#i need to watch more cronenberg movies i think

[monsterbisexual]

having some thoughts......need to watch/read/etc more weird stuff

anyway society if i wasnt at work n could make weird posts n watch weird movies </333

feel free to rec stuff btw if u wanna!!

[anhed-nia]

The Not Blogtober Chronicles

As I have testified elsewhere, writing for the content mill is frequently hard and frustrating, but it's also sort of interesting. Committing to a full cycle of research and writing every single day has a kind of tough, zenlike, "chop wood, carry water" quality to it that I'm beginning to enjoy. And while there is a lot about it I can't control--like I don't love almost anything about the format or the pervasive concessions I have to make to SEO--I try to look at it as an opportunity to tell people something I really think they should hear. I (rudely) assume that the average CBR reader is really only interested in "10 Times Batman and the Joker Totally Should Have Frenched", but the editors let me have this job, so now people will have to hear what I think is interesting until they take it away from me! Like way more people should have seen BORDER, and talked about it. Amazing movie, should not be obscure. If you're not watching and loving BORDER then you have bad taste, and not the good kind!

And then I got to talk about the Adams family, this couple and their daughters who make these totally independent, totally self-created movies that are extremely surprising in their quality and cleverness considering what I just said, and I think everyone should know about them. But also I think there's a lot of danger in the "outsider artist" label, so while I know that the way they operate outside any system is a VERY interesting fact, I didn't want to risk being condescending about it. Happily, the new movie that just landed on Shudder presented lot of opportunity to talk about what is actually in one of these movies, rather than just leaving it at "Isn't it weird and quirky that people make movies all by themselves?" Plus it had this cosmetic connection to ROMULUS, so I can hijack the SEO thing to force more people to find out about the Adamses.

I was really excited to write this and also to tell the Adamses about it, and I got to have a super rewarding conversation with Toby Poser, the wife/mom of the family who stars in the film (which she co-directed and co-wrote as usual). She loved that I said "Toby Poser and her husband" where people normally say "John Adams and his wife" which I wasn't even thinking about. I just think she's really cool and compelling, and it was great to find out how honored she was by my thing.

Sometimes my opportunistic SEO strategy isn't as interesting. Like I was kind of scrounging for topics that both CBR and I would enjoy, and I had to ask myself like, do people really not know this yet?

By which I guess I mean, most of the people who would actually care about David Cronenberg's grudge against Dan O'Bannon have probably already heard about it from a more interesting and focused source than CBR. But I needed to make my quota...and also once I dug into it, I started to find a point of view and things to say that were not included in all the other content mill articles on this exact subject. If you're really following your own curiosity, something boring can become fun when you least expect it.

My weekly scramble for topics to pitch is inevitably influenced by a certain amount of word association and I'm always slightly worried they'll ask me to vary it up a little more and then I won't have enough ideas at a time. Fortunately this has not happened, and I got to chase my old Cronenberg thing with a new Cronenberg thing. And this is probably something nobody has said yet--in part because Caitlin Cronenberg's movie is being unfairly ignored. And fuck that! It's really good, people should see it! So this was my big opportunity to force people to think about a movie they might otherwise miss, but that they also might like if they actually give it a try. I'm gonna @ her about it later, even though it probably won't turn her into my new friend like Toby Poser. But maybe. MAYBE...

[wernerherzoghaircut9000]

Eight movies I've watched a million times; movies that, in no particular order, I've obsessed about; that changed my life; that changed how and why I watch movies.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) dir. Terry Gilliam

The Transformers: The Movie (1986) dir. Nelson Shin

The Long Goodbye (1973) dir. Robert Altman

Milk (2008) Gus Van Sant

Zodiac (2007) David Fincher

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) George Roy Hill

Naked Lunch (1991) David Cronenberg

Army of Shadows (1969) Jean-Pierre Melville

These aren't categorized in any way, but the two stipulations that I set for myself when making this list were: 1) the particular movie had to have impacted me in a major way, and 2) I had to have watched it many, many times (not necessarily all the way through).

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and The Transformers: The Movie take a visual form and extend it to its limits; imagination! exploring other worlds! meeting strange and wondrous persons! On the surface, both are childish and thin - but they contain multitudes.

The Long Goodbye was the first movie I remember watching "seriously." It's a masterpiece.

Milk was one of the first movies that started to change how I think about movies and really got me into learning more about how movies are made, particularly how framing, camera movement, and editing shape a story.

Zodiac is one of the most effective movies I've ever seen, and strangely a kind of comfort film (for me). It's a depressing American opus about the follies of the information age. It's fantastic.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a movie I'm passionately in love with. No other movie like it.

Naked Lunch and Army of Shadows are both very depressing, deliberate, and yet weirdly life-affirming. They are both tragedies and deal with identity - the loss thereof, the need to hide and take on new ones. They don't end well.

So yeah, I guess that's about it. Until next time...

[bloodcoveredgf]

i watched crash 1996 bc i saw you posting about it. i loved it soooooooo much. do you have any other recommendations that are kinda similar?

OMG very happy to hear you checked out crash bc of me And you loved it yaayyy!!! ^_^ <33 and hmm.. recommendations.. definitely titane (2021).. and honestly id say dive deeper into cronenbergs films i think you may like them too i know i did !! a few of my personal favorites are dead ringers, videodrome, existenz, videodrome, & crash of course :) id really recommend checking out videodrome n dead ringers.. rabid too & the fly & naked lunch are also very great. i think those would be up your alley perhaps! and if youre looking for more psychosexual weird movies you may like secretary (2002) which also has james spader (who plays the lead male aka james ballard in crash) in it also would recommend raw (2016) and possession (1981) and i have so many movies i need to check out too thats all i got off the top of my head rn.. these recs may seem so insane but to me these movies are linked.. i see the connections im making.. but! i hope it makes sense somehow and fits and you enjoy them if you do end up watching any of them <3

[agentnico]

The Substance (2024) review

Right, so that was one of the most disgusting films I’ve ever seen. Like I’ll never eat shrimp again, just saying.

