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Awards Season: Week 9
Kind of a self-loathy evening. One of the salesmen asked me to come outside for five minutes to show me something cool in the sky, and I said no because I'm on till, and now I'm really regretting that. I totally could have slipped away for five minutes, and maybe I missed out on something really neat to be a stick in the mud, instead. What a damn waste.
Also, after months of managing to keep off the grid, someone finally noticed that my work computer was still running Windows 7 off the old networking system and swapped it out, meaning I'm stuck using fucking crippled online Word only, and the worst part is that it's all my fault for forgetting that I'd already written down the secret to getting my printer back online the last time I called IT, specifically so I wouldn't have to call them again the next time an update got pushed and I missed it.
ALSO, I still haven't heard back from 2000AD customer support about the fact that I just haven't gotten last week's issue even though my subscription is still active, it's been days since their last email. At least that one's not my fault, but still.
Ugh. Maybe I'm just moody because it got cold again after two absolutely gorgeous weeks, but it's still not actually that bad, just regular mild-ish winter temperatures, so idk.
Gonna try not to dwell to much. Gonna just reflect briefly about the movies I watched last week, figure out some D&D backstory stuff, then go home, grab some snacks, and do my damn nails since I didn't last night and they're all chipped and gross when they should be looking Monday fresh.
Soylent Green (1973): "Oh hi, Dick van Patton! Do you think this will be the time the euthanasia scene doesn't make me cry until I have a headache?" "I don't think so, Leshia! I think it'll go about the same as it always does: you'll be melancholically thinking about how you'd like to work in a place like that if you were stuck in that future but be mostly okay right up until 'I love you, Thorn,' and 'I love you, Sol,' at which point you'll start tearing up, but then you'll think about the South Park parody of the scene and have a gentle chuckle at the thought of giant spinning blades suddenly coming out of the walls and chopping off Edward G. Robinson's giant weird head, but then you'll remember that only he knew he was dying when he filmed it and that he knew it would be the last scene he ever acted in after a career spanning all the way back to the silent era, and that he was gone less than two weeks later and Charlton Heston gave his eulogy and you'll pretty much be a wreck for the rest of the night!" "Wow okay, fuck you Dick van Patton!"
Rollerball (1975): My favourite sports movie. Glorious nonsense.
Underwater (2020): THEY SERIOUSLY WENT FULL LOVECRAFT AT THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND. WHAT EVEN. Anyway, I dug this! The script could have been written by a bot trained on one thousand identical movies, and the characters are paper thin, but I like everyone in this doomed undersea rig, and it's stylishly done. Also, considering how much of this movie is just Kristen Stewart running around in her underwear, it felt surprisingly un-male-gazy?
Shivers (1975): So seventies and so cheap and so Canadian.
Mad Max (1979): So seventies and so cheap and so Australian.
Persepolis (2007): Rewatched mostly just to try and transition gracefully out of my big '70s sci-fi kick. It's still good!
Hacked Circuit (2014): An absolutely hypnotic little short, all one long take, showing guys doing foley work for The Conversation, and it's just so good. The way the camera starts outside on the street, goes inside for the meat of it, then when it heads back onto the street you're just HYPER-AWARE of every single thing you're now hearing, because you're watching a movie so you know it's ALL deliberately crafted, and just. Gah, I loved this. And then it was dedicated to Edward Snowden, and I guess with the choice of movie used (it's not set in the '70s or anything) it's all a political allegory about surveillance states and shit, but all that was a big ol' WOOSH and didn't work for me, I just liked it for the surface level movie magic shit.
Hare Krishka (1967); Time & Fortune Vietnam Newsreel (1967); Travel Songs (1981); Report from Millbrook (1966); Notes on the Circus (1967); Cassis (1966); Williamsburg, Brooklyn (2003): It is really, REALLY rare for me to hate anything as much as I fucking hated Walden, so I watched a bunch of Mekas shorts, because if I'm going to say I fucking hate a dude's work, I want to be damn sure. Some of these are better than others (that is, some are actually watchable), but they're all extremely boring despite being very short, and the worst of them are just the same horrible audiovisual NOISE that made up his pretentious three-hour diary slogs. So uh, yeah. CASE CLOSED.
Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days (2003): Also, the people he inspired make insufferably pretentious shit, too.
Makeshift (for Mekas) (2019): THIS, however, was a quite nice little memoriam/tribute film put together right after he died last year, so I will end my exploration of his work on a positive note. Jonas Mekas: you seem like you were a pretty cool dude, even if your actual output is my own personal hell. Rest in peace!
The Cage (2010): I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wanted this to have a happy ending. It did not. Kes 2.0.
Death of the Sound Man (2017): A couple of Thai sound/foley guys do their job and talk. Suuuuper endearing. Forget the goofy deepthroat hot dog scene, the perfectly silent and SUPER LOUD flags still make me laugh. A little on the long side for how limited the subject matter is, but yeah. Real nice.
Next Floor (2008): Pretty sure Villeneuve is my favourite current director, and weird shit like this is exactly why. The metaphor is laid out super clearly, but it still works because the actual events are unpredictable enough that you never feel like it's hitting you over the head with it all. It hits what feels like SHOULD be the punchline and then just... keeps going? All the way to fucking hell, apparently. A lot of fun.
Oh, and then I ordered $35 of takeout in the hopes that it would make me feel better, but I just feel shitty and guilty instead because DUH.
