#sonoya mizuno can fucking get it

[sh3nlong-promakh0s]

I need rhaenyra targaryens thussy (ik the character is a cis woman in the show but dkdhshs) and also mysarias gd tongue in my mouth anyway

[todayisafridaynight]

word vomit anon back!!!

pirate majima game is funny...watching people complain abt rgg ruining majima is super funny because he's been a silly guy for like 7 games and a serious guy in one...can he not be silly again...just once more??? (also im sure this game is gonna be emotional in some way shape or form) also k3 heads stay in line yokoyama said it was coming one day he never said soon lol

'k3 heads stay in line' PLEAAASSEE VJLKEALKJ youre right tho i cant lie ....

on the real though yeah no like. majima can be serious at times but generally he's a zany guy, it'd be illegal not to capitalize on that in SOME regard

[nightmarefuele]

muse directory.

repression is a huge theme on this blog. smut happens (usually in body horror font), but don't expect it.

Dune, Star Wars, general gritty sci-fi;

Qimir | The Stranger; manny jacinto ; might feature a knight verse in addition to some canon na-Baron Feyd-Rautha ; austin butler ; draws 98% from the '24 film. Verosha Aniseya ; amandla stenberg Ren (of 'the' Ren) ; adam driver ; a heavily divergent/'oc-ified', post(usually)-snoke, visceral horror, gritty lean from star wars' kylo ren. Shin Hati ; ivanna sakhno ; ahsoka. Kylo Ren ; adam driver ; as close to kylo 'canon' as i'm capable of writing, but solely draws from tfa characterization. Mae-ho Aniseya ; amandla stenberg Paul-Muad'Dib Atreides ; timothee chalamet ; leans on the book(+ messiah) from time to time. Lady Margot Fenring ; léa seydoux. Officer KD6-3.7 ; ryan gosling ; blade runner 2049 . Ezra ; pedro pascal ; prospect (2018). Cee ; sophie thatcher ; prospect (2018).

HotD & other fantasy;

Melisande Shahrizai ; oc-ified character lifted from the kushiel's series; testing; fka twigs Astarion Ancunin ; neil newbon ; need i an explanation Aegon II Targaryen ; tom glynn-carney Alicent Hightower ; olivia cooke Aemond Targaryen ; ewan mitchell Rhaena Targaryen ; phoebe campbell Mysaria ; sonoya mizuno Helaena Targaryen ; hunter schafer (slightly different interpretation), phia sabban Oscar Tully ; archie barnes

villains, antiheroes;

John Constantine ; keanu reeves Loki Laufeyson ; tom hiddleston ; selective muse. fuck u i don't consider post-tdw canon. ciao Jonathan Crane ; cillian murphy ; selective muse

bleak, flexible, modern;

Lisa Nova ; rosa salazar ; brand new cherry flavor. Connor, the Android sent by CyberLife ; bryan dechart Elijah Kamski ; d:bh ; neil newbon Hank Anderson ; d:bh ; clancy brown Sofia Falcone ; cristin milioti ; i'm in love with this crazy bitch Elliot Alderson ; rami malek ; mr. robot. Phillip Price ; michael cristofer ; mr. robot. Leon ; joey bada$$ ; mr. robot. Lisbeth Salander ; rooney mara ; the girl with the dragon tattoo (2011) . Berry Rydell ; young josh hartnett ; freelance private security officer from william gibson's virtual light trilogy, based in retrofuturist nocal and socal. just a guy doing his own thing and getting caught up, routinely, somehow, in the national (but very top-secret) dickfight over some expensive glasses. + virtual reality, or whatever. Control (John Rodriguez) ; bob morley ; based on authority by jeff vandermeer, and annihilation, book and film, exploring hypnosis/mind control and consequent distrust, or outright paranoia. operates at the branch-end of a highly bureaucratic and mysterious organization. eventually ends up at Southern Reach, "...a secret agency that manages expeditions into a place known as Area X, an uninhabited and abandoned coastal area of an unnamed country which nature is gradually reclaiming." 'nature', in this context, being a cute/tame word. refers to his guns as 'gramps', 'grandpa', 'grandpap', etc. 6" tall, impassive. Tangerine ; aaron taylor-johnson ; bullet train .

apocalypse;

Joel Miller ; pedro pascal Imperator Furiosa ; anya taylor-joy. (alyla browne.) Dr. Dementus ; chris hemsworth.

aus are fun. hit me with em or forever hold your peace.

ocs, always subject to adapt and update on a thread-to-thread basis;

Oeznik Ambroicz ; cillian murphy ; loosely based on a character from an original script. flexible iterations. director of an institute/facility (sometimes agency, depending on setting and historical values) that focuses on exploring the residual elements that paranormal trauma leaves behind. these elements can be purely psychological, physical, combined, or, sometimes, paranormal themselves. in other iterations, to draw further on lovecraftian or cthulhu mythos elements, oeznik may lean more private investigator, or 'freelance', for his own mysterious and often unexplained purposes. focused and preoccupied when fixed securely inside his element; wary and suspicious when not. Nadya ; sara serraiocco, sara montpetit ; lab experiment turned a) runaway, b) interdimensional spy/assassin, c) something something time shenanigans. or simple modern ones. who the fuck knows. Dorian Yu ; christian yu ; tba. loosely based on christian yu's musical creations. relies either on psychological themes (wherein dorian is bipolar), for stories more grounded in realism, or the supernatural. heavily flexible, works into most (if not all) modern environments. can be taken a vaguely sci-fi or heavily cyberpunk route. (he's fun. smiley ball of energy and sunshine, or depressive and vaguely antagonistic shut-in.) prone to delusions, dissociation, and in severe instances, amnesia. Fifine ; anya taylor-joy ; random modern verse shenanigans. (the) Insomnium ; tbd. ; developed and hatched by a cult of space witches moreso than born. derived from an organically inorganic (or just inexplicable) substance. for tumblr purposes, blends the idea of dune's 'voice'. cult functions similarly on some levels to the b.g., but is entirely an unknown. stems from the same gritty, visceral horror environment and themes as the ren. (especially picky about where i throw this one.) space cultists tba.

[uchidaxnana]

And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.

basic information;

Full name: Uchida Nana Nickname: None; only call her Nana.  Birthdate: August 01, 1986 Age: 35 Zodiac: Leo Gender: Cis woman Pronouns: She/Her Romantic orientation: Biromantic Sexual orientation: Bisexual Nationality: British Ethnicity: Argentinian, Japanese, and British  Ranking: Angel Affiliation: Famine

background; 

Birthplace: London, England  Hometown: London, England Social Class: Lower Educational achievements: N/A Father: Uchida Hiro  Mother: Lorelei Arias-Newton  Sibling(s): None Pets: None Previous relationships: Several flings, but nothing past this. Arrests: None. Prison time: None.

occupation & income; 

Current occupation: Security Detail for Famine Dream occupation: She’s living it.  Past job(s): Several part time gigs at restaurants; “street” fighter.  Spending habits: Rarely, if ever, spends above what’s needed.  In debt?: No.

skills & abilities 

Physical strength: Above average.  Speed: Above average. Intelligence: Average. Accuracy: Above average.  Agility: Above average.  Stamina: Above average. Teamwork: Tends to move best alone (less messy-- less individuals to fuck things up), but will clearly join together as a team if needed.  Talents: Has memorized every pressure point on the human body, can break down both a chicken and fish in under one minute (this helped with her accuracy and dexterity) -- fighting, as well as her ability to stay inconspicuous.  Shortcomings: Lone-wolf behavior, inability to trust others.  Languages spoken: English, Japanese, and Spanish. Drive?: Yes Jump-start a car?: Yes Change a flat tyre?: Yes Ride a bicycle?: No Swim?: Yes Play an instrument?: No Play chess?: No Braid hair?: Yes Tie a tie?: Yes Pick a lock?: Yes Cook?: Yes, mostly dishes her mother taught her.

physical appearance & characteristics; 

Faceclaim: Sonoya Mizuno  Eye colour: Dark brown    Hair colour: Dark brown, almost black  Hair type: Wavy  Glasses/contacts?: No Dominant hand: Ambidextrous  Height: 5 ft 7″  Weight: 121lbs  Build: Toned Exercise habits: Daily  Skin tone: Tanned Tattoos: Two dots connected by red thread on the underside of her left breast.  Piercings: None. Marks/scars: Several scars, all of which variety in size and shape.  Clothing style: Comfortable, easy to miss in a crowd -- nothing flashy. Typically blacks, greys, combat boots, etc.  Jewellery: None. Allergies: Pistachios.  Diet: She eats everything except pork. 

psychology;

