#anyways i see cool art i hit queue button :)

[the-king-of-lemons]

someone please fucking help me. dear god can anyone hear me help.

do NOT get into a minecraft smp. the art will make your queue look like this

[natsunoomoi]

FFVII Thoughts

-This whole thing with Jessie is so much filler it’s mostly unnecessary. Plus I feel like the whole impact of Jessie and her arc and even this filler is detracted by her being a former actress. Like I mentioned before I feel like her being an actress and known for toying with men kind of takes away from her crush on Cloud and makes it seem cheap. Also even though she’s someone’s daughter who is more tech inclined, I always thought of her as an engineer herself and like a former Shinra engineer that quit would have been a more powerful message than that of an actress. Even if you keep her Dad getting sick it adds an extra layer. Like say she worked in R&D and they like pushed an experimental mako enhancement for the plant too soon and she warned it would make people sick and it made her Dad sick. There’s a lot of ways her story would have been better and fit more nicely into the narrative. :/

-Even though Jessie annoys me, Biggs is kind of okay but he comes off to me as a little cliche. Wedge is kind of a little nicer.

-Aww, they took out the pickpocket on the train during the ID scan. That would have been a lot harder to deal with, but yeah.

-Good lord they stretched out these areas.

-Completely lost in this lamp and platform maze, but after a long time I finally figure out how to get out even with the items.

-Another maze and more reactor context change.

-Robot change where you can screw it over. That’s interesting.

-Yay Aerith!

-Dang Reno. You hard.

-OMG stupid ghosts get out of the way. I bet I have to trek all this way back to get this materia.

-This church is now also a crazy rat maze.

-Now onto roof rat maze.

-Ugh, why do I have to take the long way just to avoid Rude?

-Let me explore the town!

-Cloud and Aerith are way more helpful in this game. The kids have a secret hide out. Cool, I guess.

-Chadley is seriously simultaneously frustrating and useful.

-Yay I can go back and get crap from the church.

-Okay, so sneak out. Why tf is there a pot right outside my room that I can’t see?

-Okay, so there’s Aerith. We have a secret tunnel-ish. So many ladders. So much up and down.

-Out of that maze and yay they kept that scene where Aerith brings up Zack. Still not sure I’m liking all the foreshadowing cuz this was a spoiler in the original game.

-Tifa looks nice in that outfit. Like in general in this game though. They gave her a pretty thoughtful makeover that like captures the essence of her original profile, but also with some added tweaks in style that I actually like better. Like she didn’t have those thigh highs before, but those are a nice touch. And instead of her mini skirt her skirt is actually a skort and is pleated. Plus like the better boob support.

-Good lord Wall Mart is so involved now. So many alleys. Get out of the way yo!

-Leslie seems kind of cool, but I’m not sure cuz he works for a creep.

-Ugh hussle of trying to figure out how to get in. This sponsorship thing is new. I guess Corneo got more exclusive in this game.

-I have to go to the coloseum? Ugh, why?

-This crowd is full of haters.

-Okay winning over the crowd....

-I have an extra battle? WTF is this BS. I almost wish it was the Turks making a surprise appearance. That seems like a silly stupid thing the original would have done.

-Obviously Cloud caught someone else’s attention.

-Yay! Finally dress up time.

-Awesome. I’m doing a bunch of quests now.

-Whoops I didn’t level up my materia all the way. I got most of them so it’s doing fine but just the medicine thing.

-I saw a lot of people complaining about Jules, but he wasn’t so bad? I just needed to remember the rhythm and what I was doing by saying it so I could keep track of the pattern.

-Ugh, Johnny where you taking me? I have to wait for someone not yet.

-Oh Aerith looks nice. I like her outfit.

-Okay time to dress up Cloud.

-Whoa, Folia is a honeybee? Teh shock.

-What is this mini-game? It’s hard to keep rhythm and sometimes I actually can’t see the queue. Why do you design a mini-game where you can’t see the thing clearly?

-Oh shit I missed a track because I didn’t want to sit there and keep playing a frustrating mini-game. D:

-Yay! At least I got the cute dress. But real talk I kind of miss the old way to dress up Cloud only cuz I would want to see what the different colored wigs look like, but that whole storyline is very trans insensitive. Or even drag insensitive, so I understand why they changed it.

-Andrea is kind of cool. I was worried they were going to make him into some kind of flaming stereotype, but actually although he definitely has some flare, he’s a pretty well balanced character and none of the characters really judge him for his personal choices. Although definitely some judgement for the stuff they make them do, but that’s fair because you’re being subjected to it. Good on Cloud for following along.

