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willaferrreyra · 9 months

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first date movies — neil lewis x reader

word count: 2.9k (oops this was….way longer than i thought)

contains: SMUT (18+ ONLY) —> fingering, oral (m receiving), public indecency (getting it on in a movie theater because…it’s neil), fluff, happy ending!

you have a crush on your coworker and you really wish you didn’t.

note: this has not been proofread so place excuse any typos! i hope you enjoy especially since this is my first smut fic on this account which is insane. also all of the movies referenced are some of my favorites so…..i’d absolutely recommend them if you haven’t seen them already! neil is my silly little movie buff husband and i’d absolutely LOVE to write for him again so please leave some feedback if you’d like more!

cillian taglist: @mortylover

As you stood on a step stool, shelving new video arrivals, you could hear Ingrid Bergman's lovely Swedish accent behind you.

Notorious. You'd seen it a million times but you'd never gotten sick of it. It was your favorite Hitchcock and often the movie you'd throw on if you were in need of comfort. Although it was your turn to pick what everyone watched at the video store today, you weren't sitting with everyone else on the big worn out sofa. You preferred to shelve and enjoy the sound of the movies in the background (maybe walking over when your favorite scene was on). After all, someone needed to help the customers even if you didn't have many.

You had an annoying habit of reciting movie lines that you loved, as did Neil, the owner of the store and one of your closest friends.

"This is a very strange love affair," you said with Ingrid as you placed Valley of the Dolls in its right place.

"Why?" Neil said right along with Cary Grant, glancing over at you.

"Maybe the fact that you don't love me," you shot him a dramatic look, trying to do your best Ingrid Bergman impression.

"Your Bergman should be better for someone who's seen this movie more times than she can count," he said.

You rolled your eyes.

"She's got a unique accent! Plus it's very transatlantic. That's hard."

"She can do the Fargo accent," your other coworker Jonathan pointed out, not bothering to look up from the TV.

"Oh, you betcha," you grinned, nailing the unmistakable Minnesotan "o" sound.

"That's not hard!" Neil protested.

"It's not easy!"

The doors jingled as your best friend walked through the door, cutting the discussion about accents short. Before you could even say anything she already had a request.

"First date movie. Help."

You thought for a minute.

"Well what's the person like?"

"I don't know! I haven't met him yet. This is a blind setup by a coworker thing."

"Do you....think you'll be paying attention to the movie?"

She made a face.

"Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"

"Not necessarily! You could be....talking."

After many failed dates with guys who were into film, you understood the complexities of picking the first date movie. It said a lot about a person — what they're into, how they feel, who they aspire to be. But at the end of the day, it needs to be something that can transition to being background noise for a good make out session while still being enjoyable. Very few movies check all of those boxes.

"Just don't give me anything too complicated, okay?" she sighed. "No Lynch. No Cronenberg."

You fake frowned. "I was just gonna rent Crash and Lost Highway to you as a double feature."

She shuddered as she remembered the horror that was watching both of those films. You could stomach things like that but she absolutely couldn't.

"Okay, sit tight. I have a thought," you said as you ran over to the romances.

Your friend wandered over to the TV while you hunted for her perfect first date movie.

"Hey guys," she said monotonously.

"Hey," they replied equally unenthused.

She stood and watched the movie for a minute before you came back holding Moonstruck.

"Cher. Nic Cage. Romantic. Easy to follow. It checks every box!"

"That's your idea of a first date movie?" Neil scoffed.

"What's yours? The Seventh Seal?" you rolled your eyes.

"Yeah, that's why Denise broke up with him," Jonathan replied.

"What? You didn't tell me that!"

"Well it kind of just happened," he said. "And to be honest I'm not so broken up about it."

After knowing Neil a while, you knew that he wasn't one for consistent steady girlfriends. Denise lasted longer than most, but in the end he always seemed to get bored. Sure, he got around to an extent, but it was hard for you to picture Neil Lewis truly settling down. Unless, of course, you pictured him with you — but you tried not to do that. The thought popped into your brain every once in a while but you pushed it out as soon as it arrived. You knew you'd only end up getting hurt.

"Okay, well that's good because I was wondering if you wanted to go to the movies tonight. I mean, I'm all for a good ol' post breakup pity party but I'd much rather go see The Thing on the big screen tonight."

You and Neil did your part to keep your local independent theater in business more than anyone else in town. It was a regular thing for the two of you to go see at least two movies a week, sometimes more. Sometimes Jonathan and Lucien would tag along and sometimes it was just the two of you — every time you secretly hoped that it would be just the two of you.

"Now that's a good first date movie," Jonathan said.

"The Thing for a first date?" you scrunched your nose into a face of disapproval. "You guys have no taste."

"Well good thing we're not going on a first date then," Neil said. "But yeah, I'll go with you, I'm not doing anything else. Wanna grab dinner and go straight there?"

Those words shouldn't have been such a dagger to you but they were. No shit, this wasn't a first date. He didn't need to remind you.

"Yeah, that's fine," you said, trying to mask the disappointment in your voice. "I just have a few more things to finish up here and then we can head out."

You helped your friend rent her movie and finished up your shelving duties with a little less pep in your step than usual as Neil's words played over and over again in your mind like a broken record.

Good thing we're not going on a first date then. Fuck him. It's not like he was trying to hurt you, after all he didn't know that you maybe kinda sorta liked him. But those words.....you just couldn't take your mind off of them as you mentally prepared yourself for your very clearly stated non-date.

—

A little diner by the local theater had been your spot with Neil for as long as you'd been coworkers. It had become a tradition of yours to sneak in mini bottles of booze to pour into the milkshakes, either on celebratory or wallowing in your sorrows occasions. Neil's breakup felt like a good excuse to give your shared vanilla shake deserved an extra kick, even if you were the one who really needed it.

"Is anyone looking?"

He shook his head as you poured the vodka into the glass, stirring the concoction with the straw. You didn't wait for Neil before placing your lips to the straw and downing a quarter of it all at once.

"Hey, take it easy. I thought I was the one who needed the alcohol tonight," he chuckled.

"You said it yourself, you're not upset about Denise," you said, the irritation in your voice shining through.

"Are you upset about something, then? I'm sorry I didn't really help you shelve today, I just- you know, you like to do that stuff by yourself sometimes. And you picked such a good movie I couldn't tear myself away from the screen."

It would've been easier if you had really been upset about that. You wished that you were upset about that And now half the shake was gone, everything you wanted to say was rushing to your head, and you didn't even think about what you were doing when you blurted out:

"Why can't this be a first date?"

His eyes widened as he let out a small chuckle, assuming you were kidding.

"What?"

"You heard me. Why can't this be a first date?"

As he stared back at you, you felt like you had just fucked everything up. This amazing friendship was just ruined now because you drank your boozy milkshake too fast.

"Do....do you want it to be?" he asked.

"Fuck!" you exclaimed before burying your head in your hands. "Forget I said anything. I-I drank that too fast."

"No, I....we can call this a date if you want. In fact I'd really like that."

He wasn't trying to humor you and he wasn't trying to make the situation better by saying something that he didn't mean — he was dead serious.

"Neil, don't say that if you don't mean it," you sighed. "I'm just....upset today. Don't listen to me."

He studied your face for a minute before speaking again.

"Do you remember when I interviewed you for your job?"

"Now what does that have to do with anything?"

You did, in fact, remember your Gumshoe interview very well. You had asked him if he'd ever considered doing a film noir themed commercial for the store and you'd never seen someone so excited about an idea before — you always assumed that was why you had gotten the job.