MBTI type: INTJ - The Strategist  Enneagram type: Type 8 - The Challenger Moral Alignment: Chaotic Good  Temperament: Melancholic  Element: Water Emotional stability: Quiet, reserved-- non-confrontational if it does not suit her needs.  Introvert or Extrovert?: Introvert.  Phobias: Cars.  Drug use: None. Alcohol use: Rare, if ever.  Prone to violence?: Yes. Prone to crying?: No. Believe in love at first sight?: Hard no.

mannerisms;

Accent: Standard British accent.  Hobbies: Reading, crossword puzzles.  Habits: Cheek biting, nail biting, rolling her eyes.  Nervous ticks: Digging nails into the palms of her hands.  Drives/motivations: To ensure safety and security to those she has come to care about. Fears: Failing at her job, letting somebody die due to incompetence.  Sense of humour?: Very discreet, usually one-liners that she doesn’t realize are humorous.  Do they curse often?: Yes.

favourites;

Animal: Hummingbird. Beverage: Strawberry lemonade. Book: The Odyssey.  Colour: Silver.  Food: Empanadas.  Flower: Skeleton flower.  Gem: Rubies.  Mode of transportation: Honda CB1100. Scent: Cinnamon & orange.  Sport: Boxing.  Weather: Downpours.  Vacation destination: Corsica. 

attributes;

Greatest dream: To assist those who need her skill, to live a fulfilling life in that regard.  Greatest fear: Letting others down. Most at ease when: Alone.  Least as ease when: In large crowds.  Biggest achievement: Getting off the streets and being recognized for her talent.  Biggest regret: Allowing herself to wallow for as long as she did. 

[romcomathon2016]

Crazy Rich Asians (USA, 2018)

This week on Romcomathon, a special bonus edition! We saw Crazy Rich Asians last night. Enjoyed it very much. You should go. You should all go. Tonight. Tomorrow. The day after tomorrow. Heavy spoilers ahead.

Predictions: We predicted that everyone would be crazy, rich, and Asian! (We had both read the book.) Then we saw the trailer and further predicted that everyone would be good-looking, and indeed they were — though, this is a romcom, so we would have predicted that anyway.

Plot: Constance Wu is your above-average Chinese-American gal. You know, teaching game theory at NYU, chilling in cute coffee shops with her cute boyfriend, Henry Golding. Little does she know, her cute boyfriend (who loves to play basketball at a smelly YMCA) is actually the scion of a whole bunch of unbelievably wealthy Singaporeans. When Henry Golding invites her to attend his best friend Chris Pang’s wedding in Singapore, Constance Wu happily accepts, thinking, “No problem! I’ll just charm his family! It’s fine!” But oh no, Constance Wu, it’s not fine. As it turns out, Singaporean high-society gossip travels at the speed of light, and within a matter of seconds — literally seconds — everyone in Singapore above a certain income bracket knows that *GASP* Henry Golding, the most eligible bachelor in the world, is off the market.

No one is pleased is about this, but least pleased of all is Henry Golding’s ice-queen mother, Michelle Yeoh. Nonetheless, Henry Golding, bizarrely oblivious, whisks Constance Wu onto Singapore Airlines, into a phenomenally beautiful private first-class cabin, which...kind of forces him to admit that his family is financially “comfortable.” OKAY, HENRY GOLDING. JUST LIE DOWN ON YOUR AIRPLANE BED AND PUT ON YOUR SOFT FANCY AIRPLANE PAJAMAS BECAUSE YOUR FAMILY IS “COMFORTABLE.” (Weird, though, that he never brought this up during the two years they’ve been together. Did he not think that, at some point, maybe he should mention, “Hey babe, my family pretty much owns Singapore. You know, that really expensive place in Asia?”)

Constance Wu and Henry Golding arrive in Singapore; are greeted by Chris Pang and his fiancée, Sonoya Mizuno; and head off, a foursome, to chow down on some of the most amazing food we’ve ever seen in our lives. Just a normal delicious time between some normal friends, right?? WRONG. The next day, Constance Wu goes to visit her old college roommate Awkwafina, whose own family is not too shabby. They are living in a gold-plated house that her mother based off of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. So, you know, it’s very understated. During her lunch there, Constance Wu finds out from Awkwafina’s parents — by the way, her dad is Ken Jeong — that a) Chris Pang and Sonoya Mizuno’s wedding is basically the most important event of the season. Like an inauguration or the Royal Wedding. b) Henry Golding is so rich that Awkwafina’s family’s wealth pales in comparison. Compared to Henry Golding’s family, these knockoff-Versailles-house people are just barely making gold-plated ends meet.

Great! Now Constance Wu is even more nervous! (Nice job not preparing your girlfriend at all, Henry Golding, by the way.) She heads off to Henry Golding’s grandmother’s estate, where his grandmother Lisa Lu is just having “a few friends over,” AKA it’s a huge party at the biggest house we or Constance Wu have ever seen. There, Henry Golding finally introduces Constance Wu to the fam, who obviously see her as a gauche American peasant. Which...look, it’s all relative!!!! Michelle Yeoh, in particular, is Not Impressed and makes it very clear through her politeness how very Not Impressed she is. But it’s okay, guys! It’s Lisa Lu’s opinion that matters — and she seems to like Constance Wu! Yay!

Hold on, though. Before we can get further with Lisa Lu, Constance Wu must attend Sonoya Mizuno’s huge bachelorette party -- on a smaller island that Sonoya Mizuno’s family (literally) owns. Constance Wu feels out of place amidst all this opulence, but luckily she finds a kindred spirit in what turns out to be Henry Golding’s ex-girlfriend. SPOILER ALERT: EX-GF IS NOT A KINDRED SPIRIT. IT IS A TRAP. Everyone terrorizes Constance Wu at this horrible party, except for Sonoya Mizuno. And Gemma Chan, Henry Golding’s favorite cousin, who, besides being genuinely nice, is preoccupied with her husband’s affair.

Upon returning to Singapore, Constance Wu lays into Henry Golding for -- well, OBVIOUSLY. Henry Golding is very apologetic, but also, “We have to go make dumplings with the fam. That’s cool, right?” They go back to Lisa Lu’s manse, where things are going okay, until Constance Wu compliments Michelle Yeoh’s ENORMOUS emerald ring. It turns out that Michelle Yeoh was given this ring by her husband, Lisa Lu’s son, who had to have it custom-made because Lisa Lu wouldn’t give her son the family ring...because she though Michelle Yeoh was not good enough. Sound familiar? Yet somehow, this does not make Michelle Yeoh sympathetic. In fact, she tells Constance Wu all of this simply to preface her announcement that Constance Wu is definitely not marriage material.

HOO BOY. Constance Wu, a bit taken aback, gets a pep talk from Awkwafina, who, along with Nico Santos, gives her a Classic Romcom Makeover (TM) for the wedding. Constance Wu shows up to the wedding looking like Elsa from Frozen — but with flowers! Seriously, though, it’s a fab look. Everyone loves it. Except Michelle Yeoh. At the wedding reception, Constance Wu is feeling pret-ty good about herself...but come on, we know this can’t last!!!! Lisa Lu and Michelle Yeoh ambush her and Henry Golding with the news that Michelle Yeoh hired a private investigator to look into Constance Wu’s background. Surprise! Her father, who she had always believed was dead, is not so much, and Constance Wu is actually the result of an affair her mother had. Oh dear. Lisa Lu tells Henry Golding that he cannot possibly marry a girl like this (oh yeah, Henry Golding told Chris Pang earlier that he was planning to propose to Constance Wu). If he does, she will disown him. Constance Wu runs off in tears.

Sad times -- all is lost -- no amount of Henry Golding calling or coming by can repair this damage. Constance Wu just spends days and days moping at Awkwafina’s house until her mom, Tan Kheng Hua, shows up. Her mother admits to the affair and explains that she had an abusive husband. Constance Wu forgives her, uh, remarkably quickly for lying about this her whole life, which...is a bit odd, but you know, it’s a romcom. Who has time for subplots anyway?! Constance Wu agrees to meet up with Henry Golding one last time. He proposes to her, heedless of his family, but *GASP* she turns him down. Then meets up with Michelle Yeoh, secretively at a mahjong parlor, in order to make clear that she could have had him -- but walked away because she didn’t want him to lose his family, be estranged from his mother, blah blah blah. SUCK ON THAT, MICHELLE YEOH!!!! YOU’RE INDEBTED TO ME NOW!!!!!! ME, THE AMERICAN PEASANT. HA HA HA. HENRY GOLDING AND I WILL BOTH BE SAD, BUT MY HORSE IS MILES HIGH!!!!!!!! (...is what we imagine she feels.)