Plot: Elisabeth Sparkle, renowned for an aerobics show, faces a devastating blow on her 50th birthday as her boss fires her. Amid her distress, a laboratory offers her a substance which promises to transform her into an enhanced version of herself.

It’s fair to say that 2024 hasn’t been a particularly memorable year for films thus far. In fact outside of Dune I haven’t been truly amazed by any of the releases, and as such have been diving deeper into discovering older movies, mainly through boutique labels like The Criterion Collection, BFI and Indicator. Which don't get me wrong has been wonderful, but I’ve missed seeing decent films at the cinema. However we’re now in the fall movie season which is when all the indie fare that has finished their film festival circuit run now get released to us the regular audience, as well as films that are fighting for a chance to contend at the upcoming award ceremonies. So fingers crossed these last few months redeem 2024, and if The Substance is anything to go by then I thinks movies may truly be back!

The Substance is the type of movie that is made to shock and unsettle an audience. There’s a lot of disturbing imagery, with blood and gore and body horror, very reminiscent of horror films of David Cronenberg like The Fly and Naked Lunch. The final 30 minutes especially are so fun to watch with a crowd of people in a packed theatre, as it’s a kind of visceral and grotesque experience that is at the same time disgusting, horrible yet funny. Let’s not even sugarcoat it - the final 30 minutes are so f-ed up and it was a thrill to experience that with an audience, hearing the gasps and squirms from fellow moviegoers. Definitely up there as one of my favourite cinema trips.

Demi Moore is fantastic here, giving a truly brave performance that carries a lot of commentary in itself. She ends up doing a lot of the emotional work through her eyes, especially to the end of the film, and I must say I can’t recall seeing a performance from her as powerful and memorable as this. She really throws herself into the extremism of this movie, however it is one of the quieter scenes where she really delivers, where her character is getting ready to go on a date but can’t leave the house because of how ashamed she is of her ageing body. It is in this moment where I felt an earnestness that really struck a chord, and a welcome one, as overall this is a pretty campy horror comedy. I say comedy as this movie is really funny, even in the more horrific parts, as the film is aware of its ridiculous premise and satirises the idea of beauty and fame. Oh, and the presence of an over the top Dennis Quaid only added to the parody nature of it all, even though I have read that Quaid’s role was originally meant for Ray Liotta before his unfortunate passing, which makes me wonder of what could have been. Margaret Qualley rounds up the cast as “perfect version” of Moore’s character, and she did fine, though her role was primarily to be eye candy, so I’m reality could have been played by anyone.

We need to also discuss the sound design - it’s impeccable! You hear every crunch, breath and slimy move, so much so that I’m certain this movie would be the biggest turn on for fans of ASMR. The soundtrack too is full of heart-pumping beats, and overall it felt like the director wanted you to FEEL every part of the movie as if you were partaking in the substance yourself.

The Substance is a wonderful and absurd time at the movies, and as long as you’re not too squeamish you’ll have a grand time. Just make sure not to eat anything beforehand, especially not shrimp. Like genuinely I’ve now witnessed some of the most obnoxious chewing ever! Thanks Dennis Quaid!

Overall score: 8/10

[teslacoils-and-hubris]

you were talking about movies earlier, are there any science-y movies you like? Reanimator or something along the lines

The thing about me is that I honest to god just. don't. watch a lot of movies. I've got a to watch list a million miles long but I have to be in such a specific mood to actually fit down and watch a fucking movie

Off the top of my head, Cronenberg's The Fly and Crimes of the Future. Scanners only fits if you squint but I did like it, honestly I'd recommend all of his movies I've seen I really like cronenberg's stuff. Bride of reanimator is a really good time too if you haven't seen it, haven't seen the 3rd and don't really plan to

Vampire clay is decisively NOT scientific in the slightest but I do think everyone should watch it for the clay based body horror! It's free on tubi! It's not necessarily what I'd call a good movie but I had such a fun time I need to get more people to watch this movie cannot overstate how much I enjoyed the body horror

Gonna toss this one to followers because I would absolutely LOVE more mad science based movie recs

[steampunkforever]

When it comes to nepotism in film, the social media "nepo baby" blathering has muddied the waters and complicated any serious discussion of merit vs parental influence within the art world. While I think scrutiny of hip new voices whose parents names are linked in blue on wikipedia is a healthy trend, buzzwords naturally appeal to the braindead, and so we need to stick "nepo baby" up next to "girlhood" on the high shelf so that the adults can talk again.

While nepotism certainly is helpful for the propagation of artistic dynasties (becoming an award winning actor certainly helps when your dad has connections built in). Sure Nic Cage and Sofia Coppola are both related to the man who directed The Godfather, but frankly this sort of thing falls closer to a family business than it does to guaranteed salary at your mom's law firm.

The fine line between nepotism (bad) and artistic dynasty (acceptable) can be hypothetically agreed upon in civil adult conversation where exceptions to the rule are sure to pop up, but I think a hard and fast definition lies in "is the work these children of the established are putting out any good." Nic and Sofia are certainly some of the best artists of their respective generations (read my other filmposts if you have any question on the genius of Cage or the other Coppolas) while artists like famed industry plant Clairo leave a little more to be desired. Therefore when it comes to famed horror director David Cronenberg's son Brandon, the litmus test for whether or not he deserves criticism on the position he was born into really is "does me make good films?" With Infinity Pool, the first of his movies I've seen, the answer is a resounding yes.

Twisted bodyhorror coming from a director with the Cronenberg name isn't a surprise, but what Infinity Pool surprised me with was how it drew me in with sci fi horror hallmarks I'm more used to seeing with the elder Cronenberg, yet put a spin on them that was entirely unique.

