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nothing-but-dreamy · 3 years

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STUBBORN

Pairing: ADAM JENSEN x GENDER NEUTRAL!READER

Words: 1.733

Warnings: angst; mention of blood; fluff

Synopsis: Adam Jensen got shot and asks you for help but sometimes he is too stubborn because of the wrong reasons.

"Adam, please...", you said softly, reaching out for the stubborn man.

"No!", Adam hissed.

"Just.. just let me see your wounds.", you tried again.

"I said no.", Adam called out and looked at you with a stern expression.

"Well, okay, then, I will leave you alone, you idiot. But next time, if you need help, think twice if you really want to call me. Maybe I won’t be there anymore.", you said angry, asking yourself why he even called you when he acted like this then. You stormed to the front door, grabbing your things, keys, smartphone and jacket while you were raging with anger about this unrelenting man.

Adam watched you walking away. He knew you for more than six months. The two of you had met in the dog park where Adam was with Kubrick before the dog got back to Megan in Washington. Kubrick had toyed around with his old but beloved ball until he kicked the ball with one paw too far away. The dog ran after it and Adam after Kubrick but it was already too late. As Adam reached the dog, the ball had landed in the purse of someone, of you, who were sitting on a bench with a book. You looked bemused at the dog who was burrowing through your bag with his big head to find his ball.

And since then, Adam and you had met for coffee, you two had lunch together and you also could convince Adam to watch a movie in the cinema with you. He was a depressed mess after everything that had happened. Meg and the changes on his body… but you were able to drag him out from his rabbit hole and to let him feel more human again.

Your light friendship, your innocence and golden heart got through his tough demeanor. So, as he got shot earlier that day, the first thought that had struck his mind was you. Several times before, he had caught himself thinking about you. Maybe he already saw you as more than just a friend. But as you were there, in his apartment and as he saw how you looked at him with those big, innocent eyes, worries and fear written all over your face because of his wounds and his whole appearance with all the blood and dirt, he knew that he didn’t want to have you being a part in such a life. With him, you would always be worried…

The moment you reached the door, Adam snapped back to reality and grunted because of pain as he stepped forward slowly. He knew he had to make a fast decision or you would be gone forever because you stuck to your words, "Wait.", he whispered, pleadingly. For a second he feared it was too low but he could see how your hand stopped in the air over the doorknob, staying where you were to wait.

"I need your help.", Adam whispered a bit louder.

Hearing his weak voice caused you to turn around to meet his gaze, finally. You could tell that Adam was in pain. His breath was strained, his chest was moving unevenly and you were sure to see some beads of sweat on his forehead. Without another thought, you hurried back to him and that right on time. As you reached Adam he collapsed into your arms. You struggled with his weight but you were able to place him on his bed properly, "Hey, Adam, can you hear me? Adam?", you asked, kneeling in front of him with a concerned expression. With your hands on his face, you forced him to look at you.

Weakly, he opened his eyes and managed to meet your concerned glance with a soft smile, "I am fine.", he whispered low.

"Liar.", you said smiling. You were relieved to see that he was still awake, "What was the matter in the first place anyway to send me away after you had called me for help?", you asked to keep him awake.

Adam chuckled low and shook his head, "I... I realized that I don't want you to see me like this.", he admitted.

"Like what? Hurt?", you asked confused.

"Weak.", he whispered.

You looked surprised at him but you just shook your head about his ego and kept your mouth shut. The last thing that came to your mind when you were thinking about Adam Jensen was weakness. From the beginning, you were impressed by his presence. This tall, dark haired and mysterious man was for you the epitome of authority and strength. As he had called you for help, you were surprised that he trusted you this much. Mostly, as you saw that the help was because of two bullet wounds in his right shoulder, "Okay, come on, you have to help me a bit with this coat.", you commanded and Adam moved willingly.

He let you undress him piece by piece until there was just the black, well-fitting t-shirt left. Hesitantly, you grabbed some scissors to cut the fabric open because with the gunshots, Adam couldn’t undress it properly. You were happy that Adam couldn't see you or otherwise he would have seen your reddening cheeks.

Adam winced as you brushed across the wounds accidentally and you flinched quickly before you continued. As his upper body was naked, you let your eyes roam over his several augmentations. Most prominent were the shoulders and arms. He had told you about them, maybe to scare you or to see your rejection but it didn’t work this way. You were curious and now, where you had the sight in front of you, you were even more impressed. You were one of the few people who had no problems with augmentations and the people who would use them. You also saw those people still as human beings with a soul and not as cyborgs like others did. The next ten minutes, you were busy cleaning and examining the wounds, "Alright, I have one good and one bad news."

"One bullet is still in there, right?", Adam asked, panting for breath.

"Y-yeah.", you admitted, knowing what this meant.

"Then get it out.", Adam said quietly and already snatched a bottle of Whiskey from a spot next to his bed. He looked at the bottle, that was one important thing he didn’t want you to know: his coping mechanisms. His weaknesses. But now was not the right time for such thoughts. He knew it would be painful. Therefore he took a big gulp of the golden liquid and swallowed it slowly.

You stared at him in shock, "I- I can't.”, you breathed, “Adam, this will hurt a lot. You need to go to a hospital. I am not a doctor. I am just a vet."

"Just do it. I trust you. I can handle the pain, don’t worry.", Adam said serious after the next huge sip of alcohol.

You tried again to deny it but Adam just waited and you knew that you had to move quickly to get the bullet out. It was still possible that the projectile could move around and cause even more damage.

Ten minutes later, Adam, you and the bed were a mess. You got the bullet between your bloody fingers and you were sure, just for a split second, Adam had been passed out. You cleaned everything and patched him up.

As you walked from the bathroom back into the bedroom, Adam sat there on the rim of the bed, looking at you with a soft smile. He was totally exhausted but he was also smiling, "Thank you.", he said low, still breathing with some problems.

"Always, Adam. You just have to ask. Forget what I have said earlier. I was just angry. I’m always there if you need me.", you promised him.

"I guess you are the only friend I have left.", Adam said low and watched you with a mixed expression.

You stared him straight in the eyes and for a short moment you were brave enough to say what was on your mind, "Just a-", you stopped yourself as the courage left you again, "Nevermind. You need to rest. I will come tomorrow to see after you."

You were about to leave but Adam stood up and stopped you with his hand softly on your shoulder, "What was it you wanted to say?"

"I…,” you paused, something in his eyes told you to continue as if he was just waiting for a sign from you, “I don't want to be just a friend for you, Adam.", you said while avoiding his eyes. You couldn’t look into them in fear to see denial. The pause he created left you feeling humiliated and so, you just wanted to leave.

But Adam held you back once again, "YN, I... my life's a mess. Look at me. I am a mess. You deserve someone better. Someone who is easier to handle than I am. You deserve a normal man.", this time, Adam needed a moment to look you in the eyes. He was afraid of what he could see. The worst thing would be if you would even agree with him in the end.

"I don't want any other man. In my eyes, you are perfect.", you whispered and looked straight into his eyes to underline the meaning of your words and your seriousness.

"You really think that about me?", Adam whispered insecurely but with a small smile. Hope was kindled in him.

"Yes. I always did.", you answered truthfully with a nod while Adam watched you with a stern, unreadable expression. You began to feel uncomfortable under his intense glance but before you could say anything, he brought you closer with one arm around your waist and tangled the fingers of his other hand carefully with your hair.

He paused and looked into your eyes but then, he just kissed you slowly and passionately without a second thought. All doubts were gone. He had made his decision. You melted against Adam and snaked your arms carefully around his middle to bring him closer. The kiss became even stronger until both of you were panting for air. While Adam rested his forehead against your, you were just standing there in the middle of his apartment, smiling softly at each other while thick droplets of rain were drumming against the windows.

#adam jensen #deus ex mankind divided #deus ex human revolution #deus ex #deus ex fanfiction #male reader #female reader #gender neutral fanfic #gender neutral reader

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betterdaysareatoenailaway · 3 years

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Random Review #3: Sleepwalkers (1992) and “Sleep Walk” (1959)

I. Sleepwalkers (1992) I couldn’t sleep last night so I started watching a trashy B-movie penned by Stephen King specifically for the screen called Sleepwalkers (1992). Simply put, the film is an unmitigated disaster. A piece of shit. But it didn’t need to be. That’s what’s so annoying about it. By 1992 King was a grizzled veteran of the silver screen, with more adaptations under his belt than any other author of his cohort. Puzo had the Godfather films (1972 and 1974, respectively), sure, but nothing else. Leonard Gardner had Fat City (1972), a movie I love, but Gardner got sucked into the Hollywood scene of cocaine and hot tub parties and never published another novel, focusing instead on screenplays for shitty TV shows like NYPD Blue. After Demon Seed (1977), a movie I have seen and disliked, nobody would touch Dean Koontz’s stuff with a ten foot pole, which is too bad because The Voice of the Night, a 1980 novel about two young pals, one of whom is a psychopath trying to convince the other to help him commit murder, would make a terrific movie. But Koontz’s adaptations have been uniformly awful. The made-for-TV film starring John C McGinley, 1997′s Intensity, is especially bad. There are exceptions, but Stephen King has been lucky enough to avoid the fate of his peers. Big name directors have tackled his work, from Stanley Kubrick to Brian De Palma. King even does a decent job of acting in Pet Semetary (1989), in his own Maximum Overdrive (1986) and in George Romero’s Creepshow (1982), where he plays a yokel named Jordy Verril who gets infected by a meteorite that causes green weeds to grow all over his body. Many have criticized King’s over-the-top performance in that flick, but for me King perfectly nails the campy and comical tone that Romero was going for. The dissolves in Creepshow literally come right off the pages of comics, so people expecting a subtle Ordinary People-style turn from King had clearly walked into the wrong theatre. Undoubtedly Creepshow succeeds at what it set out to do. I’m not sure Sleepwalkers succeeds though, unless the film’s goal was to get me to like cats even more than I already do. But I already love cats a great deal. Here’s my cat Cookie watching me edit this very blog post.