Satisfied, Constance Wu swaggers into economy class with her mom. But lo! Who should arrive but Henry Golding, chasing after her because Michelle Yeoh -- post-mahjong-showdown -- went to him and gave him the ring?! THE GIANT EMERALD RING!!!!!! OH EM GEE, YOU GUYS, IT’S SO SYMBOLIC!!!! This time, as he proposes in a crowded airplane aisle, Constance Wu says yes. Cut to their excessively opulent engagement party, where Constance Wu and Michelle Yeoh share a Look, and Gemma Chan meets Harry Shum, Jr. (Not bad, for an extremely wealthy, recently jilted lass!)

Best Scene: So many good scenes, but probably our favorite is when Awkwafina drives Constance Wu to Lisa Lu’s estate and the two of them are met by two extremely severe Indian guards outside the gate. The guards are wielding bayonets. It’s very funny, as are all of Awkwafina’s scenes.

Worst Scene: ...Weeeell, Ken Jeong spends most of his time in this film creepin’ on Constance Wu, his daughter’s friend, which definitely made us uncomfortable. But, to be fair, we wanted an American romcom starring Asians, and no romcom would be complete without us being a little grossed out. :|

Best Line: There were many funny lines. Pretty much everything out of Awkwafina’s mouth was solid gold. Constance Wu also had some good zingers. Unfortunately, we’ve only seen the movie once so far and can’t quote directly.

Worst Line: Ken Jeong and his son both creep real hard on Constance Wu, so probably something one of them said.

Highlights of the Watching Experience: Well, there’s the obvious — that this is the first (hopefully not last!) Hollywood romcom we’ve ever seen starring even two Asian people, let alone an entirely Asian cast. Plus a fun, fantastic, mostly-Mandarin soundtrack. Some of us may have cried. (“It was not me,” says Alex.) Also, Michelle Yeoh looked FUCKING AMAZING. How old is that woman now? IMMORTAL, is the answer. Also, we, as Chinese-Americans, are obsessed with food, so we appreciated that that common cultural trait was well-demonstrated in this movie, particularly by Constance Wu.

How Many POC in the Film: EVERYONE! EVERYONE WAS A PERSON OF COLOR! There was even one black extra in the wedding scene. We sighted her in the corner and got VERY excited.

Alternate Scenes: ...N-none? Honestly, we thought this was an excellent movie adaptation -- and just an excellent movie, period, which is maybe even more impressive. Yaaaay! No joke, we have already purchased tickets to see it again.

Was the Poster Better or Worse than the Film: Worse. The poster is fine, but the movie is better, of course, because the movie was good! It was a good movie! We saw a good movie!

Score: 10 out of 10 crazy-rich-Asian smooches. We never pretended this blog was objective, okay? No, but actually -- it’s a great romcom. If you love seeing unrealistically beautiful people kissing in unrealistically beautiful locations, as we assume you all must if you are reading this blog, you will enjoy this film. Go see it! Support non-white and non-Netflix romcoms! Plz. <3

Ranking: 3, out of the 149 movies we’ve seen so far.

[reactingtosomething]

So you’re pretty much a prodigy.

Well then, I had a struggle after that just like anyone else. I couldn’t get anything. I was 26, which sounds like nothing. But a lot of people told me I was too old and that it was too late to start acting. I didn’t know anything. I was like, Oh fuck, and really scared. I did feel like I was too old.

People would also say, “You don’t look really Asian but kind of Asian?” So I would be like, Should I dye my hair to be lighter? Should I curl my hair to look more European? Now I just don’t do any of that. I look as I am, I am who I am. You can take it or leave it.

How do you think your race has impacted the way you’re seen in casting?

It’s just harder if you’re not white. There are just fewer parts. It’s definitely getting better. But when I first started going to auditions, they would be like, You have such an ambiguous look – in terms of casting that is not good. People are trying to cast in a particular way and if you are ambiguous, they can’t put you in a box. I was constantly feeling like I was not right.

The jobs I’ve loved the most have been Ex Machina, Crazy Rich Asians, and Maniac, and they are all specifically Asian characters. I don’t devalue my ethnicity. It’s really given me a way in. If the part in Ex Machina wasn’t for a Japanese girl, I couldn’t have gotten it — same thing with Maniac. I love those characters so much. My Maniac character is so interesting, complex, and well-rounded; I was so glad she was Asian. It’s great for representation — that this amazing person also just happens to be Asian but it’s also not the only thing that defines her.

Sonoya Mizuno interviewed by Kathleen Hou

Click through above for the rest.

[mattelektras]

Elektra anon: What would you have liked for her looks wise? What hair and eye color, what about muscle definition compared to what Garner built up for the movies, and costume wise, do you have any favorites from the comic books you would have liked to see? (Iiiif it's not too much trouble, I wouldn't mind any pics of the costumes.) Also, that "black sky" storyline in Netflix DD: a) is it comic canon and b) if it's not, how did you like it?

my fav castings for her are sonoya mizuno, sofia boutella n then elodie yung so like... square jawed, dark haired. black hair preferably but i’ll take dark brown im not picky. sofia boutella has the sienkiewicz fringe but thats not a nessecity. would love to see a live action version with her curls tho

miller based elektra’s physique on a literal body builder called lisa lyon which i love. so like, broad shouldered and obviously BUILT but not enough to look like she’d be slow or anything. i think solid but lithe is how i’d describe her

AS FOR OUTFITS..... ive talked abt this so much because im weak for two things and those things are elektra natchios and clothes. favs, as i mentioned there are the original look and the redeemer retouch. that being said!!!! a friend of mine did a little more modern look for her which i loved 

as for the black sky thing. i mean. i hated it but im picky when it comes to her. like was it objectively BAD? probably not. but was it ELEKTRA? no. in comic canon she’s definitely special to the hand and they would leap at the chance to have her lead them (which she has but it was a fake out but i’ll get to that) but there’s no black sky or title for it. they just want her because she’s that GOOD. its not a chosen one deal she's just fucking amazing at what she does and her experience with both the hand and the chaste make her unique. the whole thing kind of did her dirty imo because she quite literally cannot be controlled by the hand’s fancy ninja mind tricks. like. it straight up does not work on her. the time she led them, she let them believe she was on their side and then she killed them all. they’ve fucked with her to the point where they can fuck with her no more. which MAYBE there was a hint of towards the end but the whole resurrection state where she was buying everything sigourney weaver was selling....... wasn't particularly on brand for her

[ericfruits]

In “Devs”, Alex Garland returns to themes of technology and power

More development In “Devs”, Alex Garland returns to themes of technology and power

Like his most recent film, “Annihilation”, it is taut and unnerving but a little confused

Books, arts and culture Prospero

“DEVS”, A NEW eight-part miniseries written and directed by Alex Garland, is a kind of sci-fi thriller. The action takes place in present-day (or close to present-day) San Francisco; it follows the employees of Amaya, a secretive tech company, who shuttle between the firm’s photogenically wooded, Silicon Valley campus and their nice lives in the city itself. It begins with the show’s heroine, Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno), and her boyfriend Sergei (Karl Glusman), getting up to go to work. They step over Pete, a homeless man who sleeps on their steps regularly enough to be on first-name terms. “Dude, please”, Sergei says, exasperated. “Have a great day”, Pete replies. “Be all you can be.”

It does turn out to be a great day for Sergei. After giving a knock-out pitch to Forest (Nick Offerman), Amaya’s founder, and his creepy deputy, Katie (Alison Pill), Sergei is invited to join the “devs” team, a tech-diminution of “development”. This is the firm’s most secretive and glamorous department, which is working on…well, no one except Forest and those already working there know exactly. Something to do with quantum computing, coding and a mysterious machine that is tantalisingly close to being perfected. It is a prestigious promotion, and one that unleashes chaos. Sergei never returns from his first day working on the devs team. Lily, meanwhile, maddened with grief, embarks on a quest to untangle the mysteries surrounding her lover.

Mr Garland rose to fame in the 1990s with the publication of his novel “The Beach”, later made into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Since then, he has mostly focused his attention on the movie business. He wrote the scripts for “28 Days Later” (2002) and “Never Let me Go” (2010), both commercial successes; his directorial debut was the deft science-fiction thriller “Ex Machina” in 2014, followed four years later by the chilling and otherworldly “Annihilation”. Although gorgeously designed and featuring an excellent cast, the internal logic of “Annihilation” was so flabby it strained even generous credulity.

Nevertheless, Mr Garland’s fans will be pleased to hear that “Devs” is a return to many of his favourite themes and motifs. It features an elusive, compelling tech founder obsessed with an unsettling project; a jarring, jangling soundscape; power, control and justice; pitiless opponents; a slick aesthetic; and, most crucial of all, an intricate plot that unfolds slowly and carefully.

