Movies

Eye of Horus

Chill Movies

One of the reasons I liked Companion so much is that I lived a lot of my early life like Iris, with people not wanting me around, treating me strangely or with barely-concealed scorn. All with me having no idea why. Yes, I was an unkempt weird kid with no social skills. That’s what happens when you’re raised by fucking wolves with parents who don’t do anything to help you. It just seems like people could’ve been a little easier on me? But they weren’t. At all.

Anyway, the dinner party scene in Companion with poor Iris doing her best to fit in, to smile, to listen attentively and tell her own stories while everyone treats her disdainfully or barely acknowledges her — sister, I’ve been there. And it really sucks. It crushes your soul little by little. That scene reminded so much of my childhood and adolescence. I got that very same treatment if I wasn’t actively getting punched, kicked or otherwise beaten down.

Luckily (unluckily?), it wasn’t because I was an automaton, though I certainly wasn’t treated any better due to my humanity.

I mean, the whole point of Companion is that Iris acts with more humanity and compassion than the narcissistic, bumbling bio-humans all around her, even though she’s literally being used as a tool for some harebrained scheme. I think I did my best to do the same growing up in rural North Florida.

Though she had way better hair.

Handled

Chill Movies

I liked the cinematography of Companion in general, but I really thought this shot of Sophie Thatcher’s Iris showering and looking at her burned robot hand was nicely done:

The sterile but slightly-glowy off-white combined with almost-amniotic wetness nods towards a rebirth, an emergence. Remember, everything in a (good) film is deliberate.

Companion

Chill Movies, Review

Wow, Companion is much better than I expected! Good film. A dark comedy take on what the world would look like if tech like in Ex Machina were to be commercialized.

Best line:

“I am not robo-shaming you!”

Spoilers below.

Such a clever, clever film. There’s a cute part in the beginning. If you go in cold you don’t know the protag, Iris, is a machine. Of course, she does not know either. When the two main characters are exiting their self-driving car, she says “thank you” to the car and won’t let them get out of the vehicle until her human partner does the same thing. This implies that she somehow intuits that she shares more with the car than she consciously knows. Great little detail.

Second favorite line that one of the robots says of his implanted, artificial memories in a more serious moment: “I mean, it may have never happened but my memory of it’s real.”

The movie is actually a better and more incisive critique of “nice guys” and the incel phenomenon than any feminist has managed to come up with. Sophie Thatcher as Iris is perfect, too. Without her, the film would’ve been not nearly as good. The scene where she realizes she’s artificial is particularly affecting.

Recommended.

Possession

Chill Movies

What are the sexiest horror movies?

Two great tastes that do not often taste great together, but I’d say the 1981 film Possession with Isabelle Adjani is one. That is, of actually good movies. There are tons of horror movies that are terrible that have random breasts in them or whatever.

Depraved sensuality is not exactly a sub rosa theme of that work (original movie poster):

Though do watch the full version, as the filmmaker intended; the redacted variants are all crap.

Storied

Chill Movies, TV Shows

One of the reasons I love movies and TV shows and thinking about how they’re made — the immense care and craft that goes into them — is I spent so much of my life with others telling me how my story would go. What my limitations were and how I deserved nothing because I was weak and terrible. That’s the tale they had me signed up for against my wishes.

I like seeing how you can take control of the narrative, seize the diegesis and shape it to your own will. All the world’s a stage and all that. It’s a cliché but it’s also true.

Movies and TV shows taught me how I could direct my own story. And I did just that.

Tine

Chill Movies, Video, Video (movie)

I loved Constantine and might watch it again one day (I rarely re-watch anything). It’s such a beautifully-shot film. And not surprisingly, at least part of the reason it looks so gorgeous is because it was shot on those unmatched Panavision Panaflex Platinum cameras with Panavision Primo lenses.

The video hints at it, but I think the reason the movie flopped is it does not hold your hand. It kicks you into the world and lets you sink or swim. Most sink because they want their thinking done for them. And Constantine is just not that kind of film.

Cast

Chill Movies, Video, Video (movie)

Great analysis of that scene. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is such an excellent film and that scene is perfect. One of my favorites of any film made in the last decade. I missed on first watch that it is James Dean in the mural in the background when the girls are dumpster diving.

The thing about a Tarantino film (and really most films to a somewhat lesser extent) is that nothing is accidental.

Drown In You

Chill Movies, Video, Video (movie)

One film where I disagreed with Roger Ebert pretty strongly is the bathtub drowning scene in Constantine. He disliked it (and the film) for the same reasons that I love it: the scene is horrible and beautiful. It’s nasty, and not in the sense of any gore or even anything sexual. It’s horrifying what Constantine does to Angela — both his direct actions of bringing her to the edge of death by drowning and what you find out she’s witnessing immediately after. Weisz’s acting when Angela realizes Constantine does not intend to let her up is perfect.

It’s all just so wrong. And that’s what makes it a great scene.

Ebert was not a fan of horror. And it shows in his misassessment of the scene and film.

Presence

Chill Movies, Video, Video (other)

Presence is such a good film. It’s not horror, really, for all you horror haters. It’s more of a psychological thriller with some few horror elements. It’s mostly about misogyny and family dynamics. And it’s shot so beautifully. Probably my favorite film I’ve seen in the last couple of years.

Good analysis of how it was shot. (And wow, Callina is so different than her character Chloe in the film!)

Twin Cut

Chill Movies

Ah what the fuck.

I had no idea. I need to check that commentary out. I knew Linda had an identical twin, but I didn’t know that’s how that shot was created.