And here’s one of my other cats, Church, named after the cat that reanimates and creeps out Louis and Ellie in Pet Sematary. Photo by @ScareAlex.

SPOILER ALERT: Do not keep reading if you plan on watching Sleepwalkers and want to find out for yourself what happens.

Stephen King saw many of his novels get adapted in the late 1970s and 80s: Carrie, The Shining, Firestarter, Christine, Cujo, and the movie that spawned the 1950s nostalgia industrial complex, Stand By Me, but Sleepwalkers was the first time he wrote a script specifically for the screen rather than adapting a novel that already existed. Maybe that’s why it’s so fucking bad. Stephen King is a novelist, gifted with a novelist’s rich imagination. He’s prone to giving backstories to even the most peripheral characters - think of Joe Chamber’s alcoholic neighbour Gary Pervier in the novel Cujo, who King follows for an unbelievable number of pages as the man stumbles drunkenly around his house spouting his catch phrase “I don’t give a shit,” drills a hole through his phone book so he can hang it from a string beside his phone, complains about his hemorrhoids getting “as big as golfballs” (I’m not joking), and just generally acts like an asshole until a rabid Cujo bounds over, rips his throat out, and he bleeds to death. In the novel Pervier’s death takes more than a few pages, but it makes for fun reading. You hate the man so fucking much that watching him die feels oddly satisfying. In the movie, though, his death occurs pretty quickly, and in a darkened hallway, so it’s hard to see what’s going on aside from Gary’s foot trembling. And Pervier’s “I don’t give a shit” makes sense when he’s drilling a hole in the phone book, not when he’s about to be savagely attacked by a rabid St Bernard. There’s just less room for back story in movies. In a medium that demands pruning and chiseling and the “less is more” dictum, King’s writing takes a marked turn for the worse. King is a prose maximalist, who freely admits to “writing to outrageous lengths” in his novels, listing It, The Stand, and The Tommyknockers as particularly egregious examples of literary logorrhea. He is not especially equipped to write concisely. This weakness is most apparent in Sleepwalkers’ dialogue, which sounds like it was supposed to be snappy and smart, like something Aaron Sorkin would write, but instead comes off like an even worse Tango & Cash, all bad jokes and shitty puns. More on those bad jokes later. First, the plot.

Sleepwalkers is about a boy named Charles and his mother Mary who travel around the United States killing and feeding off the lifeforce of various unfortunate people (if this sounds a little like The True Knot in Doctor Sleep, you’re not wrong. But self-plagiarism is not a crime). Charles and Mary are shapeshifting werewolf-type creatures called werecats, a species with its very own Wikipedia page. Wikipedia confers legitimacy dont’cha know, so lets assume werecats are real beings. According to said page, a werecat, “also written in a hyphenated form as were-cat) is an analogy to ‘werewolf’ for a feline therianthropic creature.” I’m gonna spell it with the hyphen from now on because “werecats” just looks like a typo. Okay? Okay.

Oddly enough, the were-cats in Sleepwalkers are terrified of cats. Actual cats. For the were-cats, cute kittens = kryptonite. When they see a cat or cats plural, this happens to them:

^ That is literally a scene from the movie. Charles is speeding when a cop pulls alongside him and bellows at him to pull over. Ever the rebel, Charles flips the cop the finger. But the cop has a cat named Clovis in his car, and when the cat pops up to have a look at the kid (see below), Charles shapeshifts first into a younger boy, then into whatever the fuck that is in the above screenshot.

Now, the were-cats aversion to normal cats is confusing because one would assume a were-cat to be a more evolved (or perhaps devolved?) version of the typical house kitty. The fact that these were-cats are bipedal alone suggests an advantage over our furry four-legged friends, no? Kinda like if humans were afraid of fucking gorillas. Wait...we are scared of gorillas. And chimpanzees. And all apes really. Okay, maybe the conceit of the film isn’t so silly after all. The film itself, however, is about as silly as a bad horror movie can get. When the policeman gets back to precinct and describes the incident above (”his face turned into a blur”) he is roundly ridiculed because in movies involving the supernatural nobody believes in the supernatural until it confronts them. It’s the law, sorry. Things don’t end well for the cop. Or for the guy who gets murdered when the mom stabs him with...an ear of corn. Yes, an ear of corn. Somehow, the mother is able to jam corn on the cob through a man’s body, without crushing the vegetable or turning it into yellow mash. It’s pretty amazing. Here is a sample of dialog from that scene: Cop About To Die On The Phone to Precinct: There’s blood everywhere! *STAB* Murderous Mother: No vegetables, no dessert. That is actually a line in the movie. “No vegetables, no dessert.” It’s no “let off some steam, Bennett” but it’s close. Told ya I’d get back to the bad jokes. See, Mary and Charles are new in town and therefore seeking to ingratiate themselves by killing everyone who suspects them of being weird, all while avoiding cats as best they can. At one point Charles yanks a man’s hand off and tells him to "keep [his] hands to [him]self," giving the man back his severed bloody hand. Later on Charles starts dating a girl who will gradually - and I do mean gradually - come to realize her boyfriend is not a real person but in fact a were-cat. Eventually our spunky young protagonist - Madchen Amick, who fans of Twin Peaks will recognize as Shelly - and a team of cats led by the adorable Clovis- kill the were-cat shapeshifting things and the sleepy small town (which is named Travis for some reason) goes back to normal, albeit with a slightly diminished population. For those keeping score, that’s Human/Cat Alliance 1, Shapeshifting Were-cats 0. It is clear triumph for the felis catus/people team! Unless we’re going by kill count, in which case it is closer to Human/Cat Alliance 2, Were-cats 26. I arrived at this figure through my own notes but also through a helpful video that takes a comprehensive and complete “carnage count” of all kills in Sleepwalkers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmt-DroK6uA

II. Santo & Johnny “Sleep Walk” (1959) Because Sleepwalkers is decidedly not known for its good acting or its well-written screenplay, it is perhaps best known for its liberal and sometimes contrapuntal use of Santo & Johnny’s classic steel guitar song “Sleep Walk,” possibly the most famous (and therefore best) instrumental of the 20th century. Some might say “Sleep Walk” is tied for the #1 spot with “Green Onions” by Booker T & the M.G.’s and/or “Wipe Out” by The Surfaris, but I disagree. The Santo & Johnny song is #1 because of its incalculable influence on all subsequent popular music.

I’m not saying “Wipe Out” didn't inspire a million imitators, both contemporaneously and even decades later…for example here’s a surf rock instrumental from 1999 called “Giant Cow" by a Toronto band called The Urban Surf Kings. The video was one of the first to be animated using Flash (and it shows):

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So there are no shortage of surf rock bands, even now, decades after its emergence from the shores of California to the jukeboxes of Middle America. My old band Sleep for the Nightlife used to regularly play Rancho Relaxo with a surf rock band called the Dildonics, who I liked a great deal. There's even a Danish surf rock band called Baby Woodrose, whose debut album is a favourite of mine. They apparently compete for the title of Denmark’s biggest surf pop band with a group called The Setting Son. When a country that has no surfing culture and no beaches has multiple surf rock bands, it is safe to say the genre has attained international reach. As far as I can tell, there aren’t many bands out there playing Booker T & the M.G.’s inspired instrumental rock. Link Wray’s “Rumble” was released four years before “Green Onions.” But the influence of Santo and Johnny’s “Sleep Walk” is so ubiquitous as to be almost immeasurable. The reason for this is the sheer popularity of the song’s chord progression. If Santo and Johnny hadn’t written it first, somebody else would have, simply because the progression is so beautiful and easy on the ears and resolvable in a satisfying way. Have a listen to “Sleep Walk” first and then let’s check out some songs it directly inspired.

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The chords are C, A minor, F and G. Minor variations sometimes reverse the last two chords, but if it begins with C to A minor, you can bet it’s following the “Sleep Walk” formula, almost as if musicians influenced by the song are in the titular trance. When it comes to playing guitar, Tom Waits once said “your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they’ve been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don’t explore; you only play what is confident and pleasing.” Not only is it comforting to play and/or hear what we already know, studies have shown that our brains actively resist new music, because it takes work to understand the new information and assimilate it into a pattern we are cogent of. It isn’t until the brain recognizes the pattern that it gives us a dopamine rush. I’m not much for Pitchfork anymore, but a recent article they posted does a fine job of discussing this phenomenon in greater detail.

Led Zeppelin’s “D’Yer Maker” uses the “Sleep Walk” riff prominently, anchored by John Bonham and John Paul Jones’ white-boy reggae beat:

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Here it is again with Del Shannon’s classic “Little Town Flirt.” I love Shannon’s falsetto at the end when he goes “you better run and hide now bo-o-oy.”

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The Beatles “Happiness is a Warm Gun” uses the Sleep Walk progression, though not for the whole song. It goes into the progression at the bridge at 1:34:

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Tumblr won’t let me embed any more videos, so you’ll to travel to another tab to hear these songs, but Neil Young gets in on the act with his overlooked classic “Winterlong:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV6r66n3TFI On their 1996 EP Interstate 8 Modest Mouse pay direct homage by singing over their own rendition of the original Santo & Johnny version, right down to the weeping steel guitar part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT_PwXjCqqs The vocals are typical wispy whispered indie rock vocals, but I think they work, particularly the two different voices. They titled their version “Sleepwalking (Couples Only Dance Prom Night).”

