#don’t insult filmmaking like that

[mrsmiroir]

i understand that a lot of the crows’ characterization in the show had to be cut for run time and adaptation reasons, but i find the take that it’s impossible to convey complex interiority in visual media and that much of this recharacterization (mischaracterization) “had” to be lost in adaptation to be lukewarm at best. it is possible, it just requires good writers. the problem is that the s&b writers are not good, at least when it comes to this show!

[osemanverse-events]

🎁🎄 to: @cwream from: @teejaysnow

Charlie has changed the group name to “EMERGENCY!!!”

Charlie: Help!! It’s Christmas Day on Wednesday.

Sarah: Yes, darling. We know.

Charlie: And I still haven’t gotten Nick a gift. And, I mean, it’s a gift. For Nick. So it needs to be, like, the best Christmas gift ever. Suggestions, please 🙏🏼🙏🏼

Darcy: You could always give him a blowjpppplm

Tara: …

Tara: Sorry about that, Darcy is no longer allowed access to her phone.

Elle: It’s a good idea though.

Sarah: I’m pretending like I didn’t see that.

Elle: Sorry, Mrs Nelson.

Sarah: I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. Just that I definitely didn’t see it.

Charlie: I hate you. All of you.

Tao: Can’t you just get him a chew toy and take him to the dog park like the good boy that he is?

Charlie: STOP REFERRING TO MY BOYFRIEND AS A GOOD BOY!!!

Tara: Are you saying that he isn’t a good boy?

Charlie: I’m saying that he isn’t a golden retriever.

Tao: But he’s just so dog-coded.

Charlie: Nick. Does. Not. Look. Like. A. Golden. Retriever.

Sarah: Oh, but he definitely does.

Tao has changed the group name to “Nick looks like a golden retriever”

Charlie has changed the group name to “Nick does not look like a golden retriever and stop changing the group name, Tao”

Charlie: I hate you most of all, Scarecrow.

Tao: Rude!! Anyway, just get Toto some Bonios, I’ve heard they’re good for a shiny coat.

Charlie: Toto? Would that make me Dorothy??

Tao: You called me Scarecrow. So if the shoes fit 👠👠

Tara: Wouldn’t he technically be a friend of Dorothy, though? So, with Scarecrow already taken, that would make him either the Tin Man or the Cowardly Lion.

Tao: Fine. The lion then. And Elle is definitely Glinda ❤️❤️

Sarah: Excuse me but who am I in this brand new Wizard of Oz adaptation you’re creating? 

Sarah: And think long and hard before you answer that.

Tao: …

Tao: New phone, who dis?

Sarah: Good choice. Anyway, I’ve got to go pick the golden retriever up from his Christmas shopping, please don’t say anything else that will make me regret being in this chat.

Darcy: You mean like Charlie giving Nick a lap danpppplm

Tara: Sorry again, I’ll hide Darcy’s phone better this time.

Elle: Another good idea though.

Sarah: Leaving now…

Charlie has changed the group name to “You’re all evil and I hate you”

Charlie: You all suck! You’re at, like, vampire level of suckiness.

Tao: Are we talking Bela Lugosi vampire suckiness or Twilight vampire suckiness? Because those are two very different kinds of suckinesses and I for one will not be accused of Twilight vampire-level of suckiness, thanks.

Elle: I’m pretty sure suckinesses isn’t a word. Also, you’d make a great Edward. 

Tao: You take that back! I’ve never been so insulted in my life!!

Tara: She’s got a point, though. Broody, stubborn, tall. That’s definitely you.

Elle has changed the group name to “Tao is a Twilight vampire”

Tao: Hey, when did this chat turn from roasting Charlie into let’s bully Tao?? I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of.

Elle: You’re too embarrassed to accept your Twilight suckiness but you’ll quote Taylor Swift like she’s one of your overly pretentious filmmakers?

Tao: I am secure enough in my masculinity to both listen to and quote Taytay, thank you very much. Also, Twilight is nothing but terrible writing and terrible acting.

Tao: Oh, and also capitalism.

Elle: Didn’t you say that Robert Pattinson was the best Batman?

Tao: Hey, I told you that in confidence.

Charlie: Wait, you, Tao Xu, have watched a Batman movie??!!!

Tao: Now see what you’ve done.

Charlie: YOU HAVE WATCHED ENOUGH BATMAN MOVIES TO HAVE A FAVOURITE BATMAN?!!!!

Tao: Christopher Nolan is an amazing director and I am therefore prepared to watch whatever project he’s involved in, even if it is a stupid superhero franchise.

Charlie: Yes, but

Charlie: Nolan didn’t direct the Pattinson movie.

Tao: …

Tao: Fine. I like Batman, okay? Can we get back to the fact that you just discovered that Christmas is in four days??

Charlie: Shit. Yes. Christmas. Help!!

Elle: I still say Darcy had the right idea.

Charlie: I am not giving Nick a blowjob for Christmas!!!

Elle: Why not? Even his mum said it was a good idea.

Tao: How do you gift-wrap a blowjob though?

Charlie: Can we all STOP TALKING ABOUT BLOWJOBS??

Elle has changed the group name to “Charlie should give Nick a blowjob for Christmas”

Charlie has changed the group name to “Elle is one warning away from being kicked out of the chat”

Elle has changed the group name to “Elle is surprisingly okay with that”

Tara: Can’t you just get him a book on rugby or something? I’m sure Waterstones has a million of them.

Charlie: But that’s not the best Christmas gift ever, is it?? And it NEEDS to be the best Christmas gift ever since this is the last Christmas before Nick leaves for uni.

Tao: Never to be heard from again, I’m sure. Jeez, Charlie, he’s applying for Leeds, not the North Pole.

Charlie: Might as well be. Do you know how far away Leeds is?

Tao: Yes. Because you keep telling us. It’s 229 miles.

Tara: Yep. 229 miles.

Elle: 229 miles.

Charlie: IT’S 229 MILES!!

Tara: Although to be fair, it’s about 3,700 miles to the North Pole, so… 🤷🏾‍♀️

Charlie: But none of those miles includes the M25.

Tara: Point taken. You’ll obviously never see him again.

Charlie: Exactly. And focus, people. Nick? Gift?!

Tao changed the group name to “Charlie is being annoying again”

Charlie: Funny. Really.

Tao: How hard can it be? I mean, you could get Nick a rolled up newspaper and he’d love it because you got it for him. He’s just as whipped as you are. 

Charlie: So your suggestion is a rolled up newspaper 😒😒

Tao: Maybe not my first suggestion but it’s among the top five.

Charlie: Such helpful. Very appreciate.

Elle: He’s right though, Nick is ridiculously whipped. I wouldn’t suggest a rolled up newspaper per se, but whatever you end up getting will be his “best Christmas gift ever” just because it’s from you.

Charlie changed the group name to “I am not getting Nick a rolled up newspaper for Christmas”

Charlie: And STOP CHANGING THE GROUP NAME!!

Elle changed the group name to “No!”

Tara changed the group name to “Now you’re both being annoying”

Tara: Can we please get back to Charlie’s dilemma or I’ll give Darcy back her phone.

Tao: Pretty sure that threat is in violation of the Geneva Convention.

Tara: I don’t think the Geneva Convention is applicable here. Maybe you could invoke the Animal Welfare Act instead?

Charlie: ANIMAL Welfare Act? Really?? Who’s the animal here?

Tara: Nick.

Elle: Nick, obviously.

Tao: That golden retriever of yours.

Charlie: …

Charlie: I asked for that one, didn’t I?

Charlie: Anyway, can you people stop being you for one second? I really need help.

Tao: Oh, we know.

Charlie: Shut it, Edward.

Elle: Okay, vampires aside, what are we thinking? Are we going for practical, sentimental, futurity?

Charlie: Futurity?

Elle: I don’t know, something Nick can take with him to Leeds to remind him of you?

Tara: Like an oil painting! Very Jane Austen. I’m sure Elle can paint one for you?

Elle: Not in four days I can’t!!

Charlie: And I am not giving Nick a painting of myself like some narcissistic twat.

