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amphtaminedreams · 5 years

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Film Tier Ranking 2019: A Bad Year for Bird Films

Hi to anyone reading,

I’ve finally put it together: my 2019 film tier ranking! I know tier rankings are a bit 6 months ago but seeing British crisps sorted into god, good, mid and shit tier all over Twitter, the format really resonated with me and I was like I MUST USE THIS AT SOME POINT! And I guess since there probably isn’t much of an audience for crisp tier rankings on Tumblr, it makes more sense for me to do it with films instead, especially as doing a 2019 year in film review was something I previously claimed I would do; here’s to 2020 and following through on my proposals.

I think 2019 in general was an okay year for film, with the end of the year definitely outselling the beginning. One thing to bear in mind is that a lot of films that I would’ve been able to see in 2019, I.E Little Women and Parasite, didn’t come out until 2020 in the UK so they won’t make it onto this year’s list. It’s not a snub by any means. I more fall in line with the Elsie Fisher Film Awards school of thought than the Oscars, which have yet again disregarded several incredible performances this year: Florence Pugh in Midsommar, Taron Egerton in Rocketman, Lupita Nyongo in Us, and of course, Greta Gerwig’s direction of Little Women. I’m sure there are many more but those are the first few that come to mind. Oh to be in 2017 when nominations made fractionally more sense.

This list also includes films that weren’t necessarily released this year, but that I just got around to watching; there were a couple of disappointments but also a lot of films I can’t believe it took me this long to finally watch and have definitely made their way into my favourites. My goal for this year is to get through even more of the films on my verrrry long Letterboxd watchlist, and more specifically, watch said films without going on my phone, which is a really bad habit of mine. I find it hard to sit still! Let me live!

I also want to try and put aside my prejudices about visual quality and watch more pre-2000s movies this year; it’s really bad but I never managed to get more than half an hour into Psycho, of all films, solely because I couldn’t deal with the black and white. In 2020, I am going to stop being a whiney Gen Z/cusp millenial-er and give older films the chance they deserve.

So, without further ado, here is my film tier ranking of everything I watched in 2019! If you make it til the end and have any thoughts or disagreements, let me know. I love to hear other’s opinions and get new perspectives on things and am totally open to any criticism. Happy reading:-)

God Tier

Knives Out (Rian Johnson, 2019)

Knives Out. What a film.

I feel like I waited forever to see this at the cinema. They must have started showing trailers for it in, like, August, and I had to wait til mid-November to see it. How are you gonna just dangle a film with Toni Colette and Lakeith Stanfield in my face and then make me wait 3 months? Totally unethical.

But that being said, when it finally came around and I did see it, as much as I love Toni and Lakeith, there was one stand out and it wasn’t either of them: ANA DE ARMAS. I have to admit I’d never heard of her before but she acted the shit out of a role I feel I’d ordinarily find irritating and gimmicky. Daniel Craig, whose character seemed annoying as fuck in the trailer, was actually surprisingly funny.

Stylistically, it was a very cool film and I liked the subtle commentary on class that was running throughout. Also, I thought the ending was very clever. My issue with a lot of whodunnits is that they just pick someone who doesn’t make sense for shock factor *cough, Bobby Beale in Eastenders, cough* but the shocks here were more in the details.

Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria, 2019)

There wasn’t one single moment of Hustlers I didn’t enjoy and it’s quite amazing that there wasn’t one single point in this film about strippers that I felt gratuitously sexualised women. THAT is why you fund female directors. It made the whole thing look like a calculated art form, which I think the unsexy amongst us can all agree that it is. Constance Wu was a fantastic lead, J-Lo was kind of robbed for a supporting actress nom, and Keke Palmer and Lili Reinhart were hilarious too.

Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019)

Midsommar was such an experience that it took me a good few days afterwards to decide whether I actually liked it. I saw it the day it came out because I loved Hereditary so much and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I kind of had an idea of the way it was going to go, we could all kind of guess evil cult was the route that was being taken from the trailer, but I just didn’t realise quite how weird it’d get.

The gore was great, the visuals were stunning and the character arcs were surprising and for that reason, I think this is another game changer for horror from Ari Aster. I didn’t love it like I loved Hereditary but it continues to play on my mind and 7 months later I still can’t resist a good “Things you Missed in Hereditary” or “Hereditary Themes Explained” Youtube video essay. That’s how you know a film fucked with you and that’s the ultimate goal of going into a horror for me. Put that on my headstone after I inevitably get myself into some mortally dangerous conflict because I want to “get fucked with” a little bit.

Booksmart (Olivia Wilde, 2019)

So here’s the thing with Booksmart: I was getting progressively more and more drunk throughout it so I might be a little biased when I say I loved it. That being said, worth revere seems to be a commonly held opinion so I’ll stick to my guns. Plus, movies like this, which just focus on girls living their lives, are few and far between. Why have we had to wait THIS long for the female Superbad?

IDK. But Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein and Billie Lourd proved it’s definitely a genre worth investing in so hopefully we see more lighthearted female-led coming of age comedies. One Ladybird per year isn’t enough for me.

The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018)

I included The Favourite in my 50 Films You’ve Got to Watch that I made earlier this year so I don’t have all that much to say about it that I haven’t said already. To summarise, it’s an instant classic: the cinematography, the cast, the lines, it’s all perfection.

Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino, 2018)

I also included Suspiria in my 50 Films You’ve Got to Watch list so sorry if I’m repeating myself, but I adored everything about it. If I had to sum it up in one sentence I’d say divine feminine energy, but inverted. Plus ballet. That dancing scene in the mirrored room will probably never leave my mind (if you’ve watched it, trust me, you’ll know the one I'm talking about), and if there were awards given out for creepy montages in horror, this would win all of them. It still blows my mind that Tilda Swinton played 3 characters in this film; 2 of them are so distinctly different, if anyone put two and two together without prior knowledge of this fact then I’ll blow my own head up too. This is why I got so mad when there was all that discussion around her being the new female Doctor Who and there were people asking who she was. How can you not know who Tilda fucking Swinton is!? She’s a legend!

Sorry, is the wannabe film snob in me showing?

Annihilation (Alex Garland, 2018)

Though I initially watched it because it’s branded as a horror, Annihilation ended up being a surprisingly introspective take on human nature and our self-destructive tendencies. Nothing really went the way I expected it to, even though I was constantly trying to guess that trajectory from beginning to end.

Visually, Annihilation is magnificent. Like, it’s tense, and where exactly the plot is going is shrouded in mystery, but most importantly, it’s super fucking pretty. Sure, the only thing that was mildly horrifying was the *SPOILER* end result of that bear scene but I didn’t mind too much because there was always that edge-of-your-seat possibility something like that would happen again.

Also I realised that Gina Roduriguez is really hot in this! I would just say in general but that video of her saying the n-word kind of took away shot at real world magnetism. WHY SUCH A SHITTY APOLOGY VIDEO!? WHY?!

Assassination Nation (Sam Levinson, 2018)

So I didn’t clock until I was looking up directors that Sam Levinson, Euphoria director, also directed this, and suddenly everything makes sense in the world. They both have that dreamlike, exaggerated feel that perfectly captures the emotional rollercoaster that is being a teenager, only in Assassination Nation obviously the threats are a bit more...tangible. As in its actually other people trying to kill our protagonists this time round, not just angst.

Not gonna lie, it’s not a patch on Euphoria because that show is probably the best thing I watched all year, but I did thoroughly enjoy it, even if I did feel the social commentary, despite how in your face it was, got a bit lost in translation at times. I think it’s the kind of film that, once again, would’ve felt more genuine coming from a female director, however that’s not to take away from how witty, modern, and completely relevant it still is as we move into 2020.

Sorry To Bother You (Boots Riley, 2018)

Right. WHAT THE FUCK!?

Why don’t more people talk about this film? Like it has Tessa Thompson and the world’s best earrings! Lakeith Stanfield getting more than 10 cumulative minutes of screen time! Armie Hammer being that bitch we all knew he was irl (probably)! Scathing critiques of late stage capitalism! It’s insane, in the absolute best way.

SPOILERS AHEAD: I had a mini paragraph written about the last hour of the film and the descent into pure unadulterated chaos, and how it’s like, the internet’s best kept secret, because ordinarily you lot can’t keep your mouths shut about a film or TV’s shows most crucial reveals for more than 5 minutes and THEN...My FBI agent must be feeling real cheeky because THIS tweet pops up on my Twitter timeline.

Fuck this shit, I’m out. Onto the next film. MI5 stop peeping my drafts.

Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, 2018)

I don’t want to repeat what I said about Eighth Grade in my 50 Films you Should Watch list but Elsie Fisher’s performance in this is why I wish the Oscars also had some kind of rising star award category à la the BAFTAs. Honestly, every 13/14 year old should watch this; it’s a reminder that although feeling like an outsider is by its nature quite isolating, it’s prolific enough that a 29 year old man, 10 years out of “high school”, gets it.

American Animals (Bart Layton, 2018)

My sister and I absolutely loved this film so you can image our disappointment when we turned round to our parents at the end and our enthusiasm wasn’t matched...as in, I’m pretty sure they were both asleep for a lot of it. WHICH I DON’T GET. Because to me, there wasn’t a dull moment. American Animals is what happens when a group of university age boys with the finesse of the American Vandal Turd Burglar try and apply that to an Evil Genius stye heist, part Netflix, talking head abundant documentary, part live-action film. Splicing a stylistic reenactment with interview footage of the men who really attempted to commit the crime elevated what I probably would have put in the Good Tier™ to the God Tier™; seeing the guy Evan Peters is playing alongside Evan Peters playing him, now only the remnants of the arrogance we see in the reenactment left behind, sharply reminds you of the fall from grace these boys deservedly went through. Plus Barry Keoghan from The Killing of a Sacred Deer is in it, proving that unsettlingly stiff is NOT in fact his natural state.

Gerald’s Game (Mike Flanagan, 2017)

I wish there was a shorthand way to say I wrote about this in my 50 Films You Should Watch list so I’m gonna keep it short but here we are! This was great! If The Haunting of Hill House isn’t proof enough, Gerald’s Game (not to take away any credit from Stephen King) is a reminder that Mike Flanagan is the king of subtle, niggling sensation in your stomach that something is about to go very wrong horror. I hear he and Ari Aster have a timeshare situation going on with the crown.

The Ritual (David Bruckner, 2017)

Okay, so this is the film that made me realise we should all be very scared of forests. Nope, all the documentaries into the Aokigahara Forest weren’t enough, apparently. I subjected myself to this too, as if my unfit, cold-blooded, bug-fearing, scared of the dark ass doesn’t already have enough concerns about my survival odds in the great outdoors.

Really though, setting aside, this film maintains the sense of dread throughout and keeps you guessing what’s going on until the very end. Much like The Descent, the group dynamic and characters are realistic enough that it adds to the believability of a scenario I, in principle, know would never happen to the extent that I might keep away from vast, wooded spaces for a while just in case.

