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zoewellsnue
So... do I talk about how I got into movies? Well, I don't have any grand story there, sorry, I've kinda always liked movies and there's no one single definable moment where I really got "into movies", I just kinda gradually explored the medium deeper and deeper.
Or do I say what kinds of movies I like? Well, my favourite genre is probably comedy drama, but really I'll watch anything from experimental art pieces to basic bitch romcoms, from feel-good family films to extreme cinema horror, from essential "best of" films to obscure ephemera. I mean I have genres and films I love but... I think I wouldn't be on this site if I didn't enjoy a wide range of movies.
Or do I talk specially about this account? Well, I do have a kinda funny story there about my weird username that initially created this account to test something but decided to use it for real once the test was over but kept this name instead of changing it because I thought it was "on brand" for the type of person I am to have a kinda "placeholder" username. I'm mostly here to make lists, actually, but also to keep track of the films I generally watch, mostly for self-clarification purposes but might also write the odd review if I have something to actually say. Uh... I'm also on TMDb and Letterboxd, btw.
Uh.... that's basically it, that's my bio. Don't really have a good ending so I'll just stop now.
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An error has ocurred. Please try againFilms added in the order I remember them so if there's a movie you also cried at and wanna see if it's here (or is it just me who searches this website for the word "cry" just so I can see how many other people cried at the same movies I did?), it would probably be best to use the filters and/or sort options.
Reviews
Dirty Dancing (1987)
Cute
A pretty simplistic film with a plot that's more of an excuse to show dance scenes and an extremely surface level handling of the issues of gender and class that it raises, but it's pretty cute and also I'm bisexual so I like it anyway.
Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
A horrible experience, but isn't that the point?
"If hellholes like this didn't exist, I'm sure you would invent one"
This film is almost, but not quite, exactly what the lurid title would suggest. It's definitely going for shocks as its primary source of horror, with a lot of this being truly hard to watch (I saw the uncut version, with animal cruelty intact, and I can see why they're cut from most versions, although there is a certain level of hypocrisy in condemning those scenes if you eat meat - and I doubt everyone who has ever criticised it were all vegetarian or vegan - unless you think that what goes on in slaughterhouses is any kinder that the animal slaughter depicted in this film, or that recording it somehow makes a moral difference), and has well earned its reputation for brutality. However, there's a deeper element to the horror. All the violence and cannibalism and rape is truly gruelling to sit through, but the scenes between those are, in their own way, just as grotesque.
As strange as it may sound, one film that this strongly reminded me of was The Searchers, reminding us of the fact that so-called "primitive" peoples are separated from us only by circumstance, that there is nothing making the "civilised" world inherently better, that the wilderness is always right next door.
Of course, this is rather problematic in itself. Because, in case the title didn't clue you in, this film has no interest in being sensitive. It is still exploitative. The question this film poses is more along the lines of "are we truly any better than nasty primitive violent cannibalistic tribes?", and certainly has far more in the way of contempt for civilisation than compassion for the supposedly "uncivilised". It's a common refrain by now; "Cannibal Holocaust claims to be satirising exploration while also being itself exploitative". This criticism... I understand it, but I feel it relies on a verbal sleight of hand. An "exploitation film" may contain the word "exploitation", but it is not the same as exploiting people.
That said, we mustn't forget that the native actors in the film genuinely were mistreated. They weren't treated all that much better by the real film crew than by the in-movie one. Some of the stuff that happened on the set of this makes Kubrick-making-The-Shining look like the Buddha. There's no real way around it, the set of this movie was an abusive environment. The director of this movie, Ruggero Deodato, is an abuser who was particularly nasty to women and native actors.
And yet, I still can't help but be fascinated by the film, even if I don't necessarily want to ever see it again. There is certainly some craft to this. From Riz Ortolani's beautiful score providing an actually effective counterpoint to the incredibly brutal scenes of horror to the raw documentary style that strips everything down to the most naked barbarism, this is a film that has an aesthetic you won't see in many others, at the very least. Even now "found footage" is as family a horror subgenre as "monster movie" or "slasher", this, along with Blair Witch, still holds up as something special. Sure, the framing device may be unorthodox in modern examples of the genre, but the bits that are in that style genuinely do feel like we're watching somebody's last moments on film. The acting is... variable, which sometimes breaks the illusion, but, perversely, it helps in a way that a lot of the cast seem genuinely uncomfortable, so don't HAVE to act for a lot of it.
