Category Archives: Film

Phantom of the Paradise

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Based on no more evidence than what was on the videotape rental shelves at the Hastings in College Station, I’ve long believed that Phantom of the Paradise was a sequel to Phantom of the Mall[1], or possibly vice versa. The short answer is, I was wrong.

The long answer is, well, long. Longer than usual for here, honestly. And it will ramble. …not more than usual for here, as I am, in fact, a Ramblin’ Man. Mid-pandemic, 2021, my niece and her partner, Irish, moved into our house. They were already living together in a parental house, and had tried moving out into an apartment before, with unexpectedly violent results[2]. They could no longer live at any parental house, for various reasons, and were discussing maybe going to homeless living out of car status, so they moved in with us instead,

My son spent most of his second year of life around our roommates, and because of COVID and our best-effort safety measures, he was around almost nobody except family, so Irish was really his first friend. And I don’t solely mean happenstance, Irish was good around the boy. Eventually, they decided to move to Austin, since we basically had to kick them out once the girl’s birth was imminent, last year. I don’t know how well Mary and I succeeded at preparing either of them for being on their own and responsible for taking care of themselves, but we tried. They were basically teenaged adults when they got to us, so I’m hoping the earlier start will give us better luck with these two, the children of our loins[3].

After moving to Austin, Irish got an internship (and later job) at the Austin Film Society, and also made the affirmative decision to proceed with her transition, which included a new name, Lucky. I saw one of Lucky’s films last night, a music video of sorts starring my niece. I cannot do it justice, it was a stop-motion thing over a song called Leprosy by a band I am far to unhip to have ever heard of. It was dark and sexy without question better than some things I’ve seen on MTV. (And if it’s on youtube, I can’t find it. I wish it were.)

To bring things back around to the nominal reason you’re here, I also saw Phantom of the Paradise. It was definitely not what I was expecting to see, but I’m not at all surprised to learn it was Lucky’s favorite movie. There’s this guy who is writing a glam rock opera about Faust, and he runs afoul of another guy who has moved from young Elvis rock star status to aloof, incredibly rich music producer status. That guy, the bad guy, steals the opera to use as the centerpiece of his soon-to-be-opened rock palace, the Paradise.

The first act is slapstick, as Winslow loses his life’s work, learns he has lost it, and tries to get it back. Even the points at which he is horribly disfigured to achieve phantom status are played for dark humor. The rest of the flick might have been horror movie revenge, but instead he finds his Christine and decides to ensure she becomes the star of his Faust. And then things get strange. I know I’ve undersold this last point, because I did not and could not accurately describe just how over-the-top glam rock everything else has been up to now. In a weird way, it reminds me of Jesus Christ Superstar, the scene with Pharisees dancing around on scaffolding while deciding whether or not Jesus is a threat to occupied Israel. Same energy, for sure.

The movie was good, and I’d like to watch it again, as I think there’s more to catch. But yesterday was hard. We drove to Austin, including over an hour of wreck traffic on I-35, got there basically 45 minutes late, handed off the kids to Laylah to babysit[4], and rushed to the theater for Lucky’s memorial. I drove back last night, while Mary stayed to help our niece pack to move out of the old apartment, and now I’m here at home, just thinking about things. Mary says the proper terminology is that we lost Lucky to mental health issues, last month. I guess it might be a stigma thing around other phrases? I do not see that stigma, or rather, I think the stigma is on all of us who survived, not on Lucky who didn’t.

The world is a big, scary, fucked up place, and I wish we were better at taking care of each other than we are. Our niece is also in danger, less danger than she was a few weeks ago when she called the police for a health check and learned what had happened, but in danger nonetheless. I think I have maybe as many as two regular readers here, which makes the thought of posting a gofundme link to help her deal with the bills and the move in the wake of this tragedy feel a lot more pointed and targeted than I want it to feel, but all the same, i’m going to go ahead and post it.

Take care of yourselves, and each other when you can. (Basically nobody took care of Winslow Leach (our phantom), and it shows.)

[1] Viewed earlier this season on The Last Drive-In, and therefore not reviewed. Joe Bob talks too much for me to believe there’s a possibility of an unbiased review, as I’ve probably said before.
[2] Committed against them, to be clear. Nothing life-threatening, but too frightening to go through with the move, as a result.
[3] I know. I’m sorry.
[4] Thank you, again, should you happen to see this.

