A Grand Quiet

Sorry the schedule got pushed back a day this week, unforeseen circumstances plus me being literal trash made it impossible to avoid. I mean, when I saw impossible it’s totally because I left all the work to the last minute and then oh no, my plan of screaming through the week a single step ahead of the curve was foiled. I’ll learn my lesson eventually.

Brian Fee’s Cars 3 is Pixar’s best attempt to make this real old fashioned movie, which is constantly at odds with the fact that it’s a Cars joint. Like, I’m sorry, even making a movie exclusively for the dad’s in the audience is going to have to leap past the talking vehicle bit before adults start saying yes.

It’s a bold choice. Like the choice to use your state of the art animation technology to beautifully conceive (seriously Pixar’s landscaping work is just exploding year on year) what is essentially the plot of some 20 mil Fox Searchlight joint don’t make no sense on the surface. They’ve also made this total dad film: a film about the fear of aging, the fear of being outpaced, the fear of the young. Y’all can’t quite grasp without seeing it the subtle contempt that the joint got for youth. >>more>>

Matt Reeves’ War for the Planet of the Apes is super hardcore. He’s next up for he Batman but honestly I hope he don’t go as hard on that one as he do here. This ain’t a war movie, it a prisoner of war movie, and if it starred humans the ratings board would have some real problems.

There ain’t no reason why these fucking chimp movies gotta be so goddamn good. Like this one starts with an on screen text introduction summarising the last two films in the series because even the creators know that they don’t got an A-list property on their hands, they can’t trust their audience to have even seen them all. They wouldn’t be all that expensive but the sheer commitment to the ape bit means that almost all the main characters have to be created with the assistance of some of the most technically accomplished mocap-blend character animation work we got going on nowadays. I don’t know no one who was getting pumped for the next Planet of the Apes feature. >>more>>

David Lynch’s art is bizarre and fascinating. His life and the recollected memories of it he presents in Jon Nguyen, Olivia Neergaard-Holm & Rick Barnes’ David Lynch: The Art Life is disappointingly unremarkable by comparison. You get the impression that they didn’t push hard enough.

David Lynch is one of those dudes who just seems to be good at everything. Like the dude paints, makes films and music, he writes. Somehow he’s managed to maintain his legitimacy as a visual and video artist even during his experimental periods where he did a syndicated newspaper comic strip or weird aggressive internet flash animations or Rabbits. Folks actually manage to take Rabbits seriously. He’s like this multifaceted supergenius who is all at once the strangest person and the most charming person you’ve ever met. >>more>>

Albert Serra’s The Death of Louis XIV is a neverending tragedy, a look into a tragic and preventable death through the detached eyes of the king’s bedroom. There is no judgement or politics here just the overwhelming consumption of oblivion.

The Death of Louis XIV promises one thing and slowly, agonisingly delivers upon it. The opening credits play over the king of France being pushed around the palace gardens for the final time, after the title card hits we do not spend even a single second outside his quarters. The king remains in his bed for the next two hours as we witness the slow decline of his health and his ultimate demise. His physicians try their very best to help but it’s the 1600s and well meaning shitheels are still shitheels. >>more>>

Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled is a feminist remake of a lesser known Clint Eastwood joint. It’s restrained to a fault, so stripped down and bare it threatens to get lost in there. The joy comes in seeing the women at its centre actually taken seriously. Would be nice if the black characters didn’t get cut too…

Y’all know going through this I was struggling to put the pieces together. Like, it seems almost impossible. Modern feminist filmmaker making a joint in which a bunch of women are all doting and fighting over this one man. What? Why? Feels like a misstep, I eventually got it though and once I did it became so much simpler. >>more>>

I been busy this week, ain’t had no time for video games, I really should but I prefer killing myself with stress. On the upside though the wheels are starting to turn on this podcast project I been putting together, it’ll probably be a couple of months before it produces fruit, but it’s starting and it’s like a proper collaboration. I’m excited.

I also decided that I need to catch myself up on the Marvel movies, it’s more fun than walking through the classics and I’ve seen fewer than half of them. Sorta puts me on the back foot because I don’t wanna be the person in that infuriating, knowingly ignorant type way.

I spoke in my review of Spider-Man homecoming that I am starting to tire of Tony Stark, was wondering if a return to the original Iron Man would start to show signs of its age. I mean, in places yes (Stark pulls out one shitty transphobic ‘joke’ and the way the script treats Pepper Potts is all wrong) but wow on the whole it flies. I’m gonna be putting together a series for this junk, maybe use it as my first foray into video content, so don’t wanna spoil my takes, but god watch that opening scene again and just wonder at how it perfectly bottles that lightning.

Imma actually go all out on the self-promotion this time, so the thanks gotta be gotten out the way early. Thank you all so much for reading, I look on target to be getting double my last month’s traffic, feels good just thinking about y’all.

E.

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I also got a Twitter for the website, and I’ll have a personal one up too eventually, once I get over myself.

I post pictures to Instagram, I’m trying to be a better photographer but at least I have aesthetic.

I have a Pinterest, I dunno, like, maybe. Haven’t found a proper use for it yet.

I crosspost all my reviews onto Tumblr, some people prefer to follow along there, makes for a more consistent feed.

This week’s music is The Velvet Undergound and Nico. I like being super basic sometimes.