Rynling R&D

Hereditary is a super fun movie about how a girl on the autism spectrum is literally possessed by a demon, a concept that is fresh and original and has definitely never been done before, nope.

The fact that the kid is possessed is a spoiler; we're just supposed to think she's weird and hideous and frightening at the beginning. It turns out that the girl developed her autism/possession from close contact with her grandmother, who was also weird and strange and terrible. When the kid dies about half an hour in, the demon possesses her teenage brother, which is such a shame, because he was so normal and healthy before. This story is told from the point of view of the mother, who just can't handle things and is so stressed out despite being a good and caring person. I mean, let's be real: As a parent, you have to be careful with autism, because it might be contagious. (Or something your child can develop after being vaccinated, heaven forbid!) And honestly, as an upper-middle-class white mom, it's best to cut people on the autism spectrum out of your life before they infect your children.

My take: Hereditary is great spooky movie about "creepy" people centered around a bold and artistic depiction of sensitive family dynamics. :)

Ari Aster is doing such brave and intelligent work, and now I'm really interested in seeing Midsommar. I'm sure it won't happily roll around in the mud of male violence and emotional abuse for most of the movie before then justifying it by having the men punished in a totally fantastical way, and I'm sure this punishment of overt misogyny won't be presented as something that only a fringe cult of crazy people would consider to be reasonable.

I expected to like The Shape of Water for different reasons than I did.

The central love story between a human woman and an amphibious man came off as more than a little creepy to me, and not because of why you might think it would.

Thankfully, the movie contains two other stories of border crossing that I found far more emotionally satisfying. One of these stories is about a Russian immigrant who came to America seeking intellectual freedom, and the other is about a black woman carving out a space for herself in the white-dominated society of the 1960s.

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Ultimately, the love story between the human woman and her amphibious boyfriend feels like a fairy tale version of the various cultural changes and border crossings that are represented elsewhere in the film. The fairy tale version of this story has a relatively happy ending, but the reality of the people who have to remain above water in the real world is far more bitter than sweet. This is why, when I watched The Shape of Water, I found myself sympathizing far more with the supporting characters. Still, the movie is just as weird and gorgeous as you’d expect, and let’s be real... that fishboy is super hot.

Blade Runner 2049 is 2 hours and 43 minutes long, and it drags. It could have been a nice clean two hours if all of the extraneous footage of the camera lingering on naked female bodies had been cut. Female head editors are relatively common in Hollywood cinema, and they have been known to trim ridiculous excesses like this, but the editor of this movie is, unfortunately, male.

(This editor, Joe Walker, also worked on Denis Villeneuve's movie from last year, Arrival, which was fairly decent, but back in 2013 he worked on 12 Years a Slave, which... Also could have used more judicious editing, I think. Like, do we really have to linger that long on shots of black women being raped and tortured? Do we really??)

I understand that a major theme of the posthumanist inquiry presented by the film is reproduction, specifically who is allowed to control reproduction, and so it would make sense for there to be a visual emphasis on female fertility. That being said, there's also a major emphasis on Ryan Gosling's sexual agency within a heterosexual economy of desire. He is propositioned three times, and he says "no" three times, and this is accepted without resistance or complaint by the female characters, none of whom are granted the ability to say "no" for themselves. Also, whereas most of the women who appear onscreen are all naked all the time, Ryan Gosling doesn't so much as roll up his shirt when he gets knifed in the stomach – which is weird, because if I had Ryan Gosling's body I would have my agent negotiate a clause into my contract that says the movie has to include at least one a scene where I'm naked and posing for the camera.

Basically there's a gross double standard, is what I'm saying.

Also, in this culturally mixed dystopian future, the signage and advertisements for the corporations that have ruined the world are all in fake Japanese, but just about everyone in the movie is white. Some people are Russian, which I guess is a nod to diversity, but in future Tokyo/LA there is not a single Asian or Hispanic person. The movie also contains a particularly egregious example of Idris Elba tokenism, wherein its one black character is a child slaver.

