Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 48
September 7, 2022
Catseye (Movie)
Catseye adapts two stories from Stephen King's Night Shift, plus one original story, tied together by the adventures and travails of an incredibly adorable, resourceful, and well-trained tabby cat. The cat is legitimately the best actor in the movie (SORRY DREW BARRYMORE), and I regret that he did not go on to star in more movies.
"The Ledge" is one of my very favorite Stephen King stories, and one of my favorite short stories in general. "Quitters, Inc." is an effective short story that isn't one of my personal favorites, but I can see why a lot of people love it. So this movie had good material to work with.
It is deeply stupid. The cat is far and away the best part.
The movie opens with the cat getting chased by Cujo, and passing Christine. In case we don't recognize Christine, she has a bumper sticker saying CHRISTINE. This is the general level of subtlety of the movie.
The cat escapes and sees kid Drew Barrymore psychically calling to him for help from a store mannequin. Later he sees her calling from a TV shows. How and why she can psychically call him or he can psychically sense her distress is never explained or ever referred to again.
He's picked up by the head of Quitters, Inc., a deranged organization that helps people quit smoking by threatening them. James Woods is referred to it by a friend, and fails to leave even when he sees a man sobbing hysterically and a woman staggering and distraught in the lobby. The head of Quitters Inc. (Alan King, chewing the scenery with relish) informs him that if he ever smokes again, they'll harm his wife and kid! They demonstrate by electrifying the floor under the cat, who promptly escapes.
James Woods goes home and sneaks a cigarette in the middle of the night, during a storm. But a man is lurking in his closet! We know because we see 1) his boots, 2) water dripping down, 3) wet footprints. (Subtle.) He flees back to the bedroom rather than calling the cops. The failure to inform the police is a lot more noticeable in the movie than in the short story, which breezes by much faster and never makes it explicit exactly how he's being watched.
The best part of this story is the party in which everyone is smoking and Woods has a series of bonkers visions of people blowing smoke out of their ears, dancing cigarette packs, etc. It reminded me of how much I don't miss all indoor public spaces being thick with smoke in the 80s.
"The Ledge" is not bad, though the short story is much better. It does have an excellent guest turn by a vicious attack pigeon.
In the last story, the cat makes it to Drew Barrymore, who never shows any indication of being psychic (and neither does he, so what was up with the psychic visions???) She is, however, being stalked by a troll.
The troll is one of the least scary monsters I've ever seen in a movie. It's the size of a guinea pig, moves slowly and clumsily, and mutters and wheezes like a middle-aged, out-of-shape lunatic. You could just kick it across the room. It wields a knife which in some shots is big and dangerous, and in others is a plastic toy about a third of an inch long. It engages in a battle with General in which it is revealed that General knows how to play a record player, and is generally is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.
The movie does end with General being fed fresh fish and sleeping on Drew Barrymore's chest, so that's nice.
[image error] [image error]
comments
"The Ledge" is one of my very favorite Stephen King stories, and one of my favorite short stories in general. "Quitters, Inc." is an effective short story that isn't one of my personal favorites, but I can see why a lot of people love it. So this movie had good material to work with.
It is deeply stupid. The cat is far and away the best part.
The movie opens with the cat getting chased by Cujo, and passing Christine. In case we don't recognize Christine, she has a bumper sticker saying CHRISTINE. This is the general level of subtlety of the movie.
The cat escapes and sees kid Drew Barrymore psychically calling to him for help from a store mannequin. Later he sees her calling from a TV shows. How and why she can psychically call him or he can psychically sense her distress is never explained or ever referred to again.
He's picked up by the head of Quitters, Inc., a deranged organization that helps people quit smoking by threatening them. James Woods is referred to it by a friend, and fails to leave even when he sees a man sobbing hysterically and a woman staggering and distraught in the lobby. The head of Quitters Inc. (Alan King, chewing the scenery with relish) informs him that if he ever smokes again, they'll harm his wife and kid! They demonstrate by electrifying the floor under the cat, who promptly escapes.
James Woods goes home and sneaks a cigarette in the middle of the night, during a storm. But a man is lurking in his closet! We know because we see 1) his boots, 2) water dripping down, 3) wet footprints. (Subtle.) He flees back to the bedroom rather than calling the cops. The failure to inform the police is a lot more noticeable in the movie than in the short story, which breezes by much faster and never makes it explicit exactly how he's being watched.
The best part of this story is the party in which everyone is smoking and Woods has a series of bonkers visions of people blowing smoke out of their ears, dancing cigarette packs, etc. It reminded me of how much I don't miss all indoor public spaces being thick with smoke in the 80s.
