sake of it.

The major problem with Ken Park is the lengthy explicit scenes between the three main teens, and with the initial scenes between the bored housewife and one of the teens, Shawn, who's dating her teenage daughter. You're supposed to be shocked by the image of them sitting down to dinner with the oblivious husband and daughter, and neither party are caught out, but there's no other resolution to this story line other than you believe they'll keep the culprits will continue to sleep together until one of them (the housewife probably) gets bored. The boy is consenting to this but the wife is deciding to be irresponsible from her own dissatisfaction. You feel worse for Peaches, whose father is so obsessed with her deceased mother, he won't condone her giving her boyfriend a blowjob. Even after the physical and mental abuse he inflicts upon her, including forcing her through an ersatz marriage ceremony to him where she's wearing her mother's wedding gown, this doesn't keep her from continuing her sexual relationship with Shawn and Claude, the other main character of the film. None of them claim to be together romantically, they're wasting time because they live in a white trash town where some kid killed himself. Tate is the most broken kid in the film, who co-exists but doesn't interact with the other three teens. While his passive nature around the neighbourhood girls playing skip rope makes him appear innocuous, he's stuck in his own paraphilic tendencies which he doesn't apologise for, while tormenting his grandparents, whom he's living with, for invading his privacy and supposedly cheating on Scrabble. That last argument ends badly. Needless to say he's a sociopath and hardly deserving of any compassion for his disposition. Claude is bullied by his stepdad, his later actions prompting Claude to leave his apathetic and pregnant mother who hasn't defended him. No one wins in this film. The punchline may as well be you can either waste your time fucking and doing drugs or blow your brains out, like Ken Park does at the start of the film. I think the film had an agenda to paint a picture of lower income suburban towns where kids are destined for so little, like working grills at fast food joints or winding up pregnant.  "We might as well grow up, be adults and die," as Veronica Sawyer opined to a generation of disaffected youths back in the 80s. (PS I won't be watching the TV show, by the way, even if Greg Araki directed two episodes - otherwise I'll be here ranting for days).

If I think of any other films, I'll let you know. But for now, take the comments above as fair warning you're walking into some tricky subject matter watching any of these films.

The Bling Ring and taking me out of the movie

I keep going back to this movie with mixed to positive feelings coming out. I like the style of it revolving around the supposed Vanity Fair piece and the interviews of the culprits. The name changing was probably for legal reasons. But what I appreciated was the choosing of lesser known actors for some of the culprits' roles. And while Leslie Mann wasn't a no-name at the time of the filming, I didn't feel like her inclusion jarred me as much as the roles played by Emma Watson and Gavin Rossdale, the latter's acting being so profoundly poor by comparison to the kids around him that his familiarity isn't the biggest issue I have. But I won't go into that. I don't really understand why he was cast in the first place.

On the whole it's a pretty good film, it's constructed well as a timeline of events, beginning with a "how did they get here?" montage that doesn't feel hackneyed and ending with the publicity fallout and legal strife the Ring fell into. I particularly like Katie Chang's narcissistic Rebecca playing the ringleader role, she does falter a little to begin with but shines towards the end when the true attention seeking reasons for her crimes become apparent, along with her selfish compulsive lying. Israel Broussad was also a relative unknown who suited the notion of Marc being a shy gay boy who is seduced by Rebecca's magnetic and crazy personality while glossing over the real life counterpart's drug history and vague involvement in movies. Claire Julien and Tarissa Farmiga were probably the most convincing in their roles of bored ring members who are as callous and unconcerned as Rebecca but are happy to tag along on the sprees as a response to their ennui and dissatisfaction with their already rebellious lifestyles.

But it's Emma Watson's role of film drawcard as Nicki Moore, the famewhore of the group whose real life counterpart used the scandal for personal gain. Her rather desperate attempt to be convincing at a Valley Girl off the back of her PotterFame doesn't quite make it there for me. She sticks out like a sore thumb, and I imagine the weave was meant to look trashy, but it turned her character into the most try-hard among the ensemble. If she was going for intolerable, she nailed it. She doesn't seek to gain audience sympathy, she's probably as bad as Rebecca, but she dominates the second half of the film when the narrative centres around Marc as our entry point into the conception of the Bling Ring. Watson doesn't sell it for me, she almost gets there a few times, yet her next scene blows that up and I'm back to being frustrated with her. I don't find her to be a terribly good actress in all honesty. She can pull of the spoiled brat who convinces everyone around her somehow she's the victim in that she "attracted" these people into her life and has a lesson to learn from this, her disingenuous bullshit is definitely hard to swallow. Just her performance keeps falling short.

The "stars" of the film are the victims, but when you realise they were all living in the hills with open doors and easy access to their shit, you can't feel sorry for them. Paris Hilton really tried to milk sympathy, and look gracious by allowing Coppola to film in her mansion for the sake of authenticity and to have five minutes on screen in one of the club scenes. I felt a twinge for her when she stated the Ring stole something of her grandmother's which was irreplaceable, but the fact remains she has an excess of shit and was stupid enough to allow these repeated robberies to occur. The film doesn't present us with anything close to an opposing or even positive viewpoint of Hilton. You come out feeling little to no sympathy for her or the other victims because they're filthy rich and can afford to replace all their shit even without the insurance that shouldn't have paid out for them having easy access to their shit in the first place. There are "civilians" being robbed initially, but again it's people with big houses and unlocked doors and cars. You're not encouraged to like any of the characters or real life celebrities, besides Marc, who's essentially betrayed by Rebecca and is the softest and kindest member of the Ring who was just looking for social acceptance.

It's a beautifully presented film about excess and irresponsibility that you can use as a vicarious window into each robbery. It's a ride you're on until shit gets uncomfortable. But the moments of poignancy, like when Marc asks Rebecca if she'd ever rob him, aren't conveyed well enough to be thought provoking. The car crashes are convincing and the tension mounts in the right places, but it's an imperfect piece probably not up to Coppola's standards. Definitely check it out though. 

If your trailer...

1. Makes me cringe
2. Fails to make me laugh
3. Fails to move me or interest me
4. Includes mentions of anything I've come to despise
5. Contains spoilers, either in regards to plot, theme or allegory
6. is basically a full synopsis that reveals most of the movie or leaves me able to guess the ending.

I won't watch your movie.  Think about how you want to present this film and don't give me some overstuffed or underwhelming trailer that will fail to make me interested. It's not hard to create a trailer that covers all the bases without ruining half the movie or giving me tonnes of jokes. Oh and don't give me ten seconds of test footage and call that a trailer too, NETFLIX. You're not even trying anymore.

That Thing You Do Does Everything to Me.

I could come here and trash movies but I think most reviewers like to stop and look at a film they love unconditionally or unironically. It's usually something woefully underrated that didn't get the recognition it deserved. It wasn't successful here, I found a lot of people haven't heard of it, including a particular host of a morning music variety show who didn't know it when John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants brought it up, but it's still an amazing and well-made film.

I'm talking about That Thing You Do, and to call this a guilty pleasure would be an insult. It's a genuinely good movie worthy of the praise it's received, whereas a guilty pleasure would infer it shouldn't be loved as much as you love it. But everyone should love this film, because it's that lovable.

I have the extended cut on DVD now which I've yet to watch, I'm saving it for a day I'm really in the mood. But if you want wall to wall feel-good without the massive cringe factor of most romantic comedies, if you still want a touch of drama and realism thrown in, and you want a genuinely good story, it's all right here. You're missing out.

Aesthetically it's a little polished for a movie set in the 60s, most movies from the 90s set in this period are a little too colourful but no less convincing, (see Matinee, another film of a similar bent and style that went horribly underrated and missed. It's delightful but not as fun as That Thing You Do). Tom Hanks took to directing this, I believe as his debut as director and he also wrote the screenplay, and he nails the pushy but benevolent manager Mr White, who adopts the Oneders and tells them to go with the Wonders since everyone's pronouncing it O-Needers, which is a great running gag.

