Watched recently
- Last Night in Soho: I guess I read a lackluster review of this at some point? Or a lackluster headline maybe, because it was completely different from what I expected. Actually, I guess I would rate it pretty highly. It's not, uh, lighthearted like the Pegg-Frost Wright movies, really at all - classic horror and haunting, really, with a touch of that 'Is she really losing it or not?' kind of struggle. And I guess I was mostly okay with the ending, although I really wanted Diana Rigg to survive as a pal. I guess it tracked for her to potentially turn on the young protagonist in defense of her secret, but on the other hand - it's like morally and ethically the movie is completely on her side with killing her abuser and killing all the johns, but yet still endorses the idea that having killed them has like... cumulatively led to her willingness to also kill innocent people like the protagonist. Which ultimately kind of DOESN'T endorse her actions, does it, even if the protagonist certainly seems to.
For a while before this happens, when she first figures out that the ghosts are victims trying to communicate with her, it seems like they're trying to help her, and then instead like they want her to help them somehow, which develops into a more sinister clawing and demanding - male entitlement, in fact, just like what led to their deaths in the first place. But there's a brief while where it seemed to be successfully straddling the line there - fully sympathizing with Sandy's actions and not condemning her for her understandable and predictable reaction, but still pitying the victims who didn't deserve actual death for their part in her exploitation. People who purchased sex in 60s London presumably were not generally fully aware of the possibility of coercion or human traffic - at least, I'd be surprised if a plurality were (but also surprised if none of them were). At any rate, that reading seemed plausible until Sandy's murderous turn at the end. Even though her point of view is still understandable, of course, at last to me it felt like her character was being shown to have, like, fallen to the Dark Side.
Although she redeems herself at the end, movie redemption that can be achieved by dying for someone else is totally distinct from a redemption that would make them Not A Bad Guy in any scenario where they survive, so... if redemption is ONLY possible for some acts by dying, then those acts are still morally death sentences - you just have the choice between deserving to die, or choosing to use your death for posthumous appreciation. It was a horror movie, of course, and the beats of the story were all there. I'm just not happy with the apparent takeaway that like... someone who kills their abusers and exploiters in order to escape and survive is sympathetic for those acts and apparently not really deserving of punishment, per se, but more insidiously, is just doomed to unfortunately by poisoned by the violence they had to commit in order to escape that other violence and ultimately to lose their moral compass and commit more violence later!
But maybe I'm missing something. Or over-connecting something. Over-interpreting. - The Sandman (all except the new bonus episode): I was really happy to see this after being so excited to watch it, and I enjoyed myself and appreciated a lot of the performances and the set design that went into it. And especially the raven-training. However, relucantly, I have to agree more or less with Gavia Baker-Whitelaw's review, Netflix’s ‘Sandman’ struggles to recreate the creepy, immersive atmosphere of the comics. I ultimately felt kind of underwhelmed - it wasn't stylized enough. It didn't make use of the film medium in the way that the comic made use of its medium; it didn't achieve enough surrealism and hyperrealism and dreaminess and that kind of thing. I wanted to see more adventurous direction and photography, like... Hannibal, or the early Brian Fuller-related episodes of American Gods (visually, I mean, I'm not saying the script needed to depart more from the events of the comic), or something directed by Park Chan-Wook. Or even like, Stranger Things 4, which had killer editing and direction and camera angles and photography. I am glad that it was so faithful to the events of the comics and I think for the most part, the script is good; the cast all felt really good, some of them phenomenal, and at points the visual design was sublime; in fact there were some shots that really felt like they were what I kinda was hoping for, and then in between it sort of fell back into... Gavia compared it to The Umbrella Academy, and... yeah. So I'm still into it and I'm still awaiting the next seasons (it hasn't officially been renewed, but it probably will, since it did so well on release) with anticipation.
- Underworld: Yeah, I'd never seen Underworld until yesterday, and it was hilarious. A fun time. Not nearly as cool or iconic as Blade; Underworld is trying extremely hard and is very clearly trying to imitate the coolness of other things, like Blade and the Matrix. The costumes are... well. Kate Beckinsale's iconic leather corset over a vinyl catsuit and tremendous Demonia platform boots would fit in perfectly at a goth club, but it's even less believable for its intended purpose (vampire parkouring around hunting werewolves) than the average superhero outfit. There's some really great locations and sets, though! The sets: not necessarily great in a BELIEVABLE way, or even a really great world-building way, but definitely looked cool on film. A lot of gray and blue filter on everything, which got rather oppressive. Young Michael Sheen is adorable and his forehead is hilarious. The plot is also hilarious. The voiceover is awful, but Wax says it was added because test audiences weren't following some of the transitions and implied backstories, so I guess needs must. The CGI werewolves were as awful and disturbing as I always find CGI werewolf concepts, but I've seen later ones that looked worse, so I guess they can have partial points for that. Oh! And this movie is a great example of the betrayal by a trusted mentor trope I posted about a few months ago. The twist wasn't exactly completely unpredictable to the audience, but at least the protagonist's surprise was convincing.