"The Ledge" is not bad, though the short story is much better. It does have an excellent guest turn by a vicious attack pigeon.
In the last story, the cat makes it to Drew Barrymore, who never shows any indication of being psychic (and neither does he, so what was up with the psychic visions???) She is, however, being stalked by a troll.
The troll is one of the least scary monsters I've ever seen in a movie. It's the size of a guinea pig, moves slowly and clumsily, and mutters and wheezes like a middle-aged, out-of-shape lunatic. You could just kick it across the room. It wields a knife which in some shots is big and dangerous, and in others is a plastic toy about a third of an inch long. It engages in a battle with General in which it is revealed that General knows how to play a record player, and is generally is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.
The movie does end with General being fed fresh fish and sleeping on Drew Barrymore's chest, so that's nice.
[image error] [image error]
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September 6, 2022
Possibly my weirdest plane experience ever.
Unless you count the time I found a woman giving birth in a bathroom stall in the Kuwait airport at 3:00 am when I was nine.
I had to wake up at 5:30 AM to make sure I got there in time with plenty to spare. Only there wasn't plenty to spare, because a car burst into flames.
Not mine. But it did cause a 6:00 AM traffic jam.
The second issue occurred at the airport where I discovered that my boarding pass was printed with Rachel Brown (name on credit card) instead of Manija Brown (name on passport and also name I booked my ticket for, which is provable because that's what Orbitz sent me in receipt, etc.)
They said 1) I cannot get on plane with that pass, 2) they cannot change the name on the pass, 3) I cannot cancel flight and rebook the same one in the correct name.
"But how did you get through security in Lexington?" she asked.
"Lexington?!" I said.
"I didn't come through Lexington," I said. "I just walked in now, from LA."
We argued about this for several minutes.
You are probably thinking I grabbed the wrong boarding pass, but it did say Rachel Brown and it's what the kiosk spit out when I inserted my credit card.
"And you're going to Detroit, right?"
"Detroit?!" I said. "No! I'm going to Minneapolis!"
At that point it became clear that something was disastrously wrong. She told me it wasn't her problem and to call Orbitz. I madly waved my email confirmation at her and pointed out that by now, I had only thirty minutes to boarding.
She then ran my passport through the system and produced the correct boarding pass in the correct name. I'm still not sure exactly what happened. The most plausible answer seems to be that when I inserted my credit card, it read only the name on the card, not the number, and gave me another Rachel Brown's boarding pass.
However. The flight itinerary for that Rachel Brown was to leave Lexington, Kentucky, fly to Los Angeles, and then go to Detroit all on the same day. If you look at a map of the US, you'll see why this is an unlikely itinerary to say the least.
Whatever happened, I was then rushed through security...
...until I got randomly selected to be searched.
When they were done searching me, they put my bag through the X-Ray, then decided to search my bag. I had a small case of DVDs for a TV show, and it got flagged as suspicious. The TSA guy demanded that I open the case and prove they were DVDs.
The case jammed. I struggled and struggled to open it and finally just handed it to him and asked him to try. Then he struggled and struggled and finally got it open.
It contained DVDs.
He then got suspicious of a bag of cocoa powder I use to disguise the taste of some gross powdered meds I take. It was in the original packaging, but it had come open so there was brown powder inside the ziplock bag I'd put it in.
"It's cocoa powder!" I said, on the verge of losing my mind. "I CAN PROVE IT! IF YOU WANT I WILL EAT SOME RIGHT NOW WHILE YOU WATCH!!!
He decided not to make me eat it.
I barely made it onto the plane, where none of crew and v few of passengers are masked.
But! I made it to Minneapolis, I met my friend, and we went to a cafe where I had pancakes, coffee, and a cocktail.
comments
I had to wake up at 5:30 AM to make sure I got there in time with plenty to spare. Only there wasn't plenty to spare, because a car burst into flames.
Not mine. But it did cause a 6:00 AM traffic jam.
The second issue occurred at the airport where I discovered that my boarding pass was printed with Rachel Brown (name on credit card) instead of Manija Brown (name on passport and also name I booked my ticket for, which is provable because that's what Orbitz sent me in receipt, etc.)
They said 1) I cannot get on plane with that pass, 2) they cannot change the name on the pass, 3) I cannot cancel flight and rebook the same one in the correct name.
"But how did you get through security in Lexington?" she asked.
"Lexington?!" I said.
"I didn't come through Lexington," I said. "I just walked in now, from LA."
We argued about this for several minutes.
You are probably thinking I grabbed the wrong boarding pass, but it did say Rachel Brown and it's what the kiosk spit out when I inserted my credit card.