Liv Tyler and Charlize Theron both have that amazing timeless look that make them perfect for their roles as Guy's respective love interest (Faye) and current girlfriend (Tina) who's a little bored with him and eventually leaves him for her hunky dentist. The love story is subtle, with our hero Guy not in competition with Jimmy for Faye, he simply respects her as his friend's girl, while Jimmy doesn't appreciate her at all. We don't see Guy and Jimmy coming to blows over Faye, she simply realises who her right guy is (pun intended), but also distances herself from Jimmy with her own bold statement, Guy doesn't have to intervene to rescue her.

Ethan Embry and Steve Zahn give the best comic relief moments as TB Player (the Base Player - a joke I hadn't picked up on) and Lenny, both of them wanting fame but never taking it as seriously as Jimmy. They're along for the ride while Jimmy wants a career as a real musician, and Guy's sort of aimless but loving the experience of being famous, if only for a moment. Capturing the very essence of the one hit wonder bands who just disappeared, the bands you always ended asking, "What ever happened to...?" that's the very self-aware punchline of the film, That Thing You Do is probably one of the only films to explore this story line and still have well developed, convincing characters who aren't hamming it up. You're on the road with them and invested in their arcs, you're reveling in each new step to the top of the charts. Somehow they also wrote a title song that never grows old, possibly because it starts as a ballad and turns into a pop song so you're not overexposed, and you're still into it by the final big performance. There's a break where they play the b-side, which is also fantastic and fun, and we spend time with the band in their infancy, Jimmy wanting to perfect their slow, thoughtful sound without realising he's written a fantastic upbeat pop song until Guy mischievously ups the tempo for their first live performance. Jimmy walks out of this the definite antagonist, you're not on his side and his arrogance is captured masterfully by Johnathon Schaech who's always had a knack for sinister or unlikable characters. Guy's fresh-faced, boy next door polar opposite comes from Tom Everett Scott, and he's so convincing as an oblivious nice guy who can't even see when a beautiful cocktail waitress is interested in him because of his fanboy moment with Del Paxton, his musical idol. He's sweet to Faye without expectation, and happy to be the backbeat of the band on drums, but also not letting the "Shades" persona Mr White places on him go to his head. And he's quite clearly the one the girls are crazy about, not Jimmy, the lead.

The most joyous moment is the radio scene, I challenge you not to crack a smile from their childlike hysteria hearing the band on the airwaves for the first time. The song would've been a hit in the day, but it was still cleverly written with a mass-market appeal for the 90s as well, Fountains of Wayne's bassist responsible for the track while apparently not expecting it to be chosen for the film. If you're a Beatles fan, this is just wall to wall references based on Hanks coming up with the idea from Pete Best being fired. I know next to nothing about the Beatles despite having a family member who's a fan. So I can't understand how this film wasn't more popular at the time. The narrative is structured in a sequence of events with underlying tensions arising from random events like the band having to pose as an in-movie jazz band, to the chagrin of Jimmy, or the random radio interviews that leave them open for moments of comedy while proving how innocent and out of their depth they are in the limelight. It doesn't slow down once the momentum to the top starts, and the sudden drop just hours after the peak is believable considering the theme of the film.

It's hard to find much fault with this film, hence the 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's inoffensive even with the light course language. It'd be a great date movie, there's fun to be had and so much heart to keep it compelling without going overboard into schmaltz. Apparently the extended edition has more character developments and insight into the relationships, Guy and Faye's attraction is a little more fleshed out, however I kind of like the obliviousness you get from not seeing them flirt, that you're waiting for the guardian angel bellhop to turn the light bulbs on so the pair don't miss out on their moment. I'll revise this once I've seen it, but for now, please go check this movie out and tell me I'm wrong. If you're not even mildly entertained by this, you've got no soul.

As an addition to this, I finally got around to watching the extended cut and it's really a detriment to the snappy pacing. I think the additional stuff with Guy at the end is a nice touch considering you think he kinda gets shafted by the whole thing but I prefer the kinda sombre but he still gets the girl conclusion. The extra stuff with Tina is cute but it ending with her fawning over the dentist and giving up on Guy is enough. There's more about White but them shoehorning a gay partner in there doesn't really add as much as you'd think. Otherwise the extra stuff with Fay and Guy still needs trimming. I think keeping the flirting in is fine but the part with him hitting the bumper is redundant. There's a back and forth over the song not getting radio play but it not being there doesn't remove the excitement of them getting played. There's just more to the scenes and montages but it really slows it all down, which is a shame. I don't think I'd personally ever watch this version again, I was ignoring it more because of the pacing. The first manager has more involvement, White gets snubbed when there's an alternate version to the band being signed pushed to the press. It's just dialogue you can tell doesn't have to be there. Even the lead up to their first big stage performance takes way too long. You could keep some of it but I'd still be trimming it way down. I think the length in this case lends to a drama with comedic moments where chopping it down makes it a comedy with dramatic moments. 

Your brilliant mindfuckery Netflix show is actually pretty simple.

I decided to go ahead with another random Netflix special that would probably not exist if Netflix wasn't behind it. You have quirks, sure. You have deep moments of reflection and poignancy. You have a couple moments of genius, but you're missing the mark. You go overboard on the quirk and create massive tonal issues. You have good actors but they don't sustain their brilliance. And this is only a ten episode series that's too long for a movie but too short for another season. Your concepts sound profound but unravel into generic contemplations on rehashed ideas. Your aesthetic is a hybrid trying to be unique. You've failed to really produce something new, because you've hidden it behind layers of fantasy and silliness that's supposed to be concurrent with the overall basic premise. You've made a show about mental illness, about a group of people in a hospital type situation. You've surrounded them by idiosyncratic doctors who turn out to be less involved than you've aimed to present. Your two mains are compelling to begin with, but by episode six I've lost interest in them and their obvious romance.* The actors have the right amount of chemistry but I'm not engaged in the coupling now. You wanted to be fun and frivolous while maintaining a thread of intelligence and insight. Your twists aren't all that twisty and turn out to be predictable. You couldn't decide what you were aiming for. You've tried so hard to be original, you pesky little Netflix Original.

And you just haven't quite made it. Sorry.


*The two leads being Emma Stone and Jonah Hill, who played love interests in Superbad. So I had to make a gag from that and that was only from watching the trailer.

Under The Skin and the Lobster - The Art of All Show No Tell

I don't know if I could read the book this film is based on and still be as interested as I was with the film. This was another I'd had on my watch list that I dismissed since I was working on a similar concept at the time that was terrible by comparison. I have also seen Species, albeit years ago. Under the Skin is very much its superior.

I didn't remain fully engaged in this film; its pacing is off, but it's a slow burn of a movie that still has shocking, unpredictable moments. For an independent film, it's stunning as all hell. But its genius lies in all what is unseen and unsaid. You're relying almost entirely on visuals which makes it so much harder to look away. You know the fate of our alien's victims is gruesome but we're kept from the details for half the film. I was disappointed there wasn't a moment in the first abduction scene where we were let in on this ritual. But the payoff later is worth it. We see the consequences of our alien failing to score. We see the consequences of her considering assimilation and sympathy. She's very much beholden to her needs (and the needs of her species - it's implied she's gathering food for herself and the mystery motorcyclist). The subtleties of Johansson's performance leave you longing for the day you found her captivating and natural, and not a product of the Hollywood Machine. I can see she's trying to break back into the indie scene but with the massive shifts in culture and perception, it's no longer commendable to tackle a marginalised role. Where we were dishing out Oscars to cisgender actors portraying gay and trans characters, and dismissing terrible racial stereotypes perpetuated by white actors as all in good fun, the general public now want authenticity. So suffering the backlash from Ghost in the Shell, Johansson's now dropping controversial roles, but in favour of what, I have no idea. (I was disappointed she later retracted her apology and complained she should be able to do any role out there, but her argument opens doors we're still struggling to close).