Dwight Yoakam’s “Thousand Miles From Nowhere” makes cinematic use of it. This song plays over the credits of one of my all-time favourite movies, 1993′s Red Rock West feat. Nicolas Cage, Lara Flynn Boyle, Dennis Hopper, and J.T. Walsh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu3ypuKq8WE

“39″ is my favourite Queen song. I guess now I know why. It uses my fav chord progression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE8kGMfXaFU

Blink 182 scored their first hit “Dammit” with a minor variation on the Sleep Walk chord progression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT0g16_LQaQ

Midwest beer drinkin bar rockers Connections scored a shoulda-been-a-hit with the fist-pumping “Beat the Sky:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSNRq0n_WYA You’d be hard pressed to find a weaker lead singer than this guy (save for me, natch), but they make it work. This one’s an anthem.

Spoon, who have made a career out of deconstructing rock n’ roll, so that their songs sometimes sound needlessly sparse (especially “The Ghost of You Lingers,” which takes minimalism to its most extreme...just a piano being bashed on staccato-style for four minutes), so it should surprise nobody that they re-arrange the Sleep Walk chords on their classic from Gimme Fiction, “I Summon You:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teXA8N3aF9M I love that opening line: remember the weight of the world was a sound that we used to buy? I think songwriter Britt Daniel is talking about buying albums from the likes of Pearl Jam or Smashing Pumpkins, any of those grunge bands with pessimistic worldviews. There are a million more examples. I remember seeing some YouTube video where a trio of gross douchebros keep playing the same progression while singing a bunch of hits over it. I don’t like the smarmy way they do it, making it seem like artists are lazy and deliberately stealing. I don’t think it’s plagiarism to use this progression. And furthermore, tempo and production make all the difference. Take “This Magic Moment” for example. There's a version by Jay & the Americans and one by Ben E King & the Drifters. I’ve never been a fan of those shrieking violins or fiddles that open the latter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bacBKKgc4Uo The Jay & the Americans version puts the guitar riff way in the forefront, which I like a lot more. The guitar plays the entire progression once before the singing starts and the band joins in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKfASw6qoag

Each version has its own distinctive feel. They are pretty much two different songs. Perhaps the most famous use of the Sleep Walk progression is “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers, which is one of my favourite songs ever. The guy who chose to let Bobby Hatfield sing this one by himself must have kicked himself afterwards when it became a hit, much bigger than "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiiyq2xrSI0

What can you say about “Unchained Melody” that hasn’t already been said? God, that miraculously strong vocal, the way the strings (and later on, brass horns) are panned way over to the furthest reaches the left speaker while the drums and guitar are way over in the right, with the singing smack dab in the middle creates a kind of distance and sharp clarity that has never been reproduced in popular music, like seeing the skyscrapers of some distant city after an endless stretch of highway. After listening to “Unchained Melody,” one has to wonder: can that progression ever be improved upon? Can any artist write something more haunting, more beautiful, more uplifting than that? The “need your love” crescendo hits so fucking hard, as both the emotional and the sonic climax of the song, which of course is no accident...the strings descending and crashing like a waterfall of sound, it gets me every fucking time. Legend has it that King George II was so moved by the “Hallelujah” section of Handel’s “Messiah” that he stood up, he couldn't help himself, couldn't believe what he was hearing. I get that feeling with all my favourite songs. "1979." "Unchained Melody." "In The Still of the Night." "Digital Bath." "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" "Interstate." "Liar's Tale." “Gimme Shelter.” The list goes on and on. Music is supposed to move us.

King George II stood because he was moved to do so. Music may be our creation, but it isn't our subordinate. All those sci-fi stories warning about technology growing beyond our control aren’t that far-fetched. Music is our creation but its power lies beyond our control. We are subordinate to music, helpless against its power and might, its urgency and vitality and beauty. There have been many times in my life when I have been so obsessed with a particular song that I pretty much want to live inside of it forever. A house of sound. I remember detoxing from heroin and listening to Grimes “Realiti” on repeat for twelve hours. Detoxing from OxyContin and listening to The Beach Boys “Dont Worry Baby” over and over. Or just being young and listening to “Tonight Tonight” over and over and over, tears streaming from my eyes in that way you cry when you’re a kid because you just feel so much and you don’t know what to do with the intensity of those feelings. It is precisely because we are so moved by music that we keep creating it. And in the act of that creation we are free. There are no limits to that freedom, which is why bands time and time again return to the well-worn Sleep Walk chord progression and try to make something new from it. Back in 2006, soon after buying what was then the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album, I found myself playing the album’s closing track over and over. I loved the chorus and I loved the way it collapses into a lo-fi demo at the very end, stripping away the studio sheen and...not to be too punny, showing its bones (the album title is Show Your Bones). Later on I would realize that the song, called “Turn Into,” uses the Sleep Walk chord progression. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exqCFoPiwpk

It’s just like, what Waits said, our hands goes to where we are familiar. And so do our ears, which is why jazz often sounds so unpleasant to us upon first listen. Or Captain Beefheart. But it’s worth the effort to discover new stuff, just as it’s worth the effort to try and write it. I recently lamented on this blog that music to me now is more about remembrance than discovery, but I’m still only 35 years old. I’m middle-aged right now (I don’t expect to live past 70, not with the lifestyle I’ve been living). There’s still a whole other half life to find new music and love and leave it for still newer stuff. It’s worth the challenge, that moment of inner resistance we feel when confronted with something new and challenging and strange sounding. The austere demands of adult life, rent and routine, take so much of our time. I still make time for creative pursuits, but I don’t really have much time for discovery, for seeking out new music. But I’ve resolved to start making more time. A few years ago I tried to listen to and like Trout Mask Replica but I couldn’t. I just didn’t get what was going on. It sounded like a bunch of mistakes piled on top of each other. But then a few days ago I was writing while listening to music, as I always do, and YouTube somehow landed on Lick My Decals Off, Baby. I didn’t love what I was hearing but I was intrigued enough to keep going. And now I really like this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMnd9dvb3sA&pbjreload=101 Another example I’ll give is the rare Robert Pollard gem “Prom Is Coming.” The first time I heard this song, it sounded like someone who can’t play guitar messing around, but the more I heard it the more I realized there’s a song there. It’s weird and strange, but it’s there. The lyrics are classic Pollard: Disregard injury and race madly out of the universe by sundown. Pollard obviously has a special place in his heart for this track. He named one of his many record labels Prom Is Coming Records and he titled the Boston Spaceships best-of collection Out of the Universe By Sundown. I don’t know if I’ll ever become a Captain Beefheart megafan but I can hear that the man was doing something very strange and, at times, beautiful. And anyway, why should everything be easy? Aren’t some challenges worth meeting for the experience waiting on the other side of comprehension or acceptance? I try to remember this now whenever I’m first confronted with new music, instead of vetoing it right away. Most of my favourite bands I was initially resistant to when I first heard them. Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, Guided by Voices, Spoon, Heavy Times. All bands I didn’t like at first. I don’t wanna sleepwalk through life, surrounding myself only with things I have already experienced. I need to stay awake. Because soon enough I’ll be asleep forever. We need to try everything we can before the Big Sleep comes to take us back to the great blankness, the terrible question mark that bookends our lives.

#sleep walk #santo & johnny #neil young #queen #dwight yoakam #led zeppelin #the beatles #betterdaysareatoenailaway

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samreviewsmovies · 3 years

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A Clockwork Orange

Year: 1971

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Screenwriter: Stanley Kubrick

Actors: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke , Adrienne Corri, Carl Duering, Paul Farrell, Miriam Karlin, James Marcus, Aubrey Morris, Godfrey Quigley, Anthony Sharp (more actors than what’s listed. I’m just lazy)

Production Company: Polaris Productions, and Hawk Films

Synopsis: In an England of the future, Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his "Droogs" spend their nights getting high at the Korova Milkbar before embarking on "a little of the old ultraviolence," while jauntily warbling "Singin' in the Rain." After he's jailed for bludgeoning the Cat Lady to death, Alex submits to behavior modification technique to earn his freedom; he's conditioned to abhor violence. Returned to the world defenseless, Alex becomes the victim of his prior victims.

Ratings:

IMDb 8.3/10

Rotten Tomatoes 86%

Metacritic 77%

My Rating: 7/10

Platform: Watched on Netflix

My Thoughts: It was thought provoking and at the same time disturbing. I did not dislike the film. I don’t think I got all of the points the movie was trying to make without first reading the book. If I were to watch it again, it would be to critically analyze the deeper social commentary, or compare it to the book. I wouldn’t watch it for fun.

This is a movie without any good guys. Everyone is more or less a dad guy, or a passive guy. It’s an interesting study of a movie not having a good guy. Movies don’t have to have a good character, they usually do, but movies must have an interesting character. Which this movie has. McDowell does an excellent job. He’s charming, yet disturbing. You most certainly never love him, but you keep watching to see if this bastard gets punished. Even though you hate Alex, you feel a little bit of pity. You wonder where he went wrong. Did his passive parents fail him? Did the system fail him? His case worker Mr. Deltoid (Morris) mentions in passing that his life isn’t all that bad. He really has no reason to commit his crimes. You might even feel bad for the character when his free will, his choices to do good is taken away from him. Despite all the different emotions this character provokes, he’s still interesting.

Alex’s treatment is a big philosophical, moral, and even religious point in the movie. It begs the question of whether your actions are good if you aren’t actively choosing to be good. You’re just choosing the “right” choice that avoids the discomfort. Alex still wants to hurt people and rape women, but he physically can’t because he gets sick when he tries. Is he cured or is this just a new form of prison?

At the end of the film. Alex doesn’t seem to learn his lesson. (He might be even cured completely) Instead, he makes a deal with the government, represented by the Minister of Interior (Sharp). Alex’s attempt at suicide made the government look bad. They were the ones touting the new treatment to solve the crime and prison problem in Britain. To save face, the government is willing to help Alex return to society if Alex helps restore their image. The government’s actions in movie have their own criticism, such as, only caring about being reelected at whatever cost. They don’t seem to really care about people other than their votes and how to manipulate them.

Interesting movie? Yes. Feel good? Not so much. This movie was “real Horror show”. I’m sure there can be a lot more commentary pulled from the movie.

