I think on the whole people don't appreciate how fast a changed camera technique can fuck with the tone of the shot/scene. One second into this new shot and it's suddenly tense and I am anticipating an argument simply cause it's hand held now and shaky.
Ok bois time for a movie that frankly I'm mainly putting on for background while I read my quantum physics book, The Watcher (2000).
Movie with James Spader and Keanu Reeves, Spader being a detective who seems to be having a Bad Time and Reeves being a perverted serial killer targeting women.
Going into it frankly I find it a bit surprising that these actors are going into their respective roles. Out of the two the one to play a perverted serial killer with Issues I would have guessed would be Spader not Reeves. Not that I don't think they'll do poor jobs or anything, honestly glad they weren't type casted. Curious to see Reeves in a more antagonistic role, I've pretty much just seen him in good guy roles or morally grey.
From here on out it'll be a live blog I'll just be continuously updating
First off the early 2000s is really coming in strong in both the music and editing choices. It's edgy! He's edgy! He's dark and dangerous and emo! And in slow motion!
It kind of just seems like at this intro point they just said "Mr reeves could you do a weird little windmill dance with a gun in a room with candles while edgy music plays over?" And you know he did do that.
Hello Mr spader
I don't think they'll do this but if it's like, a double personality thing where it's actually spaders character and Reeves's was just a red herring, I will be upset. I don't think they'll do this but-
The editing is A Choice. Like I said very early 2000's. Not sure if it's good, not sure if it's detrimental to the movie.
I'm just gonna start saying Killer and Detective until I get a name for either.
I think Killers character would be a lot more effective if he was either a lot more goofy or a lot more intimidating. As is, he's kind of just a guy.
Mr detective is A Guy certainly. Eating an orange in perhaps the most deranged way.
Homoerotic tension? Maybe? I do love a good one sided homosexual codependency between a detective and criminal. This, we are only the way we are because of each other, the only person the other cares about for better or worse is the other, the only person who you can think about, the person you obsess about. It's good shit. Will my love of that trope be enough to enjoy this movie I have no clue.
It's still early but I think at the moment what I'm Predicting will continue to be my opinion is I think Killers character would work a bit better if the actor was either like, absurdly young and scrawny guy with incredible intelligence that would highlight the stark contrast that he's incredibly dangerous. But I think as is Reeves is just a bit too old for this edgy goofy killer mostly cause it feels like this was written for a teen.
I think he'd do better in a killer role if it was like, less audacious. Or at the very least less childish.
Joel we have name for detective
Something something killer is watching Joel like he watches the women he kills something something.
Ultimately I do think that in a general sense I think if they switched the actors for the roles they have I think it would have been a bit smoother, though in this case most of the issues seems to be with the writing and directing not the acting. Aside from the first concrete scene with Killer, reeves is doing good.
Mmmmm pancakes. Those looked good.
There's a lot of different editing and camera techniques going on that I'm a little surprised aren't grating. They're not sporadically placed, there's a pattern to it, it's consistent.
Killing them killing them killing them.
What a good cat!
Oh he pet the cat. What an unassuming cat.
He's got his time down pat. Right on nine on the dot.
Bitch do you not recognize his voice?
I also think Killer would be a lot more effective if when doing his killing if the editing didn't suddenly start playing like demonic noises and flashing lights. It undermines that it's just some guy.
"You notice me though don't you Joel?" Said as though he kicking his little feet twirling his hair. "Yeah I notice you" stahp
Dude did he fucking take the cat. Guess he's got a cat now.
Griffin. Ok we can call Killer griffin.
Griffin is in fact in love with Joel. Like, in love is not the right word. Obsessive in a somewhat sexual way id say.
What's his deal with dancing. And will he dance with Joel. Only time can say.
Playing it dangerous my my my is he. Oh Ho Ho. He just wants to see his friend in the fleash. Also to Get his therapist.
"Did you miss him?" Yesssss finally got another plot where they address how connecting hatred and how revenge can be so lustful in a way.
The music is a little over done me thinks.
Dude I Live in Chicago this is so wacky.
"Fuck you cop I don't know shit" ordinarily m a good response now however is not the time.
Good thinking Young Woman. Jessica, good thinking Jessica.
Car on fire. Neat.
There is time for this to change but I do wish there's been more interactions between Griffin and Joel.
Why would you broadcast that the detectives been hospitalized? Silly goofy.
