#a lot of movies I watch I just enjoy finding the philosophical or religious undertones

[liesandbrokenhearts]

Where did your taste in movies/art come from?

Hmm I guess I’m just explorative in movies I think will strike my fancy in some regard I suppose, I don’t really curate much its just whatever I think may make me see something in a certain light in beauty or despair in the eyes of the director and actors creating it, I was watching Testament of Orpheus by Jean Cocteau that said a film is an idea of an artist that is portrayed to a great number of people so much so it becomes a petrifying ray of thought, it is a dreamlike creation making real of the unreal and that an artist always paints his own portrait and I think in a lot of the greatest minds of artists their art is so representative of their unique way of thought and being and I like seeing the world in different eyes. He says essentially films are great vehicles for poetry and I love movies that are created by those principles (when I watch them I’m between non hard hitting media like everything else). But I really do like movies that provoke thought or emotion, or in its many forms just explain and portray the human condition, I don’t really have a formula on where my likes in movies came from but I know with a lot of art I love (Jenny holzer, Marina Abramovic, Jean Michael Basquiat, Robert Mapplethorpe and many others but those are ones that jump come to mind immediately) there are usually political undertones as well as symbolic imagery and melancholy or suffering of some kind. I just like anything that makes me feel something. I think it’s hard to pin down but my tumblr is just essentially things I love and think about and my useless thoughts too but I think my taste just comes from what I’m able to find and what I find time to watch really

[thisguyatthemovies]

What did I just see?

Title: “Serenity”

Release date: Jan. 25, 2019

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jason Clarke, Diane Lane, Djimon Hounsou, Jeremy Strong, Rafael Sayegh

Directed by: Steven Knight

Run time: 1 hour, 46

Rated: R

What it’s about: A fishing boat captain living on a small island pursues a large tuna and weighs the moral dilemma of a tantalizing offer made by the mother of his teenage son, who he has not seen in many years. But things might not be as they seem.

How I saw it: What to make of “Serenity”? Anyone watching it will have more questions than answers. In fact, it’s likely no one will have a single answer. In fact, no one could say with any certainty that filmmaker Steven Knight answered his own questions, or if he even cared to. In that spirit, here are some questions “Serenity” might leave you with:

·        Who was pitched the idea for this movie and thought, “Yeah, let’s do this!”? Kind of an homage to film noir, kind of a murder mystery, kind of a fantasy, kind of philosophical study with religious undertones, and then a giant, nonsensical twist thrown in there and a stab at sentimentality at the end. If that sounds like a dumpster fire, that’s because it is. An intriguing dumpster fire. A baffling dumpster fire. A sometimes-spectacular dumpster fire. But a dumpster fire just the same.

·        Who thought this should be released in September, at the onset of awards season? That’s when it was supposed to be thrust upon the world. But then it was pushed back to January, typically the studios’ dumping ground, and released not to fanfare but with negligible promotion. That’s why a movie with box-office draws like Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway and an interesting if deceptive trailer can open with a $4.8 million weekend, good for only eighth place domestically.

·        Why did McConaughey and Hathaway sign up for this mess? Even more so, why did Diane Lane want to be even a small part of this? McConaughey plays down-on-his-luck fishing boat captain Baker Dill, who has issues (we assume from him having served in Iraq), including that he is never not drinking. McConaughey plays it straightforward and seriously, and he shows his butt a couple of times, for what that’s worth, Hathaway, as Dill’s ex Karen, is an over-the-top blonde femme fatale and seems to be having fun despite not having much to work with. Ditto Lane, who pays Dill to have sex with her and find her cat but otherwise has little to do with anything. She spends the second half of the movie just watching the proceedings from a window.

·        Could Jason Clarke, as Karen’s current husband, have been any more evil? He drinks a lot, abuses Karen physically and emotionally, abuses her (and Dill’s) son, insists on Karen calling him “Daddy,” has connections to the underworld that make it impossible for Karen to leave and, upon arriving on the fictional island of Plymouth, asks to be taken to the area where underage girls will have sex with him for $10. When Karen asks Dill to push her husband out of the fishing boat and leave him for sharks, why wouldn’t Dill do it for free, let alone accept her offer of $10 million cash?

·        If McConaughey and Hathaway are big stars and more attractive than most people, why was a scene in which they get it on inside Dill’s boat about as sexy as a glass of room-temperature 2 percent white milk? And what did it have to do with anything?

·        Why does a movie made in 2018 and released this year include a stock “magical negro” character? That role falls to Djimon Hounsou as Dill’s assistant. At least there are hints of Hounsou’s motivation for helping Dill; he needs the money. But mostly he’s there to help the white protagonist by dispensing pearls of wisdom and religious insight.

·        What about that big plot twist? Did it make everything make sense? Maybe? No? Possibly? Will it make you groan? Groan any more than the rest of the movie? Can you see it coming? Perhaps. Perhaps as early as the opening image. Knight has left subtle and not-so-subtle hints throughout. Pay attention, and clearly something is not quite right in Plymouth. Like, why does the radio announcer always seem to be speaking directly to Dill? But are those so you might correctly guess before the big reveal, which comes just past the halfway mark? Or so that you might enjoy “Serenity” better the second time around, if you feel compelled to watch again? If you know the twist going in, will that diminish your enjoyment? Is that even a concern with a movie this strange and messy?

·        And the most important question when the final credits roll: What did I just see? And why?

My score: 18 out of 100

Should you see it? If you are the type of person who can’t look away when driving by a crash scene, maybe check it out when released for streaming and try not to take it seriously.