Her role in Under The Skin is completely underrated and this film went largely unnoticed by mainstream audiences. It wouldn't have captivated that type of moviegoer. The chances it took in production in using men off the street interacting with an unfamiliar actress, Johansson not being a widely recognised actor in 2014 in the further reaches of Scotland, are noteworthy. The distinct lack of design in the white and black rooms and the use of space and water to differentiate the alien's environment from Earth itself were perfect. We're not bombarded with intricate, overly detailed foregrounds and backgrounds designed to impress and astonish. There's nothing fantastic going in that regard on but it's fucking beautiful and astonishing all the same. I wouldn't call this film a commentary on feminism as it is a representation of humanism and humanity - the actual essence of being human. We're exploring longing, attraction, the ugliness and beauty of reality, compassion versus inhumanity. Our alien isn't given much pity or compassion. The one man who takes her in of course wants something in return, and by then the alien's confusion and repulsion toward the act of sex overrides her curiosity. We didn't see her really attack her victims, just lure them, and she's taken pity on one in particular by then, so her eventual comeuppance still feels unfair to a degree. She's become human enough even before the final compelling reveal, which I'm glad was never spoiled. I'd have to rewatch this to get more of a sense of the ancillary characters involved with the alien. But it's worse to think this was probably one of Johansson's last brilliant performances before she effectively sold out. She's not really the indie darling we came to love, being surpassed by the Fanning sisters and other ingenues drawing the eye of notable indie directors. So you would hope she'll move into future roles with the view of reminding us what she's capable of other than looking good in spandex.

I haven't brought up the Lobster, another film I got around to seeing. This suffered more from pacing and overdoing it with the over-all story concepts - there's very much a sense of, yeah we get it by the second act. I related to the concepts more than the characters, this being the most hilarious way of illustrating the painful measures people take to find someone to be with forever. It's discomforting and sardonic. In this world, being human is a crime, showing real emotions and affection isn't acceptable and if you can't find a suitable mate, the consequences are dire - worse than death itself. So then we're asked "would you rather...?"

This is still a beautiful film to watch that borrows from the mundane while depicting the fantastic, and again there's the lack of detail with the "transformation room" that lends to your inner fears. We don't know how it happens, it just happens, so all the relevant questions arise: will it hurt? What will become of me in the wild? How will I survive? If this is the end result of repressed emotions and stultifying conversations, we should be running screaming from this concept. And mentally, you do. You either end up appreciating the life you have now or lamenting letting go someone who wasn't entirely perfect for someone you thought more "compatible". The violence isn't too slapstick, the humour isn't tasteless. The use of narration isn't overbearing and becomes more intriguing once we're introduced to the narrator. The ambiguous ending works perfectly with the small sense of hope you feel degrading towards the end. But it's a bloated film that could have done with some careful edits. I don't see a reason why tension has to be built from drawn out scenes, other than it's intentional deriving of discomfort, which it certainly does but you do get annoyed occasionally with the amount of time we spend in certain situations. Inglorious Basterds did this so well to the point I was dying for the denouement to end. It stretched two minutes too long and was utterly unbearable, which is why I can't watch it again. I probably won't revisit Lobster unless I watch it with someone else. Colin Farrell's character is compelling and painfully relatable. You're on his side immediately because you're essentially rooting for a version of yourself, especially the angry part of you who's sick of conformity and just wants to be loved. John C Riley is perfect with his lisp and dogged determination not to end up transformed. Rachel Weisz has some overly wooden moments even where wooden is necessary, but we see her human side too after her particular betrayal at the hands of their supposed comrades. It's a clever film that doesn't revel in its own genius at the expense of any emotion or drama. Its bizarre premise doesn't make it less believable, and narration is a necessity given there's a lot more to unpack in the beginning in terms of backstory. Each primary and secondary character represents a greater whole. It's definitely going to be more fun for the awkward and maybe autistic crowd. It's probably a bleaker version of Punch Drunk Love, if you could draw any comparisons.

But effectively, even with Lobster's heavy narration or Under the Skin's occasional dialogue, both are remarkable examples of visual storytelling.

As a side note I'm finally reading Under the Skin, and I haven't even gotten past the first scene it's so involved. I'm feeling like the movie itself is taking a dig at the book for being overly descriptive and failing to build tension or curiosity early on. My investment is minimal right now given I know who and what the main character is, but without that knowledge she's not an entirely interesting character. Scarlet Johansson's portrayal seems to speak so much from so little, I'm sure they could've incorporated more dialogue than was used to build exposition but I'm sure it would make the movie drag and become too obnoxious. 

I'm now up to chapter six and I have to unload some thoughts that'll probably end up in my Goodreads review. In my head, as a movie, from what's described, all I can see is something out of a bad episode of Dr Who (I've seen more reviews than the show itself, including some for the "off brand" movies which looked real bad) I'm sure in the hands of someone skilled it would look interesting but the movie depicts nothing of the world the aliens know. The main character is reduced to "the female" in the movie (while the rest of the cast aren't given names, including the dead woman), and yet somehow, even with the book giving her a name and making it nearly all her POV, the author does more to objectify her. We have to hear about her nice tits from more than one passenger, and her as well. And her weird thick lens glasses. The author's also laid on really thick how he thinks a feminist would regard men, and how women do all the work, and he's kind of nailed a stereotype and not a genuine female character. I honestly don't like her, nor am I endeared to her or even that sympathetic.

The alien nature of the characters is also really hard to imagine. Isserley has a human body to cover her real one but the descriptions of her kind when presented are confusing. The descriptions go into great detail but again, recreating this for the movie would've made them look comical. I haven't learnt the name of the species, just what they call humans and how they capture human males for food, weakening them like you would with calves to make veal and pumping them full of chemicals. Of course it's all a commentary on the food industry and what livestock plays in that structure.

The locations are described well enough, but because aspects of the alien world are described how humans describe things - like The Estate where they come from - you don't get a sense of these beings as all that otherworldly to begin with. You know they use vessels to get there and they've commandeered a remote farm to complete their work, but the ships aren't presented with a lot of detail.

It's actually a very cynical, sarcastic book and I don't feel like it's offering much on the way of discourse regarding feminism and female objectification; it sort of falls into the trap some male authors encounter writing a female protagonist - she's hot and resourceful but a little flawed and vulnerable. If you're meant to feel sorry for her, you can't as easily as you do for the female in the movie. Her transition into sympathising for humans is handled delicately and through huge amount of visual narrative. It doesn't treat her sexual experiences as good; she barely understands the body she's in. That she can't enjoy a piece of cake, you're meant to take pity on her at that point. She's running from her duties out of a sense of wrongness for what she's been doing, and it's all painted so eloquently, while in the book, it's taking a sledgehammer approach. I don't know if Isserley will make a bid for freedom but because I care less for her, I'll care less about her escape. I think I did read the plot outline on Wikipedia but I don't remember it. I'm tempted to again and just to DNR the rest of the book since I'm not enjoying it

This movie needs should get the award of "Least Faithful Adaptation of a Book Ever". The more I read of the book with its pretentiousness and verbosity and over-describing, the more I love and appreciate the minimalist nature of the film. It's another one of those books you have to pause to look up certain words that seem so uncommon and inappropriate.

Now if anyone ever accuses me of not being detailed enough with my prose, I'll point to this movie and book as examples of how sometimes a little goes a fuck of a long way.

I feel like I need to come back here and make further notes for my review. The repetitive nature of the narrative by way of Isserley going out to collect a man (I get this is her job and it's monotonous but each attempt becomes padding) is really grating. And I have a funny suspicion the internal monologues of the men are there for the author to wax non-sequitur about his own opinions on whatever (apparently this was his first novel off the back of some shorts. Honestly, this actually would have worked as a short or novella, I can do without so many of these moments). These passages are brief and kind of give the reader a break from Isserley's complaining, but by the fifth or sixth time it happens, it starts to pull you away from the narrative. There's been an exciting enough moment of Isserley chasing escaped captives that kept me reading but it's all ground to a halt again.