Dumbo (Tim Burton, 2019)

If film Twitter came across this post and saw I’d placed Dumbo in a higher tier than If Beale Street Could Talk I can only imagine the outrage. And sure, the latter is probably a much higher quality film. But sometimes a movie, for reasons you can’t quite put your finger on, gets you right in the sweet spot, and Dumbo did that for me. Maybe it was that the CGI elephant reminded me of my cat (I know, leave me alone), maybe I was emotional that day, I don’t know, all I know is that I cried like 5 times and was smiling for the rest of it-to be fair, the exploitation of animals for our entertainment is something that is still very much going on and that was something that was playing on my mind a lot whilst I was watching it. IRL Dumbos should be free too. Dumbo rights.

The VVitch (Robert Eggers, 2016)

This film taught me that there’s nothing wrong with joining a coven of young witches and getting naked and levitating around a fire. And that’s an important life lesson. Plus it gave us the quote “wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”, which is not only so perfectly creepy and simultaneously empowering that I had to get it tattooed but also, created ASMR. I just made that last bit up obviously but Black Philip getting his own ASMR Youtube channel?

The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2006)

For me, much like The Ritual, The Descent is a perfect horror film: it’s got the ghouls but the situation the characters find themselves in is also terrifying by its own merit. The reason The Descent made it onto my 50 Films list and the Ritual didn’t is because, let’s be honest, it’s 2020 and you can get mobile signal in most places. You could probably at least make a 999 call if you got lost in a forest. If you DID get stuck in an underground cave and it collapsed in on itself, you’d be pretty fucked; the idea of it makes me shudder and I will never set foot in an underground tunnel at any point in my life for any amount of money EVER after seeing this. Also, the women in this are great and the creatures in this are genuinely quite terrifying, especially the first time you see them.

Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2003)

Ah, Chicago, the last film on the God Tier™, proving that this list is in no particular order. Because WHAT A FIM. WHY DON’T PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THIS MORE?! Like don’t get me wrong, I know it deservedly won Best Picture in 2003 but I’m talking about right now! I mean, fucking Titanic is still out here getting referenced left, right and centre and yet Chicago gets paid dust! Can you tell I’m mad and that I think Titanic is hugely overrated?! Is that maybe coming across?!

ALL the songs are bops, Catherine Zeta-Jones is hot (I saw someone on Letterboxd say that Catherine Zeta-Jones in this film was their bisexual awakening and honestly, if I hadn’t already known I was a raging bisexual, same, because I FELT things in that All That Jazz opening) and Cell Block Tango is the revenge fantasy anthem I never knew I needed. Smart, tongue in cheek, beautifully shot and makes men look like little bitches which is probably why my dad hated it but what did I expect.

Good Tier

Zombieland: Double Tap (Ruben Fleischer, 2019)

Onto the first film of the good tier, Zombieland: Double Tap definitely exceeded my expectations. I was super worried about the prospect of a sequel as I love the first one so much and assumed it would be crap. Obviously, it doesn’t match up to the original because the original WAS so original, but it was still a fun, easy, witty ride. And I was SO glad they didn’t *SPOILERS AHEAD* kill off Tallahassee at the end because I really thought that was coming and it seemed so predictable and unnecessary. Highlight was the introduction of the lookalikes at Graceland.

Judy (Rupert Goold, 2019)

So, this is the first of two consecutive rants I’m about to go on about Oscar nominations and people’s reactions online. Prepare yourself.

I’ll start with the underlying message: just because you think something else deserves the praise more, doesn’t mean the film/album/*insert whatever artistic medium you wish here* that IS getting the praise is shit.

Like people are angry that Lupita Nyongo wasn’t nominated for best actress for her performance in Us which is COMPLETELY valid as she carried that film on her back. In the same vein, people are also angry that more women of colour haven’t been nominated for best actress. Also valid; I’ve yet to see The Farewell but I’ve heard great things about Akwafina’s performance and I love her so even though I haven’t seen it, I’m gonna take the general consensus that she should’ve been nominated too. The Oscars definitely has a problem with recognising the work of POC. BUT, because of this, people are angry that Renee Zellweger has been nominated for her performance in Judy, saying that it’s typical “Oscar bait”. I agree, it is typical Oscar bait. However, a lot of the people saying this will in the same breath say (or tweet rather) that they haven’t actually SEEN Judy.

How can you possibly say that Renee Zellweger doesn’t deserve any of the praise she’s getting when you haven’t even seen the film? Don’t get me wrong, the film itself is good but not outstanding (hence its place in this tier), but you can see Renee genuinely put her heart and soul into this film; it was powerful, and it was sympathetic but it was also nuanced and subtle where they could’ve just capitalised on all the sensationalised stories of the actions of a woman clearly deeply suffering in her final years and had it be full of shouting and screaming. The Wizard of Oz has always kind of felt like home to me because of the childhood nostalgia factor and so I’ve always been interested in Judy and I think Renee captured her heart and her spirit in a way she would be deeply honoured by. Maybe the film itself doesn’t deserve the acclaim it’s getting but I think Zellweger definitely deserves the nom and I think most people who’ve actually seen it wouldn’t contest that.

Joker (Todd Philipps, 2019)

Okay so second rant. I’m sorry. I have a lot of feelings. Most of them aimed at the annoying tendency of internet users, Film Twitter™ and Letterboxd users I’m looking at you in particular, to be wildly exaggerative.

There just seems to be no nuance online. It’s not just yeah, I didn’t like the film personally and the message could be perceived in a certain way by certain individuals, it’s I HATE THIS FILM AND IT’S DANGEROUS AND THE DIRECTOR FUCKING SUCKS. I noticed this trend when La La Land came out (which if I had watched last year would certainly be in God tier for me). It’s like, if a film initially receives a lot of praise and buzz, there’s almost this wave of compensatory vehement criticism in response that’s usually disproportionate to how controversial the film actually is. People didn’t like that Joker was popular because they didn’t like Joker so suddenly it’s the worst film ever and the possibility of it getting any critical acclaim is wrong. I even saw people berating Todd Philipps for channelling Martin Scorsese as he’s the only person to ever be influenced and take direction from one of the most dominant figures in film of the 20th and 21st century. I mean, what’s wrong with that?! If it was any other director, it’d be called homage. But because everything has to be seen through this malicious lens, its copying.

I think one of the few very valid criticisms about Joker was that it further perpetuates the idea that psychotic people are dangerous, and I can totally see where they’re coming from. At the same time, we have to accept that whilst the majority of people who are psychotic aren’t a danger to anyone apart from themselves, most “dangerous” people don’t just become dangerous because they thought, fuck it, why not? A lot of people in the prison system ARE suffering with some kind of mental illness. The character’s psychosis doesn’t make him dangerous, it’s his underlying resentment and sense of entitlement that grows throughout the film that makes him dangerous, and I think a lot of people seem to miss this point. They say that the way the film ends implies Philipps is justifying the actions of the films protagonist. However, we KNOW the Joker is an unreliable narrator, he’s one of pop culture’s most infamous villains and that being said, both in film and in the real world, few villains see themselves as the villain. Joker is about why HE thinks he’s justified in doing what he does, not why he IS justified in doing what he does because he’s not, and that’s pretty clear from the moment he shoots someone in the head on live TV. Honestly, I think there’s a bit of wilful misinterpretation going on because people don’t like that film

I liked Joker. It was gritty, it was interesting, and sufficiently dark. I didn’t think it was the best film of the year but I understand why it got the praise it did. Obviously, it’s okay that people disagree and DON’T like it. But can we please get a bit more well-acquainted with the middle ground?

It: Chapter Two (Andres Muschietti, 2019)

Okay, essays over. Back to regular scheduled programming of less impassioned reviews. Though I will say I deserved better than my Letterboxd comment of “so you can just fucking roast Pennwyise to death?” getting absolutely 0 traction. One day my grand total of 5 followers, one of which is my sister, will recognise my brilliance (lol).

It’s hard to say how much I really liked this as I think my perspective of how much I did enjoy it is warped by how much I disliked the first one. Child actors really aren’t my thing and the only cast members I warmed to in the first one were Finn Wolfhard and Jack Dylan Grazer whereas the cast here were a lot more likeable, imo. Bill Hader, Jessica Chastain and James Ransone were all great, with the only let down being James Mcavoy; I love him, don’t get me wrong, but I just think he was really miscast in this role.

Another thing I enjoyed a lot more about this instalment was that due to the more episodic/anthology-like/Creepshow-esque structure with each character conquering different monsters from their past individually, the narrative felt like it had a lot more direction, and it didn’t drag as much despite it having a significantly longer runtime. I haven’t read the Stephen King novels and I don’t know much of the pacing issues are down to them so this is me coming at it from a screenwriting angle but it felt as if the climax of the first film just kept going on and on. Every time I thought it had finished there’d be another confrontation between the kids and Pennywise whereas Chapter 2 seemed to have a more definitive third act and I appreciated that.

Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher, 2019)

So, here’s one where I WILL agree with the general online consensus: if Rami Malek got nominated for playing Freddie Mercury last year and Renee got nominated for playing Judy Garland, why the fuck didn’t Taron Egerton get one for playing Elton John? Why didn’t Rocketman itself get a nomination when Judy did? Though I personally preferred Judy because I’m more interested in her story, technically and narratively Rocketman is the better film in my opinion. This was so cleverly edited and sequenced and told with such a brutal honesty on Elton John’s part (it was co-produced by his husband David Furnish and he was heavily involved in everything from the set to the script), that I can only come to the conclusion that the obligatory biopic nomination only comes when the focus of said biopic is no longer with us as a kind of honorary thing. Whilst something like Bohemian Rhapsody was much more of an easy watch (which just goes to show how glossed over Freddie Mercury’s life was in the film), the way the story was told, by the time we got to I’m Still Standing that happy ending felt so earned.

Aladdin (Guy Ritchie, 2019)

You can hate all you want, Prince Ali and Never Had a Friend Like Me are fucking bops and somehow they were even better in this incarnation of the film. I was initially hesitant about Will Smith being cast but rather than trying to impersonate Robin Williams he went his own route and it really worked. He was the highlight of the film. It was undeniably visually stunning too. Madonna’s ex did good.

Us (Jordan Peele, 2019)

Ah, I feel so conflicted when it comes to Us. Like, there were some really strong points and it’s definitely a good standalone horror movie. It’s just you can’t help but compare it to Get Out, and with that unsatisfactory exposition dump ending, I left feeling so disappointed. It seemed to me that Jordan Peele got in a bit over his head here with trying to tie such a vague social metaphor and the actual in-universe plot together, and so ended up leaving both a bit half-baked. He tried to OutPeele himself and for me, it didn’t work.