Tara: You’re being a very Negative Nelly right now, which isn’t very Austen of you.

Charlie: Why did I ever think asking you lot was a good idea again?

Charlie changed the group name to “You’re all useless”

Elle: That’s a bit harsh.

Tao: Agreed.

Tara: 😭😭😭

Charlie changed the group name to “Sorry and I love you all very much a lot ❤️❤️❤️”

Tao: 😑😑

Charlie: 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Tao: Fine. I guess we love you too.

Charlie: Nice. Now, gimme suggestions!!

Tao: I still vote for the dog biscuits.

Elle: Can’t you make him some kind of gift basket, like, I don’t know, “10 things I love about you”?

Charlie: …

Charlie: That’s actually a good idea! Although ten doesn’t sound enough, more like “50 things I love about you”. Or 100. Maybe “1000 things I love about you”?

Tao changed the group name to “You’re gonna need a bigger boat”

Elle: “Of all the things I love about Nick, the one thing I love the most is his…”

Tara: Elle!! 😱😱😱

Elle: 😎🍆

Nick: Um. You guys do know I’m in this group too, right?

Charlie: Shit.

Charlie has left the group

Tao has left the group

Elle has left the group

Tara has left the group

Aled: Hi, Nick, what’s up?

[salora-rainriver]

Alright look.

You don’t need to be famous!

You don’t need to be a content creator.

You don’t need to have a hundred thousand followers.

You don’t need to make a massive impact on the world.

It’s okay to fucking EXIST in the world. To make a small impact. To have normal friends and a normal obscure life, like everyone else on this planet.

I get it if you’re lonely, I get it if you feel like there’s no point to life, but fame isn’t the answer to that problem.

Yes I am talking about James fucking Somerton. Hell, I am talking TO James Somerton, motherfucker if you’re reading this, somehow, despite me literally being a nobody on tumblr, then- wow! What are the odds! What the fuck is wrong with you. Also don’t fucking do it. Please log off and live a happy normal mediocre life. Please.

But I’m also talking to every 20-something (me included) who thinks “gee i want to be like those fancy content creators and filmmakers and artists who make stuff and everyone looks at it.”

LISTEN. STATISTICALLY SPEAKING, YOU PROBABLY WON’T BE A CELEBRITY, AND THAT’S PROBABLY A GOOD THING.

And I’m not saying don’t dream big. “Dream big” can mean all sorts of things, and none of them have to be about fame. Entertainment and academia are like 10% of the full breadth of human experience.

You can garden. Knit. Raise animals. Go scuba diving. Join a book club. Play sportsball. Dance at a club. Dance at a park. Learn tango! Paint pictures for small local galleries and people who want something crazy on their walls. Have sex. Go to concerts. Volunteer. Write poetry. Learn an instrument. Learn a language. Go hiking! Biking! Run a marathon! Collect coins, collect shells, collect bones. Find god (any god). Be the guy who hands put water bottles at protests. Join a tabletop gaming group. Play trading card games.

I’ve been saying for a real long time that someone like James Somerton is just not fit to write video essays, he’s not fit to be a content creator - James if you’re still here, we all saw your ‘measured response’, if you were telling the truth about those memory issues and ADHD and they genuinely are so bad that you can’t properly cite your sources- you can’t be a video essayist. I’m sorry. It’s part of the job description.

and look. that’s okay. because there’s so much other stuff he can do with his life. Stuff that doesn’t require him to, you know, make proper citations. Write creatively. Manage a film production company. Those things. The things he evidently can’t do competently.

The idea that he’d rather die than have a normal life, a peaceful life out of the public eye, working a job that he can actually be good at, having his hobbies and his real life friends and maybe even a family… there’s no other word for it than “sad”. That’s so fucking sad, and I don’t even mean that in an insulting way. I know I hate the dude, but jesus.

And I just. If you’re reading this post and the idea of someone absolutely who’d rather die than be normal resonated with you - first of all, do you need a hug, second of all,

This post is for you.

Please take care of yourself and just find joy doing what you want to do. Don’t try to Be Famous. Please.

[beheworthy]

Thor Love and Thunder deleted scenes - 1 & 2  These 2 scenes show that Zeus visits Thor and Jane in the hospital to give Thor the thunderbolt. He advises him on how to use energy for thunderbolt and gives directions for Eternity. Jane makes the choice to go with Thor. Out of other options, they use the goats to travel there.

It's nice to see Thor get some fatherly interaction and behave like his former self: the smile at 'I have many sons', not speaking much but actually listening, being intelligent enough to know what was said in Roman. Little things.

However, these scenes show us an entirely different version of the film. If we go by them, Thor never 'killed' Zeus and left Omnipotent City on possibly good terms with him, given how he casually strolled directly to Jane's hospital bed to talk to Thor and they're all cool with each other.

The Shadow Realm confrontation might have happened as is because Jane is injured and Valkyrie is also out of the picture entirely. Thor is about to go face Gorr alone w no Valkyrie or Jane or Thunderbolt or Stormbreaker or even Mjolnir and not knowing how to reach Eternity perhaps (whatever could go wrong?). But with Zeus giving him the thunderbolt and Jane joining in, the entire climax of the film changes again.

Rant incoming:

Sh*t like this makes me wonder do they shoot 13 different versions of everything and 15 different movies, hoping to find the actual film in editing? That's such a massive waste of the cast and crew's time and effort. These aren't even deleted scenes. These are alternate universes from movies that could have been. Multiverses, if you will.

Deleted scenes are fun additional details the audience could do without. Like Thor returning the mug he broke or Frigga berating/begging Odin to end Thor's exile. Or they're a different/alternate version of existing scenes that may change the context of some things in the story. Like Odin freakin’ letting Frigga die. You could or could not add them but at the end of the day, they don't make a difference to the eventual story.

But in Thor4, if you add Zeus visiting the hospital, you gotta scrap out the entire confrontation at the Omnipotent City. If you add Jane just choosing to ignore Thor's heartfelt request to stay at the hospital and Thor not freaking reacting to it as well (??), you gotta change the entire climax again. I hope to god in the multiverse where this scene of Zeus showing fatherly affection to Thor exists, the scene from the theatrical cut of him ripping Thor’s clothes for fun, looking at him creepily and saying ‘pretty boy’, and inviting him to the o*gy doesn’t. Go to jail, Marvel.

I just-- it doesn't make sense. What even was the original story? Was there a story at all? This is important because Thor is the only character in the MCU to get the elusive 4th film. If you're going to continue a series against the norm, it should be because you really have a story to tell. Like Mad Max: Fury Road, Dexter: New Blood, and John Wick: Chapter 4.

Though I don't think producer Kevin Feige cares much about things like core story and character progression because Thor brings in the $$$. And director Taika Waititi doesn't either because he shot over 4 hours' worth of movie that he can surely cut out a theatrical version from - with every possibility on the cards, whatever the test audience reacts well to.

It's the cast and crew that are the real victims of this methodical merciless studio filmmaking. It's been well-documented that the VFX artists working on Marvel projects have been heavily overworked. A lot of their hard work could have been saved if there was a more definitive story structure so over half the footage they tirelessly worked on wouldn't end up on the cutting room floor. To add insult to injury, Waititi went on to mock them for giving their sweat, blood, and tears to his project. Classy.

Poor Christian Bale shaved his head to play Gorr, only to have most of his scenes cut from the film. Natalie Portman also did physical training for her role.

And Chris did the most extreme training he has ever done for this film. He already did excruciating training for the extreme physique as is. Add to it the dehydration for the shirtless scenes and not eating meat for kissing scenes - just willingly making life difficult for himself. Could have saved him a lot of torturous training by not shooting 13 different versions of every scene out of which 12 won't make it to the final film.

I'm aware that shooting movies works like that - you shoot different versions of scenes that don't make it to the final edit. They signed up for shaving their head and dying training to maintain the impossible physique. All I'm saying is that it's sad that it's all in service of material that just doesn't do them justice. It’s all vapid corporate thinking with no vision.

[darkangel1791]

This might be a controversial opinion piece on the movie, "The Apprentice."