Kill List

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I may have to stop watching movies at work.

What I mean is, this is two recently from the horror movie podcast homework where I just was not getting the expected enjoyment out of the film. I got maybe 30 minutes into Kill List and just noped out and started over, because I knew I had not been paying enough attention. Plus, I was not doing great with the accents, and I suppose that means I should elaborate before explaining.

This movie is a British relationship drama that is weird around the edges. I want to say unsettling around the edges, but the first few minutes are a portrait of a relationship in crisis, like, these people hate each other, except when they seem to love each other a lot instead, which would be maybe fine if there weren’t a kid in the picture. And that whole dynamic is so unsettling as to overwhelm the weird stuff that might otherwise qualify for the more sophisticated adjective. But then, just when you’re settling into that vibe, it morphs into a hit man movie[1], which is a little more unsettling around the edges, and maybe dripping onto the main part of the screen for that matter. And then at some point it jumps into completely batshit insane, and ends like you were supposed to understand what just happened, when what I can tell you with a degree of certainty is that I 100% do not understand what just happened.[2][3]

Am I so confused because I did not pay enough attention, because I was also working? There is definitely strong evidence that I missed some things for that reason, and if I were to try to watch it again one more time, I know where I would start from. But the thing is, I really kind of think that it was a twofold problem, and in fact there may not be any there, there. (Plus, Tubi has commercials, and one batch of those interrupting a movie was too many.)

But what I will say is, it sets a mood, A seriously creepifying and yes, unsettling, mood.

[1] I would deem this a pretty huge spoiler, honestly, except for the movie’s title.
[2] Footnote 3 is a massive spoiler for both this movie and the movie to which I will refer.
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The Super Mario Bros. Movie

I’ve played rather a lot of Nintendos starring Mario Mario and/or Luigi Mario, plumbers by trade, golfers, racecar drivers, and (arguably) heroes by hobby. I’ve played these games going back 40 years. And only now have they made a movie, although I am pretty sure I remember about some cartoons back before the death of Saturday morning.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is… I mean, it’s exactly what you would expect it to be. I don’t really understand crypto mining. Like, I get that something is money if enough people agree that it is, but I don’t understand what was special about bitcoins in the first place, that they were worth mining for. But if it’s anything like nostalgia mining, then man did these people make a mint. At bitcoin I mean, although probably at cinema too? It’s, um, likely that this metaphor got away from me.

My point is, if you want to see an homage to Mario Bros., or to Mario 64, or to MarioKart, or to… well, whatever it is you expect to see, you’re probably going to see it. If you want to hear a familiar musical cue over equally familiar imagery, you’re probably going to hear it. I could give you a sentence-long summary of the plot, but let’s be real. If you are the target audience for the movie, you don’t need me to give you that. Because what you’re already imagining? Yep, that is correct. (That said, Jack Black was pretty great.)

In conclusion, I didn’t hate it, except that the spooky skeleturtles are probably a little too scary for my toddler. Maybe next year?

Prince of Darkness

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My horror movie podcast I mentioned watched a gory Satan movie, which meant in this case a John Carpenter movie I don’t think I ever knew had existed, Prince of Darkness. See, Father Loomis finds a dead priest from the previously secret Brotherhood of Sleep, about whom even the Vatican knows nothing, and who has had a secret basement under a church (in LA? They probably never say it’s LA, but it looks very LAish, despite the incongruity of the remainder of my sentence) for the last 2000 years or so, containing a book full of dozens of ancient languages with prophecies and anachronistic mathematical equations, and also an enormous glass cylinder full of swirling green light[1].

So naturally he calls upon a theoretical physicist to gather an elite crew of scientists and grad students to hang out for the weekend to figure out what’s going on, only there’s an implausible relationship between A.J. Simon[2] and a redhead with a truly terrible haircut, an unlikely all-day astronomical phenomenon, and a gathering swarm of homeless people led by Alice Cooper, all getting in the way.