"I knew you before that, you know," he said. "I remembered you from when you used to be a customer. There was actually this one time when you had an overdue fee and I paid it for you and told the guys that I had lost the tape."

This made you smile a bit.

"Point being?"

He took a deep breath before he continued on.

"Normally when we do the interview process, we ask the same shit, you know? What's your favorite movie? Who's your favorite director? And I asked you that stuff even though I thought I already knew the answers, I remembered what you used to rent. I thought I knew you so well and then you just went totally fucking wildcard on me — and I loved it. Ever since then you've kept on surprising me and I....well, I really like that. I guess what I'm trying to say is I really like you. And I think I always have."

You stared at him wide-eyed. You had not expected your little drunken tantrum to get you a confession of feelings.

"Neil....do you know why I rented from Gumshoe all the time? I mean, I'm all for supporting the little guys, but I really went in to see you. And then I got this job and I got to know you and you weren't just the cute guy at the video store anymore, you were like....my cute friend/boss technically but I won't get into that. But I got to know you and I watched you go through all of these relationships because you get bored eventually and....I just think you might get bored with me. I'm no Katharine Ross in Butch and Sundance."

He shook his head as a smile crept across his lips.

"No, you're even more exciting than that. You're like...Barbarella or something. Queen of the galaxy."

"Barbarella's whole thing was sex appeal," you point out. "That's the whole movie."

"Sex appeal, sure. But she's also kind and interesting and witty. You've got all of that."

You took all of that as a compliment but you found yourself blushing at his mention of sex appeal.

—

When you arrived to the movie theater after finishing your meal, it seemed that you two were the only ones dying to see a John Carpenter flick on a Tuesday evening. You had your pick of seats in the empty theater.

Your non-date turned date couldn't have been going better, honestly, it made you think that you should turn to drinking more often. It fixed this problem miraculously well.

As you settled into your seats and the lights dimmed, it was clear that both of you wanted to make a move but didn't know how to do it. After all, you couldn't just go straight for unzipping his fly. Or could you? Tonight was all about confidence and he clearly liked it when you kept him on his toes. You decided to start slow, resting a hand on his thigh, letting your hand wander from there.

He looked over at you as you made contact with the bulge in his jeans. It was hard to read his expression in the dark, but you could feel that he didn't want you to stop.

"Are we really gonna do this here?" he whispered.

"We've both seen this a thousand times, I think it'll be okay if we get a little distracted," you whisper back. "U-unless you don't want—"

He cut you off with a kiss that was a long time coming. You were surprised by the sheer force of it as your tongues collided. His hand reached up to cup the side of your face as you melted into the kiss, illuminated by the glow of the silver screen. He made you feel dizzy, but in a good way.

Now, you had never been intimate in a movie theater before, but it was even more exhilarating than you could’ve imagined. As you slowly unzipped his fly, taking his length out of his jeans, you noticed that Neil wasn’t watching the movie at all. His eyes were completely focused on you.

“You’re really taking your time, aren’t you?” he whispered. He was rock hard already and you could tell that he was getting incredibly impatient. You held the base of him while you teased his tip with your tongue. Whatever composure he thought he had went out the window as he his eyes rolled back in pleasure. Based on his breathing patterns you thought he was going to come right then.

“Fuck,” he swore under his breath. “Just….just like that.”

You could feel him trembling as your tongue continued to work its swirly magic. Eventually you began to take him in your mouth completely, greeting him with the warm sensation of the back of your throat. He groaned out your name in a raspy whisper as you bobbed your head on his length. Before you knew it, you could feel a hand on your head guiding it along — his touch felt so intimate and loving, you couldn’t get enough.

“I-I’m close….I’m— fuck….I’m gonna—“

Before he could finish what he was going to say, you could feel his come coat the back of your throat. It was a warm, welcome feeling and you couldn’t wait to feel it again.

“Jesus christ,” he sat there catching his breath before turning to you. “That was….wow. You’re just…..I-Incredible.”

You smiled at the praise. It wasn’t even day that you were complimented on your blowjob skills.

Your head made its way to his shoulder as you sat side by side watching the movie. His hand began on your though but slowly because to creep it’s way up between your legs.

“Returning the favor?” you whispered, smiling softly as you glanced in his direction.

He nodded, speaking in a sultry whisper that nearly made your legs shake. “You know, you just made me feel so good….it would be a crime not to reciprocate it, don’t you think?”

You continued to rest your head on his shoulder as he slipped two fingers inside of you. You couldn’t help but notice how easily they went in — you had been soaked for hours.

“All this for me?” he chuckled. “How long have you been like this?”

“All night,” you said in between heavy breaths. “I-I’m always like this around you, Neil.”

“No way, are you really?”

His switch up from the sultry whisper to his excited tone made you giggle.

“I have….a tendency to daydream about you when I’m around you,” you explained.

His fingers found just the right spot as he continued to question you. It was becoming increasingly difficult for you to talk.

“Daydream about what specifically?”

A small whimper escaped your mouth as his fingers curled inside of you. You couldn’t even recall what you used to daydream about until it hit you.

“This…..this exact moment. I-I’ve….fuck….Ive daydreamed about this a m-million times.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked as he started to pump his fingers faster. “And how does it end?”

“I- Neil- I’m gonna—“

“How does it end, sweet girl? Tell me.”

You could barely even answer in between heavy breaths but you managed to speak up, your words intertwined with your moans.

“Y-you make….you make me come, N-Neil! I’m….right now, I’m—“

“Show me. Come for me. Show me how the daydream ends.”

And you did, trying your best to keep quiet as you came undone. You buried your face into his shoulder as you whimpered and throbbed against his fingers.

“Good girl,” he exhaled. “That’s a good girl.”

—

The next day at work, you and Neil debated what you should tell the others. To announce the relationship or keep it a secret was a heavily debated topic, but you eventually settled on keeping it to yourselves for a while before revealing it. You thought it would be nice to have something that was just yours for a while. Plus, hiding a relationship can be incredibly sexy.

As you walked into Gumshoe, you flashed a quick smile at Neil who was in his usual spot behind the counter before taking your place at the shelf.

“Hey, Jonathan,” you called over to the couch, getting his attention. “I was totally wrong. Upon my rewatch, I think that The Thing would be a great first date movie.”

“See, I told you! I told you and you never fucking listen to me,” he said. “What made you change your mind?”

You glanced over at Neil one more time. It was clear that he was thinking about last night just as much as you were.

“I don’t know…” you shrugged. “Maybe it’s Kurt Russell.”

#cillian murphy x reader #neil lewis x reader #cillian murphy smut #I HOPE YOU ENJOY MY DARLINGS!! mwah!!!

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bloodcoveredgf · 9 months

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i watched crash 1996 bc i saw you posting about it. i loved it soooooooo much. do you have any other recommendations that are kinda similar?