-Okay time to take down this fat loser. So how does this work? How do you know who he’ll choose?

-Wait does he just choose Cloud every time? That’s a little less fun. I liked dressing Cloud up as the prettiest princess so that you could get him picked.

-This bit of them threatening Corneo’s private parts is still one of my favorite things. It was teh shock when I saw it the first time back in the day and I still enjoy it now.

-Ugh, the sewer. Also a lot of denial. But ugh the sewer.

-My sister was right. The train graveyard is creepier.

-Oh crap I forgot to steal from Eligor. !@#$@#%

-Alright climb the pillar. This is kind of slightly more fun with the extra scenes from Reno and Rude.

-Whoa, they saved Wedge. Cuz he originally totally ate it. Like straight fell off the pillar several stories and was unresponsive.

-Biggs and Jessie still die. That’s fine. I actually feel less sorry for Jessie dying than I did with the original. :/ I think because they managed to actually make her irritating with how over the top they made her.

-Aerith and Marlene is so cute!

-Helicopter shots are annoying, but I like hearing Reno. It’s sad that Fujiwara Keiji died two days after this came out. This is like the last thing he did probably. But his voice fit Reno really well. I don’t think it fit Ardyn well. Ardyn I think deserved a lower register, but I think Square gave him the part probably because of his diagnosis cuz I think Ardyn’s in-game struggle in a sense reflected his real life trials in some way only in the game he became immortal. Real life not so much, but immortalized in a sense through these works. I wonder if Square would have wanted it to come out sooner so that maybe he could have played it himself a little bit before passing, but they had to push the date for quality and stuff.

-I don’t know why, but I really like looking at Reno’s open shirt. Like I think the way they did his abs are a bit different from Advent Children. I think his shirt is even open wider than in AC. *checks* Yeah, it is. AC it’s buttoned up toward the top and just the top one or two are left open. And okay for real Remake has his shirt open even more than even in the original. Nevermind him buttoning up more for AC, but like in original FF7 polygon Reno and original Nomura art Reno looks like it’s only unbuttoned to about mid-pecs. Remake Reno is like down to like the top of his stomach. I guess I can’t complain about the equal opportunity fan service.

-Tseng is actually done pretty well, but I keep looking at him cuz he just strikes me as odd.... Oh wait is it his hair? Is that a hair tie? I don’t think he had a hair tie before. I think we were just supposed to assume he had his hair slicked back and kept in place by gel or hair spray. Also his face is interesting cuz I think they tried to make him actually look Chinese, but I think he just turned out looking kind of like Tamaki Hiroshi. Oh and Suwabe-san!

-LOL Rude carrying Reno like a rag doll.

-And there goes the plate. Oh, no, Wedge. I guess he did die. But the kitties. ;o;

-Let me explore Wall Market! Ugh, fine.

-That Kyrie chick seems kind of a little annoying. I kind of want to let Barret hit her. But I’m probably biased because I had a hot mess of a flatmate with that name and she like didn’t clean up after herself and left dirty dishes in her room and like pushed it up against her roommate’s bed. >.> Like passing responsibility over them to someone else. And I think she maybe broke one of my cups? And like tried to use my stuff without asking? Maybe stole some stuff too but idk. And like worst of all was like she sold her car so she could get money because she couldn’t hold down a job and like needed money and instead of like you know paying rent and bills, she spent it on shoes and make up and left the receipt out for us to find.

-Wall Market is...different in the day time.

-All teh quests.

-Okay Kyrie is still kind of annoying and stupid when you talk with her one on one, but she at least seems better than my flatmate.

-Oh old lady is the Angel.

-Findin’ all the birds. It kind of strikes me that they added this in cuz of how much time it takes to get places and it’s kind of like XV and even the XIV MMO, but not. I guess it’s a staple now with their newer titles because of how grand they make the scenery.

-Down in the sewer again....

-I just really wanna find Corneo’s stash.

-OMG I got a chase this little asshole now.

-Okay so now Leslie. Leslie is a good guy after all. Not a bad new character too. Nice decent development and stuff.

-But gdi Corneo’s still alive. I mean, I knew that cuz Wutai, but ugh.... I think he deserved at least a punch in the face.

-Okay so anyway I guess I’m going up now. Just going to finish up stuff before I go past the point of no return. Get all teh things I can from the coliseum and all that.

-Climbing, climbing. Oops I missed a thing. Was I supposed to?

-Gdi this helicopter thinger is annoying. I can’t slash any boxes. Just kick them around.

-Okay done so I guess I’m going in.

-...Is this a parking lot?