I have to say, this movie starts weird. The credits went on forever, while Father Loomis investigated the dead priest’s possessions, Victor Wong (the uncle from Big Trouble in Little China) ominously explained to what should not have been a freshman survey course that the physical world is not what they think it is (because of how subatomic particles behave, I think?), and A.J. stalked or (if I’m being generous) pined for the redhead. But even after the credits finally ended, the “we’re not done with the opening credits yet” synth music soundtrack kept on throbbing for fully 30 minutes before Carpenter finally decided that we were finished with the setup phase and ready to find out what was going on, or at least he was tired of listening to all of the grad students and scientists and theologians and ancient language experts ask each other what was going on.

Then a lot of things happened for the rest of the movie that I will not spoil, except to say that if you told me this movie inspired the guy with the crazy hair on Ancient Aliens, I would not be the least bit surprised.

Maybe Carpenter’s weakest film, and yet it had a certain charm.[3] Recommended mainly if you want to see him give work to people you’ve seen in his films before, or if you want to hear probably the greatest Christianity origin story you will ever hear.

[1] The basement, not the book.
[2] Will anyone understand this antediluvian reference? Doubtful!
[3] No pun, even though I understand that the only reason the movie exists is he’d just read a bunch of books on theoretical physics and wanted to make a movie about them.

Scream VI

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The Scream movies have always been extremely meta. So by the time you’ve gotten to the sequel of the reboot sequel (requel, apparently?), well, there’s no way to be surprised at just how far up its own ass the movie, nay, the franchise, has crawled. Which, I hasten to clarify, is not necessarily a bad thing. I, for example, am still not allergic to the tightening gyre of Gen-X self-reflection, nor will I judge harshly any movie that stabs quite so many people quite so many times.

There’s just one problem with Scream VI, which I must unfortunately put underneath the spoiler tag.

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Braindead

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That horror discussion podcast by the people who make Welcome to Night Vale watched Dead Alive, an early Peter Jackson film that I’d never seen, and so here we are.

Honestly, I have very little to say. Except for the fact that Army of Darkness came out a year later, I would say this movie was heavily influenced by that one. …but it is probably fair to say it was influenced by Evil Dead 2, so, kind of the same thing in some ways. I was also thinking that the precipitating scene on Skull Island was funny, in that they used the King Kong island name for their insufficiently spooky setting to catch a monkey with a zombie disease amidst cliched natives. But no, Jackson is on record for loving King Kong well enough to make its second remake, so, that actually tracks.

I could probably go on, but really what this reads as is a movie made by someone without a lot of budget[1] but with a lot of love for schlock cinema. It certainly doesn’t have the polish of The Frighteners, is nowhere near the seriousness of Heavenly Creatures, and doesn’t have the budget that the Tolkien-based movies spent on fireworks alone. But you can still see the talent underlying it all. And bravo on whoever saw that talent in prospect rather than retrospect and gave him more money for the next thing he made. It worked out pretty well.

Oh, um, other than forward and backward looking influences, I’ve said nothing. It’s basically a horror movie that aspires to be a romantic comedy, except the hero’s mother keeps getting in the way. …I had intended to say more, but, no, that really sums it up.

[1] And most of it spent on building WETA[2] so they could do a little stop motion animation, with all the funds left over going to several industrial barrels full of gore.
[2] I have no idea when WETA happened, so don’t quote me on this timeline in wikipedia or anything.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

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My mother-in-law was in town for my son’s birthday, and due to a coincidence of chronology, my birthday is one day later, with the upshot being we had childcare available for my birthday! As a further result of which, we went to see the semi-recently released newest Marvel movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

If you’re worried about plot spoilers, do not be, because I legitimately could not remember who or why the bad guy was, until I spent several moments of concentration trying to. Which sounds like a strike against the movie? But no: I come not to bury Gunn, but to praise him. Because, plot or no plot, what the movie had was a ton of heart, and even more tons of concern for its characters. The only real problem I had with it, in an overarching sense, is that it made most of the recent previous movies[1] worse just by virtue of its existence. Because this is what has been missing since Endgame. Not a specific direction, or a replacement for Thanos. Just… heart.

Anyway, I do remember what happened, more or less. Like everything that has ever happened in any Guardians of the Galaxy movie, the past shows up to bite everyone in the ass. The only things I will say are that a) this is maybe the weirdest take I’ve ever seen or can imagine seeing on Adam Warlock, to the extent that I feel like maybe they shouldn’t have actually thanked Jim Starlin in the credits; and b) the take on the bad guy, whose presence I will not spoil, is so accurate it reminds me of Ultimate Reed Richards.

