Jinnistan wrote:

Rock wrote:

Anyway, a couple of recent reviews I put a modicum of effort into (linking to my Letterboxd as it looks like images don't scale down here):

The Prey
The Nine Demons
Exhausted
On the Prowl
Devil Story
Greta, the Mad Butcher
Death on the Nile
Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks
 

Does Letterboxd not have that John Holmes bio?

It does, but you might need to toggle your settings to see it. (Pre-emptive apologies for ruining your feed.)

Rock wrote:

Any of y'all seen The Northman yet? I liked Eggers' last two quite a bit, but never felt this one gets you on the same wavelength as the protagonist like the last two did.

Read your review:

"I also think that it doesn't really get you on the same wavelength as the hero. In The Witch and The Lighthouse (especially the latter), he's able to sync you up emotionally with their protagonists that I don't think he does here, and I felt like I was observing the extremity of his experience but not really engaging with it."

It'd be easy to blame Skarsgard for the ice-cold distance, but I'll be nice. There's also a feeling that I'm not sure I would want to synch too emotionally close to the character, and that I'm fine with that, but having said that, I do recognize that with The Lighthouse in particular, I probably would also have been fine not synching with our Patterson fellow, but, not having the choice, being forced into his head space, in definitely a more aggresive manner (psychologically speaking) than in Northman, is a big part of what made it engaging/disturbing and likely much more memorable.

My current Eggers standings:

The Lighthouse - 9/10
The Northman - 8.5/10
The Witch - 8/10

Saw this one last night. Some aspects I loved. Others, not so much. 

the film is visually amazing. The hallucinatory feel is as euphoric as those little amanita–munchers make it seem. I could see myself watching it again for that reason alone. I do appreciate when every shot is presented as its own individual work of art. Good job controlling tone and mood, too. I tensed up when I was supposed to, so without analyzing the suspense–inducing techniques, I'll just say it worked on me.
Good casting and good acting all around. Alice Krige does a fine witch.

I was underwhelmed by the writing, as in specifically the narration and dialogue. Trite words get delivered as though they were profound, made worse by the fact that the score frequently added musical punctuations implying gravity where there was none. Luckily the characters don't talk all that much, so there's plenty of time to marinate in the dreamy concoction of extraordinary cinematography and score, which work quite well when not hampered by the amateurish (imo) dialog. 

The movie is permeated with hints that it's a re–imagining of the tale as a sort of expression of feminist empowerment... or something. That part felt felt forced, like a marginally–compatible retrofit, but I ultimately didn't care. maybe I wasn't invested enough, but it just didn't seem to get in the way of anything. Wanna do it that way? Be my guest.

And yeah, the original underlying lesson of the original tale is altered here by the fact that instead of wandering too far from home, these two kids have been thrown out of their home, and are drawn to the witch's appetizing aromas out of desperation.  

So, what was up with that ending? Am I the dumb one here? cuz... well, I try to give spoilers a wide berth. But, whaa? Why? No, in retrospect, I feel more certain of it: dumb ending. There. I said it. 

If I could keep the score and eliminate the dialog, I might give Gretel and Hansel a pretty stellar rating, but... I guess I'll give it a three, but it's more like one of those movies that vacillates between four–star moments and two–star moments. 

Great cinematography, that's the part that seems to linger with me. And that witch, she left an impression. Who cares if the script is pedestrian; she sounds like she could read anything aloud and make your skin crawl. 

I might be tempted to watch this movie again with the sound off and play some other music instead. Any suggestions?

​

Jinnistan wrote:

Jinnistan wrote:

Although I think it's probably inevitable that a portion of the audience will champion the film for all of the wrong reasons, like its fascistic violence (which is visceral but hardly glamorized) or the kind of vague Nordic fetish that appeals to edgelords.  Like The VVitch, I'm not going to hold the film responsible for whatever awful interpretations anyone wants to make about it.

When I wrote this, I wasn't yet aware that, for several weeks, there's been some controversy surrounding how The Northman is being appropriated and championed by a number of neo-nazi and white supremacist groups.  It's not surprising at all, but it does add a bit more punch to the "fascistic violence" part.  I'm curious to hear what anyone thinks of this Guardian piece on the subject, both in context of the actual film (which I guess only me and Rock have seen) but also to the overall question it poses.