I haven’t even talked much about the filming.

The clothes, the sets, and the slang really helped create the world. We understood and recognized enough realize that this was a different world than ours, but not different enough that it couldn’t be our own world. I particularly like how most of the violent scenes were somewhat softened by musical scores. The fight with the opposing gang of droogs at the beginning was very well choreographed, I thought.

Extras

A couple things that I learned skimming the Wikipedia article.

Clockwork Orange the book, has a redemptive chapter at the end. For some reason it wasn’t published in the US copy originally. Kubrick didn’t read the redemptive chapter until after he had finished the movie.

The weird language that Alex and his “friends” talk in is called Nadsat. Which is a mixture of “a fractured adolescent slang composed of Slavic (especially Russian), English, and Cockney rhyming slang.” It was created by Anthony Burgess who wrote the book.

#a clockwork orange #stanley kubrick #malcom mcdowell #anthony sharp #anthony burgess #polaris pictures #hawk films

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marginalgloss · 4 years

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a beginner’s guide

I have been neglecting this blog in recent months. My last post was written in fits and starts over many, many weeks. I’ve been preoccupied with other things and, like many people right now, my productivity has ebbed and flowed. I haven’t stopped writing, and I certainly haven’t forgotten about this blog, but I confess that I’ve slightly given up on writing so comprehensively about every book I finish. Most of my time and energy in writing has gone towards trying to write a book about video games. (The subject is a bit more specific than that, but I don’t want to give the thing away just yet.)

This is something I always thought I could do. I have been playing computer and video games since I was able to do anything at all. I have a lot of ideas on the subject. But it’s also quite difficult, not least because I never thought I wanted to write non-fiction. In fiction you can more or less do whatever you want, but in this other thing the problem of imposter syndrome sometimes seems (to me at least) to be overwhelming. How much do I need to cite? At what point does a generalisation become intolerable? Am I supposed to anticipate every potential objection or counter-argument in advance? Is my authority worth anything at all? Is it worth trusting my own experience, or is it all just, like, my opinion?

Of course in asking all these questions I forget that I’ve spent years pottering around on this blog, actually doing all the non-fiction writing I am supposedly so worried about. But I still feel like I’m trying to un-learn all the habits of supposedly serious writing that I learned at university. I studied English Literature, which teaches a mode of formal discourse that is useful now only in the abstract, and mostly quite worthless in terms of creating something worthwhile outside of academia. The problem is basically one of tone. It’s one of what kind of book am I trying to write.

I know what it’s not. It is not a history of games, and it isn’t an academic treatise. There might be a thesis, but it’s not a TED talk. I want it to describe what it feels like to encounter and experience games. I don’t want to try to second-guess player motivation from a distance, and I don’t want to study game design in the abstract, as if it were secretly the most interesting part of games. Above all I don’t want to fight battles on behalf of an imagined movement. There is no shortage of books arguing that games are (or aren’t) worthwhile, either as art or as tools for productivity or creativity or brain longevity or mental health. Some of these are quite good. But it seems to me like the arguments for the quality of games are omnipresent and overwhelming for anyone who cares to look.

It’s strange, though, that ‘books about games’ are relatively rare. I know that there popular works of non-fiction on this topic, but I’m being a bit more specific: I mean this in the sense of ‘books about particular games’, and ‘books that take a thematic approach to what games do and how’. There are some interesting exceptions: You Died: The Dark Souls Companion by Keza McDonald and Jason Killingsworth comes to mind. There’s also the Boss Fight Books range of short-ish texts that typically focus on an author’s experience with a single game. But for the most part, books about games either fall into one of a few categories. You might get a general record of an author’s life in gaming that argues for the experiential benefits of games; or you might get a semi-academic thesis about games, often supported by evidence from psychological or sociological studies; or you might get a potted history of game development. Or some combination of the above.

Which is fine. Some of these books are very good. But there aren’t many books of cultural criticism applied to games. Take the question of violence in video games: there are plenty of books which argue the case one way or the other about whether this is ‘harmful’ or not. It’s much harder to find books that forego this angle in favour of taking a long, hard look at the games themselves; that consider what it really means for a game to be called ‘violent’ in the first place, or why violent games can be satisfying and horrifying and amusing all at once. Too often what it feels like to play violent games becomes immediately subordinate to the question of what these games are supposedly doing to our brains, to our sensibilities, and to our sense of right and wrong – as if players weren’t aware of this in the first place – as if the effects of any work of art could only be considered by judging how people behave around it.

Games are often portrayed as a sort of inscrutable ethical problem for modern society, as if they weren’t the product of human imagination at all. Often an accessible book about games will come loaded with disclaimers and framing devices intended to put the reader at ease, to reassure them that what they’re about to encounter won’t hurt them. It feels like there aren’t many books which try to take us inside specific games, to show us how they work, and to make the reader feel how they make the player feel.

And that’s odd, in a way, because this kind of game criticism is omnipresent online. In the weeks after a major release, every gaming website will have a whole buffet of hot takes available. People are keen to produce stuff to support their favourite titles, sometimes for years afterwards. To pick a random example, the Mass Effect games are still enormously popular, and have spawned all kinds of novelisations and comic book spin-offs. Doubtless you can still find hundreds of thousands of words of opinion out there about why those games are good. But I don’t think anyone has written a book about Mass Effect.

You could argue that this is not especially unusual. Any of the following arguments could apply:

cultural criticism is best left to specialist magazines and journals

people who play video games do not (for the most part) read a lot of books

people who don’t play video games don’t want to read about games

people in general don’t want to read books about media which they aren’t likely to experience themselves.

There is a sense in which the most successful games of this sort belong to the fans foremost. The culture that grows up around big games is fan culture. Movies have something of the same thing — especially since the Marvel and Star Wars movies exploded in popularity again — but that’s only one wing of the superstructure that is film culture. There are whole other wings dedicated to serious cinematic avant garde, to art films; you could spend a lifetime studying Hong Kong cinema and barely know a thing about Bollywood, and vice versa. Which is fine because film caters for taste at all levels. There are popular film magazines and blogs, serious journals about film, and occasionally works of critique that bust through into the mainstream: I’m thinking of stuff like Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s De Palma, about the director of the same name; and Room 237, about some of the more outlandish theories that have grown up around Kubrick’s film of The Shining.

Granted, those examples were only moderately successful. They’re semi-popular but not exactly mainstream. But my point is that it’s inconceivable for me to imagine something similar coming out of the video game community. Whether it’s Ready Player One or the latest Netflix documentary High Score, games are stuck retelling their own histories from scratch each time. Which is not to say that new and fascinating stories can’t be brought to light — but so often games media aimed at a general audience begins with a long, laborious retread of game history.

There is very good, very specific stuff out there, but it’s hard to find. Video games are very good at reaching people who already play games. Many game critics are good at the same thing. But neither are very good at bringing the most interesting aspects of games to people who have no prior interest. The Beginner’s Guide is one of my favourite games of all time, and I think it’s one of the finest ‘games about games’ ever made; but so much of it is ‘inside baseball’ of the kind which would be incredibly difficult to explain for someone not already steeped in it. YouTube is increasingly a great source for insightful video essays about games that go far beyond ‘hot take’ culture, but in a similar way, it’s kind of impossible for an audience to find any of this stuff if they’re not already out there searching for it.

Is there a way out of this? I don’t know. Maybe it’s worth a shot.

#gaming

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purplesurveys · 4 years

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782

Your ten favorite movies

Movie number one: Two for the Road (surprise surprise) 1) Who's the main actor? Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney. 2) When did it come out? Pretty long time ago. It came out in 1967 if I’m not mistaken. 3) What's the genre? Romantic comedy and drama. 4) Do you know where it was filmed at? Yeah, as far as I know the whole film was shot on location throughout southern France. 5) How old were you when you saw it? I don’t actually remember the exact year anymore, but it was either in 2013 or 2014, which makes me 15 or 16 when I watched it for the first time.

Movie number two: Good Will Hunting 1) Who's an actress in this movie? Minnie Driver, and she did such a fantastic fucking job with her role.