Something something griffin going after the therapist because he wants Joel depending on him something something.
Bad gun etiquette, finger on trigger.
Face to face. Why now?
Brought beer, that's nice of him.
It is in fact insane for the detective to move to Chicago for this woman he was having sex with.
What a goofy fella.
"We're going to make it through this arent we Joel."
"You're like a brother to me" 🤨 eeeeeh
"I'm trying to have a conversation with you and you keep bringing work into this 😠 it's rude."
"What I need is you"
I do and fact think and will continue to think this is a smidge homosexual.
I want to meet the person that is scared of Keanu reeves dancing all emo like with a gun in a room full of candles. I need to know them.
"We need each other, we define each other"
"We need each other in order to give meaning to our lives"
Yeah man you gave him the gun don't know what you expected.
"Oh Joel you know me so well I can only kill her once."
"The mistake was turning your back instead of pouring everything you had into us."
This man is like wildly down bad for Joel.
"You're my job, you're paperwork" denial denial.
I think Joel should kiss griffin to distract him. Will he? No. But I believe. I believe in the power of imagination.
The fire effects are great no notes. It's not over exposed in the slightest.
Ok I stand by my earlier comment they really should have put more into the dynamic between Joel and griffin.
This was an alright movie. It was not Spectacular and was definitely a product of its time. Which everything is I suppose. Enjoyable but probably won't be rewatching anytime soon.
Great camera work so far, editing and music are also a slam dunk.
I'm glad I don't remember as much as I thought I did cause like fuck I didn't remember morgan freeman's character retiring.
"Fucking Dante. God damn poetry writing faggot son of a bitch" is a really fucking funny line.
Bad tie mills. Probably from his wife.
Bitch just called his wife a Dingleberry. An insane thing to do.
I love detectives having to go to the others house for dinner cause the Wife TM wants to meet him.
"Loser" "idiot" ok these two are cute.
They have kids- oh dogs. Dogs. Ok good.
Ok man maybe trains are different other places but like ive been to places next to a subway and live next to a subway and it has NEVER fuckin shook like that in my life.
Music is gooood.
Love them calling detectives dicks.
Good design on the props.
Bitch he's alive????
Fucking???
God damn. A year? Juesus Christ.
Oh mills. He's so. He's so, emotional. He's so girly pop girl failure. He's a hot head he's aggressive he's soft speaking most of the time and just wants to like be good at his job.
Yep. She's pregnant.
Dude I feel for Williams. Like imagine getting called up but your partners wife and she just wants to vent about not liking the city you've moved too and also that she's pregnant. And you aren't that close to your partner.
Is this based off a book? I'd like to read that. It is not in fact based off a book.
I enjoy Mills as a character. Like, he's so Young, he --- oh shit they got shot at! Spooked me.
But he's so young, he wants to prove himself, he wants to solve cases, he wants to do good but he's too rash he's too intense he's too impulsive. He doesn't think except when he isn't supposed to.
Mills is so bloodied. His shirt is now pink it was white. Soaking wet.
Something about the fact that despite the fact that Mills is younger than William, Mills is the one out of the two to have ever killed someone. Something about even despite that, Mills is still considerably less experienced with the world and with the horrors of the world. He is still even with everything considerably naive. Innocent almost.
Jesus fucking Christ knife dick. Jesus Christ fuck Jesus. Fun in mouth? I don't even know what this is holy shit.
Thinking about what I know about the ending of this movie and wondering if Mills goes through a form of enlightenment. That him and John Doe are two sides of the same coin. Through great suffering, through great pain, through great loss we find a form of meaning. As sort of a post hauc justification for what we're feeling.
Williams starting to get the impression that-
Oh the bitch bald bitch. Who the fuck is this bitch? Kevin spacey! I thought it was him. He looks funky. So like, twig.
Bro! Fucking! Toby! From the west wing! Dude! I love him. He's so baby faced kissing him.
:|
One last laugh. For old times sake. Tee hee.
Curious about the emasculation. The birth of the man Mills is about to be. That he's going to become the Man as opposed to the boy he's been the naive innocent boy he's been, he's going to become a Man because of John Doe. Everything that he's about to be made up of is not of his choice it's of Does. Doe lets him live, Doe kills the man he was and births the man he will become.