OMG very happy to hear you checked out crash bc of me And you loved it yaayyy!!! ^_^ <33 and hmm.. recommendations.. definitely titane (2021).. and honestly id say dive deeper into cronenbergs films i think you may like them too i know i did !! a few of my personal favorites are dead ringers, videodrome, existenz, videodrome, & crash of course :) id really recommend checking out videodrome n dead ringers.. rabid too & the fly & naked lunch are also very great. i think those would be up your alley perhaps! and if youre looking for more psychosexual weird movies you may like secretary (2002) which also has james spader (who plays the lead male aka james ballard in crash) in it also would recommend raw (2016) and possession (1981) and i have so many movies i need to check out too thats all i got off the top of my head rn.. these recs may seem so insane but to me these movies are linked.. i see the connections im making.. but! i hope it makes sense somehow and fits and you enjoy them if you do end up watching any of them <3

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teslacoils-and-hubris · 3 months

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you were talking about movies earlier, are there any science-y movies you like? Reanimator or something along the lines

The thing about me is that I honest to god just. don't. watch a lot of movies. I've got a to watch list a million miles long but I have to be in such a specific mood to actually fit down and watch a fucking movie

Off the top of my head, Cronenberg's The Fly and Crimes of the Future. Scanners only fits if you squint but I did like it, honestly I'd recommend all of his movies I've seen I really like cronenberg's stuff. Bride of reanimator is a really good time too if you haven't seen it, haven't seen the 3rd and don't really plan to

Vampire clay is decisively NOT scientific in the slightest but I do think everyone should watch it for the clay based body horror! It's free on tubi! It's not necessarily what I'd call a good movie but I had such a fun time I need to get more people to watch this movie cannot overstate how much I enjoyed the body horror

Gonna toss this one to followers because I would absolutely LOVE more mad science based movie recs

#asks #doc rambles

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steampunkforever · 3 months

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When it comes to nepotism in film, the social media "nepo baby" blathering has muddied the waters and complicated any serious discussion of merit vs parental influence within the art world. While I think scrutiny of hip new voices whose parents names are linked in blue on wikipedia is a healthy trend, buzzwords naturally appeal to the braindead, and so we need to stick "nepo baby" up next to "girlhood" on the high shelf so that the adults can talk again.

While nepotism certainly is helpful for the propagation of artistic dynasties (becoming an award winning actor certainly helps when your dad has connections built in). Sure Nic Cage and Sofia Coppola are both related to the man who directed The Godfather, but frankly this sort of thing falls closer to a family business than it does to guaranteed salary at your mom's law firm.

The fine line between nepotism (bad) and artistic dynasty (acceptable) can be hypothetically agreed upon in civil adult conversation where exceptions to the rule are sure to pop up, but I think a hard and fast definition lies in "is the work these children of the established are putting out any good." Nic and Sofia are certainly some of the best artists of their respective generations (read my other filmposts if you have any question on the genius of Cage or the other Coppolas) while artists like famed industry plant Clairo leave a little more to be desired. Therefore when it comes to famed horror director David Cronenberg's son Brandon, the litmus test for whether or not he deserves criticism on the position he was born into really is "does me make good films?" With Infinity Pool, the first of his movies I've seen, the answer is a resounding yes.

Twisted bodyhorror coming from a director with the Cronenberg name isn't a surprise, but what Infinity Pool surprised me with was how it drew me in with sci fi horror hallmarks I'm more used to seeing with the elder Cronenberg, yet put a spin on them that was entirely unique.

A story about rich people using scifi tech to commit unbelievable acts of debauchery? Clone ethics? An ending that prompts you to look deep within and ask "was that messed up or what?" Distinctly Cronenberg, yet handled deftly and with a psychedelia and rawness of cinematography that (while still refined) exuded the younger Cronenberg's singular style.

I need to watch more Brandon Cronenberg films to see if this was just a Mia Goth fluke or if it was something more, but from what I've read of his admittedly limited filmography, I should be in for a treat.

Watch infinity pool. It's messed up.

#filmposting #film #cinema #infinity pool #mia goth

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heartbranches · 2 years

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Nick in The Quarry

So I'm seeing a lot of "Nick is an abuser!" "Nick is abusive!" and folks.

Come on.

I'm going to need you to watch these two super beloved Horror movies that I'm sure Supermassive were influenced by. One is David Cronenberg's version of the Fly. It's an extremely well done horror movie about a mild-mannered, shy scientist named Seth Brundle who accidentally combines his DNA with that of a fly and then slowly starts to mutate into a monster. During his transformation, his personality also starts to change, and it's one of the first signs that things are going wrong as he becomes more possessive, violent and aggressive towards his love interest-- hey waitaminute.

The second one is Ginger Snaps, which is a Canadian werewolf horror flick from 2000 where Ginger is a teenage girl who gets attacked and bitten by a werewolf and then over the course of a month leading to the full moon starts to slowly change into a werewolf, culminating in a final horrific transformation. But the earliest signs are her getting …more aggressive, more overtly sexual, more possesive and then more violent.

ARE WE SENSING A PATTERN HERE.

Supermassive is just using Nick as a well-worn and very beloved horror trope of the possessed slowly succumbing to the virus/curse. And we don't see it pop up again in nearly that fashion again because once that trope is done, it's done. We don't need to see it again. The scare factor is gone. Sadly, it leaves us with a plot hole and missed opportunities, but I guess they had to finish the game in a timely fashion and could only give one character that storyline.

There might be other good explanations why the curse hits Nick different. He gets nailed in his femoral artery while everyone else gets bit in their ankles, wrists and hands, which means the virus gets to his nervous system faster and thus he has a quicker, more dramatic change. Maybe Supermassive were just going by the rule of Scary/Creepy and at that moment that was the scariest/creepiest thing they could think of, having the nice, mild-mannered guy turn into a creepy fucking monster. He's also the signal to the others (and the player) that something is wrong because the characters remark, over and over again, that he's acting supremely weird and out of character. Again, a classic horror movie trope.

Abusers don't just suddenly start acting abusive. It's always there, gang.

He doesn't display any classic signs of being abusive when he's not infected. He's not at Abi trying to get her to like him. Depending on how you chose for him to act (because you can make him act like a toolbox, which unlocks the shittier dialogue down the line, but I'm a sap and I don't like to do it) he's not talking about himself, talking over her, or acting overly needy or desperate for her to like him. Even his cognitive choices before he gets bit are mostly focused on her and not him and getting her to like him. He's shy and quiet, like her. He's genuinely interested in her, and her art, and feels like he has nothing to offer her in return. (hence he can't understand why she likes him). I've seen his behavior described as "stalkerish" but for fuck's sake people. He's just walked out of the way by the Art cabins to watch her teach class. He's not breaking into her room to watch her sleep. He's not showing up where she doesn't want him and making her uncomfortable. That's stalking. We get so little from him, but what we do get is a guy who is genuinely liked by everyone around him, who doesn't like to be super competitive (Kaitlyn calls him out on this) and who everyone knows he's super into Abi but won't engage in any superficial bro behavior with Jacob ("don't be gross, Jacob").

Nick does not display any traits that would get him red flagged for abusive behavior down the line. That shit does not hide in the bushes and then pop up like a villain in a red cape, saying "Ah-HAH you've fallen for my dastardly plan!" Trust me, the red flags are there all along. You might just be too in your feelings to see them right away.

The people who do display this kind of shit? Jacob and Emma. Jacob won't take Emma's no for an answer to the point of stranding other people out in the woods. Jacob frequently talks over other people, puts them down, and demands constant attention and affirmation. This doesn't necessarily mean abuse, but then he gets really super possessive and jealous of Emma, who has broken up with him to the point he yells at Nick for a choice that Emma made. And Emma is so needy and desperate for attention that she strings along Jacob even though she knows he still has feelings for her simply because she gets off on being the center of attention. She's nice to Abi, but that's because Abi also lets her be the center of attention and doesn't take the spotlight away from her. When they're stuck in the storm shelter together she bullies Abi into exploring to see if it's safe even though she knows very well just how dangerous all this is. Like, c'mon. She's a vlogger for pete's sake. And they do this without being infected.

Their behavior right before they change is different than Nick's because the game is not trying to freak you out. Now they're just trying to get from point A to point B. Emma and Jacob turn on either each other, themselves, or in Emma's case, her followers. People who have pissed them off and failed them. If you go back to the scene in the poolhouse, Nick's especially aggressive with Abi because she just dumped his ass in the water, which is revealed to be totally anathema to werewolves. But he does use his last little bit of sanity to apologize to her before he loses it completely.

