#i don't give a shit about your artistic vision as a director just do the comics

[gaykarstaagforever]

"OMG who are they going to cast as Dr. DOOM??"

It doesn't matter. Cast some unknown theater actor. He wears a robot mask and says goofy supervillain shit all the time.

You only care who they cast because we all know he'll spend 3/4ths of the movie being a mean CEO in a turtle neck named Vic Vandein, because GOD FORBID we have any fun whatsoever with any of this, no, everything has to be some hack commentary about how we hate Elon Musk, because surely that will still be a compelling thing in 20 years.

Just do the damn comics.

They're already well-paced storyboards! It's less work to just film that!

"Well people are turning on comic book movies now."

Yes because you keep making shit ones that ruin everything. The Fantastic Four are a stretchy guy, an invisible lady, a rock monster, and a guy who is made of fire, and every single attempt you've made at a movie about one of their adventures is 80% people complaining and 10% explaining fake science no one cares about. The 70s cartoon was crap but at least they understood that 90% of it should be them fighting robots and aliens with their space magic.

Why is this so hard? It's like you bought a recipe for candy to make the candy, but every time you make it you dump salt and tar into it, then are shocked when no one wants to eat that. Just make the candy!

Go to a comic convention and hire the guy who cosplays as Dr. DOOM. Yeah, he's a plumber. But he understands Dr. DOOM and is good at playing him. He already does it. Just use that guy! You can pay him a 100th of what you pay goddamn stupid-ass Jared Godforsaken Leto, and he'll be better at it, and I won't want to punch him in his stupid obnoxious face the whole movie.

This shouldn't be this hard.

The fact that the Roger Corman half-finished Fantastic Four movie is the best one anyone has ever made is shameful. And he actively didn't care, and it had no budget. But at least they got Dr. DOOM right.

Jesus with this.

[olderthannetfic]

Discourse about that show, The Idol, is so frustrating because it boils down to violent sex icky and this is misogynistic. The director is a creep because he just wants to film women just being pornographically sexy.

I'm sorry but his shit is aimed at adults. I don't care. Be more concerned about abuse of power on the sets*, which there is a concern from his previous show Euphoria. Some actors did come forward to say they felt pressured to get naked or show parts of their bodies they didn't want to show. The Idol doesn't seem to be having that issue so far. We'll see when it's done airing and time passes but in the meantime, it seems like Lily-Rose, the leading actress empty eyes and hard nipples first, is going above her workload to say she felt fine on set. I like her, she seems like a nice and positive person in general.

I don't even care about the show that much. I do not doubt at all that you missed that this show was a thing because when teasers and trailers dropped it was met with a resounding "This is gonna be fucking miiiid". The thing is try hard...shock? People are saying it's supposed to be satire? A parody? I don't believe that because they used shock marketing. All their promotion is about it being "transgressive". And it worked somehow. Media people hopped on it being sooo offensive and basically "torture porn" and that's why it's bad when it's really just boring and shallow and maybe gross(if you think cum is shocking and gross that is, which the show and offended audiences seem to think so). They picked things that sounded edgy but invoked nothing. It's not visceral enough to be "torture porn" if the point is so to see our leading star get fucked and get fucked up. But there's only like 1 ep out.

I can go on but let's end it here. There's so much to talk about the reaction to this show and the show itself yet it feels like it makes the most boring conversation. It's a bizarre feeling I'm having. The inanity of this overblown controversy is not lost on me. How do you "Think of the Children" with only adults involved. Clutching pearls for who? For what? It can't be for giving a fuck about safety on set because that's an afterthought with most people. It's objectifying and misogynistic! Hun, if you've watched straight porn it's nothing you haven't seen before. In fact, it's less satisfying. It's a boring try hard sex show. I'm a liar, I said I would shut the fuck up. Bye.

*I know about the woman writer/director ousted because they didn't like the script going in a female-perspective direction and I don't know how exactly to feel about that. One hand, not a good vibe. The other, it's his production. Letting go a writer for not following your artistic vision is not uncommon. The reason just gives you the ick. Funny how they can't come close to putting that amount of sleaze into the actual show that they claim it to be. This is not getting into the apparent hellish production cycle which I wish was more in the spotlight. It was an on the fly disorganized mess from beginning to end.

--

[jennay]

Silver Screen Romance

The request: Sleep is for the weak

You fainted…straight into my arms. If you wanted my attention, you didn’t have to go to such extremes.