"And you're going to Detroit, right?"
"Detroit?!" I said. "No! I'm going to Minneapolis!"
At that point it became clear that something was disastrously wrong. She told me it wasn't her problem and to call Orbitz. I madly waved my email confirmation at her and pointed out that by now, I had only thirty minutes to boarding.
She then ran my passport through the system and produced the correct boarding pass in the correct name. I'm still not sure exactly what happened. The most plausible answer seems to be that when I inserted my credit card, it read only the name on the card, not the number, and gave me another Rachel Brown's boarding pass.
However. The flight itinerary for that Rachel Brown was to leave Lexington, Kentucky, fly to Los Angeles, and then go to Detroit all on the same day. If you look at a map of the US, you'll see why this is an unlikely itinerary to say the least.
Whatever happened, I was then rushed through security...
...until I got randomly selected to be searched.
When they were done searching me, they put my bag through the X-Ray, then decided to search my bag. I had a small case of DVDs for a TV show, and it got flagged as suspicious. The TSA guy demanded that I open the case and prove they were DVDs.
The case jammed. I struggled and struggled to open it and finally just handed it to him and asked him to try. Then he struggled and struggled and finally got it open.
It contained DVDs.
He then got suspicious of a bag of cocoa powder I use to disguise the taste of some gross powdered meds I take. It was in the original packaging, but it had come open so there was brown powder inside the ziplock bag I'd put it in.
"It's cocoa powder!" I said, on the verge of losing my mind. "I CAN PROVE IT! IF YOU WANT I WILL EAT SOME RIGHT NOW WHILE YOU WATCH!!!
He decided not to make me eat it.
I barely made it onto the plane, where none of crew and v few of passengers are masked.
But! I made it to Minneapolis, I met my friend, and we went to a cafe where I had pancakes, coffee, and a cocktail.
comments
September 3, 2022
Fic in a Box Letter
This letter and its prompts are now complete!
My AO3 name is Edonohana. Thank you for creating for me!
If you have any questions, please ask the mods to check with me. If there is any issue with the mods feeling that your story for me doesn't fit my requirements, please point them to this letter and ask them to check with me first, rather than rejecting the story without checking with me.
I am a very easy recipient and will be delighted with whatever you make for me. I have no special requirements beyond what's specifically stated in my DNWs. I'm fine with all POVs (i.e., first, second, third), tenses, ratings, lengths, etc. I enjoy both shipfic and gen. I am fine with sex if it suits the story, or no sex if that suits the story.
General Likes: Hurt-comfort, action/adventure, domestic life, survival situations, mysterious alien technology, worldbuilding, evocative descriptions, camaraderie, loyalty, trauma recovery, learning to love again or trust again or enjoy life again, difficult choices, miniature things, food, and animals.
Art-specific likes: I like watercolors, bold graphics, Tarot cards, comics, pin-ups, characters in pretty/cozy environments, battle poses, and Art Nouveau. You can never go wrong by posing a character using their powers or with an adorable kitten/tiny dragon/pegasus/etc.
I have requested some of these canons before. All prompts in previous exchanges are still valid and welcomed. You can find them by clicking on the "fic exchange letter" tag.
Length opt-in: 300 minimum words for all fics. I genuinely enjoy very short stories as well as longer ones, and am particularly fond of short horror.
Worldbuilding Requests: Don't worry about failing to fulfill the "worldbuilding" aspect of the prompt - it would be almost impossible for you to do that by accident.
I consider a worldbuilding story to be one which explores the world/setting of the canon. This could involve exploring a corner of the world we don't see much in canon, getting into more detail on a part of the world we do see a lot of in canon, making some interesting custom or culture or place a big part of the story, or simply telling a story which includes vivid and atmospheric details of the world.
Where I've requested worldbuilding, I really love the world and want to see more of it. However, I do want an actual story with characters, not something like a travel guide or an encyclopedia article.
You can use either original or canon characters. I've noted canon-specific preferences about this in the sections on the individual canons.
( General DNW )
( Biggles - W. E. Johns )
( Children of Time Series - Adrian Tchaikovsky )
( Crossover Fandom )
( Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey )
( Revelator - Daryl Gregory )
( The Sandman (Comics) )
( The Sandman (TV 2022) )
( Space Trilogy - C. S. Lewis )
( Star Trek: Crossroad - Barbara Hambly )
( X-Men (Comicverse) )
comments
My AO3 name is Edonohana. Thank you for creating for me!
If you have any questions, please ask the mods to check with me. If there is any issue with the mods feeling that your story for me doesn't fit my requirements, please point them to this letter and ask them to check with me first, rather than rejecting the story without checking with me.
