I’ve been selectively revisiting the X-Men series, which, as a whole, are known to be a mixed bag. At their best1, they’re great action spectacles that effectively explore the opposing philosophies of Professor X and Magneto. At their worst… well, I didn’t rewatch the bad ones, so I won’t comment.
These two entries, both directed by James Mangold, stand apart from the rest in the way that they zoom into the psychology of a single character. The Wolverine is the more conventionally comic-booky of the two, featuring ninjas and a cool bullet train fight scene. Logan doesn’t feel like a superhero movie at all, and lands more like a crime drama, with brutal violence that makes you feel every kill.
Both follow a similar emotional arc for the character: he’s a broken man, haunted by the past, until he finds someone to care for and protect. It’s especially effective in Logan, due to the compelling performance by Dafne Keen as Wolverine’s clone-daughter.
I have to say though, Wolverine’s lack of emotional range (99.5% brooding and angry, 0.5% vulnerable) is more noticeably one-note when he’s flying solo and not part of a team.
This film has a fascinating and unique premise: a family who has adopted a Chinese girl purchases an android with the same ethnicity—a cultural techno-sapien, as they call it—to act as her older brother, and to ensure that she has a connection to her heritage. But he malfunctions, and in the process of trying to repair him1, they gain access to his storage modules and are able to view his memories.
Due to the title, I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that their efforts are unsuccessful, and the film becomes an emotional meditation on grief. When we lose someone close to us, we usually focus on our memories of them. This film uses the sci-fi premise to invert that idea and ask, what would the departed hold as their most treasured memories of us?
This includes a trip to a glossy franchised repair shop called Quick Fix, which immediately reminded me of my experiences with a similar place called uBreakiFix, or as I like to call it, uBreak-I-break-it-even-more. ↩
Hi all. I haven’t done one of these in a while. As with any (good) habit, it’s easy to start, but hard to keep up. I’ve been feeling busy for the last couple of months, with the emphasis on feeling… I can’t say with certainty that my time has been filled any more than usual, but the experience of busyness has as much to do with how one copes with time management. It’s probably fair to say that I haven’t been coping so well lately. But I’m getting back on track.
I’ve lately gone on a kick of revisitingmovies that have left a lasting impression on me. With that in mind, I rewatched this pair of Ari Aster films in quick succession, and my snap verdict is: Midsommar has gone up in my estimation, while Hereditary has gone down.
I don’t scare easily at horror movies, but part of the reason is because I tend to avoid seeing them in the theatre. The big screen and loud sound, along with being surrounded by the dark, would probably overwhelm me, and raise the fear factor beyond what I’d be comfortable with.1 This is all to give Hereditary the credit that it deserves: it freaked me the hell out the first time I watched it, even in the comfort of my basement man cave. On this second viewing, because I knew what was coming, it didn’t hit me much. I didn’t expect to be scared, but great horror can be rewatched because it offers more than fear2, and Hereditary didn’t.
Midsommar, on the other hand, opened up for me the second time around. I don’t think it was ever really that scary in the first place, more shocking and disturbing. Without the element of surprise, it becomes a fascinating exploration of how outsiders perceive “foreign” cultures, and the thin line between community and cult.
Things that connect the two films:
The lead actors, Toni Collette and Florence Pugh, are both great.
Corpses in Aster’s movies have a bloodless, rubbery quality that I “enjoy.” I can’t say they’re realistic, but they’re also not clearly fake. It’s like a gross, macabre version of the Yoda puppet in The Empire Strikes Back.
I’ll always remember the experience of seeing Signs in the theatre all those years ago. I propose that a recent, comparable film, No One Will Save You, didn’t feel very scary to me (though still enjoyable) because I watched it at home. ↩
I first saw this movie at TIFF in 2016. At the time, I was in the (relatively) early days of the relationship that would become my marriage. In other words, less emotionally evolved, let’s say. I remember being moved by the core theme of the movie, which—spoiler warning—hinges on the question: if you have foreknowledge that your child would die from a childhood illness, would you still choose to have that child? But, I think the main appeal for me back then were the sci-fi elements. Cool spaceships! Alien first contact!
Rewatching it this time around, I’ve been happily married for years. We don’t have kids, but the notion of being a parent is way more immediate and accessible to me now than eight years ago. As such, the movie had a bigger emotional impact for me this time. But the connection that actually resonated the most for me, unexpectedly, was this: pet owners, in most cases, know that they will outlive their pets, and yet, we choose to share our lives with our animals. These can be some of the most fulfilling relationships we have, in fact.