(reader is working too hard and passes out on set.)

Master List

To say you'd been overworking was an understatement. You wanted to nail this part; it was your first big role, and we're determined to have your name remembered.

You stayed tucked away in your trailer. There weren't any distractions and no one to interrupt you.

Taking another sip of your coffee, you set your script down on the small couch. Eating would be a good idea, but you pushed it aside like it wasn't there to fuel your body.

A knock on the door distracts your mind from thinking about food. Sluggishly you walk to the door. You feel light-headed and dizzy. You make a mental note to eat something when whoever is knocking leaves.

You swing the door open to see your assistant Amber standing there. “On in forty.”

“Ok.” You wouldn't have time to eat. You needed to head over to hair and make-up for touch-ups. You grab your script and follow her.

“You don't look so good.” She says. “Have you slept in between takes?”

“Sleep is for the weak.” you don't want to talk about your lack of sleep and how hungry you really are. “I'm ok, I promise.” You lie.

When you arrive at where you are supposed to be, you sit down and allow the artists to do their job. You focus on your script, ensuring you don't miss a single word.

They finish with you and your head towards the set where you see your costar standing. “Hey.” He smiles brightly, “About ready?” He asks.

“Yeah, I'm just nervous I'm going to mess something up.” You feel your stomach growl. You sit down in a chair, feeling dizzy.

The director grabs Jamie’s attention and begins discussing things he wants to change about his character's movements.

When you stand black specks fill your vision. You feel warm and sweaty. Fuck. All the bad things you were doing to your body had finally caught up to you. The last thing you remember is your knees collapsing and everything going black.

The next thing you knew, medics were hovering over you. “Ah. There she is.” One man says he helps you sit and gives you a water bottle. “How are you feeling?” He asks.

You blink your eyes a few times, “I feel fine. Quite dizzy.” You admit. “Nothing I can't handle.”

He helps you stand, and you thank him for being patient and caring for you.

You run your hand down your face. Jamie is walking toward you, concern written on his face. “Feel better? You gave me quite the scare.”

You take a swig of water, “What happened?”

“You fainted…straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention, you didn’t have to go to such extremes.” He jokes, and you shyly smile.

“Thank you for catching me. That could have gone a lot worse if you weren't there.” You hold your stomach when it loudly growls.

“Let me buy you lunch?” Jamie offers. “We’re delayed for a few hours. They wanted to make sure you’d be able to rest.”

You feel embarrassed that the whole crew had to wait due to you not taking care of yourself. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

Jamie chuckles, “Don't worry, we've all been there. So yes, on food?”

You finally look up and notice you're not walking to your trailer. You're eyes glance to Jamie. “Where are we going?”

“My trailer, I have a tv and a comfortable couch. We can order food, and you can get some rest, or we can watch a movie.” He opens the door and allows you to walk in first. “Go ahead, sit. Make yourself comfortable.”

Jamie follows and sits next to you. He phones in order; he flinches when your head drops to his shoulder. You and Jamie weren't exactly best friends, but if you fell asleep that fast and that had, then he wouldn't budge. He’d let you relax and maybe even close his eyes as well. God knows you two needed it.

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

I was going through this post feeling quite disheartened and I couldn't quite understand why but now I think I do.

Of course the main problem is that these are screenshots of clickbaity headlines that don't give a damn about what it is being said, they just want people to screenshot them and retweet them to incite (heated, not rational) discussion.

The first one is the worst because what Scorsese said about Marvel was very interesting but all headlines were about "he called them shit!" and "he compared them to theme parks!" but what Scorsese said was so much more than that. I highly recommend reading his column in the NY Times:

"That’s the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until they’re ready for consumption. […] Many films today are perfect products manufactured for immediate consumption. Many of them are well made by teams of talented individuals. All the same, they lack something essential to cinema: the unifying vision of an individual artist."

"In many places around this country and around the world, franchise films are now your primary choice if you want to see something on the big screen. It’s a perilous time in film exhibition, and there are fewer independent theaters than ever."

Then Coppola made a pretty good point, his quote was: “We expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration. I don’t know that anyone gets anything out of seeing the same movie over and over again” which is a lovely sentiment but of course what's the headline? "Marvel is despicable".

And I guess it works because that post has over 9k notes but it's quite disheartening that the discussion boils down to "they're shit" or "they're for kids" or "anyone who likes them is dumb!" instead of actually discussing what the directors are saying: streaming, franchise movies overtaking all screens in theatres, lackluster scripts and repetitive stories, etc.