I am a very easy recipient and will be delighted with whatever you make for me. I have no special requirements beyond what's specifically stated in my DNWs. I'm fine with all POVs (i.e., first, second, third), tenses, ratings, lengths, etc. I enjoy both shipfic and gen. I am fine with sex if it suits the story, or no sex if that suits the story.
General Likes: Hurt-comfort, action/adventure, domestic life, survival situations, mysterious alien technology, worldbuilding, evocative descriptions, camaraderie, loyalty, trauma recovery, learning to love again or trust again or enjoy life again, difficult choices, miniature things, food, and animals.
Art-specific likes: I like watercolors, bold graphics, Tarot cards, comics, pin-ups, characters in pretty/cozy environments, battle poses, and Art Nouveau. You can never go wrong by posing a character using their powers or with an adorable kitten/tiny dragon/pegasus/etc.
I have requested some of these canons before. All prompts in previous exchanges are still valid and welcomed. You can find them by clicking on the "fic exchange letter" tag.
Length opt-in: 300 minimum words for all fics. I genuinely enjoy very short stories as well as longer ones, and am particularly fond of short horror.
Worldbuilding Requests: Don't worry about failing to fulfill the "worldbuilding" aspect of the prompt - it would be almost impossible for you to do that by accident.
I consider a worldbuilding story to be one which explores the world/setting of the canon. This could involve exploring a corner of the world we don't see much in canon, getting into more detail on a part of the world we do see a lot of in canon, making some interesting custom or culture or place a big part of the story, or simply telling a story which includes vivid and atmospheric details of the world.
Where I've requested worldbuilding, I really love the world and want to see more of it. However, I do want an actual story with characters, not something like a travel guide or an encyclopedia article.
You can use either original or canon characters. I've noted canon-specific preferences about this in the sections on the individual canons.
( General DNW )
( Biggles - W. E. Johns )
( Children of Time Series - Adrian Tchaikovsky )
( Crossover Fandom )
( Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey )
( Revelator - Daryl Gregory )
( The Sandman (Comics) )
( The Sandman (TV 2022) )
( Space Trilogy - C. S. Lewis )
( Star Trek: Crossroad - Barbara Hambly )
( X-Men (Comicverse) )
comments
Fic in a Box placeholder
Placeholder!
I like h/c and worldbuilding.
comments
I like h/c and worldbuilding.
comments
Movie Poll
Here is another installment of my belated-reviews-of movies poll. Very sadly, there are several not listed because all I remember is that I hated them. I will still be reviewing movies from the previous poll, don't worry.
View Poll: #27485
Have you seen any of these? What did you think?
comments
View Poll: #27485
Have you seen any of these? What did you think?
comments
In the Land of Lost Angels
A low-budget, black-and-white film noir about Mongolian immigrant brothers who, down on their luck, decide to kidnap the son of a wealthy businessman and hold him for ransom. This goes as well as all crimes do in film noir.
This movie is set in a very recognizable Los Angeles - not Hollywood or Beverly Hills, but Culver City and Koreatown and places like that. In fact I once had an apartment that was incredibly similar to the one most of the action of this movie takes place in, all the way down to the interior detailing and inset shelves.
In the Land of Lost Angels involves multiple elements which I like very much: a recognizable and atmospheric setting, noir, and characters who are some sort of social minority in a story which is not about explaining their culture to outsiders. Being Mongolian is significant to the characters, who are very much outsiders and whose responsibilities to an ailing family member back in Mongolia sets off the plot, but the story is not about the Troubles of Mongolian Immigrants.
This is a small-scale, nicely-acted, well-written noir, with stylish cinematography. It's stylish in general. It has a stark, pared-down, back-to-basics feeling that suits the undoubtedly very low budget. I hope the two main actors and writer-director get more opportunities, because their work is thoughtful, understated, and confident.
Watch on Amazon
comments
This movie is set in a very recognizable Los Angeles - not Hollywood or Beverly Hills, but Culver City and Koreatown and places like that. In fact I once had an apartment that was incredibly similar to the one most of the action of this movie takes place in, all the way down to the interior detailing and inset shelves.
In the Land of Lost Angels involves multiple elements which I like very much: a recognizable and atmospheric setting, noir, and characters who are some sort of social minority in a story which is not about explaining their culture to outsiders. Being Mongolian is significant to the characters, who are very much outsiders and whose responsibilities to an ailing family member back in Mongolia sets off the plot, but the story is not about the Troubles of Mongolian Immigrants.
