Hi Barbie and Oppenheimer are chronically sold out all weekend because I forgot I live in a major metropolitan area, so I finally got around to seeing Past Lives instead
I’m seething with rage over how good of a film it is. It’s like the filmic version of waking up on a nice Sunday morning and sitting down to leisurely read the newspaper with a cup of coffee and some jazz on the radio. I’ve liked movies but I can’t remember the last time I just enjoyed myself so thoroughly. A perfect little slice of life.
Anyway I’m excited to waste 8 hours of PTO in the middle of the week so I can see my idiot studio pictures without being flanked on all sides be people
Netflix recommended the predecessor (Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity) after I’ve seen the second one, so of course I’d watch that anyway. Did so, liked it, both are a great watch. If you like Orochi Warriors, this is for you (i.e.: Me)
Ok, fine, I went back and finished The Mighty Quinn.
My favorite parts:
“Guess who’s coming to dinner?” Pretty good song. I find myself asking…myself…this very question since hearing it.
I think the same singer guy who was asking us to guess, who, in fact, was coming to dinner, in the song, later has a line where he’s asked who was snooping around and he goes “…a white guy” and then Denzel goes “what kind of a white guy?” and then Mr.Dinner goes “a kinda…dark white guy.” Pretty funny line.
I’m now thinking about what the world world be like if it was Val Kilmer’s The Saint that spawned a decades long mega franchise instead. It may have been better that way since at least one of them would have been done by Shane Black
the venture bros movie was pretty good like it was definitely in the later style of the show after it excised most of the pulp adventure stuff to go all in on ever denser worldbuilding and callbacks but maybe the most successful version of that… loved the perfect 30second glimpse we got at a horrible girl in the invisible bikini esque 60s teen romp… it’s funny to me that for the movie they didn’t feel the need to recap any of the plot but did seem to feel like they had to explain more of the eg gratuitous zardoz themed sight gags
i remember season 4 as the point where the show seemed to get like perversely disinterested in the very notion of “narrative payoff” at the same time as a desire to keep filling in the details of that world kept on raising the prospect of that payoff, i’m glad this one felt like they finally managed to miraculously square both impulses in a way the last few seasons felt like they were still trying to figure out
the venture bros movie was pretty good like it was definitely in the later style of the show after it excised most of the pulp adventure stuff to go all in on ever denser worldbuilding and callbacks
I have a lot of respect for this show but it was this sort of thing that has managed to steal any solid memory of What any of it was about for me
I want to call it The Dan Harmon Problem (because Rick & Morty stumbled into this years ago) but I’m sure it’s a narrative trajectory more rooted in comic book tradition if anything
watched a little bit of Ponniyin Selvan 2. It’s fine but it’s feeling the pain of all the cuts that were clearly made. Very plot happenings, less character interactions. I’m only as far as the mob stoning the monastery so there’s still a lot to go.
I liked the more detailed Nandini flashback that makes it clear she is very justified to feel how she does. The series does an interesting thing with this “barbarian enemies of the kingdom” archetype that Baahubali played shamefully straight faced (and po faced, and black faced ). Mani Ratnam, unlike SS Rajamouli, has half a brain, so we instead get the Pandyas as the ‘crazy barbarians’ who live out in the woods and plot ceaselessly to destroy the kingdom. But in flashbacks it is shown that they are actually just a normal medieval Tamil empire, and their king is a decent guy. (And of course in actual history the Pandyas did a lot for spreading tamil culture and the arts - see Tamil sangams, the fact they survived as an empire for like 1400 years etc.). So yeah it turns out it’s just this small band of spies that has gone kind of loony by living out in the woods, and even then mainly the one crazy guy who even the leader of the Pandya rebels is sick of. (Some funny scenes of those two interacting lol)
Religiously it’s also interesting to note that all of their Pandya blood vows to Kali, Murugan, the Devaralan dance and so on aren’t outside Tamil Hindu culture they’re just another stream of it. This series does an “internalizing the barbarism” thing that is kind of subversive I think - showing that “ugly and crazy” is just another aspect of our cultures and lives as people, and the enemies being simply the mirror image of the protagonists. Showing just enough of that to feel subversive without fully turning into Rashomon and dislocating the viewer from a perspective. I dunno I think it’s interesting especially in the political context of modern India which tries to homogenize not only the religion but the nation - see for example North Indian Hindi speakers in reviews saying “wow I didn’t know all this about OUR history!” Well the point is, it’s not your history, even though a national fiction has taught you otherwise.
so yeah, white ppl stop watching SS Rajamouli, start watching Mani Ratnam. And Vetrimaaran, Pa. Ranjith, etc
oh yea speaking of baahubali and religious symbolism and tamil here’s a basic everyday feminism style article about the criticisms of SS Rajamouli
Summary
From the fair-skinned heroes and heroines glorifying the hierarchy and rigidity of their country and defending it from the dark-skinned tribal savages, the entire film reeked of Aryan supremacy. The Kalakeyas, the villains of the film, were portrayed as dark, ugly monsters; savages who did not understand the beautiful civility of the caste system.
