StrangeScaffold

Hereditary (2018 film) = Finished

At first, I was impressed with how Hereditary literally weaponized the symbols of grief - the memories, the objects...the little tics and words used by the one you knew - and turned them into engines of supernatural horror. That little click of the tongue that your sister used to do before they passed away? The one that you miss now that they're gone? Yeah, if you suddenly get it now--you're possessed. Just absolutely demon-filled, dude. Sorry about that.

It's remarkably effective on a ...

Gears of War 4 (2016 game) = Finished

I didn't find a way to describe how radical the changes were to the Gears of War formula, until I noticed an audio cue that was missing.

In previous Gears of War games, when a new objective was added to your tracker or completed, an ominous bell toll would ring out. It was a badass end to many pitched fights and generally reinforced an atmosphere I'd like to describe as "apocalypse punk". When you died, a braying horn combined with the roar of some nameless, terrible beast heralded not ...

Network (1976 film) = Finished

Compulsion is an odd thing to judge in a movie. The very nature of the medium says that you're along for the ride, right? You probably want to see what happens next. That might be cool. Stuff happening. You know.

Stuff.

Network pulls off an interesting trick, though. We start out somewhat sympathetic to the plight of Howard Beale, a disgraced anchor who announces that he will kill himself on live television. The man is clearly unwell. Thing is--h...

Cloud Atlas (2012 film) = Finished

This movie chosen by a "Fennelsher" patron.

The typical film epic structure is a bit of a downer, isn't it?

I'm thinking of the Boogie Nights and Beaches and Terms of Endearments of the world. You don't just watch these movies - you live in them. You commit to being in this place, with these people for an extended period of time. You feel like you're an actual part of these interweaving lives, and then it just...ends. Usually, on an oddly conclusive note...

Apocalypse Now (1979 film) = Finished

You can't tell the difference between the blood and the sweat any more.

They both shine on Willard's skin as he emerges from the lair of Kurtz. They dazzle in the light like gemstones, and raise themselves, ever present, even against the shadow. There's no juxtaposition or contrast there, anymore. Just compromise. Just pain. Just liquid.

For the first hour and a half, I thought Apocalypse Now would be another movie that made an (incredibly good) study of contrasts. Juxtaposing the innoce...

Total Recall (1990 film) = Finished

You'd think narrative ambiguity would make things easier for you, right?
You just don't say how a story ends. 

That isn't true, of course, as I've learned through much pain. If anything it makes your job harder. You have to justify alternate timelines and evolving viewpoints. You have to have certain conclusions resolved in your head, before you can lead or mislead your audience. It's all the difficulty of creating a traditional story, drawing a (hopefully interesting) line fr...

Aliens (1986 film) = Finished

I first saw Aliens as part of a library DVD collection with the original movie. Alien blew my fricking mind. I still consider it one of the greatest movies ever made. A tense debut that used the practical decisions required by its low budget to full effect, I couldn't look away from the screen. I think it's the first horror movie I watched from beginning to end, and Alien instilled a love in me for the genre that continues to this day.

30 seconds after its conclusion, I had stuck in t...

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018 film) = Finished

Spider-Verse reminded me of why I love movies.

I like being in another place, safely detached by a screen, and feeling things. I like taking those emotions and observations back into the world, and feeling the richer for it. I like laughing, or seeing striking imagery, or acknowledging both a story well told and holding an affecting message--but those things I listed above? Those are the basics. That is the primal force that keeps me pinned to a seat, and writing these posts at *checks time* 1...

Bonnie and Clyde (1967 film) = Finished

There's a scene near the end of the movie where Bonnie and Clyde roll into a camp of what seem to be dispossessed Americans. Their gang--or what's left of it--has been shot to bits, left dehydrated and shaking from their recent ambush. Inept companion C.W. Moss scrambles from the car to ask the hardscrabble group outside for water. At first, they're suspicious of the tattooed stranger. Then they see who else is in the car.

Men, women, and children crowd around its windows to get a glimpse of t...

Shadow Complex Remastered (2016 game) = Finished

I remember when the original came out!

It was one of the first metroidvanias I'd ever played. I easily sunk over 30 hours into combing every piece of its map for secrets and upgrades. The two tasks I left unfinished are still burned in my mind. I can remember their exact locations, and the struggles I went through trying to get them.

