Fuck me asswise, it's winter again. The seasons spin like a revolver's chamber. One of these years my luck's gonna run out at this long game of Russian roulette.
I'm told a saint can enjoy a crust of bread as much as a five-course meal - I assume they'd also appreciate five minutes as much as fifty years. So until it's my last turn on the trigger I'll climb closer, to those greater heights.
Previously:
Boss Level
Fun, dumb action movie, containing two things close to my heart: time loops, and quirky assassins.
The main character is very reddit. Fortunately, Mel Gibson gives an entertaining performance as the villain. Mel Gibson, he's made some controversial remarks. Some people hold that against him. Me, if I were in the room with him? Personally? I'd ask him to cool down on those remarks. After that, I'd thank him for making and starring in great films like the Patriot, Apocalypto, and Dragged Across Concrete.
It's been a while since Mel Gibson made those controversial remarks, and he was drinking a lot at the time he made them. Drinking can make you say some stupid things. Truly, a substance put on Earth by God to punish fools. Look at Mitt Romney - in his mid-70s, looks better than a lot of guys 25 years younger. Mormons - they're the future. They have lots of kids, they live long, healthy lives. That's the real White Horse Prophecy.
Anyways, in my opinion, it's about time for everyone to forgive Mel Gibson - even Hollywood.
Talk To Me
A movie from the adoptive homeland of Mel Gibson: Australia. It's a horror movie, the hot new thing on the scene. Australians struggle with horror. They sound too funny: "Awr nawr, Moiya got passessed boi the Dayvil!" - that's the plot of this movie.
I don't like this A24-style of film - Talk to Me, Barbarian, Men, Hereditary, the Babadook, Midsommar - don't care if they were produced by A24 or not, that's what they are to me. Movies about trauma. Movies where the story serves the metaphor, rather than vice-versa. And they're all filmed in the same way too - if you want an exact description of what that means, ask a filmographer.
2007's Talk To Me - much better.
Body Melt
Now this was real Australian horror-cinema. Good practical effects, inbred mutant bogans eating the adrenal glands out of kangaroos, all the hits. Watch this instead of Talk To Me.
Anyone else remember stem cells? When stem cells were the big thing? And they had to make them out of fetuses or foreskins or whatever. Body Melt didn't have stem cells, I'm thinking of Rabid, another movie I watched recently. That one was better than Crash, another Cronenburg I also watched recently, which was very slow, very plodding. Cloning, that's another thing that's disappeared from science news. No way they stopped with Dolly. It's all space news now, the freakin' spacerino news about some black hole with a stupid name like XOND2032-AKPWQ0329... forget about the ethics of neuralink or whatever, that's the real crime of not teaching scientists the humanities. NGC-3384... they really think that shit is better than Adrastea - defund NASA, astronaut ice cream isn't even real.
Braindead
Made by Peter Jackson. Another great horror movie. Horror movies take themselves too seriously these days. Get a little silly with it. That's how you make watchable and truly spooky stuff. "I kick ass for the Lord" => a line with soul / "boohoohoo did mummy overdose intentionally or not please use the evil hand to talk to her ghost so I can find out" => dialogue without soul.
New Zealand - I'm told it's the Canada to Australia's America, with a housing crisis and victory lap land acknowledgements and so on. Not to get too political, but I hope Justin Trudeau gets voted out and replaced with someone else in the next federal election. Trud-no is what I call him.
Insomnia
Robin Williams is a natural villain. Something about him, his essence, is evil, or at least evil-adjacent. I get the most flak for saying this - people don't want to hear it.
Al Pacino, by contrast, wonderful actor, wonderful man. My lovely & prosperous girlfriend got mad when I told her that he knocked up a woman while in his 80s - she doesn't get it - Al Pacino's genes must be preserved.
The movie was nice. Tense. Beautiful scenery out there in Alaska.
Bright
Awful movie, bad knockoff of The Fifth Element. Exactly as bad as its reputation would have you believe. Will Smith's too angry in this movie, too mad to be a likeable protagonist - he's a mean little ball of cuckold rage, the eversion to Anthony Bourdain's inversion.
Project Power
Jamie Foxx is the man Will Smith wishes he could be. Jamie Foxx stars in what could be execrable genreslop, and elevates it into something watchable. Day Shift was also pretty good. What you should really be watching - skip Project Power, skip Code 8, watch Push.
Reminiscence
Underrated movie - clunky storytelling, but wonderful imagery of a flooded Miami. Also, the chase choreography was a lot better than the fight choreography. I predict, over the long term, a transformation into a cult classic, like Soylent Green.
Lost River
Another movie with wonderful imagery, less story. Ryan Gosling, we love Ryan Gosling don't we folks? So talented both in front of and behind the camera. Has the best shot of a burning house I've ever seen. Only God Forgives, a movie up until this very moment I thought was also directed by Gosling, was not, though it was also good.
The Nice Guys
Another Ryan Gosling Goslassic (Gosling classic) - he screams quite a bit in it, effetely - also has the guy from Gladiator in another solid performance. I realized about 2/3rds of the way through that I'd seen this movie before, but had been too drunk to remember. Alcohol is truly the salt of life - enhances the flavours, but will kill you if you overindulge and ruin your body long before that. Fun noir romp. Shout out to Keith David. Also try Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
It was okay I guess. Saving grace is that it feels shorter than it is. Experimental cinema can be pretty hit-or-miss.
Upstream Colour
This was one of the hits of experimental cinema. The thing the guy does to get the worm out of the lady - twisting it around on a stick - is a real thing people do to take out Guinea worms.
Aterrados
This is it, this is the scary movie.
Camelot
A movie which made me tear up at its depiction of an innocent boyman Arthur. Was on a bit of an Arthurian kick this year. Also watched Exaclibur (which the Dark Souls guy got a lot of his imagery from) and The Green Knight, which I wanted to find something redeemable about but saw a blurb of an interview with the director the other day and no he really is just a druid. William Blake blew them the fuck out over a hundred years ago. Nature without humanity is barren people!
Kingdom of Heaven (Director's Cut)
I saw the non-director's cut as a child, and I remember it as a very boring movie. The director's cut, on the other hand, is kino.
Ridley Scott does a headfake in this one, he makes you think he's going for a fedora-tip, a little 2000s-style atheism, but then no, bam!, angels are real. A beautiful spirit in this movie, totally counter to post-9/11 psychosis - brothers of the book, united under God, the universal ennoblement of all people, productive industry and cultivation of the wasteland. Heard he bungled Napoleon though. If Hegel could appreciate Napoleon, so can you.
A Clockwork Orange
43 minutes, 44 seconds into this one at the time of writing. The whole film is the Ludovico procedure. Film is a totalitarian medium. James Cameron is a dictator, and he will herd us all into the lithium mines to produce his degrowth World Economic Forum agenda virtual reality CGI Na'vi nirvana.
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