Catriona Ward, interview for The Guardian Mark Gatiss, in A History of Horror (2010) Pascal Laugier, for Electric Sheep Candyman (1992), dir. Bernard Rose Colin Dickey, Ghostland Carmen Maria Machado, for Paris Review Kier-La Janisse, House of Psychotic Women Possession (1981), dir. Andrzej Żuławski Mariana Enríquez, ‘Notes on Craft’, Granta Guillermo del Toro, Haunted Castles, Dark Mirrors
I really don’t think there’s a subgenre for Candyman, and that’s Okay. That said, I would say the 2021 movie was nearly everything that a modern follow up to the original needed. I need to re-watch it and remind myself of the details, but while the original has roots deep in understanding the roots of racial inequality, 2021 took it into a whole new level and depth, not to mention coming from a black perspective which is a glaring absence from the original. The only major flaw of 2021 is the score. It desperately needed something to match the original Philip Glass score which turns the first movie into a sacred experience. The conventional score of 2021 Candyman doesn’t detract from an otherwise stellar piece of cinema, but it doesn’t elevate it either. That one flaw aside, Candyman 2021 is breathtaking. Its lukewarm critical reception, in my eyes, speaks large volumes about how little credence they were willing to give a feature film directed by a black woman. I read some of those reviews and I have to wonder of they paid any attention to the movie they were watching.
I’ll never have fun beating my head against adventure game puzzles, and this game even offers an easier mode which I declined to my own detriment. But the jokes land, the animation is astounding for a game of this vintage, and I had a lot of fun exploring all the pirate and gothic elements that have carried this series since the start.
I’ve enjoyed playing all of the Deep Space Nine video games this year, but this is kind of a down note compared to its more character-focused and bombastic predecessors. It’s just “faceless” as Eurogamer noted in their review, lacking the character moments that make this show special. The saving grace for me is the alternative history presented by its second campaign. It’s both horrifying and engaging as it strays from the path to present a “what if?” scenario akin to supposing that Germany won World War II.
It steps confidently and knows what it wants to be, what it wants to say. I had to watch it twice when the ending didn’t land for me initially, mostly because the ending of the first movie flares out spectacularly. But this movie isn’t trying to be that, and deserves its own look independent of how it got here.
This follows the same early (and uninteresting) beats as those pre-Taika Waititi Thor movies, but it brings it home with some cool boss fights and proper martial arts action scenes. I think I’ll always be weighed down by a desire for more interpersonal scenes when MCU just wants to throw cool superhero shit at me.
You think you know where it’s going, then you know where it’s going, but it arrives there in such garish and stylish duds that you’re still stunned when it sashays into the room.
Don’t sleep on Copshop. It’s mostly a throwback to hyperviolent tough bro shootout movies but the chamber drama aspect and non-bro protagonist (who still channels BDE) mixes it up in an interesting way. Just well-performed all around. Also Toby Huss’s performance :chefkiss:.
I should have known Paul Schrader going in, but I didn’t realize the prolific catalog of his until Googling afterword. This new movie hits on moments and looks that are great, but feels off in the end, like budgets were cut or (quite possibly) adjustments were made for a pandemic. I felt like it needed an extra couple of scenes, maybe ten minutes or so. Something to connect the kid to Isaac’s character more effectively.
It starts out like a made-for-TV special about troubled teens, but then there are those scenes in Carrie’s house and any time she has to deal with bullies, and you know something’s not right. The way they build tension during a montage of senior prom scenes is perfect. It’s obvious what’s going to happen and yet your heart is pounding waiting for the drop, then it continues well beyond where it felt it was going to end. A renowned work for a reason built on stellar music and Spacek’s performance.
I’ll never have fun beating my head against adventure game puzzles, and this game even offers an easier mode which I declined to my own detriment. But the jokes land, the animation is astounding for a game of this vintage, and I had a lot of fun exploring all the pirate and gothic elements that have carried this series since the start.
