I Liked It! has always been, first and foremost, for me. The whole concept is that this is a space for me to explore artistically, both with illustration and critical writing. Originally, I intended it to impose a sort of self-imposed deadline to create on a semi-weekly basis and encourage some discipline. Where I’ve ended up is enjoying the practice of art, in any medium, rather than the final product and enjoying it totally on my terms. Making art because I want to not because I have to has always resulted in better art that I’m more excited about. Right now, I’m most excited about making stuff for me and, inadvertently, that has caused a sort of brief summer hiatus for I Liked It! There have been plenty of other factors, like work trips, heartbreak, and a wedding that delayed my return as well, but discussion of those have no place here.
All that to say that I am back. Thank you to all of you who like I Liked It! and to all of you who have been patient. There is so much for me to talk about since my last issue and I’ll try to touch on all the art that I connected with.
American Heroes: Barbie and Oppenheimer
This article is woefully late to the whole “Barbenheimer” craze, but these two films still feel inextricably linked. Both are, as Owen Gleiberman’s Variety article stated, works of artists that found extreme fincancial and critical success because they let audiences “live life for two hours (or maybe three) in the grip of an artist…all this works only when we give artists the license to follow their muse, to express the excitement of what’s in their soul.” Both films, a feature length ad for a doll and a biopic taking place during WWII do not initially seem like the kind of works that would be the most exciting and artistic films of the year, but it appears that very well may be the case.
Barbie (2023)
Obviously I was excited for Barbie, are you kidding me? Greta Gerwig is one of my favorite writer/directors in Hollywood. Writing and starring in Frances Ha (2012), a film that I return to consistently for comfort and reflection, and writing and directing to back to back films that kicked my ass, Lady Bird (2017) and Little Women (2019). One thing that I didn’t really realize until watching Barbie was just how much her filmography is centered around women’s stories and womanhood in general.
Barbie takes this theme throughout her oeuvre and makes it into the entire point, turning Barbie into a totem for a representation for what womanhood is. Having this plaything be such a broad totem of what a woman seems lofty, but both men and women have been doing that for decades. Men by expecting women to be as thin and beautiful as Barbie on a daily basis and women by using Barbie as an example that women can be anything. It’s a really brilliant thing Gerwig has done making Barbie learn about these expectations put on her and using it as an allegorical way to comment on how similar expectations are put onto ones transitioning from girlhood to womanhood. For many, a lot of these themes were clear even before seeing the film. It can feel like “Feminism 101” in a lot of ways, but how directly it speaks about it was refreshing to me.
What’s wonderful about Barbie though isn’t just that it has great messaging and is well thought out, but that it is incredibly silly. Rarely do I see a big budge film embrace being this silly outside of full on parody films like Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), The Naked Gun (1988), and Wet Hot American Summer (2001). All the Barbies in Barbieland, the primary Barbie played by Margot Robbie included, are so silly and funny, but Margot Robbie’s Barbie’s counterpart, Ken (Ryan Gosling), ends up stealing the scene with just how unabashedly goofy he is. Gosling fully embraces the most airheaded version of a dudebro and makes him almost lovable, even when he is enacting patriarchy in Barbieland. What could have been a detestable lovesick incel character was made into an emotionally stunted himbo who just wants to be loved solely through Gosling’s commitment to the bit.
The entire film feels like a miracle because of how “committed to the bit” the whole cast and crew are. Barbie delivers a visually luscious, intellectually valuable, and inspired qualities to what could have been another entry into the cash-grab pop cinema canon.
Barbie is currently available for digital purchase and rental.
Oppenheimer (2023)
I’ve often associated director Christopher Nolan with visually grounded works that fetishize militaristic images cast under a cerulean tint. Works like Following (1998), The Prestige (2006), and Memento (2000) are far more stylized in their editing than the rest of his films and, for that reason, stick out in his oeuvre (which is probably why they’re often cited as his best works by Nolan critics.) I am not harsh on Nolan, but I do like his more stylized efforts more than his grounded works.
