Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Oct 15, 2022 8:30:00 GMT -8
I personally hated Bodies Bodies Bodies! But to each their own. In fairness, I'm more biased against the Extremely Online modern generation than most people, so I was probably more inclined to like this movie beforehand. OK, so, I watched this movie knowing nothing about it other than 1) A24, that's usually a good sign, and 2) Pete Davidson is in it?? So that struck me as potentially very fun.
And then the movie was... not very fun. Like, it could have been a genuine horror movie with rave lighting, which would have been fun; it could have been a more overtly hysterical movie about Kids These Days, which would have been fun. But I think the movie spent a *lot* of time trying to convince us that these characters are worth sympathizing with or remembering their names or whatever, so it was stuck in the limen between drama and comedy in a way that was to the movie's detriment.
But honestly, the problem here is that Bodies Bodies Bodies is trying to be an anti-woke movie (in the sense that is spoofing the more ludicrous elements of overzealous digital-native social justice culture, not because it's mad that two girls kissed in a Disney film or whatever BS Fox News is mad about this week), but I don't think you can really make an anti-woke movie, in the same way that you can't make an anti-war movie (or so Truffaut says). Because the filmmakers might be critiquing these terrible womanchildren by negatively depicting these debates rooted in modern identity politics... but that means the film is still engaging in modern identity politics as the prism through which we are supposed to view these characters. Which is bad in the sense that this post-Tumblr identity politicking is always bad, dehumanizing, and stupid - I don't know how you all put up with me in 2014 - but also bad dramaturgically. Because I do think we were supposed to view these characters as at least slightly sympathetic or interesting or as having any personality or defining traits beyond their race/gender/sexuality/class, and it can't do that if the emotional climax of the film is the characters hectoring each other about their relative levels of privilege.
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 15, 2022 17:02:51 GMT -8
See, I think the fact that Bodies Bodies Bodies engages in 2020s identity politics while being pointedly anti-woke in its commentary is precisely what makes it so funny. Had the film taken a more conservative tack, there would be many cheap jokes about the lesbian couple et al. But because BBB starts with the premise of taking its characters seriously, the stakes feel more organic when the dominoes start to fall, and the humor feels more natural within the story. I don't know to what extent we're meant to sympathize with the characters - I liked them well enough, but most of them were pretty insufferable for the first 10-15 minutes of the movie, and are the sort of personalities better suited to comedy/horror than interpersonal drama. I think much of the character establishment in the first act is meant to make the girls understandable as modern archetypes (i.e. "Does this remind you of anyone you know?") rather than sympathetic leads. I don't know how you all put up with me in 2014 Well, you did have that great "Gone" take and created the most epic Buffy thread ever. (Honestly, I've been writing for this site for ten years, and I can't even bring myself to look back at my early reviews. Guess I've matured quite a bit since then. Or immatured, whatever, point is that things change.)
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Oct 16, 2022 19:01:04 GMT -8
I don't know how you all put up with me in 2014 Well, you did have that great "Gone" take and created the most epic Buffy thread ever. (Honestly, I've been writing for this site for ten years, and I can't even bring myself to look back at my early reviews. Guess I've matured quite a bit since then. Or immatured, whatever, point is that things change.) Happy tenth anniversary, good sir! For what it's worth, I still think your Underneath [5x17] review is a damn fine summation of a cracking episode.
Ah, yes, that thread. I'm sad I missed the discussion on whether The Sopranos is objectively subjectively better than Buffy or subjectively objectively better.
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 19, 2022 15:51:15 GMT -8
Happy tenth anniversary, good sir! For what it's worth, I still think your Underneath [5x17] review is a damn fine summation of a cracking episode. Thanks! Really cannot believe I've been doing this for a full decade. My "Underneath" review was one of my better early write-ups, though on retrospect it could have used some tighter self-editing. Also, on the topic Quiara brought up earlier, I was reminded of the discussion around another, more famous A24 film. Moonlight is an interesting film to analyze because it is an anti-woke film that is widely championed for its perceived wokeness. While I don't think Bodies Bodies Bodies is destined for that fate (its Oscar chances are practically nil), it does run the risk of people engaging in the film's surface-level politics without clicking at a deeper level (and thus inadvertently underscoring the filmmakers' point).
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Post by Jeremy on Jun 30, 2023 13:22:21 GMT -8
Okay, this piece (or something like it) was supposed to go up 2-3 weeks ago, but I got bogged down and couldn't get it finished. Still, I committed myself to having a new article posted before the month was over - and if you live in certain parts of the world, I succeeded! Here is a triple review of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Fast X, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (containing mild spoilers for all).
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jul 2, 2023 18:34:40 GMT -8
Happy tenth anniversary, good sir! For what it's worth, I still think your Underneath [5x17] review is a damn fine summation of a cracking episode. Thanks! Really cannot believe I've been doing this for a full decade. My "Underneath" review was one of my better early write-ups, though on retrospect it could have used some tighter self-editing. Also, on the topic Quiara brought up earlier, I was reminded of the discussion around another, more famous A24 film. Moonlight is an interesting film to analyze because it is an anti-woke film that is widely championed for its perceived wokeness. While I don't think Bodies Bodies Bodies is destined for that fate (its Oscar chances are practically nil), it does run the risk of people engaging in the film's surface-level politics without clicking at a deeper level (and thus inadvertently underscoring the filmmakers' point). OK, you have to expand on this, because I have no idea what this take on Moonlight could possibly mean.
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Post by Jeremy on Jul 3, 2023 6:25:07 GMT -8
Sure. Moonlight is a film that won a ton of praise in plaudits - in part for being a well-crafted movie, but also in part for highlighting the plight of a being gay black man in America. Truth told, the movie does focus on this plight, but not in the way many people think.
The story doesn't focus on the sort of reactionary racism and homophobia that Hollywood commonly excoriates - it soft-pedals that angle, to the point that there's not a single white character in the entire film. Instead, the drama centers on Chiron's struggling sense of self-identity. He's a gay black man who, throughout his life, has never been defined as anything other than a gay black man. His double-minority status has usurped his persona in the minds of those around him, even (and perhaps especially) his black peers, and left him without an internal identity of his own.
In short, while Moonlight is clearly not a right-wing film, it has a subtle but potent anti-identity politics message. It explores the dangers of reducing other people to their race or sexuality, in a way that most films won't touch.
And ironically (but predictably), the entire conversation around the film upon its release became about the surface identity politics. It was presumably the push for more awards diversity in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite (plus the political backlash to the then-recent election of Trump) which helped it upset La La Land for Best Picture.
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Post by Jeremy on Nov 13, 2023 10:34:26 GMT -8
Been a little too long since I posted any reviews, so I thought I'd make up for it by posting five movie reviews in one. And since they all share the common them of being Brand TM movies, perhaps I'll earn a corporate sponsorship on the side.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 5, 2023 10:30:53 GMT -8
Just posted my review of Godzilla Minus One, which is probably the best action blockbuster I've seen all year. Check it out! (The review, that is. But also the movie!) Was originally planning to post this in tandem with a Wish review, but I have... quite a bit more to say about Wish and will leave that for its own review later this week.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 7, 2023 12:04:35 GMT -8
I've read a mix of opinions about Disney's Wish these last couple of weeks, with the general consensus being "it's bad" but a number of respectable voices pushing back with "not that bad." Sadly, I must assert that it kinda is that bad. And it's the sort of movie that gets worse the more I think about it. Anyway, here's my review.
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