Good points, all around. Hype, in general, distracts and detracts from good films.
I have to say though, your fixation on an explanation of the everything bagel in EEAAO misses the forest for the trees. Do you also watch Dr. Stranglove and get hung up on how the Doomsday device works? Or, why is the ultimate answer to life "42"? What actually is the Holy Grail? Why are the Knights who say Ni obsessed with shrubberies? All irrelevant to the story. Don't get me started on the actual Maltese Falcon statuette...
That's a reasonable point. I think if it was only that, then I'd let it slide, but there is so much exposition in the film that it can't help but draw attention to itself. There are other questions that I could have asked, like: why does a paper cut allow someone to jump universes? Why does it really matter if Jobu Tupaki kills Evelyn in another universe, or even every universe? How and why does she have minions? Why is the useless version of Evelyn in "our" universe best suited to fighting Jobu Tupaki?
I guess I picked the bagel because a lot of people I spoke to seemed to think it was a clever device (it's also a very, very American device - an "everything bagel" isn't something that really exists here in the UK as a cultural reference point). But I remember watching the film and that being the point where I first realised I was gettinf a bit lost...
Those questions are frankly irrelevant because the film isn't about any of those things. It's about the experience of an immigrant couple and their daughter. The movie captures that without any need for some logical explanation of all the wacky fun stuff. Any exposition is just more illusory fun, or to trick the audience into thinking they know what's going on, when really it's all meant to couch a hefty dose of Feeling.
It’s that if a bagel had literally everything on it, it would be a super massive blackhole - a literal embodiment of the angst and nihilism that devours everything, including relationships with loved ones. That is what joy is feeling and her mother is trying to pull her back from.
I always thought the reason “useless universe Evelyn“ was primed to save her was because she originated from the universe where her daughter felt the least loved. Ergo, her change of heart would have a deeper impact and higher chance of cutting through Jobu Tupaki’s defenses.
“But I remember watching the film and that being the point where I first realised I was gettinf a bit lost...”
Have to love Substack constantly vomitjng up old content. It really is like an old relative’s attic.
Anyway, I think the quote above helped me understand the real issue with this list, which is that most of your disapproval seems purely to be a “you thing.”
If I ever find myself writing about my dissatisfaction with something that is “very good, just not as good as everyone said it was,” I will know it is time to immediately stop typing, power down and go do anything other than publicly air my grievances.
Thanks for helping me kill 15 minutes. That is not nothing.
I suppose that's up to you to decide, and if your assumption was that I count as a critic then I'm flattered!
But I'm also not sure a critic does or should aspire to that. Might be better to acknowledge that that's impossible, and hope that your readers end up being the ones who recognise that their tastes align with your own, no?
The world of physics tends to concern itself with numbers that are extremely large (light-years, pansecs) or extremely small (Planck lengths, nanometres). "42", by contrast, is a very ordinary, average number. That's the joke.
I’d argue that 42 is just as arbitrary as all of the other constants. It isn’t unlike any of the other relevant constants in that respect. It is strange because it is a whole number, but physicists will often adopt conventions to make a relevant constant like the speed of light or the Planck constant 1.
To me, the funny part was always that 42 was unexplainable.
If you don’t like an authors opinion fine but no need to be rude. He gave you a heads up right in the headline about what he was going to say. You clearly should have just skipped the article.
Barbie’s fear of death was resolved by her talk with the founder of Barbie.
That’s how it works in every existential film. There is always a moment when the writer/director basically tells the audience everything is going to be okay with third-rate existential philosophy and self-help-isms. But the central issue is never actually resolved.
Another example would be “Everything, All at Once, All the Time” and their other movie “Swiss Army Zombie”
But maybe the audience wants to be told that everything will be okay? The real world is bleak. It’s okay for art to sometimes hold our hand and it not be a bad thing.
The Everything Bagel represents the nihilism on the other side of the freedom to choose anything. It is the cultural condition that many millennials, but more so Gen Z, find themselves in with social media and the internet. Every possible luxurious lifestyle and every horrifying tragedy, everything right there at your fingertips until it becomes so overwhelming that the only thing left to do is to eat to soothe the pain. Joy's weight is mentioned several times because that's exactly what she's done. She's depressed and lost because she can't bear the weight of everything, and so over-eats to soothe herself. The point of the battle at the end was to show that even when nothing matters and we're overwhelmed by the world, we can still be kind and spend our time with people we love. Two really good books to explain more about why exactly people escape from freedom in this way is Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom and Robert Kegan's In Over Our Heads.