The doppelgängers were so scary as this ambiguous, vaguely threatening presence that if you are gonna give us a full blown, sit down explanation of why they exist it needs to be really bloody good. And this explanation didn’t make much sense. For example, *SPOILERS AHEAD* I imagine that the tethered just not being able to walk up the escalator into the “real world” was supposed to be some kind of metaphor for social mobility but it’s not fleshed out enough to work. In our world, there are REASONS why the idea of social mobility is flawed. In the film, it’s just like gee, if they chose to just walk up the escalator and go on this murderous rampage now, why couldn't they have decided to do it years ago back before they all lost their fucking minds? Why were they just copying the originals for all those years? HOW did they know what they were doing? See, the metaphor as I understand it is supposed to be that we depend on the oppression of others like us in order to maintain our social status, but not only is this kind of too general a statement to try and use a feature length film to make, I don’t really understand how this dynamic works within the narrative of the film. Technically, there's nothing to stop the tethered and the originals co-existing apart from the tethered deciding not to walk up the fucking escalator. We’re not talking a bourgeoisie-proletariat relationship here. The explanation of it all just being a “government project gone wrong” was too vague seeing as the plot working seemed prior to this to hinge onto something vaguely supernatural and the eventual plan of the doppelgängers seemingly had no purpose or application to the real world like the climax of Get Out did. It just left me feeling kind of like...why? Why did this all happen? When the ending and the twist was that predictable (the old Pretty Little Liars finale style twin switcheroo was blatantly obvious from the mother’s “it’s like she’s a different person” line near the beginning, let’s be real), I was expecting some final revelation that flipped my expectation on its head or at least felt helped things click into place. Instead, it seemed a bit hamfisted and like I was supposed to feel things were deeper and more significant than they actually were.

All that being said, I appreciate that if anyone other than the writer of Get Out had come out with this movie, I probably wouldn’t have these issues. Us was funny, it was fresh, and the concept of doppelgängers is something I’m so glad to see brought back into our modern pop culture database. The people are right, Lupita was incredible in this and it is a travesty that she didn’t get nominated. My sister, who was so creeped out by her vocal performance that she had her fingers in her ears every time Red spoke, still won’t let me attempt an impression of it. And that Fuck the Police sequence? Iconic.

On the Basis of Sex (Mimi Leder, 2019)

I apologise in advance for the shittiest “review” I’ll ever write, but honestly I can’t remember all too much about this film other than it being good. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I’m sorry. You’re a cool lady.

If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2019)

EURGH, THIS WAS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL FIM. The score, the shots, the rawness. I imagine it’s devastatingly real. Like, *SPOILERS AHEAD* you think there’s going to be a happy ending but there’s not. It should be disappointing but it’s an honest choice. And side note: fuck those annoying middle aged white ladies in the seats behind me and my friend who lost their shit and started giggling every time the N-word was used, JFC. I hate living in a Tory stronghold.

Cam (Daniel Goldhaber, 2018)

So, as I said, I’m a fan of the whole doppelgänger thing. It freaks me out. The point in this film where the protagonist is approaching her bedroom door whilst she watches HERSELF livestreaming from inside that same bedroom had my heart in my mouth wondering what she was going to encounter on the other side. And you see, the ending of this was a lot more ambiguous than the ending of Us, so I should’ve had less questions. Whilst I’ve seen other people saying it WAS unsatisfactory and that they felt like we were owed more of an explanation, I liked the simplicity of the answer we got and the wiggle room it leaves for our own interpretation. The way I see it, given that we were told by the fan the protagonist meets with in the motel room that *SPOILERS AHEAD* it was a case of some kind of software copying these women’s likenesses to steal their viewers and thus their profits, is that Cam is a kind of a commentary on the capitalist exploitation of women’s bodies and the demand for (and desensitisation towards) sexually violent content; we don't necessarily need to know who is behind the virtual cloning, which is terrifyingly believable given how realistic some of the deepfakes I’ve seen are, because it doesn’t matter. We're basically told money is the motive and we know the kind of lengths some people will go, and someone DID go to in Cam, to in order to make a shitload of money and that’s as true in real life as it is scary. On the other hand, if you want to believe there’s a more supernatural presence behind the events of the film, there’s enough left to the imagination that you can go down that route too. Some films are better left un-exposition dumped and this is the proof. My one criticism, is that, like many films, it would be even better if directed by a woman; I’ve seen people say that its portrayal of online sex work isn’t entirely accurate and though I can’t say with certainty that women working in this industry weren’t consulted in the first place, I imagine a female director would not only be more likely to listen to their concerns but could translate the confusion and fear that comes with being expected to makes oneself sexually desirable to get ahead in the world but then shamed and used for doing so even more viscerally. A few tweaks and it’d be God Tier.

Colette (Wash Westmoreland, 2019)

The costumes, sets, and Keira were so, so stunning. Also it was just an inspiring, beautiful story. The navigation of womanhood, so called “deviant” sexuality and self-expression against the backdrop of early 20th century Paris with a load of Edwardian era tailoring thrown in, it’s everything I could possibly want and more; 10/10 moodboard content.

The Boy (William Brent Bell, 2016)

I can’t believe this film was made in 2016, and it almost makes me move it down to mid tier based on the fact that a lot of the allowances I made for cheese factor I made on the assumption it came out earlier in the decade. BUT, that being said, I was creeped out for a good portion of this film. Most horrors I watch and I’m probably a bit too chilled (a head comes off or some witchy ass ghost screams into the camera and my only thought is some kind of judgement of the SFX), and yet I felt like watching this behind my hands. I don’t know what it is about dolls and puppets, Chucky was my childhood fear even though I never actually watched the film, but something about the uncanny valley of it all makes me just spend the whole time they’re on screen silently praying they don’t start moving or talking. So in a way, given the resolution of the film *SPOILERS AHEAD*, the premise of The Boy was actually a lot scarier to me than the reveal of what was really going on. Someone hiding in my walls? NBD. That demons are real and that they live inside creepy old dolls? Terrifying. Why does everybody I debate this with disagree!? You can't call the police on a demon! At least with a human being you can stick them with the pointy ending of something! Regardless, I enjoyed the journey and trying to work out how things would end and if there IS anybody secretly living inside my house right now, even if you are a supposedly dead murderous family member (last time I checked I didn’t have any of those so I should be all good), kindly vacate. Thanks.

Oprhan (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009)

So the fact that this film is based on a real life case makes this all the more terrifying. It was a bit campy and tacky at times but the shot of *SPOILERS AHEAD* Esther taking off her makeup in the mirror and revealing her true age will always be iconic. Plus I love Vera Farmiga, even though I did struggle to see her as anyone other than Norma Bates.

First Reformed (Paul Schrader, 2018)

A hauntingly beautiful film with a lot of room for interpretation. There were so many gorgeous shots and so much subtext, this is proper 10/10 media studies essay material.

The Invitation (Karyn Kusama, 2015)

I would say the concept and implications of this film, which don’t fully hit you til the final shots, are a lot better than the film itself. It feels very realistic though and is definitely tense.

As Above, So Below (John Erick Dowdle, 2014)

I was so stoned when I watched this that a lot of the allegory and Dante’s inferno references went straight over my head, and it just seemed absolutely balls to the wall wild. I couldn’t buy that the characters would just KEEP GOING either when things began to get terrifying, like people in horror films really out here making the most nonsensical decisions and it drives me mad. But anyway, it was definitely entertaining and there’s a lot more to it in terms of plot and mythology than most similar quality horrors and I appreciate that

Climax (Gaspar Noe, 2018)

Climax is an interesting one that I think I’ll have to watch again to judge how much I truly like it. As with Us, I know it’s a good film, but I think my expectations of what it was going to be left me slightly disappointed. See, when I read about the premise I assumed that the horror was going to come from seeing the perspective of the characters on said acid trip and that leaves so much room for any kind of terrifying visuals you want whether that be something based in realism or fucked up creatures of the imagination. Buuuuut, it wasn’t that at all; at no point does Climax take place from the first person perspective of any of the characters. Similar to Darren Aronofsky’s Mother, the horror comes from not being able to do anything but watch as everyone starts losing their minds and the situation gets increasingly more dire. It’s pure stress; the acting is so unnervingly good that you really do feel like you’re watching some unintentionally horrific incident take place. That’s not a bad thing-I like it when films make me feel something intense, whether that emotion be positive or negative. It was just a different viewing experience to the one I had precipitated.

Mid Tier

Nativity (Debbie Isitt, 2009)

I find Mr.Poppy hilarious. Does that make me a child? Probably. I’m not really one for Christmas movies but this one’s alright.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (André Øvredal, 2019)

I get that it’s based off a book so it’s not exactly like the “monsters” were a secret in the first place, but for those of us who didn’t read the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books as a kid, my main beef with this film was that they basically revealed all of said monsters in the trailer. Like how It: Chapter 2 spoiled the scene with Beverly in the old lady’s apartment but with EVERY. SINGLE. CREATURE. The only one that wasn’t was the “jangly man” and the only takeaway I have from him is the “jangly in the streets, but is he jangly in the sheets?” Letterboxd comment I read afterwards. Like the creature designs are the selling point of this film and by showing us them all before we’ve even seen it, any anticipation that would’ve built up from their reveal was kind of gone. Plus, it definitely felt like the writers were trying to ride on the hype train of “It” when they wrote this-only they made it even more childish. I mean, I know it was classed as PG-13 in the US which is maybe part of the reason it was so tame but the Woman in Black was a 12 when it was released here and it could be the bias of my 13 year old brain but I remember that being terrifying to watch in the cinema.

Also, I found it weird how *SPOILERS AHEAD* a couple of the main characters died and there didn’t really seem to be any consequences? Idk, maybe that’s because I found them all a bit one dimensional but I’ve seen others make the same criticism so I don’t think so.

Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a BAD film. It just wasn’t super good.

Charlie’s Angels (Elizabeth Banks, 2019)

I’ve never seen the 2000s Charlie’s Angels so I really don’t have anything to compare to, but I don’t think this was THAT bad. I was fairly entertained throughout and I enjoyed Naomi Scott and Kristen Stewart’s characters. My main issue was the unnecessary inclusion of Noah Centineo, and that weird ass montage at the beginning of stock video shots of girls just...doing miscellaneous things. Why, Elizabeth Banks, why!?

Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley, 2019)

In some ways, I see why Toy Story 4 was narratively necessary: co-dependency had been a running theme throughout and we needed to see Woody (I feel stupid saying this considering he’s a fucking toy but allow it) realise that he can exist independently of Andy, and that there’s more to life than pleasing somebody else. The way Toy Story 4 ended felt like a satisfying conclusion to his character arc, and as well as the animation being top tier, Forky was a hilarious addition to the cast. However, I don’t think it carried the emotional weight of the 3rd Toy Story, which I think people had accepted as the last instalment and had used to say goodbye to the franchise, and therefore the sceptic in me thinks that the obvious purpose of this addition was a cash grab. I don’t doubt that a lot of people worked incredibly hard on it-I’m just saying that the propelling force behind the film probably wasn’t “the people need to see Woody’s character growth” and that was quite apparent throughout.

Doctor Sleep (Mike Flanagan, 2019)

There were some really beautiful scenes in Doctor Sleep; the astral projection sequences in particular were magnificent and I loved Rebecca Ferguson as the villain. Stylistically, though I didn’t find out he was the director until I was writing this up, you can definitely tell it’s Mike Flanagan, and like I’ve said, he does horror very tastefully. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t all that interested in the premise and I wasn’t hugely invested in grown up Danny Torrance either. The execution was great and the return to the Overlook was brilliant, of course, but the story just wasn’t for me and nothing much sticks out as being a particularly intriguing plot point.

