#bugs in film

[tenderlady]

Just wanted to say I came across your tag on a post about Phantom Thread John and Yoko and ohh my god I can't believe I never made that connection as that's one of my favourite films. It genuinely fits how I see their dynamic so much, even if Reynolds and Alma have quite different personalities. There's even that weird story about how after they got back together with Yoko's promised "smoking" cure, John was throwing up for like a day and then coming out disorientated and different.

Like if PTA came out and said he was inspired to make the film partly based on insider knowledge on late 70s JohnandYoko I wouldn't even be surprised.

Omg, hi! I totally forgot about that post (and I can't even really remember what I would tag about that aside from The Knowledge Deep In My Soul), but this ask reminded me of how passionately right I am about that!

I don't think John and Yoko are perfect corollaries for the characters in Phantom Thread, but the dynamic they had going of Yoko essentially being a toxic mommy to John while giving him things that were intended for his health while actually making him sick, thus reinforcing his dependence on her, is SOOOOOOOO Phantom Thread.

They were both obviously obsessed with each other, and I think part of that obsession came from a Reynolds-esque desire on John's part to no longer have to be the hypercompetent, "leader" [akom you didn't see this] figure and Yoko's desire to have a sense of control over something. As PTA understands, there is an eroticism inherent to that kind of inversion of power, and the weakening of the both of them (physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, etc.) looped around and further reinforced their codependence on each other.

I would be chuffed beyond belief if PTA were familiar with John and Yoko's dynamic and that influenced the myriad fucked up relationships in his films (reading SOMETHING into The Master rn, not sure what though). He is one of the working directors that I would graciously give my blessing to make a Beatlemovie, and a lot of that is because of his clear interested in fucked up psychosexual dynamics and mutual obsession.

Anyway, I'm glad you see my vision, and tell me you couldn't see Yoko pulling this shit

[grampacory]

Maybe it’s because I’m transgender, but I LOVE whenever people get turned into enormous bugs

[charliedzilla]

Some shots from my beachelors film "Writing home" which will have its premiere this year!

Adaptation of book "O Ipsíkovi" by Aneta Františka Holasová. A story of little bark beetle girl, living hapilly in the forest. One day, a fire, caused by a human carelessness, cuts her from her family and burns her hand. Lost, she finds shelter in human school in nearby small town.

This project completelly consumed last 3 years of my life and it unexpectedly turned to quite a big production, at least for a small student film. It is the first project I had my own team of animators, colorists who all did amazing job and I cannot wait for it to be seen.

[hanfocus]

'PERFECT DAY with SKZ' / 2024 SEASON'S GREETINGS

[horygory]

The Fly (1986)

[one-time-i-dreamt]

Disney released another mediocre live-action movie in which Jack Black was cast as the hero. I can’t recall much of the plot, but I do remember he was traveling across some fantasy world with a giant blue caterpillar. At the end, the caterpillar turned into a big, muscular, four-armed DILF and he and Jack Black got married. Tumblr went crazy over the caterpillar man and flooded the site with fanart of him.

[linoyes]

lino's bug hunting adventures

[shihlun]

Kiyoshi Kurosawa

- Kazuo Umezu’s Horror Theater: House of Bugs

2005

[itsbenedict]

as soon as Brennan gave "email@bugwithabigass.com" as his email address in the season finale, i had to check if bugwithabigass.com was a registered domain- and lo and behold! ...this!

[demifiendrsa]

Witch Hat Atelier TV anime - Official Teaser

The TV anime adaptation of Kamome Shirahama's Witch Hat Atelier manga will premiere in 2025.

Teaser visual

Staff

Original Work: Kamome Shirahama

Director: Ayumu Watanabe

Character Design: Kairi Unabara

Music: Yuka Kitamura

Animation Production: BUG FILMS

[acmeoop]

The Bugs Bunny Film Festival (1998)

[tenderlady]

(Phantom Thread anon again) Yes exactly, that's J&Y! I can see it with the Master too, that same desire or need to hand over the reigns to someone else, something that John has alluded to in pretty much all the major relationships of his life (Mimi, Stu, Paul, Yoko). I think any good Beatles film would have to focus on just a fragment and my top choice would depend on what the angle was, but PTA would be a great choice for anything delving into their psyches not just because he's a top tier director but because so many of his films deal with Fucked Up relationships seemingly without judgement. He doesn't sanitise, but his characters are allowed to come across as charming despite the focus on dysfunctional elements.