John Doe not killing the dog is to me the discussion of if Herbert killed the cat in Reanimator. In both cases I do think the homicidal manic is telling the truth.
:)::):):)/))/)/):):):):)
That was fun. Give more thoughts about it as a whole later.
Also like, to look at this movie in terms of camera lighting and production design. Lighting is the one I'm most worried about because movies like this often fuck up with making it too dark.
- I read the Wikipedia article plot summary for this movie years ago so I know the gist but also have forgotten a lot of it.
- there's an episode of community based along this, so I have a general idea of what a parody of this movie is.
Anyways other notes, Mills is sopping wet and I'm excited to have it under my belt.
Also got to watch Zodiac at some point.
My main goal in watching this movie is to see if it functions as a detective story. Is it over hyped? Does it accomplish what it wants? And I mean just a general, do I like it?
One of the things I like about Point Break is that the first third of the movie is, "this is about bank robberies" and then the large middle third is "this is about surfing" and then the last third hits you and you suddenly remember "oh this is about bank robberies" again
Watched Cowboys & Aliens because I'd watched glass onion and wanted to see more Daniel Craig and don't really wanna watch the James Bond movies, at least his run of it.
Anyways, it was alright movie. The dialogue was pretty weak in a lot of places imo. Largely it felt like they didn't do right by the concept as the concept was pretty interesting and could have been done better.
I do like me some genre mixing of sci fi with western but it wasn't really either. Just kind of, muddled I guess.
Restarted on Noel because that episode is my favorite. It's beautifully shot, amazingly written, and fuck if Joshs actor didn't act the shit out of it.
And like, I appreciate this media for what it is, virtue signaling to get people hyped about politics. I disagree with some of the politics but this does a good job of stirring the patriotism of centrists, which to me is the second most dangerous party rn.
Watched Limbo 2023, enjoyed it very much. Did make me sleepy tho but that was because me and my friend decided to watch it at like, 11 at night.
It was shot beautifully. I'm always a sucker for black and white shot films.
I do think it should be noted how much the main bitch looked like Walter white. Not as a bad thing I found it very amusing.
Fucking insane this guy directed edited and also like composed for this. Good for him and it's impressive.
Also like, love noir shit.
Do think it was funny that he just, does drugs.
Actually on that note I do kind of like how little we know about anything in the film. Like, we know nothing about fuckinnn Travis, the people really, the town, anything. We get glimpses, impressions of everything.
Idk, I enjoy that it's slow. For me, it didn't feel like it was Nothing, it just kind of felt calm without dragging. I enjoy looking at what I'm seeing.
I would have liked more, I think there was a way for them to have finished it (either him killing Joseph or even just him telling the family what happened) but honestly the ending while not really resolving anything didn't feel unsatisfactory to me.
Truthfully i just wrote this to try to get more into the habit of writing on this blog. Wanna try putting my media analysis out there. Not that there's much analysis here.
Every interaction between nick and Shannon is very amusing to me because like, man's father is 70 no one was expecting him to just adopt some random 12 year old off the street.
Combine that with like, sure there's like "genuine concerns" he has over his dad adopting her but like he's so epically failing to cover up that he's jealous that his dad has decided to father another kid.
Like, not just jealous but like clearly part of the reason he's upset is cause he feels like his dad's replacing him. As well as like, his dad was not a Great father for him but suddenly years after he's been fucked up his dad is ready to be a father? And like of course it feels like it's because he's fucked up and it feels like he's failed him as a son.
I swear this blog will be more then just The Guardian posting but rn that's all I'm watching so. Also no one is looking at this so that's fine.
Ok I've actually been severely enjoying the gay repressed Jake storyline. I think it's really interesting perspective into a more recent post aids environment.
And it doesn't make him better for his actions (ie. Fag bashing that one kid) but it's such a genuinely interesting storyline.
Like, dude grew up catholic in an environment that ordinarily talked about how being gay was perverse and predatory and all of that.
Add onto that when he was growing up was right at the height of the AIDs epidemic. Height of religious people talking about how aids was sent to take care of homosexuals.
And like he's so certain he's straight. Because he doesn't have any other option, he can't be gay. He just can't be and he won't accept that.
It's also been interesting how everyone else has been responding to him about it. Like nicks attempting to be supportive but he's not exactly the best at social interactions. Lulu, barely knows the guy but is like also trying to let him know it's fine if he is.