Mary Queen of Scots (Josie Rourke, 2019)

What to say about Mary Queen of Scots other than...yeah, it was alright. I mean, I really should’ve liked it more than I did, because these specific events were part of the Edexcel A-Level history curriculum (Can I get some Rebellion and Disorder Under the Tudors students representation up in here!?) and I usually love seeing history translated onto screen, plus it centred around Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan. It was just very...meh. I feel like there’s so much more complex a story here than was told. Both women were undoubtedly a lot more complicated than this film made them out to be and I think to reduce Mary Queen of Scots to a Mary Sue-ish heroine was a disappointing choice. Plus, if we’re gonna talk historical accuracy (which all the racists came out of their caves to discuss at the time), Mary and Elizabeth never actually met; I’m sure there was a more creative way to explore their dynamic than by forcing an interaction that never actually happened.

Apostle (Gareth Evans, 2018)

There were elements of this film I really liked; the mythology behind the cult, I.E what the townsfolk actually worshipped when you stripped away all the secrecy was pretty interesting. However, I felt it depended too much on atmosphere and not enough on plot, and I didn’t warm to any of the characters.

Searching (Aneesh Chaganty, 2018)

It’s difficult because technically, Searching is obviously an ingenious film. My issue is the way it ended, which was imo, super anti-climatic, and honestly pretty predictable in that it seemed like the writers just went out of their way *SPOILERS AHEAD* to make the culprit the person viewers would’ve ruled out by default for shock value, and then work out WHY that person was the culprit from there. I was expecting something a lot darker to be behind the protagonist’s daughter’s disappearance-irl, these situations usually are-and so maybe it’s just me being a bit of a sadist but I was disappointed by how things resolved themselves.

Deliver Us from Evil (Scott Derrickson, 2014)

So, this isn’t boring. It’s interesting to have a horror navigated through the lens of something as procedural as a police investigation. But ultimately, the acting isn’t great, there’s very few scary moments, and it’s a little cheesy. As horrors go, it’s pretty shallow-it is what it says on the tin.

Dumplin’ (Anne Fletcher, 2018)

I watched this right at the beginning of the year and I can’t remember all too much about it, but I remember not hating it? See, looking at the cast, Odeya Rush and Dove Cameron are both in it which would suggest I’d come away hating MYSELF instead but yeah...I got nothing.

Lights Out (David F.Sandberg, 2016)

The concept is very scary, the execution not so much, and the actual storyline is a little cheesy. I found myself just being like OH MY GOD, IT’S BELLA’S DAD FROM TWILIGHT! And then *SPOILERS AHEAD* getting mad that they did Charlie Swan dirty like that by killing him off in the first 10/15 minutes.

The Goldfinch (John Crowley, 2019)

So I LOVED the book of The Goldfinch. I read it after the Secret History and even though most people seem to prefer the latter, the former hit me right in the sweet spot. The length was almost one of my favourite things about it; I felt by the end that I came to know the character so well he felt like someone I knew in real life. When I heard Ansel Elgort was cast as Theo, I was really happy; I’m not necessarily a huge fan of him as an actor, I've only ever seen him in shitty teen-y dramas which I forced myself to like at the time E.G. The Fault in Our Stars and Divergent, but he looks kind of exactly how I pictured Theo looking. Almost like an Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood situation. And then honestly, the actual film came around, and I found myself much preferring the young Theo sections. I get that Theo is quite a muted character and I hate to properly slate anyone’s performance, but Ansel as him felt a bit flat. The casting in general was pretty whack; I love Nicole Kidman but she didn’t feel right as Mrs.Barbour and it seemed that they added a lot to her character to the detriment of Hobie’s character who was a much bigger part of Theo’s life in the book. Also, can we talk about Finn Wolfhard as Boris? I’m sorry, but that accent was godawful. Really bad. Boris’ accent was always supposed to be kind of ambiguous but this was just butchered Russian. Another gripe that my friend and I, who also read the book, had with the Vegas section of the film (which was otherwise probably the best part) was that they never properly explored the complexity of Boris and Theo’s relationship. Obviously I’m not saying that I want 2 minors to shoot a sex scene but it could have been referenced when they reunite as adults because the kiss on the head when they part in Vegas seemed misleadingly platonic. It was heavily implied in the book that there was some kind of love that went beyond friendship between the two and I didn’t get that in the film at all.

Ultimately, when you try and adapt a book as long as the Goldfinch, you’re always going to have some pacing issues and people complaining that things were left out or that X or Y character didn’t have enough screen time. But in ways, I think the fault here was trying to stay TOO faithful in the limited time available. They definitely could have focussed less on certain relationships and more on others, and when it comes down to it, I think we lost a lot of the grittiness of the original book for the sake of pretty visuals.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

Don’t get me wrong, this would 100% be in shit tier if it wasn’t for the last hour or so of the film and all the Manson lore which is so disappointing because I love Tarantino films and I love that era. As for the first couple of hours, I loved the vibe and I love Margot Robbie, and I think it was very respectful towards the Tate family (if anything radiated through the screen more than anything else it was Sharon Tate’s sweetness), but I just wasn’t that invested in Leo or Brad’s characters-it all just felt a bit pointless. I really like Brad Pitt and even that couldn’t really save it for me. Maybe if you took away the remaining 2 hours and 20 minutes of Leo DiCaprio making vague allusions to his own career to a girl only slightly younger than the combined age of all girlfriends past I’d enjoy it more but then I don’t think there’d be much footage left. I guess we should just be grateful that Tarantino managed to refrain from unnecessarily sprinkling the N-word into every other line of his script this time, right?

Also.

SO. MANY. FEET.

But then again, this did result in Brad publicly mocking Tarantino’s foot fetish during his speech at the SAG awards so...I’ll allow it. Sometimes kink shaming is okay. Especially when it’s this guy:

Isn’t it Romantic (Todd Strauss-Schulson, 2019)

I guess as romantic comedies go it wasn’t AWFUL because it was self-aware but still just not my cup of tea and it didn’t really make me laugh. Plus, I feel like it did just follow the plot of a conventional rom-com in the end so...what was it all for, you know?

Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier, 2016)

I think my disappointment with this film was a case of too high expectations. It wasn’t as gory as I hoped, in fact, there was very little on screen gore at all. I was just expecting something very messed up and I didn’t get that. But then again we did get Maeby from Arrested Development singing a fuck Nazis song so I guess that was a nice surprise?

Shit Tier

Birdbox (Susanne Bier, 2018)

First the disappointment of the Goldfinch, and now Birdbox (although they were chronologically the other way round but for the sake of this review, let’s just ignore that). It really is a bad year for bird films.

It’s weird because when this first came out I remember everyone hyping it up and making memes about it and stuff and then I actually watched it and dear god, it was boring. Honestly, who paid you lot to pretend you cared enough about it enough to make content? And where can I get in on this action?

I mean it didn’t start off terribly but then they killed off SARAH FUCKING PAULSON and somehow managed to make SANDRA FUCKING BULLOCK unlikeable. How does one do that? The mind baffles.

Pet Sematary (Kevin Kolsch & Dennis Widmyer, 2019)

The kid acting was bad, the leads were meh and there wasn’t one creepy moment. This should be SO MUCH MORE hard hitting than it actually was given the subject matter and it just fell completely flat. I will say, though, *SPOILERS AHEAD* that the ending was appropriately doom and gloom and even though I’ve seen lots of others say they hate it it was probably the only thing I actually liked.

The Lion King (Jon Favreau, 2019)

Seth Rogen and Billie Eichner were the only good things about this which is sad because I fucking love Donald Glover and I was so excited when he was cast as Simba. Like, it was pretty but empty and unnecessary and I’m not one of these people who think CGI remakes always have to be this way-I loved Dumbo and I liked the live-action Jungle Book too! I just think the people who made this cared too much about good CGI and realism and less about heart. There was no personality whatsoever and it’s such a waste when you think about the fact that they had Donald and Beyonce on board.

Red Sparrow (Francis Lawrence, 2018)

Eurgh, I hated this. I think Jennifer Lawrence is stunning and I usually love her films but every shot of her in this felt so male-gaze oriented, even the ones which were sexually violent, which I found to be completely unnecessary in the first place. At times it felt almost torture-porn-y which was not what I expected at all seeing as the marketing made it seem like some kind of female empowerment movie.

It Comes at Night (Trey Edward Shults, 2017)

I literally can’t remember fucking anything from this film. Clearly there is a very, very fine line between atmospheric and boring.

Warm Bodies (Jonathan Levine, 2013)

Maybe it’s because I watched this about 6 years too late and the whole human-girl-falls-in-love-with-supernatural-creature hype train has long since left the station but I couldn’t even finish it. Cutesy necrophilia ain’t for me, sorry Nicholas Hoult. Still love ya. You’ll always be Tony Stonem to me xoxo

Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood, 2005)

I’m pretty sure this movie won a lot of awards so I’m sure this is a very unpopular opinion but the way this film ended was so...depressing. SO depressing. Did it have to be THAT depressing? The Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode outsold.

This is the range Oscar winning actress Hilary Swank wishes she had.

Would You Rather (David Guy Levy, 2013)

Started off well but became cheesy and predictable as it went on. The acting wasn’t great either plus there was another unnecessary attempted rape scene here too.

Christmas with the Kranks (Joe Roth, 2004)

So I watched this movie in the run up to Christmas because my best friend and her mum were referencing it like it was this cult classic (which I guess for some reason it is?) and I’m sorry to her and her mum but what the hell is this shit?! It’s not even so bad it’s good. It’s just bad.

The plot, the characters, EVERYTHING, it’s ridiculous on every level. I wasn’t into it enough to suspend my disbelief that anyone’s neighbours would actually care THAT much that they weren’t celebrating Christmas. Go on your damn cruise, take me with you whilst you're at it, ease my seasonal depression! I wouldn’t mind so much if it was funny or if the protagonists were likeable but it wasn’t and they’re not. Nobody’s actions made any sense. It didn’t put me in the Christmas spirit at all it just made me angry that Jamie Lee Curtis’ agent made her do this shit. She’s a scream queen goddess and she deserves better.

ANYWAY.

I’m now realising that I should have started on shit tier and worked my way up to god tier because now this post has ended on the rather sour note of me getting worked up over Christmas with the Kranks, lol. As always, these are just my opinions and I love to hear other people’s; when it comes to something like this, it’s all a matter of preference and there really isn’t a right or wrong answer, so I’m open to discussion!

With the Oscars less than a week away now I rushed a little to get this out on time, so apologies in advance if anything doesn’t make any sense or there’s any typos, I will look back over it at some point over the next couple of days to check.

But if you read to the end thank you! And stay tuned for my overview of Paris Haute Couture Week S/S 2020 if that’s something you’re interested in as that will most likely be next post!