- Day Shift: this is the new vampire movie on Netflix that people are talking about. Jamie Foxx is the protagonist, Snoop Dogg is his friend, and a younger Franco brother is the nerdy union rep who has to tag along on his vampire-hunting mission because he's on probation with the vampire-hunting union. This concept is, obviously, good enough to be funny without even writing the story. And the movie is a comedy, not like, just a pulpy B-movie like a lot of vampire stuff. There are a lot of typical comedy beats, not all vampire-related. But on the other hand, this movie has a huge structural problem, akin to building a house like... on mud without a foundation. The story doesn't know whether it thinks that vampires are inherently evil predators and enemies of humanity or not. This reminded me unavoidably of a recent conversation in
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princessofgeeks's journal about the racist problem of orcs and monster races in Tolkien (and subsequent fantasy). Inherently evil humanoid enemy species in fantasy/sf are generally considered problematic nowadays, for obvious reasons. But this isn't typically necessarily relevant to all classic horror humanoid monsters like vampires, werewolves, etc, which tend to be portrayed in classic horror as intelligent but consciously and explicitly predators who see humans as legitimate prey - in a sense, they dehumanize themselves (or you could say they dehumanize the rest of humanity). That's a whole different can of worms.
In the world of Day Shift, the fact that there's a union means that vampire hunting is legally sanctioned; being a vampire is a death sentence. We're shown both classic villain scenery-chewing from vampires and weird, apparently non-verbal monstrous vampires with tons of zombieriffic/goblinlike horror makeup, inhumanly screeching and growling and hissing instead of speaking... However, we're also shown vampires who converse normally - not just the megalomaniacal and sadistic mafia vampires, but vampires who talk like normal people, drink bagged blood, and, we're told, were turned against their will, who oppose the vampire overlord. I think there's exactly two of these good vampires, though, and hundreds of stunt guys and circus performers in monster makeup attacking with machine guns and parkour and doing the basically-inhuman-cannon-fodder-that-gets-killed-en-masse-in-a-fun-upbeat-way thing. There's no revelation or even discussion about the nature of vampires associated with the appearance of the good ones - they simply switch sides and uncomplicatedly get back to killing all the other cannon fodder ones who were presumably also turned against their will. - (Wax): Locke & Key: Wax watched the new season of this, even though the previous seasons were so unbearably bad. This show is based on comics written by Stephen King's son Joe Hill, like the earlier show Nos4a2, in which Zachary Quinto plays some kind of magical demon who steals the souls of children and locks them up in... his... magical Christmasland where no one ages? I think? Anyway, Locke & Key has been a mid-level production values, very low-level dialogue and spotty acting show from the beginning, kind of... not quite as mind-bendingly stupid as Nos4a2, but unfortunately it's got a huge ensemble cast of family characters who are all incredibly stupid, all the time, which is what drives the plot. It would only take a couple of them acting with average or better common sense to completely eliminate their problems, and as it is, their collective stupidity is more than enough to have killed all of them many times. There are a lot of fun concepts and settings and episodes in this world, but they're ruined by the fact that it's impossible to feel sympathy for any of the characters.
- (Wax): Resident Evil (tv): Wax has just started this today. Uh, gotta love evil lesbians, I guess? I'm not really a fan of this genre and I can't say I'm enjoying it, but it doesn't seem to be unforgivably stupid or anything. And it's true, they DO have a very diverse cast.
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I honestly want to watch Day Shift to see Mr Broadus in Western gear.
(I have Thoughts about Tolkien's Orcs and being inherently evil: Since they were made from Elves caught by Melkor and tortured and twisted, are they truly inherently evil or made evil because they know nothing else?)
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But from a Doylist perspective, those are still smaller details compared with their portrayal and treatment as a dehumanized horde lacking individual personality and uniformly and unequivocally evil. That's an author choice just as much as the addition of pitiful backstories like fallen elf or zombie victim.
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