Idk it's just interesting to me, how this is being handled in the early 2000s. I really like what they've been doing with it. Because this was the reality for a lot of people, especially gay men.
Also I'm loving the detective. He's like, look I'm not trying to call it deviant that's just what it calls. I know you're gay, it's fine, you shouldn't have to just let this guy walk.
Loving the motel owner, like dude, he's like I cant stand someone beating up their boyfriend, I'm not gonna allow that. And like, dude do you know how many people would just let that go at that time? Like, who cares if that faggot gets beat up was just such a common thing. And this guy didn't see a difference and still thought it was wrong.
Not only that but he said boyfriend not like, just the fact that he used boyfriend a term of a "normal" relationship.
Also like the fact that they're pretty delicately handling the fact that Jake got raped. Like, it's being treated seriously, it's being treated as rape and not as he was asking for it.
Ok I've actually been severely enjoying the gay repressed Jake storyline. I think it's really interesting perspective into a more recent post aids environment.
And it doesn't make him better for his actions (ie. Fag bashing that one kid) but it's such a genuinely interesting storyline.
Like, dude grew up catholic in an environment that ordinarily talked about how being gay was perverse and predatory and all of that.
Add onto that when he was growing up was right at the height of the AIDs epidemic. Height of religious people talking about how aids was sent to take care of homosexuals.
And like he's so certain he's straight. Because he doesn't have any other option, he can't be gay. He just can't be and he won't accept that.
It's also been interesting how everyone else has been responding to him about it. Like nicks attempting to be supportive but he's not exactly the best at social interactions. Lulu, barely knows the guy but is like also trying to let him know it's fine if he is.
Idk it's just interesting to me, how this is being handled in the early 2000s. I really like what they've been doing with it. Because this was the reality for a lot of people, especially gay men.
Also I'm loving the detective. He's like, look I'm not trying to call it deviant that's just what it calls. I know you're gay, it's fine, you shouldn't have to just let this guy walk.
Loving the motel owner, like dude, he's like I cant stand someone beating up their boyfriend, I'm not gonna allow that. And like, dude do you know how many people would just let that go at that time? Like, who cares if that faggot gets beat up was just such a common thing. And this guy didn't see a difference and still thought it was wrong.
Not only that but he said boyfriend not like, just the fact that he used boyfriend a term of a "normal" relationship.
Ok I've actually been severely enjoying the gay repressed Jake storyline. I think it's really interesting perspective into a more recent post aids environment.
And it doesn't make him better for his actions (ie. Fag bashing that one kid) but it's such a genuinely interesting storyline.
Like, dude grew up catholic in an environment that ordinarily talked about how being gay was perverse and predatory and all of that.
Add onto that when he was growing up was right at the height of the AIDs epidemic. Height of religious people talking about how aids was sent to take care of homosexuals.
And like he's so certain he's straight. Because he doesn't have any other option, he can't be gay. He just can't be and he won't accept that.
It's also been interesting how everyone else has been responding to him about it. Like nicks attempting to be supportive but he's not exactly the best at social interactions. Lulu, barely knows the guy but is like also trying to let him know it's fine if he is.
Idk it's just interesting to me, how this is being handled in the early 2000s. I really like what they've been doing with it. Because this was the reality for a lot of people, especially gay men.
Also I'm loving the detective. He's like, look I'm not trying to call it deviant that's just what it calls. I know you're gay, it's fine, you shouldn't have to just let this guy walk.
Ok I've actually been severely enjoying the gay repressed Jake storyline. I think it's really interesting perspective into a more recent post aids environment.
And it doesn't make him better for his actions (ie. Fag bashing that one kid) but it's such a genuinely interesting storyline.
Like, dude grew up catholic in an environment that ordinarily talked about how being gay was perverse and predatory and all of that.
Add onto that when he was growing up was right at the height of the AIDs epidemic. Height of religious people talking about how aids was sent to take care of homosexuals.
And like he's so certain he's straight. Because he doesn't have any other option, he can't be gay. He just can't be and he won't accept that.
It's also been interesting how everyone else has been responding to him about it. Like nicks attempting to be supportive but he's not exactly the best at social interactions. Lulu, barely knows the guy but is like also trying to let him know it's fine if he is.
Idk it's just interesting to me, how this is being handled in the early 2000s. I really like what they've been doing with it. Because this was the reality for a lot of people, especially gay men.