I don't feel as if any insult to Sebastian as a person, or an actor is intended in this piece. There is a mention of seeing Sebastian in the make-up as something that would "ruin your day", but I believe this comment would be made by this author about any actor made-up to look like Donald Trump. There is criticism of his decision to play Donald Trump, and for the movie to be made, and a mention of John Mulaney, so continue at your own risk.

It was authored in December 2023 someone named Sarah. And published on a site called Lainey Gossip.

Do Literally Anything Else

Please leave no insulting or political criticism on my post. It does no good there. Leave it at the source, thank you.

Block or unfollow me if you are offended by my posting this.

Read below if you don't want to click on the link.

Do literally anything else

DECEMBER 5, 2023 17:16:12 BY SARAH

I ignored it as long as I could but now there are photos and there is no denying it any longer—Sebastian Stan is playing Donald Trump in an upcoming movie, and this is a mistake. 

The film is called The Apprentice, but despite the millennial title, it’s about a younger Donald in the 1970s and 1980s, when he took over the family real estate business and turned himself into “what a hobo imagines a rich man to be” (when John Mulaney nails it, John Mulaney nails it). Per Deadline, Stan is joined by Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn and Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump, and the film is being directed by Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi, who won an Un Certain Regard award at Cannes for his 2018 film, Border, and competed for the Palme d’Or with his last film, 2022’s Holy Spider. There are now photos of Sebastian Stan done up as The Donald which you can see here, if you want to ruin your day.

These are VERY talented people, but this is a mistake. Making a movie about Donald Trump, no matter the intent or how vicious the portrayal may be, is a mistake. It is giving that guy exactly what he wants—validation by people who hate him. We would be SO much better off if Hollywood ignored him. He probably never would have become president if the media treated him like what he was in 2015: a joke, an unserious person running an unserious campaign. But the ratings were too good, they couldn’t ignore him because cable news—a dying industry—boomed during the Trump years, so they kept feeding the beast and now there’s a chance he will actually get to be president AGAIN and no Hollywood movie is going to stop it. 

I’m not saying we ignore Donald Trump entirely. At this point, we can’t. But he belongs to the realm of serious, investigative journalism, hopefully revealing and elucidating more (alleged) crimes that might halt his path back to the White House. Turning Trump, even a younger Trump, into entertainment is a mistake, just as it was a mistake with Vice and W. regarding Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, respectively. Some people don’t get the biopic treatment. Some people shouldn’t be converted to popcorn entertainment. 

But I get the appeal of this project on paper. Sebastian Stan has a knack for portraying rich assholes in a most unflattering way—his brief appearance as Robin Hood co-founder Vladimir Tenev in Dumb Money was a masterclass in turning a certain type of Silicon Valley bro into a walking punchline—but not even he will be able to overcome the simple fact that Donald Trump loves any and all attention and he especially loves living in people’s heads rent free. Don’t give it to him!

The other casting is equally good. Jeremy Strong excels at playing complicated, conflicted losers, and Roy Cohn was certainly that, and Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump is a stroke of genius. And Ali Abbasi probably has a lot to say about this man, but again, it won’t matter, the people who need to hear the message don’t even live in the same world as the messengers, and it will only give Donald Trump tingles that Hollywood can’t quit him. There is literally nothing to be gained here. 

But art! No. We’re too close to the morass of the Trump years—too threateningly close to more Trump years—to see it clearly, to have the perspective needed to create even halfway decent art about it. But people will insist, like I said, I see the appeal on paper, and no one has been able to resist the lure of ratings and attention that comes with anything connected to Trump. People will be curious about this movie which will undoubtedly be on the long list of Oscar contenders next year. I super look forward to giving Donald Trump extra attention during a contentious election year in the US. Or, you know, everyone could decide to do literally anything else rather than give Donald Trump what he wants, which is attention, any and all attention, and the knowledge that people who hate him can’t stop thinking about him. I am begging Hollywood to stop thinking about him.

[thewarmestplacetohide]

Thoughts on Tim Burton?

i think Burton is a horrible person, racist, and mostly dogshit filmmaker who made good movies for a very brief period of time.

to break it down:

1. Burton made some movies i sincerely love, including Batman, Beetlejuice, Sweeney Todd, Edward Scissorhands, and Ed Wood. they have their flaws, but i think they’re great movies full of heart with an iconic style.

2. his once-charming signature style has devolved into an embarrassing parody of itself, exaggerated and ugly and void of substance.

3. save for Sweeney Todd, i don’t think he has made a good film since the 90s.

Mars Attacks! completely fails as a campy sci-fi horror comedy.

Big Fish has a punchable main character, shitty message, and wasted ideas.

Sleepy Hollow is a dull adaptation that proves he cannot make a thoughtful gothic horror.

his remakes… good fucking god, his remakes are atrocious. they consistently shit on their sources while being packed with cliche stories, empty characters, and garishly ugly art design that screams TIM BURTON MADE THIS, SEE? IT WILL LOOK GREAT ON AN OVERPRICED SHIRT FROM HOT TOPIC! what he did to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was insulting.

4. this is the most important one: even if Burton was still making good movies, i wouldn’t give him a dime. his racist comments coupled with his gross casting history and the way he stripped all Jewish influence from Corpse Bride tells me everything i need to know about his beliefs.

and, to be blunt, i will never trust someone who has a history of such close creative and personal relationships with bastards like Depp and Elfman.

5. Henry Sellick did The Nightmare Before Christmas and i’m sick of Burton getting credit.

[nicklloydnow]

“I grew up in the 1960s in Hermosa Beach, California – a golden South Bay surfer city. My father, Freddy Pfahler, was a legendary surfer who was in Bruce Brown documentaries, including The Endless Summer (1966) and Slippery When Wet (1958). It was an idyllic time, when surfing was our American Renaissance and the lights of consciousness were being turned on. There was so much ritual, mythology and non-traditional religious custom in my life – like getting up at 5am with my father to watch the tide.

(…)

Mary Heilmann, Lorraine O’Grady – in fact, I was in a performance this year with Lorraine, Laurie Anderson and Anohni at The Kitchen in New York called She Who Saw Beautiful Things. It was dedicated to the late Japanese trans performer Dr Julia, who played with Anohni and the Johnsons. And, in 2008, my work was shown alongside Mary Heilmann’s at the Whitney Biennial. I’ve been incredibly lucky to work with some of my favourite teachers and artists. I didn’t care for Joseph Kosuth, though. He once screamed at me: ‘Kembra, what are you?’ At first, I turned away, because his words really hurt me. Then I looked him in the eye and said: ‘I’m an availabilist. I make the best use of what’s available.’ Sometimes, anger can point you in a direction, and that’s what happened to me that day. I invented availabilism because he enraged me.

(…)

My first husband, Samoa Moriki. When I first saw him, he was dancing on the bar at the Pyramid Club in the East Village. We were married and worked together for 21 years. He was from Hiroshima and adored Japanese theatre: Butoh, Noh and playwrights like Yukio Mishima. But he especially loved extreme outside performances, in which people would dive from the sky into pools of water: physically courageous, beautiful acts. Samoa appeared at one of the first Wigstock drag festivals with Lady Bunny and collaborated with the great performance artist Tanya Ransom, who sadly died of AIDS. Ransom was queer but had a child with a woman called Paula Swede. At the time, many of us were gender fluid and simply didn’t talk about it: the language was only just being born. Later, important people like Ron Athey, Bruce LaBruce and Vaginal Creme Davis would articulate it.

(…)

I loved all of Karen Black’s films: she was somehow beautiful yet ugly, and her consciousness was so expanded. One day, Mike Kuchar, the underground filmmaker, said to me: ‘Oh, Kembra: your work looks voluptuously horrific.’ And that’s how the name started. Karen Black actually came to the band’s first L.A. performance, in 1991, and introduced us saying: ‘I’m not sure if this is meant to be an insult or an homage: does voluptuous mean I’m curvy or fat?’ Then she took my hand and said: ‘You’re an artist and this is a creative project.’ She never sued me; she just let me be an artist.