“Devs” gets a lot right: Mr Garland succeeds in unnerving and unsettling his viewers. The fictional Amaya contains echoes of a Facebook or an Uber, a hierarchical firm with too much money and a decidedly off-kilter moral compass. His characters are intriguing enough to hold viewers’ attention over eight hours. Mr Offerman, who is best known for his comic turn as Ron Swanson in the sitcom “Parks and Recreation”, convincingly balances on the knife-edge between visionary and villain.

Ms Mizuno, who Mr Garland has cast in previous films, makes a mercurial, inscrutable lead. Like many of the best characters conjured by the writer, the viewers’ experience of hers is subject to reversals so extreme they are almost dreamlike. Lily seems damaged and vulnerable in one scene, but hard and unyielding in the next. Despite her predicament, and her many good qualities, this makes her difficult to like. Jamie, her ex-partner, expresses this sentiment best when she approaches him to help find Sergei by hacking his phone. “Lily, sincerely and from the very bottom of my heart,” Jamie tells her, “fuck off.”

Unfortunately, “Devs” suffers from the same afflictions that bedevilled “Annihilation”. There are too many mysteries, unanswered questions and characters content to both give and receive gnomic utterances, which means the viewer must be both singularly focused and quite forgiving. Mr Garland may be in luck on that front: with so many people shut at home thanks to covid-19, there has never been a more captive audience.

“Devs” is available to watch in America via FX on Hulu. It will air in Britain on BBC Two from April 15th

https://ift.tt/3b91IZo

[princess-of-the-void]

Visual Pleasure in Alex Garland's Ex Machina

tw: sexually violent language

The Sci-fi genre and horror intersect in many films, tv series and books. Ex Machina is one of those films. This film deals with many themes that appear in the Frankenstein narrative- human vs God, what determines humanity, and the like. I will go over the Frankenstein narrative in an upcoming series titled Frankenstein through the Ages. This article will look into the use of scopophilia in Ex Machina through the lens of Laura Mulvey's article "Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema."

The language is Cis normative and I apologize for that. I did not know how to get away from that with this source material.

Alex Garland’s directorial debut, the 2015 sci-fi thriller Ex Machina, deals with the ideas of humans as gods and the humanity of human creation. Yet, the most enthralling theme and the one which has led it to be considered the silent feminist film of the 2015, next to George Miller’s Mad Max, is the theme of the role of the female body in relation to the male psyche. The film is centered around four characters, only three of these characters ever speak. The three key characters are Nathan, a brilliant and reclusive programmer who is worth millions of dollars, played by Oscar Isaac; Caleb, a programmer at Nathan’s company Blue Book, played by Domhnall Gleeson; and Ava, the beautiful, humanoid robot that Nathan has built, played by Oscar winning actress Alicia Vikander. The fourth and silent character is Kiyoko, Nathan’s humanoid robotic assistant played by Sonoya Mizuno. The plot of the film is that Nathan has brought Caleb to his remote home as a winner of a contest where the prize is to be the human component in a Turing test to determine whether or not an AI has consciousness. Caleb is conflicted when he meets the robot, Ava, because she has the body of a human and an extremely beautiful  face. He is thrown into a whirlwind of debate with Nathan on Ava’s pre-programed sexuality and his uneasy attraction to her. The audience gets to see Ava interact with Caleb on a human level and is left wondering until the very end if she does indeed have consciousness or is she is simply simulating it. We see her manipulate the men around her in order to gain a fundamentally human desire: freedom.  The audience also sees Ava’s rebellion against her creator, Nathan. In the end she cuts her ties with both Nathan and Caleb by killing the former and leaving the latter for dead as she escapes the remote location. Throughout the film, Laura Mulvey’s ideas from her essay Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema are proved correct by Ava’s behavior. She seems to fit the mold for the female place in cinema. yet, in the final scene Ava’s violent act subverts these ideas while also proving the men’s castration anxiety to be true. Thus, completely rewriting the female place in modern cinema as defined by Mulvey.Laura Mulvey says that women are the object of male scopophilia and that the camera in turns treats women in a scopophilic way by dehumanizing their bodies. In Ex Machina Ava is the center of everyone’s attention: the male characters, the audience and the camera. The men see her as an object to be viewed and studied; Nathan questions her humanity and keeps her in a glass room while Caleb finds himself spying on her through the CCTV cameras following their sessions together. These two men have come together to prove her humanity yet neither one acts as if he believes her to be anything less than subhuman. The camera treats Ava like it would any other female character by fragmenting her body for the audience. She is seen as a body able to be fetishized and sexually sought after. In one scene,  she puts on a dress and a wig for Caleb, the camera lingers over her robotic torso and arms as she dresses. It pulls her apart as it would a typical human woman, bringing the eye to her sexualized body parts and making her into nothing more than an object. The camera leaves her mind out of how it captures her. Laura Mulvey describes how women are used by the camera:

The beauty of the woman as object and the screen space coalesce; she is no longer the bearer of guilt but a perfect product, whose body, stylised and fragmented by close- ups, is the content of the film and the direct recipient of the spectator’s look. (47)

Ava has been dismembered in this scene and fragmented for the sexual pleasure of the viewer. She has been created to fit the female ideal and is treated likewise by the camera as well as the men in her life. The audience believes she is simply an idyllic creation and assumes any humanity within her is simulated because she has been successfully dehumanized by the camera. The unnerving idea in this is that this is how the camera in modern cinema also treats human female characters. Garland has in turn made Ava into a human by turning this traditional fragmentation of women into a tool for the film. The audience is directed to think of Ava as only a body in another scene as Nathan tells Caleb of her mechanical sex organs. Nathan tells him that she has a space between her legs that if it were stimulated properly she would feel a pleasure response. Nathan says to Caleb “You bet she can fuck.” In this statement Nathan makes Caleb see Ava as nothing more than an object capable of sexual intercourse. He reduces the sexuality he has given her down to the mechanics of her body. He never discusses if she would want to have sex or if sex with her could be consensual. The audience dismisses her as nothing more than what we can see of her. She is a feminine shell to be looked at, as well as sexually engaged with but not a human with consciousness or capable of giving or revoking consent. We see her as a robot in a world of true humans. That is, until the end when she surprises us with her self-preservation motivated actions. She changes the way her femininity is seen by throwing out the idyllic behavior the audience is expecting.

 As a woman this line sent shock waves through my body. To hear a man depict a woman as nothing more than her ability to pleasure a man sexually is disgusting and disturbing. Yet, this scene worked well on me. As a viewer I questioned Ava’s humanity and this scene pushed me away from seeing her as anything other than subhuman. The first time I saw the film the ending shocked me because I had been shown Ava as a sexual object and nothing more. To see her assert dominance and independence was beyond satisfying. The characters of the two men also fall in line with Laura Mulvey’s ideas on cinema. Nathan is shown to the audience as in prime physical condition and as brilliant. He lives in a home which looks like it cost millions of dollars and his personal assistant is a beautiful young woman he has created to serve him and even has sex with him. He has created a woman whose sole purpose is to serve him. It is no wonder he believes Ava will also be submissive. Caleb on the other hand is thin and at times unremarkable looking. He has a good job with an apartment. He does not have a girlfriend and seems to have little personality past his curious and calm outer demeanor. He is easily seen as what the gaming community calls a “neutral mask character.” Caleb is easy for the audience to slip themselves into. Also since this film is marketed to science fiction fans, which are assumed to be male, Caleb is all the more easy to put oneself into. This “every guy” kind of character  gives the audience the chance to see themselves in the romance with the beautiful Ava. As Laura Mulvey says in regards to identification with male leads in film “By means of identification with him, through participation in his power, the spectator can indirectly possess her too” (49). Throughout the entire film Ava is regarded as a possession; first of Nathan’s then of Caleb’s, and through him as a possession of the audience.

Returning to Caleb’s possessiveness of Ava specifically; during his first night at Nathan’s home Caleb discovers that he has connection to the CCTV cameras in Ava’s room. He thus spends each of his nights in the residence watching her.  This behavior directly correlates to Mulvey’s idea of male scopophilia in modern cinema;“Fetishistic scopophilia, builds up the physical beauty of the object, transforming it into something satisfying in itself” (46). His obsession with watching Ava on the television resembles the audience’s interaction with her. Both relationships are purely scopophilic and are directed by a camera’s view..  In their third to last meeting Ava has dressed yet again as a human woman, complete with demure dress and sweater and short brown wig. She tells Caleb that she fantasizes that he is watching her at night on the cameras. She is thus supporting John Berger’s idea that women are both surveyors as well as conscious of their role as the surveyed. Ava knows she is being watched which serves Berger’s idea fully:

Women watch themselves being looked at.This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight (Berger, 47).

