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