Silver Screen in a Red Envelope: A Diary of Time Wasted

Recently a friend of mine acquired a brilliant step-daughter in the most perfect way possible. This new family has the same difficulties that I find in my own household, und zwar, that I love horror movies but I can't find anybody to watch with me. A few weeks ago my friend invited me over to watch with her step-daughter a film I'd never seen: The Turning (2018). Of course I started thinking about Henry James's novel, and rereading it. I've also been listening to a couple of brilliant podcasts, including Monster, She Wrote (named after a book which collects significant horror-related texts written by women) which has forced me to read more Daphne DuMaurier. Yes. Forced. And there's another podcast called Nightlight which has pushed me into the edgier realm of horror by black writers. I have truly enjoyed finding a new world to connect to, and another cultural milieu. But the best thing about this new world is that it has brought so much good writing and amazing a...

This post is all spoilers all the time. I am going to spoil the whole movie. This movie depends on suspense, so if you intend to see it, do not read these spoilers. If you're "meh" about it, then by all means, proceed. Solver's plot is a lot like a video game in two specific ways: firstly, it's a series of puzzles much like any of the MYST series, or any other adventure puzzle solver (Rhem, Obduction, The Island of Dr. Brain, etc.), and secondly, there's a princess to rescue. This is not a trope that I love. In this opinion, me and Feminist Frequency are totally synchronized. Although the cast includes some racial diversity, the two main characters are young, thin, and white. *shrug* My real gripe is about the ending. The whole plot revolves around a search for a mind-control device, both by the main characters who are enjoying solving the puzzles that his dead grandfather left in an old cabin, and the baddie (and his two female accomplices) who wants to ...

I am going to preface this review with the disclosure that I lost my meds last week, haven't been able to refill the prescription, and am consequently watching films with my emotions rather than my logical criticism. Unicorn Store was written by Samantha McIntyre, directed by and starring Brie Larson, and full of a great cast of stars and character actors. The story follows the young woman Kit who has been kicked out of art school for metaphorically spreading Craft Herpes (glitter). She returns to her parents' basement and takes a temp job to assuage cultural expectations, but also responds to some really daringly designed invitations to check out The Store, where she is offered her very own unicorn, if she can meet the stringent requirements. The cast are really great, but an awe-filled mention must go to Christy McIrwin, who decorated the set, and Mirren Gordon-Crozier who designed some of the most incredible costumes. These things must be seen to be believed. This isn...

This delightful story, based on a book by John Bellairs which I have treasured from early childhood, lends itself well to film. I was inclined to like it before I had heard anything about its production, although I had all the usual trepidation when one hears that someone else has picked up your favorite glass figurine and is tossing it around like a beach ball. I loved it. I loved the steampunky vibes. I ADORED the cast's chemistry. The story remains largely true to the book. Lewis Barnavelt, newly orphaned, comes to live with his odd uncle, and discovers that he and his purple-obsessed neighbor practice real magic, and are concerned about a mysterious ticking noise (a clock, obviously) in the walls of the large mansion they inhabit. The story includes a few moral lessons for children and adults. For adults, the clear message is "give children information." Lewis's uncle's determination to hide the worrying truth from Lewis is a direct cause of the near-cata...

Back when this film came out, like a decade ago, everyone seems to have put all their energy into debunking this weakly-supported "hoax" and then patting themselves on the back and denigrating Olatunde Osunsanmi (the director) for being so pretentious. That sort of critique seems to have been a waste of time, and those reviews don't age very well at all. But they are just reviews, and not analyses. Have I reviewed this film before? Maybe my initial reaction was just the same. This is certainly not the first time I've watched it, but I have been having thoughts. I dislike documentaries, because although they may have genuine footage of non-actors (which The Fourth Kind did not possess, the acting cast being split into two groups: the recognizable faces of the reenactment, and the relatively unknown actors who played the "original" footage. The two groups often acted the same script, and the film was shown side-by-side, which not only effectively masked ...

I mentioned to a digi-friend the other day that I'd watched this film, and he said he had too, but that the twist was obvious. I get irrationally angry at people who think that that is an appropriate critique. It's a film. Of course it's obvious. What was he expecting? So I told him that if you want unexpected, your best bet is real life. And then I thought about what made me upset. I enjoyed watching the film. I actually looked up the plot on Wikipedia so I knew what to expect. I like films better when they're spoiled for me. And while I understand that lots of people are not that way at all, I wonder if, when we complain that we saw something coming, what we mean is that the film bored us so much that our minds skittered ahead to fill in the blanks. For filmmakers, the ramifications of that possibility are that their burden is to keep the viewer's mind engaged in the present: interested in what is on screen rather than trying to create suspense with emptiness....