promised land non-dream diary entry
Nov. 15th, 2022 12:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ichthyocentaurs(I was very tickled by my folder of old LJ icons that I found so I was like hehehe I'm gonna use these things but they are like 80% jokey and I should change them. Maybe? idk who cares)
Anyway it's fun to watch the internet melt down a little. as bad as I feel for like, artists and stuff who use twitts to make a living, I also think like... humanity probably doesn't need a social media like this. governments use a private platform to announce policies on the same site lonely people catalog the food they ate that day. When the internet was more fractured, I think people had healthier brains, and maybe it's time to step back to that again until something much, much better than what we have can be used. I've seen a lot of people say how sad this idea is (and while I agree everyone flocking to discord is TOO fractured, mostly because discord is a terrible place to have conversations), but I had like, so, so many friends in tiny like, roleplay groups who found each other through common interest and disposition, and it was good. You had to actually know and accept people who were slightly different than you.
Aside from that I went a little movie crazy last month and wanted to highlight a few that I thought ruled. Lots of horror because spooky szn!!!
The Lair of the White Worm: I had this on my to-watch list for a long time and finally checked it out, and god this movie is so fun. Campy vamp--er, snake lady weirdly horny antics in England, knowing that it's silly but not going too far? Great shit. I feel like I might double feature this with Hot Fuzz?
Near Dark: Shit-kicking, gutter-ass vampires done so well. These characters are truly scummy and nasty, a huge juxtaposition with most other portrayals of vampires who are... well, I'd say they drift between anti-hero and villains, but they're not just straight up monster villains. Really cool way to have contemporary vampires in an unusual setting, the American South. (ok thinking for one more second there is a VERY notable American South set of vampires so I will clarify it's like, Texas) Also worth noting Bill Paxton is extremely hot in this.
Inferno: Yooooo. Yo. I was unfortunately led astray by someone saying that none of the other witches movies lived up to Suspiria, but that is straight wrong and I'm sorry for not checking this out sooner. I feel like Suspiria was an instant first love for me, but Inferno I might... actually like more? Or completely equally. If you aren't in the instant a character dives into an underwater room that's in a basement, I don't know what to tell you. Incredible visuals, a story that twists everywhere and changes main character whenever it damn well feels like. Oogh. I want to watch it right now. I probably will soon.
Creature from the Black Lagoon: Okay everyone knows. But I think this is actually my favorite of the Universal monster movies (I believe I've seen all the main ones and a handful of the sequels)... well I really like Island of Lost Souls and Invisible Man. The underwater stunts are so impressive, you actually get lulled into the sense that you are watching a real creature. He feels misunderstood, or maybe truly like an animal, and the characters arguing over whether to leave him alone or not adds a lot to the empathy. Finally seeing it I totally understand why del Toro fell in love with this idea.
The Blob: '88 (I have seen the original, it's not bad!) Ramps up the horror tremendously, mostly in terms of gore, but also in the conceptual sense. Holy shit, why do people not talk about the effects in this more? I'd maybe compare it to like, The Thing in just like, wow. They went for it and did not shy away from wholesale death and destruction. The main romance is also actually quite cute.
The Keep: This might actually be the most controversial one. Look, you show me a huge, strange, mysterious monument to evil and say "no one should open this place" and my monkey brain smiles. Yes, the story is fractured, but it's not confusing at all; I'd actually say it's actually way too simple because of how the studio slaughtered it. Additional scenes to flesh out some stuff would be nice but like. If you have to watch this movie and just go ~this is a vibe~ I think that's fine. It's weird to me how the general movie watching internet will be like wow I love weird movies!! not everything has to make sense!! then watch something like this and be like wow I don't get it why didn't we learn everything about everyone. Like who cares it's not that important. Also when the scene where the... er... Keepee(?) is a crazy smoke monster is fucking sick as hell. Incredible, beautiful, amazing effect.