This is a small-scale, nicely-acted, well-written noir, with stylish cinematography. It's stylish in general. It has a stark, pared-down, back-to-basics feeling that suits the undoubtedly very low budget. I hope the two main actors and writer-director get more opportunities, because their work is thoughtful, understated, and confident.
Watch on Amazon
comments
September 2, 2022
Malignant
This is one of the most batshit movies I have ever seen. My description really won't do it justice. Not only is the plot completely nuts, but so is the acting, the sets, and sometimes even the cinematography. I don't think it's a good movie, exactly, but it's an amazing experience and I sincerely recommend it. I also don't think it's a bad movie, exactly. There are aspects that are genuinely well-done. Some of those aspects are also completely insane. I've honestly never seen anything quite like it. As soon as I finished watching it I began plotting to watch it with other people.
Part of what makes Malignant such a bizarre experience is that, after a pulp horror opening and a gross title sequence, the entire first half of the movie is odd and off-kilter, but in a subtle way. The entire second half is not subtle at all.
It's most fun if you're completely unspoiled, so if you want to enjoy the full Malignant experience, stop reading now. There will be a second "stop reading here" warning for the second half, after which everything goes under a cut.
Content notes: Standard horror movie gore/violence, domestic violence, a miscarriage. There's no eye trauma that I recall - the poster is an allusion to the heroine seeing through the eyes of a killer a la The Eyes of Laura Mars.
The movie begins with a bang, in a fantastically Gothic hospital where doctors and staff are being massacred by a patient named Gabriel who can control electricity. In case we don't get it, someone screams, "He's drinking the electricity!"
Gabriel makes noises like a velociraptor and projects his voice over speakers, saying stuff like "I will kill you all!"
"My God!" someone gasps. "He speaks!"
There's screaming and bone-snapping and blood flying! Dr. Weaver says he has to be killed: "THE CANCER MUST BE REMOVED!!!"
Credits! They have lots of surgical imagery and are gross.
28 years later, our heroine Madison is pregnant and living with her abusive asshole husband in a big Gothic house, very suitable for hauntings. He bangs her head against the wall until she bleeds; she passes out, he goes downstairs, the electricity goes wibbly, he's attacked by someone hanging from the ceiling, she goes down and finds his body, and the killer attacks her. She wakes up in a hospital, where her sister Sydney tells her she lost the baby.
Madison moves back into the house, where the electricity continues to be wibbly. She has weird visions of people being murdered, which turn out to be real. A tour guide who gives tours of the underground town beneath Seattle which is apparently a real thing is kidnapped and kept prisoner, while other people are just killed. The two cops who interviewed Madison about her husband's death investigate these murders and kidnapping.
Okay. This part sounds like fairly straightforward supernatural horror about a woman who has a mysterious connection to a killer. But the way it plays is really strange, in ways where it's hard to convey just how peculiar everything is.
The police station is a gigantic open plan office with ceilings like a cathedral, brutalist architecture, and floor-to-ceiling windows in an ornate pattern. If I saw it without context, I'd think it was either a church, an art gallery, or an expensive artisanal gastropub.
After Madison comes home from the hospital, she locks herself in. Her sister Sydney surprises her by climbing in a window... into a room on the second floor! They then have an extremely odd conversation in which Madison says, with no preamble and in a way which made me burst out laughing, "Sydney, I'm adopted."
The age difference (eight years) does make it possible for Sydney to not know, but it plays as so weird. It's plot-relevant that she was adopted and has no memories prior to age eight, but there has got to be a more graceful way of dropping that in.
One of the murder victims, who is a wealthy doctor, lives across from a gigantic red neon sign so his apartment is always bathed in red light.
Another murder victim, also a wealthy doctor, has a shelf of DOCTOR TROPHY CUPS with inscriptions like BEST SURGEON.
All the white women in the movie have the same haircut (very long with bangs straight across the forehead.)
The dialogue is all slightly stilted in a peculiar way, both in writing and in speech.
Here is where the truly batshit spoilers begin. Seriously, this movie is amazing experienced unspoiled.
( Read more... )
I regret to say that this summary really doesn't do justice to the absolute bizarreness that is this movie. The plot is only about half of how nuts it is.
Like at one point there's a childhood flashback to what is supposed to be an ordinary, nice family. The mother, reminiscing about when a kid was eight or nine, says, "You wanted a birthday party so much, you nagged us until your father gave in."
Why is a kid having a birthday party presented as this huge and unusual favor the kid needs to beg for?
The whole movie is like that. Things that shouldn't be weird are weird. Characters who should be normal are slightly off. Dialogue is written and delivered oddly. Parking a car is inexplicably bizarre. The architecture of everything is incredibly weird. But the budget is high, it's shot beautifully, and a great deal of care was clearly lavished on this completely fucking bonkers movie.
