Firestarter (2022)

 

My composting* review of Firestarter (2022). Spoilers may follow.

I liked everything about Firestarter (2022) except that it was called Firestarter. I wish I could watch it without knowledge of prior iterations, same as I wished with Pet Sematary 2019.

Some seriously toxic family issues. Lots of charred and some half-charred people. One very unlucky cat. https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/875497

Gloria Ruben keeps laughing in the face of oversaturation. Kurtwood Smith is well- but under-utilized. Michael Greyeyes is awesome and terrible. Zac Efron is there too.

It is VERY different from the 80s Firestarter(s). Skip it if you can't reconcile that. Also skip it if you don't want to see things and places and people and at least one animal burn and burn and burn.

Post script for Men (2022) regarding The Nightingale

 This writer sure seems fixated on transgressive sex and sexual violence. Big fan of rape. I base this observation on their reviews of Men and The Nightingale (2018), as well as the movies Elle, and Sharp Stick. I'm oversimplifying, but honestly this reads like their main complaint with Men (2022) is that it's unrealistic because not enough rape (and that a man should not presume to make sympathetic stories about women's pain).

“His heroine’s decompression is palpable as she advances down a rambling path, smiling up at the sky, the trees, the chirping birds around her, choral music lifting the landscape to rapturous heights. The message is clear: This place untouched by men is utopian.” They then go on to ridicule the auteur's explanation of his own film, which seems unnecessarily catty. Most filmmakers already sound a little precious when deconstructing their own movies; why be petty?

   

I tried watching The Nightingale because of this review; I stopped it maybe 20 minutes in and deleted it from my history. The only thing I'll say in favor of this post is that the writer definitely warned me what was coming and so I was able to quit that harrowing "I Spit On Your Grave, But Make It Early Colonial Australia" movie (from the filmmaker of beloved The Babadook!) before the Gregor Clegane-meets-Targaryen toddlers event could get inside my head.

This article was not paywalled for me until I clicked through to several other posts on the site, so if you want to read it through this link might work.

Men (2022)

 My composting* review of Alex Garland's Men. Spoilers do follow.

Men (2022) is something else. I like it better than Annihilation but not as much as Ex Machina. (I like Devs best of all Garland's work, but I'm only ranking movies for the purpose of this post.)

Looking at reviews/explainers, I am agog at how hard some dudes missed the point, which is pretty hilarious. I could only tolerate one of those guys but the general vibe from them seems to be "ugh we know misogyny = bad already, did you make a whole movie just to beat men over the head with it???" and of course the answer is "no but you got so pissy at the mere inclusion of it in the film you literally missed what it's about". 

I often feel like I just don't see enough of Rory Kinnear and now... well. Now I have seen enough of Rory Kinnear. 

The final act is unfuckinghinged. I almost wanted to clap for everyone but I was still pretty stiff with "wtf did I just witness" feelings.

Overall very creepy. Like super-skin-crawly creepy sometimes, but not scary. The boy with the dolly mask and the dead raven was an amazing couple of minutes. Plenty of scenes where Garland paints with film and the score weaves worlds with sound. When it gets grisly it goes bananas

I felt like I could see most of it coming, so I don't know if it was meant to be telegraphing that clearly or it just landed right for me, but even with that I did not expect the skin-crawly body horror that just kept going, until honestly I was giggling and I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intent? Also I don't know if everyone knows about Sheela na gig and the Green Man so maybe I went a different direction from some of the audience.

I think that to her all the men were physical manifestations of the overwhelming grief and trauma she was just beginning to examine, but the reality was that there's an entity there that is looking for its opposite cohort and decided she would do, and so the finale where it is perpetually giving birth to itself was both the Green Man's frustration at being thwarted by her refusal to acquiesce and a living metaphor for the grieving process, where picking at one hurt can reveal another and another, traumas all the way down. Also I think by giving in to her rage at all these Men avatars, she was able to let herself live with the rage she felt at her husband. Anger at a dead loved one can be amazingly destructive and is hard to validate for oneself in light of all the other emotions that you're "supposed to be" feeling. 

Overall I liked it, and I think it merits a rewatch now that some friends have weighed in on their interpretations.

Season of the Witch (1972)

 My quick and dirty twitter review of the George Romero film

Crimes of the Future (2022)

 I guess I'll be crossposting from other platforms for a bit while I decide how long I'm going to continue posting on socials and how often, so here's my sorta-review of the latest David Cronenberg movie Crimes of the Future and a mention of the 1970 short film of the same name. Some spoilers may follow.

It would be factually inaccurate but spiritually honest to say Crimes of the Future (2022) is a sequel to Videodrome, but don't watch it just because you remember really liking Debbie Harry in that kinda kinky 80s movie where videotapes were relevant and James Woods was always sweaty.

Do watch it if you would like to confirm for yourself that Cronenberg's still got it, baby.

I like the concepts and the performances. It does seem like he's dialed back a bit from the prurient in recent years, which is not surprising, and I appreciate the acknowledgement of environmental conditions we've created for ourselves without an exit strategy.

It's almost like one of his very early films, story-wise, but where the weird biomechanical tech fx are relegated to background radiation instead of put under a magnifying glass.

It does make me curious how this one was received by people who have never seen another Cronenberg movie. I know I've never seen Viggo in a role like that before (it almost seems like it was made with Callum Keith Rennie in mind?), and I'm always quietly delighted to see Don McKellar.

I really liked Kristen Stewart in this. Are we cool with her now? IDK but I thought she played the part hypnotically. I think I would watch a whole side-movie with just her and Don McKellar running that weird black books office.

The leading lady (Lea Seydoux as Caprice) was fine, I don't know her from anything else but I couldn't help but feel like she was there mainly to evoke 1980 Geneviève Bujold and I think she did that well. Viggo Mortensen looked like he was having a ball and had the most enviable chic desert nomad wardrobe for the whole thing. 

The med tech women! I would also watch a movie that told more of their story 

The grungy place they all lived in is what's haunting me right now, though. Set design could not be more oppressive is it was set in a prison. 

Comparing Crimes of the Future 2022 to 1970 is like comparing The Lawnmower Man by Stephen King to (Stephen King's) The Lawnmower Man (1992). I won't recommend the 1970 short film; you'll know in the first two minutes whether you'll make it another hour.

It's inscrutable and unenjoyable, yet it's uncomfortably magnetic in the way Cronenberg films tend to be. The sound design is jarring and triggering and malicious. Lots of men's naked feet. Unexplained bodily effluvia. Implied sexual extreme deviance. Also, randomly, a pre-City Lights Brian Linehan. That's Numberwang!

That time when I had an OPINION on: Tampons

 So I went on about it.

       

       

       

       

       

 

       

             *sweeping bow*

It was enough

 If their names hadn't sounded so silly together, would it have clicked? No way of knowing. Thank you Doja Cat and Noah Schnapp, for being so quintessentially Gen Z.