Also while there's the obvious mommy issues thread, but a lot more that could be explored and isn't much about John's relationship with power in general, especially in the 70s. How he seemed to want it less the more he had it, especially from about '67 when he appeared to make conscious efforts to be less manipulative and even assertive. His old friends say he had to be the top dog in the early days which certainly isn't the John I saw in the Get Back sessions. That thing Harry Nilsson mentioned him saying about "powerful men" wanting to "swallow the world" and how he related it to his own physical appetite was very revealing imo. And how he often talked about "fat kings" (and Elvis specifically as the "fat king" fate he feared most) - I wonder how much of his disordered eating and preference for looking what most would consider too thin was rooted in those kinds of thoughts. And well, put all that together and the appeal of submitting to Yoko is blindingly obvious to me without the need for some evil witch magic to put him under her command!

Hey, bestie, welcome back! Always a pleasure to talk shop with a fellow Understander.

I totally agree with all of this, and I think you did a better job of picking up what I was attempting to put down with The Master than I did. The Master, while often read as a film about Scientology, is at its base a film about masculinity and control and power, which I think is what PTA is alluding to with the title. There is a real homoeroticism between Philip Seymour Hoffman's character and Joaquin Phoenix's character (I haven't seen the film in a hot minute, apologies for not remembering their characters' names), and a kind of Freudian taming of the id with Phoenix's almost animalistic lust and violence being tempered (and channeled) by Hoffman's superegoistic control. The scene where Hoffman essentially does Auditing on Phoenix reminds me a bit of Janov's primal scream therapy, with the idea that you have to completely break someone down to nothing in order to remake them in a stronger image. I also totally agree that PTA does a great job of portraying characters with complex psychologies in a way that neither demonizes nor exonerates them for their behavior, which are both problems that I think a lot of Beatlemovies (particularly focusing on John) fall into.

The thread of John and power/consumption/fatness is also really fascinating to me. The "fat king" archetype obviously seemed to stick in his craw, and I think Maureen Cleave comparing him specifically to Henry VIII really bothered him. Henry VIII was fat, but he was also violent, lascivious, and myopic in his understanding of the world around him. As with a lot of contemporaneous Beatles commentary, I think that John perhaps thought this hit too close to home and decided to course correct but, being John, overcorrected HARD. Like George, I think John had a real interest in asceticism and transcendence. At a point in time, John was probably the most powerful non-political figure in the world, and I think the trauma of that experience led him to desire a place where he could relinquish some of that control. Janov in particular seemed to place a lot of stock on being controlled by your desires (didn't Yoko pitch PST as a way to stop smoking?), and I think we see that fear of desire manifest in the life John built with Yoko in New York (macrobiotic, highly restricted diet; minimalistic decor; rarely leaving the house). I think the AKOM girls did a great job of looping that fear of desire re: Janov's work back to Paul, and I think you alluded to that as well in your original ask, but I think all of that coalesced into John's disordered eating, or pulled on the thought patterns that started this behavior back in the 60s. John wanted to be cared for, but especially in the 70s, I think we can see a distrust that he felt in his own desires, and a longing to be rid of them. George attempted to do that with Krishna, and John attempted to do that with Yoko/Janov/disordered eating/etc., etc.

This answer kind of got away from me, but I do want to say that you're totally right. Yoko was not practicing evil pussy magic; I think she just correctly spotted what John was looking for and stepped in to provide it, even if it was ultimately not good or healthy for either of them.

I need to go rewatch The Master, apparently.

[marosii]

Gon's homemade promotional video of Whale Island in an attempt to get other kids to move there. He's extremely bored and plans to send out copies via glass bottles thrown out to sea.

[frozrowan]

[horygory]

The Fly (1986)

[one-time-i-dreamt]

Me and my cousin decided to watch a movie about a moth and a butterfly that had to get to Canada and we got into an argument regarding it and so she called an expert that was in the living room.