[image error] [image error]
comments
Part of what makes Malignant such a bizarre experience is that, after a pulp horror opening and a gross title sequence, the entire first half of the movie is odd and off-kilter, but in a subtle way. The entire second half is not subtle at all.
It's most fun if you're completely unspoiled, so if you want to enjoy the full Malignant experience, stop reading now. There will be a second "stop reading here" warning for the second half, after which everything goes under a cut.
Content notes: Standard horror movie gore/violence, domestic violence, a miscarriage. There's no eye trauma that I recall - the poster is an allusion to the heroine seeing through the eyes of a killer a la The Eyes of Laura Mars.
The movie begins with a bang, in a fantastically Gothic hospital where doctors and staff are being massacred by a patient named Gabriel who can control electricity. In case we don't get it, someone screams, "He's drinking the electricity!"
Gabriel makes noises like a velociraptor and projects his voice over speakers, saying stuff like "I will kill you all!"
"My God!" someone gasps. "He speaks!"
There's screaming and bone-snapping and blood flying! Dr. Weaver says he has to be killed: "THE CANCER MUST BE REMOVED!!!"
Credits! They have lots of surgical imagery and are gross.
28 years later, our heroine Madison is pregnant and living with her abusive asshole husband in a big Gothic house, very suitable for hauntings. He bangs her head against the wall until she bleeds; she passes out, he goes downstairs, the electricity goes wibbly, he's attacked by someone hanging from the ceiling, she goes down and finds his body, and the killer attacks her. She wakes up in a hospital, where her sister Sydney tells her she lost the baby.
Madison moves back into the house, where the electricity continues to be wibbly. She has weird visions of people being murdered, which turn out to be real. A tour guide who gives tours of the underground town beneath Seattle which is apparently a real thing is kidnapped and kept prisoner, while other people are just killed. The two cops who interviewed Madison about her husband's death investigate these murders and kidnapping.
Okay. This part sounds like fairly straightforward supernatural horror about a woman who has a mysterious connection to a killer. But the way it plays is really strange, in ways where it's hard to convey just how peculiar everything is.
The police station is a gigantic open plan office with ceilings like a cathedral, brutalist architecture, and floor-to-ceiling windows in an ornate pattern. If I saw it without context, I'd think it was either a church, an art gallery, or an expensive artisanal gastropub.
After Madison comes home from the hospital, she locks herself in. Her sister Sydney surprises her by climbing in a window... into a room on the second floor! They then have an extremely odd conversation in which Madison says, with no preamble and in a way which made me burst out laughing, "Sydney, I'm adopted."
The age difference (eight years) does make it possible for Sydney to not know, but it plays as so weird. It's plot-relevant that she was adopted and has no memories prior to age eight, but there has got to be a more graceful way of dropping that in.
One of the murder victims, who is a wealthy doctor, lives across from a gigantic red neon sign so his apartment is always bathed in red light.
Another murder victim, also a wealthy doctor, has a shelf of DOCTOR TROPHY CUPS with inscriptions like BEST SURGEON.
All the white women in the movie have the same haircut (very long with bangs straight across the forehead.)
The dialogue is all slightly stilted in a peculiar way, both in writing and in speech.
Here is where the truly batshit spoilers begin. Seriously, this movie is amazing experienced unspoiled.
( Read more... )
I regret to say that this summary really doesn't do justice to the absolute bizarreness that is this movie. The plot is only about half of how nuts it is.
Like at one point there's a childhood flashback to what is supposed to be an ordinary, nice family. The mother, reminiscing about when a kid was eight or nine, says, "You wanted a birthday party so much, you nagged us until your father gave in."
Why is a kid having a birthday party presented as this huge and unusual favor the kid needs to beg for?
The whole movie is like that. Things that shouldn't be weird are weird. Characters who should be normal are slightly off. Dialogue is written and delivered oddly. Parking a car is inexplicably bizarre. The architecture of everything is incredibly weird. But the budget is high, it's shot beautifully, and a great deal of care was clearly lavished on this completely fucking bonkers movie.
[image error] [image error]
comments
September 1, 2022
Alice (2022 movie)
Alice was my least-favorite of the four movies I saw at virtual Sundance. It wasn't bad, but was more of an ambitious mess.
Alice (Keke Palmer) lives on a slave plantation in the 1800s. About a third of the way into the movie, she escapes, and...
...almost gets run over by a truck! She's not living in the 1800s, she's in 1973. The plantation pretended it was the 1800s to prevent the slaves from trying to escape.
