Random Shit I Watched in the Last Few Weeks
It's the summer and I've watched some random shit!
Loyal readers, we got a weird one today. I recently moved (yay, me), movie theaters are in a weird spot with few new releases, and I have summer senioritis. So! No long criticism (or whatever the hell I do here) this time, and I instead present casual, disorganized thoughts on some random shit I watched these last few weeks.
Venom and A Star is Born
Few films are as different as these, yet they are inextricable to me. Both are October 2018 releases I saw in theaters starring idiosyncratic actor-producers that forever changed American culture. A Star is Born speaks for itself (plus I spoke on it previously) – a staggeringly intimate musical melodrama so tenderly directed by Bradley Cooper featuring the only version of digestible country music and a knockout performance by Lady Gaga that became one of my favorite movies of the 2010s. Its equal and opposite is Venom, an unintentionally so-bad-it’s-good romp. Sure, it’s among the most abominable scripts of the 21st century, but Tom Hardy is having the time of his life getting bossed around by the alien symbiote who eats brains with whom he bonds. Hardy knows what movie he’s in, delivering an admirably go-for-broke lead performance that, in a just world, would have shared an Oscar nomination with Cooper’s for A Star is Born. Venom may not purposefully be this bad, but it’s undeniably fun. (I never tire of deploying my Venom voice, even if my girlfriend does.) If Tom Hardy climbing into water tanks to bite the heads off lobsters because the alien goo in his head is hungry is not cinema to you, you’re doing it wrong.
Doctor Who
I regret to inform you all that I’m back on my Doctor Who bullshit. I’ve adored the charming, chintzy sci-fi show since 2007 but dropped off in grad school during Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor. (I’ve seen some, and it’s not good; I hate to share the general opinion of online trolls who hate women, but we got here very differently.) I returned with David Tennant’s 60th anniversary specials last November and have been hooked ever since a bunch of puppet goblins performed an elaborate musical number about eating a baby. Ncuta Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor is a blast, such an immediately accessible ocean of emotion. The show is also more openly campy and irrefutably queer than it used to be (this is good). Its social commentary is as subtle as a time machine flying into an operations center (was it always this blunt or am I just Old™?). Nevertheless, the show always delights, and I love Doctor Who again, babes.
The last third of Twin Peaks season 2
It is happening again. Revisiting Twin Peaks, one of my most beloved TV shows, after nearly a decade (and seven years post-The Return) has been a genuine treat. It’s also fun watching it with my girlfriend and her sister because they now understand that one Psych episode. I’ll probably write more once we watch Fire Walk with Me and The Return and I make my way through The Missing Pieces and The Secret History of Twin Peaks. In the meantime, this journey is both wonderful and strange.
Satoshi Kon’s filmography
I have to thank my dear Blank Check podcast for introducing me to Kon’s work. A Japanese animator and director, Kon’s career was tragically cut short by terminal pancreatic cancer, leaving behind four wholly original, stunning films tackling fractured psyches, the battle between subjective and objective reality, and the capacity of human existence. Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress are two sides of the same coin, treatises centered on actresses grappling with fame, femininity, identity, and perception; if Perfect Blue is a dark, twisted thriller, Millennium Actress is a lush love story. Conversely, Tokyo Godfathers is a charming if gritty quasi-fairy tale of three people living on the streets who care for an abandoned baby during Christmastime. (It would be a Christmas staple if I cared about that kind of thing.) I have his final film, Paprika, to watch as of this writing, but it’s likely to resume Kon’s all-killer-no-filler oeuvre. Brimming with life and thoughtfulness, Kon’s films have been and will be a gift.
House of the Dragon
I was highly ambivalent about the first series spun-off of Game of Thrones, a show on my TV Mount Rushmore. (I mostly like the ending, sue me.) Anchored by excellent craft and performances, HotD (pronounced “Hot D”) is the most bizarrely paced story imaginable, its first season spanning nearly two decades in 10 episodes and replacing young actors for older ones with reckless abandon (maybe I’m the Old™ one?). The pace slowed in the last couple episodes, so now everyone is played by who will always play them. Because of the consistent inconsistency, I have little emotional connection to most of these characters. Few seem their age; Olivia Cooke, 30-years old, plays a 35-year-old, yet her son, canonically 16-17, is played by 27-year-old Ewan Mitchell. Broadly, the characters are less dynamic and compelling than GoT’s – there’s no Tyrion, Jaime, or Arya, but instead we have… I read a cast list and came up empty. The closest I have is Matt Smith’s Daemon Targaryen, but the previously livewire snake is neutered by the show’s biggest time jump. I can’t shake the feeling the show was born less from a desire to create original, invigorating stories in a beloved world and more from corporate brand management – I can practically hear HBO executives yelling “People love that Westeros shit, and we love ratings on HBO Max!” Also, I’m sorry, I just cannot get over the show simply reusing GoT’s main title theme; sure, it’s iconic and kicks ass, but it’s a new show that deserves its own damn theme, not the old one. Nonetheless, I can’t quite quit the series: I love Westeros so much, and certain performances and plot developments remind me why I love this world. The internecine conflict driving the show, a war of succession among a vast family torn apart by megalomania and years of slights, is more imminent at the start of this second season. It promises to be bloody, so maybe the slapdash set-dressing will work for me; I’ll begrudgingly find out.
Odds and Ends
Hit Man and American Psycho are comedies about mentally unbalanced men with identity issues who are very, very damn HOT. American Psycho also does Fight Club better than Fight Club!
Hit Man is newish to Netflix. I encourage you, and you specifically, to watch it.
Glen Powell as Hit Man? More like Glen Powell as HOT Man.
Once again, Christian Bale is outrageously HOT. I have to return some video tapes.
Down with Love and Dirty Dancing are two new entries in the “No one told me these ostensible musicals are About Stuff” folder. Consider my brain and heart full with these movies that are basically everything I want in a movie!
Marie Antoinette, which I haven’t seen since I was 13, fucks as much as the infamously sexless Louis XVI doesn’t. With all my unearned authority, I declare it one of most undersung films of the 2000s.
Pixar is in some trouble, facing layoffs and creative drought as they pivot to more sequels but insist original, personal storytelling is their core. Suffice it to say, Inside Out 2 did not work for me yet seemed to work for everyone else I know. I appreciate its messages but was unmoved by it attempts to recapture its predecessor’s magic to uninspired ends. Maybe I’m too grumpy and tired, or maybe… (see below)
This post accidentally became slightly about me grappling with My Things maybe not being For Me anymore. I could examine that, but unfortunately I have more random shit to watch.