The problem I'm seeing a lot lately is the loss of nuance and the flattening of stories. They're slotted into just A = good and B = bad, and no one can argue about anything but other than what's there. Like someone can adhere to a series of checklists to avoid being abused, and when a character fits that checklist then they are abusive. When reality does not adhere to a checklist and neither do stories. Abusive relationships and the realities that accompanies them are complex. The only people at fault in abusive relationships are the people who chose to abuse their significant other. It's never the fault of the abused. Ever. There's no special list that saves you from getting into one. Many, many smart, wonderful, amazing people wind up in abusive relationships through no fault of their own, and stay in them for really complex reasons and can only leave when they do. And again, it's not their fault until they do. If abusive relationships were simple no one would be in one, and no one would stay in one. So a character, who again, is fucking possessed being kind of a piece of shit doesn't make him abusive. Because we don't know the guy in real life. He's possessed by a werewolf rage virus and he's being used to scare people. That doesn't scream abusive boyfriend to me, folks.

And horror allows us the ability to take certain things that scare us, and to work through them at a distance in order to give us a catharsis through it. That's why so many people love horror. It's not the gore or the gross exploitation (though there is a line of that running through it and it has been talked about) but it's also a way to deal with some dark, fucked up shit. In the case of the Fly, like I talked about earlier, it's a way of dealing with losing someone to a protracted illness, watching them mentally and physically deteriorate. Ginger Snaps is a way of looking at puberty, losing your beloved older sister to sex and boys as she grows up into something you don't recognize.

And maybe it's just some good ol' fashioned horror. Like losing someone you like to the darkness infecting them and being totally helpless to stop it.

#the quarry #the quarry nick #nick furcillo

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in-this-light-on-this-evening · 1 year

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Okay, now that I’ve calmed down a bit, I need to say that this was the perfect scenario I had in my mind for decades and now that it actually happened… Oof. I feel like I’m on drugs.

We had dinner downtown in a lovely, super italian restaurant

Talked and laughed all the time

Watched that new weird ass Cronenberg movie and The Fortune Cookie starring Jack Lemmon (my beloved)

Listened to Artie Shaw and Nat King Cole while just laying very close to each other and talking and laughing

Started watching Diabolik 2 but oops, we will never know how it ended because spicy things started to happen between us

He was an absolute sweetheart about everything, especially consent and being sure that he’s not hurting me

He was totally focused on giving me pleasure multiple times without asking for anything back (that I didn’t want to do)

Afterwards we smoked cigarettes and kept chatting in bed as if we were in a french movie

Fell asleep at 7AM in each others’ arms

Been chill about it all without thinking about tomorrow or the next month

All of this to say that waiting for you perfect first time is 10000% worth it. Even if you have to wait decades for it happen. If you feel like it’s not it (like it happened to me in the past), take a step back and wait for the good one. You will have better memories and you will feel much more satisfied and happier about the entire experience. NO MATTER THE AGE.

#personal #tw: sex mention #let's kill the stigma that everybody needs to have their first time in high school

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thishasgonehorribly · 21 days

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Saw Monkey Man and Mars Express in the same day.

They're both beautiful films, fresh original stories in long established genres that have very clearly learned from their predecessors, and have a ton of parallels and reference to the classics, without being derivative.

I'm less familiar with the revenge-rampage action movie, but Monkey Man is very Hero's Journey, Dev Patel's character is a man with no name, archetypal hero. In a good way, it's very by-the-books; inciting incident, entering the strange world, first encounter with the villain, death and rebirth, there's literally a goddess.

Again, I'm not that well versed in rampage revenge, action, beats-up-everyone movies, so I recognize Kill Bill, which is itself direct homage and remix of a bunch of things. Movie shouts out John Wick by name. I saw an interview clip where Patel talks about The Raid (I still need to watch that one). The violence is gruesome and visceral. The fights are mostly legible and impactful, but it is also kinda video games. There's a lot of up-close shakey cam, and it does get a little tiring like watching some one else playing a first person game can be.

Mars Express is a science fiction detective story, and I know more points of reference there.

This one I'm kind of anxious about over-hyping. I think you can pretty easily tell if you like the kind of movie Monkey Man is and you'll have a good time. There's ways Mars Express might not land for some people. It might be kind of weird, or too specific an art style, might be too slow and methodical *

I went in with kind of middling expectations, and found it a really satisfying watch.

It kinda has everything:

The most obvious, it's got some Bladerunner, it's got some Asimov robotic's laws, there's Cowboy Bebop vibes, definitely some Nueromancer, there's some shades of Martian Chronicles, there's Ghosts in Shells, there's Robot Cops+, oh there's some Cronenberg flesh monstrosities, there's some Electric Dreams, there's weird robot sex.

It's serious, and moves at a steady pace, but there's also a good current of humor and satire throughout. There's brief moments with exceptionally dark implications.

It does a lot for me when I feel like the world building of a story is well considered. When I can tell the creators thought about not just how speculative elements would function and interact, but how characters in that world would relate to and think of things, I really like it.

The first character the movie introduces is a robot, that speaks with a very human voice, that's got just an edge of Customer Service Brightness to it, and it pretty succinctly tells you kind of a lot about how a character like this moves through this world.

*i've been searching for really non-judgmental ways to describe, like, some things take more brain-juice, and it's nothing to do with 'high-IQ' , being smart,

#movies #movie #film #cinematography #film analysis #Monkey Man #monkey man 2024 #Mars Express #Mars Express 2023

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emperornero · 8 months

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tagged by @scribl1ta :]

favourite color : tyrian purple[s] ! shades like these but i also like very neon orange and yellow / green hues like this one

last song i listened to : interstate 8 by modest mouse. ive been meaning to listen to more modest mouse songs and got stuck on this one for a few hours instead . but im not complaining

favourite movie : i love both the original and cronenberg's 'the fly'.. important movies to me.. i also love electric dreams from 1984 very cute movie love edgar.. and its been a while since i saw these two but for sure the re-animator movies they deserve a mention since ive seen those like what. 10 times so far?

currently watching : i think nothing ? im supposed to watch the movies HER [2013] and mad god [2021] and for tv shows i will probably watch fionna and cake [2023] . i just finished watching the pilot episode for the amazing digital circus on youtube so i will count it too

currently reading : CAN SOMEONE GIVE ME STRENGTH TO FINISH THE SPLENDOR BEFORE THE DARK ive been stuck in the middle of it since summer holidays i havent touched it since i somehow cannot . why cant i do it why cant i read nero book. suffering

currently working on : i have like 5 unfinished drawings ? and i need to make that list of different versions of nero i know of. and probably continue collecting stuff for my quo vadis video. other than that im making a terrarium for a snail :]

current obsession : ive been thinking about my other ocs more recently its a shame i almost never draw them .. slimer im sorry youre hard to draw i will do you justice soon.. other ocs from that universe too.. and of course im still on the 24/7 nero grind the neroposting in my head may never stop

tags for @homestuckrichard @smsnsa @r0sedevil @daseindeath @catboybeebop @the-casbah-way if you dont want to do it its ok ! [grins]

#tagged

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tafadhali · 4 months

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festivids recs, part 2

Here with more Festivids recs! There was so much good stuff — I bookmarked fully 1/3 of the collection — but I've narrowed it down to some faves, trying to pick one top choice for fandoms with multiple vids. Here's a very reasonable 25 recs:

The Only Way to See (Amaury Guichon RPF): Did not know I needed a Sondheim vid for the chocolate guy, but I really really did! Such a lovely tribute to creativity.