His latest film, Oppenheimer, which goes over J. Robert Oppenheimer’s work on the atomic bomb, initially seems like it could lean toward a military propaganda piece. I remember hearing concerns from friends that the film would just be a movie about beating the Germans in creating the bomb and it would be celebratory of United States’ use of nuclear devices. The fact that Oppenheimer was seemingly anti-war, anti-nuclear weapons, and pro-unions was, to say the least, a little surprising.
Even more surprising was that Oppenheimer had stylized editing from Nolan that I we hadn’t seen since The Prestige and it had some stylized imagery too. Glimpses of things that aren’t “real”, but indicate how characters feel in the moment. At what feels like a hearing, Oppenheimer feels so exposed that he appears nude. When another character commits suicide we see multiple versions of the event, but in some frames we see a pair of leather clad hands murdering them (a visual manifestation of Oppenheimer’s feelings of guilt or an implication that it wasn’t really suicide.) The editing cuts through time, showing events separated by years, decades even, as they flow into each other. Time and space bend to create an intimate portrait of a very conflicted man.
Oppenheimer is set for home release sometime this month.
The New Mitski
Mitski’s latest album release, like my recently bleached hair, seems to have been timed by a divine power to occur shortly after me experiencing a break-up. Mitski, like a friend of mine joked, “reached out from the ether and said ‘I know you’re in a lonely phase right now.’” Mistki’s discography seems laser pointed at the wistful and longing masses and this latest release is no different. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We is a lot softer than last year’s Laurel Hell (which has also been on frequent replay in my flat) and with a much more pronounced western/country feel.
Writing about music isn’t really something I do a whole lot. To be completely honest, its probably up there with poetry as one of the artistic endeavors I know the least about analyzing. I DO know how Mitski’s latest album (and her whole discography) makes me feel though. It makes my feelings feel legitimate; I’m not being childish for being upset, it’s okay to feel wistful, and I’m allowed this sense of longing I feel. Mitski, who has led a completely different life than me and is often singing about experiences different than mine, has crafted an ouevre that I can still emotionally connect to. I’m sure it’d feel the same way as one would feel if they were down listening to Elliot Smith or upset heartbroken listening Olivia Rodrigo. Ethan Hawke put how art helps one process feeling in a much more articulate way in his TED Talk:
“Do you think human creativity matters? Well, most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about poetry, right? They have a life to live and they’re really not that concerned with Allen Ginsberg’s poems or anyone’s poems—until, their father dies; they go to a funeral; you lose a child; someone breaks your heart. And all of a sudden you’re desperate for making sense out of this life. ‘Has anybody felt this bad before? How did they come out of this cloud?’ Or the inverse—something great. You meet somebody and your heart explodes—you love them so much you can’t even see straight. You’re dizzy. ‘Did anybody feel like this before? What is happening to me?’ And that’s when art’s not a luxury—it’s actually sustenance. We need it”
Obviously, I agree with him. The way art articulates one’s feelings in a meaningful and beautiful way is straight-up magic. That’s how I’m feeling about the latest Mitski; it’s straight-up magic for me right now.
Dune: The Book, Not The Movie
Executives in the film industry failed to come up with a deal that is fair to the striking actors and writers fast enough, so, as a result, some films ended up being delayed. I chose to finally read Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) this year in preparation for the upcoming film, Dune: Part 2, but it has now since been delayed from this year to next year. This is frustrating because this demonstrates just how stubborn and greedy a handful of executives are and now I know I could’ve spent even longer reading Dune.
Dune follows many characters, primarily Paul Atreides, across a hostile universe full of espionage, deadly weapons, and deadly planets. The world of Dune is full of colorful characters who have different methods of obtaining power, like the weapon master Gurney Hallek, the underhanded Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the sneaky Doctor Wellington Yueh, and the diplomatic Duke Leto Atreides. It is not an adventure story though, but rather a detailed first hand account of the fall of House Atreides and Paul’s vengeful ascent to power more similar to a chess match than a game of Dungeons and Dragons.
