read the news about joss whedon tonight and decided to download Louis Ck’s movie
stay tuned
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I remember when this was coming out I knew it was all wrong that a guy with the approximate build and hairline of my dad would make an obvious ripoff of a woody allen movie
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this is terrible
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also it is la not le i guess they aren’t as french illiterate as i apparently am
anyway posting about this again because it’s a show about painters in taipei in the 1920’s and 30’s that’s like half historical and half made up, so in the most recent episode there was a brief line about a guy who had a painting banned from an exhibition because it depicted a child peeing on a cat. it seemed so specific and weird that it had to be true… i googled around a bit and sure enough it is, but sadly no one has put any pictures of it online as far as i can tell. cowards.
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Watching The Abyss and True Lies within a week of each other has officially turned me into a James Cameron hater.
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he paid guillermo del toro’s father’s ransom lets cut him a little slack
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The last thing the guy needs is more slack but that is a pretty cool thing to have done. And Terminators 1 and 2 still rule.
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Strange Days, which he wrote, also probably still rules.
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Desperado is his next best excepting maybe Spy Kids. His sensibilities work much better for kids movies
I absolutely agree with this breakdown.
Lydia Deetz (in the most offensively half-assed Boy George cosplay I’ve ever seen) moves to a new town and comes into possession of an evil mirror and the evil mirror gives her magic powers that she uses to torment her tormentors with. This movie came out in 1990, was probably shot in 1989, but feels like something from 1987 – just the look of it, the tone, the way everybody is dressed, etc. I get very strong like, Christine vibes from this, as well, except replace the evil car with an evil mirror and shift the genders. Also, we have two Winona Ryder pastiches in this – Lydia Deetz and Kim Boggs.
A big problem with this movie is we have very little sympathy for Rydia Deetz. The movie does a poor job of escalating anything, so the bullying never goes beyond Rydia being laughed at by two Mean Girls, but then Rydia gets her black magic and suddenly she’s handing out asthma attacks, massive nosebleeds, shower burns, etc, and it’s like, woah, maybe have the mirror’s influence over Rydia be a bit more gradual? This is a pretty extreme response.
At one point in the movie, the bully convinces some people in class to wear black jackets (like our protagonist), and I guess that’s supposed to be humiliating, but if I walked into class and everybody was dressed like I was, I’d probably get a real like, glitch in the matrix feeling but I wouldn’t be humiliated or angry. I think the look works for them, honestly.
Also, Stephen Tobolowsky’s inhaler technique here is awful, no wonder he had to go to the hospital.
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I watched Basic Instinct and really enjoyed it. I once heard stories about how Verhoeven’s memories of WWII impacted him to be determinedly antifascist the rest of his life. Because of that, I keep looking at his movies through an antifascist lens. Basic Instinct, with its male cop lead, is totally open for such an interpretation.
As a work of neo-noir, it dips its ladle deep into the mid-century fascination with psychoanalysis. The two main female characters are both psych majors from Berkeley and the all male police force is absolutely afraid of their supposedly heightened ability to manipulate. The phallic symbolism of the murderer’s preferred weapon is too obvious to ignore and our “hero” Dick Nick walks into every situation half-cocked. He’s so disgusting. I hate him.
There was a boycott movement against the film because of how it dealt in tropes around women and lesbianism. I think this movement was right to use the film to raise the issue, but I think there’s a crucial distinction to make about the film. I think rather than embodying misogyny, the film is ultimately a critique of systemic misogyny in male circles. It’s exploiting ultramasculine fears of powerful women to tell a story about one man’s refusal to look inside himself and accept his violent past.
I think I’m completely in Verhoeven’s boat though I hear the true test would be to watch Showgirls.
I am seriously thinking about buying this keychain
https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=DChcSEwi1w5zA0-zuAhW57LUKHXEjBJYYABAHGgJxbg&sig=AOD64_0t_-mnwplWjGcBmFbMedTynRT6Rg&adurl&ctype=5&ved=2ahUKEwj6movA0-zuAhXGCd8KHapUDgUQvhd6BAgBEDU
PS Sorry for writing like this. I have to comment a lot in my grad classes and I can’t turn off academic brain. I’ll try to balance that out by inserting my favorite line:
She got that magna cum laude pussy on her that done fried up your brain!
