Tag: 2020

Jay’s Take: Possessor

A spoiler-heavy movie review.

possessor

Know what really irritates me? Movie trailers containing critic quotes and awards notice. For a long time, I was indignant of this technique, which appears to only be reserved for film festival selections trying to make their way in the Big Scary World of the modern multiplex. I’d be watching a trailer for something that looks interesting, when all of a sudden they cut to a wall of text telling me that someone from the New York Times thought it was good, and so should you. If you can’t sell the movie on content alone and you have to bolster its status by telling us what the “professional movie-watchers” thought of it – before it’s available for mass-consumption – then my expectations of your product immediately drop. But readers, I think I’ve cracked the code. Let’s assume that the average trailer runs 60 to 90-seconds in-length, at least. If this is a Very Important film festival movie, then let’s also assume that you aren’t a big-budget production and you don’t have enough “money shots” in your film to fill a full-length trailer and sell the movie to a mainstream audience (Marvel movies now have nothing but money shots, and a 2 to 3-minute trailer without ruining the movie is entirely possible). Let’s assume further, that your low-budget film is only three actors in a room the whole time. You have enough intriguing shots to build a 30-second spot without spoiling anything, but anything more than that and your movie starts to look dull (like it’s three people in a room the whole time, which it is, but you don’t want Joe Cinema and his Scenetourage to know that). So you have to pad it with filler, and positive reviews are cheap filler.

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Jay’s Take: The Broken Hearts Gallery

A spoiler-heavy movie review.

brokenheartsposter1

Yes, your boy Jay went to see a chick movie. There is no way around it: “The Broken Hearts Gallery” is for girls, through-and-through. And it was the only other major new release playing that my wife wanted to see for her birthday, that wasn’t subtitled (or I’d be all-over “Train to Busan 2”). But I was able to get through it like a champ. Allow me to explain: before the film, there was a trailer for “Ammonite”, which looks like the latest period-drama about an older, professional woman falling in lesbian with her much-younger assistant. It has Kate Winslet – who is fantastic – and Saoirse Ronan – who is mouth-gapingly pretty – so obviously it looked like something I would watch. My problem was that, hasn’t that particular film been done a few times now? It did seem awfully familiar. So it wouldn’t be in my best interest to assume (lest I be disappointed) that A: there would be steamy reel-to-reel sex, because there wouldn’t be, and B: that it would follow any kind of original plot or story-progression. There will obviously be some persecution; maybe the younger woman initially rejects the older woman’s advances; and the affair will probably ruin their lives, whether that means a lynching or a sad, lonely death at home like queer Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game”. Maybe the younger will leave the older for a man? Who knows. The point is, we’ve reached a precipice in cinema, where it doesn’t matter what you write, because it’s all been written before, either in books or on film, in English or any other language. So then it was all about how it looks; what directorial decisions are made; aesthetic choices that stand separate from whatever the writer originally intended behind their words.

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fred

A short story.

“A middle-aged Chinese man’s well-oiled weekend plans are repeatedly-hampered by karmic intervention.”