And yes, this is very influential. You can see all the familiar tropes of the found footage genre, right down to the cast being horrible people that you kinda want to see eaten by the end. Yes, as I say, the framing device is unorthodox, but it's not like there's no reason for it to be in the film or anything. It goes without saying that it would be a very different film without it, and probably wouldn't have nearly as many reviews on here. The footage story is of course where most of the scenes that fans of "extreme cinema" remember are from, but the frame story is part of the reason why this still an independent cult following outside of people who will simply watch anything with enough mutilation in it. The most targeted part, in my mind, comes when we see the footage of the in-film documentary "The Last Road to Hell", and the opening credits are in the same style as the actual opening credits to this film.
But there comes a point if we have to ask how genuine this is? Is this film truly a critique of colonialism and exploitation, or is it just trying to make pretensions to something more than a schlocky cannibal flick? Is it just trying to make you feel less guilty for watching it, or more guilty?
I don't think there are any easy answers. This is a wholly unattractive film, and knows it. The cruelty is both a means to and end and an end in itself simultaneously.
All in all, Cannibal Holocaust isn't necessarily a film I can in any good concience recommend, because my God is it hard to watch, nor can I really say I'm even glad it exists, knowing what went on behind the scenes, but I can say the world of cinema would lose something tangible if this film were deleted from history. For better or for worse.
OK, so today I've been writing various quick reviews-from-memory of various randomly selected movies I've seen before, and this was meant to be one of those, but ultimately this review turned out way longer than expected, so I hope I actually said anything worthwhile in that whole length rather than just rambling. Not sure why this of all films got the extended review for today, but I guess it is a film that sticks in your mind, and due to its nature it's not something many people are willing to see so it's easier to say things that haven't been said ten billion times already, so I guess the combination of those two factors resulted in me feeling I had the most to say about this one. Whatever the case, I hope I actually DID say something worthwhile lol.
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
I liked it
There's a lot of much deeper things to say about this film and what it does and what it means, about the crushing routine of everyday life, about the nature of the worlds we live in, the stories we tell, but I just wanna say this movie is incredibly hypnotic and genuinely engaging and passes by far quicker than any movie this long and with this little happening rightly should. Good stuff tbh.
Se7en (1995)
No thank you
Some creative kills and a decent atmosphere fail to obscure a vapid nihilism, rather meandering plot with a twist that makes little sense, and some quite nasty misogyny. Basically two or three admittedly masterful performances away from being nothing more than a padded ultra-violent bad Law and Order episode. The Brakhage-inspired title sequence is orders of magnitude better than the film itself. The hodgepodge of contextless references to classic literature doesn't make this any cleverer, either. This is basically everything that people who don't watch "film bro movies" unfairly think all modern thrillers are like. Has aged horribly as well.
Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever (2014)
I mean, what do you expect? It's the Grumpy Cat movie
I watched this a while back, like, I think the Christmas before last, out of morbid curiosity, and I don't feel like rewatching the Grumpy Cat movie just to write a review, so I'm entirely going from very vague memories here, but here goes. Since I can hardly remember it, I'll write this review as a list of assorted thoughts;
1. Idk if Aubrey Plaza is meant to sound bored all the time because, well, grumpy IS the name of the character she's playing, or if she's just genuinely bored to be in this, because, well, this IS the Grumpy Cat movie
2. There's a paedophilia joke towards the end. A euthansia joke at one point as well. Who are these jokes for? I can't imagine the type of person who would willingly and non-ironically watch a movie based on the Grumpy Cat meme but also has that edgy a sense of humour.
3. This movie has "if we use unfunny self-deprecating humour it makes up for the fact the movie is bad" syndrome. One of the most severe cases of such I've ever seen in a movie. The movie breaks the fourth wall to openly ridicule the viewer for watching it numerous times, and they even do a version of "merchandising" gag from Spaceballs, except not funny.