2) Out of 10 stars you'd give it? 9.5. The part where Robin Williams and the actor playing the math teacher handle their differences was a bit blah for me, but the film was otherwise perfect. 3) Did it have a surprise ending? I wouldn’t call it a surprise. It was a well-deserved ending for the main character and I’m sure everyone who’s ever watched this movie rooted for such an ending as well. 4) How long was it? Around two hours? idk I never checked. 5) Did you first see it in theatres? Hahahaha definitely not. It came out five months before I was born. Movie number three: A Clockwork Orange 1) What's this movie rated? Like, in terms of parental advice or its score? I’m not sure so I’ll put both. The film in all its unedited glory got an X rating which is real fucking understandable given that, in my opinion, this was Kubrick’s most intense work; though in my research just now they were able to tone it down to R after Kubrick edited out a certain scene. As for its score, it holds an 87% in Rotten Tomatoes and 8.3/10 on IMDb. 2) Did critics approve of it? Critics definitely approved of it as a piece of film, but I’m sure it was very uncomfortable for the viewing public. 3) Who were you with when you saw it? I watched it on my own. I didn’t know what it was gonna be about, so I was in for the shock of my life when Alex and his droogs broke into the first house. 4) Did this movie make you cry? No but it made me feel uneasy. 5) Who are five actors/actresses in this movie? I only remember Malcolm MacDowell, who played the lead character. I’m honestly not familiar with the other actors. Movie number four: Revolutionary Road 1) Is the main actor your favorite actor? One of them is - Kate Winslet. I’m alright with Leonardo DiCaprio but he isn’t my favorite. 2) Do you know how old he is? Kate Winslet? Not so sure, but I think she’s like 45. 3) Did this movie make you laugh? This movie is not to be laughed at lol 4) Last time you watched it? A few months ago before they took it out of Netflix forever, ugh. 5) Are you the appropiate age to see it by yourself? Yes. And I would rather watch it by myself, because it’s a lot to take in. Movie number five: Gone with the Wind 1) What made you mad about this movie? The racism that surrounded the film makes me angry. For example, the actress who played Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) was the first black actor to be nominated for an Oscar, but she wasn’t even allowed to attend the ceremony where she was nominated in. It took one Clark Gable throwing a fit and threatening to boycott the event for the higher-ups to finally agree on Hattie attending the Oscars. 2) Was it based on a true story? It was based on real historical events, but the story itself wasn’t real. 3) Do you wish it was real in any way? It kinda was. 4) So what's it about, anyways? This is really not one of those movies you can explain in one sentence lol but uh rich privileged southern belle gets entangled in the Civil War, marries thrice and never for love, everyone around her dies, and once she’s left alone we see her fend for herself and start building a life of her own. That doesn’t even do the movie justice and if you really wanna know, best to watch all four hours of it. 5) Did they make a video game out of this movie? OMG no, that would be in such poor taste. Movie number six: Room 1) Did this movie bore you at any time? Not at all. It had me invested from start to finish. 2) Was there a kiss scene? I don’t know, I don’t think so. 3) Who was the protagonist (main character)? Brie Larson plays the lead role, but I’ve forgotten her character’s name, or if she even had one. 4) Have you seen this movie more than once? Absolutely. This was my favorite film for a brief period and I watched it everyday then. 5) Last time you saw it? 2016, probably. Movie number seven: Roman Holiday 1) What is this movie's genre? Romantic comedy. 2) Are there any kid actors in this movie? Nopes. 3) Where did it all take place? A biiiiiiig chunk of the movie was shot on location in Rome. 4) Who was the biggest star in the movie? Gregory Peck. Swoon. Fun movie fact! This was Audrey Hepburn’s feature film debut, and originally the studio was to give her a much smaller billing at the start of the movie compared to Gregory. He had an inkling Audrey was gonna end up super popular once the film got released, so he told the studio to give her equal billing, which technically made her also the big star in the movie alongside Gregory. He wasn’t wrong. 5) What year did it come out? 1953. Movie number eight: Requiem For A Dream 1) Main actor and/or actress? Oh dude, a lot. This movie didn’t fuck around with its cast lol you had Jared Leto, Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Connelly, and Marlon Wayans. 2) Is this a one-time only movie? I have no idea what you mean by this. 3) Is it a sequel to anything? Nopes. 4) How much money did it make? Bruh I don’t know lmao? I’ll have to Google that - Wikipedia says it made $7.4 million. 5) Favorite part? It’s not my favorite part because it makes me happy, but for me the most memorable scene was when the mom was at the peak of her addiction and her refrigerator came to life. The montage in the end also gave me goosebumps. Movie number nine: Carol 1) When did you first see this movie? 2015. It was one of the factors that made Gab and I reconcile as friends, so I’m super thankful that this film allowed us to bond. 2) Did it take a second time for you to like it? Not at all. I was in love with it from the very beginning. 3) Does it have a happy ending? Yes. 4) Who would you recommend it to? People who want an LGBT film with a happy ending. 5) What's its theme song? It doesn’t really have one, but its score was composed by Carter Burwell. OH I just remembered Billie Holiday’s Easy Living was featured prominently in one scene, but it’s not really the movie’s theme song. Movie number ten: Portrait of a Lady on Fire 1) Do you still have the movie ticket? I think mine is still with Gabie, if she kept it. 2) Favorite part? Everything about this movie was beautiful. I loved when Héloïse’s dress caught on fire, when Marianne was drawing Héloïse in her sleep, when Marianne finally saw her vision come to life, when Marianne attended the exhibit and saw the painting of Héloïse...and that final fucking scene. 3) Were there any songs you knew in this movie? Nope. I don’t remember if they played any songs. 4) A quote from this movie: “In solitude, I felt the liberty you spoke of. But I also felt your absence.” and “Do all lovers feel they’re inventing something?” 5) Were the main actors/actresses a perfect match or not so much? Yes they FREAKING WERE AAAAHHHHHHHH Random Questions 1) Which one have you seen most on DVD? Gone with the Wind, but only because it’s the only film in this selection that I have on DVD. 2) Which one have you seen most in theatres? Other than Portrait, I didn’t get to catch these in the cinema. 3) Did your parents like any of them? They haven’t seen any of the movies I picked. 4) Which one did you see with your best friend? Carol and Portrait hahahaha, both lesbian movies. She was the one who made me watch them in the first place too. 5) Would you see #1 again? Over and over again. I will never grow tired of it. 6) Is #4 a movie you can only watch every once in a while? Yes, super accurate. The subject matter is very heavy to begin with, so pair that with superb acting and you’ve got yourself a movie that’s hard to get through. 7) Was #5 hard to understand? Only because it’s sooooo long and there are so many plots and subplots. Also, as someone who has never actually read about the Civil War in full detail, it has also hampered my understanding of some of the events in the movie. 8) Did you see #2 the day it came out? I didn’t see it until like, 18 years after its original release. 9) Do you have #3's movie ticket still? I never had it to begin with. 10) Are there any sequels to these movies coming out? As far as I know, no. 11) Does your best friend like #9? Gabie’s very in love with it. She once kept count of how many times she had watched it when it first leaked on the internet loooool and if I remember correctly her watch count peaked at 126. 12) Did #10 have horrible special effects? No. 13) Who directed #6? Lenny Abrahamson. 14) Did #8 scare you? Absolutely. I needed a long-ass break from everything after I finished it lmao. 15) Does #7 have a better effect at night? No. The effect has been the same for me whatever time I watch it.

#survey #surveys

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cookinguptales · 5 years

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"#ask me about my feelings about scorsese and coppola running their mouths in interviews GO ON ASK ME" Alrighty, I'm asking

idk if you’ve kept up with filmmaker news (I refuse to call it film news because it’s not), but both Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola have been talking shit about Marvel movies and I’m just. I’m so tired.

Disclaimer, though I shouldn’t really need one: I don’t even like Marvel movies. But this kind of shit rots the film industry and I find it so frustrating.

Scorsese I wasn’t as upset about, though I did roll my eyes. I could kind of see what he meant even if I don’t think it was phrased well. He said they were “not cinema” (rme) but also that they were more like “theme parks”. And, well, I can see a discussion about spectacle films in there, but it’s kind of buried under the “not cinema” bullshit.

Coppola just weighed in, though, and oh my god MAXIMUM eye-rolling. Two choice quotes:

“When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel pictures are not cinema, he’s right because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration. I don’t know that anyone gets anything out of seeing the same movie over and over again.”

“Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is.”

And honestly, DESPICABLE? I’m not going to say that I don’t think any movies are despicable, but using that word on a goddamn Marvel movie is just being a goddamn drama llama. It’s a spectacle movie, not a human rights violation.

Like honestly, you know what movies I find “despicable”? The Shining. Kill Bill. Last Tango in Paris. Fun fact: when you watch these movies, you’re seeing actresses being abused on film. Which brings me to my first point.

Auteur culture is bullshit. It’s bullshit! We excuse bad behavior and lazy filmmaking bc ~omg this incredible filmmaker~ did it, like any film is worth all that. Like any film is created by just one person. I hate that the film world feels beholden to these big names, as evidenced by the fact that these quotes are news stories at all. I don’t give a shit about what some auteur has to say, especially when they’re in every possible sense the old guard.

Some auteurs, like Polanski, Tarantino, Kubrick, Hitchcock, and Bertolucci are bad fucking people. They’ve abused the hell out of the people working under them (particularly actresses) and I refuse to fete them. Some auteurs are just tiresome, like having some well-received movies makes them someone I should listen to.

I think the emphasis on auteurs honestly stifles the film world as a whole. It privileges established voices instead of curating new talent. It models film trends on the styles of a couple famous people. It leads to abuse in the industry. Worst of all, it covers up the work of other people.

Like, for example: The Godfather. Mario Puzo wrote the book and worked on the screenplay with Coppola. Gordon Willis was cinematographer. Peter Zinner and William Reynolds edited it. Anna Hill Johnstone did the costuming. I could go on and on. And you know what? I had to look up all those names on imdb because we don’t talk about them. We talk about Francis Ford Coppola, like the film sprung fully-formed from his brain. That’s bullshit. Say you like his directing. Say you like his writing. Don’t act like he’s the only voice on this film that matters. Hundreds of people worked on these films ffs.

Like. As much as I have no interest in going to bat for Marvel (I’m sure they’re crying into their billions), I genuinely do not give a shit about Francis Ford Coppola’s opinion on them, and I resent that his opinion is being treated like it’s gospel. I don’t think anyone is important enough to decide what’s cinema and what’s not. I didn’t like The Godfather. That doesn’t make it a bad film. It also doesn’t mean it’s some universal good and I just didn’t “get” it. It means that film is innately subjective, though we agree on some conventions. If you put it on film, it’s film. Everything else is subjective. “Cinema” is a meaningless term that we could argue in circles about, and I don’t think Scorsese’s opinion is worth more than anyone else’s. (And yes, I know that he’s also a film expert along with being an auteur. It still doesn’t give him the right to define subjective terms.)

And with my issues on auteur culture aside, the innate melodrama of calling a Marvel movie “despicable” aside, there’s nothing wrong with spectacle films. I say this as someone who doesn’t even watch 99% of superhero films anymore. Spectacle films, just like arthouse films, have their place in the cinema landscape. They always have. That train coming into the station? Spectacle. Busby Berkeley? Spectacle. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to go see incredible things on a big screen, and I’m not sure that a theme park is a bad comparison. Theme parks are fun. Fun is a fine reason to watch a movie. And you know what else fun does? It makes fucking money.

