Sunday, April 28, 2019

endgame's spoilers


  • meal scenes
    • jokes
  • void
    • dialogue

  • pretty good action sequences
  • mark ruffalo slowly enunciates

Overall this is a comic book movie in a way I can't be mad about. How could I be mad. What is madness, the state of being mad. Is it that there is something we are watching and we feel bored and irritated? I felt that way a lot. The outer-space sequences especially. 

It is cool that there is so much scale in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The space stuff is important like the Los Angeles stuff (there is no L.A. stuff -ed). There are a lot of meal scenes.

This is the basis for fun that comic book superfans extoll. The interconnectedness of all places, and people. Will this freeform fun extend to the machinations of larger studios? Well, the movie is three hours long, and it features Fat Thor.

As the Red Letter Media guys said, the powers-that-be realized that Chris Hemsworth is an excellent comedian. Wisely, they continue to countenance immortality with humour. The project, large scale, could be said to be thus.

Of course, they fail, for the most part. "I get the sense that comic book movie's main struggle is over sentimentality". I said this in a blog review of into the spiderverse and I repeated it for my friends when we rewatched "Spiderverse" last week. There are 3-4 father figures in that movie.

At the end of the day, wringing emotion out of supercharacters becomes a crapshoot based on who the audience actually knows about, the confluence of writing, the "needs of  plot", the acting, and ultimately the editing which has to assemble it all. No wonder the movie is three hours.

Monday, April 22, 2019

jordan peele's us

“Us” is at its core an experiment in acting, wherein the principals are asked to play alternate horror-versions of their characters. I assume that each actor was worked with individually to come up with this character; I might be wrong who knows. 

Anyway that experiement in acting can be judged either to the good or to the not-so-good, that’s probably why this movie is divisive. The other reason it is divisive is due to the gaping blatant holes in the plot and logic. You can really chalk this up to the shitty writing. I tried to find  a sort of neo-camp disregard for plot or logic but nah.

Also J.P. is still not that great of a filmmaker, things were really boring and slow a lot of the time, and the momentum of the film stutters a lot. There are some pretty cool images and scenarios, though.

Saturday, April 20, 2019

delivarance 1972: reviewed

a fruity pebbles rice krispies treat… left in a small green plastic bag. It sat on my living room end table for a week. I had run out of money for groceries... no dessert.

I ate the rice krispies treat. Yeah, it was an edible. I was watching “Deliverance” and getting really happy. I eventually understood that I had been poisoned. The best part of the movie is the end, where the author of the book interrogates his own characters. James Dickey played the sheriff who has final call over our protagonist’s fates.

The movie does an admirable job of interrogating american/southern masculinity. “Deliverance”, the title, refers to the process by which the four southern middleclass men scramble their way out of deep deep trouble. Most stories would end with the death of the villain and handwave the police; this one instead sees the entire process through.

And as such this movie has: a dinnertime breakdown in tears, hurried grave-digging, that scene with the sherriff/author, and a very good shot looking at the man who was a victim of assault, back lit by gold walking away saying he’d “rather keep this under wraps”. 

“Deliverance” implying a burden, the relieving of a burden. That scene with the sheriff is very good. James Dickey has thin little teeth. 

Friday, April 5, 2019

Lester burnham in "American Beauty": an instadeath:nights

Lester Burnham, as played by Mr. Kevin Spacey, lately accused of sexual assault
american beauty joins crash grand canyon donnie darko has a very donnie darko style character you know you all know the brightness on my tv cant be adjusted but but! there is that scene that attraction that lester burnham played by kevin spacey has, sure in retrospect even creepier than otherwise, to his daughter's teenage friend, which resolves itself apace to Magnolia, by paul thomas anderson, a pretty sad stupid movie, all of these movies with their positive-tone endings are pretty bad, even the ones that end with the death of the main character, i.e. this one and donnie darko

they are all bad because they take as a given a certain love is inherent, proceeds apace of death and confusion, when in reality the love that kevin spacey would find came out of something problematic and to its problematic grave it should follow: essentially the body of that teenage friend, not to the family photo which is where his brains end up splattering.

To be honest, if we are being honest, and letting ourselves conclude that the things we find are essentially problematic, not cancelled, but problematic, I guess to that end I find that our virtue comes and goes in problematic places. Sure, in that body of a teenage daughter's friend, and it ends up leaving through the same path it came in. Or it doesn't; it spreads like a bullet a gooey mass of blood all over the wall. Sure, that's destiny.

There's something about this movie innit tempts a certain amiable viewership with me, a critic. Yeah they take the time to circle around a moral point. But is it ruined bc it's all white people? Would the inclusion of a few people-of-color help? Probably probably, yes.

I have this intense fear of being exposed as someone, just like the other white shitlords out there, being traced on the internet and my crimes revealed. Like being a troll. Anything can be spun up and whipped; and there's this gunning in the air...

That is to say though, Georges Baulldiare quote, "art which avoids evil rapidly becomes boring" (paraphrased). Shittalking, happening behind closed doors... No chance to respond. You know, social anomie. It's all linked, and Lester Burnham had his chance to, but at the moment, he realized that he was something boring. The same pathway towards the soul leads out rather than in, the things that touch us have a habit of spinning us and bringing us to a vile end.




Georges Bataille. With my apologies.



marvel studios movies ranked

marvel studios movies ranked


  1. sama raimi spider man trilogy
  2. daredevil good villain
  3. the avengers 2012
  4. black panther 2018
  5. iron man 2008
  6. ant man
  7. doctor strange 2016
  8. captain america winter soldier
  9. camptain america civil war
  10. incredible hulk 2008 ruffalo honerary inclusion
  11. g of the galxy 2017 #2