(…)

I do feel the need for community and I believe the greatest changes are wrought through open-mindedness and grassroots activism – the principles of which are still the most vital to me. Important as it is to collaborate and meet others, though, I still spend a great deal of time isolating myself, instinctively protecting this painful humanity. But I learned the value of contrarianism from Lydia Lunch. So, when I crave retreat, I remind myself to go out.

(…)

There’s a very thin veil of freedom and truth over what is currently known as democracy. I would love to invent a different vocabulary for what exists now, but I can’t articulate it today.”

“Perseverance is something I don't think about. I don’t really suggest anyone navigating their work in any way unfamiliar to their own instinctual process. The harm comes when people start doing work for others instead of themselves or by doing what’s popular. As long as an artist stays true to their instincts there’s never a moment of despair. It’s a luxury to be able to do creative projects. Many can’t because they’re taking care of their families or their children. Art isn’t cool anymore, it’s for greedy suckers. Being creative is freedom and sharing what you make is like a celebration of that freedom. But art is for creeps these days, it’s become so disproportionally monetized people feel like failures when they don’t make money. Money has deformed art and money itself should be redesigned. It’s aesthetically so ugly. Change the size paper! Have someone do a sharpie drawing for the 2 dollar bill. The government has been so creative with stamps, they should get creative with money. I’m not sure if I answered that question either.

(…)

The girls of Karen Black I haven’t spoken about enough Christian Music, Alice Moy, Jackie Rivera or Chloé Blackshire. These women have illustrated the songs with costumes and a strong dislike of show business. The show must not go on. We aren’t in the entertainment business, we are just artists who accidentally formed a band that at times has more of an outreach than decorating a wealthy person's home. I like that it’s hard to put a picture frame around what artists do collaboratively. I don’t have a team, a manager, or anyone advising us on relevancy. I don't care if you think I’m relevant. I don’t have a career. I have a life and it’s fun to share things we learn or discover. That’s where art serves its greatest purpose. What else do we do? War? Make prisons for sick poor people or create shit jobs that don’t pay? Being creative and sharing is a benevolent human trajectory that’s difficult to irradiate even under the most heinous conditions. It lifts the spirits.”

“TVHKB is an interdisciplinary rock band established by my first husband Samoa Moriki and myself. We were married for 21 years. The band is named after one of my favourite characters in the 1975 fi lm Trilogy of Terror by director Dan Curtis. In terms of the new album, it took me about ten years to compile the lyrics. I don’t have a label that supports me and therefore I don’t have any time constraints. My last album I shelved and didn’t put out … I guess I’m fortunate because I don’t have people pushing me for management of my time. When I was a child in Los Angeles, I decided that I didn’t want to live on that side of the tracks, in terms of representation and what not. People were always asking me, “What’s up with your makeup?” and “Why do you dress like that?” I’d say, “What makeup? I’m not wearing any makeup, I usually wear full body paint!” [Laughs] It’s a lifestyle choice, I guess. I chose to be who I want to be. I have very intelligent friends and family so I have the tools to learn how to not listen to people telling me that I can’t do what I want to do.

(…)

To me, a renaissance is a golden time when the lights get turned on. I think New York in the ’80s was certainly a golden era, but of course things change. The years leading up to the ’80s in New York saw some really powerful ‘consciousness raising’ changes – those were the years that gave us people like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and Alan Watts from the ’60s, when lights got turned on. Now, in 2021, it’s really nice to see young people getting to open galleries and run publications, but I think there has been a big change in corporate morality. There is still misogyny and racism here, those things have never been eradicated. I think a lot of larger corporations and galleries now monopolise on this.

(…)

The hard question is: how do we participate in capitalism knowing how virulent it is without utterly starving to death? It’s something young people, old people, everyone is dealing with. Dictatorships and facism have never been absent from the state of war, which transcends the modern day. It’s like that ACDC song, “War Machine” – it’s such an old song but it’s still so relevant today.

(…)

I would say, never compare yourself to other artists. That’s what I tell my students at Yale and Columbia. Be your own kind of artist.”

[jackra881t5cratch35]

Don't Look Up Review, 6.37/10 (Why I hate movies like this)

TL;DR: This movie is okay but mildly entertaining. Made me cry, so it gets points there. However, this movie mostly pissed me off. The filmmakers are disconnected. If you want people to save the world, don't insult them. Give them solutions and compassion.

The Review: I know I’m late to the party with this movie. When it came out, I was interested but something bothered me. Some projects don’t feel like they are for me. Every time I think of media like this, I think of ‘Handmaid’s Tale.’ I know our rights are being taken away, the world is coming to an end, the people running our country suck, it is all our fault, and I don’t need Hollywood to tell me this. I’m angry enough.

In 2015 I watched ‘The Big Short’ and thoroughly enjoyed it when I was a lot less pissed off. Then I saw ‘Vice’ in 2018 and thought it was a lot less enjoyable. It was still good, but it was nothing new for me. There was too much winking at the audience, but the performances were good. Then I sat down with ‘Don’t Look Up’ last night and yeah it was in enjoyable but not as enjoyable as those other 2 films. I put it on while I was writing, and it was perfect for background noise.  Something surprising happened at the end for me.

As the comet is careening toward Earth. All the problems the movie presented begin to reconcile themselves. It is a little too convenient, but I don’t care either. I sat through this whole thing. I just want to know whether the world explodes. Well, it does, and I started crying. A lot. What I put on to break the silence, elicited an emotional reaction. I’ve been dealing with my own mortality. It scares me. I’m okay with who I am, and what it all means but what is there? So, maybe that had something to do with it.

This film has a bigger problem. The movie is making light of these very serious issues. I remember when ‘Don’t Look Up’ was being released. There was talk about it being satire about climate change. After watching this movie, all I have to say is fuck you McKay. Shows an out of touch look at the world. What can we do as an average person? Really. Going on TV and screaming CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL. Won’t change a thing. Neither will going to the Louvre and throwing soup on things.

When ‘Don’t Look Up,’ was released we had a Far-Right clown for Republican president. The POTUS in the movie in the movie was very similar to the 1 at the time. Now we have a Center-Right POTUS (in 2024) who represents the Democratic party. The current says he is doing more for climate change, but is he? Not really. So, what do we do? The system is broken. Give more money? To Whom? Yellow Dot Studios? No Thanks. The movie depicts so many average people as dumb and it’s in bad taste.

So, thanks for establishing the problem with no solutions per usual.  I would love for people to humble themselves. Make a project showing what can be done. A movie like ‘How To Blow Up a Pipeline’ comes to mind. Not saying do let’s go commit mass destruction but I am saying it was a lot more compelling than this movie was. Push comes to shove; I will be doing exactly what happens at the end of this movie. Enjoying my family and friends because the people in power don’t care about us. Not even Hollywood/Netflix.

Grade: D

[burningvelvet]

hi can i ask to hear you rant about the 2018 mary shelley maybe

thanks for the ask! this is an unhinged stream of thought & super long of course. will reblog with part 2.