A story about rich people using scifi tech to commit unbelievable acts of debauchery? Clone ethics? An ending that prompts you to look deep within and ask "was that messed up or what?" Distinctly Cronenberg, yet handled deftly and with a psychedelia and rawness of cinematography that (while still refined) exuded the younger Cronenberg's singular style.

I need to watch more Brandon Cronenberg films to see if this was just a Mia Goth fluke or if it was something more, but from what I've read of his admittedly limited filmography, I should be in for a treat.

Watch infinity pool. It's messed up.

[in-this-light-on-this-evening]

Okay, now that I’ve calmed down a bit, I need to say that this was the perfect scenario I had in my mind for decades and now that it actually happened… Oof. I feel like I’m on drugs.

We had dinner downtown in a lovely, super italian restaurant

Talked and laughed all the time

Watched that new weird ass Cronenberg movie and The Fortune Cookie starring Jack Lemmon (my beloved)

Listened to Artie Shaw and Nat King Cole while just laying very close to each other and talking and laughing

Started watching Diabolik 2 but oops, we will never know how it ended because spicy things started to happen between us

He was an absolute sweetheart about everything, especially consent and being sure that he’s not hurting me

He was totally focused on giving me pleasure multiple times without asking for anything back (that I didn’t want to do)

Afterwards we smoked cigarettes and kept chatting in bed as if we were in a french movie

Fell asleep at 7AM in each others’ arms

Been chill about it all without thinking about tomorrow or the next month

All of this to say that waiting for you perfect first time is 10000% worth it. Even if you have to wait decades for it happen. If you feel like it’s not it (like it happened to me in the past), take a step back and wait for the good one. You will have better memories and you will feel much more satisfied and happier about the entire experience. NO MATTER THE AGE.

[thishasgonehorribly]

Saw Monkey Man and Mars Express in the same day.

They're both beautiful films, fresh original stories in long established genres that have very clearly learned from their predecessors, and have a ton of parallels and reference to the classics, without being derivative.

I'm less familiar with the revenge-rampage action movie, but Monkey Man is very Hero's Journey, Dev Patel's character is a man with no name, archetypal hero. In a good way, it's very by-the-books; inciting incident, entering the strange world, first encounter with the villain, death and rebirth, there's literally a goddess.

Again, I'm not that well versed in rampage revenge, action, beats-up-everyone movies, so I recognize Kill Bill, which is itself direct homage and remix of a bunch of things. Movie shouts out John Wick by name. I saw an interview clip where Patel talks about The Raid (I still need to watch that one). The violence is gruesome and visceral. The fights are mostly legible and impactful, but it is also kinda video games. There's a lot of up-close shakey cam, and it does get a little tiring like watching some one else playing a first person game can be.

Mars Express is a science fiction detective story, and I know more points of reference there.

This one I'm kind of anxious about over-hyping. I think you can pretty easily tell if you like the kind of movie Monkey Man is and you'll have a good time. There's ways Mars Express might not land for some people. It might be kind of weird, or too specific an art style, might be too slow and methodical *

I went in with kind of middling expectations, and found it a really satisfying watch.

It kinda has everything:

The most obvious, it's got some Bladerunner, it's got some Asimov robotic's laws, there's Cowboy Bebop vibes, definitely some Nueromancer, there's some shades of Martian Chronicles, there's Ghosts in Shells, there's Robot Cops+, oh there's some Cronenberg flesh monstrosities, there's some Electric Dreams, there's weird robot sex.

It's serious, and moves at a steady pace, but there's also a good current of humor and satire throughout. There's brief moments with exceptionally dark implications.

It does a lot for me when I feel like the world building of a story is well considered. When I can tell the creators thought about not just how speculative elements would function and interact, but how characters in that world would relate to and think of things, I really like it.

The first character the movie introduces is a robot, that speaks with a very human voice, that's got just an edge of Customer Service Brightness to it, and it pretty succinctly tells you kind of a lot about how a character like this moves through this world.

*i've been searching for really non-judgmental ways to describe, like, some things take more brain-juice, and it's nothing to do with 'high-IQ' , being smart,

[emperornero]

tagged by @scribl1ta :]

favourite color : tyrian purple[s] ! shades like these but i also like very neon orange and yellow / green hues like this one

last song i listened to : interstate 8 by modest mouse. ive been meaning to listen to more modest mouse songs and got stuck on this one for a few hours instead . but im not complaining

favourite movie : i love both the original and cronenberg's 'the fly'.. important movies to me.. i also love electric dreams from 1984 very cute movie love edgar.. and its been a while since i saw these two but for sure the re-animator movies they deserve a mention since ive seen those like what. 10 times so far?

currently watching : i think nothing ? im supposed to watch the movies HER [2013] and mad god [2021] and for tv shows i will probably watch fionna and cake [2023] . i just finished watching the pilot episode for the amazing digital circus on youtube so i will count it too

currently reading : CAN SOMEONE GIVE ME STRENGTH TO FINISH THE SPLENDOR BEFORE THE DARK ive been stuck in the middle of it since summer holidays i havent touched it since i somehow cannot . why cant i do it why cant i read nero book. suffering

currently working on : i have like 5 unfinished drawings ? and i need to make that list of different versions of nero i know of. and probably continue collecting stuff for my quo vadis video. other than that im making a terrarium for a snail :]

current obsession : ive been thinking about my other ocs more recently its a shame i almost never draw them .. slimer im sorry youre hard to draw i will do you justice soon.. other ocs from that universe too.. and of course im still on the 24/7 nero grind the neroposting in my head may never stop

tags for @homestuckrichard @smsnsa @r0sedevil @daseindeath @catboybeebop @the-casbah-way if you dont want to do it its ok ! [grins]

[tafadhali]

festivids recs, part 2

Here with more Festivids recs! There was so much good stuff — I bookmarked fully 1/3 of the collection — but I've narrowed it down to some faves, trying to pick one top choice for fandoms with multiple vids. Here's a very reasonable 25 recs:

The Only Way to See (Amaury Guichon RPF): Did not know I needed a Sondheim vid for the chocolate guy, but I really really did! Such a lovely tribute to creativity.