[1] Essentially all of them in the age of COVID except No Way Home.

The Mortuary Collection

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Sometimes movies are extremely basic, but in a good way, so you have fun, which in turn makes it almost a bad way after all, because at least if it weren’t fun you’d have something negative to say instead of practically nothing at all. Enter The Mortuary Collection, in which Clancy Brown runs a, you know, mortuary, while wearing what seemed to me to be an unnecessary amount of old guy makeup. He looked 60 when he was 20, and if he still only looks 60 now, how old does a mortician need to look?

Anyway, this blonde girl shows up in response to the help wanted sign right after a child’s funeral, and they discuss her qualifications for the job, which for some reason means he starts telling implausible morality plays about the ways denizens of the town of Raven’s Hollow (where the mortuary resides) have died. Which is to say: anthology movie! …if the title didn’t give that away already, I mean.

The stories themselves were decent if mostly predictable, and the wrapper story was pretty good as well, even if the ending was a bit inexplicable. Also, exploding penis, which is not a thing you see every day.

30 Days of Night

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Here’s another movie I watched for podcast purposes. I’m in like August of 2020 right now on all my podcasts, and you can see how this is going to be a problem for me. Also, though, it’s not perfectly fair to say I watched 30 Days of Night. See, it was on last week[1] while I was working, and this usually works out fine for me, subtitle movies excepted. Do I miss some fine plot points of my TV shows and random horror movies on shudder? Sure, maybe! But I know what’s going on, and if I don’t I run things back and rewatch and pay closer attention for a while. No problem! Or if I realize that haha no it’s actually that complex, I watch it while not at work instead.

But this time… I just could not bring myself to care. Like, I thought I knew what was up. Northern Alaska, dead of winter[2], axial tilt means no sunrise for, let’s say, thirty days? All of which equals vampires! And so there’s this initial rush of people dying, and you have survivors, and it was all making sense, until at some point I realized that it was already halfway through the month even thought I thought it was still the first, er, night. Calendar night. You know. And maybe if I’d gone back then it would have been okay, but I figured no problem at least now I know how things are going, but then time kept jumping[3], and I kept not caring enough about the characters to try to keep up, and finally at the end, well, it was a perfectly cromulent ending I guess and ultimately I still really don’t care that I maybe probably don’t actually know what happened in the movie?

So, uh… meh.

[1] two weeks ago? I bet you can already tell where this is going based on that uncertainty alone.
[2] a) get it? b) good boardgame tho
[3] This is based on a graphic novel [series?] that I’ve never read before, and I wonder if this was the source of the time jumps. (Or alternately maybe there were not any particular time jumps, and I was just paying even worse attention than I assume.)

Everything Everywhere All at Once

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I’m not sure there’s a point in talking about the plot or storyline or character beats of Everything Everywhere All at Once. It would be some combination of entirely spoilerful and also incomprehensible. Which is not to say that the movie is incomprehensible, so much as that I’m just pretty sure it works much better on screen than it would in print. As an example: there is no way I could explain mid-life lesbian relationship with hot dog fingers world and make you believe it was kind of glorious. So now you know why I’m not going to try to talk about things that legitimately matter about the movie, if I can’t even explain that.

(You should watch it, though, if that was not yet clear.)

Here’s what I find interesting: it won best picture. Did it deserve to win best picture? I mean, it’s the best 2022 movie I’ve yet seen[1]. But it’s a sci-fi comedy about Chinese immigrant inter-family politics. Last time I checked, that kind of movie doesn’t win best picture at the Academy. …or maybe it does? I haven’t been paying attention for a little while. But it certainly did not used to do such a thing. And it’s like, the family drama part actually felt like Oscar-bait[2], but what blows me away is that the voters made it far enough into the film to see that part and bite on it.

Anyway: I’m glad to see this kind of movie be acclaimed, and I loved it, and you should still go watch it. It’s just surprising, is all.

[1] I might like No Way Home as much or more, but that doesn’t make it a better movie, if you see what I’m saying. Also, oops, I’m being informed that was a 2021 movie anyhow, so, uh, yeah. Man, I didn’t see much of anything last year, did I?
[2] not in the bad way