where do i even begin??? 1) its disappointing that the filmmaker is a highly accomplished feminist & role model but then she sells a fake biopic about a historical woman which is twisted to fit a false narrative that mary shelley herself would disagree with. so disappointing! 2) percy shelley wasnt an alcoholic he literally wrote against alcohol consumption in his work on vegetarianism 3) mary literally never even met harriet and if she had the chance she wouldn’t have because she hated her 4) shelley and harriet both saw other people; harriets 3rd child was percy’s; also i dont even remember if harriets suicide is mentioned? why bring her in to demonize percy if not utilizing the main reason why ppl demonize him in the first place? 5) mary didnt like polidori - he literally threatened her partner to a duel & polidori is insulted in the preface to frankenstein - but the film portrays them as good friends omg what 6) all the characters are one-dimensional 7) no offense to byron’s actor who did good with what he was given but the character was written to be like a parody of byron. like a halloween costume gone too far. one review described it as cartoonish & i agree 8) claire is unrecognizable; irl she was firey and bold and funny and she literally asked byron out multiple times before seducing him then followed him across the continent & she’s literally the one who introduced him to mary first then percy!!! percy/byron didn’t know each other prior! all of this is left out!!! 8) hogg is so demonized & rapey; that scene was so uncomfortable and inaccurate; irl he was calm & funny & mary literally was going to have sex with him but didnt bc pregnancy etc. - she wrote all this in her loving letters to him which dont fit the filmmakers agenda; hogg was one of shelley’s best friends etc. 9) most importantly, percy actively encouraged and helped mary with frankenstein & helped edit/publish it and literally wrote part of it & she said she couldn’t do it without him. but in the film they don’t show any of this. 10) shelley was never given credit for frankenstein 11) the actors are nothing like how i would imagine these people but they all did their jobs well and had good chemistry and its so disappointing they werent given a proper script or guidance etc 12) the film was boring as shit, i watched it before i knew anything about the romantics personal lives (so i wasnt even critical when i watched it) & i only got thru the first 20 mins or so then continued i think weeks later vowing to finish it & when i did i was pissed at wasting my time, esp the scene with mary/claire crying ugh it was so painful to watch and not in a good way 13) i was actually relieved when i found out the film was inaccurate & that these events werent as boring as they were presented. like i knew the film had to be wrong & dismissed it before i even started learning about the romantics. like these are some of the most fascinating people in history how do you make them that boring & one-dimensional & insufferable 14) the figures themselves would all hate the movie 15) why is it called “mary shelley” when it should be called “mary and percy” or “the making of frankenstein” bc thats all the film really focuses on tbh! she lived decades after frankenstein and wrote other stuff too. but i dont think the director or the writer knew any of that 16) byron was the only entertaining part ngl (tbh whether demonizing or glorifying him it would be impossible to make byron boring; hugh grants version almost was except he’s hugh grant) 17) no grave sex? cowards. most historians agree mary and percy had sex for the first time on her mother’s grave. 18) shelley/claire were best friends, most historians believe they had an affair, & mary and claire had a lot of arguments until mary kicked her out (they loved each other but didnt like living together). none of this is shown! instead mary/claire are girlbossing against evil man percy. if they wanted to demonize him so bad why didnt they use the claire affair.

[seeminglyseph]

This is probably like. A weird thing to be concerned about, but like. The degree of polish and like. Quality in some of the recent entries to the V/H/S franchise sometimes is like… intimidating and feels like. I mean I don’t wanna tell people specifically to be worse at film making or anything, and it’s not like I think anyone broke rules making their entries I don’t think. But I think I mostly mean this to say towards audience members sometimes, ‘cause a lot of V/H/S is kinda *supposed* to be lower budget and experimental in comparison to blockbuster movies or whatever. That’s why the first one has that like “what the fuck?” Aspect to some of the shorts, they kinda feel like student films, because they were like… “gather some people up, get some relatively affordable equipment you can maybe rent, and go film on a rented set or out in the woods which is mostly free”

It feels cheap because it is cheap, and the cheapness makes it have that exact kind of horror vibe it was going for by being VHS. The more polished and high budget and impressive it gets, the less it feels like an experiment in cheapness.

I think there’s a really strong charm to the shorts that feel a little like “film makers create a student film” and I’m not using student film as an insult because I think there’s something really interesting and raw to the like. Sets and characters and costumes put together when you’ve got really really passionate, but broke and unpolished creators? When you’ve got like the cameras and equipment rented from the school and you’re filming it in the weird woods by your old house because you always thought they looked cool and wrote a lot of stories there anyway and now you’re trying to make one of them into a reality and the makeup person might just be your friend who spends too much money at Sephora so everyone voted them to be in charge of makeup and now they’re having a nervous breakdown because they only know how to do their own makeup and they’re looking up tutorials online for blood effects and actually really pulling it off and maybe figuring out something new about themselves.

One of the biggest personal expenses turns out to be a Cricut machine for the prop department but then the fact you don’t have to worry about carpal tunnel taking out your prop and costume department does make up for it eventually. Also someone made you a custom graphic T and you stop grumbling about the budget for a while.

Chances are also probably good you made a deal with the local produce shops to take the cabbage and melons that go bad for reduced price if you’re making a movie with violence, for all the free sound effects available online, it helps to have something live on the day. And head of cabbage or a melon works good on a low budget set.

It has been like two decades since I’ve been anywhere near even a low budget TV/Film set in Canada and I think some of these might be stage tricks instead. But still. There’s so much charm to them??? And it’s why I think a lot of horror fans love low budget horror.

(Also I should note, I was like. A youth working as an extra on a couple filming projects and took independent personal acting/filmmaking classes that taught me about aspects of the industry and tricks of the trade, but I never got super deep into anything. I saw how stuff was done and did some amateur filming projects which is how I learned how to fake things, but I never learned how big budget things were made. Everything I ever learned was cheap corner cutting for people making things on grants or for the passion of arts, not… uh. Millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars. I learned small Canadian Arts Film, not Hollywood Filmmaking. They were… not all encompassing and I am not positioning myself as an expert in anything… just… running my mouth like a know-it-all honestly.)

And like. I think most of V/H/S still accomplishes a lot of it. Praise Ratma.

It’s probably just a couple like… big sensational show stopping shorts by directors who really know how to work with their budgets more than like… any kind of change to the system. And the fact that I like it when it’s kinda messy and sloppy and shows the seams and the actors aren’t super great and the premise feels a little half baked? Not… fully bad because that “actually the cult was fake and the raid was a ploy by us, the sexy lady cops who are actually… big name sexy snuff film peddlers who’ve been profiting from all the sick twisted videos you’ve been watching and we’re gonna make out while killing you” was like. Running a full sprint into a wall, like they almost made it and then they just made a really bafflingly bad decision in the final moments to like. Completely derail that train at the station and I don’t think anyone was satisfied with how that ended.

I don’t think I have the most solid of a point, really, except that a lot of films are very big and polished and expensive lately. And horror is one of those last bastions of “no budget? No problem.” Mindsets. And I kinda love it for that. And I wanna see it continued. I wouldn’t mind it catching on to other genres again because too much of everything has to look and feel and seem high quality making the barrier to entry nearly impossible to pass. But, I hope V/H/S maintains its cheapness because it’s kinda integral to keeping horror accessible. It’s good, it’s fun, it’s experimental, it creates access to new voices.

Yeah going back to the early entries some of it is like “wow that’s pretty gross” but like. There’s a reason most of those characters died horrible deaths. They were shitty garbage trash people on purpose and you were supposed to hate them so when they were brutally murdered you didn’t feel too bad about being like “ohh my got holy shit” and probably doing the mix of laughing and wincing and screaming when the rapist gets his dick literally ripped off and thrown across the room you don’t really feel that terrible about your fear response also being kinda giddy and giggly.

I am overthinking this. Idk. I love this franchise. I hope it lives in cheap gritty gross weird glory forever. Anthology Horror is such a good genre.

[jacquelinemerritt]

Dragon Ball Z: Abridged Episode 57 Review

Originally posted September 8th, 2018

A brand new character steals the show.

Hercule Satan fucking rules.

That could legitimately be my entire review of “Opening Serumonies,” and I don’t think anyone would mind, because first, it’s obviously true, and second, it’s about all that needs to be said about this episode. Hercule Satan is a goddamn incredible character, Antfish brings him to life brilliantly, and all of the jokes around his character land with aplomb. I don’t need to provide a good defense here either, because if you’ve seen the episode, you probably already agree with me that he’s a fantastic character, and love him just as much as I do.

I say all of that, and yet I know full well that based on this episode alone, I can’t exactly justify or explain my love of Hercule Satan, though he does get a hell of an introduction here. Satan is very much the kind of egotistical character we’ve come to love in this show, but unlike Vegeta or Freeza, he actually starts off as a genuine hero, entering the #CellGames and stepping up to fight Cell one-on-one, despite not having an inkling of how strong Cell actually is.

Even as Satan hogs the spotlight in this episode though, both in the narrative itself and also literally taking the spotlight off of Cell and our heroes, we see a glimpse of depth to his character in his detailed explanations of how Cell is pulling off seemingly impossible feats, as well as in his urging to children to not recreate the violence they see on screen at home, aware of how his celebrity makes him a role model.

