I Have Opinions

writer/filmmaker

[haverofopinions]

Positive side effect of finally playing the Resident Evil games is every time I want to give up at something I think about Leon Kennedy going through the shittiest work day in the history of employment, and still going around to get what ever tiny puzzle piece he needs to open a stupid door, and I think wow I could be trying a lot harder. Also I want his arms.

[haverofopinions]

Googling ‘how to be an astronaut’ as if that is somehow a possibility at my big age

[haverofopinions]

I was thinking about Detroit Become Human in the shower again, and how people hate on Kara and Alice’s storyline so much and I had a revelation.

Many people find the Alice as an android reveal to be less impactful than if she remained a human girl. I was just reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and a big part of how the book defines androids vs humans is androids lack of empathy towards one another. An android sees everything literally, so to them other androids truly are just machines. Androids are built to be almost indistinguishable from humans, so humans naturally feel some level of empathy towards them. Androids are programmed to serve humans, and in Kara’s case to be a caretaker, so it is fully within her programming to save Alice and take care of her, but it is an important decision for her to continue to take care of Alice once she realizes she is just a machine, because they shouldn’t be capable of feeling empathy towards one another.

I saw a post a while ago talking about how the true test of humanness is selfishness. They are programmed to be selfless, so many of the things that could come across as empathy could also be programmed in. They are after all designed to come across as human as possible, so ethics and empathy towards humans would be something they would have to consider when designing them. This post pointed out how that makes Kara and Marcus’s stories weaker, because they are still choosing the moral choice, instead of the more selfish choice that would prove free will. I think that Alice being an android lends itself to Kara making a choice that is truly against her programming.

Kara is also such an important part of the story because she is the only real market model android you get to play as. I get the sense that Connor and Marcus are both almost pre-deviated, and importantly different than the other characters in the game in their self awareness. Connor in game realizes he is deviant when he ignores his mission, but really I think he already officially proved he was deviant if he refuses to shoot Chloe or the Tracy’s at the Eden Club.

[haverofopinions]

My Pinterest layout makes it look like two Lee Paces are having a heated argument

[corelle-vairel]

New calico critters set that we need 😊

[haverofopinions]

I was going to get a gym membership but then I impulse purchased $60 worth of dvds on ebay so now I can’t #budgeting

[haverofopinions]

I would pay any amount of money just to have Lee Pace look into my eyes for three minutes straight

[mindofeth]

hey so. I fucking loved the bride. it was everything I needed it to be and maybe even more. it is a movie for freaky ass girls! and it has christian bale! AND jessie buckley. and it's a grotesque modern fairy tale that's also a period piece that's also just cool and wonderful to behold. AND YES. CHRISTIAN DANCES. and I'll even say at one point he might have even topped his newsies work. no joke I was sat in the theatre (by myself, it was empty) like this

I won't lie it's shooting right to the top ten of my favorite movies of his. and while he was AMAZING in it, that has more to do with Maggie's directing and Jessie being even more stellar and incredible

[haverofopinions]

Movie review: The Bride! (no big spoilers)

I just came on here to rant because the Letterboxd reviews were so low and they were making me angry. Don’t give things two stars and then say “even though I know everyone will hate it, I liked it”. That means you liked it! Why are you letting other peoples opinions and cringe culture dictate your own enjoyment?! You know a movie can be stylistically camp and silly and still be entirely intentional, artistic cinema, right?

The Bride! movie by Maggie Gyllenhaal is absolutely fantastic. It achieves everything that films like Wuthering Heights, Promising Young Woman, and Poor Things wanted to do. It is fun, messy, dark, stylized, camp, raunchy without being offensive, and it features some truly complex women characters that experience sexuality in a way that isn’t presented as their ‘strength’ or ‘liberation’ but a fact of life.

For everyone complaining that she was brought back to life just to be a doll for a man who was involuntary celibate, that is literally the source material. Even digging farther back than the ‘Frankenstein’s Bride’ character from the old 30s movies, which the movie is based on, the original novel is built around him finding Victor so he can demand a female companion. This film is response to how that whole plot line objectified women, how could you read this as painting that in a positive light?

It’s camp! It’s fun! It’s stylized and it’s raw! The scrappy nature of the film is the life force of the film. Everything in this movie feels intentional, every scene adds to their dynamic, even the dance sequences that everyone seems to hate.

It is not a literary adaptation, it’s not adapting Frankenstein the novel, is adapting the character of Frankenstein’s Bride in the style of Bonnie and Clyde and the narrative and pacing reflect that. I did not find the movie at all slow, as the characters were so compelling.

Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale absolutely kill it, as always. Their performances feel so alive! Which is perfectly fitting for a movie about bringing someone back to life.

Actors always make great directors because they know how to work with actors, what directions help or don’t help, how to make everyone on set comfortable. This film feels like it was such a fun project to be part of, and the performances really convey that.

Anyway, that’s my opinion. Go watch it in theatres! IMAX if you can afford it!

[haverofopinions]

A beautiful woman named Likely Fraud keeps calling me

[haverofopinions]

Foundation has a decent plot, stunning visuals and some incredible world building but I also think it was made as an excuse to get Lee Pace oiled up and mostly naked in as many different situations as possible

[sieepybear]

The blorbo ever,,

Fanart for the first time in ages

[haverofopinions]

I’m gonna be honest, I thought the title ‘do androids dream of electric sheep’ was more of a metaphorical, philosophical question about what defines us as humans. I didn’t realize the book would feature a literal electric sheep in the first 10 pages.

[haverofopinions]

I can’t get over the fact that Hank’s idea of distracting Perkins to buy Connor time is just straight up assaulting him, and that Gavin absolutely witnessed it happening on his way to the evidence room and thought that was perfectly normal