Paul’s ascent, like I mentioned in my write up for the 2021 film, follows the familiar idea of “the chosen one.” Paul, by way of intentional meddling, is set to inherit multiple titles, abilities, and responsibilities. His path has been laid out before him and he has no agency in his life’s journey. Early in the book he is frustrated by this, but once he inhales more of “the spice melange” (a psychedelic drug native to the titular planet Dune), he sees just how violent the path before him is. In his vision he sees a massacre across the galaxy the he leads under his family’s banner. Paul rejects this idea and tries to do everything he can to prevent this outcome.
By the end of the novel however, Paul has given in to his destiny. Old friends are horrified of what he’s become; that he shows far less respect for human life than his father did. New friends see Paul quite differently. The people of Dune see him as a messiah, as the chosen one, and respond to him reverently. Instead of fear, they see awe. When Paul is inevitably victorious at the end of the novel, it doesn’t feel good. It feels like one just read how an innocent boy with good morals was molded by an unforgiving universe into a future despot. It’s an interesting feeling to end a sci-fi book, especially when one thinks of all the stories inspired by Dune conveniently omitting the darker aspects of Paul’s character. I hope at least that queasy uncertainty that Paul is still “the good guy” remains in the next film. Even so, as it’s own work, Dune, the book, is just so damn fascinating.
I may try to read the next book in the series.
Spooky Season Begins: Cobweb, Talk to Me, and One Missed Call
As always, the moment August ends I shift into spooky mode - prioritizing watching horror films, thinking about my Halloween costume, and, of course, rewatching Over the Garden Wall. I’ve even selected a stack of horror novels to read too (started reading Frankenstein!) The scary movies have been the priority and, like always, there are quite a few stinkers, but these three have been particular standouts.
Cobweb (2023)
I have this theory that I like to call “The Theory of the Scary Face.” The concept is essentially that the longer a work takes to show “The Scary Face”, whether it be a monster, ghost, or otherwise, the scarier or cooler it has to be. Works like Insidious and Malignant don’t wait until the end to show the audience their monster’s scary face, but use the relatively early face reveal for an excellent and memorable moment. Other films, like Possession (1981), Lake Mungo (2008), and Actually Happened!… (2004) slowly build tension throughout the whole feature until a monster face reveal at the end that actually pays off because of how chilling they are. Sometimes films like One Missed Call (2003) and Pulse (2001) do not give their monsters “scary faces” and after excruciatingly teasing their appearances reveal that they are, unnervingly normal looking. Some of my favorites, like The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Black Christmas (1974), NEVER show “The Scary Face” which is somehow even scarier. The sequels and remakes of The Blair Witch Project and Black Christmas did not get the memo and shamelessly give faces to names and the results are underwhelming. There are plenty of misfires where a film does not nail “The Scary Face” (The Boy, Brahms: The Boy II, Laura Hasn’t Slept, The Hidebehind… the list goes on) and it doesn’t necessarily ruin a horror film, but it certainly deducts points.
For example, I finally caught Cobweb, a new horror film from this year that I really enjoyed. It has an excellent atmosphere, (set around Halloween in an aging house), has a great set-up (a boy is plagued by nightmares, but his parents act suspiciously about them), and a twisty weird plot that goes in directions one would not completely expect. The only problem is (semi-spoilers) when the time to reveal a monster comes, it does a great job of hiding its face, leaving its terrifying visage up to the imagination. Until it doesn’t. At a key point, its face finally appears in the light and it looks…lame. A pretty uninspired design compared to the freakiness of it before.
Like I said though, there is a lot to love about the film. Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr play the boys parents and do a great job of desperately trying to veil they are up to no good. Starr in particular delivers so many innocent lines with an undercurrent of violence and malice. “Scary Face” issues aside, I highly recommend this one.
Cobweb is available for digital purchase and rental.
Talk to Me (2022)
Being completely honest, I saw Talk to Me way back in July, but in an effort to maintain tone, I’m lumping it here.