Nosferatu the Vampyre: '79 (I have seen the original, great stuff, obviously. Watch it to make Bram Stoker's widow mad.) Shockingly similar to the original at times, but now with an artsier, more delicate, more sympathetic, almost, touch. I feel like Bram Stoker's Dracula owes a LOT to this movie, or maybe this is just a more interesting example of how well a remake of this can be. (Sorry I hate Keanu in that movie so much!!!!) The plague scenes are particularly brilliant, and the ending is very satisfying. To me, lol.
Blacula: This movie gets treated like a joke, and yes, the way he gets named Blacula is extremely hilarious. But that's like, the first 5 minutes, and in context of like, the ambassador (or something) of a rich African nation being cursed by a dickhead white vampire kind of dampers it. Reminds me of vampire-like legends from colonized nations being about whites stealing the blood and organs from natives. (Something someone should make a movie about. Maybe it exists?) After that, and after you get over how coolly 70s everything is, this is a legitimately great vampire movie.
The Vanishing: Rewatched, but god. Goddd. This movie is just so subtly fucked. I don't want to say anything about it but it's so wonderfully suspenseful and creepy. Definitely should be on the list of anyone who wants to watch non-gore horror (and like, everyone else too.)
Tetsuo: The Iron Man: This movie feels so damn punk rock, and watching it it's like. Yes, the people I know who like this movie are absolutely the people who would like this. Grungy as fuck, really nasty and weird, also it is yaoi I will not accept any arguments. It's short too, there's no excuse to not see this. I almost want to check out the sequels but I feel like a project like this cannot survive any further iterations.
Anyway it's fun to watch the internet melt down a little. as bad as I feel for like, artists and stuff who use twitts to make a living, I also think like... humanity probably doesn't need a social media like this. governments use a private platform to announce policies on the same site lonely people catalog the food they ate that day. When the internet was more fractured, I think people had healthier brains, and maybe it's time to step back to that again until something much, much better than what we have can be used. I've seen a lot of people say how sad this idea is (and while I agree everyone flocking to discord is TOO fractured, mostly because discord is a terrible place to have conversations), but I had like, so, so many friends in tiny like, roleplay groups who found each other through common interest and disposition, and it was good. You had to actually know and accept people who were slightly different than you.
Aside from that I went a little movie crazy last month and wanted to highlight a few that I thought ruled. Lots of horror because spooky szn!!!
The Lair of the White Worm: I had this on my to-watch list for a long time and finally checked it out, and god this movie is so fun. Campy vamp--er, snake lady weirdly horny antics in England, knowing that it's silly but not going too far? Great shit. I feel like I might double feature this with Hot Fuzz?
Near Dark: Shit-kicking, gutter-ass vampires done so well. These characters are truly scummy and nasty, a huge juxtaposition with most other portrayals of vampires who are... well, I'd say they drift between anti-hero and villains, but they're not just straight up monster villains. Really cool way to have contemporary vampires in an unusual setting, the American South. (ok thinking for one more second there is a VERY notable American South set of vampires so I will clarify it's like, Texas) Also worth noting Bill Paxton is extremely hot in this.
Inferno: Yooooo. Yo. I was unfortunately led astray by someone saying that none of the other witches movies lived up to Suspiria, but that is straight wrong and I'm sorry for not checking this out sooner. I feel like Suspiria was an instant first love for me, but Inferno I might... actually like more? Or completely equally. If you aren't in the instant a character dives into an underwater room that's in a basement, I don't know what to tell you. Incredible visuals, a story that twists everywhere and changes main character whenever it damn well feels like. Oogh. I want to watch it right now. I probably will soon.
Creature from the Black Lagoon: Okay everyone knows. But I think this is actually my favorite of the Universal monster movies (I believe I've seen all the main ones and a handful of the sequels)... well I really like Island of Lost Souls and Invisible Man. The underwater stunts are so impressive, you actually get lulled into the sense that you are watching a real creature. He feels misunderstood, or maybe truly like an animal, and the characters arguing over whether to leave him alone or not adds a lot to the empathy. Finally seeing it I totally understand why del Toro fell in love with this idea.
