Heyo. It's been a long time since the hate filled anger fueled rant against Arrival that spurred me to start blogging. Not that anyone minds, since readership here is zero. But writing movie rants is fun so what the hell.
Let's see...
Marvel has had a good year, knocked it out of the park three times while DC was busy making a mess of things. Same old same old. I think Spider-man: Homecoming was the best of the three. They couldn't have hoped for a much better reboot for their most popular character. Tom Holland is magnetic. I expect he'll be carrying the MCU torch after Robert Downey Jr's face finally wrinkles beyond the ability of Hollywood's finest to digitally de-age it.
I think I was most surprised by mother!, Darren Aronofsky's infamous box office bomb. I went into it with no idea what it was, which is the way I would recommend it. I hadn't had the mystery of it spoiled beforehand and didn't quite get the metaphor until near the end, which made the viewing experience absolutely spellbinding for me. Everything from the cinematography to the performances was top notch. I'm going to be a pretentious ass and suggest that the film was too smart for general audiences--not necessarily for the symbolism and the bible metaphor at it's core, but because it was essentially an art film, lacking most of the archetypal story elements a general audience clings to like a liferaft when things get weird. I suspect most of them just got confused and then bored and then pulled out their cell phones. Also there is a particularly grisly scene at the three-quarter mark that earns the film's R rating a few times over which probably alienated most of the audience members who'd made it that far. Boredom combined with disgust does not a blockbuster make. But if the aesthetics of good filmmaking and sheer strangeness are enough to keep you interested (and you don't mind gore) I would definitely recommend mother!.
In a similar vein I finally saw VVitch, which I would also recommend. Simplicity is it's strength, a tight little story shot for 4 million dollars with some unknown actors, and I hope the comparatively large box office return encourages it's director and writer to continue to make movies. It's a moody piece, good visual storytelling, and excellent performances all around. It's also the rare horror film that has hardly any jump-scares. The fear comes from the looming dread of it's atmosphere. 10/10.
I also caught up on all Taika Waititi's movies in preparation for Thor (which was very good, let us say no more about it), and found both Hunt for the Wilderpeople and What We Do In The Shadows to be delightful. Taika knows what he's doing, and I hope he has a Tarantinian career in Hollywood. And Taika's self-cast roles are highlights of their respective films, a trait he does not share with Tarantino, and thank god for that. (No hard feelings Quentin.)
Other things, other things. Books.
Infinite Jest is a postmodern jerkoff, but we all knew that. Still ploughing through it anyways. It even manages to be pretty entertaining when it forgets its hostility toward its audience long enough to be coherent.
Finished Ulysses after a month long slog, the second of two big literary cinderblocks I committed to gnawing through this year, the experience of which was occasionally electrifying and often miserable, but I think I understand the hype now that all's said and done. It's expanded my idea of what can be done with prose considerably. Moreso even than Anthony Doerr's work in All The Light We Cannot See (also read it this year, loved it, Doerr is a poet) I get the sense that every word and sentence and punctuation point has been placed with surgical precision. I did not get that feeling from Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, which I also read this year. It had its moments but it didn't really stick with me. But the Ulysses void in my literary brain has been filled. I may even read it again once I can stuff my eyeballs back into their sockets.
In the less pretentious category I read Dan Brown's new book. I'd never admit it in public, but I enjoy them in the same way I enjoy Dwayne Johnson movies. Origin managed to hold my interest but that's about all I can say, the characters are their usual flat selves and if you can get past the halfway mark without having guessed the twist ending you might have fallen asleep. The best compliment I can pay Origin is that, like most of Dan Brown's work, it sent me off on more than it's fair share of trips to wikipedia, sometimes to fact check and sometimes because it brought up something that legitimately piqued my interest. With that in mind, there are worse things you could read.
I also read Slaughterhouse Five, which was a compelling waste of time. I get the feeling Vonnegut is not for me, but I'm glad I read it.
Lunar Park I liked a lot more, mostly because it was Bret Easton Ellis writing a crazed Bret Easton Ellis as the meta protagonist of his own horror novel. Masturbatory but in a fun way. The opening chapters of that novel may be some of my favorite out of any of his books.
Video games: not many. A brief XCOM binge while I was high on painkillers after snapping my ACL. I may do a writeup on that, XCOM is very much my jam. Horizon was a gorgeous disappointment which I stopped playing very quickly. Breath of the Wild was slightly better but it was spread too thin for me. I'm not much of a Zelda fan to begin with but this was the best I've played despite my getting bored and not finishing it. Cuphead was pretty fun. It's art style is the centerpiece moreso than it's generic run-and-gun gameplay and Darksoulsian difficulty, though I have to admit it's very tight.
Um um um.
I think that covers it. Hopefully more frequent updates in the future. I really am trying to make myself do this more often. I think it's good for me.
Til next time.
-N