Can Hollywood tell historical tales without unwittingly appealing to toxic ideologies?

"Other recommendations on Stormfront’s list are more surprising, such as Notting Hill."

 Good Lord, just look at what white supremacy can reduce someone to.

Like, there is some kind of justice in this, right? Just imagine a particularly ferocious bout of nationlalistic chest thumping, followed with a nice sit down with a hot cuppa Hugh Grant.

I could almost elevate myself to heaven on such a thought as this now being mandated viewing for big and butchy racial fuck-cunts.


 

Last edited by crumbsroom (5/25/2022 10:19 pm)

I probably should have posted this in the "cucking our movies" thread, because it really does involve exactly that kind of idiotic thinking, both among the 'white male fragiles' but also among those who think we should care not to arouse them.

My answer to the question of "can Hollywood tell historical tales without unwittingly appealing to toxic ideologies?" is a resounding "Yes", but, as with all things creative, it is execution dependent.  It is not a question of either/or "should we?" but of a more qualitative "how should we?".  It's also interesting that the question involves "historical tales", which is dodgy, but the article ends up talking about outright fantasy, ie Marvel, Star Wars, and other branded properties of modern mythmaking.  Yes, Thor is based in Nordic mythology, but it's still a fucking comic book.  It has no "historical" obligations, and shouldn't.  The "tales" part denotes that twilight zone between 'history' and 'myth'.  Adapting Beowolf or The Ring Cycle would involve a lot of historical context, but for the purpose of understanding the text, not necessarily for portraying the text.  Instead, The Northman is different.  It is definitely mythical in its way, based on the legend of Amleth, but I admire the adherence to as much historical detail as possible after 1000 years.  Shakespeare's Hamlet is the perfect example of the Amleth legend without its specific historical context.  Eggers' intent was not mythology as such, even with a certain amount of magical realism, which, in the A24 style, "magical" tends to mean rustic botany (Gretel and Hansel is another example of this), or in terms of Lighthouse alcohol and laudanum.

A couple of other issues from the article stick out.  The "movies that we loved when we were kids are not as good any more, which is partly because you’re not a kid" argument, which is reasonable, but it also ignores a lot of other problems in the modern Hollywood machine that has dumbed-down a lot of our films.  I hate not being able to criticize, say, the new Star Wars trilogy without being assigned into this anti-woke crowd of detractors, rather than simply recognizing that JJ Abrams and Company didn't bother to write a script.  Crazy Rich Asians isn't a great movie, and not because I don't like Asian people.  Etc, etc.  And, not really to do with anything, but a good example for the irritating kind of asinine academic pseudointellectual spittle would be the sentence "If politics is the occupation of territory, metapolitics is the occupation of culture."  Sure.

But most of all, I disagree with the conclusion:

In an ideal world, film-makers wouldn’t have to give a moment’s thought to how their films might be co-opted by these groups; we could simply enjoy a movie such as The Northman as a piece of rousing, skilfully made entertainment. The fact that it is no longer possible to do so could be seen as a victory of sorts for the far right, but failing to consider the stories we tell from first principles could be part of the problem that created them in the first place. By this stage, in fact, film-makers ought to have realised that if the far right doesn’t hate your film, you might be doing something wrong.

I'm not yet prepared to surrender this "ideal world", and I'm perfectly capable and content to "simply enjoy" The Northman for its obvious cinematic qualities.  I do not believe that it is "no longer possible to do so", but I also contest that it is far from a fact, because "fact" has a definition.  It would absolutely be a victory for fascists to concede this cultural history to those who only have a modern and substantially fuzzy claim to its ownership.  What are these "first principles"?  This is all starting to sound like a creatively-stultifying jedi mind trick.  And, again, that last line exposes one of the worst criteria for criticizing or appreciating a piece of subjective art.  It reminds me of Metropolis.  Goebbles loved it.  Who gives a shit?

Rampop II wrote:

the film is visually amazing.

Agreed, especially in the first half.  Oz Perkins, the director (and son of Anthony), is highly skilled at mood and atmosphere, and in this capacity, the film works very well.  But I'd say that it is also his weakest of his three films.  I highly recommend I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House and The Blackcoat's Daughter.