I feel uncomfortable self-plugging, but I released a recent article that is relevant to this if you're interested. I talk about how Epithymia (Greek for craving, desire, lust) is a sort of new "deity" that operates within a culture of nihilistic hedonism. When nothing else matters all we have left to aim ourselves toward is stimulation, and then we have algorithms that select for exactly that because that is what keeps our attention the longest. I connect that with the rise of Red Pill (not a fan just fyi) and issues in dating that men face. You can find it here - https://metamasculine.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-epithymian-idolatry
Will- while the first part of your explanation makes sense, the second part misses. Joy does not over eat in the film. Nor is she “fat”. Mention of Joy’s weight is a reflection on a common dynamic between Asian mothers and their daughters, not on the unreality of whether or not she’s actually “fat”.
EEAAO: annoying, frenetic, saccharine. Like it’s slapping you over the head with a rubber chicken and beseeching: “don’t you FEEL THIS?? DON’T YOU FEEL ALL THESE FEELINGS!?” The only thing I felt was contempt.
I don’t know if I’ve ever liked a “great” movie less. I guess it confirmed for me that I am completely out of step with a good portion of contemporary audiences.
I will never subscribe to a person who thinks Everything Everywhere All At Once is overrated. It is a cinematic masterpiece rivaled only by Groundhog Day. It is the most profound movie ever made.
If you don’t like an authors opinion fine but no need to be rude. He gave you a heads up right in the headline about what he was going to say. You clearly should have just skipped the article.
Or it could be people just like the movie 🤷♂️ do you think everything that other people like that you don’t must mean some sort’ve brainwash marketing must be involved?
I saw it because a friend told me he wanted my thoughts on it. Seriously, as I’ve been consuming media for some time, I’m confident in my judgment about my own taste.
I couldn’t stand Poor Things. It was one of the most unwatchable films I ever sat all the way through (and I doubt I would have, if I hadn’t gone with friends who seemed determined to sit through it). Not to mention that it seemed to convey a message that what a child-woman really wants is to be sexually assaulted by men.
Very late reply to say I turned this film off at the "furious jumping" section because no matter how many people try to argue otherwise (including Mark Kermode who I usually respect), this person having sex in these scenes is a CHILD. How can I be sure? Because an adult doesn't call sex "furious jumping."
if that part of the film was triggering for you I completely understand why you'd feel personally compelled to turn it off; you don't owe it to yourself or anyone else to finish it if that's ever the case.
what I find interesting, however, is that one of the main themes of the story- esp in the original book- is the exploitation of women through the way that men choose to either infantilize or "adultify' them based upon what they want or can take from her. the idea of Bella's body being developed but her brain not so much in the beginning is a direct callout towards that. the fact that the scene where Bella was basically being SAed made you feel disgusted means that you actually totally got the point.
the further you get in the movie the more you see that most of the men in her life see her as a sort of sexual fetish. she has the body of a full-grown woman with secondary sex characteristics but for half of the film she has the mental capacity of a child. I honestly loved this about the movie because I feel it really represented the way myself and other women are treated even by men and even some male family members.. we're seen as ditsy, immature children when it comes to making decisions or holding opinions/values that differ from our male peers, and yet despite that infantilization some of these same men will still adultify us at the same time when they want to gain our sexual favor. even when they do, these types of men still see us as lesser, as childlike... I think you get my point.
this completely speaks to your discomfort with Bella basically being a child in the "furious jumping" scene, which also coincides with the whole movie's thoughts on the way that much of the world's beauty standards for women are quite literally pedophilic. we're meant to watch scenes like that of the "furious jumping" and find them disgusting, because we can realize that the reason why she is so sexually desirable to these men is because of her childlike nature and the ways in which female beauty standards encourage such pedophilic fantasies. you probably saw the part at the beginning where Ramy Youssef's character makes it abundantly clear to Dafoe's that he is sexually fixated on her for this reason. Bella is a sort of caricature of the male gaze's interpretation of women, and yet by the end of the film, she completely subverts that through complete awareness of how much she was exploited and the powerful actions she takes to gain her power back from it.
again, if this made you uncomfortable you have ever right to shut it off and not finish it. but I do think your thoughts do prove just how strong the themes of the movie actually are from the get-go and how much you'd likely agree with them given your stance on Bella's characterization. we don't always have to enjoy satire or finish them if they're not our cup of tea, but that also doesn't mean that it isn't satire either, or that the use of some triggering topics might actually be subverting the harms they're depicting rather than supporting/normalizing them.