If anyone doubted that this was supposed to mirror the imagined version of Dravidian ancestors, then all such doubts were put to rest in a bizarre interview with the creator of the Kalakeyas’ language ‘Killikili’, in which he states that the harsh-sounding, brutish language was modeled on Tamil. The film oozes out racism, with a clear racial gradient from the most to the least ‘civilized’ members of the world.
…
It is an attempt to teach the cultural values of some mythical Vedic paradise to the ‘barbaric’ indigenous people, symbolized in the opening scene of the sequel when the hero sits on a Ganesha statue and uses a bow and arrow to destroy an indigenous deity depicted as a demon. It is an attempt to push the Aryan supremacist logic of devas versus rakshasas, and fair and good versus dark and evil, on a group of people that are inherent outsiders to this entire worldview.
Indeed, having watched Baahubali in Tamil and Baahubali 2 in Hindi, it is clear that the latter was much more consistent, as the logic of Aryan supremacy and kshatriya dharma found all its truest nuances in Hindi. It was strange to watch such a film in Tamil, especially since Tamil is too close a language to that of the dark-skinned (and casteless!) savages they depict so courteously.
Finally saw Vampire Hunter D. Having an experience similar to when I read Berserk–I can now understand Where Everything Comes From and What Everyone Is Talking About [Goth/Vampire Edition]
Every repeated animation frame was there to save money to pay for more blobby ooze sphincter mouth monster guys, I assume. And every instance of that was an incredible decision
There is really too much to say about this, and I’m late to the party, so I will just say that I really loved all the blown out vista shots, and that I watched the dub with the weird cowboy voices and found that highly entertaining
I’m probably the ten millionth person to say this but I really long for a world where more media has unexplained surreal nonsequitur shit in it, like a totally unexplained mouth hand which suddenly becomes plot critical in the third act and has (counting on my fingers) five or six unique magical powers
BARBIE MOVIE! FIRST OF ALL lets thank todd solondz for bringing greta gerwig and margot robbie together in weinerdog so this could all be possible!
so its a simple movie. its simply correct about gender inequality that a way everyone knows about. like you’re not gonna come away LEARNING MAJESTIC EYE OPENING REVELATIONS or anything. you’re gonna feel catharsis at best. also its very pro-men in a loving way
its also… INCREDIBLY FRENCH at points? theres a scene in mattel HQ thats very play time meets metal gear solid and a final fantasy ending where barbie and the creator of barbie hold hands in a white void and talk about what it means to be human while the camera zooms in on crying eyes and breathing chests and does a montage of girlhood
trans barbie! saying ‘i want to be furniture’ in a choker and maid costume after she got brainwashed out of being a doctor reminded me of far too many of my friends. in a good way. in a great way. she ruled!
i resent everyone who compared me to weird barbie okay. YES she had great pants YES she cuts her own hair but WE’RE NOTHING ALIKE!! (i do want her barbie camo though, and the im kenough sweater)
ryan gosling should only do comedy where he sings. i thought i didnt like ryan gosling but no, i love him. his whole arc was amazing THE MATCHBOX 20 SONG FUCKING KILLED ME. I WAS DOING THE CHOKE HOLLER SCREAMLAUGHING TRYING TO BE QUIET AND IM PRETTY SURE MOST OF THE THEATRE WERE LAUGHING AT ME LAUGHING AFTER A POINT
theres a scene where they force everyone to move slow motion. the choreography of this movie was non stop amazing. they do soooo much they dont fucking need to! its like FUCKING CALIGULA when it comes to the crowds and their movements in the sets
anyway barbie movie. its the matrix but pink
they shouldnt have made that smallpox comment though
its definitely a subtlety is for cowards joint in a fantastic way.
oh i forgot to talk about how im exactly the target audience for this. so many outfits and barbies had me going I HAD THAT ONE! I WANTED THAT ONE! I REMEMBER THE CANCELLED GAY KEN! I REMEMBER SUGAR DADDY!!! so thats evil. thats completely evil
there was a point where i leaned over to veronica and was like 'i didnt even have a ken doll teeeeheee" so i sunk into my chair completely defeated when teh fucking mom tells barbie almost exactly that. when the outfits were flying due to ken tantrum i could name them before the freeze frame. (“NOT THE PALAZZOS!”) but we all know that they should have used the 1972 mood matcher palazzos instead. i fucking forgot i knew all this