In conclusion, Robin Wright (who plays a grizzled senior lieutenant in the LAPD) is beautiful and perfect, and as far as I'm concerned the movie ends when she's killed by the sexy villainess, who is played by 34-year-old Dutch model and actress Sylvia Hoeks and who honestly I would love to shoot me in the face, it would be an honor.

Jake: I've been having these dreams, and they seem so real...

Psychiatrist: Well, Jake...

Psychiatrist: *flips through Jake's drawings of Matthew McConaughey*

Psychiatrist: You seem like a smart kid...

Psychiatrist: *flips through Jake's drawings of a large erect tower*

Psychiatrist: I think we both know what this means.

Me: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

*

Despite getting terrible reviews and an aggregate rating of 18% on Rotten Tomatoes, The Dark Tower was actually a decent movie, and I enjoyed myself. Based on the reviews I read, I think critics were mostly butthurt because of the movie's departures from the novels, but what they failed to acknowledge is that those novels are bizarre. Like, do we really need to see Roland penetrate a mentally deranged country preacher with the barrel of his pistol before shooting her? No, no we do not.

I think it was in an interview with Essence magazine that Idris Elba said he took a lot of creative liberties with Roland's character. This was interesting to me, because I get the feeling that Idris Elba stans Roland in sort of the same way that I stan Ganondorf. Like, he murders a whole hell of a bunch of people and more or less single-handedly triggers multiple apocalypses across multiple timelines, but deep down he has a good heart??

In conclusion, Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba have fantastic chemistry, I mean like really fantastic chemistry, and,,

Me: So they finally have concrete plans to release a movie of The Dark Tower? Haha okay whatever, sounds great lol, there is no way I would ever go see that.

Columbia Pictures:



Me: โ๏∀๏ใ

Me: (／／ロ゜)／／

Me: ୧༼☆ ͡◕ д ◕͡ ༽୨

Kingsglaive begins with an extended exposition dump in much the same way as Final Fantasy XII. As far as I can tell, the gist of the story is that there's an empire engaging in imperialist expansion. The empire uses mechanical soldiers, wild monsters, and (absolutely terrifying) summon beasts called "daemons" to attack the smaller kingdoms it wants to colonize. In order to prevent the city-state of Insomnia from being destroyed by the empire, its king erects a magical barrier around the city walls. Although the king manages to save everyone inside the city, all of the outlying territories are blasted to scorched earth. Insomnia is not completely closed, however, and it has taken in a number of refugees, some of whom have enlisted in the military. An elite task force of immigrant soldiers has been granted a share of the king's magic, becoming collectively known as the "Kingsglaive."

More than a decade later, the unending war and the maintenance of the magical barrier have taken their toll on the king, so he enters into negotiations with the empire. According to the provisions of the treaty he and the emperor will sign, the empire will stop attacking Insomnia if its crown prince, Noctis, will marry the former princess of an imperial holding, Lunafreya. The emperor is already quite old, however, and what he really wants is not the gradual takeover this marriage would ensure, but rather immediate access to the magical crystal that powers the city and serves as the source of the king's magic. About halfway through the movie, the emperor betrays the king, and Insomnia falls.

This is the point at which Final Fantasy XV is supposed to begin, I think – Lunafreya is on the run, and Noctis is trying to catch up with her. It's important that they find each other because, unbeknownst to the empire, Lunafreya has escaped Insomnia with the king's special magical ring, which allows its bearer to access the power of the crystal and communicate with Insomnia's guardian spirits.

As for the actual members of the Kingsglaive who help Lunafreya escape, it's not a spoiler to say that, as with any franchise spin-off, they're not going to appear in the main story, so they need to be dealt with in some way. It's also not a spoiler to say that Sean Bean is the English-language voice actor for the king, and we all know what that means. Thankfully, everyone still manages to get in some good moments...

...except for the one female member of the Kingsglaive, who is "dealt with" in the first third of the movie. This character is a combination of Rosa from FFIV and Lulu from FFX, and she's awesome, and I love her, and she deserves much better. One might argue that the female soldier needs to be taken offstage in order to make room for Lunafreya, but I call bullshit. I mean, heaven forbid there are two female characters onscreen at the same time, right?