In late high school and college, I messed around with Ouija boards a lot. It would be a big show of it whenever my friends and I would do it. I would ominously explain the “rules” and how serious what we were doing was. Sometimes we would even light candles. One time we snuck into a graveyard to do it. What we were doing was exciting because it felt subversive and weird. We imagined we were wielding power beyond far beyond ourselves. There was a pride after a session and the people too afraid to take part walked back into the room. Not much happened beyond the occasional shocking coincidence and never once did anything go wrong. Usually it was just gibberish.
I recall all this because it helps me understand why the teens in Talk to Me do what they do. A fad is spreading in their Australian suburb where the teens communicate with entities beyond the veil in a strange sort of horror-magical-realism like It Follows. At a party, one of the teens produces a ceramic hand and, like I would do with Ouija boards, describes the ritual to use the ceramic hand in dramatic low light. They light candles, a teen takes the hand in their’s, their eye go black, and the spirits take over. Strange voices echo from the teenager’s mouth until the ritual is complete. With pumping adrenaline they continue willfully getting temporarily possessed. One troubled teen, Mia (Sophie Wilde), gets the opportunity to speak to her late mother. Its all a fun party game until, unlike my Ouija sessions, something goes horribly wrong.
Like a lot of horror films released by A24, Talk to Me could easily be categorized as another “elevated” horror film, a horror film that puts its themes (usually of loss and trauma) in the foreground. Like other A24 horror films, Hereditary and Midsommar specifically, the melancholic thematic elements are offset by grotesque and realistic violence. One specific moment in Talk to Me is particularly brutal and had even a genre veteran like me in shock. The thematic stuff could be the weakest part, but a certain element of it, the addictive nature the ceramic hand has on Mia, felt profound and real.
Talk to Me is available for digital purchase and rental.
One Missed Call (2003)
After being supremely creeped out in 2008 by the poster for the American remake of One Missed Call, I have finally watched the Japanese original film. The film follows a lot of the same narrative beats as the worldwide sensation Ring (1998), but more of the aesthetics of The Ring (2002), the Gore Verbinski American remake. Like The Ring, One Missed Call is about a malevolent spirit reaching out through modern day technology (cell phones instead of VHS tapes) and warning its victims of their inescapable demise (a voicemail of the recipient’s last words dated days in the future.) Despite One Missed Call feeling derivative, director Takeshi Miike pushes the aesthetics and embraces the visual trends of the early 2000s to make it stylish horror film.
Admittedly I am not well versed in the worlds of director Takeshi Miike. I saw his groundbreaking slow-burn Audition (1999) way back in my teenage years. Only thing I do know about Miike is that in his extremely prolific body of work exists a wild amount of tones and styles, but he has a penchant for the extreme and the strange. One Missed Call fits neatly in my minds image of him as it utilizes striking and wild images and isn’t afraid to go toward explicitly weird territories (the final moments of the film is both eerie and serene, but completely unlike the rest of the film.) Even small little flourishes land in really effective ways. It’s a really finely crafted piece that I will no doubt return to.
One Missed Call is available for digital purchase and rental.
Dealings with Monsters: In the Dream House: A Memoir and Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma
I read a lot of books during the hiatus. After reading Dune, I gained quite a bit of momentum and blowed through a number of books, well surpassing my yearly goal of reading 13 books. I read the surprisingly cruel short story collection You Know You Want This by “Cat Person” author Kristen Roupenian and Eliot Page’s hotly anticipated memoir Pageboy. Strangely enough, the most exciting things I read were not typical books for me; two non-fiction books detailing real life abuse and how one as an individual deals with it.
In the Dream House: A Memoir (2019)
I don’t read a lot of non-fiction. Generally, I prefer contemporary fiction that exists somewhere in the orbit of magical realism, horror, and sad girl books (I’m becoming a big fan of Otessa Moshfegh.) One of the standouts in that constellation of genres I read last year was Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado. When I sought out more work from her I was disappointed to find that the only published novel she had was a memoir detailing an abusive relationship she experienced. What excited me about Her Body was how lyrical and experimental her prose was and how easily she shifted between genres and styles.
It wasn’t until a friend of mine read In the Dream House that I found out the qualities I admired in her fictional short stories was present in her memoir, so I started reading it as soon as I could.