We also get to see a vulnerable side of Satan, as he is at first baffled by, and then apprehensive in responding to Cell’s detailed personal insults, calling for a commercial break to recover from the shock of Cell seemingly being able to describe his personal history in great detail. He’s also made vulnerable in a much more literal sense, as when we finally see him attempt to take on Cell, he’s swatted away like an annoying bug, slipping down a mountain as a bloody, beaten mess.

With all of that, you could be forgiven for assuming that the episode is literally just about Hercule Satan and the lead-up to his battle with Cell, but his story actually only takes about a third of the episode’s runtime, with the rest focusing on our main cast’s arrival at the games, and apprehensions about taking part in such a violent contest.

The only two characters who seem to be unaffected by the #CellGames are Goku, due to his love for fighting, and Android 16, who is far too distracted by finally meeting the man of his dreams, the man he wants oh so desperately to kill, and yet cannot bring himself to muster the courage to ask Goku to do so until it is far too late. It is clearly one of the great tragedies in our modern storytelling era, and if anything happens to 16 to stop him from getting to fulfill his dream of killing Goku, then I am going to riot.

#JusticeForAndroid16

Rating: 4.5/5

Stray Observations

I am just now realizing that all of the characters wear pointy boots because Akira Toriyama probably can’t draw or hates drawing feet. And it’s kind of adorable because those pointy boots mesh perfectly with Toriyama’s aesthetic.

Oh, I fucking love Jimmy Firecracker too, he’s exactly the kind of awful, trend-chasing, sleazeball journalist that would cover something like the #CellGames as a wrestling event, and Xander Mobus does a near pitch perfect impersonation of Jeff Bennett’s radio announcer from The Legend of Korra/that same old-school radio announcer voice that you hear when a TV show or movie wants to call back to serialized 1930’s adventure, and I am all about that type of voice.

Critical Eye Criticism is the work of Jacqueline Merritt, a trans woman, filmmaker, and critic. You can support her continued film criticism addiction on Patreon.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Murphy's Law (Thompson, 1986)

This review contains mild spoilers.

The title makes more sense when you remember that Golan and Globus had a habit of selling movies to distributors based on a cool title and poster and worrying about things like the actual premise and plot and other inconsequential details later. Because the movie as is has little to do with the concept of Murphy’s Law, except for the hero to clarify that the only Murphy’s Law he’s familiar with is the one that concerns him, his name being Jack Murphy. His version of the rule is very simple. “Don’t fuck with Jack Murphy.” This line resonated with me for two reasons. One, I once had a co-worker who frequently touted Murphy’s Law but clearly didn’t know what it was. He was also not, how you say, a top performer, and was an asshole to boot, so his misinterpretation of the law was merely one of several strikes against him. Two, the line is said by Charles Bronson in that classic Charles Bronson voice.

This is a mid-‘80s Charles Bronson vehicle directed by J. Lee Thompson, meaning that’s it’s sturdier than the ones directed by Michael Winner while offering similarly lizard-brained thrills. The premise here concerns Bronson being targeted for revenge by a serial killer he put away years ago and having to team up with a snot nosed teenage punk he finds himself attached to, somewhat literally, while generally pissing off the mob. Bronson and Thompson did a few collaborations in between that hit other notes, but this feels like a halfway point between 10 to Midnight and Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects, merging the serial killer plot of the former with the bifurcated structure of the latter. It is nowhere near as sleazy as either movie, as the murders here lack the ugly, sexualized dimensions of the former and doesn’t rub your face in the muck like the latter. It does share with those movies a queasy fascination with and contempt for what I suspect the filmmakers viewed as “aberrant” sexuality (which I suspect includes everything outside of missionary with the lights off and Bronson avoiding post-coital conversation so he go grab something from the fridge after). Bronson broods over the fact that his wife has become a stripper, and characters regularly trade homophobic insults. In addition to that, the only cop on the force who seems interested in holding Bronson accountable when he’s accused of murder turns out to be crooked. So there is something of a worldview running through these movies, one which might inspire a voting record that differs from mine.

I do think the movie is pretty engaging on the whole, as it finds ways to prod Bronson’s steeliness and even afford him some humour. Much of this comes from pairing him with Kathleen Wilhoite as a spunky teenaged car thief, who brings her usual charisma and does a great job of getting on his nerves but not necessarily ours, and aside from some unfortunate homophobia, has dialogue that evokes the kind of words a child uses before they’ve discovered actual cursing. (The most explicit phrases she uses are “jism breath” and “scrotum cheeks”.) And some of this comes from pitting him against a serial killer played with pleasing derangement by Carrie Snodgress, whose methods and meticulousness pose a genuine challenge for the more conventionally minded Bronson. And I think Thompson directs this with a certain assurance, and gets a good deal of suspense from the climax, a two-tiered stalk-and-slash style sequence that plays like if you mashed two slashers on top of each other and added firearms to boot.

[florilegia-or-what-you-will]

Idiot Cringe Gawain Failing Upwards For More Than 2 Hours

Okay okay okay. I’m gonna write my very disorganized statement on why I don’t like The Green Knight. I’ve been putting it off because it makes me angry, and I have noticed from past experience trying to write essays about the 2005 Pride and Prejudice adaptation, that when I’m angry, I tend to rant and tangent. I’m going to avoid complaining about stuff that isn’t related to adaptation of the main plot and themes. I’m not going to talk about how annoying I found most of the acting, or how bad I thought the CG was. I’m also not going to nitpick all the little changes that do annoy me, but could be valid in a better movie, like the decision to make everyone in Camelot really old rather than really young. I am going to talk about Gawain’s failure in the book vs. his success in the movie, and I’m not going to edit at all once I’ve written it because I find thinking about this movie exhausting :)

In the original story Gawain is trying so hard, the entire time, to live up to a rigid and unachievable ideal. The story is so good because he doesn’t succeed because he’s only human. That his failure isn’t really a failure, but a part of humanity’s nature, and the fact that Gawain doesn’t take that lesson, and continues to beat himself up for it, is still a unique and interesting story now. I relate to the story as someone with social anxiety and a perfectionist streak. I always feel like I’m playing a game with rules I don’t fully understand.

What is The Green Knight but a really generic coming of age story, and a poorly paced and characterized one at that. It feels like the filmmakers were trying to make up for the weakness of the writing by making the visuals really trippy and the acting really unnatural, but that doesn’t manage to make movie Gawain an interesting character. He’s a mediocre guy who breaks his promises and doesn’t have a strong motivation. He gets into bar fights for no reason, has an extremely annoying manic pixie dream girlfriend (I despise Essel, I think her inclusion was so unnecessary except to make Gawain as boringly heterosexual as possible), immediately gets beat up and left for dead the second he leaves for his journey, actually does commit adultery with Bertilak’s wife, doesn’t manage even a single day of the second game, which was, you know, the main part of the original story, and still gets rewarded at the last minute for doing THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT HE DOES IN THE BOOK. I

’m sorry but I do not like this Gawain. He just sucks. Dev Patel could have played such a good Gawain in a good movie but, alas, this is what I get. I get that I’m kind of a purist. I am of the opinion that if you are going to adapt something, you should:

a) understand what’s good about it

b) only make changes for the sake of the new medium, or if it will improve on the original

That’s obviously not everyone’s idea of a good adaptation, but personally, I’d much rather read a subversive story where Gawain tries really hard to live up to the ideal and fails, and that’s okay, than watch a movie where Gawain runs away from his problems for most of it, refuses to acknowledge his flaws, at the last minute gets a super hetero normative happy ending that he doesn’t deserve and that kind of insults the original story.

[delta-lethonomia]

Still reeling from the ending of Stinging Nettle Wine… so fucked up and SO GOOD.

Additionally…

I saw you reblogged some nosferatu art 👀 I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on the movie! Especially your opinion of Ellen and her relationship with Orlok

Oooh I’m glad you enjoyed! I love that fic 🥰

Yes, I did see Nosferatu the other day. Admittedly I was a bit biased walking into it which I think might have influenced my opinion from two angles:

1.) I watched Bram Stroker’s Dracula (1992) the night before for the very first time, and

2.) this tweet living rent free in my head:

And my brain kept both of those two pieces of information in the very forefront of my mind for the entire film.