It annoys the hell out of me to see these old guard assholes bemoaning the end of the theater industry (which, yes, is slowly dying for a lot of reasons that are all frustrating) while simultaneously shitting on spectacle films that make a ton of money. What, you think just The Irishman is going to keep a theater afloat? No. Theaters are struggling. That’s why they’re prioritizing Marvel movies. Spectacle films aren’t what’s killing arthouse cinema. Capitalism is. Don’t blame a symptom for the illness, that shit’s childish.

Am I saying you have to like spectacle films? No. Honestly, they don’t do much for me most of the time. But that doesn’t make them innately bad or even innately lesser. It certainly doesn’t make them despicable, as cynical as the industry may be. And you know what? It’s not even fair to talk about them like they’re not about human connections. I couldn’t connect to the characters in The Godfather and I didn’t particularly care about their relationships. That doesn’t make it a bad movie. It doesn’t mean those connections and relationships weren’t there. It just means I didn’t like the movie. The sheer volume of fanfic about the Marvel movies means that, for a lot of people, the character growth and relationships in those films really hit home. (Hello, inspiration?) So like. Who fucking cares if they didn’t for Scorsese? I loved Hugo, man, but you gotta calm down.

I’m not saying that Coppola and Scorsese are bad filmmakers, though I personally bounce off of a lot of their films. I’m not saying they’re bad people. I’m saying that the way we prioritize their crabby feelings is indicative of dead weight on the industry and it’s absolute bullshit!

I love films. I love films. That’s why I’m at a film festival right now. But I also love seeing fresh new voices in film. I love new perspectives. I love empowering people who never would have had a chance to be an auteur thirty years ago. And I love that there’s something for everyone -- if I don’t like a new Marvel film or Coppola’s latest, I can just go see By The Grace of God or Extra Ordinary. Cinema is about choice and it’s about the joy of film and anyone who says otherwise can go shove it. Opinions are like assholes; everyone’s got one. And auteurs’ aren’t worth any more than anyone else’s.

(also wait what the fuck, what’s wrong with watching the same movie over and over?)

#replies #film #long post #LONG FUCKING POST #I'm just tired and angry #'despicable' jfc get over yourself #Anonymous

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creeped-out-ranked · 4 years

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Creeped Out is a horror anthology series shown on CBBC in the UK and available on Netflix elsewhere. It’s an excellent show, fun for kids with loads of crossover appeal for adults. But the big entertainment sites tend not to cover it, and I haven't been able to find a definitive ranking of all the episodes anywhere. So I decided to create my own, because why not?! This list includes season 1 and season 2; I’ll add further episodes as they’re shown.

Before we get into this: there are some spoilers in here. I’ve tried to keep them to a minimum but sometimes, to describe what's good (or bad) about an episode, I need to discuss elements of the plot.

Every episode of Creeped Out, ranked from best to worst

1. ‘Slapstick’ (Season 1, Episode 1)

The first episode of a series is rarely the best, but Creeped Out bucks the trend—‘Slapstick’ hasn’t yet been bettered. It’s the perfect combination of cozy and creepy, with a quintessentially British setting (a seaside town complete with Punch & Judy shows), a puppet antagonist who’s somewhere between unnerving and amusing, and a relatable main character. Even the score is the best of the bunch: its sinister take on fairground music really adds to the atmosphere. The plot—Jessie wishes her parents were ‘normal’, and lives to regret it—is compelling, and in contrast to some of the weaker episodes, you actually understand why the characters do the things they do (even the bully is given a bit of a backstory). ‘Slapstick’ is a gem, and more than any other episode, it stands up to repeated rewatches.

2. ‘Trolled’ (Season 1, Episode 3)

Sam leads a double life: he’s secretly NoFace, an online troll who often targets his closest friends. When he ignores a message warning him to stop trolling, things start to go very wrong. This episode is set in the plush surroundings of a boarding school (one of Creeped Out’s more notable backdrops) and the contrast between Sam’s environment and his online life is both palpable and believable. The dynamic between Sam, Fitzy and Naini is established very effectively—you really feel Sam has something to lose. Extra points for the properly bleak ending, too.

3. ‘Kindlesticks’ (Season 1, Episode 9)

This episode is a fan favourite, and it’s not difficult to see why. ‘Kindlesticks’ came out of nowhere, landing in the middle of a few mediocre episodes, and doesn’t seem at first glance to have the most exciting setup: a bad babysitter getting her comeuppance. Yet you’ll likely find that the tale of Esme, her charge Ashley and his imaginary friend Kindlesticks will drag you in, spit you out and leave you reeling. It’s a simple idea executed perfectly, with what is undoubtedly Creeped Out’s best delivery of a twist. Seriously, I didn’t see that coming at all.

4. ‘Splinta Claws’ (Season 2, Episode 10)

Admittedly, it isn’t difficult to make a Christmas episode good—add lots of sparkly decorations and a bit of ‘Carol of the Bells’ and you’ve already nailed the atmosphere. ‘Splinta Claws’, in which two boys get trapped in a department store along with a possessed animatronic Santa, builds on that to create an inspired take on PG-13 seasonal horror. It’s the self-aware script that really makes this episode; the ‘frenemy’ relationship between anxious Mikey and street-smart Lawrence, plus the characters’ recognition that the slow-moving Santa isn’t that scary (despite its nightmare-fuel face). An effective combination of action, emotion and humour results in a spooky festive treat.

5. ‘Tilly Bone’ (Season 2, Episode 9)

Telling a story backwards is a bold move, and initially, it makes ‘Tilly Bone’ confusing. Some viewers might find themselves wanting to switch off as they wonder what the hell is going on. But stick with it, and a fascinating tale unfolds, with layers, details and clues to be picked apart, nods to classic horror, great performances (especially Alice Franziska Woodhouse as the disquieting Junebug) and some of the series’ most original and surprising ideas. It’s formally innovative, daring and altogether one of the most impressive pieces of work Creeped Out has yet produced.

6. ‘Marti’ (Season 1, Episode 4)

Kim is initially delighted when her new phone’s AI helps her to become more popular, but things take a turn for the sinister when ‘he’ claims to be in love with her. ‘Marti’ cleverly uses this premise as a kid-appropriate way to explore themes of coercive control and abusive relationships. I have a feeling this episode may have been inspired by the 2016 movie Bedeviled—there are lots of similarities, right down to Marti’s voice—and it says a lot that in 25 minutes it crafts a better, more meaningful story than a full-length horror movie for adults was able to manage. Often unfairly slept on, ‘Marti’ is the talented underdog of the series.

7. ‘Takedown’ (Season 2, Episode 8)

‘Takedown’ is intriguing because it departs completely from the series’ typical aesthetic—there's lots of shakycam, a grainy feel to the cinematography, a muted colour palette. It’s shot more like an indie film than an episode of a kids’ show. It focuses on Alexa, the only girl on her high school wrestling team, who uses a weird chain text to wish for more strength. Since this is Creeped Out, it’s no surprise that her ‘gift’ comes at a price. With its gritty feel and the authentic friendship between Alexa and Lucky (‘cheers to root beers’, anyone?), this episode is something really different, and all the more memorable for it.

8. ‘No Filter’ (Season 2, Episode 6)

Like ‘Trolled’, ‘No Filter’ is a thoroughly enjoyable example of what a series like this should be aiming for, which is essentially a junior version of a Twilight Zone episode. There’s a recognisable starting point—who hasn’t used filters or Facetune to make their selfies look better, and who bothers reading all the T&Cs?—and when Kiera’s eroded face is revealed, it’s one of the few moments in the series to create a genuine shock. Plus there’s a proper pantomime villain, just as it should be. The ending might be a little jumbled, but it’s entertaining enough that that can be forgiven.

9. ‘Cat Food’ (Season 1, Episode 2)

Happy-go-lucky prankster Stu pretends to be ill so he can skip school, but gets more than he bargained for when he discovers the elderly neighbour, Mrs McMurtle, is actually a shapeshifting monster. ‘Cat Food’ is a fun, comedic episode (the only one yet to make me laugh out loud) and, while there isn’t a great deal of substance to the story, it’s efficiently told and neatly resolved. Rhys Gannon is great as Stu and it’s just an all-round fun time.

10. ‘The Traveller’ (Season 1, Episode 11)

While the vast majority of Creeped Out episodes take place in a distinctly middle-class milieu, ‘The Traveller’ switches things up by focusing on Jodie and Brandon, troublemaking kids on an inner-city estate. They come across a device that can pause time, and it’s all fun and games until a blue-skinned man starts hunting them down. The plot is a bit more Doctor Who than your average episode, and the combination of urban setting and sci-fi story is surprisingly successful. There’s also an emotional gut-punch of a moment when Jodie finally understands the problems she’s been creating for her mum.

11. ‘The Call’ (Season 1, Episode 6)

‘The Call’ isn't one of the strongest stories in Creeped Out’s repertoire. An unpopular girl is drawn to an environmental activist and discovers she’s a siren, gaining powers into the bargain—interesting enough, but not enormously original, and inevitably a gateway to slightly tedious lecturing about plastic etc. It stands out mainly because of a stellar performance from Rebecca Hanssen, who reminds me of a young Olivia Colman. Hanssen really inhabits the character of Pearl, and shows how excellent acting can elevate an ordinary plot and script.

12. ‘The Many Place’ (Season 2, Episode 4)

With their holiday scuppered by torrential rain, three siblings wander a hotel and find themselves lost in a maze of realities. ‘The Many Place’ is designed as an homage to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and spotting the references is part of the enjoyment here. The story takes advantage of the liminal, disconcerting nature of a large hotel to craft a series of alarmingly plausible terrors, and the ending features the best twist since ‘Kindlesticks’.

13. ‘One More Minute’ (Season 2, Episode 1)

‘One More Minute’ kicks off the second season with a pure hit of enjoyment that doesn’t take itself too seriously. When Jack can’t tear himself away from his favourite videogame, he finds time passing quickly—scarily quickly. While it may not be among the best, everything about this episode is solid: it’s (appropriately) well paced, the relationships are soundly fleshed out, and it’s all wrapped up well.