Lauren x

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violetsystems · 5 years

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#personal

When people wonder how long I’ve spent being ignored down here like everybody else it’s nothing compared to how long I’ve held the same job. Truly one of the things I’ve been most successful with in proving consistency has been my work ethic. It helps that it returns financial compensation and benefits not that any of that impresses anyone these days. I say that work is work a lot and leave it at that. It is important to note I work in an extremely liberal environment. I don’t mind being inclusive in fact I think it’s more rewarding in the long run. You expect that respecting people’s right to be will create an atmosphere that encourages you to do the same. This is the Utopian vision of liberal America that always has it’s heart in the right place but fumbles upon execution. Mainly because accepting people in America seems to be largely an egocentric experience. We the people. Wait who are we all again really? It’s true I don’t really feel much in line with extreme politics on either side these days. I spent years soul searching after making dance music on how to do something more important. I volunteered for a Korean American Festival for three years back in 2011 through 2013. That imploded in such a Tarantino-esque way like everything else in my life. People come together and power struggles emerge out of the vacuum. Around 2013 I worked with a collective of mostly women from my school in a project called Collective Cleaners. It was a project about cleaning and the value of human labor. I learned how to weave rags from old bedsheets. We did a year long show at Jane Addams Hull House at UIC. I could go on and on right. But it seems like I’m telling a joke about my life with no actual punchline. Like I’m mockumentary in the flesh. Here I am still out here ambiguous proving myself to some phantom army. And here I am still not good enough for America staring it in the face. After all this my life is still a fucking joke to people in the worst and most hurtful way. It becomes exhausting to remind people you have acted on solutions to these modern problems. Nobody cares about me and what I do about it year after year. Trust me I get that part by now. That’s what it seemed like for awhile. And then I had the painful realization that the work never stops. And it seems like I’m all alone doing all the work. To be truthful a lot of the work and expectations follow me around after I leave my day job. On my lunch break I had to break up a fight between a white christian woman and a fake monk on Michigan before it happened. The woman came running down the street making a sign of the cross with her fingers. I stepped in front of her and calmly asked her what the fuck she was doing. She ran away in opposite direction. Where’s my comic book Marvel?

For all the things I’ve done I’m still just as mistrusted and questionable in the eyes of the social elite. I’m never quite good enough. Never quite valid enough to prove I’m just as just viable as a closet misogynist with a six figure salary. I’ve been questionable for years only to realize that nobody has any answers for me on how to be otherwise without being me. Other than me. And so in the end only I really know how successful this has all been. And only I know when it’s appropriate to stay the course or give up entirely. I haven’t given up. That’s self confidence talking. And sometimes you have to lead yourself forward towards some sort of progress through the hazy chaos. I spent an entire year answering political calls and surveys out of guilt. Mostly due to what I would hear from my peers about the intrinsic value of being politically aware and woke in the arts. When it comes to American politics I do participate at bare minimum in voting. One robocall asked my political leanings. I said left. “So I’ll mark you down as progressive.” I didn’t know how I felt about it at the time. Progressive in Illinois is a strange beast. We elected a billionaire for Governor and a lawyer for Mayor. At surface level that sounds horrible and I guess the more you dig into Chicago and Illinois politics you’d find the same shit. You need money in America to have a say in politics regardless of how many free speech arguments you win on the Internet. You can of course vote and it would be remiss to say I haven’t seen progress in that. As of January we have recreational Marijuana and abortion legal across the state. I have seen the drug war up close and personal. It sounds like I’m a vice news reporter. I’ve probably nudged up against them too in the field but they pretend I don’t exist. Maybe that’s a parable of the drug war and the media industrial complex. Maybe shit was lame. All I know is through a series of miracles in the democratic process smoking weed in Chicago isn’t as dangerous to your personal freedom as it used to be. Making friends in public still is. Welcome to snitchville. Whereas New York is up close but never personal Chicago is your best friend and your arch enemy at the same time. Progressive politics signifies that things move on, evolve and change. I’ve read enough news feeds to understand the Governor made whatever possible by crossing the aisles. Which can be read as compromise. That’s government. I’m a private citizen in America. Or so one would think. There’s endless commentary about how people like me don’t do enough. Americans love to talk all day about privacy and talk can be cheap. Facing the realities of a growing surveillance state that likes to masquerade as the land of the free is troubling. So can facing the reality your favorite punk rock festival is using public space for profit in under served neighborhoods. I’m more concerned about white dad rock masquerading as punk. But insecure men would rather lash out at the me too movement than rock the boat. You pick your battles right? Generally when I’ve been the one to stand up to things it’s been about not moving backwards in terms of progressive beliefs. I believe in a woman’s right to choose. I got targeted on the street all summer because of it by Christians who thought it was ok to bring it to my face. I didn’t get a medal and I sure as fuck didn’t really get a pat on the back. I still have my secret support systems but I don’t have the luxury any more of hiding from who I am and what I believe. I often stand by myself and what I believe and suffer for it. Or worse it gets hijacked, misunderstood, and misrepresented by someone’s interpretation of what I’m trying to say. And I sit here every Saturday morning wondering if I’ve made any progress in being happy at all.

After failing so much in everything you get a little tired of falling for the same old tricks. The personal is the most political you can be and I have years of resistance to draw from. Nobody ever wants me to be me even after all the passionate posts on the internet about what I believe. It goes nowhere. There are people who do understand and people I trust. But the reality in America is that is few and far between in public space. The propaganda that we’re all free is largely based on some huge stipulations. Money is one of them. I work for a non profit. You can do the math. It feels like everything that the Left wanted me to be based on critique is largely ignored unless I have my wallet out. And even then I’ve been happier being less liberal with my money in places where it isn’t respected. I guess I could run away to Hong Kong and start over. The irony of that is pretty funny right now. I haven’t talked to that side of the family in a while since I’ve been off Facebook. I haven’t left the country since I came back from China, Korea and Japan by myself since the first summit between Moon Jae-in and the other guy. I don’t know that I feel very safe leaving the country. I don’t feel very safe leaving my house these days.�� So do I shrivel up and waste away hoping somebody will save me. What have I done to deserve all this I’m not sure. I’ve spent over three years clocking in hundreds of miles running around desolate and abandoned areas of Chicago. What am I really afraid of at this point? Dying alone and forgotten? I feel dead inside already every day. I have no hope any of this will change no matter how much we sit and argue about it. Nobody does anything. Nobody is out there with me other than the people close to my heart. Nobody invites me to a special club other than me at my kitchen table on a Saturday morning. For all the good I’ve done I’m still the first person to scapegoat as ‘problematic’ after all these years. And I can’t even profit off it on the internet? That’s a joke. If listening to all these criticisms and taking them to heart got me where I am why do we still pay so much attention to Dave Chapelle’s career and for profit opinion? I’m invisible. Just like all the victims out there who are invalidated when somebody says they’re over reacting to sexual abuse and harassment. I think America has enough problems that nobody wants to confront without us having an opinion about any other country’s sovereign dirty laundry. And this is where I think we can all learn a little something about progress. I got to where I am by believing in myself and resisting people’s judgements of who I am. I got there by challenging my own perspective and growing into my own by putting my ideas into practice. It hasn’t been easy. It has been largely thankless and a complete mind fuck. But I haven’t been alone as much as it seems. People use so many words and get nowhere. And then people learn how to communicate without ever opening their mouth. People can say they love you all day long. I’m always going to be out here showing you just how much it means to me regardless of who sees it and how they feel about it. In that I err on the side of consistency. If that makes me a loser I’m happy with the results. <3 Tim

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jakejamesjournalism · 5 years

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a list: the best posse cuts in hip-hip over the last 10 years.

Highlighting some of the best group efforts in rap. To qualify, the song must have been released after July of 2009 and feature at least 4 people. There are some incredible tracks with 3 rappers that had to be omitted...

10. Slippery- Migos ft Gucci Mane

It felt right that the list of best posse cuts started with raps premier posse. Migos, the most charismatic and star powered rap group this half of the decade shows why on Slippery, with the help of a rejuvenated Gucci Mane. Like all their best tracks, Quavo immediately sets the tone with his great ear for melody and unpredictable cadence. Offset seamlessly takes it from there making hilarious brags about his girl looking like a wildebeest before going into triple time about the usual suspects: Patek Phillipe, models, full throttles, and Gucci’d up collars. Takeoff ends the song sounding possessed after Gucci gives one of the most patient and introspective verses of his life. When it comes to posse cut trap rap, Slippery has all you’ve ever wanted in abundance.

9. All the Way Up (Remix)- Fat Joe, Jay Z, Remy Ma, French Montana & Infared

I’d venture to say this song got more mainstream airplay than any other track on this list. Released late May of 2016, this siren glaring club ready banger was synonymous with the summer of 2016. The song has more than most summer hits that come and go. Show-stopping verses from both Jay Z and Remy Ma make this remix a truly memorable affair. Jay Z understood the moment, realizing the magnitude of publicly addressing Lemonade on record for the first time. He brilliantly deflects the scathing aspects of the record and brushes it off as just another example of him getting money. His homage to Prince is among the most emotionally resonant rap bars he’s conjured up in years…all the more so since Jay actually owns the Prince catalog. I would love to see Jay relegate himself to an Andre 3000 type of role going forward, especially after he cemented his legacy with the late career gem 4:44. The second half of the song belongs to Remy Ma, who makes you feel every syllable in a verse so raw and emphatic you can’t help but feel all the rage spending “7 winters and 6 summers” on vacation can build up. South Bronx legend Fat Joe’s verse gives you a laugh and French relegated to the bridge is the perfect amount of him on this radio posse cut that offers far more than most in its class.

8. Big Beast- Killer Mike, Bun B, T.I & Trouble

There isn’t a track #1 on any hip-hop record in recent memory that just set the tone for what’s to come quite like ‘Big Beast.’ “Hardcore G-Shit! Homie I don’t play around!” A call to arms that is just the beginning. Listening at the time primarily out of my love for Definitive Jux. The track, produced entirely by El-P drew me in, especially the tempo flip after Trouble’s futuristic bridge. Futuristic or not, the song is a vivid portrait of street life in Atlanta. Full of Bun B’s wise man advice “Don’t leave till your ass get grown” and T.I’s full-bodied imagery, “A record full of felonies, searching for a better me/ But choppers go off in my hood like Iraq, Cuba, Tel Aviv.” For five minutes you inhabit that ATL street corner.

Killer Mike makes it clear, in order to make it in the streets of Atlanta; one must be a Big Beast. The socially conscious rap anthem served as an unforgettable reintroduction into Killer Mike, someone I’ll admit, I always associated with as an inferior extension of Outkast and the Goodie Mob. Here Michael Render demands to be heard. A singular vision with the power to resonate in an underground rap scene that happened to be dying for his perspective. With Big Beast, the El-P and Killer Mike creative flood gates officially opened. Lucky for us.