I'm really struggling to get through this. Isserley is actually a put-upon woman in a man's world and we see eventually she's been subjected to heavy body modification by way of shortening her spine. But she complains about being sore and tired more than anything else. She can also eat human food, where as the Female simply cannot and basically should not. Isserley just seems far too human, probably even more human, than the men she picks up, even with her moments of innocence. It's hard to see her alien nature in this. She has opportunities to run many times, it's become tedious and I'm not even halfway through the book, with no real sense of where this is actually going. You can argue the movie presents the same problem. Without much dialogue you don't really know which direction it'll take but that adds so much more to the intrigue, where as the book is just intent on really boring you with too much detail and not enough actual story. It's so much less engaging and conceptually it's not even that interesting. The movie sort of presents itself as an interesting commentary on humanism and objectification. The book oversells this - it's still harping on about Isserley's breasts by way of the hitchhikers, either to praise them or complain of their overexposure. I can see this would have been duller without these snippets of insight into the travelers, but they become just as repetitive. Each male bitches internally about their lives and how they've gotten stranded, sizes up Isserley as a potential mate or dismisses her as one, and complains about her driving in some regard. Then she either takes them or leaves them. She hasn't met any gay men, or disabled men. She's had to pick up perfect specimens; none of them have been horribly disfigured by congenital defects, so I'm going to assume the scene relating to this in the movie isn't present in the book unless Isserley grows so desperate she has to pick them up.

Either way, I'm not really into this book at all. I saw a review that suggested it wasn't handling certain issues like feminism that well. I just skimmed one that echos the same sentiment that it meanders so it's not just me. It's incredibly prosaic; I envy some of his descriptions then become frustrated by them detracting from the story. I'd happily watch the movie multiple times, (heck, I'll get a copy of it to avoid watching online) but I already know I'll never read this thing again.

I went to read a spoiler review and the spoiler is (fuck you) she's an alien - which if you've seen the movie you automatically know. And she blows herself up in the end apparently. So her being immolated  at the end of the movie is way more interesting considering who does this. And the author wrongly attributes a quote to Shakespeare when it was from a Scottish poem and the book is set in Scotland... That's pretty much given me reason not to continue, even if the author fucked that bit up wouldn't a reasonable editor correct it? (Editors aren't there to actually check your facts, by the way, if you're an author and the book is dependent on research, you're responsible for getting facts right and this has blown up in one person's face) But for an editor to miss it too meant they both assumed the same thing. Actually, to be fair I might have said it was Shakespeare had someone asked me as it's actually number one on a list of quotes wrongly attributed to Shakespeare, even a quote from Corinthians can't even get a fair break, nor can Emily Browning. But some of them on this list I knew wouldn't be from him, the hilarious part is most of them occurred 200 years after his death, and the first line of A Tale of Two Cities is far too obvious I'm amazed people have done this. I don't want to be a shithead American basher but it wouldn't surprise me if Americans had been guilty of more of these given they seem to think all literature was created by one or two notable sources, that history isn't replete with writers who were actually better than Shakespeare, in and outside of his time.

I digress. I think I'm going to  have to just not finish this fucking book. It's only going to aggravate me and I feel like I've been stuck on 48% finished for too long. Especially now we've swung back to Issererly hanging out watching TV and describing shit on it. I thought my other book was boring and repetitive. I've ended up going the Wiki-Spoiler  route, I'm sure I did this originally but I forgot the plot. I've gone and picked up Firestarter by Stephen King and I barely remember the movie so now I'm going to get annoyed at another male author who doesn't believe in a backspace key.

Pinhead and I

Yeah, we have a history. He used to look at me from the horror section of the video store. And that section was "hidden" in a cardboard cubby house that was dimly lit to stop kids looking in there. When that became the porn section, I can't remember if it was before or after the horror section was in the main area. But he'd look at me from the shelf and I was very curious about the guy, but wouldn't get to find out anything about him for a long time.

Now I'm pretty sure I read the book the Hellbound Heart before I saw Hellraiser, because the movie was disappointing in its amendments. I felt the relationships were more interesting, i.e. Kirsty is the friend of Rory (Larry in the film) and has an affection for him and isn't his daughter, so Frank isn't her uncle. The book also is a bit more intricate in its building of the Cenobite lore. The box is the Lemarchand Configuration not the Lament Configuration. It all gets very watered down and literal, glossing over the more nuanced concepts. I get Barker wrote the script, probably to have a more mass-market appeal. But when people go on about the franchise and Pinhead, I roll my eyes so hard. Because Pinhead originally didn't go by this title, played little significance in the book and had a kind of childlike, almost babyish voice. But because his face was on that damn video cover, because he became synonymous with the franchise, because the viewers "blessed" him with the nickname, he became the pivotal character.

I believe Barker resurrected the world and Pinhead in the Scarlet Letters as a joke - a book I wasn't thrilled with. I forgot the detective Harry D'Amour was part of the Barker Universe, I'm not into the Art Trilogy given Everville bored me to a degree as well, where Harry also appears, I'm not going to read the third one now I've hit saturation point. Imajica infuriated me eventually. So I'm off the Barker bus.

But in terms of iconic horror characters, Pinhead isn't really worthy of that much hype. Somehow, they've sucked now ten movies out of the franchise alone, five of which were straight to DVD, and some of those fell victim to the "Cloverfield Curse" (this was actually way before Cloverfield), where bad scripts with no home to go to found the light by adopting the Hellraiser brand. I gave up after the fourth installment, which I have very vague memories of, as well as the third and second installments. I think all those films are kind of a weird montage in my memory where I can match the scenes to the films, but can't remember half of what really happened overall. I watched them out of curiosity, and I still try to mention how little there was of the character in Pinhead to draw on from the original book. He's kind of a parody of Pinhead in the Scarlet Letters, and probably in the other films as well. I went through a youtuber's commentaries about it, and he mentioned the Engineer, who is also an original character, so it was clear the later films tried "harder" I suppose to draw on source material elements for the hardcore fans. Visually, the book is more interesting, but the time we spend in "hell" and with the Cenobites is so limited. The book is also a novella, that was part of an anthology of horror. And it's a pretty great book, so I was expecting more from Scarlet Letters, which turned out to be a kind of caper/romp story through the greater regions of Hell, where Pinhead is hanging out making origami birds, and basically just being a downer who wants to overthrow the Devil in so many words. There's a big cliffhanger at the end but I'm not hanging out for more. This book more felt like a fuck you to the "fans" of the film who made Pinhead out to be more than what he was, like it was a cynical cash-in with a chance to also bring back Harry D'Amour for another spin as well and kill two birds a la Blood Canticle by Anne Rice, one of literature's saddest, most money-hungry tie-ins. (If you know not what I speak, Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle were strange excuses for marrying the Mayfair Witches with the Vampire Chronicles, and it could've worked had Mona not ended up an insufferable immortal, Lestat hadn't been plagued by his own cognitive dissonance and lack of continuity and Rowan hadn't fallen for Lestat only to COMPLETELY vanish by the Prince Lestat - which I also read and more or less hated.)

The Hellraiser franchise suffered from poor titles, repetitive story lines and hopeful Easter egg-style nods to the true fans, who have basically ruined this franchise by being so obsessed with Pinhead. He doesn't really work on his own. He doesn't work with a crew or a cohort, or personal adversary, he doesn't work as a possible tortured human who turned evil, or a fallen angel type cursed to wander the real world without "sweet suffering". I'm not even sure the guy who watched the films then commented on them did much research into the books or paid that much attention to the last film, or whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry didn't, because their plot accounts did not match at all. No matter, they're trashy parts of the horror/slaughter genre. He is an icon. He has more originality that Jason or Freddy, in a way. He's supposed to be more nuanced, less pure evil and more bent on pain for pleasure's sake taken to an extreme. Frank, in the book, is warned if he chooses to follow the Cenobites into their world, there's no way out. They care more he managed to escape them than they do about his desire to come into their world. The Cenobites sort of became evil over time. And it wasn't truly a comment on heaven or hell, or religion at all. It was more subtle than that. We can have arguments about canon and I'm not here for that at all, because I'm not that well versed. I'm just here to put my point across.