After the credits roll, there is a short scene in which Noctis and his three brobodyguards drive around in a fancy car while joking around with each other. This felt weird to me. I just watched an entire city get destroyed and a bunch of people suffer and die, and now I'm supposed to be happy? This is also reminiscent of the opening of FFXII in its complete shift in tone from "serious people doing serious things" to "cute kids doing cute things," and if I'm being honest it doesn't make me feel kindly disposed toward Noctis.

I am feeling super attention deficit this morning, so I'm going to have to make multiple posts about Kingsglaive over the course of the day. To be honest, I also felt super attention deficit with Kingsglaive itself, which I had to watch over multiple evenings this past week. The fault lies primarily with me and not the movie, which is not a shining triumph of cinema but thankfully not as bad as I thought it would be. Still, it has issues.

The plot is compli... you know what, I'll write about the plot later.

I tried to watch Kingsglaive in Japanese, but the lip syncing was terrible. Even though the director and staff are Japanese, the voice actors, motion capture actors, and 3D models are all American and European, so after about half an hour I gave up on the Japanese track and switched to English. This was the right choice.

Aaron Paul (playing the hero, or "Disposable Soldier Bishie") does a fantastic job with the material, as does Sean Bean (who plays the old king, or "Now I Have Daddy Issues"). The real standout is Lena Headey, who voices Lunafreya, the kidnapped princess who is being set up as the love interest of Noctis. Headey's acting is sensitive and emotionally resonant...

...which is uncanny, because the animated character has very little affect. I think this is supposed to have something to do with the fact that she's been a prisoner for all of her adult life, but Lunafreya's lack of facial expression is taken to a ridiculous extreme. To give an example, she is a passenger during two dangerous car chases, and throughout both she literally never breaks a sweat or gets a hair out of place. In one scene the car she's riding in has flipped and is skidding precariously along the roof of a building as it bursts into flames, but her face is completely blank and peaceful, like she's drinking tea and watching the sun rise. I'm no expert on human psychology, but it stands to reason that even the most perfect of princesses would express anxiety in this situation – or pain, given the crazy angle her neck bends when her head hits the roof of the car.

I think my problem with Lunafreya is that I watched her way more closely than I was supposed to. I wanted the story to be about her, but Kingsglaive wanted me to pay attention to the male characters instead. My own tendency to identify with female characters aside, Headey's performance really is excellent, and she stole every scene she was in. I would settle down into a mindset of "maybe this movie is going to be good after all," but then the focus would jerk back to the dudes and their explosions, and I would get up and go do something else.

Speaking of getting up and doing something else, more on this later.

Ghostbusters is so, so good. Here are the highlights:

I don't know what it is about Paul Feig as a director, but he makes Melissa McCarthy shine like the beautiful star she is. I fucking love Melissa McCarthy.

I understand that some people are upset about Leslie Jones being cast as, essentially, Leslie Jones, but she carried the weight of this movie. I think the people who are concerned about her character being "street smart" have their heads too far up their asses to appreciate that she is overtly characterized as smart smart. While the three "scientist" characters spout unintelligible streams of sci-fi gobbledygook, Leslie Jones is the one with the Sherlock Holmes level of actually knowing what's going on. If the entire movie were just her talking, I would have been happy.

There are a ton of jokes in the movie about how attractive Chris Hemsworth's character is. All of these jokes land perfectly, because Chris Hemsworth is very attractive.

Neil Casey gets the best villain monologues. He is cheesy and over-the-top and ridiculous and wonderful, and I could listen to him pontificate (with brilliantly timed comic interruptions) for hours.

When the Ghostbusters discover that Neil Casey is the villain, they storm the art deco hotel where he works to infiltrate his underground steampunk lair. I'm not gonna lie, the double rainbow of stage setting porn got me hot and bothered. Buying the Blu-Ray disc so that I can watch the infiltration scene on repeat might be a thing I do in the near future.

Kate McKinnon's character is a goddess. Kate McKinnon is a goddess. She's like Jim Carrey if Jim Carrey were less coo-coo crazy and more talented. Everything she does is a joy to watch.