Le Freak (Barbie): Luv the choice to use disco. Really captured all the fun of the movie and the build to Barbie's existential crisis was A+.

Drink You Sober (Bound): All of the Bound vids were a beautiful bounty. This one is just meltingly sexy.

body (David Cronenberg movies): The platonic essence of a David Cronenberg vid. Repulsive! Attractive! Could not tear my eyes away.

Nothing in My Head (Dropout TV): I am loving ALL the Dropout content (the little question marks in WTFIGO? kill me); this one has terrific timing and is such a great celebration of the ensemble.

Do What I Do (Dungeons & Dragons): All the D&D vids were super fun; Holga's my fave character and I really enjoyed this tribute.

We Can Be Anything (Everything Everywhere All at Once): This song, with its tightrope between nihilism and endless possibility, feels like it was written for this movie.

Anymore (Face/Off): Face/Off vid of my DREAMS. This was made for my sibling and it feels almost like a gift for me too. We were hootin' and hollerin' and both yelled "DOVES!" when there were doves.

if i were a fish (Fire Island): Howie and Noah's friendship was my favorite part of this movie, so love that this focuses on that as much as on the romance. Such a cute song!

Northwest Passage (For All Mankind): If I have one takeaway from FV this year, it's that I need to watch For All Mankind! This space-camp-going due South fan definitely cried a little about this song choice and the epic spacefaring; might be obsessed with Molly just from the two vids I've seen about her.

סיפור הגולם (The Golem and the Jinni): I haven't read the book yet, but this is a STUNNING example of what you can do with a non-visual source. It's such a love letter to a time and place, too!

How to make a perfect Hanukkah movie... (Hallmark Hanukkah Movies): SO funny. I've only seen one Hallmark Hanukkah movie but you absolutely get the vibe with or without having watched all of them.

I Like That (Janelle Monae RPF): Unapologetically queer and self-loving.

'Til You Hit a Nerve (Knives Out): Great combination of the two films, and the climactic build on "I can't miss" rules.

By Way of Sorrow (Les Mis): I am weak for a Les Mis vid and this one crafts such a wonderful, heartbreaking narrative about all the secret sacrifices and suffering that Cosette's parents went through! Makes me cry like a baby.

Everybody Talks (Much Ado About Nothing): This was a great year for Shakespeare vids. This is my favorite play and I love the combination of all the productions and all the great comedic beats.

No Smoke Without Fire (Poker Face): Cool, funny vid. This song is a TERRIFIC vibe for Poker Face.

Wavin' Flag (Ponyo): All the Ponyo vids were so much fun (and I loved the love for Lisa this year), but this one really warmed my heart.

magnetic (Romeo + Juliet): Super captivating and energetic tribute to Mercutio! Harold Perrineau just killed it in this movie.

Tusk (SIlence of the Lambs): Amazing character study of goddamn hero Clarice Starling.

A Better Son & Waiting for Somebody (Sports Night): Okay, I cheated! You think I'm going to pick one vid about love of my life Dan Rydell?

Ángel (Tár): A precise and chilling vid about my favorite film of 2022. The accent on the vid title is the perfect coup de grace!

Blood in the Cut (Taskmaster RPF): Yessssss weird Alex Horne vids.

King (The Woman King): Was so hoping for vids to this source and this one is just a blast. Great song choice.

#vid recs #festivids

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plebeiangoth · 7 months

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Have some Halloween movies in no particular order

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is a great time, if you can find it. It's a love letter to so-bad-it's-good horror movies from the 50's and 60's which were all ambition and no talent e.g. Plan 9 from Outer Space and Manos The Hands of Fate. One of the funniest and most quotable movies I've ever seen!

House is as gorgeous as it is spooky and goofy! If you've not seen it, you're missing out. It's made by a director who made advertisements and a lot of the special effects are what would have been common in Japanese ads at the time.

Martyrs goes on the list for that one asshole who needs something extreme. Not that it's a bad movie, of course. But if you're that asshole and have yet to see it, have fun! If you don't know what I'm talking about, this film is not for the faint of heart and I mean it! Look up "French extremism" if you're curious. Again, if you've not seen it and don't like lots of blood and gore and little left to the imagination, this is absolutely not for you.

Valerie and her Week of Wonders is a gorgeous example of Czech new-wave, about a girl becoming a woman in a village of vampires! Strongly recommend this one if you like House, it's super colorful and whimsical!

Tetsuo the Iron Man is my idea of a more fun kind of extreme film. This is one of those movies I've seen several times and can't seem to remember the story, but suffice to say it's a wild ride about a metal fetishist who becomes sort of a metal monster in a similar fashion to Tetsuo in Akira becoming a giant flesh monster. It's got a very goofy tone and is shockingly wet for a movie about rebar.

The Thing is never not fun. I'm sorry to say I don't know my Carpenter as well as I should, I'm just too stuck on how much I love The thing and may never move forward. Yes I've seen Halloween, just I like The Thing better.

The Devils is a movie you can't watch in your home in a legal capacity, Warner Bros is never releasing this one on home video. Rest assured you can find it. It's a Ken Russell film about a whole convent of nuns (the Mother Superior played by Vanessa Redgrave) are so in lust with this priest, played by Oliver Reed, that they all fein demon possession to evade persecution. The complete version of the movie includes a scene in which all the nuns bang a crucifix. It's one of those movies I say the production team went to "the cool face store", because wow there's a lot of cool looking faces!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, because there will always be virgins

Young Frankenstein was Mel Brooks's only funny movie. Fight me! (men in tights was okay i guess)

Bram Stoker's Dracula. What more need I say?

I can't easily pick any one Jan Svankmajer film, so this is the Svankmajer portion of the list. For the uninitiated, he was a Czech stop-motion animator who made these hyper realistic claymation films, often with a dark context. My favorite feature length films of his are Alice (a telling of Alice in Wonderland), Faust, and Otesanek (his final film and magnum opus, aka Little Otik aka Greedy Guts, based on the fairy tale Otesanek about tree-root baby turned vore-monster). His films aren't necessarily scary, just very unsettling and disturbing.

Hellraiser 2 because I haven't seen it yet and people keep telling me it's the good one, as if the first one wasn't delightfully generous????

The Witches is a movie that upset my very Christian grandmother one time when I was a kid, watching it on TV at her house. I don't think she understood the point that the witches aren't the good guys. I know it's irrelevant, I just thought it was funny. I miss you, Nana.

The Worst Witch. Can someone tell me where to watch this? I never saw it before and I wanna see some tacky Tim Curry schlock

eXistenZ is a movie which I only saw for the first, second, third, and fourth time ever one week last year and I'm ashamed as a Cronenberg fan that it took me so long! Not necessarily his most Halloween-y movie (I'd argue that would be The Fly), it's just a lot of fun.

Think I'll stop there, that's a good sized list.

Add your own recs! What do you watch this time of year?

#halloween #movie rec list #movie recommendation #horror films #spooky movies

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lesbianwithchainsaws · 11 months

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horrror ask what Is. your favorite practical effect in a horror movie?

ngl this is such a hard question to answer bc I feel like I could just list 80% of the movies I've seen. Especially movies from the 70s/80s. Even if all the practical effects aren't amazing, I really love how they look overall in those films!!

I guess main answer would be anything by Tom Savini. I am obsessed with his effects and have watched certain movies only because he's in the makeup department. He's done a bunch of kills and gore effects for so many movies, especially in the 80s, and I think almost all of them are so good!!!!