Pinhead and I have a history. I was always curious about Barker's Universe, but never read the Books of Blood. Cabal's okay, and again I was correcting people over Nightbreed being Cabal as the book, because again, Cabal doesn't work as a movie title. Barker inspires me but leaves me frustrated more too. I guess he and I have a weird history too, I'll always credit him for helping my own style of writing sort of evolve into something more free-flowing and creative. But I won't forget looking at Pinhead's face, staring for a while, curious, a little scared, and patient enough to wait for when I could deal with him as a grownup. Then I was off to the kid's section to rent The Last Unicorn for the 80th time. (By rights if VHS movies stayed out in the stores long enough, our parents could've saved so much money buying these and a VCR rather than renting them out with a VCR from our local video stores).

The Before Trilogy

Your Movie Sucks.org brought me here. I'd had Before Sunrise on my watch list for years, aware of its ties to Waking Life (which, full disclosure, bored me). The sequel came out and I glossed over it, curious for a moment about the original and passing it by yet again. Until YMS gave it some glowing praise in his review on Before Midnight, and I dove right in to be pleasantly surprised.

Somehow Before Sunrise manages to paint a believable night in the life of a pair of young travelers who fall in love after one follows the other off a train in Vienna. It presents a romance that transcends cynicism while being acutely aware of its own sappiness and unlikeliness. The pair speak philosophically and romantically, and realistically, about their possible newfound love. We're invested from the beginning, we chase them off the train and all around the city, delighting in their ribbing and fawning, falling for them as they fall for each other. And we live through the heartbreak of their separation. We're left with a what if that manages to survive the years to the next movie. It's something you couldn't remake in this age of social media and phones, because they'd just find one another and be more tempted to make contact when they're promising not to write or call. It's only six months until they see one another again, right? It's happening in that perfect and painstaking time when communication wasn't so easy to maintain. The deal is made they meet again and the will they/won't they factor is bittersweet and cute. And we close with a montage of scenes from their evening and the pair contemplating each other alone on their respective rides away.

Nine years pass, rather than six months, and Linklater may have planned this out, but I feel it's more the director sees the opportunity arise when he meets with the original leads, and it births an idea to make a sequel (which it's not, it's part of the long game and the three of them have worked together on this project). Jesse has written a book about his one night of romance and this is used as a mechanism to recap where we left off, while skirting around whether he and Céline have survived or not by discussing the ambiguous ending. There's a genuine disappointment in knowing they didn't reunite until now, Céline confessing she was unable to come to the station. They have to catch up and discover there were missed moments in New York they were close but far away. Jesse has ended up with a strained relationship and a son (who we meet in the third film) and the will they/won't they dilemma plays stronger for the time limit imposed on Jesse and whether he'd be willing to leave his wife for Céline (and of course the wife isn't present physically and the marriage is failing from joylessness and unmet expectations. She has to be Céline's antithesis, but Jesse doesn't want to hurt this other woman any more than he wants his son to grow up in a joyless home). Céline has a photographer boyfriend who's decent but conveniently absent, (another on the list of reasons for your leads to cheat without abject remorse) She's tricked herself into being happy with his absence so she can be together with someone and alone. Céline has suffered more for losing Jesse and he's been broken in his own way, now terrified he'll be trapped in a loveless marriage. All the sparks are there and we're longing for this to happen. And again, we're left hanging, but with more optimism.

By the time another nine years passes, Jesse and Céline have rekindled their love (but remain unmarried), and had twins. Jesse's meta-narrative books serve to recap once again through conversation on the content of the stories and how "the third is better than the original two." But now the tension is coming from the certain strains of differing and disjointed occupations, Jesse getting to continue his writing and having success and traveling while suffering over not being more present in Hank's life, Céline making sacrifices for the sake of her twins and so on. The bickering grows tiresome but in that horrible, realistic way bickering with your lover becomes exhausting because you're still in love but not making headway. (Which is all more poignant for the addition of Hawke and Delphy's personal input into the script.) We can't have the joy of the romance from the first film without the pain of two human beings coming to terms with growing older and seeing the attraction degrade, Céline questioning if Jesse would pick her up on a train now as she is and how she'd refuse him as 41 year old due to real world practicalities. You want them to survive. It presents the cynicism as plainly as the first movie. You'd be disappointed if it was all roses with these two. There are more people in their lives who we actually spend time with this time around. Conversations with others occur, breaking the conventions of the first two films. I can see this as being the least charming and lovable of the three. I liked it ends with some ambiguity and the flourish of hope these two will actually grow old together. And Linklater takes the opportunity to explore the idea of sex and romance online that the first film had yet to consider. Most of his philosophical suppositions and commentary on reality comes out in his films somewhere along the way, it's his ability to twist this into his dialogue so effortlessly makes it more of a joy to listen to. Boyhood did try to cram all of this with a lot of political discourse into the story, but with less effectiveness than he has in other films.

You wouldn't have found this chemistry with another pair of actors over this amount of time. There's no way you could remake this trilogy and capture the same electricity and intrigue you have learning about these two purely through conversation and tension. I think these films work purely through being as natural as they possibly can be. If the dialogue had been forced or stilted, and the chemistry hadn't been there, the original would've been a disaster. No amount of beautiful shots of Vienna and perfect camera work on the train would've saved it.

If you can sell a born cynic like me for three whole films on the notion of romance and love spanning nearly two decades, you've won. If you can discuss the futility of romance and reality forever being at odds without leaving someone like me rolling my eyes and shaking my head, you've succeeded. I did think these would all be pretentious or slow, or unconvincing and contrived. But no. Not at all. It's such an easy trilogy to watch and enjoy. So it goes on my list of amazing and underrated trilogies.

Melancholia and Dancer in the Dark

I had mixed feelings about this after I saw it. I always end up with mixed feelings about Kirsten Dunst. But then I remembered while re-watching Melancholia this is one of her best performances. The core of it makes sense to depressed people, since Von Trier was inspired by his own depression enough to make this, Antichrist and Nymphomaniac. I couldn't watch the latter and haven't watched the former, as it's possibly too dark even for me. Dancer in the Dark is in my list of favourite films. Being a fan of Bjork isn't a reason to see this, but I wanted to see what she had to bring. It came out for me when I was going through my own first bout of diagnosed depression. Dancer's issue is it holds on to so much tension before there's a real escalation but the penultimate scenes in the prison would cement in most people's minds Bjork's depth of talent. My consensus, if you're not choked up by the end of this film, you have no fucking soul.

Melancholia hinges probably too much on the same refrain from Wagner's score Tristan and Isolde, this being Melancholia's theme throughout. But it doesn't detract from Charlotte Gainsbourg's weeping or the resignation in Dunst's acceptance of their demise. Clearly the son is there to add to the sense of hopelessness, if he'd been absent, I don't think the ending would have had anywhere near as much weight. Kiefer Sutherland has always been good at playing relatively arrogant and unlikable characters. I don't particularly have sympathy for his cowardly exit strategy. You're not really set up to like any men in this film, including the father and son Skarsgards, both here has Dunst's boss and husband respectively. The characters at the wedding carry the responsibility of reflecting wider aspects of humanity: the greedy boss, the rather naive husband, the witless boy sent to pry a tagline out of Dunst (this I found the least believable aspect - causing tension over a tagline seemed contrived); and least of all the father, John Hurt, the absentminded, hedonist drunk. The mother (Charlotte Rampling) seems to exist to add further tension to this recipe of dysfunction. And the victims are the sisters, Justine and Claire. Ultimately, it's Justine picking up the pieces of the supposedly stalwart and often put upon Claire, because Justine's heavy depression is what steels her for the actual end of the world, that we all know is coming. The science fiction aspect blends believably into this narrative, it's well displayed, the oncoming Melancholia starkly beautiful as it is perturbing in its constant looming presence. Justine embraces death quite rightly for her depression, seeming to almost flirt with Melancholia and its pending destruction by bathing in its glow under the gaze of a bewildered and perhaps even jealous Claire. You could argue Claire has more at stake with her son and her husband, she has more to mourn, while Justine has lost her job and her husband rather haphazardly, you would think she's the least sympathetic one in this mix. It's through her acceptance and stoicism you gain a sense of admiration for her. One thing we depressives can do is withstand the idea of death once it's become inevitable. But Von Trier's movies are a constant reminder of death across the board. He only tends to paint more hope into something that should be riddled with despair.