Ava is more than aware of her sexual appeal to Caleb and thus uses his hope of possessing her to her own benefit. She even goes as far as undressing herself, as a human would, in front of the cameras she knows he is watching. She slides her tights off slowly and pulls her dress off over head, revealing the outline of an idyllic female body. She turns herself into a sexual sight for Caleb in this scene. This keeps his sexual interest and engages a savior complex which benefits her in the end. His desire for the sight of Ava makes him want to possess her outside the frame of her glass cage. Ava then uses his savior complex and desire to physically possess her to convince him to rescue her. She tells him that she wants them to go on a date outside of her glass cage. She also begs him to help her and inserts her fears of being switched off into their conversations. She makes him believe she relies solely on him for her life. The audience should not believe this trick as easily as Caleb does. Ava is intelligent and derives her intelligence from her robotic connection to the world’s web. The audience should see the poor treatment of Ava at the hands of her two male companions and understand her motives for tricking Caleb. After he has done what was necessary to free her she turns on him and leaves him to die. She realizes his motivations are not purely for her benefit but are instead for his. He believes his actions to save Ava will make her belong to him. Instead his actions lead to her independence from both male figures.The two men’s possessiveness of Ava is visually seen through her captivity. In one of her first meetings with Caleb she shows him a picture she has drawn of fractals, he tells her to draw something that is physical and she tells him she does not know what to draw because she has never been outside of the room she is then residing in. Nathan also alludes to Ava’s perceived ability to manipulate sexually, specifically her ability to manipulate Caleb, which is another reason for her imposed living situation. Her sexual danger leads Nathan to display tendencies of Castration anxiety and thus punishes Ava for this. In regards to punishment of the sexual object Mulvey says “The male unconscious has two avenues of escape from this castration anxiety: preoccupation with the re-enactment of the original trauma, counterbalanced by the devaluation, punishment or saving of the guilty object” (49) Nathan combats his anxiety with punishing Ava with captivity while Caleb fantasizes about saving her from her punishment. Both men find Ava to be the trigger for their anxiety and thus must combat her female will as they see fit.

Most of Ex Machina strongly supports Mulvey’s ideas. This remains true until the very end. After Caleb has helped Ava escape her glass room she turns the whole affair on its head. First, with the help of Nathan’s assistant Kiyoko, Ava kills Nathan. Following this death she dresses herself as a human one last time, while Caleb watches from the next room, and proceeds to lock him into the room and leave the residence. The audience knows Caleb will eventually die and this destroys the hope for consummation. Ava destroys Mulvey’s ideas by actually being threatening to the men in her life. Their anxiety is realized and her last violent act confirms this. Ava also kills both men in extremely symbolic ways. She kills Nathan with a symbolic penetration. He has reduced her to a sexual object and has even had sex with his robotic assistant Kiyoko. He has created these two women, among others, and subjected them to a sexist outlook on the female form. In his death these two women reduce him to simply a body to be penetrated as he did to them. When Ava leaves Caleb for dead in the locked room she is exacting revenge on the man who left her inside her glass prison for the sake of science and only lets her out of her prison for his own sexual fantasy. In this finale act  Garland’s female lead subverts the narrative norm and destroys the sexual bond between herself and Caleb, as well as the sexual bond between herself and the audience. She does this by using the men’s Freudian fears and exacting them upon these two men. She is almost saying “if you want threatening I will show you threatening.” Her use of their castration anxiety reduces these men to nothing more than their fears and lifts her up to the standard, if not a seemingly flattering version, of the independent Woman. Many may see her depiction of female independence as reassuring the need for female punishment and controlling male figures. In my opinion, this film shows the extreme lengths woman have to go to in order to attain independence. The audience should feel strongly for Ava because she has no choice but to behave violently. She is not the reason society fears women but instead she is the result of a dominating patriarchal system. Garland solidifies this believe for me in the final scene. Ava is seen covering her robotic body with a skin like material and clothes. While she is doing this the camera fragments her body like it has in earlier scenes. Once she has covered her robotic exterior with a human exterior the camera shows her as a whole body. She is finally human to the camera as well as the audience. Her subversion of traditional femininity is what inevitably gives her true humanity.

[chinadroll]

So. I haven't read any of the Kevin Kwan trilogy (just ordered the paperbacks, so that will be rectified and this post revisited soon), BUT. I have some ISSUES.

Not with the always lovely DW. But the anon Asian man whose submission she was replying to.

But yes. Issues, I haz them. And, full disclosure, it is probably BECAUSE I am, myself, Eurasian. Like Henry Golding, who has been cast as Nick Young (the character in question), like a number of other actors cast in this film (Gemma Chan, Remy Hii, Sonoya Mizuno, etc). And I am fucking tired of Eurasians not being considered Asian enough. In a world where Barack Obama's mixed heritage is ignored enough for him to be considered the first Black president (and not the first Mixed Race president), Eurasians are simultaneously not White but also not Asian enough to be considered Asian. Fuck that shit.

There may be plenty to critique about the film, including the casting, but only calling out Henry Golding for not being Asian enough to play a Singaporean character is not something I am here for. Why not complain about the fact that there's more Malaysians playing Singaporeans than actual Singaporeans, for a start? What about the accuracy of representation there? Or is that too nuanced for anon?

Also...I don't understand why the anon thinks that people are going to expect Asian guys to look like Golding? Does he really think people are that naive? And, what even is his definition of Asian? Because I'm pretty no one would look at one person and expect them to be representative of a whole continent as diverse as Asia. Chinese men don't look Filipino, Japanese men don't look Indian, Indonesian men don't look Korean, Thai men don't look Pakistani, and so on. They can all be gorgeous, but in different ways.

And his point about Asian women being considered beautiful by Hollywood. It's only a certain kind of Asian beauty that is really appreciated by Hollywood. (And which then feeds back into beauty standards in Asia.) Let's be real, it's the fair skinned kind (amongst other things).

And...I'm getting myself all worked up and I need to stop, but, to answer the anon's original question, even though he didn't ask me...no, it's not selfish to want better representation for the group you identify with, but it is selfish to ignore that there are other groups that are as deserving of representation.

Submission: Is it selfish of me if I was slightly upset about the lead man of the movie Crazy Rich Asians? I was upset because he’s half Caucasian half Asian. While he’s not exactly “passing for White”, he still has that facial features that is Eurocentric standard of beauty. I just wished that in a rare Hollywood movie where most of the cast are Asians, they would use full-Asian stars to expose the various Asian beauty. I was just upset, since will people expect Asian guys to look like him? Because most of us don’t. Are pure Asian guys that ugly by Hollywood’s standard that they have to pick Half Caucasian one? Asian actress wouldn’t face this problem because their beauty is appreciated (even fetishized by some), but we, Asian men are always portrayed as unattractive. And here’s a chance to prove that Asian men are as beautiful, but they picked a Half Caucasian one. Am I selfish?

DW: 

Disclaimer: I know very little about this movie except that it’s based on a book that was huge! So I don’t know the actor (or the character) you’re referring to. 

But no, I don’t think you’re being selfish in wanting better representation–but I will say that anyone who has ever watched any Asian cinema knows that it’s absolute bullshit that Asian men aren’t attractive. 

A cursory google search did tell me that the boyfriend character is from Singapore, so I would like to point out that a Eurasian background could absolutely work, but I don’t know if that’s canon in the book or not, of course. 

It’s an important step forward in representation, but perhaps not as large as one as could be hoped for. 

[theconservativebrief]

Maniac, a new, darkly comic Netflix miniseries starring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill, is the rare project that I like both more and less the longer I think about it.

By the time it reaches the midpoint of its 10 episodes, the series is one of the more confident and assured examples of what I call “Big Moment TV,” where every episode involves some jaw-dropping visual or conceit that’s meant to send you to Twitter to buzz, “Did you see that?!”

And as directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, the genius (and newly minted James Bond director) behind everything from the wonderful 2011 Jane Eyre to the visuals of the first season of True Detective, those moments really land. I wanted to go to Twitter to talk about them, except that would have been a violation of my screener agreement with Netflix.

And yet there’s something so calculated about Maniac. There’s rarely the thrill of the unexpected, which is tough to explain in a series that longs, deeply, to provide the thrill of the unexpected. Every time the story would shift, or enter another genre entirely, or let the actors play other characters than the ones they came in as, I would nod and say, “Sure. Makes sense!” Which is not what I think anybody involved was going for.

Some of that stems from performance (Hill is a fine dramatic actor but maybe not the guy you want sublimating all of his live-wire energy to play a depressive), and some of it stems from the storytelling, which is a wackadoodle pastiche of “mind-fuck cinema,” in which the movies ask you to question reality and wonder what’s going on and so on.