Le Freak (Barbie): Luv the choice to use disco. Really captured all the fun of the movie and the build to Barbie's existential crisis was A+.

Drink You Sober (Bound): All of the Bound vids were a beautiful bounty. This one is just meltingly sexy.

body (David Cronenberg movies): The platonic essence of a David Cronenberg vid. Repulsive! Attractive! Could not tear my eyes away.

Nothing in My Head (Dropout TV): I am loving ALL the Dropout content (the little question marks in WTFIGO? kill me); this one has terrific timing and is such a great celebration of the ensemble.

Do What I Do (Dungeons & Dragons): All the D&D vids were super fun; Holga's my fave character and I really enjoyed this tribute.

We Can Be Anything (Everything Everywhere All at Once): This song, with its tightrope between nihilism and endless possibility, feels like it was written for this movie.

Anymore (Face/Off): Face/Off vid of my DREAMS. This was made for my sibling and it feels almost like a gift for me too. We were hootin' and hollerin' and both yelled "DOVES!" when there were doves.

if i were a fish (Fire Island): Howie and Noah's friendship was my favorite part of this movie, so love that this focuses on that as much as on the romance. Such a cute song!

Northwest Passage (For All Mankind): If I have one takeaway from FV this year, it's that I need to watch For All Mankind! This space-camp-going due South fan definitely cried a little about this song choice and the epic spacefaring; might be obsessed with Molly just from the two vids I've seen about her.

סיפור הגולם  (The Golem and the Jinni): I haven't read the book yet, but this is a STUNNING example of what you can do with a non-visual source. It's such a love letter to a time and place, too!

How to make a perfect Hanukkah movie... (Hallmark Hanukkah Movies): SO funny. I've only seen one Hallmark Hanukkah movie but you absolutely get the vibe with or without having watched all of them.

I Like That (Janelle Monae RPF): Unapologetically queer and self-loving.

'Til You Hit a Nerve (Knives Out): Great combination of the two films, and the climactic build on "I can't miss" rules.

By Way of Sorrow (Les Mis): I am weak for a Les Mis vid and this one crafts such a wonderful, heartbreaking narrative about all the secret sacrifices and suffering that Cosette's parents went through! Makes me cry like a baby.

Everybody Talks (Much Ado About Nothing): This was a great year for Shakespeare vids. This is my favorite play and I love the combination of all the productions and all the great comedic beats.

No Smoke Without Fire (Poker Face): Cool, funny vid. This song is a TERRIFIC vibe for Poker Face.

Wavin' Flag (Ponyo): All the Ponyo vids were so much fun (and I loved the love for Lisa this year), but this one really warmed my heart.

magnetic (Romeo + Juliet): Super captivating and energetic tribute to Mercutio! Harold Perrineau just killed it in this movie.

Tusk (SIlence of the Lambs): Amazing character study of goddamn hero Clarice Starling.

A Better Son & Waiting for Somebody (Sports Night): Okay, I cheated! You think I'm going to pick one vid about love of my life Dan Rydell?

Ángel (Tár): A precise and chilling vid about my favorite film of 2022. The accent on the vid title is the perfect coup de grace!

Blood in the Cut (Taskmaster RPF): Yessssss weird Alex Horne vids.

King (The Woman King): Was so hoping for vids to this source and this one is just a blast. Great song choice.

[plebeiangoth]

Have some Halloween movies in no particular order

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is a great time, if you can find it. It's a love letter to so-bad-it's-good horror movies from the 50's and 60's which were all ambition and no talent e.g. Plan 9 from Outer Space and Manos The Hands of Fate. One of the funniest and most quotable movies I've ever seen!

House is as gorgeous as it is spooky and goofy! If you've not seen it, you're missing out. It's made by a director who made advertisements and a lot of the special effects are what would have been common in Japanese ads at the time.

Martyrs goes on the list for that one asshole who needs something extreme. Not that it's a bad movie, of course. But if you're that asshole and have yet to see it, have fun! If you don't know what I'm talking about, this film is not for the faint of heart and I mean it! Look up "French extremism" if you're curious. Again, if you've not seen it and don't like lots of blood and gore and little left to the imagination, this is absolutely not for you.

Valerie and her Week of Wonders is a gorgeous example of Czech new-wave, about a girl becoming a woman in a village of vampires! Strongly recommend this one if you like House, it's super colorful and whimsical!

Tetsuo the Iron Man is my idea of a more fun kind of extreme film. This is one of those movies I've seen several times and can't seem to remember the story, but suffice to say it's a wild ride about a metal fetishist who becomes sort of a metal monster in a similar fashion to Tetsuo in Akira becoming a giant flesh monster. It's got a very goofy tone and is shockingly wet for a movie about rebar.

The Thing is never not fun. I'm sorry to say I don't know my Carpenter as well as I should, I'm just too stuck on how much I love The thing and may never move forward. Yes I've seen Halloween, just I like The Thing better.

The Devils is a movie you can't watch in your home in a legal capacity, Warner Bros is never releasing this one on home video. Rest assured you can find it. It's a Ken Russell film about a whole convent of nuns (the Mother Superior played by Vanessa Redgrave) are so in lust with this priest, played by Oliver Reed, that they all fein demon possession to evade persecution. The complete version of the movie includes a scene in which all the nuns bang a crucifix. It's one of those movies I say the production team went to "the cool face store", because wow there's a lot of cool looking faces!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, because there will always be virgins

Young Frankenstein was Mel Brooks's only funny movie. Fight me! (men in tights was okay i guess)

Bram Stoker's Dracula. What more need I say?