The Thing as well obviously has amazing effects. Especially the one where the stomach opens up suddenly!

The Fly! I need to watch more Cronenberg films tbh, I haven't seen enough of them. And The Fly has such good and memorable body horror with practical effects. If I remember correctly, I think there was a scene where like fingernails were coming off and it was so well made!

Hellraiser as well. Especially towards the end, with all the hooks pulling the skin!

The effects in Re-animator with the head being reanimated and talking, and the headless body moving! I guess maybe it's not as impressive, but I really like it.

Off the top of my head, these would probably be the main ones. Though there's definitely hundreds more movies that have incredible practical effects!

#i should send you more horror asks aaaaaa #thank you!!!

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marrrowoflife · 1 year

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The Fly (1986) - Review

Be afraid, be very afraid...

I have never written a film review in my life - or at least if I have, it apparently wasn’t worthy enough of being remembered - so keep that in mind while reading this. I’d also like to make a quick mention of the fact that I’m not entirely sure how to write a film review, so please excuse me if this is the biggest load of shit you’ve ever read. Anyways...

(Do I need to put a spoiler warning for a movie that came out nearly 40 years ago?)

I watched David Cronenberg’s The Fly about a week ago, and since then I have not been able to stop thinking about it. This film has absorbed my brain in all of its disgusting, melty, emotional and beautiful glory, and I’m not complaining, and I don’t think I ever will complain.

I’m a big fan of Jeff Goldblum (who isn’t, really?), and I can say that I agree with the people when they say that The Fly is easily his most iconic, influential, and outstanding role. I knew right from the beginning that Seth Brundle was going to be a character that I absolutely adored, which only made his utterly unfortunate outcome all the more difficult and emotional for me to sit through. I found that Seth’s kind nature and playful personality makes it extremely easy for the audience to fall in love with him particularly quickly, and watching him as he’s struggling to stay himself becomes extraordinarily heartbreaking the more the film continues on.

I’m an empath, and I find that it is easy for me to sympathise with characters no matter who they are, and this film took that feeling to the next level. There was one particular scene that stood out to me the most, and it’s when Veronica visits Seth after 4 weeks of not seeing him, only to find that something has gone horribly wrong. He is becoming a human fly. He sits her down and he explains to her what has happened before he momentarily reaches up to scratch his ear, just to then discover that it has fallen off into the palm of his hand.

“My ear,” Seth says. You can hear the fear in his voice, and your heart shatters into a million tiny little pieces, only to be stomped on, vacuumed up and thrown in the garbage when he follows it up by crying; “I’m scared, I’m so scared,”.

This film is a tear jerker in disguise as a horror flick.

The Fly made me weep, bawl, sob so hard I ended up giving myself a headache. And it wasn’t because I was scared or disturbed, (although I will be discussing how impressively horrifying the special effects makeup in this film is in just a moment), it was because I felt so sorry for everybody. Seth, Veronica, even Stathis towards the end there. Seth and Veronica’s love story has to be the most tragic of them all. Romeo and Juliet had it easy compared to these two. Veronica having to watch the man she fell in love with turn into a puss ridden, vomiting, limping, rotting insect while being secretly impregnated with his half human/half fly baby was devastating, and admittedly at times I felt worse for her than I did for Seth. And while Stathis was a perverted creep for a majority of the film, watching him get his hand and foot melted off by Seth’s - or should I say BrundleFly’s - acidic vomit for trying to save Veronica was yet another tough watch.

I could list on and on the moments in this film that saddened me, but the one that I think affected me the most was right at the very end. Seth/BrundleFly comes crawling painfully out of his Telepod, merged with part human, part fly, and part machine. He stops in front of Veronica and reaches up with one gangly, deformed hand and aims the gun she possesses to his head, begging for her to kill him. In that moment, you really stop to think about everything they went through together, and how their lives changed dramatically, even if it wasn’t for the better. It’s harrowing to watch, really. Veronica hesitating to kill Seth/BrundleFly because deep down inside she still loves him, and Seth pleading for death, a release from the monster he had become.

Anyways, to break away from a topic that doesn’t revolve around me sobbing violently; I’d like to move onto the special effects makeup.

Impressive doesn’t even begin to describe how incredibly done the makeup in this film is. Seth goes through a lot of different stages the more he starts to become BrundleFly, and each stage is more disturbing than the last. He’s pimply at first, pale with dark rings under his eyes, and unusually sweaty. It’s only when Veronica visits him after 4 weeks that you realise things have taken a turn for the worst. His skin has started decaying and his hair has begun to fall out. He’s still sweaty, and he’s starting to rely on canes to help him stand up straight. These two beginning stages are, in my opinion, the least disturbing of them all. It’s only when later on in the film, he demonstrates to Veronica how he’s learned how to climb walls and digest his food like a real fly now that his teeth no longer work. That’s when you start to get uneasy. His skin is rotting away, and he’s starting to become bloated, his teeth are beginning to fall out and he has begun losing more and more hair. The only thing that seemed odd to me was how easily he had welcomed it into his life. He seemed almost excited to show Veronica the way he eats and the way he can stick to the ceiling without falling down. I assume it’s because in his 50% human/50% fly mind, he finds it to be normal behaviour, and part of him still wants Veronica to write her book about his world-changing invention and the newly found dangers of it.

His near final form is erratic, and he is becoming more fly than human by the day. His eyes have grown black and he can no longer fit into his clothes. Even though his exterior is disturbing, his personality is the same, and he still somehow finds a way to joke around about his “Brundle Museum”, a place behind his bathroom mirror where he keeps the parts from his body that have fallen off, including his ear, his nails, and his teeth. The behind the scenes photos of Jeff being put into the makeup in this scene reveals that he was in the makeup chair for 5 straight hours. Mad respect.

The final transformation. The pièce de r��sistance of the film, aka, one of the most disturbing things I think I may have ever seen (yeah, I lied earlier about not being disturbed. How could you not be disturbed watching this film?). I admittedly wasn’t expecting BrundleFly to practically explode out of the shell of Seth, but hey, it was undeniably a very impressive effect. I had seen images of his final form online prior to seeing the film, and I found myself wondering throughout the film; how is he going to get to that stage? Could it be considered a plot twist that the remainders of Seth’s rotting skin was being used almost as a pod for the final form of BrundleFly to break out of? I’m going to say yes, purely because I wasn’t expecting it. I felt especially bad for Veronica in that scene, accidentally ripping off the jaw of her mutant boyfriend, but mostly because she was right there face to face with Seth when he finally turned into BrundleFly. It’s a freaky looking creature, you can’t deny it, but I couldn’t help but think that it’s mandible thing flapping about looked a little goofy, but again, I’m not really complaining.

Overall, I loved The Fly. I thought it was a beautifully tragic love story paired together with horribly revolting vomiting and body horror. I’m not really sure how to end a film review other than discussing how much I enjoyed it. Do I rate it? Do I rate the film out of 5 or out of 10? I don’t know.

As Jeff Goldblum would say;

I give it 10 Goldblums out of a possible 10 Goldblums, the only thing that disappointed me about this film was that not once did Seth Brundle rub his grubby little hands together like a little fly.

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somebirdortheother · 1 year

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10 Favourite Movies

I was tagged by @iamstartraveller776 😊 thank you!

I am completely rabid about movies I love, and some I rewatch multiple times, because just try and stop me!

1. Persona, by Ingmar Bergman, 1960. I love everything about this film. Poignant, creepy, unresolved tension-y, confusing.