I’ve enjoyed playing all of the Deep Space Nine video games this year, but this is kind of a down note compared to its more character-focused and bombastic predecessors. It’s just “faceless” as Eurogamer noted in their review, lacking the character moments that make this show special. The saving grace for me is the alternative history presented by its second campaign. It’s both horrifying and engaging as it strays from the path to present a “what if?” scenario akin to supposing that Germany won World War II.
It steps confidently and knows what it wants to be, what it wants to say. I had to watch it twice when the ending didn’t land for me initially, mostly because the ending of the first movie flares out spectacularly. But this movie isn’t trying to be that, and deserves its own look independent of how it got here.
This follows the same early (and uninteresting) beats as those pre-Taika Waititi Thor movies, all that high court family drama stuff, but it brings it home with some cool boss fights and proper martial arts action scenes. I think I’ll always be weighed down by a desire for more interpersonal scenes when MCU just wants to throw cool superhero shit at me.
You think you know where it’s going, then you know where it’s going, but it arrives there in such garish and stylish duds that you’re still stunned when it sashays into the room.
Don’t sleep on Copshop. It’s mostly a throwback to hyperviolent tough bro shootout movies but the chamber drama aspect and non-bro protagonist (who still channels BDE) mixes it up in an interesting way. Just well-performed all around. Also Toby Huss’s performance :chefkiss:.
I should have known Paul Schrader going in, but I didn’t realize the prolific catalog of his until Googling afterward. This new movie hits on moments and looks that are great, but feels off in the end, like budgets were cut or (quite possibly) adjustments were made for a pandemic. I felt like it needed an extra couple of scenes, maybe ten minutes or so. Something to connect the kid to Isaac’s character more effectively.
It starts out like a made-for-TV special about troubled teens, but then there are those scenes in Carrie’s house and any time she has to deal with bullies, and you know something’s not right. The way they build tension during a montage of senior prom scenes is perfect. It’s obvious what’s going to happen and yet your heart is pounding waiting for the drop, then it continues well beyond where it felt it was going to end. A renowned work for a reason built on stellar music and Spacek’s performance.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening dev. Grezzo (2019)
I was uncertain if I could count this as new fiction, but it’s a complete remake and I haven’t had qualms with including remakes of other media. This is the essential Link’s Awakening experience complemented by the expected visual and sound upgrades for the Switch, as well as a few new characters and areas to fill out the new world. I still choked up when I heard the new rendition of The Ballad of the Wind Fish, which I was afraid would somehow be negatively affected by the changes. It sounds just as good, a new version of Kazumi Totaka’s original music that still evokes the sense of ephemeral friendship and loneliness brought about by the game. There’s also a version with lyrics that’s okay, but I prefer to listen to the music without the words. This cover with vocals but no lyrics is great. I had forgotten that the revelations at the end of the game are not revealed suddenly, but in trace amounts. It’s not even subtle in the lead-up to the end and that somehow makes it all the more sad. The player may choose not to proceed and merely exist in the world as it is, but I suspect few players make that choice.
Scream 3 dir. Wes Craven (2000)
I watched the first three Scream movies. I’d seen the first two before and they were nostalgic and strangely self-aware to my modern eyes, more than I remember them being when I first watched them in the 90s. This third movie has the inevitable problem of being too self-aware, going so far that it becomes a bad parody of a parody. I saw one comment that said we may as well go watch Scary Movie and I understood their point.
Candyman dir. Bernard Rose (1992)
I always confused this movie with The Lawnmower Man for obvious stupid reasons, and I’d never seen either one. I’m glad I chose this one when it crossed my path on Netflix. Rose does interesting stuff with exploring the economic disparity between people living in the projects of the time and those that were too far removed to notice. Mirroring the situation by having Helen’s apartment building be a duplicate of those developed for the projects highlights something that I always noticed as a kid. The houses on one block may be identical to houses a few blocks over, but somehow one neighborhood is “nice” and the other is not. The horror elements are pretty light and a welcome introduction to this Candyman mythos that I’m sure was amplified to create a franchise of it.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie dir. Vince Gilligan (2019)
Fucking movie subtitles, I tell ya. I hate it. Everyone knows it’s connected to Breaking Bad! Beyond that, though, I think Gilligan delivered the best possible version of this movie. It’s a long epilogue to the series that finally lets up on Jesse’s torment. Gilligan confirmed in interviews that he had a darker ending in mind for the movie but everyone he consulted more or less asked if he was insane. Jesse’s character, and the audience, needed this movie to be different from the television series. Walt’s dead, good, now wrap it up with Jesse. The trials he faces felt genuine to the material and I just enjoyed its Western leanings.