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/4/2020: SOCIETY

Without having a survey to back me up, I feel comfortable asserting that as a horror fan, you go through different phases with SOCIETY. It’s a basic fact of life, and yet it morphs and mutates underneath you, shocking you anew just when you think you’ve got a grip on it. You never forget your first time, because there is simply nothing like it. Then, after you get over the initial shock of its patented brand of body horror, you start to take it for granted; it's so broad and monolithic that it becomes something like the Grand Canyon--when it’s not right there in front of you, you begin to experience it more iconically, as part of the wallpaper of existence, rather than an in-your-face confrontation with the limits of experience. Then, you revisit it every few years (or months, depending on what sort of person you are), and the prophylactic layer that your brain has wrapped around your memories of it--the one that allows you to think of SOCIETY as a fun, wacky cheap thrill--begins to crumble, and you realize all over again how iconoclastically vile it is. Wherever you happen to be at, with this inimitable genre landmark, you'd be hard pressed to deny that it earns its royal status among horror movies, just for being so uniquely fucked up.

Filmmaker Brian Yuzna is best known as the co-creator of the indispensable RE-ANIMATOR (or as the co-writer of HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS...depending on what sort of person you are, again), itself a milestone achievement in the blending of sex and gore that so characterized '80s horror production. That film clearly brought out the best in Yuzna and frequent collaborator Stuart Gordon (also of HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS fame...among other things), but it's interesting to see how they operate apart, to understand the unique ingredients that each filmmaker brought to the more perfect union of their classic Lovecraft adaptation. Gordon skewed darker and more intellectual, as evidenced by the end of his career with the shattering mob thriller KING OF THE ANTS, the disturbing true crime drama STUCK, and the Mamet-penned EDMOND. Yuzna, for his part, is almost anti-intellectual, preferring to cook up blackly comic, semi-pornographic nightmares like his two increasingly horny RE-ANIMATOR sequels, the terminal S&M fantasy RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3, and the shamelessly hokey comic book adaptation FAUST: LOVE OF THE DAMNED. Yuzna's lack of shame is really his defining feature as an artist, and nowhere is this more obvious than in his directorial debut and signature masterpiece, SOCIETY.

Salvador Dali's "The Great Masturbator," a chief visual inspiration for SOCIETY.

Yuzna was able to leverage the success of RE-ANIMATOR to lock in two directorial opportunities, BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR, and a bizarre body horror exercise about a Beverly Hills orphan who discovers that not only are his adoptive family from a different bloodline, but they're not even from the same species. That both pictures employed the writing team of Woody Keith and Rick Fry gives you a little taste of what to expect from SOCIETY, but to be frank, the latter threatens to make the former look like a very special episode of ER; "overkill" barely begins to describe SOCIETY’s ambitious assault on the human body. In a recent interview, the philipino-american director giggles perversely, "I think my friends were a little embarrassed for me (when they saw SOCIETY)," and this sound bite reminded me that the last, most important ingredient that Yuzna contributes to any project is unabashed joy. It's a little hard to imagine stomaching SOCIETY without it.

In this unusual scene from the class struggle in Beverly Hills, Billy Warlock (son of HALLOWEEN 2's Michael Myers, Dick Warlock) plays Bill Whitney, a rich, handsome, athletic high school student with a heavy duty anxiety disorder. Although he appears to have it all, he is plagued by nightmares and hallucinations, reflecting suspicions that the family that spoils him is also out to get him. Perhaps this is all understandable, though. Bill is under a lot of pressure these days, with his parents devoting all of their attention to his sister's coming out party, and his narcissistic girlfriend pushing him to ingratiate himself to the assholes higher up the social ladder; it's enough to make any teenager feel alienated and insecure. But, do these garden variety anxieties account for his visions of his sister's body deforming itself unnaturally, or the dubious evidence he finds that her debutante ball involves incestuous orgies and human sacrifice? Is Bill simply crumbling under the strain of societal expectations, or is the friction with his shrink, his parents, and his peers all symptomatic of an elaborate plot against him by elites who are truly less than human?

I can’t believe they use this cheapo blanket trick MORE THAN ONCE in a movie that is famous for its unforgettable special effects, and I guess I kind of love it.

