A Grand Quiet

Sundays are for relaxing in the setting sun doing your best not to eat the whole cheesecake. Don’t eat the whole thing E.

Well, that and grinding all that internet content you’ve missed out on, unprocessed meat for your opinion hamburgers.

I finally caught up on my backlog with The Lost City of Z and Ghost in the Shell. Two films in which white people don’t quite grasp foreign cultures.

Whiteness is toxic. He tries to disrupt paternalistic eurocentrism by searching for civilisation in Southern America, yet neglects to properly respect and investigate the many societies he encounters upon his search, because he has no context for ‘civility’ outside of western imperialism. >>more>>

Two thirds of the way through here the film makes its dumbest decision. Like, until that point it had been pretty, if pedestrian, then it fucks up so bad. >>more>>

I returned to my forever love of the McElroy brothers, because The Adventure Zone has a trans woman character in it and I’m so EXCITED!

It’s so hype. For a moment, just to see a trans character respected and centralised in a plot that doesn’t deliberately cast them as the other, or undermine their identity, or focus on just how darn hard it is for everyone. This, in a story created by four cishet dudes; in a comedy in which one of the main characters is named after Mexican food. >>more>>

F. Gary Gray’s Fast & Furious 8 was nothing more than a cool action joint. I sorta hoped it would be.

Dom is played by Vin Diesel, Letty by Michelle Rodriguez, Luke by Dwayne Johnson, Deckard by Jason Statham, the two white men by Kurt Russell and Scott Eastwood (me niether), the mystery woman is Charlize Theron. There’s not much to the film other than that. Sure, other members of the family come out of whatever cryogenic storage chamber it is they spend their time in when not required by the plot, but most of the fun comes through winding up our beyblade characters and dropping them all into the same world. >>more>>

Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden is a glorious and surprisingly funny film. It also has lesbians in it.

The Handmaiden is like the purest film. It’s a violent, kinda screwed up, crime thriller but, underneath all that surface there it has this wonderful innocent heart. Maybe I’m saying that because it’s a costume drama about queer women, which I am all about, but equally they are women whose queerness does not express itself as pain or repression or manipulation, their relationship being something that empowers and strengthens them. >>more>>

Sorry for missing the Friday post, I caught a cheeky preview of William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth but the write up was delayed by my work on some upcoming projects. You’ll get the full review for those, in addition to Their Finest and The Sense of an Ending next week, plus whatever other screenings I can catch.

Thank you all for reading, you really make all the effort worth it. Reblog, retweet, like, share, subscribe, or do all of them if you really like anything you’ve read. And if you’ve got your own opinions, comment! I’d love a dialogue.

Stay amazing y’all
-E
❤

This week’s top tunes are the surreal pop hits of Lemon Demon’s fourth album, Spirit Phone