Ex Machina dir. Alex Garland (2014)
This is a movie where I asked, out loud, “What the fuck are you doing?” when the protagonist makes his choices. It feels like a situation where a normal person would balk at the ideas presented by the antagonist, but then most movies would end quickly if normal people were in the central roles. Isaac did his job in the role of the sociopathic rich guy, but Gleeson and Vikander were an interesting pair. Gleeson’s appearance and the whole thing really made it feel like a long episode of Black Mirror, which is probably something I say a lot when watching science fiction these days. I used to hate robots, and the idea of robots, but now I think it’s inevitable.
Under the Skin dir. Jonathan Glazer (2013)
This was a good double-feature after Ex Machina. Vikander’s role as Ava in that movie is about freeing herself from the confines of her masters (both played by men in the movie) to explore the broader world, while Johansson’s goal is entirely based on her ability to move about the world and hunt men. Both characters use their sexuality to achieve their ends, and while the directors did well with the material, I can’t help but wonder how women in the director roles would have presented these ideas. Glazer’s approach with this movie is to create dread and then make us realize how little it takes to be a human being.
Taking Lives dir. D. J. Caruso (2004)
Another movie about assuming a role and concealing what’s real about ourselves. This movie’s antagonist does what he does as compulsion driven by a desire to be anyone but himself, but they do this at the expense of Jolie’s protagonist. I’m sure it’s meant to punch up the finale by dragging down the protagonist before elevating her, but it wasn’t executed well. The twist in the plot was also telegraphed too far in advance and just drowns the mystery.
Mystic River dir. Clint Eastwood (2003)
Sean Penn is an asshole, yeah? That’s all I could think about as I watched this movie. I recall how much praise the movie received at the time of its release, but all I could think was, “Sean Penn doesn’t have to go far to pretend to be an asshole.” And while you’re sympathetic to his problem (the loss of a daughter, again, which is always a minus for me), he’s still an asshole. Every character around him is meant to bolster the idea that he’s done the best he could with what he got, and what he did with that is become an asshole. Tim Robbins is more sympathetic by design, given his tragic role, and Kevin Bacon is just a by-the-books cop. The movie rhetorically asks, “Isn’t it tragic that life can be fucked up?”
Mandy dir. Panos Cosmatos (2018)
I made the mistake of watching this movie over the course of two lunches, and pausing at the exact right moment to highlight that this is actually two distinct movies. The first half is a surreal and beautiful exploration of life in some out-of-the-way rural part of California, out in the north-east, probably, beyond the valleys and Interstate 5. The kind of idyllic existence I used to dream about. Riseborough shone through as the titular character, although certainly a pixie dream girl. I instantly recognized her from the Black Mirror episode, “Crocodile,” which I’d recommend. The second half of the movie is a revenge and gore tale on par with something from Sam Raimi, and you’d think Cage would be the best choice for the role but he was distracting.
The Lighthouse dir. Robert Eggers (2019)
People laughed and sighed through the movie, and I didn’t get why. There were certainly comedic parts but it didn’t feel like a comedy. Then I saw comparisons to Dumb and Dumber and understood it. It does have a strange dynamic where the two characters behave like a comedic odd couple, pushing each other around and poking at the sore spots out of boredom. One aspect that I had issue with is the presentation of the supernatural elements that haunt the characters on the island. Eggers’s previous movie, The Witch, was also heavy on the psychological torture imbued with the supernatural, but the conclusion of that movie is very different from this one. I think I’ll be glad that he took this movie in a slightly different direction, but I’ll need to watch it again.