-Oh okay so here’s the entrance.

-Shinra headquarters actually looks like a bigger version of Square Enix’s headquarters in Higashi Shinjuku. I’ve been there pretty recently and also like to cut through the office building to get to Artnia cuz I don’t want to walk all the way around. Decor and stuff and specifics are definitely different, but like the double tower U-shaped look with the walkway in the middle thing is very much how the building is in Shinjuku. Specifics with the stairs and escalators are also different, but kind of the same deal with some amount of ambient lighting at night time and the lobby and such is still mostly open in the evening for people who work late or want to pass through. Some of the doors being locked or like certain staircases and such being roped off are a thing as well. I just know this cuz I often go to Artnia around dinner time when I’m there, so it’s generally after hours already.

-I think even the parking lot situation might even be the same? I’m not sure because I usually take the subway and that let’s out into the mini mall downstairs, but parking if you go there and do that is like subterranean for sure and would be the first layer if it was on a plate.

-I mean, the HQ is also technically kind of on a plate also. Cuz the mini-mall is like below normal street level, but it’s like more cool with like a Lawson’s and restaurants. Coming up from the subway is also a lot similar POV-wise to coming up through grappling hook too in terms of perspective.

-Getting the key. Getting a glove on the way. This part is kind of cool. I always liked this part of the game in the original too and exploring an empty office.

-This is suspicious. I have to take a tour...?

-I guess this is interesting to learn about the company and stuff.

-Weird movie theater. Oh look a spoiler hallucination in the theater. It’s nice to see more of Sephiroth.

-Oh yeah the mayor. That’s a bit of a change that he’s secretly Avalanche. Whatever cool. Yay I got a weapon.

-I gotta do a battle simulator. Oh great I guess if I want items I have to sit here and do all the simulators.

-Oh look it’s Chadley. I have turn ins. Take my stuff.

-Okay so hike upstairs....oh shit they’re going in. Sneak slowly behind and like go around and explore stuff.

-Found the toilet. Haha. Tifa yells at Cloud if he goes in the wrong one. Good.

-This is a nice bathroom.

-Okay up in the vent.

-Interesting extra context and oh yeah Palmer saw Sephiroth.

-Hojo is more gross looking than I remember. Like piled on extra creep factor for him.

-Following into the lab. I guess I should be glad he wasn’t a dumbass and trying to mate Aerith with Red XIII.

-Interesting that it’s only now that they’re really making good use of Those Who Fight Further. I don’t think I’ve really heard it all that often before.

-Yay! Yamaguchi Kappei!

-This part getting serious with Sephiroth is appropriate, but kind of different with him starting to freak out.

-Oooh, Turks scene! It’s nice that they know they are fan favorites now and they put them in more scenes. I wish it would actually play their theme every time they show up like it used to. That’s what made them badass too.

-Aww, Aerith’s room.

-Interesting they are talking in Aerith’s room instead of getting captured and Aerith talking through the wall.

-Shinra science experiment...You’re probably not entirely wrong.

-Huh, wisdom from Red XIII. That’s different context.

-Wow, that’s different. Pointing out a different greater enemy so early. I guess it makes sense Aerith would know because of the whispers she hears, but also it kind of sucks the mystery of the progression of the original story.

-Dang, Sephiroth and Cloud confrontation-ish now? Not going to mysteriously take a body and stab the President?

-Oh joy another crazy rat maze.

-Hojo is definitely more gross than he used to be.

-Oh, nope. Just different order. There’s the trail of blood.

-Well, “blood”. Jenova blood is now apparently purple bubbling ooze.

-President Shinra is just hanging?! DISAPPOINTED. I liked it better when you just showed up and he had a giant sword in his back. Also wondering if you’d be blamed for it, but yeah, sword in the back!

-This is what you get for showing mercy. :/ Sword in back was better.

-Oh shut up already so Rufus can take over.

-Oh you get to watch the sword in the back.

-WTF. He’s not supposed to stab your party.

-Ghost things protecting fate is weird. But also I have some theories like the game is conscious that it’s a remake or something and for some reason they’re repeating history, but some things are different because people don’t do things in exactly the same way but certain things are fated to happen so they have to be preserved.

-Interesting that this game shows the cloaked figures going back and forth between Sephy. Kind of takes away the fun from years of debate on the subject about wtf is happening.

-And here’s Rufus. Still better than his Dad.

-I like that there’s more Turks footage than the original.

-Kind of nice that there’s more tender moments between Tifa and Cloud or rather we can experience them bonding more first hand.

-Did they make Wedge die in a different spot?