I can't easily pick any one Jan Svankmajer film, so this is the Svankmajer portion of the list. For the uninitiated, he was a Czech stop-motion animator who made these hyper realistic claymation films, often with a dark context. My favorite feature length films of his are Alice (a telling of Alice in Wonderland), Faust, and Otesanek (his final film and magnum opus, aka Little Otik aka Greedy Guts, based on the fairy tale Otesanek about tree-root baby turned vore-monster). His films aren't necessarily scary, just very unsettling and disturbing.

Hellraiser 2 because I haven't seen it yet and people keep telling me it's the good one, as if the first one wasn't delightfully generous????

The Witches is a movie that upset my very Christian grandmother one time when I was a kid, watching it on TV at her house. I don't think she understood the point that the witches aren't the good guys. I know it's irrelevant, I just thought it was funny. I miss you, Nana.

The Worst Witch. Can someone tell me where to watch this? I never saw it before and I wanna see some tacky Tim Curry schlock

eXistenZ is a movie which I only saw for the first, second, third, and fourth time ever one week last year and I'm ashamed as a Cronenberg fan that it took me so long! Not necessarily his most Halloween-y movie (I'd argue that would be The Fly), it's just a lot of fun.

Think I'll stop there, that's a good sized list.

Add your own recs! What do you watch this time of year?

[lesbianwithchainsaws]

horrror ask what Is. your favorite practical effect in a horror movie?

ngl this is such a hard question to answer bc I feel like I could just list 80% of the movies I've seen. Especially movies from the 70s/80s. Even if all the practical effects aren't amazing, I really love how they look overall in those films!!

I guess main answer would be anything by Tom Savini. I am obsessed with his effects and have watched certain movies only because he's in the makeup department. He's done a bunch of kills and gore effects for so many movies, especially in the 80s, and I think almost all of them are so good!!!!

The Thing as well obviously has amazing effects. Especially the one where the stomach opens up suddenly!

The Fly! I need to watch more Cronenberg films tbh, I haven't seen enough of them. And The Fly has such good and memorable body horror with practical effects. If I remember correctly, I think there was a scene where like fingernails were coming off and it was so well made!

Hellraiser as well. Especially towards the end, with all the hooks pulling the skin!

The effects in Re-animator with the head being reanimated and talking, and the headless body moving! I guess maybe it's not as impressive, but I really like it.

Off the top of my head, these would probably be the main ones. Though there's definitely hundreds more movies that have incredible practical effects!

[marrrowoflife]

The Fly (1986) - Review

Be afraid, be very afraid...

I have never written a film review in my life - or at least if I have, it apparently wasn’t worthy enough of being remembered - so keep that in mind while reading this. I’d also like to make a quick mention of the fact that I’m not entirely sure how to write a film review, so please excuse me if this is the biggest load of shit you’ve ever read. Anyways...

(Do I need to put a spoiler warning for a movie that came out nearly 40 years ago?)

I watched David Cronenberg’s The Fly about a week ago, and since then I have not been able to stop thinking about it. This film has absorbed my brain in all of its disgusting, melty, emotional and beautiful glory, and I’m not complaining, and I don’t think I ever will complain. 

I’m a big fan of Jeff Goldblum (who isn’t, really?), and I can say that I agree with the people when they say that The Fly is easily his most iconic, influential, and outstanding role. I knew right from the beginning that Seth Brundle was going to be a character that I absolutely adored, which only made his utterly unfortunate outcome all the more difficult and emotional for me to sit through. I found that Seth’s kind nature and playful personality makes it extremely easy for the audience to fall in love with him particularly quickly, and watching him as he’s struggling to stay himself becomes extraordinarily heartbreaking the more the film continues on. 

I’m an empath, and I find that it is easy for me to sympathise with characters no matter who they are, and this film took that feeling to the next level. There was one particular scene that stood out to me the most, and it’s when Veronica visits Seth after 4 weeks of not seeing him, only to find that something has gone horribly wrong. He is becoming a human fly. He sits her down and he explains to her what has happened before he momentarily reaches up to scratch his ear, just to then discover that it has fallen off into the palm of his hand. 

“My ear,” Seth says. You can hear the fear in his voice, and your heart shatters into a million tiny little pieces, only to be stomped on, vacuumed up and thrown in the garbage when he follows it up by crying; “I’m scared, I’m so scared,”. 

This film is a tear jerker in disguise as a horror flick. 

The Fly made me weep, bawl, sob so hard I ended up giving myself a headache. And it wasn’t because I was scared or disturbed, (although I will be discussing how impressively horrifying the special effects makeup in this film is in just a moment), it was because I felt so sorry for everybody. Seth, Veronica, even Stathis towards the end there. Seth and Veronica’s love story has to be the most tragic of them all. Romeo and Juliet had it easy compared to these two. Veronica having to watch the man she fell in love with turn into a puss ridden, vomiting, limping, rotting insect while being secretly impregnated with his half human/half fly baby was devastating, and admittedly at times I felt worse for her than I did for Seth. And while Stathis was a perverted creep for a majority of the film, watching him get his hand and foot melted off by Seth’s - or should I say BrundleFly’s - acidic vomit for trying to save Veronica was yet another tough watch. 

I could list on and on the moments in this film that saddened me, but the one that I think affected me the most was right at the very end. Seth/BrundleFly comes crawling painfully out of his Telepod, merged with part human, part fly, and part machine. He stops in front of Veronica and reaches up with one gangly, deformed hand and aims the gun she possesses to his head, begging for her to kill him. In that moment, you really stop to think about everything they went through together, and how their lives changed dramatically, even if it wasn’t for the better. It’s harrowing to watch, really. Veronica hesitating to kill Seth/BrundleFly because deep down inside she still loves him, and Seth pleading for death, a release from the monster he had become. 

Anyways, to break away from a topic that doesn’t revolve around me sobbing violently; I’d like to move onto the special effects makeup. 