2. Ex Machina, 2015. I love great sci-fi, I love amazing female characters. Ava broke my heart.

3. Total Recall, 1990. Speaking of sci-fi. As a massive fan of strange creations of Philip K Dick and his little story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”, I can’t not love this no matter how hilariously this film has aged. Also my undying love of Arnold is strong with this one.

4. Eastern Promises, 2007. I love everything by David Cronenberg (oops, is my Canadian accidentally showing?), and this is also my favourite Viggo Mortensen work.

5. Children of Men, oooh look, more sci-fi. Fucking love this post-apocalyptic story. Wow.

6. Druk, 2020, by Thomas Vinterberg and starring Mads Mikkelsen

7. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. OK I’m a raging Martin McDonagh fan, and I equally adore In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, and Banshees of Inishirin, but I think Three Billboards (at least today) is coming out a bit on top with its utter perfection of a mix of deep sadness, humour, and insanity. Also Frances McDormand is ARGH IM SPEECHLESS I LOVE HER.

8. The Princess Bride. You want a perfect movie? That’s a perfect movie.

9. Stalker, 1979, a Tarkovsky masterpiece, and my heartbreaker 💔 I can’t talk about it. I love It too much.

10. Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick’s best. I didn’t enjoy it as much on the first watch because I was much younger, but recently it’s been blowing me away.

HONOURABLE MENTION DOESNT NEED NO LIST. So in my very mathematical PhD thesis I added a whole epilogue dedicated to this little, indie, completely unknown film…. THE MATRIX

Not inundating anyone with a tag, come play!

#tag game #about me #10 favourite movies

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anotherrevue · 1 year

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The Top 25 Movies of 2022

When I think about 2022, the highs of the year feel like a return to form, for movies and for myself personally. And yet, on further inspection, it’s possible that two straight years of largely garbage movies and even more garbage circumstances have set the bar rather low. Yes indeed, this year has been better in comparison, but it has not by any means measured up to “normal”.

There have been some bright spots – travelling all over the country to meet friends, watching movies I’ve been waiting to see for several years, etc – and there have been some dark recesses – of the mind, yes, but also whatever the fuck has been happening at Warner Bros. Discovery. And as far as my empty promises of lots of new pieces that I made in my first ever post, the ideas are still there, I just haven’t yet made most of them as coherent as I’d hoped. However, I have some breaking news for you: the year’s over, which means it’s time for the highlight reel babyyy! You’ll only find best-ofs here (sorry to The Gray Man) as we kick off another year.

Quick note to anyone who didn’t read the Shepitko piece: I’m totally on your side. It’s too long and too much like a SparkNotes summary of a biography. I wrote it while I was stuck deep down a well of love for this incredible artist who thought much along the same lines about art: “If I don’t do it, I’ll die.” Is that a sideways excuse for why I haven’t updated this blog in a long time? Maybe…

But back to 2022. An incredible year for theatres: Top Gun Maverick recreating the late great Tony Scott’s aesthetic for a fleeting 2 hour thrill ride was something I never expected. Avatar: The Way of Water leading the charge for high quality, must-see-in-3D movies on the other hand was something I completely expected and yet I still walked out absolutely in love with Pandora. The return of Jaws, ET and The Godfather in the form of picture-perfect restorations and pristine transfers was such a perfect lure back to theatres.

But as with any year, I saw most movies this year in my bedroom or on TV. 594 is a very large number, which troubles me. I worry that I watch too any movies – do I really process what I watch or is it robotic? Am I just putting on movies as a way to distract myself, and if so, is that fair?

I don’t really have answers there. It has certainly felt mechanical at times, and I felt like I reached saturation, occasionally feeling like I didn’t even care about movies. And then, just in the nick of time would come something like Crimes of the Future, a nasty piece of mystery fiction, but nasty in the best possible way, twisted by ol’ Dave Cronenberg to forefront his own preoccupations with the human body and relationships. Suddenly, I’d be back in love with films.

So what can I do? I’ll keep watching movies, but maybe slow down a little. Take time to process each movie before moving on. Watch with more purpose, more discernment. Maybe I don’t need to watch ALL of the new Pinocchios (del Toro’s is by far the most enjoyable, Zemeckis’ is a complete nothingburger and the Russian one is… unfathomably awful). And most of all, I’ll write more, because that helps me connect to movies more than just letting it swirl around in the cesspool that is my mind.

But enough of the rambling preamble. As a movie year, 2022 was twisty and all over the place. A great year for Tom Cruise and Colin Farrell (who was excellent in FOUR WHOLE MOVIES THANK YOU to the film deities!!), a great year for horror, a great year for weird shit that seemed to be aimed directly at me. A terrible year (I know I said no negativity so I’ll get this over quickly) for unfortunate franchises (Branagh’s Poirot, Jurassic World) and Tom Hanks, who was in the bad Pinocchio and generally agreed to be the worst part of Elvis. Undecided result for Margot Robbie, who was passably charming in an inexplicable film (Amsterdam) and reportedly excellent in an unmitigated flop that I’m excited to watch (Babylon).

I watched 141 movies released in 2022. Here are my top 25.

25. Causeway

24. Saloum

23. Save the Cinema

22. Bheeshma Parvam

21. The Lost King

20. Pada

19. Everything Everywhere All at Once

18. Nope

17. God’s Country

16. Hinterland

15. Hustle

14. The Northman

13. The Banshees of Inisherin

12. Prey

11. Benediction

10. Fire of Love

This was among my most anticipated movies of 2022. It’s rare for me to be so excited for a documentary – I usually stumble upon them and then get pulled into loving it. And unlike another documentary from this year that I loved (my precious Good Night Oppy, which made me cry, much like most movies about the space program), I wasn’t really pre-disposed to loving it. I’m a space guy, not a lava guy. Yet Fire of Love is special, because the premise promises a tragic love story, but from the first moment that we see the Kraffts, we realize that this isn’t tragic to them, no matter the outcome. They understand the risks fully and still it’s completely joyous for them. And the footage of the volcanoes is mesmerizing, you almost understand how inextricably drawn they felt to them. NatGeo, two years running, making my best of year list. I’ll keep my eye out for their 2023 releases.

9. The Woman King

This is Gladiator with most of the flab cut off. Gina Prince-Bythewood is one of my favourite working directors and her shift into action filmmaking is really remarkable, considering how emotionally focused her first three movies are. It makes sense though, once you realize that her action scenes are so fluid is because she herself is an athlete and she frames the scenes, not just as balletic or violent feats, but as a show of athletic prowess. From the opening – which is very reminiscent of the first Nakia scene in Black Panther – I was fully on board with the tone and scale of this movie, boosted in no small part by Viola Davis (the biggest Oscar snub of the year), Lashana Lynch (being an absolute dynamo on screen) and Thusu Mbedu (who somehow holds her own as a co-lead in this movie opposite Davis).

8. Jackass Forever

Like every iteration of Jackass, Forever is wonderfully juvenile, but there’s an added tinge of melancholy in watching Knoxville, Steve-O, Dave England and the rest of the original cast slowly come to terms with the fact that their bodies can’t take the same levels of punishment anymore. We see them hand over a lot of the stunts to the newer additions, who take the reins while also trying to get out of the giant shadows of Ryan Dunn and Bam. All that said, Knoxville and Steve-O still do the two most what the fuck gags in the movie, and Danger Ehren, as ever, is the victim of a nightmarish flurry of pain. But Jackass isn’t about violence; it’s just the most stupidly violent franchise about friends who love each other.