-Motorcycle bit is a bit different. Boss on motorcycle is kind of hard. Died once.

-I think it’s just cuz it’s a Remake that they added him here, but Sephiroth is at the end of the highway and I kind of think it sucks. :/ Cuz like it shouldn’t be like this.

-Why is Zack alive? Oh I think this is a flashback. Aww, this is supposed to be a hidden thing. ;o; Stop feeding them all the stuff. Let them find it.

-Whisper monsters...Okay this is just some kind of an AU. Like not really entirely a remake, but a different game in the same timeline cuz Sephy figured out somehow how to alter time and space. Aerith knows kind of what’s up because she became god essentially during AC. Would also explain why the game itself is giving away so many damn spoilers too.

-Holy shit, is Zack dead or not? D:

-Okay I looked up a thing and it said his death is ambiguous, but he’s never seen. Zack was an actual SOLDIER too so he could be a cloaked guy for all we know. But also at the end of AC it was both him and Aerith chilling together welcoming people to the lifestream so who the hell knows what she did.

-Biggs is alive?!

-So okay, if this is an AU things can change and I’m less gripey about the weird things that happened. Cuz it’s like just another pinpoint on the timeline that kind of has pseudo time travel and when you repeat things over again they’re not always exactly the same. I suppose for Square itself it’d be kind of boring to make an actual Remake because they don’t want to take away from the original and they want people to still buy that too cuz it was so good even though the graphics didn’t age so well. Instead they slapped Remake on a new title and trolled us all into thinking they actually did it when actually it’s like a timey wimey thing.

[fibula-rasa]

October 2018 in Review

October was way more hectic than I thought it would be and I didn’t watch as many movies as I usually do. I spent a week in Korea (a post about my visit to the Korean Film Archive will be up soon!) And I was motivated to watch a lot of new movies (a.k.a. was on a long-haul flight).

You may have already heard the news, but the irreplaceable Filmstruck is shuttering this month after two wonderful years. Fair warning: I’ll probably spend a good deal of this month (November) trying to watch as many new-to-me movies in my queue as I can. I think I’ll try and write them up quickly over on my letterboxd, we’ll see!

Also, though The Vamps was intended to be an October series, the month’s general hecticness meant I didn’t get the final essay finished before the end of the month. So, in November, you all have that post to look forward to. (See if you can guess who it is! Hint: she’s a Dane.)

The reviews below are essentially transcriptions of the notes I took right after watching the films. They’re presented in the order in which I watched them. 

Enough blathering, on to the movies. BELOW THE JUMP!

Dolls (1987)

29 May 1987 | 77 min. | Color

As a long-time devotee of the Band family’s productions, I’m always down for a Band film I haven’t seen. (When I was a kid, we probably spent a dozen times what it would have cost to buy Pet Shop (1994) renting it from Dollar Video.)

Yes, I did talk about haunted doll movies in my last roundup but this one was more fun, okay? The cast of characters are a great larger-than-life assortment of weirdos. I wish that 1980s English punks would just keep popping up in horror films after the 1980s. I particularly liked the performance of the little girl’s father. In most other movies, it would be a terrible performance, but in Dolls, it’s pitch perfect.

Dolls is a fairytale story that creates the atmosphere of a child’s viewpoint. The dolls are scary and do scary things, but, of course, they can be reasoned with.

As with many Full Moon movies, Dolls had a great balance of scares and campy humour. The doll designs are gross and fun–especially their wet, bloodshot eyes.

Dolls is a great choice for someone who watched a lot of Are You Afraid of the Dark? growing up and wants a “grown-up” version of that.

Funland (1987)

16 October 1987 | 98 min. | Color

After watching Dolls on Amazon Prime, this film was recommended. From the plot description and the featured image, we expected a fun slasher film. And, with William Windom (who I’m pretty sure took time off of Murder, She Wrote to make this movie!!!) in the cast, we couldn’t resist. What we got was… a… comedy? I guess?

There’s no doubting that there are some talented performers in this movie, but it’s just not funny. The only reason I’m writing about Funland at all is that it’s a good example of the kind of cheesy movie where you can see what could have been a good (or at least more interesting) movie underneath the movie that was actually made.

How exactly do you think: “I’m gonna make a movie about a killer clown fighting mobsters!” and then come up with this movie? I wrote a much longer complaint but, I won’t subject you to it. In short, Funland doesn’t execute its plot very well.

I definitely wouldn’t recommend this one. However, I am curious if any Atlanta natives have feelings about this movie? It seems like it features a lot of locals.