Impressive doesn’t even begin to describe how incredibly done the makeup in this film is. Seth goes through a lot of different stages the more he starts to become BrundleFly, and each stage is more disturbing than the last. He’s pimply at first, pale with dark rings under his eyes, and unusually sweaty. It’s only when Veronica visits him after 4 weeks that you realise things have taken a turn for the worst. His skin has started decaying and his hair has begun to fall out. He’s still sweaty, and he’s starting to rely on canes to help him stand up straight. These two beginning stages are, in my opinion, the least disturbing of them all. It’s only when later on in the film, he demonstrates to Veronica how he’s learned how to climb walls and digest his food like a real fly now that his teeth no longer work. That’s when you start to get uneasy. His skin is rotting away, and he’s starting to become bloated, his teeth are beginning to fall out and he has begun losing more and more hair. The only thing that seemed odd to me was how easily he had welcomed it into his life. He seemed almost excited to show Veronica the way he eats and the way he can stick to the ceiling without falling down. I assume it’s because in his 50% human/50% fly mind, he finds it to be normal behaviour, and part of him still wants Veronica to write her book about his world-changing invention and the newly found dangers of it. 

His near final form is erratic, and he is becoming more fly than human by the day. His eyes have grown black and he can no longer fit into his clothes. Even though his exterior is disturbing, his personality is the same, and he still somehow finds a way to joke around about his “Brundle Museum”, a place behind his bathroom mirror where he keeps the parts from his body that have fallen off, including his ear, his nails, and his teeth. The behind the scenes photos of Jeff being put into the makeup in this scene reveals that he was in the makeup chair for 5 straight hours. Mad respect. 

The final transformation. The pièce de résistance of the film, aka, one of the most disturbing things I think I may have ever seen (yeah, I lied earlier about not being disturbed. How could you not be disturbed watching this film?). I admittedly wasn’t expecting BrundleFly to practically explode out of the shell of Seth, but hey, it was undeniably a very impressive effect. I had seen images of  his final form online prior to seeing the film, and I found myself wondering throughout the film; how is he going to get to that stage? Could it be considered a plot twist that the remainders of Seth’s rotting skin was being used almost as a pod for the final form of BrundleFly to break out of? I’m going to say yes, purely because I wasn’t expecting it. I felt especially bad for Veronica in that scene, accidentally ripping off the jaw of her mutant boyfriend, but mostly because she was right there face to face with Seth when he finally turned into BrundleFly. It’s a freaky looking creature, you can’t deny it, but I couldn’t help but think that it’s mandible thing flapping about looked a little goofy, but again, I’m not really complaining. 

Overall, I loved The Fly. I thought it was a beautifully tragic love story paired together with horribly revolting vomiting and body horror. I’m not really sure how to end a film review other than discussing how much I enjoyed it. Do I rate it? Do I rate the film out of 5 or out of 10? I don’t know. 

As Jeff Goldblum would say;

I give it 10 Goldblums out of a possible 10 Goldblums, the only thing that disappointed me about this film was that not once did Seth Brundle rub his grubby little hands together like a little fly. 

[anotherrevue]

The Top 25 Movies of 2022

When I think about 2022, the highs of the year feel like a return to form, for movies and for myself personally. And yet, on further inspection, it’s possible that two straight years of largely garbage movies and even more garbage circumstances have set the bar rather low. Yes indeed, this year has been better in comparison, but it has not by any means measured up to “normal”. 

There have been some bright spots – travelling all over the country to meet friends, watching movies I’ve been waiting to see for several years, etc – and there have been some dark recesses – of the mind, yes, but also whatever the fuck has been happening at Warner Bros. Discovery. And as far as my empty promises of lots of new pieces that I made in my first ever post, the ideas are still there, I just haven’t yet made most of them as coherent as I’d hoped. However, I have some breaking news for you: the year’s over, which means it’s time for the highlight reel babyyy! You’ll only find best-ofs here (sorry to The Gray Man) as we kick off another year.

Quick note to anyone who didn’t read the Shepitko piece: I’m totally on your side. It’s too long and too much like a SparkNotes summary of a biography. I wrote it while I was stuck deep down a well of love for this incredible artist who thought much along the same lines about art: “If I don’t do it, I’ll die.” Is that a sideways excuse for why I haven’t updated this blog in a long time? Maybe…

But back to 2022. An incredible year for theatres: Top Gun Maverick recreating the late great Tony Scott’s aesthetic for a fleeting 2 hour thrill ride was something I never expected. Avatar: The Way of Water leading the charge for high quality, must-see-in-3D movies on the other hand was something I completely expected and yet I still walked out absolutely in love with Pandora. The return of Jaws, ET and The Godfather in the form of picture-perfect restorations and pristine transfers was such a perfect lure back to theatres.

But as with any year, I saw most movies this year in my bedroom or on TV. 594 is a very large number, which troubles me. I worry that I watch too any movies – do I really process what I watch or is it robotic? Am I just putting on movies as a way to distract myself, and if so, is that fair?

I don’t really have answers there. It has certainly felt mechanical at times, and I felt like I reached saturation, occasionally feeling like I didn’t even care about movies. And then, just in the nick of time would come something like Crimes of the Future, a nasty piece of mystery fiction, but nasty in the best possible way, twisted by ol’ Dave Cronenberg to forefront his own preoccupations with the human body and relationships. Suddenly, I’d be back in love with films.

So what can I do? I’ll keep watching movies, but maybe slow down a little. Take time to process each movie before moving on. Watch with more purpose, more discernment. Maybe I don’t need to watch ALL of the new Pinocchios (del Toro’s is by far the most enjoyable, Zemeckis’ is a complete nothingburger and the Russian one is… unfathomably awful). And most of all, I’ll write more, because that helps me connect to movies more than just letting it swirl around in the cesspool that is my mind.