Of course, I’m not equating the loss of a child to that of a pet. But both types of loss highlight the message of Arrival, I think: the act of fully loving someone or something requires accepting the possibility of loss. And if you know that the loss is certain, it makes the love that much stronger.
It’s hard to review this book without mentioning its structure, including what happens in the story. I don’t think it’s the kind of book that hinges on plot points, but I’ll still put a spoiler warning here.
The prose is structured in short fragments, usually no longer than a few sentences each. It’s reminiscent of Dept. of Speculation and Weather by Jenny Offill, both of which I enjoyed. There are no real “scenes,” just glimpses into the mind of the main character, an unnamed woman who spends a lot of time on the Internet, and becomes famous for a single tweet. Ultimately, I think I prefer Lockwood’s novel to Offill’s, because of how the style changes meaning over the course of the book.
For the first half of this book, the style obviously evokes the flood of unrelated content that you experience when scrolling through social media. It’s filled with references to memes and jokes, and would probably not even make sense for the first dozen or so pages if you hadn’t read the jacket copy.
But then, in the second half, the book shifts focus to a medical emergency involving the protagonist’s infant niece. The protagonist is no longer constantly online, but the style remains fragmentary, taking on a lyrical quality. I came to appreciate that even without the distraction of the Internet, the mind still works this way: when you’re supposedly only thinking about one thing—in this case, love towards an ailing child—you still jump from idea to idea, emotion to emotion. I found it very powerful, and I was brought close to tears by many passages.
The Andy Serkis Planet of the Apes trilogy, especially the middle entry, are some of my favourite movies ever. What the new sequel retains is the utter believability of the special effects. You really believe that you’re watching living apes, and that they are persons with thoughts and feelings.
I loved the first half of the film, which establishes the culture of the future ape society, through the main character Noa, and then the studies of a monk-like ape named Raka. If the film had stuck with the “buddy search quest” plotline, where the two of them try to find Noa’s missing clan, this would have been a home run. Unfortunately, the film loses steam for me when it introduces a triangular conflict involving a power-hungry self-proclaimed king ape, and a mysterious human girl. The focus shifts to a big action climax instead of fleshing out the motivations of the antagonist(s), and made me miss the moral complexity of the original trilogy.
Recently, by sheer coincidence, I read a couple of books whose titles both started with the words how to. What’s more, the reading of one informed and influenced my reading of the other.
(My only regret is that I was unable to complete the trifecta by also watching How To with John Wilson at the same time.)
According to my records, I’ve watched this film four times before this—twice in the theatre, as I recall—but not since 2011. But it feels like I’ve watched it many more times than that. It’s one of those movies where I can anticipate moments just before they happen: I can hear a line of dialogue before it’s spoken; I can see the framing of a shot before it’s cut to; I could even imitate the gestures of the actors before they moved, if I were the kind of person to fidget during movies.
I’m not going to say much more about the movie itself, other than that it holds up and remains one of my favourites. Rather, I’ll use this as an opportunity to reflect on how my media-consumption habits have changed. Inglourious Basterds came out in a time before streaming services and YouTube created this feeling that I always have something new to watch. Back then, I used to rewatch movies and shows (see also: Curb Your Enthusiasm) over and over again. Even if not the whole thing, I would pick out favourite scenes to revisit; for example, the best scene of this film, the chapter in the bar featuring M. Fassbender and D. Kruger.
I’m going to sound like a grumpy old man when I say this but it goes to show that less is more: less choice means that you can spend more time on the movies that you really love, and it’s through repeated viewings that your favourites becomes your favourites.
The setup of this novel reminded me of Past Lives: the life of a married couple is disrupted by a visitor from one of the partners’ past.
From the start, I found the couple’s behaviour to be not entirely believable: why was one partner so secretive about her past, and why was her wife so jealous about it? I kept thinking that an honest, open conversation would have diffused all of the tension between them. But, through a somewhat repetitive and long-winded exploration of their thoughts and memories, I came to a reluctant understanding: this book is a portrait of a failing relationship.
I commend the novel for presenting a perspective that I don’t see often: that of a queer person living openly in a same-sex relationship, while at the same time staying closeted about her bisexuality.
However, there were enough flaws in the story that I can’t say I recommend it. In particular, there are a couple of “plot twists” near the end that seem to serve no purpose other than to underscore a point that was already clear, and then to punish the main character. There’s also an extended exposition about the plight of Ugandan Indians under Idi Amin, and how it compares with the Syrian refugee crisis. It’s a bit discomfiting to measure traumas against each other, and I wasn’t sure what the author was getting at.