I think it was tactless of him to make comments on his family history concerning the Nazis. Perhaps in his depression he'd embraced some truths other people couldn't stomach. He picked the wrong time to admit to it.

My obsession with Dancer comes from the soundtrack. I know that more intimately than the movie itself. What is bringing an overture of hope and acceptance is the lyrics of New World. (Anyone reading this - you have play it at my funeral - it's not a dirge.) The songs all carry the story, I get how Scatterheart is a bit more disjointed where it plays in the narrative, but it's a portrait of Selma's innocence now being exploited and she's holding on to this so fiercely knowing the reality of her situation. I also learned Chelsea Manning was affected by seeing this film, another thing I connected with her over. It's a confusing movie on first viewing. You don't really understand the weight of what's being discussed until it all begins to unravel. Again, you're not meant to like many of the men here, but you're more likely to loathe Bill's wife, Linda, clearly a representation of the American Dream that in her case isn't earned - she's squandering an inheritance and Bill has no spine to stop giving her money. The pair of them are despicable once it becomes apparent how quick Bill is to exploit Selma's disability and how callous Linda is to call Selma a liar. Those on Selma's side, her overbearing friend Cvalda who's constantly bringing Selma down from the clouds, and Jeff, the unrequited suitor who can't distract Selma from her rather girlish crush on Bill, fail to convince Selma to discard her plan to save her son's sight at any cost. Selma's a character who doesn't ever leave your memory. I don't know if any other actress could've delivered what Bjork does here, hence Von Trier's relentless pursuit of her. She stated some regret working with "a certain director" due to his overbearing nature, there wasn't a need to name names. I can imagine Von Trier being another director who's been elevated by intense admiration and hasn't been humbled by it. You have two astounding films to come out of this tenacity, but not a terribly likeable director.

I couldn't see that same brilliance in Nymphomaniac, I couldn't tolerate the pacing or the content. I think it lends too much to pornography and fails to be a believable commentary on female sexuality. Granted, I only watched twenty minutes, this thing in its entirety has two parts. It bored me shitless and I might've been there for reasons of curiosity but from what I've since learned, this was insufferable for some. So I can't claim to be a fan of Von Trier if I can't find him that accessible. I can certainly see what makes his films off-putting to the general public.

But definitely see Melancholia and Dancer in the Dark. I can quite easily visit these and still find something with each viewing.

Why I love the Dirties: Lifted from SUAGBAI

Ugh. You know what I'm like when I have a boner for a movie and I'm wide awake. So now you have to suffer with my analogy of "The Dirties".

I am in love with this film, its core concept and the people who made it. I don't love Kevin Smith for increasing its audience and once again there's songs in there ironically that are hard to find IRL. Even though he didn't make it. Him just being associated with it makes that a thing.

I only stumbled on it because of him, and a conversation on Bret Eastern Ellis's podcast that I bothered suffering through, because I don't find Kevin Smith that insufferable to listen to if I'm in the right frame of mind. And he mentioned this flick and I managed to find it. I've seen it maybe four times now. It's so perfect and perfect that I got all the pop culture references. The leads aren't high school kids, but they were just the essence of the geek boys I hung with in high school. The "one of these days" kinda guys who always had something to prove, and were either too egotistical to like you if you liked them, or too in love with you when you wanted to friendzone them but still felt shitty about it. We friendzoned the shit out of boys before it was even a thing, and Owen is right, essentially we all did it and had it done to us. Bullying was a thing that wasn't taken all that seriously in my day because we didn't have access to guns. There's been a stabbing at my school since I graduated. That's about all.

But this movie nailed it. It just got to the crux of a school shooting in America the way Elephant or any other movie just didn't do. I don't even like that Elephant implied the two Columbine guys were gay and in a secret relationship. That's insulting and unnecessary, and doesn't help gay teen boys. It makes all shootings about sex. Because that's the American way.

Matt and Owen aren't gay or gay for each other. There's a bromance of sorts going on in terms of who's more important to the other that they subtly joke about in one of the montages, but you know the dynamic. You know those two guys who always hung out almost exclusively with one another but things got sour over a girl or one growing up or moving on too fast.

And to call this a "found footage" movie isn't quite fair. It doesn't purport itself to be that despite using that convention. It's reached its own uniqueness by the approach the filmmakers took, keeping the story line loose enough and the conversations real enough that we're believing this is real on a whole other level. There's none of that contrived found footage horror shit going on. There's no long drawn out camera runs in the dark where you're not seeing shit but you feel it coming up on you. It's not a mocumentary. You're not getting a sense of these kids being interviewed. They do vox pop shit but it ties into it in terms of what the two main characters are doing as a school project. All of it blends, and like Matt says, and his teacher loses in translation, it's a genre-bender in the truest sense. It doesn't claim to be any of these things and ultimately becomes all of those things in an almost perfect way that hasn't been achieved before.

Your inner critic who can't suspend enough disbelief will always pick apart the found footage notion. Things felt edited and there was a story despite these people just continuously filming and each "cut" is just them turning off the camera. Things are too polished as opposed to genuine. When the Blair Witch people attempted this back in the late 90s and kind of birthed the form, the movie industry shat its pants. Suddenly you could make low budget blockbuster shit. Whoops. Then the experts were all "how to make a movie on a shoestring budget" but then Paranormal Activity happened and those movies are over budgeted for now (one of their producers actually lamented not jumping on Blair Witch when it was presented to them). And Paranormal Activity is cliched as fuck. Person is on the screen. Person goes flying backwards due to unseen force. Person who wasn't there suddenly is there. It becomes desensitizing so you have to up the ante to scare the fans all the time.

The Dirties just reels that all back in to a logical standpoint. It so much more organic despite there being multiple schools and only half the people being aware of what's going on. They made it seamless enough for me to think it was the same school, but high schools over there are generic compared to the ones here, that are campus types with mapped out buildings. If you were to do a school shooting in my old school as it was, there were too many places to hide, the whole thing takes up a couple of acres in total, and it's too spread out to effectively kill a ton of kids at once. You would need a squad of teens, at least five working in tandem at various points, to effectively kill the majority of the 1500 odd kids who were there. But you know we thought about it. I still think about it. A shooting is a perfect fantasy in your mind, you're good with a gun already, you just whip it out and point it at your enemy and they're dead. Doesn't matter who they were. It's so easy to orchestrate in fantasy and harder to pull off in reality. And we don't have enough survivors, victims or perpetrators, to give that perspective. No one interviews the victims and the shooters take themselves out to preserve their myth for television. The world will know them in death. But as the Dirties points out, psychotic behaviour is NOT that simple, no matter how badly you want it to be. It's just FUCKING NOT.

This is 40 - strangely endearing.

I guess I'm a Judd Apatow fan. I liked Freaks and Geeks. I didn't think I'd like 40 Year Old Virgin as much as I did. Superbad, by extension, is actually a hell of a lot of fun for his input. Knocked Up's also alright. But I didn't think This is 40 would be any good at all. When you see a running time of 2 hours and 15 mins as you're booting it up on Netflix, you'd be put off if you didn't know Apatow does incredibly long comedies. He's been accused of having a problem with editing, and yes, a lot of scenes in This is 40 seem like skits to fill in time. But he's one of the few directors bothering to portray some semblance of reality, so you get vignettes of real life situations threaded together into a fairly basic story with a lot of heart.

This is 40 meanders more than Knocked Up, but you could see there was something of a film between Rudd and Mann's characters that was worth exploring more. And returning to them when they're turning 40 (Lesley Mann's character in denial and claiming she's 38 - I have words on this I'll get to) and their daughters (Apatow's real life daughters, who seem to have adopted their dad's quippy sense of humour) could've failed miserably. But the problem is, the situation they're in doesn't always seem to make total sense at first glance.