The Blob: '88 (I have seen the original, it's not bad!) Ramps up the horror tremendously, mostly in terms of gore, but also in the conceptual sense. Holy shit, why do people not talk about the effects in this more? I'd maybe compare it to like, The Thing in just like, wow. They went for it and did not shy away from wholesale death and destruction. The main romance is also actually quite cute.
The Keep: This might actually be the most controversial one. Look, you show me a huge, strange, mysterious monument to evil and say "no one should open this place" and my monkey brain smiles. Yes, the story is fractured, but it's not confusing at all; I'd actually say it's actually way too simple because of how the studio slaughtered it. Additional scenes to flesh out some stuff would be nice but like. If you have to watch this movie and just go ~this is a vibe~ I think that's fine. It's weird to me how the general movie watching internet will be like wow I love weird movies!! not everything has to make sense!! then watch something like this and be like wow I don't get it why didn't we learn everything about everyone. Like who cares it's not that important. Also when the scene where the... er... Keepee(?) is a crazy smoke monster is fucking sick as hell. Incredible, beautiful, amazing effect.
Nosferatu the Vampyre: '79 (I have seen the original, great stuff, obviously. Watch it to make Bram Stoker's widow mad.) Shockingly similar to the original at times, but now with an artsier, more delicate, more sympathetic, almost, touch. I feel like Bram Stoker's Dracula owes a LOT to this movie, or maybe this is just a more interesting example of how well a remake of this can be. (Sorry I hate Keanu in that movie so much!!!!) The plague scenes are particularly brilliant, and the ending is very satisfying. To me, lol.
Blacula: This movie gets treated like a joke, and yes, the way he gets named Blacula is extremely hilarious. But that's like, the first 5 minutes, and in context of like, the ambassador (or something) of a rich African nation being cursed by a dickhead white vampire kind of dampers it. Reminds me of vampire-like legends from colonized nations being about whites stealing the blood and organs from natives. (Something someone should make a movie about. Maybe it exists?) After that, and after you get over how coolly 70s everything is, this is a legitimately great vampire movie.
The Vanishing: Rewatched, but god. Goddd. This movie is just so subtly fucked. I don't want to say anything about it but it's so wonderfully suspenseful and creepy. Definitely should be on the list of anyone who wants to watch non-gore horror (and like, everyone else too.)
Tetsuo: The Iron Man: This movie feels so damn punk rock, and watching it it's like. Yes, the people I know who like this movie are absolutely the people who would like this. Grungy as fuck, really nasty and weird, also it is yaoi I will not accept any arguments. It's short too, there's no excuse to not see this. I almost want to check out the sequels but I feel like a project like this cannot survive any further iterations.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-16 02:54 pm (UTC)re the movies - the underwater parts of creature from the black lagoon are incredible. makes me want to learn more about how they filmed those scenes! and tetsuo is such a fascinating intersection of live action and stop motion - kinda feel like i need to watch it again now because there was just so much to take in it was tough to fully appreciate everything. also it is totally yaoi.
the ones that i haven't seen yet sound so interesting - white worm and hot fuzz would be a wild double feature! i wouldn't have thought to put hot fuzz alongside something that sounds like more of a horror film. is it mainly the locale/tone that makes you want to pair them?
no subject
Date: 2022-11-17 04:55 am (UTC)Same, I was surprised they could film underwater in the 50s at all, let alone so skillfully. And Tetsuo's so overwhelming in my favorite kind of way, but it's so frantic it's definitely something I want to rewatch too, eventually.
I think any of the cornetto trilogy movies could work, but I did spend some time mulling it over, because Shaun feels more "natural" based on the horror aspect, but for some reason to me it's not? I think it IS that particular locale/tone mixture. They're both with newcomers in a more remote feeling british town uncovering a dark secret, and something about it just feels right? I might try out this proposed double feature cause I want to see if it actually does work lol, or if I'm just crazy.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-30 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-30 10:16 pm (UTC)