Flying Air Canada

The movie below are what I watched on my plane journeys to and from Seoul. I was flying Air Canada and I need to rant for a sec before moving on to my thoughts on the films.

There are a lot of reasons why captions (or subtitles, if you’re British) are necessary. They’re needed by lots of people, including people who aren’t d/Deaf or hard of hearing. If you want to learn more about why captions are good Jessica Kellgren-Fozard has you covered.

Personally, I have sensory processing disorder (SPD). This prompts me to have captions on when I watch most things. At home, I do this because not every movie or TV show I watch has decent sound mixing. It seems to be an art a lot of film/video makers are neglecting nowadays. Ho hum. I keep captions on so I don’t need to constantly change the volume. On a plane, my SPD is significantly worse because the noise of the plane is so loud that there’s little to no chance of me catching dialogue without raising the volume too high for my own comfort. Unlike the airlines I travel on within the US, Air Canada’s captioned offerings are practically nonexistent. That’s why so many of the movies I ended up watching were foreign-language (or ASL) films–they came with English subtitles.

Now, Air Canada, listen: Most of the movies you had on offer are definitely available with captions elsewhere. Even in theaters they likely had open-caption screenings. What is the deal? Seriously.

Anyway, sometimes I take for granted that we do some things right in America.

Okay, back to movies.

Mary Shelley (2017)

9 September 2018 | 120 min. | Color

This film didn’t have captions, which honestly might have weighed negatively on my experience of it. I was excited to see Mary Shelley. Mary and Percy Shelley are two of my absolute favorite literary historical figures and I love their work. This movie was a let down. It seemed like it was meant to be a character piece but the characters felt more like types than people. Also, don’t get me wrong here: I give no ground to fuckboys, but the depiction of Percy Shelley felt particularly oversimplified.

A Quiet Place (2017)

9 March 2018 | 90 min. | Color

Everybody raving about this movie was totally right. Definitely check it out if you haven’t already. Even if you’re not big on horror, it’s worth a shot.

How Long Will I Love U (2018)

18 May 2018 | 101 min. | Color

Scrolling through Air Canada’s film options, I got the feeling that time-travel romance is pretty popular right now in China and Korea? I think I picked the right one to watch in How Long Will I Love U. The premise put me in mind of The Lake House (2006), a movie I don’t like but can never resist watching when it’s on TV. This movie is a lot better than The Lake House. The premise is pretty cool and the plot is spurred on by a proper sci-fi concept. The leads are very cute together. I love that the main characters both kinda suck but become better people in getting to know one another. The special effects are good looking, conceptually fun, and not excessive.

I highly recommend this one. It’d probably be a great date movie or a Friday-night-with-some-Chunky-Monkey-and-a-cuddly-pet movie.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable — Chapter 1 (2017)

4 August 2017 | 119 min. | Color

Listen. I have friends who are big fans of the JoJo manga and anime. I have never read any of the manga and couldn’t get past the first episode of the anime. That said, when I saw Takashi Miike directed this live-action adaptation of a story arc in the multi-generational JoJo series, I hit that play button right fast. Then, to my surprise, I enjoyed it! I often struggle with the visuals in live-action adaptations of anime and manga, but I loved how Diamond is Unbreakable played with the characters’ unique styling and design. The superhero-like story drew me in a lot faster than the anime and might just get me to look into some of the manga.

This movie might be a hard sell for a lot of people but if you wanna see something that’s out there and imaginative with supernatural overtones, Diamond is Unbreakable might be fun for you. Don’t worry–it’s easy to follow even if you don’t know who Joseph Joestar is. (Yes, that really is a character’s name.)

Un Traductor / A Translator (2018)

19 January 2018 | Color

I had no idea that following the Chernobyl disaster, some of the victims were sent to Cuba for medical treatment. I also had no idea that the program continued until 2011?! So, Un Traductor was a modern history lesson for me! Un Traductor is a model film for propaganda filmmaking–and I mean that in a fully complimentary way. The film does an admirable job of communicating how life for Cubans changed with the fall of the Soviet Union and how they adjusted to persevere.

You can probably gather from what you just read that this isn’t a fun watch, but it’s worthwhile if you have any interest in modern Cuban history.

A Casa Tutti Bene / There is No Place Like Home (2018)

14 February 2018 | 105 min. | Color

I don’t have a lot to say about this one frankly. It’s a decent family dramedy. Massimo Ghini and Sabrina Impacciatore both turn in good performances. *shrugs in Italian*

That’s all for this month’s roundup! Are you all ready for Noirvember? How about Kicksgiving? If you’re a Filmstruck subscriber, what are you marathoning this month?