I haven't been paying 100% attention to movies lately, it's background noise, but some aspects of this bothered me. Would you really have a father so irresponsible he's taking money from Pete (Rudd) without Debbie (Mann) being unaware of just how much has gone missing and how in the hole they are from Pete's bad business decisions as the head of his own record label? There's the extension from Knocked Up of Debbie's hang ups over her aging, we get to see her going through a myriad of health checks, including a mammogram, just to illustrate the fears of the target audience on turning 40. Pete accepts his actual age but not a full sense of adulthood and responsibility. He has to be the sensible one though when Debbie's spending money on useless eastern medicine. They argue like a cliched couple, try to revive their relationship with a dirty weekend away complete with edibles, which is a fun montage, and they hide shit and their feelings until they escalate. Neither of them deal with other parents or children effectively, though Melissa McCarthy's portrayal of the bitchy mother who'll happily lie about the location of her own fucking nipples made me want to slap her. She's not that funny, people. Debbie and Pete are comically children trying to be adults with children and responsibilities. They just about have the right chemistry for a couple with serious ambivalence as to whether or not to stay married, that's perhaps the most genuine part of this film.

I can't relate to any of this because I'm an asshole who has no issue with turning 40. I've completed personal goals and self-actualised and it's not been a simple process, but I'm fine where I am and fine with my age. I don't look my age admittedly, but I still don't really see why turning 40 is a nightmare except because movies and TV and society tell us that it's supposed to be a nightmare. You're not allowed to kid yourself at this point. You've got to get your shit together or you're screwed. Some people should get their shit together by 30, not 40. Those ten years seem to give you leeway for postponing maturity and responsibility. By 40, it's too late. You're a loser if you've not pulled it together by then. And I don't believe this. I've met too many people in their 40s, 50s and 60s who do and say the stupidest, most immature crap and completely mean it, and feel justified in their actions. Age is a number. That's all I can say of this.

I did enjoy this movie much more than I expected. Megan Fox as Desi isn't so terrible. She plays off Mann's sad desire to retain her youth and be endearing and attractive to men while trying to ascertain if Desi is stealing, and for some stupid excuse we have to suffer through Jodie (Charlyne Yi) because she was kinda funny in Knocked Up, but she's still a stoner who seems to have the cognisance to falsely accuse Desi and then show no genuine remorse for being the actual thief. I was fine with her until that reveal, (the line "Everything that comes out of her mouth is lies. Everything that goes into her mouth is dicks." slayed me) then she made it awkward with her mugging, stoner crap. I get this is played for comedy but then you see how Debbie's an idiot for hiring a stoner (who's also babysitting the kids). Neither of these adults make genuine adult decisions. For comedy. And adding Pete's dad's irresponsibility of fathering triplets late in life, with Debbie's dad's absence, you have the reasons for the dumb decisions Pete and Debbie both make. And it works within the context of the film, but not real life. And that's fine, but it's actually harder to suspend disbelief with this than it is with Knocked Up.

These aren't really reviews, I know. I'm kind of just fleshing out my thoughts in the vein of people I've been watching lately, and I was surprised with This is 40 as the trailers didn't sell this to me at all. You end up liking Debbie despite her being thoroughly and purposefully unlikable, but because of this through two thirds of the film, I am SO on Pete's side and I rarely have time for Debbie's self-denial and self-pity. Maybe when my tits are sagging and I start to wither, I'll be eating my own words. But I haven't botched my body with a baby either.

Pete and Debbie do seem to embrace the inevitable in the final scenes, and the meandering closes on them reaching an understanding. Which I know happens in real relationships, I can attest to it taking more than ten years to actually get to that place if you're willing to keep going and not give up, and wanting to give up makes sense too. So this movie makes sense in its own Apatow kind of way.

3/5

Midnight In Paris - An Egotist's Journey

I'm not a fan of Woody Allen. I'm not prepared to say a lot about this movie, or Vicki, Christina, Barcelona. Which I've seen twice and thought was okay.

I once said to my screenwriting lecturer that Allen was a neurotic and he asked me why I thought that. Um, he's not? Maybe I've seen too many exaggerated parodies of the man and he's actually well adjusted, but looking at the characters he creates and the stories he writes (and seems to rewrite in various forms), how could he not be at least nervy?

Midnight In Paris looked interesting based on the trailer. I do like Owen Wilson when he's doing serious Wes Anderson characters. I prefer Luke Wilson, personally. However, Owen Wilson is gormless in Midnight In Paris. He's a successful screenwriter who wants to be an author who flunked out of English, in Paris with his fiance and her rich parents to shop for furniture because that's how the rich furnish their houses. He's dragged around the sites by a pretentious friend and their partner. Rachel McAdams, who I think is a pretty great actress, does well as the spoiled brat who doesn't understand Wilson's character and why he'd want to be a struggling author. So off the bat, she's not the right one for him. This is the key to story lines which feature some sort of infidelity. The person cheated on is usually not so great and the new object of desire who's threatening the existing relationship turns out to be the "one".

By some twist of magic realism, Wilson's character, Gil, ends up in a car and is transported rather smoothly into 1920s Paris, where he meets a variety of famous authors, painters and philosophers, who just sort of happen to all know one another. And all the actors picked to play these figures seem to fit - Tom Hiddleston as F Scott Fitzgerald, Adrien Brody as Dali and Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein - they work. You can believe it. But in my egotistical writer mind I was expecting this novel of Gil's, presented to Hemmingway and Stein, would be laughed at, Hemmingway from the outset refusing to read it, as if it's bad, he'll get angry and if it's good, he'll get jealous and hate it more. Case in point, this is a writer's mind on display, at least an insecure one. Yet in true Allen fashion, the novel is considered "good" and Stein then goes on to give Gil some valuable feedback.

There was a show from the UK called Goodnight Sweetheart, in which a hapless man finds a hidden portal back to the Blitz era and falls for a woman who owns a pub. The series plays out as him basically living a double life and cultivating an affair with the woman from the 40s while he's still with his wife in the present day. It was a great show, I liked it, I didn't like when they changed the actresses for both the female leads. All that being said, Midnight in Paris reminded me of this when Gil mentions the protagonist of his novel owns an antique/nostalgia store (the theme of the film centered around the notion of nostalgia and all its pitfalls and limitations). At that point I couldn't help thinking shades of Goodnight Sweetheart had ended up in this film. Doubtful, but it stopped me from viewing this as a completely original idea, especially since Gil falls for another woman, Picasso's mistress, and tries to have an affair with her. Of course it transpires his fiance is quite possibly having an affair herself, again nullifying Gil's actions and guilt because these types of stories always have a tit for tat justification for cheating. And the fiance is also bitchy, bratty and mean. Perfect.

Putting all this aside, all I see here in this narrative is a writer's wet dream about being loved and admired by his supposed idols. Gil is immediately accepted in this world and everyone loves him, his writing is admired, it inspires Picasso's mistress to fall in love with him. So if you're not a writer, you may not consider this to be an ego trip narrative. If you are, how can you not see it as anything but that? I kind of wish it were possible for Allen to go back and meet his heroes, and when they discover what sort of person he is (he cheated on Mia Farrow and took up with his much younger adopted daughter) perhaps he would be crushed and ridiculed. The major problem with Allen is he's surrounded by devotees and too many actors want to work with him. He's a decent film maker, I don't think he's an exceptional screen writer if he can't move from the same topic of morality, mortality and infidelity. I don't think his comedy is astoundingly funny; humorous maybe, not riotously funny. And I don't think it's intended to be laugh out loud hilarious. It's clever, but in that annoying way of being too self aware and pretentious. I'd never call him a humble person. It's a well made film, he does make Paris look particularly gorgeous and illuminating, and inviting. There's a particular attention to detail and a subtlety about the transitions from past to present. It definitely derives all its tension from the various neuroses of the characters playing off one another. But it rubs me up the wrong way on too many levels.