The issue I have with all of that is that ultimately it’s still Emma Stone beautifully lit and naked. It’s too much of a “Look at her beautiful sexual assault” moment to work as satire. You might feel like its Yorgos making a commentary on how women are treated, but he’s doing it by treating women exactly the same way. And I’ve seen people like Mark Kermode claim that at this stage in the film she is an adult so it makes it OK – ie they’re not reading that moment as underage SA, just a woman coming into her sexuality.
I do think it's more of an indicator of men like Mark Kermode's lack of critical thinking skills/moral failings to glorify scenes like the one we're talking about rather than an inherent indicator of what the scene is actually trying to tell us. It's nothing short of sickening that he'd interpret that scene as such (bc like you said, she is a whole ass CHILD) and I think it's actually a great litmus test on people's understanding of the way that some men can so easily fall into the normalization of sexualizing younger women due to standards of youth- and lowkey pedophilia- bleeding into ideals of what make women sexually "desirable".
I also totally understand and agree with the fact that you're more than welcome to interpret the scene's depiction of SA as glorified. I'm just offering another viewpoint as someone who finished the movie through and had a different opinion. Not saying you have to or should finish it if this scene was too triggering for you to continue; I just wanted to note that with the context of the rest of the movie, this scene as well as the other acts of misogyny perpetuated against Bella are things she becomes acutely aware of and acts very subversively against. I think it's also important to recognize that the book this film is based upon is very intentionally written from the POV of a male character to exemplify the misogyny present in a lot of men's general ideas and interpretations of women (it also contains scattered pieces from Bella's own perspective that contradict with the narrator, revealing his grossly misogynistic, fetishistic interpretations of her), which I think is mirrored in the way that Bella is very overtly sexualized with the aesthetic lighting as such (in that scene we're viewing her through the lens of the two men perversely "observing" her). If it isn't evident enough as subversive satire at that point early on in the film, the amalgamation of themes from then on really hone in on that subversion through the way Bella quickly catches onto how men treat her through their infantilization of her as well as what she does to them because of it. I'd recommend you look up the ending?
At the end of the day I think it's important to note that some of the most well-respected, classic satires with the most apt, intelligent themes can be really uncomfortable to watch. That doesn't mean that you have to like them or that you can't critique them- it doesn't even mean that you have to watch them through if you find it offensive- but I also think that doesn't mean it isn't satire either esp if you aren't able to watch it. Sometimes satire is also just bad. I'm not asking you to change your opinion on the movie if you don't want to as movie interpretations are personal; just offering a piece of discussion as someone who saw it differently.
Generally agree, but you lost me at #5. Maybe it wasn't quite as good as Synecdoche, New York but ITOET hit me like a ton of bricks the first time I watched it, on a very intuitive level-- much the same as I feel watching the best David Lynch movies. I also don't think it's quite fair to characterize it as (pop) existentialism in the vein of Everything Everywhere-- it grapples much more with the way we construct selves; to me it felt reminiscent of Eastern philosophy in its outlook. But to each their own. It's probably one of those films that will either resonate or won't, depending on what you bring to it, but if you like more abstract cinema I'd definitely reccomend giving it a try!
Still reading, but jumped into the comments to say i wholeheartedly (bagel-heartedly?) agree with you about Everything, Constantly, All Over The Place. I liked it, but my own pleasant memories of it were buried under every reviewer pillaging the dictionary to out-gush every other reviewer, and everyone I spoke to had this whole 'movies are SO back' spiel simply because such a perfect one had entered our dimension. The effect of its overpraising was so total I don't even know how I felt about it anymore. I do remember thinking the bagel thing and the rocks with googly-eyes felt like a moment of cinematic meme-ificiation, which I think Barbie fell victim to, where the movie has been edited in a way to emphasise meme-worthy moments to help spread it around the internet as free marketing. Anyway I'll stop rambling and read the rest of your list now.
Hype is such a problem! It inevitably makes you expect something so much better than what you encounter, which makes it seem ultimately worse in comparison. The first time I experienced this was with Finding Nemo when I was in high school. Everyone seemed to be falling over themselves for it, so when I finally saw it, I was disappointed. It seemed like a generic feel good cartoon to me. It *didn't live up* to the hype. That and other examples since then have changed the way that I talk to people about things I like. Even when I love them, I try to couch them so I don't disappoint others.