But not only have you seen the basic dramatic beats of Maniac over and over again, but Maniac takes great pains to explain to you, at every turn, what’s going on, how the characters feel and think about it, and what those crazy, trippy visuals could mean. It’s a mind-fuck movie so unconfident in its ability to fuck with you that it follows up every big reveal or jaw-dropping mindscape with a moment that seems to ask, “Did you see what I did there?”

This probably already sounds like a bunch of ideas thrown together in haste, which don’t really cohere. It is, and it isn’t, and to explain why, I’m going to have to spoil the show almost in its entirety, so follow me after the massive spoiler warning to talk about why it’s easy to remain interested in Maniac but hard to become truly invested in it.

The rise of Big Moment TV has been driven by two factors. The first is that TV storytelling has grown more complex in terms of serialization, but the second is that lots of people still kind of half pay attention to what they’re watching, because they’re doing chores or playing a game on their phone or whatever. So if you watch an episode of Game of Thrones and there’s a big, bloody death or something, that jars you out of whatever other thing you’re doing and forces you to pay attention.

But, increasingly, these sorts of shows feel driven less by the whims of their characters than by the whims of their creators. Game of Thrones went from a show that made you feel the weight of every death to a show that wantonly killed characters without much regard to emotional resonance or storytelling sense. And that’s, ultimately, part of the fun of that show, but it took it from a must-watch to a fun show that often struggles to reach its potential.

But Big Moment TV has increasingly evolved to a point where it’s less about a big death or a big plot twist and more about anything unusual that will get you talking on Twitter, as I explored in this article about The Magicians and Legion. And those two shows form useful comparison points for Maniac, with its occasionally fascinating, occasionally awkward attempts to fuse Big Moment TV, over-explanatory mind-fuck pastiche, and what amounts to falling asleep in front of Netflix. (It was an early adopter of Big Moment TV, lest we forget House of Cards’ entire storytelling ethos.) All while the algorithm randomly shuffles through things it thinks you might like.

(And really do turn away at this point if you want to remain unspoiled about this series, because knowing the premise of this show could potentially ruin it.)

The story focuses on Annie (Stone) and Owen (Hill), two 20-somethings struggling with barely repressed trauma and other mental conditions in a near-future New York where everything, including friendship, has become a part of the gig economy. You can even sell your likeness for various ads and stock photos, as Annie has done, which means that when Owen bumps into her at a purported pharma trial for a new drug, he both feels he already knows her and fears he’s hallucinating her. (He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, see.)

In one episode, Owen and Annie become stuck in some sort of espionage thriller. Netflix

Anyway, the drug trial turns out to be a complicated procedure designed to put people through a sort of psychological boot camp, where in stage one they relive their greatest trauma (the loss of her sister for Annie; a suicide attempt — that might not have even happened — for Owen), attempt to better understand the roots of their psychological issues in stage two, and then confront those issues and their trauma in stage three, in hopes of healing and moving on.

The trial is overseen by a group of people cosplaying as the characters erasing Jim Carrey’s memories in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, including Justin Theroux, the dryly funny Sonoya Mizuno, and (I swear I am not kidding about this) Sally Field playing a depressed computer.

The bulk of the series involves what happens when a mechanical malfunction results in the fusing of Owen and Annie’s subconsciouses, which results in them essentially entering an anthology series. Across five of the season’s 10 episodes, they play different characters, in different genres, following what amounts to Fukunaga’s syllabus for a “history of American indie film” class. There are suburban capers, and an extended (kinda awful) journey through a gangster/crime movie tale, and a story where Owen becomes a hawk. (That last one’s a lot of fun!)

This is, I think, a pretty compelling way to explore two characters who seem paper-thin at first. By having Annie and Owen journey through both of their subconsciouses at once, the show could theoretically fill in details about these people’s core beings while still allowing for plenty of action and adventure. Seeing Annie as a Long Island housewife trying to steal a lemur, or as a con artist interrupting a seance, or as a half-elven ranger in a generic fantasy kingdom gives us different sides of the actual Annie’s persona and lets Stone have a lot of fun.

But I could never escape the feeling that the show’s weirdness was less an organic investigation of two people in crisis and more a mechanism designed to keep me watching. The journeys that Annie and Owen take through their brains feel assembled more from other movies and TV shows than from genuine psychological exploration.

On a show limited only by the human imagination (at least in theory), these adventures stay frustratingly earthbound. They’re “imaginative,” in the manner of a college student who’s carefully cultivated her persona out of bits and pieces of other personas she’s seen elsewhere, rather than authentic.

The strange facility where Owen and Annie bond is a weird setting unto itself. Netflix

It feels a little churlish to complain about this, because watching Maniac is a lot of fun. I sat down intending to watch a couple of episodes one day and ended up watching seven, because I really did want to see what would happen next. The writing staff — led by Patrick Somerville of The Leftovers fame — has given real thought to the story of all 10 episodes as well as the story of each episode, which leads to fun journeys through the various genre pastiches the writers come up with. (I loved the Long Island-set crime caper, which felt straight out of a Coen brothers movie.)

But I could never get past the stage where I was enjoying the show’s considerably gorgeous surfaces to access some deeper level. And then after watching the finale, I read a quote from Fukunaga in a recent GQ profile of him, and something clicked. He said:

Because Netflix is a data company, they know exactly how their viewers watch things. So they can look at something you’re writing and say, We know based on our data that if you do this, we will lose this many viewers. So it’s a different kind of note-giving. It’s not like, Let’s discuss this and maybe I’m gonna win. The algorithm’s argument is gonna win at the end of the day. So the question is do we want to make a creative decision at the risk of losing people. …

There was one episode we wrote that was just layer upon layer peeled back, and then reversed again. Which was a lot of fun to write and think of executing, but, like, halfway through the season, we’re just losing a bunch of people on that kind of binging momentum. That’s probably not a good move, you know? So it’s a decision that was made 100 percent based on audience participation.

Now, listen, the notes-giving process in Hollywood is important. I’m not somebody who rails against notes, or thinks they ruin the creative process or tear down impeccable works of art. But something about letting a computer give those notes speaks to why Maniac, ultimately, felt less human than human to me, why it always seemed like it was assembled more than it was a deeply felt passion project for anyone. And, indeed, the series is based on a Norwegian show of the same name, and the various genre pastiches look a lot like other Netflix shows if you squint, and every single actor feels specifically chosen to appeal to a very specific demographic.

This would almost feel like Netflix snarkily commenting on itself if the show didn’t take itself so seriously. The fact that it turns into a genuinely sincere story of how Owen and Annie come together to better each other’s lives in the last few episodes is either the bold swing that saves the enterprise or a case of too little, too late. I’m more in the former camp than the latter, but it’s not hard for me to imagine talking myself out of that stance.

And yet there’s something kind of beautiful about a series that applies the dull plotting of most other TV shows — all life-and-death stakes and, “We’ve gotta get to the [plot device] before they do!” numbness — to two emotionally damaged people trying to heal. There’s a bravado here that I can’t write off, even if I never felt like the show went deep enough to turn either Owen or Annie into anything more than ciphers, despite all of the self-analyzing monologues both deliver in an attempt to sell their complexities.

Whatever complaints I have about the show, then, might be a part of its commentary on a world where our mental horizons are so often occupied by stories we’ve heard elsewhere. If you and I somehow had our subconsciousnesses fused, and then went through a series of adventures in dreamspace together, wouldn’t it be more likely that those adventures would be drawn from the movies and TV shows we had watched than something wildly original?

Maniac isn’t weird enough to really achieve what it wants to, but it does say something — however accidentally — about how reality is already weird enough. Maybe that’s why we’re so content to live inside the dreams of others.

Maniac is streaming on Netflix.

Original Source -> Netflix’s Maniac, with Jonah Hill and Emma Stone, is either too weird or not weird enough

via The Conservative Brief

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/netflixs-maniac-with-jonah-hill-and-emma-stone-is-either-too-weird-or-not-weird-enough/

Netflix's Maniac, with Jonah Hill and Emma Stone, is either too weird or not weird enough

Maniac, a new, darkly comic Netflix miniseries starring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill, is the rare project that I like both more and less the longer I think about it.

By the time it reaches the midpoint of its 10 episodes, the series is one of the more confident and assured examples of what I call “Big Moment TV,” where every episode involves some jaw-dropping visual or conceit that’s meant to send you to Twitter to buzz, “Did you see that?!”

And as directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, the genius (and newly minted James Bond director) behind everything from the wonderful 2011 Jane Eyre to the visuals of the first season of True Detective, those moments really land. I wanted to go to Twitter to talk about them, except that would have been a violation of my screener agreement with Netflix.