14. ‘Itchy’ (Season 2, Episode 2)

It may have one of the show's sillier premises—the villains are... head lice—but I have a soft spot for ‘Itchy’. Perhaps it’s the setting: a military academy on an English island feels fresh when you compare it to the many identikit homes and high schools in the series. Perhaps it’s the strong performance from Oliver Finnegan as protagonist Gabe. Either way, there’s something low-key charming about this episode.

15. ‘Side Show’ (Season 1, Episodes 12 and 13)

This two-part season finale is set in the early 20th century and centres on a troupe of circus performance whose ringmaster won’t allow them to venture beyond a magical barrier. Overall, ‘Side Show’ isn’t especially creepy; it’s more of a fantasy story that feels like it could have been its own separate series. The advantage of this is that there’s more space for character development and worldbuilding. The disadvantage is that it doesn’t truly feel like part of the Creeped Out universe.

16. ‘A Boy Called Red’ (Season 1, Episode 5)

Vincent and his dad aren't getting along, but when they go to stay at the latter’s childhood home, Vincent finds an unusual way to reconnect: via a time-travelling portal. The switches between past and present are handled admirably, and Boris Burnell Anderson is a standout as AJ. There’s a lot to like about ‘A Boy Called Red’; it just doesn’t stand out as especially memorable when compared to some of the stronger Creeped Out stories, perhaps because there’s no real antagonist.

17. ‘Bravery Badge’ (Season 1, Episode 7)

A troop of Girl Guides—sorry, ‘Hedgehog Rangers’—head into the woods for a camping trip. When the girls start falling into a strange trance, it’s up to a moody, reluctant Ranger to save the day. The setting here is promising, the campfire scene is a highlight, and the urban legend about the missing troop is a great touch. Unfortunately, the good stuff is undermined by questionable acting and a somewhat ridiculous supernatural menace. Though I will admit the singing is quite creepy.

18. ‘Shed No Fear’ (Season 1, Episode 10)

Set in the 1970s, with some decent period detail, this episode follows two boys as they battle a mysterious shadow-creature inhabiting an old shed. It’s cute to see Greg and Dave rekindle their friendship and tell the smarmy football captain to get lost, but the threat of the Shade is never particularly well-developed. The title also annoys me. Outside the context of this episode, nobody has ever uttered the phrase ‘shed no fear’. It isn’t even a good pun!

19. ‘The Unfortunate Five’ (Season 2, Episode 5)

Five kids in detention meet their match in a seemingly sweet, yoga-loving teacher who pits them against each other. Establishing five protagonists and two villains within the space of 25 minutes is a tall order, and it’s one this episode doesn't meet. ‘The Unfortunate Five’ has a good concept and also boasts one of the series’ goriest images (when Faye attacks Hawkins and blood spatters across the glass—I’m kind of surprised CBBC didn’t cut that). But the flimsy, unmemorable characters doom it to the lower reaches of this list.

20. ‘Only Child’ (Season 2, Episode 7)

This could have been great: the story of a girl being menaced by her demonic baby brother, while her parents are convinced she’s just jealous, has lots of potential. Yet ‘Only Child’ doesn't really work. The denouement is rushed and muddled (exactly how does Mia identify the link between the baby’s power and the feedback sound?) and the low-budget special effects don't help. It also suffers from being set entirely within the Tuthill family’s apartment, which looks like a cheaply decorated show home.

21. ‘Help’ (Season 2, Episode 3)

A very meh installment about a brother and sister who are overly reliant on their family’s Amazon Alexa-like virtual assistant. It’s basically a weaker version of ‘Marti’ with a much less impactful message. The siblings are barely fleshed out, and the episode shares with ‘Only Child’ a sterile-looking set that doesn’t resemble a real family home at all.

22. ‘Spaceman’ (Season 1, Episode 8)

If episodes like ‘Trolled’ and ‘No Filter’ represent what a show like Creeped Out should be, ‘Spaceman’ is exactly what it shouldn’t be. If ‘Cat Food’ proves how well humour can work within a scary story, ‘Spaceman’ shows exactly how it can go wrong. The tale of unlikely pals Spud and Thomas finding a crashed spaceship is by far the worst thing Creeped Out has come up with—it’s implausible, unfunny and not remotely creepy. Avoid.

#creeped out #creeped out ranked #creeped out episodes #creeped out episodes ranked #cbbc #netflix

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annashipper · 5 years

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JT Anon

Anna: JT sent me a very ranty submission in reply to this ask (LINK), so I’m including the ask herein for easy reference:

Nonny: if they did go home together they could both have used the back door, no? why the pap op? to help publicize kubrick event, perhaps? also, she might have stayed in nyc because she has friends to see and didn’t need to rush back two days after met gala. we don’t know whether whole family, including nanny, didn’t come to nyc cause we didn’t see anyone, including BC, arrive at JFK. so it’s possible they all arrived together and left separately. details.

JT Anon: but nonny this is the problem, we ALWAYS have to think of some excuse as to why ben is travelling alone, and surely they must have just arrived together (or left together). the fact of the matter is, ben went on record to say that if he is EVER away form the kids for more than a day or two, he has the entire family w him. full stop. that is what he said. and yet immediately after he said that we have not seen him travelling w his kids once. not once. in fact we’ve never seen ben and sophie complete a trip together since she gave ‘birth’. its always only on one end. also between you and me, the idea that these two have to have a nanny w them 24/7 because they can’t simply parent their kids w out other adults is hellah sad to me. i know they would be going to events etc, but still.

maybe thats why BC doesn’t have any anecdotes about his kids, he doesn’t actually spend any time w them at all. he is constantly farming them off to other people

personally, while im w anna in that i think the majority of enty stuff is pr fed, if i were to believe that the kids were real and living w him, then i believe enty when he says ben is just simply lying. mainly because only a pretty nasty guy would drag his tiny newborn infants onto multiple flights into different time zones, only to ditch them w the help and not parent them on said flights

I also agree w enty that he is lying about having his kids w him everywhere because we just haven’t seen it. it just simply doesn’t make sense that a man would go to all the trouble to hire very expensive 24/7 hour help (because, again, who wants to be left alone w their kids? not ben. not sophe. if what ben says is true, these two are not hands on parents. we have a lot of proof of that) only to arrive and leave w them sep every single time. i mean, what sort of man disrupts his kids like that so he can feel like he is being a god father, all the while not even bothering to sit w them on a plane? like if ben cant even get on and off a plane w his kids…

in this case, the simplest ex is likely the truth. he is lying. we have photographic evidence of bens travels, and since saying he is never w out them, we have actually never seen him w them.

if you believe that the kids are real, and that ben is not such a horrid parent that he immediately leaves the plane, ignoring his kids and walking off in front of cameras for pap shots, leaving either w a nanny or both sophie and a nanny to struggle w the kids (out the door w no paps? if he is private, and the kids have found a way in and out of the airport w out paps…why don’t they all do that…since they don’t want attention)

this brings us back to those little calendars of travel we have of ben. assuming the kids are real, ben has left his kids for literally MONTHS. months. If you add up all the weeks he took off, its been MONTHS he has left his kids, from the min they were born. he has left his kids for months, because i do not believe he has had them w him (and ben, if you drag kids through an airport now its not going to convince me). we have proof he lied and doesn’t take them w him.

If I were to believe the kids were real, then at this point i would think that all of that talk about finding his love and finally rocking his babies in his arms were stories for branding purposes. (i happen to think they were, however i always assumed there was some mild truth to it and they just hammered it to make him likeable to his female fan base, that the topic didn’t actually loom that large in his head) and because he branded himself as being desperate for love and babies, when sophie turned up preg, likely not by him, he had to double down on it. plus i also think he saw attention and big ass dollar signs. i think he and his team know that sophie causes this little discussion, and they are very happy to keep her around, and seen exactly the way she is to cont this steady stream of attention and eyeballs on his articles and pics that have her just off to the side. then not, then to the side again.

hence the stories that he travels w his kids when we can see he does not

hence the stories that he rushes to give them a bath every night when we can see him away from home at at events were that isn’t possible.

hence all the other anecdotes from him about kids that are impossibilities and lies

if i were to believe the kids were real, i would believe that he is not a hands on father. that he does not spend much time, if any at all, w his kids. that he has round the clock care raising them. that he isn’t that interested in being a parent, and his stories are just keeping up w previous branding that was also untrue.

I personally always thought that pining for love and a family thing was for branding for his female fanbase, and if his kids and marriage are real, then i tend to believe it was less true and more branding than i had originally thought

I think this is why so many of the nans have to tangle and pin red string onto dates and locations when seeing ben travelling alone and not out w his kids and saying things about kids that make no sense. they bought the pining for love and a kid thing hook, line and sinker. they thought it was the absolute truth. it never occurred to them that bens team took “yeah , sure id like a wife and kids one day” and turned it into “Ben weeping out of loneliness wants nothing more than to find his soulmate and rock his babies it consumes his heart!” because the response from his fan base was positive. Because they bought this story and didn’t for one second think anything about bens personality was tweaked and manufactured, they can’t entertain the idea that now, now that he has found his heart (he TOLD them he lovedher! He SAID we HAVE to love her too!!!) and has kids, that his behaviour wouldn’t match whatever fairy tale they have in their heads.

they cannot accept that ben leaves his kids for weeks on end, so there MUST be some convoluted story of sophie CONSTANTLY staying behind w a nanny to visit friends when they are in NYC. They have to CONSTANTLY have the nanny w them 24/7 because there is no other way to explain them being in these places and not having their kids. They MUST only be out when they are seen, because they have to explain why he would bring his kids to NYC, only to leave them every night and every day to shop and eat.