(Spoilers for Nosferatu under the cut)

I really liked Ellen. Willem Dafoe puts it it best when he claimed “in another life, [she’d] be a priestess of Isis.” She’s got this great psychic connection with Orlok where she never really seems to fear him, pushing back only briefly in scene that seemed jarring and out of place imo. Solid acting, A++ depressive yearning, no complaints whatsoever. At first I thought that the film was about repressing female sexual desire, then I thought it was about childhood sexual assault (possibly by her father), but neither quite hit the mark entirely for me so tbh I prefer the implication that she was just that horny + lonely + psychically powerful as a teenager she awoke an ancient cursed being in her need to get railed lol

Orlok is fun, suitably intimidating and strange, but he’s just not vampy to me. I watched a review that called the movie “the spiritual successor to the exorcist” and tbh I agree with that. He’s terrifying like the plague, like death, but the best part about vampires is their twisted humanity, and that’s something he lacks. He’s interchangeable with whatever demon you’d wish in his stead. That’s why I feel I’m biased, because Gary Oldman’s Dracula has that vampiric passion, obsession, that I wanted, leading to an unfavorable comparison to Nosferatu due to no fault of its own.

The tweet was funny and I reblogged it but in hindsight I don’t agree at all. Just because of online reactions I expected a lot more monsterfucking and overt sexuality, sensuality, a “movie that fucks,” but it felt tame to me, and again I think that biased my enjoyment.

I will say though, Thomas’ actors’ performance was excelllent. He looked utterly terrified in Orlok’s castle and I loved it. The first scene sets him up as not satisfying Ellen enough, hence why I thought the film would be about her sexual yearning, but once he’s back he manages to still rail her quite thoroughly despite the fact she’s raving and hurling insults and throws up seconds beforehand? Youth, lmao. They had such a sweet relationship, I felt bad for him.

My real favorite was Friedrich, strangely enough. I really felt for him, and the fact he breaks into his dead wife’s coffin to fuck her one last time before dying himself scratched my brain in a really pleasant way. The scene where you see Anna’s gartered thigh over the side of the coffin was so quick though that my husband didn’t even catch that that is what happened, so I wish they’d have lingered on that for a moment longer - the fact that it was so quick made me think the filmmakers themselves were squicked out by the necrophilia, but personally I just loved the tragic futility of it, that grief-stricken yearning morphing into something so violating yet poignant.

The ending was beautiful. Overall it was a gorgeous movie, gripping and delightfully gothic and I certainly pulled many a horrified expression while watching, but it feels like a fairytale in a lot of ways with all the pros and cons of that. Dracula is an artsy camp romance and that just pulled me a lot harder. (Then again, maybe I just love the flayed skin look.) Would step on Thomas and Friedrich both, loved Ellen, just wish she and Orlok had like… one more scene together. He’s got such tension with Thomas, it would have been fun to have something with the three of them. Put tortured Thomas in the cuck chair, idk 🤷‍♀️

On the other hand I also kind of liked megalopolis due to all the Roman history references so maybe don’t trust my opinion on movies lmao

[iadgasfdf]

there is a new lara croft animation on netflix? cool, lets check it ou-... ho, hoooooo dear noooo.

"

The Two Types of Cinema

Practically since the invention of the cinematograph, there have been two basic ways to make money by filming movies: someone pays to watch the movie you made, or someone pays you to include something they want in your movie for the audience to see.

The combinations of these two businesses are limitless, even when only considering the LEGAL ways of making money through filmmaking.

Thus, there are two basic types of cinema:

Entertainment Cinema: Its main revenue comes from ticket sales (although it may earn a few extra dollars by “placing” ads, making promotions for tax breaks, etc.); this cinema needs to capture the public’s attention to draw audiences.

Subsidized Cinema (often euphemistically referred to as “artistic cinema,” “non-commercial cinema,” “alternative cinema,” and many other terms): Its income mostly (or solely) comes from payment for promotion (generally tied to illegal activities).

Subsidized cinema doesn’t seek public viewership. Its sole reason for existence is to spread a propaganda message, mainly through promotional material (press “articles,” interviews, posters, trailers, etc.); the movie itself becomes a mere pretext for the promotion. This is, at best, when the film’s primary reason for being isn’t public fund fraud, where it keeps as low a profile as any other criminal activity. We thus have a perverse inversion of ends and means, with the movie as a vehicle serving promotional content.

Now, in most parts of the world, we’re familiar with this pseudo-cinema. But, in the United States and a few other places, the other cinema model became dominant: entertainment cinema. This cinema intuitively sounds like the most reasonable business model or like the only cinema that should exist.

That’s why English-speaking critics don’t seem to understand recent Hollywood cinema.

We have a series of productions that share the following characteristics:

1) They are usually derived from something that previously existed.

2) They are made by people who deeply despise this “previously existing thing” and its audience—and don’t bother to hide it.

3) They are often intentionally bad.

4) They are intentionally ugly (especially in the design of female characters).

5) They have a heavily ideological background, typically promoting a very low widespread or highly objectionable discourse.

Predictably, audiences loathe these movies and complain. The studios’ unvarying response is to insult the audience and announce they’ll keep producing the same kind of garbage. And the cycle begins again.

Finally, the only ones who continue complaining and “criticizing” these products are those who, over the past decade, have built a kind of business around doing so. Everyone else has adopted one of two strategies: either stop watching new releases or get used to watching insulting trash. Usually, a combination of both.

This won’t change because it’s a business model that doesn’t assume people will watch their movies. Complaining is pointless. And, even if all movie studios miraculously decided to go back to making good films, the people who knew how to do it have already retired, passed away, or moved on to other things.

We are entering the post-Hollywood cinema era. It will have its virtues and vices, but it will be something entirely different from the cinema we knew for almost a century. I think it’s an interesting time, and I have no interest in wasting it watching the latest abomination from Disney or WB just to state the obvious and say it’s terrible."

-anonymus.

anyways, i guess were going to have to wait a few more years until we get a good adaptation of tomb raider

The Lara Croft animation on Netflix is like if someone in the studio planning department was like: "Hey, what if we go directly for all the lesbians' throats by making Lara a brave and adventurous but emotionally vulnerable butch?"

[nicklloydnow]

“BLVR: I asked because the press materials for the album came with a very long list of things that you like and dislike, including things like insects and animals and oscillation.

JJ: Yeah, we just tried to put together a list of things rather than just do the traditional Jim and Carter met while creating music for a film, blah, blah, blah. Of course, in the end, I think they gave you something like that too. We just wanted something a little less formulaic for people to read. Some sort of random thoughts about our inspirations in general. We’re not really interested in explaining things. We don’t really analyze ourselves. I have that a lot with my films too. People ask me what things mean, and I have no idea! When you make a film, it’s like two years later that people are asking you about it, and you’re not even the same person. It’s sort of the same with a record. It’s hard for me, in particular, to talk about things I created, because I’m not analytical. I need to protect a kind of mystery for myself.

(…)

BLVR: I read an interview where you said it was hard for you to appreciate your own films because of the process of creating them and the time lag before they’re released. Do you feel the same way about your music?

JJ: In a way, but a bit less for several reasons. One, I’m very involved in the music and in its creation, but I’m collaborating on a little more of a basic level with other people. In a film, I’m collaborating with a lot of people to realize it, but I’m sort of the captain of the ship, because I wrote it, I cast it, I will be in the editing room. But I can never see it again for the first time. That’s impossible because of how it’s created. The beauty of films is they are like a dream that you enter, and unless you’ve seen it before, you don’t know where it’s taking you. Music is similar, although music is less dependent on an image or a narrative, so it’s even more abstract and beautiful in a way. But it doesn’t take as long to create. That’s a difference. I’m sorry; I’m not being very articulate. There’s a difference and a similarity and I’m not making them very clear. They’re not very clear to me, I guess.

(…)

BLVR: Do you ever find you’re on an airplane, thinking, You know, I haven’t caught up on all the Twilight films? Do you watch mass-market movies, or do you tend to only watch obscure Indian dramas?