Luckily, the truck driver was an extremely nice Black guy, Frank (Common), who invites her to stay at his apartment and provides her with TV and newspapers. In literally a single afternoon, she catches up on over 100 years of history and pop culture. Within a week, she's got a fabulous new look and hairdo, and is going out to the movies with Common. And she's also planning to rescue the slaves back at the plantation...
This movie is based on a true story, which unsurprisingly has literally nothing in common with the movie other than that it's about Black people being enslaved and deliberately kept ignorant of their rights in the modern day. The real story is much more depressing and, well, realistic; it's the kind of labor trafficking that still happens to this day.
The first part of the movie, the part on the plantation, is basically realistic in tone. The second part is not. As a whole, it felt like two movies stuck together without enough to bridge the gap between a Room-like naturalistic depiction of a woman brought up in slavery and a blaxsploitation revenge fantasy. They're both done well, looked at separately, but juxtaposed together, neither makes a whole lot of sense.
The whole middle part, I kept getting hung up on things like how Alice could possibly figure out how to call people based on Frank's totally inadequate explanation of what a phone was, why she completely stops having culture shock after basically one day, and everything about the plantation.
If it was a slave town that decided to hide the news of the Civil War (HOW) and the Emancipation Proclamation from the slaves, that makes sense but why not modernize in other ways? There's nothing inherent about electricity or modern dress that would give the game away, so why are they basically living in an Antebellum re-enactment? Or is the whole thing a cult idolizing the past? Is the entire town in on it? If not, how have they not noticed what's going on given the way everyone dresses?
This movie would have worked better either as realism or as satire/fantasy. But it needed to pick one and stick to it.
Alice at Amazon.
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Alice (Keke Palmer) lives on a slave plantation in the 1800s. About a third of the way into the movie, she escapes, and...
...almost gets run over by a truck! She's not living in the 1800s, she's in 1973. The plantation pretended it was the 1800s to prevent the slaves from trying to escape.
Luckily, the truck driver was an extremely nice Black guy, Frank (Common), who invites her to stay at his apartment and provides her with TV and newspapers. In literally a single afternoon, she catches up on over 100 years of history and pop culture. Within a week, she's got a fabulous new look and hairdo, and is going out to the movies with Common. And she's also planning to rescue the slaves back at the plantation...
This movie is based on a true story, which unsurprisingly has literally nothing in common with the movie other than that it's about Black people being enslaved and deliberately kept ignorant of their rights in the modern day. The real story is much more depressing and, well, realistic; it's the kind of labor trafficking that still happens to this day.
The first part of the movie, the part on the plantation, is basically realistic in tone. The second part is not. As a whole, it felt like two movies stuck together without enough to bridge the gap between a Room-like naturalistic depiction of a woman brought up in slavery and a blaxsploitation revenge fantasy. They're both done well, looked at separately, but juxtaposed together, neither makes a whole lot of sense.
The whole middle part, I kept getting hung up on things like how Alice could possibly figure out how to call people based on Frank's totally inadequate explanation of what a phone was, why she completely stops having culture shock after basically one day, and everything about the plantation.
If it was a slave town that decided to hide the news of the Civil War (HOW) and the Emancipation Proclamation from the slaves, that makes sense but why not modernize in other ways? There's nothing inherent about electricity or modern dress that would give the game away, so why are they basically living in an Antebellum re-enactment? Or is the whole thing a cult idolizing the past? Is the entire town in on it? If not, how have they not noticed what's going on given the way everyone dresses?
This movie would have worked better either as realism or as satire/fantasy. But it needed to pick one and stick to it.
Alice at Amazon.
comments
Movie Poll
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and I watch movies together, including virtually attending Sundance, about 90% of which I never get around to reviewing. What would you be interested in seeing reviews of? Note that 1) the reviews may be one paragraph, 2) I am posting the poll in chunks as otherwise it would be very unwieldy.Has anyone else seen any of these? What did you think?
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August 29, 2022
The Collective, by Alison Gaylin
Camille, a furious grieving mother whose teenage daughter was raped and left to die by a golden boy college student, gets in touch with a group of mothers whose children were killed by people who suffered no consequences, and have a method for bringing down those consequences themselves.
The public group, Niobe, gives way to a darkweb group where the leader, 0001, sends Camille on gradually escalating tasks. Camille initially tells herself that it's a role-playing game that makes them all feel better, with no real world consequences; if she ever really believed that, which is doubtful, she quickly learns that it's a very elaborate version of Strangers on a Train: "You do my murder, and I'll do yours."