But enough of the rambling preamble. As a movie year, 2022 was twisty and all over the place. A great year for Tom Cruise and Colin Farrell (who was excellent in FOUR WHOLE MOVIES THANK YOU to the film deities!!), a great year for horror, a great year for weird shit that seemed to be aimed directly at me. A terrible year (I know I said no negativity so I’ll get this over quickly) for unfortunate franchises (Branagh’s Poirot, Jurassic World) and Tom Hanks, who was in the bad Pinocchio and generally agreed to be the worst part of Elvis. Undecided result for Margot Robbie, who was passably charming in an inexplicable film (Amsterdam) and reportedly excellent in an unmitigated flop that I’m excited to watch (Babylon).

I watched 141 movies released in 2022. Here are my top 25.

25. Causeway

24. Saloum

23. Save the Cinema

22. Bheeshma Parvam

21. The Lost King

20. Pada

19. Everything Everywhere All at Once

18. Nope

17. God’s Country

16. Hinterland

15. Hustle

14. The Northman

13. The Banshees of Inisherin

12. Prey

11. Benediction

10. Fire of Love

This was among my most anticipated movies of 2022. It’s rare for me to be so excited for a documentary – I usually stumble upon them and then get pulled into loving it. And unlike another documentary from this year that I loved (my precious Good Night Oppy, which made me cry, much like most movies about the space program), I wasn’t really pre-disposed to loving it. I’m a space guy, not a lava guy. Yet Fire of Love is special, because the premise promises a tragic love story, but from the first moment that we see the Kraffts, we realize that this isn’t tragic to them, no matter the outcome. They understand the risks fully and still it’s completely joyous for them. And the footage of the volcanoes is mesmerizing, you almost understand how inextricably drawn they felt to them. NatGeo, two years running, making my best of year list. I’ll keep my eye out for their 2023 releases.

9. The Woman King

This is Gladiator with most of the flab cut off. Gina Prince-Bythewood is one of my favourite working directors and her shift into action filmmaking is really remarkable, considering how emotionally focused her first three movies are. It makes sense though, once you realize that her action scenes are so fluid is because she herself is an athlete and she frames the scenes, not just as balletic or violent feats, but as a show of athletic prowess. From the opening – which is very reminiscent of the first Nakia scene in Black Panther – I was fully on board with the tone and scale of this movie, boosted in no small part by Viola Davis (the biggest Oscar snub of the year), Lashana Lynch (being an absolute dynamo on screen) and Thusu Mbedu (who somehow holds her own as a co-lead in this movie opposite Davis).

8. Jackass Forever

Like every iteration of Jackass, Forever is wonderfully juvenile, but there’s an added tinge of melancholy in watching Knoxville, Steve-O, Dave England and the rest of the original cast slowly come to terms with the fact that their bodies can’t take the same levels of punishment anymore. We see them hand over a lot of the stunts to the newer additions, who take the reins while also trying to get out of the giant shadows of Ryan Dunn and Bam. All that said, Knoxville and Steve-O still do the two most what the fuck gags in the movie, and Danger Ehren, as ever, is the victim of a nightmarish flurry of pain. But Jackass isn’t about violence; it’s just the most stupidly violent franchise about friends who love each other.

7. Kimi

Any movie Steven Soderbergh puts out is likely to make my best of, and it speaks to the quality of the top 10 this year that Kimi has dropped to the back half. This movie is fun as hell, an old school conspiracy thriller in the vein of (quite obviously) The Conversation and Rear Window, but set in a tech world that’s increasingly more familiar – and more frightening – to us. Of course, Soderbergh isn’t new to conspiracies (see: Erin Brockovich), but the thing that makes his work in Kimi particularly enthralling is his ability to capture natural human behaviour on screen. He makes excellent hangout movies (Oceans 11-13, Magic Mike, Let Them All Talk) because he knows that if you shoot movie stars in a certain way and pace it right, anything they do will be immensely watchable. And for Kimi, he teamed up with one of the very rare true-blue movie stars under 35 in Zoe Kravitz. She pulls the camera with a natural, easy magnetism that automatically sets us up on her side. Add Soderbergh’s excellent technical craft, and you get a lean, mean, murder mystery machine that has you in and out and completely satisfied in 90 minutes flat.

6. Top Gun: Maverick

Often the Best Actor/Actress Oscar is won by someone doing an interpretation of a real person that we’re all familiar with (Rami Malek for Freddie Mercury, Renee Zellweger for Judy Garland and possibly – god forbid – Austin Butler for Elvis). I think that should just be its own special Oscar: Best Re-Creation. And this year, Top Gun: Maverick should win that honour, because Joseph Kosinski (who I’m overall pretty mixed on as a director) does a spectacular job recreating that early Tony Scott style that made the first Top Gun so exhilarating. Funny thing, leading up to the release of this movie, I put my favourite Tony Scott movies on TV (I’ll take any excuse really). My sister walked in during the first 10 minutes of Unstoppable and not only was she completely hooked, but she insisted on watching the rest of the movies with me. So it was particularly fantastic to be able to show my sister a Tony Scott-esque movie in theatres for the first time. I wish there were more of them.

5. Avatar: The Way of Water

Yes I loved it. Am I a sucker for Jim Cameron? Also yes. The water footage is like watching NatGeo from another planet (in a good way, you should know by now that I’m a fiend for NatGeo). Cameron knows how the build tension in an action scene and he also knows how to shoot it so that you know exactly where everyone is in relation to each other, which seems to be a lost art in big budget blockbusters these days. But what gets The Way of Water to number 5 is the tulkun. What an incredible idea to have this species of space whales be intellectually and emotionally smarter than the Na’vi and yet have them choose to intertwine themselves with the Na’vi. And the decision to introduce this kind of an interspecies dynamic in the SECOND MOVIE when there’s is no analogue for it in the first, is a feat on its own. Although I should have probably recused myself from reviewing this movie, since Payakan is my best friend.