I don’t want to hear another word about it! Now just get it done! They were almost thirty-feet separated and Freddie was screaming like it was a First Aid emergency. Rogelio wished it was a real emergency: like something had snapped and crushed Freddie, even in the forklift. Like a beam: a big beam would break from the rafters – like an act of God – and fall and land at just the right angle to impale Fred through the open roof of his lift, and then he wouldn’t be a problem anymore. Rog recused himself before he fell down that depressive rabbit hole and ruined the rest of his shift: he wasn’t a young man anymore and couldn’t be bothered playing a young man’s game. But here was Fred again: driving too fast and too close for comfort off the main drag where the lifts were actually allowed. Rog put his head down and concentrated on his work, pretending not to notice as he knelt on old knees to pick up the product for stocking. But Fred must have felt Rog’s energy, because he screeched to a halt beside him, leaving barely-enough room for him to get off and down to Rog’s level. Well, not really: Fred was only five-foot-four. What’s your problem, Rog?
Problem? No problem, buddy. Rog was flustered & gasping for air, and trying his best to be diplomatic.
There’s something going on and I don’t know what it is. But I don’t want it to become a regular thing, OK?
What are you talking about?
Don’t think I haven’t been watching you. You’ve been frustrated for the last few days. And I don’t care what happened to you at home, just don’t take it out on me, OK? I’m trying to help you here.
Rog took a deep breath. …Fred, I’m very busy, OK? I don’t have time for your accusations.
I’m not accusing you of anything. What I’m saying to you is, you need a better attitude.
Attitude?
Your behavior! It sucks! Your work effort, too! You only have an hour left and look at how much you still have left to do!
OK OK OK, can you leave me alone now, please?
What, are you trying to get rid of me now?
Yes! I told you I’m busy! You dropped too much again! Now please go away!
I know that you’re busy, and I don’t like over-dropping any more than you do, but it’s what Kathy wants. That’s your job, right? To do what your manager wants? Not what you feel like. I just want to make sure that you know, that I’m working in your best interest, here.
Best interest? What are you talking about, best interest? You think that by making me stock all this heavy stuff so quickly that I’m not going to be paying the price tomorrow?
Oh, so you can call in sick again? That’s typical.
That’s your fault, buddy! That’s what I’m saying to you, man. You never stack any of the smaller pallets so I have to bend down so far to pick everything up and it hurts my back! You never put any of my short-stacks in steel and make me condense everything! And now there’s an hour left in my shift and I still have to finish the moves and clean up, and you’re dropping more? Because you think I need more to do? Fuck you, if you think that!
Fuck me?
Fuck you, Fred! You are an asshole, man!
Excuse me, you’d better watch your fucking language around me.
Or what?
Or we’re going to have a problem!
We already have a problem! You!
There’s nothing wrong with me! You don’t know me!
Everything’s wrong with you! Who says you get to talk to other employees this way? You aren’t a manager! You’re just a driver!
You’d better bet that Kathy is going to hear about this!
What, you going to run away now? Buddy, I’m just getting started!
You’re the asshole, Rog! You knew this was the last day before my vacation! Fred drove away at full-speed and Rog suffered his wrath for the rest of his shift. And as he wiped the sweat from his brow as he squatted by a pallet he was wrapping – his lungs panting and his heart racing and his back throbbing and only twenty minutes left in his shift; and his manager Katherine behind him, yelling at him about what he said to Fred and that he needed to stand up and explain himself right now – Rog cursed Fred under his breath. Worse than any wish of death or bodily dismemberment. Rog knew that he didn’t have any supernatural powers – or, at least, none that had awakened yet – but he’d heard of “The Secret” and the law of attraction and thought that, maybe, if he wanted it bad enough, it would happen. Yes, Fred needed to be taught a lesson. A lesson that was beyond Rog’s reach to teach in the material world. He cursed Fred, and his vacation, and his family, and anything else tied to him. His best friend in High School. His wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, whoever he was with. His parents. Him. And then he stood up.

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Jay’s Take: The New Mutants

A spoiler-heavy movie review.

newmutposter1

Hot on the heels of their characteristically-safe “Mulan 2020”, Disney has seen fit to release Josh Boone’s “The New Mutants”: a decidedly-unsafe choice for pandemic viewing. Sure, audiences may have been clamoring for something “different” in 2018 (its originally-intended release date) in a market that was saturated by “Star Wars” and Marvel & DC movie adaptations. But it’s two-years-on and people are finally starting to question their own culture, and a superhero movie where the “heroes” are disturbed teenagers unable to control their fledgling powers due to their combined childhood traumas is not necessarily upbeat family entertainment; especially if all anyone is looking for right now is non-binary escapism. Yes, The New Mutants is “different”, when compared to Twentieth Century Fox’s pre-Disney slew of X-Men movies. So “different” in fact that it probably scared producers, who feared making a return on an investment that toes-the-line between a “Netflix”-style teenie-bopper serial and an Ari Aster thriller. So it was shelved, pending reshoots to “lighten” its tone. Flash-forward two years and even star Maisie Williams’ “Game of Thrones” series had ended in the time-gap: everyone got older and moved-on. On top of that, Disney bought out Fox, and what we have now is the much-touted “original version”, presumably released as a stop-gap in an otherwise-vacant theatrical schedule. Because, content-aside, who really cares anymore?

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Jay’s Take: Mulan 2020

A spoiler-heavy movie review.

mulan

In Disney’s ongoing venture to remake every property they’ve ever produced so as to hold the new generation upside-down by their ankles and shake all the money out of their pockets, here we have “Mulan”. You know already whether this is something you are going to watch, whether that be for the THIRTY DOLLARS Disney is asking its Plus subscribers right now to pay for the privilege (which was my burden to carry, thank my wife and pandemic-fatigue), or waiting until December when it will be available to anyone who uses the service and still gives a shit. Let’s get this out of the way right now: the $30 price-tag is obviously an experiment with no reasonable grounding in reality. When was the last time you paid $30 to see a movie in theatres? Even in my neck-of-the-woods, Cineplex’s shaky-seat D-BOX format is only $25, and you get a two-hour massage out of it too. Yes, I understand it could be worth it if you held a twenty-person viewing party (and so everyone is only retroactively-paying $1.50), but then your bigmouth neighbors would call bylaw enforcement and you would have a social gathering fine to worry about (which we were told could be in the thousands, but obviously depends on where you live and who you know). If Disney is successful in getting enough of their subscribers to pay, then it will be a dark day for movies-on-film champions like Chris Nolan: you could be looking at a multi-billion-dollar enterprise cutting out struggling theatre chains with a pricier alternative. Know what else isn’t grounded in reality? Mulan 2020.

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