7. Kimi

Any movie Steven Soderbergh puts out is likely to make my best of, and it speaks to the quality of the top 10 this year that Kimi has dropped to the back half. This movie is fun as hell, an old school conspiracy thriller in the vein of (quite obviously) The Conversation and Rear Window, but set in a tech world that’s increasingly more familiar – and more frightening – to us. Of course, Soderbergh isn’t new to conspiracies (see: Erin Brockovich), but the thing that makes his work in Kimi particularly enthralling is his ability to capture natural human behaviour on screen. He makes excellent hangout movies (Oceans 11-13, Magic Mike, Let Them All Talk) because he knows that if you shoot movie stars in a certain way and pace it right, anything they do will be immensely watchable. And for Kimi, he teamed up with one of the very rare true-blue movie stars under 35 in Zoe Kravitz. She pulls the camera with a natural, easy magnetism that automatically sets us up on her side. Add Soderbergh’s excellent technical craft, and you get a lean, mean, murder mystery machine that has you in and out and completely satisfied in 90 minutes flat.

6. Top Gun: Maverick

Often the Best Actor/Actress Oscar is won by someone doing an interpretation of a real person that we’re all familiar with (Rami Malek for Freddie Mercury, Renee Zellweger for Judy Garland and possibly – god forbid – Austin Butler for Elvis). I think that should just be its own special Oscar: Best Re-Creation. And this year, Top Gun: Maverick should win that honour, because Joseph Kosinski (who I’m overall pretty mixed on as a director) does a spectacular job recreating that early Tony Scott style that made the first Top Gun so exhilarating. Funny thing, leading up to the release of this movie, I put my favourite Tony Scott movies on TV (I’ll take any excuse really). My sister walked in during the first 10 minutes of Unstoppable and not only was she completely hooked, but she insisted on watching the rest of the movies with me. So it was particularly fantastic to be able to show my sister a Tony Scott-esque movie in theatres for the first time. I wish there were more of them.

5. Avatar: The Way of Water

Yes I loved it. Am I a sucker for Jim Cameron? Also yes. The water footage is like watching NatGeo from another planet (in a good way, you should know by now that I’m a fiend for NatGeo). Cameron knows how the build tension in an action scene and he also knows how to shoot it so that you know exactly where everyone is in relation to each other, which seems to be a lost art in big budget blockbusters these days. But what gets The Way of Water to number 5 is the tulkun. What an incredible idea to have this species of space whales be intellectually and emotionally smarter than the Na’vi and yet have them choose to intertwine themselves with the Na’vi. And the decision to introduce this kind of an interspecies dynamic in the SECOND MOVIE when there’s is no analogue for it in the first, is a feat on its own. Although I should have probably recused myself from reviewing this movie, since Payakan is my best friend.

4. The Fabelmans

Steven Spielberg has always been a filmmaking savant, which this movie will tell you, but I think what makes The Fabelmans so good, and what has really been working for Spielberg in this last decade, is that he tackles honest, complex emotions head on instead of eschewing it for the classic Spielberg sentimentality. He portrays the intricate and overlapping familial dynamics in the Fabelman household (a thinly veiled depiction of his own home life) with shockingly little guile or deflection and shows us not only the joys, but the strains of being an artist.

3. TÁR

Hard to talk about this movie without just lavishing praise on Cate Blanchett, but I’ll try – not because she isn’t the best thing about it, but because every discussion about TÁR is so dominated by Cate Blanchett that other great parts of the movie fade into the noise. Todd Field as an actor is best known as Nick Nightingale in Eyes Wide Shut, but his work as a director in TÁR reminds me of the second half another Kubrick movie: Barry Lyndon. To start the movie at the peak of someone’s prowess and document their downfall, and not have audiences utterly despairing by the end is a special talent that few have, and Field certainly nails it. Noemie Merlant (of Portrait of a Lady on Fire fame) is an absolute beacon of charisma as Lydia Tar’s assistant, and her performance subtly elevates the audience’s investment in the story. But I think the secret sauce to the movie, and the emotional crux, is on the shoulders of Nina Hoss, who has very little screen time, yet really underscores the whole movie with one incredible line reading. The individual pieces of TÁR are excellent in their own right, which sometimes poses a problem when the filmmaker tries to put them all together, but the movie is so well-conceived and Field has such a strong artistic voice that the brilliance of each part only works to elevate the whole.

2. After Yang

The first of Colin Farrell’s 2022 movies remains my favourite, which is a shock because I would have put money on The Banshees of Inisherin being my number one movie of the year overall. And though Banshees has been slowly creeping up my rankings the longer I think on it, After Yang has held strong for nigh on a year. Kogonada’s first movie, Columbus, juxtaposed an emotional gentleness with the sadness of real life in a way that didn’t make me want to run away as movies like that normally do. Instead, he made the real world an enviable gentle place that doesn’t magic away tragedies but accepts them as an essential part of every person. In After Yang, Kogonada takes that sensibility and applies it to a sci-fi idea that is perhaps as old as the genre: what if a robot began to feel? The set-up is, on paper, similar to classics like Blade Runner and AI, but the movie is handled with a tenderness that those earlier movies had only sparingly. There’s a lot in After Yang about loss and grief and parenting, but also about the joys of culture and art.

1. Three Thousand Years of Longing

If you go back to my list last year, my number one was Night of the Kings, a Ivorian prison drama about the importance of storytelling. So I guess it’s pretty boring that this year, yet again, I’ve picked a film that features tales of magic and wonder. Three Thousand Years of Longing is a djinn movie, but what sets Three Thousand Years apart is the way these fairytales are portrayed. Rooted in real history, the stories have a sense of dream logic that makes every instance of magic makes sense. And the main story itself, much like another movie I loved this year (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande), cautiously but lovingly explores the awkward romanticism of two strangers in a hotel. Idris Elba’s Djinn is wary of his summoner, while Tilda Swinton’s Alithea, a scholar of storytelling, is well aware of the mischievous nature of djinns. Hijinks do not ensue, however. Rather, the two of them slowly let their guards down, as the Djinn warns Alithea of the dangers of previous wishes he’d had to grant, weaving tales of a mystical history that has her (and me) completely enraptured. Three Thousand Years feels to me like the closest a movie can get to the magic of bard recounting an oral tradition of love and war and the follies of humans.

***

As usual, some honourable mentions:

Decision to Leave, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Athena, A Man of Action, Mukundan Unni Associates, Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood, Watcher, Something from Tiffany’s (a very solid romcom) and motherfucking Ambulance because what a goddamn ride that movie is.

I don’t recommend stand-up specials often because nothing is less appealing than comedy recommendations. But Jerrod Carmichael’s Rothaniel is really the most intimate special I’ve seen while still being hilarious.

I know I don’t talk TV often but Andor and Slow Horses have three essentially perfect seasons between them and I’m very excited for what’s next.

Finally, Dinner in America is the most punk rock movie of the year and I really hope it gets a bit more traction because there aren’t enough straight up fuck the system movies being made, which is a major bummer.

***

I want to end on a note of cautious optimism, but I’ve gone on too long already, so let me just say this: we’re probably getting new movies from our greatest working directors[1], not to mention new entries in some of the most high quality franchises. Yes indeed, folks, a promising movie year lies ahead, and you might as well stay tuned to Another Revue - who knows? I might be true to my word about writing more.

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Soderbergh (Magic Mike 3), Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon), Michael Mann (Ferrari), Sofia Coppola (Priscilla), Miyazaki (How Do You Live?), Fincher (The Killer), Gerwig (Barbie), Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things and possibly And), Reichardt (Showing Up), Nolan (Oppenheimer), Shyamalan (Knock at the Cabin), Ridley Scott (Napoleon), Steve McQueen (Blitz), Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest) ↩

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