A single-page 2D drawing.
Tag: depression
400 Words on: Kissed (1996)
or, “Misanthropic Thanatophiles in Love”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.
3.5 out of 5
“Kissed” is a bizarre but on-brand Canadian film, with Molly Parker (from Global TV’s “Doc”) in her first major appearance. It’s a drama that skews closer to video art, with a striking premise that eventually plays second-fiddle to a middling obsession plot.
But damned if it exists at all: a straight-faced movie about necrophilia. Jörg Buttgereit’s “Nekromantik” this is not – though both films share the same fleeting duration of just over an hour: an unheard-of runtime in today’s feature market. Plenty for director Lynne Stopkewich to poke her head in, make her points, and leave, in – fingers-crossed – the most memorable way possible.
In that regard, its prologue is laudable: a snapshot of heroine Sandra’s youth & learned Wiccanness: evolving from a respect for the dead, into intimacy. Getting these character beats so early made me emotionally invested in the unorthodox subject matter – as did Parker’s fearless, Genie award winning performance as the adult Sandra (Genies are the Canadian Oscars, now called the “Canadian Screen Awards”).
[cont’d]
400 Words on: Mommie Dearest (1981)
or, “An Abundant Deposit of Effective Cringe”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.
4.5 out of 5
To paraphrase Tarantino, a movie that successfully uses a piece of music, owns that music. Likewise, 1981’s docudrama “Mommie Dearest” (or MD) belongs to its lead actress, Faye Dunaway.
Audiences are fickle. As a broad example (pun not intended), Sydney Sweeney is objectively attractive, but sometimes we need to be reminded that her place in history – as a babe – will only occupy a small space: one inhabited by the ghosts of celebrity babes past, like Farrah Fawcett or Marilyn Monroe.
Same goes for legendary performances: they only become discourse if viewers put the proverbial poster on their wall. As much as I admire Dunaway, there’s only a handful of movies out of her six-decade career I can definitively name – most from one era.
[cont’d]
Video: ¡Señor Que!
A Short Safe-for-Work Art Film
“The continuing adventures of everyone’s favourite third-rate ‘Doctor Who’ clone.”
Management would like to acknowledge & thank the participation of the involved, for their assistance in producing the above feature. It has been shortened from its original exhibition. It was made as a response to my dissatisfaction with post-secondary, and should not be taken seriously. For those interested, an unsanctioned IMDB listing can be found here.
400 Words on: Thunderbolts* (2025)
or, “$180 and Not $180-Million”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.
1 out of 5
Marvel’s “Thunderbolts*” is lustreless – not just in its “New Avengers” advertising, or its ragtag group of antiheroes: accrued from a roster that studio boss Kevin Feige himself, ironically, would call “homework.”
A lifetime ago, I made an uncouth script pitch for a cop movie to a university girlfriend, with its villain a serial rapist. She asked why it was so important to use rape as a plot device. “Because it sells!”
What I meant to say (retrospectively) was that, along with child peril & domestic abuse, rape elicits a powerful viewer response, which they want ‘avenged’ by the time the credits roll. That’s just one of the stupid things I said & did to send that relationship into free-fall, much like Marvel Studio’s stupid choices since “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019 – theirs’ being a lack of creative honour, and too much contextual juggling.
Irrespectively, Marvel productions still carry a professional-grade aesthetic, even if you don’t connect with them on a human level. But while there’s no literal rape in Thunderbolts*, it violated my other sensibilities.
[cont’d]
theory of a daskeman 