7. Really Doe- Danny Brown ft. Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul & Earl Sweatshirt

Like all great posse tracks, the best verse shouldn’t be easy to agree on. The down played modest hook provided by Kendrick Lamar does a good job bridging what’s most important on the track. The verses. Every verse could be considered the best. A hilarious manic Danny Brown who is “rolling up with them vegetables.” Ab-Soul’s sixteen bars playfully bend his patent hardcore bars with socioeconomic realities, a verse that exemplifies all that’s ever made him a compelling emcee. Kendrick does his thing as per usual and Earl Sweatshirt doesn’t. In my favorite verse of the song, Earl ditches his cryptic and triple entendre tendencies for a more straight forward take a bat to your head approach. Aggressively honest and devoid of his usual wordplay techniques, Earl ponders “I’m at your house like, ‘Why you got your couch on my Chucks?’ Motherfucker.” The comic relief is there. Really Doe is lyrical labyrinth designated for the purist of rap fans. Four world class emcees each with a different flow, each on top of their game. Enjoy.

6. Move that Dope- Future ft. Pusha T, Pharrell Williams & Casino

Future’s creative 360 from emo auto-tuned heart throb to drugged up nihilist was complete here. His split from Ciara turned his heart cold and drove him into various chemical comfort zones. Chemical zones that acted as his muse, similar to Pusha T, who finds himself right at home on a track like this. He delivers some of the most expressive drug rap bars of the song, totally in tune with the general concept. Someone who is a stranger to the general concept of “moving dope” is Pharrell. Such songs aren’t usually up his alley, but Pharrell rapping on anything is usually a gift, and here is no exception. His personal alienation from dope moving proves to be totally irrelevant as he spends time in the cosmos “frequency: high, like a spaceship” and bringing to life his personal idiosyncrasies “The Gandalf hat and the weird ass clothes, that’s Commes des Garcon and the Buffalo.” Over menacing production from Mike-Will-Made-It, Future rings in his new sound and mantra with a group of A-list friends, one familiar with moving dope, the other familiar with constant reinvention. Here, Future handles the scales beautifully.

5. Zip That Chop That- Black Hippy

Revisiting ‘Zip that Chop That’ makes me once again yearn for the Black Hippy album that was always promised but never came. This overlooked early career gem was released in 2010, and provided a young white kid with his very first Kendrick Lamar exposure. Before Section.80 and Setbacks, ‘Zip That Chop That’ was all I knew. What’s amazing about Black Hippy is how easily they fall into their respected roles. Jay Rock comes on strong as the deep voice of reason, having the rest of the crews back no matter what Compton issue may erupt. Ab-Soul acts as the groups source of comic relief, while Schoolboy Q acts as the vice, the devil on the other shoulder. And then there’s a young Kendrick… his commentary on the plight of black Compton youth not yet legendary. Excelling in the tracks latter third, it takes three listens to realize Kendrick is the best rapper on the song. It’s no surprise success has came to the rap collective individually, but Zip That reminds us all some of their best material comes from them working together.

4. Oldie- Odd Future

The most influential group to any millennial ‘Left Brain’ hip hop listeners. After Bastard I wrote off Tyler as a creative but drama seeking iconoclast, I didn’t give much else released by the collective an ear. It wasn’t until Frank Ocean started to release music did I think to revisit odd future’s discography in a different light. Oldie is a song that makes me glad I revisited. Who is rapping is ultimately irrelevant, the chemistry between the worst rappers of the group and those who could be considered geniuses is uncanny. It creates a universal feeling of friendship and community that transcends skill level. This was taking putting your friends on to a whole new level. The talent lies in Tyler, Frank, and Earl, but for a long time the other members of the collective had roles inside the collective that held immense value to those who actually had talent. Tyler, Frank and Earl fed off the group, all of its flaws, for better or worse. Seeing how unwavering and passionate their belief is in their own vision, it’s clear that Odd Future was a talent incubator that ended up cultivating three of the most influential artists of the modern-day era.

3. Mercy- Kanye West, Pusha T, Big Sean & 2 Chainz

Turning the posse cut into high performance art was something Kanye spent a lot of the decade mastering. Quite frankly, from the G.O.O.D Friday roll-outs to the standout tracks on Cruel Summer to Ultralight Beam, this entire list could’ve been comprised of Kanye orchestrated posse cuts. Excluding Ultralight Beam, which I didn’t find qualifying enough to be featured on this list, Mercy is the most meticulously curated posse cut Kanye released. The lead single on a project Kanye wanted to use to emphasize the depth of his label, Mercy does exactly that. He put Pusha T and Big Sean in a position to spend the summer all over the radio, threw down a solid verse himself after an understated beat switch, all leading to the breakout performance of 2 Chainz, who’s rap career took off to stratospheric heights after his show stopping verse on Mercy. Kanye succeeded in putting all his boys on without compromising the artistry in the slightest bit. Most posse cuts will sacrifice a bit of innovation in order to focus more on the lyrics. An old school approach to keeping posse cuts and the spirit of rap as competition alive. Once again, Kanye refuses to play by those rules. Mercy is high performance art, lyrical rap, pitch-black club banger, and total team flex all in one.

2. 1 Train- Asap Rocky ft Kendrick Lamar, Joey Bada$$, Yelawolf, Danny Brown, Action Bronson & Big K.R.I.T

The sound of ‘1 Train’ actually sounds like a train ride. The production for this timeless epic rap track fits the narrative perfectly. The track provides a transient urban feeling mixed with unpredictable DJ premier like scratches and gritty lo-fi drums. It’s a beautiful canvas for hook-less rap music. It never tires, and neither do the emcees. Every rapper featured on this track has something relevant to say from Danny Brown’s hilarious “Weed a different color like a hood rat bra and panties” observation or Action Bronson “selling Susan Sarandon.” Asap’s impressive “Bag made of Goyard, cheffin’ like I’m Boyar-Dee, probably selling D in your local courtyard” line is an emphatic change of cadence. Big K.R.I.T declares himself a true artist on the songs final line and after delivering what could arguably be the tracks strongest verse, a true artist sounds like an understatement. Everyone rapping punches above their weight. The ULTIMATE posse cut.

1. Forever- Drake ft Kanye West, Lil Wayne & Eminem

Released ten years ago in August, Forever did a great job living up to its namesake. From the Lebron starring music video to Drakes hook, Forever basically predicted the future. Three weeks later on another platinum record Lil Wayne raps “We gon’ be alright if we put Drake on every hook.” That era of hip hop officially started on this track. Finding himself on a track with three legends who all decided to bring above average verses, Drake holds his own by coming up with the first of a million ubiquitous hooks. His combination of rap skill, hook making and singing proved to be a tool set big enough to hang with the greats, even when they themselves brought their A-games. It also opened the door to the possibility that Drake himself could be a great one day. Personally, I think it still remains to be seen, but the hooks are still catchy, and the numbers don’t lie.

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jakejames09 · 5 years

Text

Raps Best Posse Cuts of the last 10 Years.

10. Slippery- Migos ft Gucci Mane

9. All the Way Up (Remix)- Fat Joe, Jay Z, Remy Ma, French Montana & Infared

8. Big Beast- Killer Mike, Bun B, T.I & Trouble

7. Really Doe- Danny Brown ft. Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul & Earl Sweatshirt

6. Move that Dope- Future ft. Pusha T, Pharrell Williams & Casino

5. Zip That Chop That- Black Hippy

Revisiting ‘Zip that Chop That’ makes me once again yearn for the Black Hippy album that was always promised but never came. This overlooked early career gem was released in 2010, and provided a young white kid with his very first Kendrick Lamar exposure. Before Section.80 and Setbacks, ‘Zip That Chop That’ was all I knew. What’s amazing about Black Hippy is how easily they fall into their respected roles. Jay Rock comes on strong as the deep voice of reason, having the rest of the crews back no matter what Compton issue may erupt. Ab-Soul acts as the groups source of comic relief, while Schoolboy Q acts as the vice, the devil on the other shoulder. And then there’s a young Kendrick... his commentary on the plight of black Compton youth not yet legendary. Excelling in the tracks latter third, it takes three listens to realize Kendrick is the best rapper on the song. It’s no surprise success has came to the rap collective individually, but Zip That reminds us all some of their best material comes from them working together.

4. Oldie- Odd Future

3. Mercy- Kanye West, Pusha T, Big Sean & 2 Chainz

2. 1 Train- Asap Rocky ft Kendrick Lamar, Joey Bada$$, Yelawolf, Danny Brown, Action Bronson & Big K.R.I.T

1. Forever- Drake ft Kanye West, Lil Wayne & Eminem

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ramrodd · 5 years

Link

COMMENTARY:

Valerie Jarrett's economic and business model is, like Ray Dalio's, crap. They are both celebrations of the victory of the Tory Socials and class warfare of Reaganomics. For all intents and purposes, the only difference between Valerie Jarrett's, as a proxy for the DLC, and Mick Mulvaney, as the Poster Boy for the GOP Deep State/vast right-wing conspiracy, is that Valerie Jarrett embraces, reluctantly, Ayn Rand's definition of “Altruism” while Mick Mulvaney celebrates the opposite side of the same coin, Ayn Rand's definition of “Selfishness” as explicated by Rand in her essay “The Virtue of Selfishness”. Supply-side economics is an example of the post-modern dialectic deconstruction that has dominated the common wisdom in the American academe and political arena since the SDS occupied Columbia and replaced the tradition philosophy of dialogue with the dialectic of Trotsky's insurgency model of the SDS's core technology.

As a mechanism for the forensic inquiries of process theology, the dialectic has been employed, more or less systematically since the metaphysics of the Mediterranean established Earth, Air, Fire and Water as the essential components of existence. This particular model is an example of a closed quadrant that everybody uses in various ways for analysis, action planning and implementation, such as the Keirsey Temperaments or the cognitive functions of the ego, Sensing, iNtuition, Thinking, Feeling. But forensics is necessarily measuring a static, if not moribund, phenomena. The dialectic is designed to cut the subject into pieces so we can see how it fits together when it's working. An example is Supply-side economics. Supply-Demand is an economic dynamic, the yinyan of the economics of Jesus Adam Smith explicates in Wealth of Nations. In the classroom, you can separate the yin from the yan employing the dialectic, yin-side Zen and yan-Side Toa, and pretending you can choose between one or the other and discard the rejected side of the dynamic successfully.

It's a very 19th Century conceit that persists in the concept of Intellectual Will Power that Nietzsche distilled for a breathless age of the Robber Baron and Imperialism that brought us Soviet Marxism and Supply-Side economics, which are the same thing. Both are ideologies based on interrupting the synthesis that restores the original dynamic. Supply-Demand is a paradox, but the dialectic treats it as contradiction as opposed to complimentary and forces a choice between the horns of the dilemma and then tries to make that idea work as cultural transformation. The 19th Amendment is an object lesson in the fallacy of the fascist construct and Valerie Jarrett's business/economic model, as a proxy for the DLC, is a fascist construct that is the basis for liberal policy while Mick Mulvaney's business/economic model, as a proxy for the GOP Deep State/vast right-wing conspiracy is the exactly same fascist construct and they both agree on the Virtue of Selfishness.