4. I can't believe we're at this low a level where it is accurate to state "Garfield without the charm"
5. The plot is precisely as jumbled and limp as one would expect from a feature film based on a funny picture of a cat
6. The tone is so confused. It's very cynical at times but so bland and inoffensive in style
7. Watching this film felt like watching a snuff film, in that I felt actively guilty for watching it. Of course, the real "Grumpy Cat" was already dead when I watched it so it's not like it would be able to get a sequel even if I had paid money for this (unless they pulled a Lassie and used a similar looking feline, but I think that ship has long sailed by now), but honestly this is such a blatant cash in, and literally open about that fact, I felt like I was taking part in it just by watching it.
8. More like Grumpy Cat's Worst Movie Ever amirite? Nah, there are worse movies, but I couldn't resist the low-hanging joke.
All in all, a horrible experience of a film. Maybe I'll rewatch it this December and write a full review, but don't count on it. I may be depressed, but I'm not depressed enough to self-harm like THAT. I mean it's the Grumpy Cat movie of course it's bad.
Greener Grass (2019)
Unfunny
There's a difference between true absurdism, and just doing random nonsense to be "quirky", but apparently nobody told the people who made this movie that. Embarassingly unfocused film where every gag goes on far too long to be funny, but that's OK as very few of them were every funny to begin with. The whole dog thing, Twilson, they're like an SNL-friendly version of a Tim and Eric skit, but stretched out to an entire subplot of a feature film and with delusions of grandeur that they're making some grand point about the dark underbelly of suburbia or whatever rubbish.
The jokes are all designed by committee to be giffed on Tumblr ("your mother is not a school!" stands out particularly as this), and the meandering narrative cull-de-sacs aren't clever or avant-garde, they're just a waste of runtime. Blue Velvet for Welcome to Night Vale fans.
Citizen Kane (1941)
Yes, it actually is THAT good
Actually every bit as good as it supposed to be. To anyone who likes to think they're being edgy by calling it overrated or whatever, I know you're just saying it because you think it makes you cool and counter-cultural or whatever, so I probably can't change your mind whatever I say here, but one thing anyone should try is watching all the Academy Award nominees, or at least the Best Picture nominees, from the 14th Academy Awards, in sucession, perhaps one a day. Despite only winning one award, and famously losing out on Best Picture, this film makes all the others look embarrassingly dated. Even the ones that are also very good look like Roundhay Garden Scene compared to this. It truly is a revolution of a film. Welles could have gone exclusively into gore porn after this and he would still be a good candidate for the greatest talent in American cinema. This film has already been rightfully praised so much it's hard to find anything new to say about it, so mostly all I can do is heap on more praise to the pile, but this film deserves it.
A few things are slightly less talked about from this film that I do wanna bring up though;
1. This is a lot funnier than people give it credit for. Welles himself called it a comedy, I believe, and honestly I can see that. There's some very witty dialogue. My favourite gag might be the "FRAUD AT POLLS" headline.
2. Weird how Welles' obvious self-deprecating joke about how he inserted the screeching cockatoo to wake up any audience members falling asleep has been taken out of context and treated as serious by so many people. It seems obvious to me that it was as a sort of bookend to his relationship with Susan, referring back to the shadow puppet scene where Kane makes a bird
3. The speech about the girl in the white dress is actually one of my favourite monologues in any film. The "frame story" actually has a lot of great moments that people often forget because they spend all their time praising the scenes with Kane in them (and fair enough, they are incredible).
4. Susan's bad singing is some impressive work. It's hard to sing purposefully poorly without falling into cartoonist shrieking, but actress Dorothy Comingore is very good at sound just bad enough to be believable.
6. I like how, unlike most films about "corrupt rich people", this doesn't moralise or turn its character into a Bond villain, but condemns what he represents far more strongly than if it did, because systemic critiques always hit harder than "rich people are mean :(", which is one of the most helpful to the status quo statements you can make, implying as it does that it would be fine if the ruling class could throw us a bone with a few more scraps of meat on it.
7. The opening and final shots might be the best one-two punch of those two things in... certainly a major release American film, if not any film ever. We begin with death, and end with youth. All sounds pretty simple when you say it out loud like this but as I say it's already been analysed in so much depth all I can say is either redundant or just feels like explaining why a funny joke is funny.
8. It's hard to review this without sounding silly. "Masterpiece" is hilariously understating it. Like, of course Citizen Kane is good. What do you want me to say?