Cheers – Season 1 (1982-1983)
Season 1 has that distinct hokey quality that I expect from shows with laugh tracks like Friends, although one episode stood out to me. In the episode called “The Boys in the Bar,” a friend of Sam’s comes out as gay, and the way the bar patrons deal with their homophobia by trying to ostracize a group of men they think are gay feels like it sympathizes with their desire to keep gay men out of the bar. It just doesn’t age well. The conclusion of the episode reveals that the gay men they were afraid of were in their midst all along, which feels less about showing that anyone can be gay and that’s okay, and more about fanning the paranoia straight men already felt. Shows like Friends fared no better with the topic ten years later. The writing is solid for a sitcom, however, and it’s becoming clear why the show was a success and how it set us up for the sitcoms we’d see in the 90s and beyond. It’s a touchstone of the genre for sure.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening dev. Grezzo (2019)
I was uncertain if I could count this as new fiction, but it’s a complete remake and I haven’t had qualms with including remakes of other media. This is the essential Link’s Awakening experience complemented by the expected visual and sound upgrades for the Switch, as well as a few new characters and areas to fill out the new world. I still choked up when I heard the new rendition of The Ballad of the Wind Fish, which I was afraid would somehow be negatively affected by the changes. It sounds just as good, a new version of Kazumi Totaka’s original music that still evokes the sense of ephemeral friendship and loneliness brought about by the game. There’s also a version with lyrics that’s okay, but I prefer to listen to the music without the words. This cover with vocals but no lyrics is great. I had forgotten that the revelations at the end of the game are not revealed suddenly, but in trace amounts. It’s not even subtle in the lead-up to the end and that somehow makes it all the more sad. The player may choose not to proceed and merely exist in the world as it is, but I suspect few players make that choice.
Scream 3 dir. Wes Craven (2000)
I watched the first three Scream movies. I’d seen the first two before and they were nostalgic and strangely self-aware to my modern eyes, more than I remember them being when I first watched them in the 90s. This third movie has the inevitable problem of being too self-aware, going so far that it becomes a bad parody of a parody. I saw one comment that said we may as well go watch Scary Movie and I understood their point.
Candyman dir. Bernard Rose (1992)
I always confused this movie with The Lawnmower Man for obvious stupid reasons, and I’d never seen either one. I’m glad I chose this one when it crossed my path on Netflix. Rose does interesting stuff with exploring the economic disparity between people living in the projects of the time and those that were too far removed to notice. Mirroring the situation by having Helen’s apartment building be a duplicate of those developed for the projects highlights something that I always noticed as a kid. The houses on one block may be identical to houses a few blocks over, but somehow one neighborhood is “nice” and the other is not. The horror elements are pretty light and a welcome introduction to this Candyman mythos that I’m sure was amplified to create a franchise of it.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie dir. Vince Gilligan (2019)
Fucking movie subtitles, I tell ya. I hate it. Everyone knows it’s connected to Breaking Bad! Beyond that, though, I think Gilligan delivered the best possible version of this movie. It’s a long epilogue to the series that finally lets up on Jesse’s torment. Gilligan confirmed in interviews that he had a darker ending in mind for the movie but everyone he consulted more or less asked if he was insane. Jesse’s character, and the audience, needed this movie to be different from the television series. Walt’s dead, good, now wrap it up with Jesse. The trials he faces felt genuine to the material and I just enjoyed its Western leanings.
Ex Machina dir. Alex Garland (2014)
This is a movie where I asked, out loud, “What the fuck are you doing?” when the protagonist makes his choices. It feels like a situation where a normal person would balk at the ideas presented by the antagonist, but then most movies would end quickly if normal people were in the central roles. Isaac did his job in the role of the sociopathic rich guy, but Gleeson and Vikander were an interesting pair. Gleeson’s appearance and the whole thing really made it feel like a long episode of Black Mirror, which is probably something I say a lot when watching science fiction these days. I used to hate robots, and the idea of robots, but now I think it’s inevitable.