This book is an interesting balance of the classic and the extremely current; it's the opposite of the kind of "middle-aged writer discovers TikTok" that internet-heavy books can easily become, and instead is very sharp about internet forums, relationships with people whose real names you don't know, going viral, how support groups can be both life-saving and an unhealthy kind of marinating in other people's pain, and, offline as well as on, moral dilemmas, grief, injustice, and rage.
Despite the heavy subject matter, it's a very fast, compelling read. The plot is clever, if implausible, up until the last couple twists which tip into ridiculous.
This sort of revenge story usually ends up finger-wagging about how revenge is bad really, which is annoying because everyone who reads it wants to enjoy the wish-fulfillment of killing rapists, racists, and murderers who the law refuses to touch.
The main failure mode of "revenge/vigilantism is bad really" is the shocking reveal that the people in charge of the revenge are pure evil - they say they're just trying to save the environment/take out rapists, but really they're doing it all for personal profit, don't care if an entire preschool is collateral damage, and so forth. I always feel like this is a cheap and easy way out that allows the writer to avoid tackling deeper moral dilemmas, and is annoying for the reader who gets told their enjoyment of reading revenge is bad actually.
The Collective has a good long stretch of avoiding that in favor of a more thoughtful examination of the actual pitfalls of this type of revenge scheme, like the difficulty of knowing exactly how justified you really are, the necessity of trusting people who may not be trustworthy, and the impossibility of building a vigilante network without having to kill innocents to protect the network as a whole.
It also, more interestingly, digs into some real-life moral problems. If it's okay for the mother of a victim to do wrong in the effort to avenge her child, is it okay for the mother of a killer to do wrong in the effort to protect her child? Is it worth pursuing legal methods of stopping harmful people in a corrupt system that still sometimes does the right thing? How do you wrap your head around a person who does both genuine good deeds and genuine bad ones?
And then it drops all that in favor of piling on a stack of goofy, unnecessary, last-minute SHOCK TWISTS!
( Ending spoilers )
The Collective is an Anthony Award nominee for best novel. Despite its flaws, its ambition puts it head and shoulders above the other one I've read so far, Tracy Clark's enjoyable but average PI novel Runner.
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The public group, Niobe, gives way to a darkweb group where the leader, 0001, sends Camille on gradually escalating tasks. Camille initially tells herself that it's a role-playing game that makes them all feel better, with no real world consequences; if she ever really believed that, which is doubtful, she quickly learns that it's a very elaborate version of Strangers on a Train: "You do my murder, and I'll do yours."
This book is an interesting balance of the classic and the extremely current; it's the opposite of the kind of "middle-aged writer discovers TikTok" that internet-heavy books can easily become, and instead is very sharp about internet forums, relationships with people whose real names you don't know, going viral, how support groups can be both life-saving and an unhealthy kind of marinating in other people's pain, and, offline as well as on, moral dilemmas, grief, injustice, and rage.
Despite the heavy subject matter, it's a very fast, compelling read. The plot is clever, if implausible, up until the last couple twists which tip into ridiculous.
This sort of revenge story usually ends up finger-wagging about how revenge is bad really, which is annoying because everyone who reads it wants to enjoy the wish-fulfillment of killing rapists, racists, and murderers who the law refuses to touch.
The main failure mode of "revenge/vigilantism is bad really" is the shocking reveal that the people in charge of the revenge are pure evil - they say they're just trying to save the environment/take out rapists, but really they're doing it all for personal profit, don't care if an entire preschool is collateral damage, and so forth. I always feel like this is a cheap and easy way out that allows the writer to avoid tackling deeper moral dilemmas, and is annoying for the reader who gets told their enjoyment of reading revenge is bad actually.
The Collective has a good long stretch of avoiding that in favor of a more thoughtful examination of the actual pitfalls of this type of revenge scheme, like the difficulty of knowing exactly how justified you really are, the necessity of trusting people who may not be trustworthy, and the impossibility of building a vigilante network without having to kill innocents to protect the network as a whole.
It also, more interestingly, digs into some real-life moral problems. If it's okay for the mother of a victim to do wrong in the effort to avenge her child, is it okay for the mother of a killer to do wrong in the effort to protect her child? Is it worth pursuing legal methods of stopping harmful people in a corrupt system that still sometimes does the right thing? How do you wrap your head around a person who does both genuine good deeds and genuine bad ones?
And then it drops all that in favor of piling on a stack of goofy, unnecessary, last-minute SHOCK TWISTS!
( Ending spoilers )
The Collective is an Anthony Award nominee for best novel. Despite its flaws, its ambition puts it head and shoulders above the other one I've read so far, Tracy Clark's enjoyable but average PI novel Runner.
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