Despite the dark subject matter of In the Dream House, the memoir has a playful element of each chapter being a different genre or style. One goes into detail on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation while another is written in the style of pulp noir fiction and another is a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story (the choices lead you into a loop of verbal and emotional abuse). Annotations decorate the passages comparing her harrowing experience to archetypes, symbols, and storytelling elements in folklore. The entirety of In the Dream House really opened my eyes to how a memoir could be written and cemented Carmen Maria Machado as an author for me to be excited about.
Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma (2023)
Unlike Dream House, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma isn’t focused on author Claire Dederer’s history of abuse, but rather the history of abuse perpetrated by artists through a series of personal essays. I became aware of this book from The New Yorker’s review of it and it became something I was dying to read. Throughout the book, Dederer explores what a “monstrous” artist is, how others deal with their art, and how she personally reconciles with it. The usual collection of artists are addressed, like Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, J.K. Rowling, and Pablo Picasso, but Dederer does not use the book to give readers a list of monsters to hate and disavow. Dederer explores what makes them monstrous and if and how their monstrous acts have forever stained their work.
Some of the moral exercises Dederer poses is as follows: is Michael Jackson’s work when he was a child in The Jackson 5 is stained because of his actions as an adult? Can an abuser be redeemed and, if not, what does that say about someone leaving prison and trying to enter a creative field? Is one required to abstain from a monstrous artists work to prevent them from profiting from it? Why is it our responsibility to judge? These questions are important, but are they as important if you don’t look at yourself as a consumer? What do you do if you find out that a work that is important to you, spiritually, emotionally, or otherwise personally, was made by a monster?
Monsters is ultimately about loving art and having complicated feelings about artists. After all, all artists are human. Even humans you love can hurt you and that doesn’t mean you have to forgive them. It doesn’t mean they can’t change your life in a positive and meaningful way.
Film Round-Up: Sick of Myself, Bottoms, How to Blow Up A Pipeline, A Moment of Romance, & Sanctuary
It’s a long title, but I really wanted to write at length about a lot of these films and, had I not taken a hiatus, I would’ve been able to without cramming all of them into one section. Here’s a quick round-up of films that I really enjoyed
Sick of Myself (2022)
The whole time I was watching Sick of Myself, I was constantly reminded of the works of Otessa Moshfegh. I was specifically reminded of My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018), a novel about a woman who abuses prescription drugs in an attempt to spend a year asleep. Sick of Myself also features prescription drug abuse, but that’s not really the part that I’m thinking of. Both works feature horribly narcissistic leads who obsess over themselves while casually and almost unknowingly tear down everyone around them.
Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp) is just so obsessed with attention that, early on in the film, when she witnesses a dog attack, she doesn’t wash off the blood just so she can go to her apartment and have her artist boyfriend ask her “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” You see it in her eyes when she’s at parties or gallery openings that whenever she notices someone else being the star of the conversation her blood begins to boil. What starts out as little fibs and embellishments eventually turn to her poisoning herself to get the pity and attention so feels she deserves. The film twists into a sort of critique of the fame obsessed nature of our culture by showcasing an extreme and vile version of it. Signe has no shame and it leads to some cruel, albeit hilarious, results.
Sick of Myself is available on Showtime and for digital purchase and rental.
Bottoms (2023)
Earlier in this issue I talked about how rare it was for contemporary comedies to be as unabashedly silly as Barbie. We got pretty lucky with another incredibly silly comedy this year, Bottoms. Pitched as Fight Club (1999) but for lesbians, but it is more of a version of Heathers (1988) that takes place at the school from Not Another Teen Movie (2001). Bottoms exists in an almost cartoon world where dangerous students are wheeled around in cages, principals openly call students untalented and ugly, and the rival high school threatens to murder football players every year. Despite all this insanity, PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) are mainly focused on trying to get laid. They decide to take advantage of the desperation of their fellow female classmates who fear the frighteningly aggressive atmosphere around the school by forming a “fight club” to teach everyone how to fight. PJ and Josie mainly form this club just so they can get physically close to their female crushes and hopefully squash their sexual frustration.
