#gay robots banzai

[reginaldqueribundus]

movies I recently watched

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller) — yes that’s his name — is a neurosurgeon / rock star / racecar driver who sometimes works for the US President and also does weird science experiments. After he drives his rocket-truck through another dimension a mad scientist (played by John Lithgow as a crackhead with a bad Italian accent) tries to steal his technology thingy to free a bunch of alien war criminals trapped inside a mountain, and the other aliens are going to start a nuclear war with Russia if Buckaroo B. doesn’t stop them in time. Meanwhile he falls in love with a random lady who tries to shoot herself at one of his concerts and might be his dead wife’s identical twin. The film also features Jeff Goldblum as a doctor who dresses like a cowboy and Christopher Lloyd as an alien named “John Bigbooty”. And Clancy Brown, too!

There is way too much going on in this movie but it’s still kind of fun, and the weird cast makes it worthwhile. 6.5/10

Vesper (2022)

Vesper (Raffiella Chapman) is just your average girl who became a self-taught biogenetic engineer in hopes of gaining entrance to one of the Citadels where all the rich people live in comfort and safety from the world they destroyed. Her dad has Bedridden Movie Parent Disease but he controls a floating robot head that follows her around. This is one of those indie films starring a bunch of people you’ve never heard of except That One Guy (in this case Eddie Marsan as Vesper’s creepy uncle who I think wants to marry her? ewww). I enjoyed it except for one weird scene where Eddie Marsan kinda fingers a sci-fi lady’s neck vagina.

The plot is a hurricane of sci-fi tropes we’ve seen before, but the acting and production design are so good it doesn’t matter. 8/10

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is a Chinese-American laundromat owner who just can't seem to get along with her gay daughter, her annoying husband, her disapproving elderly father, or the IRS. Naturally she’s also the chosen one who has to save the multiverse by brain-hijacking alternate versions of herself who have done way cooler stuff than her. Also James Hong, Sigourney Weaver and the guy who played Short Round are there.

This is a movie where Michelle Yeoh rides a teppanyaki chef down the street like a bicycle, desperately kung fu fights a man to stop him from shoving something up his ass, and has a passionate sapphic relationship with her IRS auditor in a universe where humans have hot dogs for fingers. What else can I say about it? It’s like Rick and Morty but somehow stupider and way more optimistic. Ultimately it’s less about the road not taken and more about connecting with the people in your life, here and now. I liked it. 9/10

Nope (2022)

OJ & his sister Em (Daniel Kaluuya & Keke Palmer) are trying to keep their dad’s movie stunt horse ranch afloat, but thar’s aliens in them thar hills. Along comes Ricky Park (Steven Yeun), a failed child actor / theme park owner who lost his capacity for good decision-making when he witnessed a chimp murder at the age of 9, to make everything worse. With the help of the world’s most dedicated Geek Squad member and a pretentious Hollywood filmmaker who talks like a chainsaw that smokes five packs a day, can the siblings get a video of the aliens and get rich? And, y’know, not die?

This is one of those movies where everything is a spoiler, but that somehow doesn’t reduce its rewatch value. A horror film in the truest sense of the word. It probably won’t jumpscare you, but you’ll be thinking about it for days. 9.5/10

[furby-yeehaw]

Introduction

Gay

Blog list under cut!

Alter’s blogs:

@x-place

@spammy-lad

@twilit-majesty

@mttbrand-robot

@dee-koh05

@glamfreddybear

@submastwins

@bonsai-banzai

@peaches-and-robots

@loaded-dice-roller

@albatrossofthesea

@h31p1v4n (lotta trauma stuff here be careful)

@skelelelelelelelelele

@thedragonwarriorsden

@omg-kawaiiangel

@the-ro0st

Furby blog

@kah-may-may-u-nye

[cipheramnesia]

I look back at who I used to be, trying to find the person I am now. There’s this stream of stories from other people’s pasts about who they are now. If you used to like this, you’re gay now. If you had these, you’re definitely queer. If you used to do this, surprise you’re not neurotypical.

Sifting through these streams, I don’t really see myself. Nothing about the kid who stayed up every weekend night, recording old episodes of Doctor Who from public TV on my dad’s VCR. My prized treasures, refillable rapidograph pens, books of H.R. Giger art, and finding Buckaroo Banzai on video after years of checking Suncoast Video every time we went to the mall. Growing up on Michael Moorcock and Isaac Asimov and Clive Barker, not a grain of my childhood seems to be carried along the stream of “if you were” histories of cartoons I’m too old to have seen or toys I never wanted and couldn’t afford.

I don’t know how to find who I am in who I was. It’s just a bunch of stuff I liked, or in a lot of cases stuff I still like. I can’t find my identity as queer or trans in who I was because those things are just me, and who I am now is just me. They didn’t form me or influence me or subtly open doors, they just became parts that built the patched up alien robot you see before you now. Yet another Haraway cyborg.

(rb ok -creep)