Valerie Jarrett and Barack Obama are both opposed to the Green New Deal because their professional model is intuitively aligned with the zero-sum, closed system, gold-based, laissez-faire components of Supply-side economics and, as Bill Clinton demonstrated, the dialectic is perfect for splitting the difference with Newt Gingrigh and he was in an entirely different universe from the people who came to town with Gingrich and the Contract with America. And Obama and his Chicago Mafia, whose dominant academic voice is the University of Chicago, which was the home of the Fascist academe in America before the Harvard Business School was founded. This is what Phaedrus runs into in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It seems to be a mid-west thing: The Port Huron Statement, as a fascist manifesto, is an exercise in a similar impulse to an over-investment in the comfort of ideological structures.

Which is why they are opposed to the Green New Deal, aside from the challenge AOC represents to the politics of the Oliver Stone version of Vietnam: they don't understand their own economic/business models, because, if they did, they would recognize that their commitment to Supply-side economics is why Duck Ass Don is POTUS. Fascism is a substitute for critical thinking for people too stupid or morally challenged to employ Philosophy, Mick Mulvaney being the Poster Boy du Jour for the Tory Socialism and class warfare of Reaganomics. The Democratic Socialism of the Green New Deal is how policy was designed from 1933 until 1981. This superior legislative design has been replaced by the Tory Socialism of Reaganomics and vicious vermin like Mick Mulvaney have included a huge dollop of class warfare arising out of their congenital and cultural white supremacy.

And Valerie Jarrett and Barack Obama, as proxies for the DLC, prefer to double-down on the Tory Socialism of Mick Mulvaney than restore the progressive shit that put a man on the moon and invested in what has become the internet, the Green New Deal.

And her commitment to the predatory business model of Lyft isn't any comfort what-so-ever.

Just for the record, Gov. Jay Inslee is the only elected public official already engaged in the Green New Deal. As POTUS, he would hit the ground running with the 117th Congress, which from the perspective of an Eisenhower-Lugar Republican, would be a good thing. Democrats are not the problem but, at the moment, the DLC is not part of the solution..

#transformingamericafirst

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musicgoon · 6 years

Text

Recommended Reading

Providing A Freshly Curated, Weekly Link List on Christianity & Culture.

Find my weekly recommended reading with the RR tag. Dedicated link posts with personal commentary can be found through the link tag. Real-time news and article sharing happens on Twitter and my Facebook page.

I love seeing new things on the Internet and reading and your comments, so please keep in touch. And to get all of my articles, exclusive insight, and more from my many projects, subscribe to my newsletter.

In a recent partnership, on Fridays I plan to contribute a curated link column specifically for SOLA Network readers. I hope to highlight articles related to Asian American issues and blog posts written by Asian American authors. You can read my first roundup from last Friday on their website.

Christianity

Make ‘Christian’ Engagement with the Arts More . . . Christian

Discipling Kids Is a Long Game of Small Interactions

Sexual Abuse in Student Ministry

Why Your Sermon Needs More Tension—Especially in the Intro

Never Forget: You Need What Your Kids Need

What Advice Would You Give Newly Married John Piper?

Murder By Any Other Name: Introducing Fourth-Term Abortion

How to Teach Children to Deal with Bullying

Intimacy with Christ Is for Men and Women

How Your Mind Fuels Your Joy: Q&A on the Life of the Mind

Glenn Harrington: Be Truthful, Not Original

God Will Provide the Ability You Need

Girl, Follow Jesus

9 Exceptional Works of Worship Architecture in the United States

4 Ways Writing Helps Me as a Pastor

Faithful Parenting Is Successful Parenting

Church: There Is Something Wrong If We Are Not Reminded Of Our Mortality And Jesus Resurrection

The Benefits of Honoring Singleness

How To Discipline a Pastor

God Set His Sermons on Fire: Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899–1981)

How Not to Be Desperate

Ask Ligonier with Stephen Nichols

Jonathan Edwards and His Support of Slavery: A Lament

Russell Moore on Encouragement for Parents

7 Questions For Meaningful Conversation With Believers

Where Are All the Single Pastors?

What Is Baptism?

How to Fill Roles in Your Ministry Team

Melodies of Sin and Salvation: Why Modern Worship Music Needs a More Holistic View of Salvation

One-on-One with Russell Jeung on Emerging Adults in the Church

Cheapening the Western Musical Tradition: Some Thoughts Inspired by Theodore Gioia and Andy Crouch

Four Ways to Fight Sexual Sin

What Millennials Really Think About Evangelism

The Value of Praying Parents: A Teen’s Perspective

Don’t Fall for This Misconception about Singleness

The Missing Relationship in the Church

Real Men Read their Bibles

He Sold All His Pearls for One

Reflections on Preaching Christ from the Old Testament

Expository Preaching and Christo-Promise

Christotelic Preaching: A Plea for Hermeneutical Integrity and Missional Passion

Editorial: Preaching the Glory of Christ from a “Whole Bible”

How Do We Explain Talking Donkeys and Burning Bushes?

Sam Allberry on Myths About Singleness

How to Be More Public with Your Faith

Honoring God in the Pulpit

Jesus, God, a.k.a., the Name

5 Reasons We Don’t Disciple

Episode 77: On Living Close to your Church

Go to church — even when you don’t feel like it

13 Glorious Truths About Who We Are in Christ

Living Blessedly Unto God: Why Every Believer Needs Systematic Theology

Culture

Lilly Singh Conquered YouTube -- Now She's Taking On Hollywood

The Japanese House: Good at Falling

Jeremy Lin on Adjusting to Toronto, D-League Experiences, and Kobe Bryant’s Disrespect

The colorful design trend aiming to soothe these anxious times

VOTD: See the Marvel Cinematic Universe Without Visual Effects

"Honoring the sacrifices they made for our nation is long overdue."

How Jack White’s Love for the Number Three Shows Up in Various Aesthetic and Musical Aspects of His Career

Weezer Joins Jimmy Fallon and The Roots for a Classroom Instruments Cover of a-ha’s ‘Take On Me’

Carly Rae Jepsen Talks With Zane Lowe

RIAA Release Annual Report for 2018

Why Teachers Need Plot, Emotion and Story

Two ASB seniors removed from office

18 Essential Japanese Restaurants to Try in the South Bay

The Music Teacher Who Travels the World for Free As a Mystery Shopper

Hayley Williams Joins Kacey Musgraves on Stage

Steve Carell pops out of a box, scares the ever-loving shit out of Jenna Fischer

Young People Left Behind in China’s Snowbound Rust Belt

Opinion: Anti Social Social Club’s soaring popularity

Empowered by #MeToo, a new generation fights sexual abuse in South Korea's schools

Exclusive: Disney+ Marvel Shows Will Be Set in the Past, Present and Future of the MCU; Will Tackle A Variety of Genres

LeBron and Co. Can’t Get Into Playoff Mode—but Neither Can Anyone Else

Weezer Is Still Making This Difficult for Themselves

Is the podcast hosting business ready for a shakeup? (You can credit/blame data-hungry advertisers)

An Amusing Animation About Martin Luther the Rebel

VOTD: How Did Popcorn Become the Staple Movie Theater Snack?

The concerns and challenges of being a U.S. teen: What the data show

Opinion: The arts are just as important as sports

#rr #christianity #culture #link #news

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heidireiss-blog · 6 years

Text

Memes, GIFs and Emojis

This week’s readings seamlessly tied together the rhetoric surround Memes, Gifs, and Emojis. All modern vehicles for discussion that circulate popular media, these three mediums of visual communication individually play unique roles in shaping internet or messaging culture. In his article “It’s Supposed to Look Like Shit: The Internet Ugly Aesthetic”, Nick Douglas notes that there is an evident ugly aesthetic in memetic culture that is a product of the speed and lack of gatekeeper within the system in which memes circulate. An example of an Ugly Meme is seen in the memes below (Photo #1 and #2) of the Moth Meme trend. The main humor is in the fact that moths are obsessed with lamps because of their attraction to the light. A universal understanding has been “memeified” and injected into existing ugly meme formats. As you can see from the form, the pictures of the people in bed and in the car are probably off the internet and a low quality picture of a moth is copied on one of the faces. It is an inherently easy production of a meme and allows for quick iterations that build an internet trend. This is an example of Douglas’s point that “Specific sites will start memes but mostly spread them to a wider population for further iteration” (Douglas, 2014). Meme culture has democratized participation, allowing for anyone to be a creator to innocently parody, critically satirize, and celebrate the authenticity of ugly. Douglas uses the trends of Rage Comics, Shitty Watercolour, The Shitty Network, Nailed it, Bazinga Comics, and Snapchat to explain how memetic culture is a rebellion from the New Aesthetic of refined, clean pixelated art. The analysis of memes in this article describe how memes reflect the culture of the platforms they are represented on. This point is illustrated in this article which presents the perspectives of millennials on how meme culture is tied to political opinion. One high school student quoted in the article noted, “"I love the way memes can brilliantly explain a huge political issue in a simple way” (Myles cited in Ballantyne, 2017). This ties to Douglas’s argument that public opinion is represented more effectively through Internet Ugly rather than perfect execution. Internet Ugly is simple and available to quickly created iterations but carry significant meaning for the participants, both creators and viewers.

Photo #1 and #2 : Source

Due to a combination of the features, constraints, and affordances, GIFs are also a key component of digital communication as they add a feeling or expression that is lost in simple text communication. In the article “Never Gonna GIF You Up: Analyzing the Cultural Significance of the Animated GIF”, Miltner and Highfield explain how it through “the performance of affect and the demonstration of cultural knowledge” that these isolated snippets of larger texts can be understood within the contexts of society (Miltner & Highfield, 2017). The visuals are also polysemic, offering different meanings and understandings to various audiences. Offering an interesting comparison to the political perspective on memes, Miltner and Highfield similarly indicate how GIF’s participate in political commentary. An analysis of GIF’s from the 2016 presidential campaigns provide insight in how moving, repetitive visuals of politicians can be understood within the political contexts and outside of them but all the while holding significance for how the people in the GIF’s are viewed and used. The authors also note how GIF culture has transitioned from a user driven format to a visual device with institutional implications as commercial forces have adopted GIFs. However, they make the distinction that’s commodification has not diminished the value of GIFs in everyday communication.

In addition to Memes and GIFs, Emojis are also a unique instrument for visual communication. Emojis help the participants of a digital conversation portray an emotion or idea to compliment their text. Often emojis are used in a situation where the intended tone of the sender is unclear with just the use of words. According to the main idea of Marcel Danesi’s article “Emoji Semantics”, the primary function in the basic emoji code is to portray a positive tone. I personally find myself using emojis when I am sending a text that may have a negative interpretation but I don’t want it to come off like I am mad. For example, I would send a text to my housemates saying “Hey, could you send in your checks for the electric bill (insert smiling face emoji here)”. Had I sent the message without a smiley face my message may have come off cold and demanding when in reality I am not mad. By using the smiley face, the recipients of the text can visualize me smiling while asking them to pay the electric bill and interpret a positive tone. I think the article “Emoji Semantics” brings up an interesting idea that emojis are essentially reminiscent of “an ancient form of ‘visual consciousness’ that was evident in the origins of writing” (Danesi, 2016). The premise of this argument is that a message can be more closely tied to the actual visual feeling implied from the message, like how ancient writing was transcribed, rather than simply words themselves. Danesi also explained how emojis employ a thesaurus effect, meaning that connotation, strongly based on culture, is applied to all emojis to varying degrees. I agree with this point as I know there are certain emojis that even just among different friend groups are understood differently or carry a culture specific meaning. This also can give way to misinterpretation where one person may think an emoji carries one meaning while the other thinks it means something else. This article further explains specific research studies that have indicated the frequent misinterpretation of emojis across cultures and different devices in particular. However the article also states, “ A new study shows that people can misinterpret the emotion and meaning in emoji quite significantly, even when they’re on the same platform” (Larson, 2016). For example, a few of my friends the other day realized that the emoji below (Photo #3) was actually intended by apple to be an information desk girl when we all thought she was indicated she got her haircut or was acting sassy. These differences of interpretation would influence the way my friends may use this emoji in comparison to someone who works at Apple. Regardless of the potential for misunderstandings, emojis, like GIFs and Memes, primarily grant messages more power and employ a helpful human essence to digital communication.