And yet there’s something so calculated about Maniac. There’s rarely the thrill of the unexpected, which is tough to explain in a series that longs, deeply, to provide the thrill of the unexpected. Every time the story would shift, or enter another genre entirely, or let the actors play other characters than the ones they came in as, I would nod and say, “Sure. Makes sense!” Which is not what I think anybody involved was going for.

Some of that stems from performance (Hill is a fine dramatic actor but maybe not the guy you want sublimating all of his live-wire energy to play a depressive), and some of it stems from the storytelling, which is a wackadoodle pastiche of “mind-fuck cinema,” in which the movies ask you to question reality and wonder what’s going on and so on.

But not only have you seen the basic dramatic beats of Maniac over and over again, but Maniac takes great pains to explain to you, at every turn, what’s going on, how the characters feel and think about it, and what those crazy, trippy visuals could mean. It’s a mind-fuck movie so unconfident in its ability to fuck with you that it follows up every big reveal or jaw-dropping mindscape with a moment that seems to ask, “Did you see what I did there?”

This probably already sounds like a bunch of ideas thrown together in haste, which don’t really cohere. It is, and it isn’t, and to explain why, I’m going to have to spoil the show almost in its entirety, so follow me after the massive spoiler warning to talk about why it’s easy to remain interested in Maniac but hard to become truly invested in it.

The rise of Big Moment TV has been driven by two factors. The first is that TV storytelling has grown more complex in terms of serialization, but the second is that lots of people still kind of half pay attention to what they’re watching, because they’re doing chores or playing a game on their phone or whatever. So if you watch an episode of Game of Thrones and there’s a big, bloody death or something, that jars you out of whatever other thing you’re doing and forces you to pay attention.

But, increasingly, these sorts of shows feel driven less by the whims of their characters than by the whims of their creators. Game of Thrones went from a show that made you feel the weight of every death to a show that wantonly killed characters without much regard to emotional resonance or storytelling sense. And that’s, ultimately, part of the fun of that show, but it took it from a must-watch to a fun show that often struggles to reach its potential.

But Big Moment TV has increasingly evolved to a point where it’s less about a big death or a big plot twist and more about anything unusual that will get you talking on Twitter, as I explored in this article about The Magicians and Legion. And those two shows form useful comparison points for Maniac, with its occasionally fascinating, occasionally awkward attempts to fuse Big Moment TV, over-explanatory mind-fuck pastiche, and what amounts to falling asleep in front of Netflix — an early adopter of Big Moment TV, lest we forget House of Cards’ entire storytelling ethos — while the algorithm randomly shuffles through things it thinks you might like.

(And really do turn away at this point if you want to remain unspoiled about this series, because knowing the premise of this show could potentially ruin it.)

The story focuses on Annie (Stone) and Owen (Hill), two 20-somethings struggling with barely repressed trauma and other mental conditions in a near-future New York where everything, including friendship, has become a part of the gig economy. You can even sell your likeness for various ads and stock photos, as Annie has done, which means that when Owen bumps into her at a purported pharma trial for a new drug, he both feels he already knows her and fears he’s hallucinating her. (He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, see.)

In one episode, Owen and Annie become stuck in some sort of espionage thriller. Netflix

Anyway, the drug trial turns out to be a complicated procedure designed to put people through a sort of psychological boot camp, where in stage one they relive their greatest trauma (the loss of her sister for Annie; a suicide attempt — that might not have even happened — for Owen), attempt to better understand the roots of their psychological issues in stage two, and then confront those issues and their trauma in stage three, in hopes of healing and moving on.

The trial is overseen by a group of people cosplaying as the characters erasing Jim Carrey’s memories in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, including Justin Theroux, the dryly funny Sonoya Mizuno, and (I swear I am not kidding about this) Sally Field playing a depressed computer.

The bulk of the series involves what happens when a mechanical malfunction results in the fusing of Owen and Annie’s subconsciouses, which results in them essentially entering an anthology series. Across five of the season’s 10 episodes, they play different characters, in different genres, following what amounts to Fukunaga’s syllabus for a “history of American indie film” class. There are suburban capers, and an extended (kinda awful) journey through a gangster/crime movie tale, and a story where Owen becomes a hawk. (That last one’s a lot of fun!)

This is, I think, a pretty compelling way to explore two characters who seem paper-thin at first. By having Annie and Owen journey through both of their subconsciouses at once, the show could theoretically fill in details about these people’s core beings while still allowing for plenty of action and adventure. Seeing Annie as a Long Island housewife trying to steal a lemur, or as a con artist interrupting a seance, or as a half-elven ranger in a generic fantasy kingdom gives us different sides of the actual Annie’s persona and lets Stone have a lot of fun.

But I could never escape the feeling that the show’s weirdness was less an organic investigation of two people in crisis and more a mechanism designed to keep me watching. The journeys that Annie and Owen take through their brains feel assembled more from other movies and TV shows than from genuine psychological exploration.

On a show limited only by the human imagination (at least in theory), these adventures stay frustratingly earthbound. They’re “imaginative,” in the manner of a college student who’s carefully cultivated her persona out of bits and pieces of other personas she’s seen elsewhere, rather than authentic.

The strange facility where Owen and Annie bond is a weird setting unto itself. Netflix

It feels a little churlish to complain about this, because watching Maniac is a lot of fun. I sat down intending to watch a couple of episodes one day and ended up watching seven, because I really did want to see what would happen next. The writing staff — led by Patrick Somerville of The Leftovers fame — has given real thought to the story of all 10 episodes as well as the story of each episode, which leads to fun journeys through the various genre pastiches the writers come up with. (I loved the Long Island-set crime caper, which felt straight out of a Coen brothers movie.)

But I could never get past the stage where I was enjoying the show’s considerably gorgeous surfaces to access some deeper level. And then after watching the finale, I read a quote from Fukunaga in a recent GQ profile of him, and something clicked. He said:

Because Netflix is a data company, they know exactly how their viewers watch things. So they can look at something you’re writing and say, We know based on our data that if you do this, we will lose this many viewers. So it’s a different kind of note-giving. It’s not like, Let’s discuss this and maybe I’m gonna win. The algorithm’s argument is gonna win at the end of the day. So the question is do we want to make a creative decision at the risk of losing people. …

There was one episode we wrote that was just layer upon layer peeled back, and then reversed again. Which was a lot of fun to write and think of executing, but, like, halfway through the season, we’re just losing a bunch of people on that kind of binging momentum. That’s probably not a good move, you know? So it’s a decision that was made 100 percent based on audience participation.

Now, listen, the notes-giving process in Hollywood is important. I’m not somebody who rails against notes, or thinks they ruin the creative process or tear down impeccable works of art. But something about letting a computer give those notes speaks to why Maniac, ultimately, felt less human than human to me, why it always seemed like it was assembled more than it was a deeply felt passion project for anyone. And, indeed, the series is based on a Norwegian show of the same name, and the various genre pastiches look a lot like other Netflix shows if you squint, and every single actor feels specifically chosen to appeal to a very specific demographic.

This would almost feel like Netflix snarkily commenting on itself if the show didn’t take itself so seriously. The fact that it turns into a genuinely sincere story of how Owen and Annie come together to better each other’s lives in the last few episodes is either the bold swing that saves the enterprise or a case of too little, too late. I’m more in the former camp than the latter, but it’s not hard for me to imagine talking myself out of that stance.

And yet there’s something kind of beautiful about a series that applies the dull plotting of most other TV shows — all life-and-death stakes and, “We’ve gotta get to the [plot device] before they do!” numbness — to two emotionally damaged people trying to heal. There’s a bravado here that I can’t write off, even if I never felt like the show went deep enough to turn either Owen or Annie into anything more than ciphers, despite all of the self-analyzing monologues both deliver in an attempt to sell their complexities.

Whatever complaints I have about the show, then, might be a part of its commentary on a world where our mental horizons are so often occupied by stories we’ve heard elsewhere. If you and I somehow had our subconsciousnesses fused, and then went through a series of adventures in dreamspace together, wouldn’t it be more likely that those adventures would be drawn from the movies and TV shows we had watched than something wildly original?

Maniac isn’t weird enough to really achieve what it wants to, but it does say something — however accidentally — about how reality is already weird enough. Maybe that’s why we’re so content to live inside the dreams of others.

Maniac is streaming on Netflix.

Source: https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/9/21/17884512/maniac-netflix-review-emma-stone-jonah-hill

[theconservativebrief]

Maniac, a new, darkly comic Netflix miniseries starring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill, is the rare project that I like both more and less the longer I think about it.

By the time it reaches the midpoint of its 10 episodes, the series is one of the more confident and assured examples of what I call “Big Moment TV,” where every episode involves some jaw-dropping visual or conceit that’s meant to send you to Twitter to buzz, “Did you see that?!”