Also, after months of managing to keep off the grid, someone finally noticed that my work computer was still running Windows 7 off the old networking system and swapped it out, meaning I'm stuck using fucking crippled online Word only, and the worst part is that it's all my fault for forgetting that I'd already written down the secret to getting my printer back online the last time I called IT, specifically so I wouldn't have to call them again the next time an update got pushed and I missed it.
ALSO, I still haven't heard back from 2000AD customer support about the fact that I just haven't gotten last week's issue even though my subscription is still active, it's been days since their last email. At least that one's not my fault, but still.
Ugh. Maybe I'm just moody because it got cold again after two absolutely gorgeous weeks, but it's still not actually that bad, just regular mild-ish winter temperatures, so idk.
Gonna try not to dwell to much. Gonna just reflect briefly about the movies I watched last week, figure out some D&D backstory stuff, then go home, grab some snacks, and do my damn nails since I didn't last night and they're all chipped and gross when they should be looking Monday fresh.
Soylent Green (1973): "Oh hi, Dick van Patton! Do you think this will be the time the euthanasia scene doesn't make me cry until I have a headache?" "I don't think so, Leshia! I think it'll go about the same as it always does: you'll be melancholically thinking about how you'd like to work in a place like that if you were stuck in that future but be mostly okay right up until 'I love you, Thorn,' and 'I love you, Sol,' at which point you'll start tearing up, but then you'll think about the South Park parody of the scene and have a gentle chuckle at the thought of giant spinning blades suddenly coming out of the walls and chopping off Edward G. Robinson's giant weird head, but then you'll remember that only he knew he was dying when he filmed it and that he knew it would be the last scene he ever acted in after a career spanning all the way back to the silent era, and that he was gone less than two weeks later and Charlton Heston gave his eulogy and you'll pretty much be a wreck for the rest of the night!" "Wow okay, fuck you Dick van Patton!"
Rollerball (1975): My favourite sports movie. Glorious nonsense.
Underwater (2020): THEY SERIOUSLY WENT FULL LOVECRAFT AT THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND. WHAT EVEN. Anyway, I dug this! The script could have been written by a bot trained on one thousand identical movies, and the characters are paper thin, but I like everyone in this doomed undersea rig, and it's stylishly done. Also, considering how much of this movie is just Kristen Stewart running around in her underwear, it felt surprisingly un-male-gazy?
Shivers (1975): So seventies and so cheap and so Canadian.
Mad Max (1979): So seventies and so cheap and so Australian.
Persepolis (2007): Rewatched mostly just to try and transition gracefully out of my big '70s sci-fi kick. It's still good!
Hacked Circuit (2014): An absolutely hypnotic little short, all one long take, showing guys doing foley work for The Conversation, and it's just so good. The way the camera starts outside on the street, goes inside for the meat of it, then when it heads back onto the street you're just HYPER-AWARE of every single thing you're now hearing, because you're watching a movie so you know it's ALL deliberately crafted, and just. Gah, I loved this. And then it was dedicated to Edward Snowden, and I guess with the choice of movie used (it's not set in the '70s or anything) it's all a political allegory about surveillance states and shit, but all that was a big ol' WOOSH and didn't work for me, I just liked it for the surface level movie magic shit.
Hare Krishka (1967); Time & Fortune Vietnam Newsreel (1967); Travel Songs (1981); Report from Millbrook (1966); Notes on the Circus (1967); Cassis (1966); Williamsburg, Brooklyn (2003): It is really, REALLY rare for me to hate anything as much as I fucking hated Walden, so I watched a bunch of Mekas shorts, because if I'm going to say I fucking hate a dude's work, I want to be damn sure. Some of these are better than others (that is, some are actually watchable), but they're all extremely boring despite being very short, and the worst of them are just the same horrible audiovisual NOISE that made up his pretentious three-hour diary slogs. So uh, yeah. CASE CLOSED.
Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days (2003): Also, the people he inspired make insufferably pretentious shit, too.
Makeshift (for Mekas) (2019): THIS, however, was a quite nice little memoriam/tribute film put together right after he died last year, so I will end my exploration of his work on a positive note. Jonas Mekas: you seem like you were a pretty cool dude, even if your actual output is my own personal hell. Rest in peace!
The Cage (2010): I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wanted this to have a happy ending. It did not. Kes 2.0.
Death of the Sound Man (2017): A couple of Thai sound/foley guys do their job and talk. Suuuuper endearing. Forget the goofy deepthroat hot dog scene, the perfectly silent and SUPER LOUD flags still make me laugh. A little on the long side for how limited the subject matter is, but yeah. Real nice.
Next Floor (2008): Pretty sure Villeneuve is my favourite current director, and weird shit like this is exactly why. The metaphor is laid out super clearly, but it still works because the actual events are unpredictable enough that you never feel like it's hitting you over the head with it all. It hits what feels like SHOULD be the punchline and then just... keeps going? All the way to fucking hell, apparently. A lot of fun.
Oh, and then I ordered $35 of takeout in the hopes that it would make me feel better, but I just feel shitty and guilty instead because DUH.
no subject
I liked Underwater a lot! Like you say, extremely formulaic, but it's a formula that works and the acting and effects were good, so who cares? Not me! I am a simple girl with simple wants, and many of them can be fulfilled by badass Kristen Stewart with close-cropped hair wearing very little clothing (though yeah, it was super nice how that was all filmed).
I haven't seen Next Floor, but I love Villeneuve so much, I feel like maybe I should check it out.
no subject