Borderline absurdity ensues and it is absolutely hilarious. The film ends up being cartoonishly violent in a way far beyond Heathers, but never as gruesome or serious as Fight Club. The cast is filled out with some great scene stealing performances by Nicholas Galitzine (who also played a gay prince in Red, White, and Royal Blue earlier this year) as the most popular, sensitive, and asshole-y jock in the school and Seattle Seahawks Running-Back Marshawn Lynch as a confused teacher who supports their fight club. Despite their hilarious portrayals of idiotic masculinity and an ensemble of funny women, the film belongs to Sennott and Edebiri as the leads. Sennott, who has proven time and time again to be a dependable comedic actress runs away with the outrageous material and Edebiri (likely known by many for being in The Bear (2022-), but I’ve only become recently familiar with because of Theater Camp (2023)) provides a grounding energy in such a wild film. Ultimately, it provides an excellent showcase for everyone involved in this production and Bottoms will likely be a frequent rewatch for many.
Bottoms is available for digital purchase and rental.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022)
While watching How to Blow Up a Pipeline, I thought about two works that really impacted me last year, the graphic novel Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands (2022) by Kate Beaton and the sci-fi blockbuster Avatar: Way of the Water (2022) (not kidding.) Both address the culpability of those involved in participating in the destruction of the environment. In Ducks, Kate Beaton witnesses an oil spill and sees the enormous damage it does to the surrounding environment. She begins to question how guilty she is in this disaster because she worked for the people who made these pipelines, supplied tools for them, and otherwise supported them. Avatar: Way of the Water shows the heroic Na’avi, the blue alien people of the beautiful planet of Pandora, blowing up trains that are transporting supplies to the humans trying to settle and industrialize Pandora. In the climax of the film, human casualties are ignored when pieces of the massive military-grade whaling ship crush the lifeboats full of whaling ship staff during the Na’avi’s attack. Avatar’s stance is far more clear than Ducks, but both suggest a level of personal responsibility one must consider in a world where the planet is in danger of being permanently poisoned.
In How to Blow Up a Pipeline, we are introduced to a band of radicals who are plotting to blow-up, you guessed it, an oil pipeline. The film is based off of a non-fiction book of the same name that argues the necessity to enact direct action against oil companies. It suggests that nonviolent protest and waiting for government agencies to make the change will not save us and other means must be taken. The film does a good idea of adapting these ideas, especially since each character is given proper motivation to strike at the throat of oil companies. These motivations aren’t as simple as “he is a psycho” or “she comes from a bad home”, but rather influenced by a frustration at the lack of action to protect humans from the companies that are releasing toxins into the air, soil, and water.
What’s also so exciting about the film is that it sort of operates like a politically motivated heist film, but instead of stealing something, they’re blowing something up. Like an Oceans movie, they have to assemble a crew for the job, make the plan, and then try to execute the plan, making the on-the-fly adjustments as things go wrong. It’s an extremely satisfying watch in that capacity as the editing keeps the audience on their toes, shifting through time so certain characters fates are not clear until entirely necessary. Its a timely movie that doesn’t ask any questions, but rather emphasizes just how dire the climate emergency is and how imperative something be done about it.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is available to watch on Hulu.
A Moment of Romance (1990)
I certifiably freaked out when I saw that A Moment of Romance was now available for digital purchase or rental. I had been transfixed by the film ever since I saw the above image. The image was just was imbued with something that made it magical and indelible and the brief plot synopsis promised a classic tale of star-crossed lovers:
During a bank heist, getaway driver Wah takes a young woman Jo Jo hostage. After preventing his accomplices from killing her, they begin a forbidden relationship that causes mayhem and chaos for their friends and family.
The Hong Kong film movement in the 1980s and 90s is full of stories like this. Doomed romances, dangerous gangsters, and death around every corner. Its enough to take value of little beautiful moments. A Moment of Romance certainly does. If the image of Wah and Jojo on the motorcycle dressed for a wedding wasn’t the most indelible image in the film, then there is a lot of competition for what is. Director Benny Chan and his cinematographers create so many gorgeous images throughout the film that the film kind of works best as an aesthetic piece. The protagonists are cool and beautiful in their copious amounts of denim and, despite how quick they become devoted to each other, their love is enough to propel this film to genuinely powerful moments.