JJ: No, I’m not hierarchical. I have my preferences, but because I really, deeply love the craft of filmmaking, I, of course, like masterful filmmakers’ work. But I watch all kinds of stuff. On a plane recently I watched Cruella. I love the Naked Gun movies because they’re so stupid. I’m sort of amazed by the John Wick movies, just by how many people he can kill. I haven’t seen the Twilight movies. And I have particular things I will never see. I will never see any Star Wars films, because I resent that I know so much about them and the characters. Why is all that in my head when I’ve never actually seen one, you know? Why do I know about R2-D2 and Darth Vader and all these things when I’ve never even seen any Star Wars film? I’ve never seen Gone with the Wind and I never will, just because I feel like it’s forced on me and it’s some kind of corny thing.

But these are very subjective, just kind of stubborn things on my part. I don’t like mass things being shoved on me, but I will go see them. Like The Terminator is a masterpiece of cinema. It’s a big action movie, essentially. So I don’t really differentiate. But I have to tell you one thing I hate—and you can just do a little test yourself: watch any recent action-oriented movie and look for any shot that’s more than three seconds long. I find that really insulting and shit filmmaking: like they have to keep it moving every three seconds. And that’s the longest they’ll leave a shot on! And then cut. One second, cut! Two seconds, cut! Three seconds, cut! Man, I get a headache. I just turn it off. I’m like, Come on, man, go to film school! Watch something! Go read a book! Look at a painting! Look at something. This is nonsense. I can’t stand that.

(…)

JJ: I believe in this kind of aesthetic synesthesia, where certain things suggest something else to your senses. Rothko’s a great example because his work is meditative. You can go into another place under the influence of a visual thing like that. And of course, there’s the beautiful piece of music “Rothko Chapel” that Morton Feldman created, inspired by the paintings or the feeling of them or that kind of meditative place you could go. So we put that in there because we love when certain things suggest another form like that. Or you smell something and you think of a color. It really speaks to me when the work of painters or musicians suggests another form. I don’t know how to explain it any more than the openness of that kind of synesthesia.

BLVR: In addition to filmmaking and music, you make collages. Are there more creative outlets that you have?

JJ: Yeah, I write poems. For a long time, I studied with Kenneth Koch. The New York School of Poets are kind of my godfathers throughout everything I make—movies as well. That’s why I’m so happy we have these John Ashbery poems on Silver Haze. I’m preparing a new series of collages. I have one book of collages that I put out and I’m working on a new little book. It’s not quite ready. I am going to have a show in Paris, and then I’m going to have a show of my collages next year in LA. They’re all very small and sort of unassuming and very minimal. So yeah: films, music, collages. I write poems; I write essays, sort of; and sort-of prose poems. I do a lot of writing as well. Not like elaborate fiction projects. I’m not writing a novel or anything like that. But I love poems, too, because like in music, the spaces in between sort of accumulate into the overall thing. And my collages are very minimal. And they’re about reappropriating images and reduction, and removing things and substituting things—very minor ways of altering your perception of the visual image. I like a lot of things. Not just art. I’m an amateur mycologist: I’ve been trying to learn mushroom identification for twenty years now. I observe birds and animals and try to learn about different types of moss, of which there are so many varieties. For a while I just was obsessed with the history of motorcycle design, especially European and Japanese. I get sucked into tangents because I’m really a kind of dilettante. I don’t consider that a negative thing. There’re so many things that are interesting to me that I can’t imagine not being kind of scatterbrained, in a way.

(…)

BLVR: Wow, that’s great. Personally, I just rewatched all the Twilight movies and did a lot of emotional eating. Not to keep throwing your words back in your face, but your press materials said that SQÜRL sometimes likes “the score better than the film.” I was thinking of Judgment Night, but were you thinking of anything in particular?

JJ: No, not really. This is not really answering that. But I get very annoyed by how music and film seem to be all, I don’t know, cut from the same ream of cloth. The world has so much diversity of music, so why do these commercial films all sound the fucking same, you know? But that’s sort of the opposite of what you’re asking. I love the fact that some scores of recent films have come not from John Williams or other traditional Hollywood kinds of shit. People like Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have made some beautiful scores for films. Trent Reznor and Atticus what’s-his-name [Ross] made some beautiful scores. I’ve watched a few films only because Nick and Warren scored them. Otherwise, I might not even have been attracted to them. The scores are very important and also sometimes extremely annoying. I don’t like it when the score is designed to tell you how to feel about everything, which is often the case. I find it sort of condescending and insulting. As someone who loves how films are made, why does the music have to tell you how to feel? It seems kind of lame.

BLVR: How do you fight against that?

JJ: First of all, whoever’s making the music, whether it’s me or it’s the RZA or Tom Waits, I don’t give them specific places to score. I don’t say, Here are the cues, I want to score here, I want melancholy music here. I don’t do that. I talk about the atmosphere of the film and encourage them—or encourage myself, if I am doing it—to make music that is derived from the feeling of the film. Then we’ll take it and play with it in the editing room and see where the film likes it. That alleviates a lot of that idea of trying to tell the audience what’s going on or how they should feel. Instead, it’s adding another landscape like painting in the sky. That, to me, makes the most beautiful music because it becomes part of the fabric of the film.

(…)

BLVR: You once said, “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration.” Hollywood really likes to reboot things. So if people started rebooting your movies, would you be OK with that?

JJ: What does that mean, “reboot”?

BLVR: Where they basically redo your entire film but update it with a new cast or some other twist. Like if they redid Stranger Than Paradise with the High School Musical cast.

JJ: Oh yeah, I think that’d be very amusing. I have to clarify what I mean by “stealing.” I don’t condone, like, if my neighbor wrote a script and I read it and then I took his script and made a film out of it before he could. However, in my case, that’s not really a problem. If someone stole my script, they wouldn’t make the same thing I would make, you know? At the same time, it’s not cool to take something someone hasn’t realized. But if anything in the world has been realized already, I don’t see why it can’t be sampled or imitated. I don’t understand why that should be prevented. If you steal a riff from somebody and then make that the opening of “Stairway to Heaven,” which Led Zeppelin did. Led Zeppelin is a great band, but they just blatantly stole blues songs and then said they wrote them. That’s just kind of bullshit. You should credit the things you steal from. You should rejoice in them! You should say, I was inspired by this. You shouldn’t say, No, that came from me. I did that all myself. Right? That’s kind of bullshit. But I think all human expression is like waves in the ocean. And if you sample something in a hip-hop song, you’re taking it somewhere else; you’re using it as an element in something you’re making now. Nothing’s really original. There are only a small number of stories you can tell. There’s just an infinite number of ways to tell that story. So it’s not cool to take something someone else did verbatim and say you did it. That’s just lame, but anything should be free to be inspiration.

BLVR: So no copyrighting a groove?

JJ: I don’t know about copyrighting; it’s all very complicated. I’m really interested in reappropriation, meaning you take something from somewhere else and make it something else. That’s the basis of all art. Bach taught us that by his Variations. He just started varying things. And then it’s like unfolding a beautiful Fibonacci code of everything. It’s something ingrained in expression. John Lennon said something really cool. I don’t have the exact quote. But he said something like: originality comes from not quite being able to imitate your greatest inspirations. I think that’s a beautiful way of saying what I was trying to say. Like when Quentin Tarantino made his first film, Reservoir Dogs, he lifted the plot from a Hong Kong movie by director Ringo Lam called City on Fire. So I saw the film back then and I was like, Wow, he lifted that whole cloth and made it his own. That’s really cool, but is he going to tell us that? And he did… eventually. And Quentin is all about inspiration from other places. So I’m all for that. Is that stealing? No: he reappropriated something and made it into something else by using very basic elements of somebody else’s idea. That’s the basis for all kinds of creation. How many paintings in the Renaissance are there of the Madonna and Child? Does that mean somebody stole the image? Also, for me, variation and repetition are really the most beautiful things in art history, and the creation of things. Look at Rothko’s paintings: they’re variations of themselves in a way. He is like Bach to me. He can continue making these variations, and each one resonates in its own way. “