In case I haven't made the answer abundantly obvious, I'll add that while SOCIETY is the purest expression of Yuzna-ness on the market, it has an important co-author in Screaming Mad George. The eccentric japanese FX master, whose name is apparently an amalgamation of Mad Magazine, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and...George, has produced some of horror's most outrageous makeup and visual effects, mostly for Yuzna, many of them in SOCIETY. If you've seen even a trailer for Alex Winter's 1993 oddity FREAKED--which is itself a grossout criticism of American social standards--then you are already familiar with SMG's trademark style. He specializes in twisted perversions of the human form that would make a cenobite blush, driven by a penchant for puns, and influenced equally by THE THING's Rob Botin, and Big Daddy Roth’s Rat Fink style. Screaming Mad George is instrumental in articulating Yuzna's premise: that behind the shimmering veneer of success and sophistication, the upper class are just a bunch of degenerates, who literally degenerate into something unimaginable behind closed doors. It's impossible to imagine SOCIETY without his sinuous, slithering monstrosities, or his indescribable realization of their most important social event, "the shunt".

One of many great images from a zine I wish I owned, on SMG’s Facebook page.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by SOCIETY's visual impact, but its message is just as potent now as it was at the end of the Reagan era: Rich people are not only different from the rest of us, but in fact, they aren't even human. Writers Keith and Fry make an interesting choice of hero to help put this across. A lazier writer would have selected any archetype from the Freaks and Geeks set to create an easy Us vs Them tension, but SOCIETY is led by a promising young man who, for reasons he himself does not yet understand, is just not "the right kind of people". Bill appears to have every advantage in life, including a level of popularity that wins him presidency of the debate team despite his nerdier rival’s superior prowess--and yet, he suffers from a stigmatizing psychiatric disorder that is the natural result of feeling indefinably different from one's peers, and intuiting that, as a consequence, they don't even really like you. The shallow jock with deep-seated emotional problems is a much more interesting protagonist for this kind of social allegory than the charismatic outcasts that you get in movies like THE FACULTY and DISTURBING BEHAVIOR, for whom the idea that the elites could be aliens is just de rigueur.

It's worth noting that this complexity of character extends to Bill's love interest, sympathetic society girl Clarissa Carlyn (Playboy Playmate Devin DeVasquez). At first, she seems villainously eager to introduce Bill to the many splendors of "the shunting", but as the plot against him mounts to its horrifying conclusion, she defects. There appears to be a reason for this, although honestly, this is the most difficult part of SOCIETY for me to wrap my head around. Clarissa lives as an essentially independent adult, only burdened by her mother (Pamela Matheson), a possibly brain damaged hulk who lurks in and out of various scenes just to be disturbing, always announced by some toots on a tuba, before eventually siding with our heroes. I'm really not sure what's supposed to be going on in this part of the movie, except that this character contributes to a number of distasteful jokes. But, I hold on to the idea that by virtue of whatever disorder Mrs. Carlyn suffers from, she serves the purpose of priming Clarissa to rebel, since her very existence makes her daughter something of a societal outcast herself. That's the best I can do.

In any case, everyone working on SOCIETY commits completely, with Mrs. Carlyn being no exception. The movie's climactic orgy of the damned is an all hands on deck operation, just as reliant on Screaming Mad George's artistic abilities as it is on the actors' responsibility to make you believe that this fucked up shit is really happening. There's a visceral patina of sleaze spread over the entire film, dripping from the way that characters talk to and touch each other, flirting and flaunting their bodies in a distinctly unseemly fashion, even when it stays within the realm of mundane reality. This constant sinister, insinuating attitude on the part of the whole cast lays the foundation for what is to come, and while I appreciate everybody's hard work, my favorite performance is from an actor who only comes in at the very end: David Wiley as society king Judge Carter. Wiley's career consisted almost exclusively of the most ordinary sort of television work, which makes his outrageous turn in this alien porno flick all the more respectable. While other characters transition from suspicious pod people to full-on mutated perverts, Judge Carter has to show up just for the finale, establish his authority, rip off his clothes, and plunge straight into a sea of slime, happily fisting his way through the cast. Wiley meets this challenge with aplomb, making of himself a hybrid of Robert Englund and Gene Hackman, perfectly embodying the movie's joyful absurdity, and never betraying the slightest hint of embarrassment. 