4. The Fabelmans

Steven Spielberg has always been a filmmaking savant, which this movie will tell you, but I think what makes The Fabelmans so good, and what has really been working for Spielberg in this last decade, is that he tackles honest, complex emotions head on instead of eschewing it for the classic Spielberg sentimentality. He portrays the intricate and overlapping familial dynamics in the Fabelman household (a thinly veiled depiction of his own home life) with shockingly little guile or deflection and shows us not only the joys, but the strains of being an artist.

3. TÁR

Hard to talk about this movie without just lavishing praise on Cate Blanchett, but I’ll try – not because she isn’t the best thing about it, but because every discussion about TÁR is so dominated by Cate Blanchett that other great parts of the movie fade into the noise. Todd Field as an actor is best known as Nick Nightingale in Eyes Wide Shut, but his work as a director in TÁR reminds me of the second half another Kubrick movie: Barry Lyndon. To start the movie at the peak of someone’s prowess and document their downfall, and not have audiences utterly despairing by the end is a special talent that few have, and Field certainly nails it. Noemie Merlant (of Portrait of a Lady on Fire fame) is an absolute beacon of charisma as Lydia Tar’s assistant, and her performance subtly elevates the audience’s investment in the story. But I think the secret sauce to the movie, and the emotional crux, is on the shoulders of Nina Hoss, who has very little screen time, yet really underscores the whole movie with one incredible line reading. The individual pieces of TÁR are excellent in their own right, which sometimes poses a problem when the filmmaker tries to put them all together, but the movie is so well-conceived and Field has such a strong artistic voice that the brilliance of each part only works to elevate the whole.

2. After Yang

The first of Colin Farrell’s 2022 movies remains my favourite, which is a shock because I would have put money on The Banshees of Inisherin being my number one movie of the year overall. And though Banshees has been slowly creeping up my rankings the longer I think on it, After Yang has held strong for nigh on a year. Kogonada’s first movie, Columbus, juxtaposed an emotional gentleness with the sadness of real life in a way that didn’t make me want to run away as movies like that normally do. Instead, he made the real world an enviable gentle place that doesn’t magic away tragedies but accepts them as an essential part of every person. In After Yang, Kogonada takes that sensibility and applies it to a sci-fi idea that is perhaps as old as the genre: what if a robot began to feel? The set-up is, on paper, similar to classics like Blade Runner and AI, but the movie is handled with a tenderness that those earlier movies had only sparingly. There’s a lot in After Yang about loss and grief and parenting, but also about the joys of culture and art.

1. Three Thousand Years of Longing

If you go back to my list last year, my number one was Night of the Kings, a Ivorian prison drama about the importance of storytelling. So I guess it’s pretty boring that this year, yet again, I’ve picked a film that features tales of magic and wonder. Three Thousand Years of Longing is a djinn movie, but what sets Three Thousand Years apart is the way these fairytales are portrayed. Rooted in real history, the stories have a sense of dream logic that makes every instance of magic makes sense. And the main story itself, much like another movie I loved this year (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande), cautiously but lovingly explores the awkward romanticism of two strangers in a hotel. Idris Elba’s Djinn is wary of his summoner, while Tilda Swinton’s Alithea, a scholar of storytelling, is well aware of the mischievous nature of djinns. Hijinks do not ensue, however. Rather, the two of them slowly let their guards down, as the Djinn warns Alithea of the dangers of previous wishes he’d had to grant, weaving tales of a mystical history that has her (and me) completely enraptured. Three Thousand Years feels to me like the closest a movie can get to the magic of bard recounting an oral tradition of love and war and the follies of humans.

***

As usual, some honourable mentions:

Decision to Leave, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Athena, A Man of Action, Mukundan Unni Associates, Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood, Watcher, Something from Tiffany’s (a very solid romcom) and motherfucking Ambulance because what a goddamn ride that movie is.

I don’t recommend stand-up specials often because nothing is less appealing than comedy recommendations. But Jerrod Carmichael’s Rothaniel is really the most intimate special I’ve seen while still being hilarious.

I know I don’t talk TV often but Andor and Slow Horses have three essentially perfect seasons between them and I’m very excited for what’s next.

Finally, Dinner in America is the most punk rock movie of the year and I really hope it gets a bit more traction because there aren’t enough straight up fuck the system movies being made, which is a major bummer.

***

I want to end on a note of cautious optimism, but I’ve gone on too long already, so let me just say this: we’re probably getting new movies from our greatest working directors[1], not to mention new entries in some of the most high quality franchises. Yes indeed, folks, a promising movie year lies ahead, and you might as well stay tuned to Another Revue - who knows? I might be true to my word about writing more.

___

Soderbergh (Magic Mike 3), Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon), Michael Mann (Ferrari), Sofia Coppola (Priscilla), Miyazaki (How Do You Live?), Fincher (The Killer), Gerwig (Barbie), Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things and possibly And), Reichardt (Showing Up), Nolan (Oppenheimer), Shyamalan (Knock at the Cabin), Ridley Scott (Napoleon), Steve McQueen (Blitz), Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest) ↩

[kiyaar]

@cowboyhorsegirl 'massive chore' is definitely how i feel about consuming this. i feel like i am getting roughly 30 seconds of delight per half season which is the wrong ratio. i do think newcomers can just fucking skip seasons 1-2. they're bad. someone should have told me to start at season 3. season 3 has been better because they're actually communicating and getting shit done as a team now. and there is some marginally more interesting animation. it's just not. it's not innovative or creative or visually interesting or well-written enough for me to invest myself emotionally. feels like it left its heart behind. and steve's voice actor from EMH is now doing hyperion. :( which he does well. but. also. have you noticed no one ever gets injured? no one ever bleeds or has their arm in a sling or has cuts or blood or bruises or dirt on them? it's so weirdly sterile. idk man. maybe my standards are once again, batshit, and i need to go watch a cronenberg movie as a palate cleanser