Category: Movies

I stumbled across Freaks on YouTube yesterday.  It had a slow start and I almost gave up on it several times, but I'm glad I stuck with it. And it's obvious why I chose this particular screen shot to post, isn't it?

This review from IMDB rings true, at least for me:

I was 30 when I first saw this. The actor was two years younger than I am now when it was filmed. Oh, how time flies.

Points (and you will become a friend-for-life) if you can identify the film.

We saw two movies over the holiday: Matrix Resurrections and Don't Look Up. The former was on HBO+, the latter on Netflix.

The best way I can describe my opinion of Resurrections was that it entertaining but not engaging. I appreciated the way it broke the fourth wall and basically poked fun at itself, but I was not drawn into the story, it seemed overly long, and by the time the fourth act rolled around I really didn't care what happened to any of the characters and just wanted it to be over.

While Jonathan Groff is always easy on the eye, I wish they'd been able to have the penultimate Agent Smith—Hugo Weaving—as well as the original Morpheus, Laurence Fishburne, return to reprise their roles completely instead of just as momentary flashbacks. Maybe the actors weren't available? Whatever the reason, in my opinion the film suffered because of it.

When it ended, Ben turned to me and said, "At least we didn't pay to see this." (Actually we did, but it's not like we dropped money at a theater.)

Don't Look Up came highly recommended via reviews and Netflix itself, but there were many times I just wanted to hit the "back out" button on the remote and call it a day. It's biting satire on the abject level of science-denying stupidity currently permeating our society; the obsession with social media and "likes." The cast—while all well known and definitely not D-Listers—prompted Ben to ask who they owed money to in order to have to appear in this film.

The premise is simple: there's an extinction-level event comet with a 100% probability of impact heading directly toward earth and no one can be bothered to do anything about it until halfway through the film, and then the plan is aborted when its discovered there are valuable minerals contained in the rock and a plan is hatched to mine the minerals rather than deflect the threat away from the planet. Needless to say—spoilers—meteor/asteroid hits earth and everyone dies except the ultra rich who escape via secret spacecraft to the nearest earth-like planet, where after traveling 24000 years in suspended animation, the president (played Meryl Streep), who personifies everything currently wrong with society—steps out onto the new planet and is immediately eaten by the native fauna. That at least was satisfying.

UPDATE 12/28: This actually sums up my opinion of the movie the best.

I was 25 years old when I first saw The Shining very late one night on cable in in 1983. How this film managed to fly under my radar when it was originally released in theaters is one of my life's great mysteries, because while disturbing, I loved this film. It was right up my alley.

I had been unable to sleep that night, so I thought that getting out of bed and watching some television might help. The apartment complex I was living in at the time had recently gotten cable and were providing it (along with one or or two premium channels) to the residents at no charge.

Never having had cable before, I'd already been shocked by seeing fully exposed breasts on my small television (Galaxina), but I was totally unprepared for the horror that was The Shining.

Needless to say, sitting on the floor and watching it in a dark, quiet apartment all by myself left me shook. (Especially since my friends and I were into the whole New Age/Spirit Guides thing at the time.)

While I know the film was only tangentially faithful to the source material, it remains one of my favorite films. Judging from the number of discussions and scholarly dissertations on YouTube, I'm not the only one. People attribute all sort of wild conspiracy theories to Kubrick's film—the most notable is that it was his way of letting the world know he'd been involved in faking the Apollo Moon landings. (Yes, Virginia, the rabbit hole goes that deep.) I watched a video the other day that made the case for the entire story being in Wendy's head after a psychotic break. Not sure I get that one either, but hey…whatever.

The video above does point out the masterful (if unintended—really?!) use of music to underscore various moments in scenes and I have to say it does resonate.

If you're a fan of the film, give it a watch and let me know what you think.

 

 

"Please understand, they are safe as long as they are not discovered. That is their primary method of survival. Keep us asleep, keep us selfish, keep us sedated." – THEY LIVE (1988)