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Reviews
The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)
A movie that makes me feel indifferent.
Technically it's a fine movie. Looks great, well acted. It just feels like everything that happens means absolutely nothing. Whatever emotion they try to illicit from you falls flat. I think the characters aren't fleshed out enough? We don't really get to know them and their motivations.
I think it suffers from the same problem a lot of prequels do. There's too much fixation on how it looks and set up, so the characters take a hit. Nothing in this movie feels like it has any weight to it. It's not like I could even enjoy and laugh at it for being bad, because it's not. It just conjures literally nothing.
Nothing is sad, nothing is scary, nothing is cathartic (even when it's earned), nothing is anxiety-inducing. Even the cheap jump scares don't work. It doesn't make me cringe or recoil in disgust. I can't even cheer when a bad guy dies. I really don't know how to describe it. I don't think I've ever watched something that's made me feel this indifferent.
I guess like one constructive note I could give is that this movie struggles to apply depth and dimension to people. Our insight into all of these characters is painted through off-handed one liners, and it's the only thing I could point to as explanation for why it's difficult to attach to and feel anything for them during this movie. For example: our main character, Dr. Clemens, really only talked about being a doctor, loving science and nature, and his experience with antiBlack racism. We get one line in the climax where he talks about being on a boat with his father, which would've been nice to know more about.
Like we don't know anything about his family, home life, any of the reasonings or experiences that lead to his interests. It feels like he lists stats more than giving us a glimpse into a full fledged character. Even racism comes with deeply personal experiences, but how they address it in this film is so superficial. Like he doesn't have interiority that's informed by these experiences he's had.
We just know how others treat/treated him, and we know what others have done around him or the places he's been. We don't really know how he feels about any of it, how it's impacted his outlook, what his personal relationship is with those experiences. Just because he has struggled with things that many people have, his response, reactions, thoughts, and feelings would still be unique to him. Yet, this film doesn't acknowledge that diversity in people's experiences. There's a lack of personhood, that all the characters suffer from, and I'm guessing this is the cause for my issues with it.
Knowing that this film was conceptualized as like "Alien but on a boat" kind of explains some of these choices...
Saltburn (2023)
Nothing original
Warning: this film has a lot of sexual assault and rape. Random, unnecessary racism.
It's much too long, and feels incredibly tedious. It has heavy Call Me by Your Name energy (minus the p*do). It's a really white attempt at class commentary. An upper middle class white man playing mental games with richer white people, with a biracial guy caught in the crosshairs. "groundbreaking." Like there are so many better things that get these themes and points across. It's a waste of time and just shock for shock's sake. There's not even much to say. Watch it for a laugh, watch it with someone who's aware of what trash it is.
Watch Single White Female. Watch American Crime Story: Versace. Watch The Fall of the House of Usher. Watch American Psycho. Watch Euphoria. Watch the Knives Out series. Watch Cruel Intentions. Watch Gossip Girl. Watch Wild Things. A lot of these things aren't even necessarily good, but they're more entertaining than this.
White people are just making the same movies over and over again. It's so boring.
Slotherhouse (2023)
It's just bad
The premise of this film, and the initial setup really makes you think you're in for a good time, and then the film quickly fizzles out. The deaths are really unceremonious. They kill like 20 characters off screen that you don't even know, and whose names you never learn. There's this weird friend character that has some racist accent and sounds like someone asked ChatGBT to talk in AAVE, and it's also the only queer character. They give her a random predatory scene. For a movie that clocks in at a hour and half, it feels like the end drags on forever. At a certain point it stops being funny and becomes tedious. There was a lot of potential for a ridiculously bad fun film, but by the time you get to the climax you really lose all interest. The sloth puppet is really fun, I love watching him run around and be murderous, but the sorority takes up a lot of the plot when it was clear they didn't devote much attention to having it make sense. On the plus side the characters didn't feel overtly sexualized, and there isn't any gratuitous nudity or violence towards the female characters that is kind of expected in this type of movie. There's a Jennifer Coolidge wannabe. It could've been fun, but it's more disappointing.
Glass Onion (2022)
A Strong Sequel
This is a great film, and a triumphant sequel to an excellent introduction. I think there are three things working against it. The first is people's familiarity with Knives Out. Secondly, there's some aesthetic choices that are very specific to Netflix's films that cause certain sequences to look cheap, and finally, people's implicit biases towards the central character influencing their judgment. Otherwise I would say this movie has a stronger rewatch value than the first, and the performances with the dialog really make it so much more fun. I love the way Janelle and Daniel play off each other, and it's such a shift from the world of the first movie, that it really feels fresh. In Glass Onion, Rian Johnson really plays with perception, in the set-up of the mystery, but also in character development. He really challenges the audience to have faith in reality, and to see past the ways people use language, appearance, and ideology to distract from the truth of their actions. These films are modern classics, and with the release of Glass Onion, Rian is setting a precedents for them getting better and better with each subsequent release. I can't wait to see the next installment.
Sort Of (2021)
A phenomenal show for trans representation.
I think for trans viewers this show offers a lot of representation around the different relationships we have in the world and around us. The show feels grounded in reality. I love the writing, and character development. It's nice to see our stories represented in a way that doesn't feel sensationalized for cis people. There is an earnestness, and genuine feeling to all of the characters. I think one of its greatest strengths is how regularly it shows people establishing boundaries. It's willingness to broach uncomfortable conversations around things that may seem obvious, but are so easy to avoid. It has the watchability of comfort TV, without feeling canned or too similar to any of its counterparts. It has heart, It's fresh, and smart. It feels like real life, and I love that. There's an ease, and effortless about it, even when grappling with real life's awkwardness. It's just a pleasure to watch. I'm so glad to live in a world where Sort Of exists. Make more of it, and support this show!