I'm a bit older, now, and I don't particularly see the point in spending 30 hours on a fairly decent conspiracy-tinged 2.5D metroidvania. So I cleared it, a...

The Mask (1994 film) = Finished

Okay, first off: I am aware that this is the equivalent of a live-action cartoon. I am aware that this is a star vehicle for Jim Carrey (and to a lesser degree Cameron Diaz). I am aware that the 90s were a very confusing time for many of y'all in general.

However

how

in the HELL

DID THIS MAKE

THREE HUNDRED

AND FIFTY

MILLION

DOLLARS

I kind of answered my own question. A live-action CGI cartoon about Extremely Nice Guy Look How Nice He Is Really He...

Incredibles 2 (2018 film) = Finished

Incredibles 2 made a major aesthetic shift that I don't quite understand yet.

I know the components it's using. Incredibles 2 combines realistic materials and lighting with heavily stylized art deco forms, and dramatic, archetypal colors/backdrops torn from the Golden Age of comics. It pops off the screen and looks great, but initially, it's a complex mental leap to make. The treatment of objects, water, hair and skin, all tell you that this is the real world. However, the obvious exa...

Battlefield V (2018 game) = Finished

Hey, so I can't talk about this too much for some reasons I can't go into right now, but Battlefield V was good in ways I wasn't even expecting.

I played BF1, where the series debuted its vignette structure. It was...okay. Bland writing and mission setups were somewhat livened up by a novel World War 1 setting--one that for all its pre-launch discussion about nuance, didn't do much to pay off on the concept of war before black and white. War where people stopped shooting at each other, to reco...

Boogie Nights (1997 film) = Finished

I wonder if this would have been a better movie if it ended 3 minutes earlier.

Boogie Nights takes you on a journey that is honestly disturbing in its efficacy. When it first introduces you to the mundane bits of the creation of porn, the environment comes off as sleazy. Exploitative. Cheap. And of course, that's what it was. Despite the pretensions of some of the people who made it, the processes, practices, and treatment of individuals involved in making them was awful as hell. Eddi...

Wild Wild West (1999 film) = Finished

I...kinda love Wild Wild West.

Let me be absolutely clear: it is not a good movie, per se. It is an expensive one, and has some very talented actors on board, but a good movie it does not make. Instead, the reason I value Wild Wild West is because it is an absolute display of the weird sh*t the people who made it really, really like. Wild Wild West is what happens when your weird cousin opens up his laptop and shows you his favorite folders marked "Spiders," "Busty Wo...

Blade II (2002 film) = Finished

I don't get it.

I don't get how Blade II is not as compelling as the first movie.

Blade II is, by every account, better. Better direction. Better writing. Better visual effects. Better fight scenes. Better cast. Hell - Del Toro and company knocked this out of the park.

So why did I struggle to watch this, where the first movie drew me in? How does the first evoke more of an emotional reaction in general, despite cheesiness, and Blade himself looking out of place in our rea...

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993 film) = Finished

When Tim Burton was still a wee animation student at CalArts, he saw the newly-debuted Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. A few years later, he had made his first short film at Disney--a success--and created a poem that would form the genesis of The Nightmare Before Christmas.

I think you can see where I'm going with this.

Though it was directed by Henry Selick, and finally produced as a movie a significant time later, you can clearly see The Nightma...

True Lies (1994 film) = Finished

It is fascinating to see the culmination of a director's career before they make a major shift. True Lies combines the personal focus and suspense of Terminator, when James Cameron had Very Little Money, with the action excess of Terminator 2, when he had Too Much Money. Three years later, he would produce Titanic, and his movies would never quite be the same.

For this period of Cameron's career, True Lies is a fitting send-off.

Can I gush a bit?
I'm gonna gush now.

I 2018-12-02 06:36:55 +0000 UTC View Post

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018 film) = Finished

Weird West - a genre that puts the legends and problematic framing of the Wild West through a twisted prism, and sets all equal. We are one before a dry sea of grass and scrub, cosmic horror and haunted shanty towns, Devils with neat playing cards and crooked games to match. It is one of my absolute favorite molds, and almost no one uses it.

Imagine my surprise to see the Coen brothers bear my incredibly niche cross.

There's a lot of Westerns out there. What sets this movie apart - what ...