Under the Skin dir. Jonathan Glazer (2013)
This was a good double-feature after Ex Machina. Vikander’s role as Ava in that movie is about freeing herself from the confines of her masters (both played by men in the movie) to explore the broader world, while Johansson’s goal is entirely based on her ability to move about the world and hunt men. Both characters use their sexuality to achieve their ends, and while the directors did well with the material, I can’t help but wonder how women in the director roles would have presented these ideas. Glazer’s approach with this movie is to create dread and then make us realize how little it takes to be a human being.
Taking Lives dir. D. J. Caruso (2004)
Another movie about assuming a role and concealing what’s real about ourselves. This movie’s antagonist does what he does as compulsion driven by a desire to be anyone but himself, but they do this at the expense of Jolie’s protagonist. I’m sure it’s meant to punch up the finale by dragging down the protagonist before elevating her, but it wasn’t executed well. The twist in the plot was also telegraphed too far in advance and just drowns the mystery.
Mystic River dir. Clint Eastwood (2003)
Sean Penn is an asshole, yeah? That’s all I could think about as I watched this movie. I recall how much praise the movie received at the time of its release, but all I could think was, “Sean Penn doesn’t have to go far to pretend to be an asshole.” And while you’re sympathetic to his problem (the loss of a daughter, again, which is always a minus for me), he’s still an asshole. Every character around him is meant to bolster the idea that he’s done the best he could with what he got, and what he did with that is become an asshole. Tim Robbins is more sympathetic by design, given his tragic role, and Kevin Bacon is just a by-the-books cop. The movie rhetorically asks, “Isn’t it tragic that life can be fucked up?”
Mandy dir. Panos Cosmatos (2018)
I made the mistake of watching this movie over the course of two lunches, and pausing at the exact right moment to highlight that this is actually two distinct movies. The first half is a surreal and beautiful exploration of life in some out-of-the-way rural part of California, out in the north-east, probably, beyond the valleys and Interstate 5. The kind of idyllic existence I used to dream about. Riseborough shone through as the titular character, although certainly a pixie dream girl. I instantly recognized her from the Black Mirror episode, “Crocodile,” which I’d recommend. The second half of the movie is a revenge and gore tale on par with something from Sam Raimi, and you’d think Cage would be the best choice for the role but he was distracting.
The Lighthouse dir. Robert Eggers (2019)
People laughed and sighed through the movie, and I didn’t get why. There were certainly comedic parts but it didn’t feel like a comedy. Then I saw comparisons to Dumb and Dumber and understood it. It does have a strange dynamic where the two characters behave like a comedic odd couple, pushing each other around and poking at the sore spots out of boredom. One aspect that I had issue with is the presentation of the supernatural elements that haunt the characters on the island. Eggers’s previous movie, The Witch, was also heavy on the psychological torture imbued with the supernatural, but the conclusion of that movie is very different from this one. I think I’ll be glad that he took this movie in a slightly different direction, but I’ll need to watch it again.
Cheers – Season 1 (1982-1983)
Season 1 has that distinct hokey quality that I expect from shows with laugh tracks like Friends, although one episode stood out to me. In the episode called “The Boys in the Bar,” a friend of Sam’s comes out as gay, and the way the bar patrons deal with their homophobia by trying to ostracize a group of men they think are gay feels like it sympathizes with their desire to keep gay men out of the bar. It just doesn’t age well. The conclusion of the episode reveals that the gay men they were afraid of were in their midst all along, which feels less about showing that anyone can be gay and that’s okay, and more about fanning the paranoia straight men already felt. Shows like Friends fared no better with the topic ten years later. The writing is solid for a sitcom, however, and it’s becoming clear why the show was a success and how it set us up for the sitcoms we’d see in the 90s and beyond. It’s a touchstone of the genre for sure.