I didn't hate the film. I just saw it for what it was, a joyride through Allen's ego.

Me during and after "Me Before You"

With all the subtlety of a roid-raging sledgehammer, Me Before You does nothing for the right to life or right to a dignified death movements. Nor does it do anything for Emilia Clarke’s apparent acting prowess while she runs from her day job as a stoic and cranky dragon lady and goes way over the edge of tweeness right into a big pile of artificial- sweetener. The god bus careens into the picture and barely misses everyone at dinner in the middle of the second act, later returning and actually hitting the target with infuriating preciseness. Sam Claflin sits as a gorgeous and patient centrepiece around what essentially amounts to over-dramatic drivel, barely coming away unscathed himself from Clarke’s awful, overbearing performance. Terrible soundtrack overloaded with life affirming pop songs that lend to a heavy-handed score that takes all the drama and joy up to an unnecessary eleven, detracting from the actual human moments that are scattered throughout. Also riddled with cinematic cliches and clunky, badly edited montages with stilted dialogue.

Me during 90% of this film: C- . Disappointing AF

#EmiliaClarkstitsarentworthwatchingorlivingfor

Silver Linings Playbook is an insult to humanity

I refused to watch this movie based on the trailer alone. Bradly Cooper hurling a book out a window because he didn't agree with the ending completely put me off. There's mixed messages for the most part, but if you think your physician can play a "trigger" song in the reception of his office to "see if you are still able to be triggered", and that same doctor will be all buddy buddy with you at a football game, then you're an idiot. There are elements to its "depiction" of mental illness that sort of act like vague references to someone who has an equally vague understanding or outsider experience of mental illness. Maybe you did live with someone volatile and prone to rage outbursts who was later diagnosed. Maybe they did keep you up with their obsessive ramblings. But maybe they were just a jerk, and maybe Bradley Cooper's character, Pat, is in some part, a fucking jerk. I wanted to give Jennifer Lawrence all the passes since she got famous, because she's as caustic and flippant as I am about the notion of fame, but she was playing to a gallery in this, with her quirkiness on parade, and she's failed so far to present a human being who's also a sex addict. No, she's just a quirky sex addict whose addiction stems from a single trauma concerning her deceased husband. Sorry, sexual addiction is actually a bit more complex than that, and people aren't as open about it as she claims to be. The leads sharing notes over dinner on medication makes this facet of mental illness look like an "in-club" the normies will never get a pass to. These exaggerations clearly come from the writer's understanding of mental illness, which is limited. You can't really humanise someone with this condition (bipolar) by making them eccentric and lacking in the basic social graces and modes their healthier alternates (normies) have.

And De Niro as a superstitious football lover? Who's actually more insane than his formally diagnosed son? How about no. You might find an a trend with families who have a mentally ill loved one, that they tend to use that person and their issues as a way of avoiding their own. It seems truer in this than any other film, so yes, I'll call for a degree of accuracy in this. You think for all of Cooper's behaviour, the parents would want him out, but the dad is obsessed with keeping home as a "lucky charm" to hide his own want to bond with his son. I don't hate De Niro. I think he does okay with comedy.  Jacki Weaver gets the neurotic mother who's trying to patch it all up with a smile and how else are you meant to play this part in Hollywood? We don't get the mother who's actually well adjusted and capable of dealing with their mentally ill progeny? Apparently not. I've not seen Ordinary People, but I'm going to assume now that all mothers of mentally ill characters are different versions of her. This role isn't a stretch for anyone, Weaver does it well, but it's bordering on stereotypical.

Admittedly I'm doing this as I'm running into the third act of this movie. There's these unrealistic twists, and now I see the writer/director was responsible for I Heart Huckerbees, a movie I enjoyed but knew was an exaggerated exploration of existentialism. This is supposed to be a movie about real people with real issues, and you've taken the quirk from that film and injected it where it doesn't really belong, in order to make Playbook a comedy. The "bet" seems to be to add tension and stakes to a movie that's only other stakes hinge on a letter from Pat to his ex, who's distanced herself for logical reasons. And somehow, it fooled the Oscar crowds and all of America as a genuine, feelgood film with an accurate portrayal of mental illness.

It's garbage because the story isn't realistic enough to coincide with the supposed realism associated with the mental illness factor. Do you see people this fucking attractive having these kinds of arguments in public? No, you see winos shouting and screaming, and they may be mentally ill, but they're also drunk. Sane people have arguments in bars this explosive, and there aren't any people coming to take them to the fucking loony bin, they go to the drunk tank.

I'm fine with no representation of my condition (manic episodes being included in this) over a fuzzy, semi-real representation that is pinned on a heavily flawed, nearly unlikable character you're struggling to root for. You don't like the family so you don't care they're about to lose everything on a parlay bet because no sane person would bet all their money on a football game, never mind that AND a dance contest. (Yes, I have heard of people losing their houses from a gambling addiction, but I thought this was slowly over time, not in one fell swoop). You don't like the leads because they shout too fucking much and embarrass themselves and everyone around them.

So many of us are hiding this level of rage and frustration from the public, usually because of movies like this. When we're doing okay, and we know how we are when we're not, we're working towards staying that way because there's no joy or benefit in being sick. Don't believe anyone who says they gain from their illness. We don't meddle like this in other people's lives unless we're also sociopaths. And even those who have abandonment issues have good reason for it, and are acting on this with no real intent to genuinely hurt anyone. Unless we're maligned in other ways, you'll find a huge majority of us are hurting ourselves first before we hurt others. And yes, our hurting does hurt others, and we're trying not to. So I can't abide movies with characters who don't work on their illness or shun medication. I can't tolerate or agree with films who misrepresent doctors and their actions. (So I can't give Donnie Darko a pass with the director's cut because he's been given placebos the whole time. Again. No.)

Okay, yes, Playbook isn't Cuckoo's Nest, everyone's favourite benchmark for mental illness movies. But it's not entirely accurate, or helpful. It has some heart to it, but not enough for you to love these characters, flaws or no. And having a little uplifting dance routine would've been great if I liked the two leads and had been laughing for the rest of the film, and cheering them on to get together. Two sick people, in reality, can't have a relationship based on their illnesses. I couldn't date or live with someone as sick as me. It would be toxic no matter how much we loved one another. You can bond over the struggles if you have other common interests, but these two don't. Not really. Marissa Tomei saying "He doesn't make sense, I don't make sense. Together we make sense" sounds lovely in theory, but fucking nightmarish in practice if you're dealing with a fucked up illness on both sides. I can deal with someone who's anxious, or depressed. I don't think I could deal with someone who has what I have. Full disclosure.

Ugh, the Dirty Dancing flub is also painful and awkward. I'm still struggling to get through this, but they only have to score a 5 average to win the bet so.... it can be moderately shit, and the punchline... WAS THE ONLY THING I LAUGHED AT. It's all tied up in a nice bow as per How to Write a Rom Com 101. It's a very predictable story, even the big reveal of the film concerning the letter business isn't that shocking if you hadn't seen it coming in the shots and subtext.

Oh, and boy is this filmed like a crazy person shot it. No, in fairness, it makes sense. Stylistically, I'll give it a pass. All the frenetic closeups and camera shifts and tilts simulate the perception of a person experiencing mania. And when all is calm and balanced, the shots represent this shift in tone. But it's also overplayed. You can represent chaos without a series of confusing focus shots and cuts and Dutch angles. It could've reeled that in and I'd still have gotten the point. So it wasn't clever or useful to the narrative. I know it's hard to see through the eyes of a crazy person unless you are crazy yourself, but I think if I'd paid more attention, the frenetic shooting would've given me motion sickness, and I do have legit queasy cam. So this is all I can say in its thin defense.

Well done to all involved. You've failed to make a comedy, a romance or a drama, or a realistic and fair depiction of mental illness.

Where's my silver lining? I don't feel good. I'm angry and you promised me a feelgood movie.

1/5