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Just watched Inland Empire and its a pretty incredible thing. Three hours had me apprehensive but it really took off for me in the final half.
There are obvious similarities to Mulholland Drive with the whole piss -soaked Hollywood thing but at its core I felt like it was a movie about being trapped. I think I’m probably projecting a lot but a real sense of being trapped by layers all the way: debt, time and space, a bad conversation, abuse, a labyrinth, in your performed self.
Laura Dern was insanely good which was fun because I didn’t really gel with her performance in Twin Peaks. Here she just does everything so well even though she is playing one of these Lynchian double characters. Every scene maintains a compulsion to see what will happen to her next. She is full of pathos but also partly responsible for some of the most intense horror in the film alongside the sound design.
Great soundtrack too even though it relies on Penderecki quite heavily.
I’m probably gonna go away and read all about it but before I do, I was worried the filming on video seemed a little gimmicky but I can see what Lynch was going for. As a medium it acts as a buffer to let us know this is not a product of Hollywood as such and that we can be certain that the film isn’t trying to play those kinds of meta-tricks. It has a really nice fuzzy darkness to it which also lends some unsettling credibility to the horrors when they drop in. There’s also an distinct disconnect with the sound design since it is often polished in contrast to the consistent videoness. The really clean clicks, creaks and snaps all pop out but you’re never sure when they’ll come because they’re buried in the fuzz.
Didn’t think I’d have this much to say but take this as a recommendation
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I watched Mullholland and Inland almost back to back and really get them mixed up in my brain but I remember more of Mullholland so I keep wondering if I even watched Inland.
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BRUTAL. FUCKING. MURDER.
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Every time I sit down to watch Legend I think “I probably won’t like this as much these days”. The criticism is fair (some bad acting, hokey dopey characters, meandering simplistic plot, nothing much to snack on brain-wise) and yet those things just wash over me and I’m always swept away with it, into it. A snow globe of sensual delights. And some silliness, but screw it, I like faeries and unicorns and unironic mythical romanticism sometimes! The director’s cut may work better as a story but give me the Tangerine Dream soundtrack every time.
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yeah i still dig this thing too
ridley scott knew how to make a fucking fairytale
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Saw it for the first time revently movie rules.
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Inland Empire baffled me when i saw it initially in college (probably in like 2008, only a year or so after it came out). but after several watches it’s become my favorite Lynch project and one of my favorite films of all-time (and potentially my favorite film of all-time). it has the sort of “dense fragmented story” element of Mulholland Drive but the complexity is about 10 times more. that said the more i watched it the more i realized that there is really a core there - it’s not just randomness, and you can read a whole through-line into what’s there even as people will disagree over the details of the narrative it’s trying to tell.
what i can say for sure is it also just has a vibe that’s really unlike anything else he’s ever done or any movies i’ve ever seen. it’s the closest to a Lynch horror movie - some scenes are genuinely really terrifying in a way i don’t feel about any of the rest of his films (maybe Fire Walk With Me is an exception? but only small parts of that movie). it also kind of brings him back to the Eraserhead universe of abstraction while also mixing with the LA/Hollywood centeredness of his projects around that time.
i know this might not be a popular opinion but i think Inland Empire is better than Twin Peaks Season 3. i think that he regressed in his storytelling in some ways with TP Season 3 because of it being a full series and attached to the Twin Peaks universe. i like many things about TP season 3 but there’s a part of it that leaves me feeling a little frustrated and unsatisfied. i feel like less of that deep empathy for characters in TP Season 3 and more of a kind of alienation and frustration. there’s a a bit of a grumpy “i’m not sure why i’m doing this whole series” feeling to it that i get off of Lynch whereas Inland Empire feels like he’s really prodding at the deepest parts of his unconscious.
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I can definitely see this. Season 3 is definitely less ‘consistent’ as a piece and not as wholly resonant emotionally. Episode 8 works well as a standalone but yeah. I think I prefer Inland to Mulholland overall too. Felt more focused and intense and the sheer horror hits hard.