There's this scene toward the end in which Kate McKinnon dual-wields blaster pistols while the Ghostbusters theme plays on maximum volume. It was amazing. I came at least three times.

I'm not going to spoil it, but Chris Hemsworth does this thing during the closing credits that made me very happy. You think there's going to be like maybe thirty seconds of Chris Hemsworth doing the thing, but then he keeps doing it and it just keeps getting better.

In conclusion, I don't understand why the Ghostbros don't like this movie, because all it wants to do is be silly and have fun. Kristen Wiig is not Bill Murray, but let's be real, not even Bill Murray is Bill Murray anymore, and that's okay. The character Bill Murray plays in this movie is a better commentary on how it's no longer 1984 than I could ever write, so instead let me just say that all the Ghostbusters movies, including this one, are forever fabulous.

I don't mean to kinkshame anyone, but there was a lot of torture in this movie, and I mean a lot of torture. At a certain point it stopped being cute.

I also don't mean to 1990s shame anyone, but they might have gone way over the top with the Ace Ventura style humor. I'm not sure if that was specifically what they were aiming for, but I wouldn't have been at all surprised if Ryan Reynolds had bent over during a fight scene and was like, EXCUSE ME, BUT I'D LIKE TO... ASS... YOU A FEW QUESTIONS.

The only thing this movie did well were the bits that were essentially Deadpool-as-Dan-Savage hanging out with Leslie Uggams (I love her, so much) and bitching about Ikea furniture. The movie would have been 9001% better if that were its focus, with Deadpool occasionally killing people offscreen to keep the premise from collapsing.

The internet has been talking about the animation during the closing credits as if it's some sort gift from the Marvel gods, but when the unicorn ejaculated rainbows and farted dollar bills I got the feeling that they might have been trying too hard.

The gender politics were disgusting and made me want to burn the theater to the ground. If Deadpool is supposed to be edgy and subversive and socially progressive, maybe it could have tried just a little harder to get away from the stereotypical comic book narrative centered around a woman being rescued by a burly man who is fantastic at fucking and even better at murder.

In conclusion, I resent this movie, I resent the person who dragged me to go see it, I resent the local theater where I watched it, I resent Rotten Tomatoes for giving it an aggregate score of 83%, and I resent every single shitty preview that came on before it. This is it bros, I'm done with movies, I am so done.

I didn't want to watch The Hateful Eight, and a friend had to bribe me with Vietnamese food to get me to go to Maryland to see it with her. By this point in my life I am sick of both the violent physical abuse of female characters and said abuse being defended by male film critics, and The Hateful Eight has plenty of both.

The movie has four female characters. Three are killed within about five minutes of being introduced, and the fourth, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, spends the entire three-hour running time (seriously?) being repeatedly threatened, struck, shot in the legs and abdomen, and then [spoiler redacted].

One might argue that the male characters are also killed, but that's usually it – they're shot or [redacted] and then they die, if not with dignity then at least without being fetishized. One male character is briefly but inhumanly brutalized, but it's interesting that his experience is associated with homosexuality, as if being driven to female-coded sexual behavior is far worse than death.

One might also argue (if one writes for The New Yorker, for example), that the male-on-female violence is not a symptom of systemic sexism in both the 1870s and the 2010s but rather an indicator of gender equality, in that a female criminal is shown receiving the same treatment as a male criminal would. This might make a compelling argument were not the male criminals in the movie (and in the American cinema industry as a whole) treated as dangerous and worthy of respect instead of as feral animals that must be beaten in order to be kept submissive.

Although let's be real bros, I am totally willing to get behind a movie (like Inglourious Basterds or Django Unchained) that shows all of its female characters being raped and/or killed if it has (a) cool cinematography, (b) a nice soundtrack, and (c) clever dialog, but The Hateful Eight has none of these things. Despite the movie's admittedly creative bloodshed and capable performances (especially from Tim Roth), I didn't think it was that interesting, and all I wanted during the last hour or so was for the remaining characters to just go ahead and shoot each other already.