Rampop II wrote:

The hallucinatory feel is as euphoric as those little amanita–munchers make it seem.

Amanita muscaria of the belladonna family are less 'euphoric' than disorienting, classified as a deliriant, but the film does a good job of reflecting this somnambulent state of confusion, more unsettling than transcendent.

Rampop II wrote:

So, what was up with that ending? Am I the dumb one here? cuz... well, I try to give spoilers a wide berth. But, whaa? Why? No, in retrospect, I feel more certain of it: dumb ending. There. I said it.

Yup, basically it shit the bed.  Looks like they ran into an issue where they (the studio) wanted to keep it to a certain length and decided that they need a climatic bit of flaming death or something.  Totally hysterical and ridiculous.

Rampop II wrote:

And yeah, the original underlying lesson of the original tale is altered here by the fact that instead of wandering too far from home, these two kids have been thrown out of their home, and are drawn to the witch's appetizing aromas out of desperation.

It's funny that you mention that, because the version of Hansel & Gretel that I was most familiar with growing up was this stop-motion film from 1954 that has their mother rather aggressively chasing them out, and the father responding to the mother later with a broomstick (while singing, because whistle while you beat your wife).  Anyway, the mother is very regretful for being so harsh to them.



 

Very proud.  And we can all agree that it's a finer piece than than anything about Digimon: Digital Monsters.

I suppose I should dig up the piece I had published by the same site a few months ago about Doriana Gray.

https://www.inthemoodmagazine.com/issue-3/film-diaries

Nice work! Stimulates my impostor syndrome. Adding Doriana Gray to my watchlist. 

I tried out that website's Film Recommendation Generator, purely out of curiosity, of course. I'm usually too proud to click "what to watch" links. I like to think I know what I want, and need no algorithm insinuating I just show up at the cinema already in a state of "decision fatigue."
"Those are for the uncultured masses, not for seasoned cinephiles! Go watch a Brendan Frasier movie and get outta my way, unworthy waste of a good seat! And turn off the goddamned cellphone!" But maybe I'm closed–minded that way, and this recommendation generator looked different. The site looked trustworthy, they're not incentivized to just keep me watching perpetually like some streaming site, and the generator even asked me what mood I was in. That's kinda novel. The recommendation was Millennium Mamba (2001) by Ho Hsiao–Hsien. Any thoughts?

A quote from Rock's Final Exam piece, "There's little of the moralizing around sex..." reminds me of something Jinnistan said about what set the original Texas Chainsaw apart from other slasher flicks of its time: the fact (and I'm paraphrasing of course, so please correct me if I get it wrong) that Leatherface's victims were not engaged in the moral transgressions typical of slasher flicks, transgressions that allow us to imagine the killer as a deliverer of karmic punishment, thus rendering the audience unprotected by the genre's usual membrane of moralistic detachment. 

Oh, the ta-tas, where have they gone? Too much self–flagellation on this side of the pond.
No wonder the Puritans complained of religious persecution; I doubt they were well–liked. Sure, the Spanish burned witches, but at least they were allowed to play the organ. 

No pun intended. 

Last edited by Rampop II (6/01/2022 6:13 pm)

Rampop II wrote:

A quote from Rock's Final Exam piece, "There's little of the moralizing around sex..." reminds me of something Jinnistan said about what set the original Texas Chainsaw apart from other slasher flicks of its time: the fact (and I'm paraphrasing of course, so please correct me if I get it wrong) that Leatherface's victims were not engaged in the moral transgressions typical of slasher flicks, transgressions that allow us to imagine the killer as a deliverer of karmic punishment, thus rendering the audience unprotected by the genre's usual membrane of moralistic detachment.

Right, any sex and drugs is only suggested (vaguely hippie, astrology, etc.) so there's no sense of comeuppance.  I think I really only started mentioning it after the '03 remake came out, where they decided it was best to make their sexuality more explicit and turn them into drug smugglers.  Someone could write a book on all of the deep strains of conservatism that runs through a lot of horror.  (No wonder they seem to be popular at church sleepovers.)

Last edited by Jinnistan (6/02/2022 12:54 am)