SOCIETY is very much a don't-look-down type of endeavor, a fairy that could expire at the slightest lapse in faith. There's a visual pun in the last act that's so gross, so offensive, so frankly idiotic, that I don't have the courage to describe it; my whole body tenses up when I know this scene is coming, as if it were the meat hook scene in TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE or the brutal rape in the middle of SHOWGIRLS. I don't like it, but at the same time, I respect Yuzna's unhesitating commitment to show it to me, and I think that actor Charles Lucia should get some kind of award for shouldering the burden so valiantly. SOCIETY is a daring movie in the truest sense, a film with more balls than brains, and in this it exposes the limitation of intelligence and taste, and the real need for pure transgression, in producing art of any real value. You might argue with me about whether Yuzna's masturbatory magnum opus really qualifies as art, but to respond to that, I'll quote the great transgressor Alejandro Jodorowsky: "If you are great, EL TOPO is a great picture. If you are limited, EL TOPO is limited." So stick that in your shunt and smoke it.

PS Here, have this stuck in your head for the rest of your life.

[owenteagued]

You said you have a list of directors that you really don't like so I'm curious to know which directors are on it and for what reasons

Oh, this is gonna be hateful at best… please be warned that my reasons are in no way caused by any sort of critical approach to their work, so they’re entirely founded in personal prejudices and taste… also this might come out misandrist af so bear with me…

kubrick: he’s boring. I don’t necessarily dislike him but damn I’ve never been able to watch any movie of his without having to pause it at least a couple of times. I also don’t like how he directed actors… almost, if not all, of his actors’ performances are cardboard at best and totally blown out of proportion at worst. The fact that you can’t go a month without some old man heralding him as a cinema god just makes me more unsympathetic towards his work.

nolan: his “manstories” are just too much for me. I can’t bring myself to care most of the time and he can’t direct or write women to save his life. I mean just look at Marion Cotillard’s death scene in the dark knight rises! WTF is that shit??? How could he do that to her??? Also the fact that I can’t go a week without some guy performing a public fellatio on his work makes me more uninterested towards him, cuz his fans can’t fucking take any sort of criticism and they don’t leave until you agree with them so most of the time I’m just forced to say “yeah, the cinnamon tarkovsky was really good!” and i hate it. tho I do respect him for dying at dunkirk so white twinks could have representation in movies!

nicolas winding refn: drive (2011) was one of the most boring experiences in my life. I have ptsd from that movie to the point that I, thankfully, don’t remember any of its scenes but at the same time I can’t watch any other movie with ryan gosling if he doesn’t talk in the first 5 mins just out of fear that it all might come back to haunt me. also the fact that he dedicated the neon demon to his wife is one of the most heterophobia inducing things i’ve ever had the displeasure of seeing.

damian chazelle: this dude’s movies are basically just a man going “RAAWR IMMA FUCK THE MUSIC ARGHHG!!!!!” while his girlfriend, cuz they all have a girlfriend for some reason, just goes “i don’t understand anything!! why don’t you hold my hand anymore? :’(” and I just can’t deal with that kind of stuff.

wes anderson: i can’t stand that all his female characters are way too fucking beautiful for the men they’re supposed to pretend to be in love with or whatever. tho meh that’s just hollywood sexism at its finest and we should grow a tough skin for that but then he goes and makes his actors move with that rhythm that’s neither too fast nor too slow and that it was probably snatched from buster keaton’s rotting corpse with the help of some occultist ritual. add to that his damn obsession of always putting things at the center of the frame and you have me being totally uncomfortable throughout it all like if you wanna torture me really bad just tie me down to a chair and force me to watch moonrise kingdom. I’ll probably end up giving you everything i have to my name just to make it stop. (I do like fantastic mr. fox tho)

bertolucci: this one was in fact a pig and I never understood why anyone was ok with a pig directing a film. idk, that part of film history never quite checked out with me. i have not even seen any of its films because i don’t actually care what a creature that’s commonly raised for the slaughter or as a pet has to say about human nature or the world, it just bothers me that good money was wasted on helping a pig achieve its vision.

woody allen: ever since i found out he was a child molester i can’t watch any of his films. the argument of “separate art from the artist” is completely useless in this case, cuz most of his films are basically that… you got an old white man in a position of power that starts a relationship with a way younger and beautiful woman… ugh, I mean, to use the classic homophobic mantra: don’t rub your sexuality on my face. i do like some of his more female centric movies like blue jasmine, tho i can’t get the footnote of “this was done by a child molester” out of my mind as i watch it and it completely ruins it, so why bother…