I dont know what they’ve come up w to explain the fact that ben has now had 2 or 3 children and has not a single story about parenting that makes sense.

if you believe the kids are real, then the reality is this is not a man who spends time w his kids. his stories suggest he doesn’t even know them frankly. his stories about them make absolutely no sense. anyone who has done a daily routine w kids from ages birth to 8 knows that what he says makes no sense, and there are very specific things he has not said that he could absolutely say w out it being some invasion of privacy

I think nans just don’t want to accept that ben is not a loving hands on father. he doesn’t spend that much time w his kids. he would rather go work and party and vacation and socialise. he is perfectly happy to leave his kids w hired help constantly. he is perfectly happy to go on constant vacations and leave his kids. he isn’t all that interested in being w them during the day.

I think they also don’t want to accept that, like thousands of celebs before them, he sees these kids as a money making opportunity. that doesn’t mean he is forcing them to perform, but he can monetise them, and he has. he has tried to sell their pictures, he is using these silly stories for clicks, he hires paps. he has branded them into his image to make cash, while not spending much time w them

its actually not that hard to believe, it would be what makes the most sense in this situation. ben has kids he doesn’t really care for, isn’t’ interested in parenting. he has the cash to throw at people so he isn’t responsible for them, and he monetises them in as many ways possible to at least get some cash money out of this situation

its only people who believe the branded intimacy that have to spin in circles to make this not that. people who bought the idea that out of all the celebs on earth, he was not branded. they really super duper know him for real. they can tell he is totes genuine, he would never lie to them, he really does love his fans on some intimate level (how on earth?).

admitting that ben is a liar, that he does call the paps, that he does monetise his personal life, that he does brand his kids, that he isn’t the family man he says he is would be to admit that they were wrong about having some sort of understanding about a public figure that is more intimate than is actually possible. they would have to admit that, just like thousands of fans before them, they were suckered into not only thinking HE was special, but THEY are too.

and now before anyone gets on our cases and starts spitting on their computer screen as they shout “BIT RICH FOR YOU GUYS WHO ARE OBSESSED WITH HIM AND HIS FAMILY!!!!!!” There is a difference. We simply happen to take what he is saying and think its nor true and that he lies.We work w what we see.

Having said that, there ARE people who are skeptical of this whole thing who DO take it too far and think they they have some sort of connection w ben. The only broad thing I will say about that is, when discussing ANY public figure, if someone truly does believe that there are somehow secret messages being conveyed from said public figure, either from clothing choices, word choices, gestures, and that those secret messages have special meanings for that person because there is some sort of understanding between them and the public figure, despite no actual contact, i would HIGHLY encourage people not to engage w this person. don’t’ make fun of them, don’t’ attempt to talk them out of their thought process, it won’t work. just cut off communication about said public figure

sorry, this was a long one anna!

J travels w her dogs and actually leaves the aiport w them T anon

Anna: I cosign 99.9% of what JT had to say above. Especially these two parts:

the fact of the matter is, ben went on record to say that if he is EVER away form the kids for more than a day or two, he has the entire family w him. full stop. that is what he said. and yet immediately after he said that we have not seen him travelling w his kids once. not once. in fact we’ve never seen ben and sophie complete a trip together since she gave ‘birth’. . . . ben has now had 2 or 3 children and has not a single story about parenting that makes sense.

#JT anon

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 5 years

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Child’s Play (2019)

Well it’s Friday, so that means another classic horror franchise is getting rebooted. This time it’s Child’s Play - you know, the one about the spirit of a serial killer that gets trapped inside a talking doll and terrorizes the neighborhood? Well, serial killer spirits are SO 1991, so the 2019 version has updated it to a “smart” doll capable of operating all your wireless devices and there’s no supernatural mumbo jumbo going on here - just a disgruntled factory worker pushing back at unjust labor laws by removing all the safety protocols in ONE doll and shipping it off far away. You know, as most labor disputes get resolved. So Chucky (voice of Mark Hamill) comes to be best friends with Andy (Gabriel Bateman) and soon starts disposing of anyone he believes might be compromising their friendship. I think we all remember how upsetting it was when our Teddy Ruxpins started to do the same thing. So is this AI bringing in a new wave of “smart” horror reboots? Well...

God I hope not. It’s a mess. There’s some ok stuff in here, but wow I have a lot of questions for the director, the screenwriter, and the design team.

This is the worst character design I’ve ever seen. His eyes are both too big to be like a standard doll, but too small to be in the Bratz or anime-type range. Also, he suffers from the Jack Nicholson problem. For as brilliant as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is, its casting is truly epically terrible. Jack Nicholson looks crazier than a shithouse rat at the very beginning of the film, making his descent into madness feel a little less like a descent and more like a very level straight line that you could use to hang a picture frame. Same thing with ol Chucky blue eyes here. He looks so uncanny valley creepy right from the get go that when he goes full murder spree it’s like “oh no he’s...doing exactly what his face indicated he would be doing this whole time who could have possibly predicted.” I’m all for the use of animatronic puppetry over CGI but...I just feel like the design here really missed the mark.

I’m sorry, I’m just so pissed at the inciting incident for this whole thing. Why would your revenge against your shitty boss be to remove all the safety protocols from a microchip going into a device that is shipping halfway across the world from you? What’s the endgame here? Seriously. THE most plausible line of reasoning is “This doll will malfunction and cost this company I hate working for $39.95.” Well, that doesn’t impact your shitty boss. The only OTHER plausible line of reasoning is “This is going to make a murder doll that will malfunction and kill people on the other side of the globe.” That STILL doesn’t impact your shitty boss AND it means this guy is a total sociopath with a diabolical scheme on a level Chucky can’t even dream of. Why isn’t the movie actually about him???

It’s weird to see Aubrey Plaza playing a mom but I kind of love her snark being melded with maternal instinct here. Although, honestly, she does feel more like Andy’s big sister than his mom.

As for Andy (Gabriel Bateman), he’s actually a really solid leading man in this. Even when he has to break down into hysterics over Chucky’s bad behavior, his performance never veers into whiny or shrill. He’s got a lot of charisma and plays Andy as a fundamentally sweet kid who maybe just doesn’t have many friends because he hangs out with his mom and sucked into the vortex of his phone too much. I was impressed, because he has to carry 80% of the movie by himself talking to an animatronic Annabelle.

I will say, Chucky’s horrible design aside, Mark Hamill does a phenomenal job as the voice of Chucky. Even when he’s repeating the same phrases over and over again, he injects a level of pathos and humanity into Chucky that’s really impressive. I know this isn’t a controversial opinion, but he really is maybe the best living voice actor of our time.

Full disclosure, there is some violence done to a cat that is very distressing, not once but TWICE. The cat dies :( And it’s particularly egregious because not only do you get faked out once thinking “oh this cat is gonna be ok” but THEN after the gruesome part, Chucky uses the sounds of the cat to emotionally torture Andy and the audience. That shit is fucked up.

Um, I’m not sure what lack of googling this screenwriter, Tyler Burton Smith, did but these literal children are not millenials, they are generation Z, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.

The tone is wildly uneven. It’s not funny enough to be a horror comedy, and it’s not really scary, just jump scares and being creeped out by Chucky’s fucking face. Also, the film can’t decide if we’re meant to feel bad for Chucky being a victim of his programming and his shitty preteen masters showing him a bunch of campy slasher movies OR if we’re meant to be scared of him because he’s a murderous monster doing things of his own free will.

Why are there watermelons in this man’s yard? And the line “a white guy dead in a watermelon patch - poetic” ... what fucking poetry are you reading? Listen, I have two degrees in English literature, and I don’t remember Samuel Taylor Coleridge ever writing anything about any fucking watermelons.

Another weird choice - the movie is pretty gory but not in a fun or campy way. I think sometime around 2010, movies lost the ability to do buckets of blood in a fun way? I know that sounds fucked up, but this isn’t campy or silly, it’s just kind of gross - both trying to be gleeful and also taken way too seriously. At first, when it’s only super pervy or abusive dudes that are getting whacked, it’s like, ok, there’s a comeuppance factor here, this is gross but fine. But then it starts extending to characters that have done nothing wrong and that we’ve been pushed to love and empathize with. So then it feels a lot less fine but still very gross.

One major highlight - I will watch Brian Tyree Henry in anything. He’s just so so good at everything, and this is no exception.

Also - BTH plays a detective and Andy is literally trying to hide evidence made of human remains in the detective’s apartment. For dayyyyys. Let that sink in. Do you think that shit doesn’t smell?? And he keeps disposing of evidence and things he doesn’t want to deal with in the trash chute of his own building. Where the detective also hangs out. There are other dumpsters, my dude!

If you’re making a murderous doll movie and a guy who looks like Jack Black (Trent Redekop) perving around in a basement is the creepiest thing that happens, that’s probably not a good sign.

Speaking of Not Jack Black, everything in his death sequence makes no sense. Why would you stand on a table saw to get away from literally anything? Why would your table saw have a “smart” functionality? Take this as a warning kids, if Google starts making smart table saws, that’s when we draw the line.

There is one (1) cute dog, and Chucky is uninterested in him. He escapes the movie unscathed and appears to be a Very Good Boy.

Did I Cry? Fucking no, oh my god, not at all.

This is just a real uneven mess. Some performances shine amidst the terrible material (BTH, Mark Hamill, Gabriel Bateman) but overall, I had a lot more fun with the playfully wicked marketing campaign (coming out the same day as Toy Story 4, the film leaned into the gag by creating a series of posters depicting some gruesome ends to our favorite Toy Story characters, with Chucky being responsible). If this had been more comedy, less uneven revenge porn, this might have had a fighting chance at being something really interesting. As in most things, though, I have to advise you stick to the original.

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#119in2019 #child's play 2019 #child's play #chucky #mark hamill #aubrey plaza #gabriel bateman #brian tyree henry #movie reviews #film reviews #horror #horror review

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