A Moment of Romance is available for digital purchase and rental.
Sanctuary (2022)
I had my eye on Sanctuary when I heard Margaret Qualley starred in it as a psychotic dominatrix. As titillating as that sounds, Sanctuary feels more like a crazy stage play. The film takes place over the course of one night in a hotel suite where Hal (Christopher Abbot), the wealthy heir to a hotel empire, tries to break-up with Rebecca (Qualley), his dominatrix. It is such a wild ride as it becomes unclear as to what is “play” and what is “real.” Both connive, insult, and freak the fuck out in the process of trying to get what they want. It veers in all sorts of directions; thrilling, whimsical, and sexy. I honestly don’t want to say much more about the plot because it is so much fun seeing everything unravel. Since the whole film takes place in one hotel suite, there are some really interesting camera and lighting decisions made to keep the space fresh and exciting (not that Qualley and Abbot needed help with that.)
Sanctuary is available to watch on Hulu.
Stray Observations
I bleached my hair! No, it wasn’t a break-up decision! Yes, it happened less than a week after the break-up! Yes, I wanted to do it for a while and the day my friends were able to make it happen just coincidentally happened then. Its been a lot of fun being a platinum blonde, going Super Saiyan, entering my Ken era. I had a lot of help from Andrea del Rio, Anna Posey, and Grace Millard (all pictured below) in bleaching and toning my hair.
And I am very happy with the result too (pictured below.)
Probably my two most anticipated remaining films of the year are Dream Scenario (2023) and Poor Things (2023), both of which have very appealing exciting trailers out now. Dream Scenario, starring Nicolas Cage, follows a college professor who begins to appear in the dreams of every person on Earth. The trailer seems to indicate it will follow similar themes as director Kristoffer Borgli’s previous film, Sick of Myself. Poor Things on the other hand, which has seen rave reviews from the festival circuit, stars Emma Stone as a Frankenstein-esque creation who learns what it means to be alive. Several critics are comparing it to a sort of version of Barbie, but for sickos. Combining that with the film’s seemingly early Tim Burton aesthetics and director Yorgos Lanthimos’s excellent track record so far really makes this a film I’m excited for.
Since I already wrote a big long piece about it, I didn’t feel like doing another whole write-up on The Hunger Games series just because I watched it again. I will say, rewatching it I am reminded just how political the series is. It is refreshing to see a film that so unforgivingly exposes how governments can use spectacle and media as their greatest weapon against their own citizens. Not to mention, they’re also entertaining thrillers!
Another series I watched was the entire Mission Impossible series to prep for this year’s Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning - Part 1 and what I found is that the series is incredibly consistent. Not consistent in tone or style, but rather in quality and enjoyability. Even it’s worst films are really fun. Sure, there are certain stand-outs (the first film, Mission Impossible, and the second most recent film, Mission Impossible: Fallout), but I’d say pretty much all the rest are tied for being my second favorite. Even the lastest one, Dead Reckoning - Part 1, is on par for the series. Its just a joy to see Tom Cruise do death defying stunts, hear twisty spy movie dialogue, and feign surprise when superstar spy Ethan Hunt has to go rogue yet again.
Shoutout to Libby and Charlie who got MARRIED last weekend. The two of them have been good friends of mine for so long and it was wonderful to see them commit themselves to each other like that. They’re amongst the kindest people I know and I’m lucky to have been an usher at their wedding. I’ve said it a billion times at this point, but congrats to Libby and Charlie!
Again, thank you for reading. To my subscribers, thank you for your continued support. To everyone who asked “I haven’t seen the newsletter in a while, what gives?”, I appreciate how much you appreciate and missed the newsletter. I’d like to return to the regular semi-weekly format following this post and working on this issue has certainly reminded me how much fun it is working on it. I’ll talk to you in a few weeks. Don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already.