And as directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, the genius (and newly minted James Bond director) behind everything from the wonderful 2011 Jane Eyre to the visuals of the first season of True Detective, those moments really land. I wanted to go to Twitter to talk about them, except that would have been a violation of my screener agreement with Netflix.

And yet there’s something so calculated about Maniac. There’s rarely the thrill of the unexpected, which is tough to explain in a series that longs, deeply, to provide the thrill of the unexpected. Every time the story would shift, or enter another genre entirely, or let the actors play other characters than the ones they came in as, I would nod and say, “Sure. Makes sense!” Which is not what I think anybody involved was going for.

Some of that stems from performance (Hill is a fine dramatic actor but maybe not the guy you want sublimating all of his live-wire energy to play a depressive), and some of it stems from the storytelling, which is a wackadoodle pastiche of “mind-fuck cinema,” in which the movies ask you to question reality and wonder what’s going on and so on.

But not only have you seen the basic dramatic beats of Maniac over and over again, but Maniac takes great pains to explain to you, at every turn, what’s going on, how the characters feel and think about it, and what those crazy, trippy visuals could mean. It’s a mind-fuck movie so unconfident in its ability to fuck with you that it follows up every big reveal or jaw-dropping mindscape with a moment that seems to ask, “Did you see what I did there?”

This probably already sounds like a bunch of ideas thrown together in haste, which don’t really cohere. It is, and it isn’t, and to explain why, I’m going to have to spoil the show almost in its entirety, so follow me after the massive spoiler warning to talk about why it’s easy to remain interested in Maniac but hard to become truly invested in it.

The rise of Big Moment TV has been driven by two factors. The first is that TV storytelling has grown more complex in terms of serialization, but the second is that lots of people still kind of half pay attention to what they’re watching, because they’re doing chores or playing a game on their phone or whatever. So if you watch an episode of Game of Thrones and there’s a big, bloody death or something, that jars you out of whatever other thing you’re doing and forces you to pay attention.

But, increasingly, these sorts of shows feel driven less by the whims of their characters than by the whims of their creators. Game of Thrones went from a show that made you feel the weight of every death to a show that wantonly killed characters without much regard to emotional resonance or storytelling sense. And that’s, ultimately, part of the fun of that show, but it took it from a must-watch to a fun show that often struggles to reach its potential.

But Big Moment TV has increasingly evolved to a point where it’s less about a big death or a big plot twist and more about anything unusual that will get you talking on Twitter, as I explored in this article about The Magicians and Legion. And those two shows form useful comparison points for Maniac, with its occasionally fascinating, occasionally awkward attempts to fuse Big Moment TV, over-explanatory mind-fuck pastiche, and what amounts to falling asleep in front of Netflix — an early adopter of Big Moment TV, lest we forget House of Cards’ entire storytelling ethos — while the algorithm randomly shuffles through things it thinks you might like.

(And really do turn away at this point if you want to remain unspoiled about this series, because knowing the premise of this show could potentially ruin it.)

The story focuses on Annie (Stone) and Owen (Hill), two 20-somethings struggling with barely repressed trauma and other mental conditions in a near-future New York where everything, including friendship, has become a part of the gig economy. You can even sell your likeness for various ads and stock photos, as Annie has done, which means that when Owen bumps into her at a purported pharma trial for a new drug, he both feels he already knows her and fears he’s hallucinating her. (He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, see.)

In one episode, Owen and Annie become stuck in some sort of espionage thriller. Netflix

Anyway, the drug trial turns out to be a complicated procedure designed to put people through a sort of psychological boot camp, where in stage one they relive their greatest trauma (the loss of her sister for Annie; a suicide attempt — that might not have even happened — for Owen), attempt to better understand the roots of their psychological issues in stage two, and then confront those issues and their trauma in stage three, in hopes of healing and moving on.

The trial is overseen by a group of people cosplaying as the characters erasing Jim Carrey’s memories in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, including Justin Theroux, the dryly funny Sonoya Mizuno, and (I swear I am not kidding about this) Sally Field playing a depressed computer.

The bulk of the series involves what happens when a mechanical malfunction results in the fusing of Owen and Annie’s subconsciouses, which results in them essentially entering an anthology series. Across five of the season’s 10 episodes, they play different characters, in different genres, following what amounts to Fukunaga’s syllabus for a “history of American indie film” class. There are suburban capers, and an extended (kinda awful) journey through a gangster/crime movie tale, and a story where Owen becomes a hawk. (That last one’s a lot of fun!)

This is, I think, a pretty compelling way to explore two characters who seem paper-thin at first. By having Annie and Owen journey through both of their subconsciouses at once, the show could theoretically fill in details about these people’s core beings while still allowing for plenty of action and adventure. Seeing Annie as a Long Island housewife trying to steal a lemur, or as a con artist interrupting a seance, or as a half-elven ranger in a generic fantasy kingdom gives us different sides of the actual Annie’s persona and lets Stone have a lot of fun.

But I could never escape the feeling that the show’s weirdness was less an organic investigation of two people in crisis and more a mechanism designed to keep me watching. The journeys that Annie and Owen take through their brains feel assembled more from other movies and TV shows than from genuine psychological exploration.

On a show limited only by the human imagination (at least in theory), these adventures stay frustratingly earthbound. They’re “imaginative,” in the manner of a college student who’s carefully cultivated her persona out of bits and pieces of other personas she’s seen elsewhere, rather than authentic.

The strange facility where Owen and Annie bond is a weird setting unto itself. Netflix

It feels a little churlish to complain about this, because watching Maniac is a lot of fun. I sat down intending to watch a couple of episodes one day and ended up watching seven, because I really did want to see what would happen next. The writing staff — led by Patrick Somerville of The Leftovers fame — has given real thought to the story of all 10 episodes as well as the story of each episode, which leads to fun journeys through the various genre pastiches the writers come up with. (I loved the Long Island-set crime caper, which felt straight out of a Coen brothers movie.)

But I could never get past the stage where I was enjoying the show’s considerably gorgeous surfaces to access some deeper level. And then after watching the finale, I read a quote from Fukunaga in a recent GQ profile of him, and something clicked. He said:

Because Netflix is a data company, they know exactly how their viewers watch things. So they can look at something you’re writing and say, We know based on our data that if you do this, we will lose this many viewers. So it’s a different kind of note-giving. It’s not like, Let’s discuss this and maybe I’m gonna win. The algorithm’s argument is gonna win at the end of the day. So the question is do we want to make a creative decision at the risk of losing people. …

There was one episode we wrote that was just layer upon layer peeled back, and then reversed again. Which was a lot of fun to write and think of executing, but, like, halfway through the season, we’re just losing a bunch of people on that kind of binging momentum. That’s probably not a good move, you know? So it’s a decision that was made 100 percent based on audience participation.

Now, listen, the notes-giving process in Hollywood is important. I’m not somebody who rails against notes, or thinks they ruin the creative process or tear down impeccable works of art. But something about letting a computer give those notes speaks to why Maniac, ultimately, felt less human than human to me, why it always seemed like it was assembled more than it was a deeply felt passion project for anyone. And, indeed, the series is based on a Norwegian show of the same name, and the various genre pastiches look a lot like other Netflix shows if you squint, and every single actor feels specifically chosen to appeal to a very specific demographic.

This would almost feel like Netflix snarkily commenting on itself if the show didn’t take itself so seriously. The fact that it turns into a genuinely sincere story of how Owen and Annie come together to better each other’s lives in the last few episodes is either the bold swing that saves the enterprise or a case of too little, too late. I’m more in the former camp than the latter, but it’s not hard for me to imagine talking myself out of that stance.

And yet there’s something kind of beautiful about a series that applies the dull plotting of most other TV shows — all life-and-death stakes and, “We’ve gotta get to the [plot device] before they do!” numbness — to two emotionally damaged people trying to heal. There’s a bravado here that I can’t write off, even if I never felt like the show went deep enough to turn either Owen or Annie into anything more than ciphers, despite all of the self-analyzing monologues both deliver in an attempt to sell their complexities.

Whatever complaints I have about the show, then, might be a part of its commentary on a world where our mental horizons are so often occupied by stories we’ve heard elsewhere. If you and I somehow had our subconsciousnesses fused, and then went through a series of adventures in dreamspace together, wouldn’t it be more likely that those adventures would be drawn from the movies and TV shows we had watched than something wildly original?

Maniac isn’t weird enough to really achieve what it wants to, but it does say something — however accidentally — about how reality is already weird enough. Maybe that’s why we’re so content to live inside the dreams of others.

Maniac is streaming on Netflix.

Original Source -> Netflix’s Maniac, with Jonah Hill and Emma Stone, is either too weird or not weird enough

via The Conservative Brief