Photo #3: Source

Readings Citations:

Marcel Danesi, “Emoji Semantics” in The Semiotics of Emoji: The Rise of Visual Language in the Age of the Internet (pp. 51-76).

Nick Douglas (2014). “It’s Supposed to Look Like Shit: The Internet Ugly Aesthetic” in Journal of Visual Culture 13(3), pp. 314-339.

Kate Miltner & Tim Highfield (2017). “Never Gonna GIF You Up: Analyzing the Cultural Significance of the Animated GIF” in Social Media + Society, pp. 1-11.

#memes #moth memes #GIF #emoji #visualcommunication

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trendingnewsb · 7 years

Text

Issa Rae: ‘So much of the media presents blackness as fierce and flawless. Im not’

The creator of Insecure talks the dating totem pole, films obsession with slavery and the gender-race pay gap as season two begins

I dont want the stench of the current administration on this show, says Issa Rae. I dont want people to look back and be like: Oh, this was a Trump show. I want them to look back and say Insecure was an Obama show. Because it is: Obama enabled this show. The sharp, pithy, Los Angeles-set comedy, dubbed by US fashion and beauty site the Cut as the black, millennial Sex and The City, which Rae co-created, writes and stars in, first aired on HBO last autumn, exactly a month before the US election. Culturally, Obama made blackness so present, and so appreciated; people felt seen and heard; it influenced the arts, and it absolutely influenced how I see blackness, how I appreciate it, says the 32-year-old Rae. When a black president is a norm, it enables us to be, too.

Being a norm is a matter of some import to the actor and writer, who in spite of her personal allegiances had no desire to make an overtly political show. She never wanted Insecure to be, as she says with a generous eye-roll, a story about the struggle or the dramatic burdens of being black. At the heart of the series is the relationship between her on-screen iteration also named Issa, who works for an educational nonprofit called We Got Yall and raps soliloquies to herself in the mirror and her best friend Molly (Yvonne Orji), a high-flying corporate lawyer. Together, they navigate the professional and personal challenges of late-20s urban life.

I just wanted to see my friends and I reflected on television, in the same way that white people are allowed, and which nobody questions, continues Rae. Nobody watches Divorce [a HBO stablemate, starring Sarah Jessica Parker] and asks: What is the political element, what is the racial element driving this?

youtube

Watch the trailer for season two of Insecure.

But so rare is it to see what its creator describes as a show about regular black people being basic in contemporary entertainment Insecure has nonetheless been hailed as revolutionary. It wasnt always so. Growing up, Rae was an avid fan of the predominantly black US sitcoms Moesha, Girlfriends and A Different World. Then they disappeared, she says of the film and television landscape. Somewhere along the way, being white became seen as relatable, and you started to see people of colour only reflected as stereotypes or specific archetypes. So much of the media now presents blackness as being cool, or able to dance, or fierce and flawless, or just out of control; Im not any of those things.

It is a hot and swampy summer afternoon in Manhattan, and Rae is in town doing the requisite rounds of late-night talkshow appearances ahead of Insecures season two premiere. On arrival, she seems a little lethargic entirely understandable, given her promotional schedule. But once seated in a buzzy restaurant, specifically chosen because its the sort of spot that the on-screen Issa and her girlfriends would patronise, Rae immediately perks up, emanating charismatic good humour.

Born in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles, Rae real name Jo-Issa Rae Diop is the third of five children, her father a Senegalese doctor, her mother a teacher from Louisiana. The rapid rise in gang violence in the city prompted Raes parents to move the family to Senegals capital, Dakar, when Rae was five years old. Her father tried to open a hospital there but things didnt work out and, three years later, they came back to the US, but to Potomac, Maryland, on the east coast, where Rae attended a predominantly white private school. When the family moved once again, this time back to LA, Rae entered a largely black and Latino school. Everybody thought I was lame and hated me, she says, matter-of-factly. It was a huge culture shock.

Part of the on-screen Issas insecurity of feeling not black enough for black people and not white enough for white people is, Rae says, something that I have been called out for by kids in my life. Ive experienced a real sense of feeling out of place. But with admirable chutzpah, she found a creative solution: I wrote a play and cast all of my bullies, and they loved it. They thought I was cool after that. She pauses, and gives a wry smile. Well, cool is a strong word. But I wasnt on their shit-list any more.

Big society … Raes character with co-worker Frieda (Lisa Joyce). Photograph: Justina Mintz/HBO

While studying at Stanford University, Rae began to notice that many of the television shows she loved, including Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld, were all-white comedies. Of course, sense of humour is relative, is subjective, but there is an assumption that black people wont find certain things about white comedies funny, she says. I got really frustrated and just wanted to start making my own stories. She conceived and directed Dorm Diaries, a mock reality show with an all-black cast, in the style of MTVs The Real World. When she posted it to Facebook, it quickly circulated, and Rae realised that she had a talent for portraying everyday black life; she has called it my epiphany moment. A few years later, she created what would be her breakthrough web series and the forerunner to Insecure, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.

A web show is one thing, of course, a mainstream television show on a high-profile cable network quite another. I ask her about the sociologist and civil rights activist WEB Duboiss concept of double consciousness, which she has referenced in the past, defined as the psychological challenge of always looking at ones self through the eyes of a white society. Does she feel that even more sharply now than before?

Absolutely. I didnt create this show for white people, I didnt create it for men; I created it, really, for my friends and family, and for their specific sense of humour, she nods. But now that we know we have an audience including HBO executives the double consciousness comes into play, because youre always wondering: How do they see what I am writing? Are they laughing at this specific joke for this particular reason? When season one aired, I had Asian women coming up to me on the street, saying: Oh my gosh, this reminds me of me and my best friend, she recalls. And thats wonderful thats what you want for a show but you are always wondering: What elements do they relate to the most?

I suggest that in future she stops fans and asks for further, more detailed feedback. She throws her head back and laughs. Yes. Excuse me, but why do you like the show? Tell me right now, please.

Boyfriend material … Jay Ellis as Lawrence in Insecure. Photograph: Justina Mintz/HBO

While Insecure may be only inadvertently political, this second season is noticeably more charged with social commentary, and examples of everyday discrimination. Through Molly, the show explores the gender pay gap, with an added issue to unpick: is she being paid less because of her gender, or her ethnicity, or both? These are questions that we constantly have to ask ourselves, as minorities, or double minorities, or triple minorities, nods Rae. In terms of the intersectionality of it all, you are constantly asking yourself: Which part of me is being discriminated against? Which part of me is being targeted? If not all parts of me.

The often-dispiriting experience of modern dating features prominently, too. At the start of this series, Issa has recently broken up from her long-term boyfriend, Lawrence (Jay Ellis), and thrown herself into the choppy waters of Tinder, Bumble and Hinge. Dating in todays digitally enabled world is rough enough but there is, Rae believes, an added dimension for her characters. Black women are at the bottom of the desire chain, of the dating totem pole; were not the trophies, she says.

In rap culture, especially, theres always an idea that once you achieve an amount of success, your trophy is the white girl on your arm. However, she asserts, thats not limited to hip-hop. Its not scientifically proven, but theres evidence, in dating apps for example, that were the last to be chosen, the least desirable. The theory is also explored in Aziz Ansaris Netflix show Master of None, which includes a scene in which one of his dates, a black woman, tells him: Compared to my white friends, I get way less activity [on app dating sites]. I also find that I rarely match with guys outside of my race.

Lawrence, meanwhile, is also experiencing discrimination, albeit in a different form. In one scene spoiler alert! he is picked up by two non-black girls at a grocery store, who lure him to their apartment, where they proceed to seduce him. Their fetishisation of his blackness has echoes of Get Out, Jordan Peeles racism-thriller which triumphed at the box office earlier this year.

That was based on a real-life situation that one of our writers shared, says Rae of the uncomfortable tryst. It didnt end well, which had nothing to do with his blackness, but we thought: How can we make this story apply to fit our show? Every show can have a threesome story gone awry, but how can we make it unique for Insecure?

Off the clock … Rae in New York last month. Photograph: Amy Sussman/Invision/AP

There is a show-within-the-show too, an antebellum-era television drama that several of Insecures characters are glued to. Last year, our show-within-a-show was Conjugal Visits, which was a comment on the trash TV that consumes us all. Setting it in a prison a system which, in this country, incarcerates mainly black and Latino people and making that entertainment, was definitely meta-commentary, nods Rae.

This seasons skewering of popular culture is no less pointed. Theres [been] such an obsession with depicting slavery that the last few years, I have been kind of slaved-out, she sighs. So we thought it would be funny to have the characters obsessed with this new slave interracial drama. A guest-starring role for Sterling K Brown, who won an Emmy for his portrayal of prosecutor Christopher Darden in The People Vs OJ Simpson, ups that meta ante even further, but Rae is quick to assure me that this wasnt a casting that she chased down. No! We actually have an anti-celebrity policy on the show, she insists. We were doing something together for the Independent Spirit awards, and he was, like: I love your show, if you ever want to cast me The musician Syd, another self-proclaimed fan of the show, also makes a brief cameo.

Although Rae resists comparisons between Insecure and Girls and of herself to its creator Lena Dunham: I get the inclination to compare us because were both young women, but the stories were telling couldnt be more different, she says the two share a deliciously frank depiction of female sexuality. Broken Pussy, one of Issas raps, became something of a refrain in season one, after she speculates that Mollys run of bad luck with men might be the result of a defective filtering system.

My friend and I have a thing where we talk in, um, pussy sounds, Rae laughs. I think that most women know whether they want to sleep with a guy or not within the first five minutes of meeting him, and so we speak in Marge Simpson voices about whether or not a guy could get it. She demonstrates. If its a yes, well say: My pussy was like: [Perky, eager voice] Mm-hm, girl. Or, My pussy was like, [Low, negative tones]: Mm-mm. So, the conversation about Molly feeling like she wasnt attracting the right type of guys was me suggesting her pussy might actually be broken.

What did her mother make of this particular piece of dialogue? She only saw it at the screening! Rae laughs. She pulled me aside afterwards and was, like: That mouth, were going to wash it out but, good job.

Insecure continues on Thursday 10 August, 10.35pm, Sky Atlantic