I also can't help but tie this to extremes in opinions that (I perceive?) we see more today (e.g. the review valley you refer to). It's so much more challenging to find a middling opinion. The Google reviews for Wicked are overwhelmingly 10/10 (or whatever the scale is) and 0/10. 0/10 is ridiculous and I tend to attribute such ratings to trolls. But a perfect score also seems terribly wrong to me.
My girlfriend and I are giggling (after some wine), slightly dazzled at the fact you came across this – she read you in college, and we’re both fans; many thanks. To my shame I haven’t seen CODA – but perhaps I’ll update the list when I do. Unless, God forbid, I love it…
Poor Things was just Barbie for people with LRB tote bags.
Thanks, I'm stealing this
please forgive me for this but I want to get the joke - what is LRB?
oh jesus just realized this was posted in november
The London Review of Books, imagine the New Yorker but British (or indeed the NYRB but British)
An LRB subscription is the ultimate flex for the literary types. I subtly throw LRBs in the background of my photos on IG.
Poor Things was Barbie for sex workers.
We need this on a tote bag.
Correct. I’ve one from the Poetry society I’m afraid.
Yessssssssssss.
Love it...absolutely nailed it.
HAHA
WOW. The best comment on both films ever made.
Good points, all around. Hype, in general, distracts and detracts from good films.
I have to say though, your fixation on an explanation of the everything bagel in EEAAO misses the forest for the trees. Do you also watch Dr. Stranglove and get hung up on how the Doomsday device works? Or, why is the ultimate answer to life "42"? What actually is the Holy Grail? Why are the Knights who say Ni obsessed with shrubberies? All irrelevant to the story. Don't get me started on the actual Maltese Falcon statuette...
That's a reasonable point. I think if it was only that, then I'd let it slide, but there is so much exposition in the film that it can't help but draw attention to itself. There are other questions that I could have asked, like: why does a paper cut allow someone to jump universes? Why does it really matter if Jobu Tupaki kills Evelyn in another universe, or even every universe? How and why does she have minions? Why is the useless version of Evelyn in "our" universe best suited to fighting Jobu Tupaki?
I guess I picked the bagel because a lot of people I spoke to seemed to think it was a clever device (it's also a very, very American device - an "everything bagel" isn't something that really exists here in the UK as a cultural reference point). But I remember watching the film and that being the point where I first realised I was gettinf a bit lost...
Those questions are frankly irrelevant because the film isn't about any of those things. It's about the experience of an immigrant couple and their daughter. The movie captures that without any need for some logical explanation of all the wacky fun stuff. Any exposition is just more illusory fun, or to trick the audience into thinking they know what's going on, when really it's all meant to couch a hefty dose of Feeling.
I do agree that it was too long though.
It’s that if a bagel had literally everything on it, it would be a super massive blackhole - a literal embodiment of the angst and nihilism that devours everything, including relationships with loved ones. That is what joy is feeling and her mother is trying to pull her back from.
I always thought the reason “useless universe Evelyn“ was primed to save her was because she originated from the universe where her daughter felt the least loved. Ergo, her change of heart would have a deeper impact and higher chance of cutting through Jobu Tupaki’s defenses.
“But I remember watching the film and that being the point where I first realised I was gettinf a bit lost...”
Have to love Substack constantly vomitjng up old content. It really is like an old relative’s attic.
Anyway, I think the quote above helped me understand the real issue with this list, which is that most of your disapproval seems purely to be a “you thing.”
If I ever find myself writing about my dissatisfaction with something that is “very good, just not as good as everyone said it was,” I will know it is time to immediately stop typing, power down and go do anything other than publicly air my grievances.
Thanks for helping me kill 15 minutes. That is not nothing.
All disapproval is a person’s “them thing”, though?
If we’re talking the hoi polloi, sure. A critic aspires (or should, at least), to transcend their own mundane tastes and mere (dis)approval.
If you’re just some shlub sharing their likes and dislikes, then my apologies.
I suppose that's up to you to decide, and if your assumption was that I count as a critic then I'm flattered!
But I'm also not sure a critic does or should aspire to that. Might be better to acknowledge that that's impossible, and hope that your readers end up being the ones who recognise that their tastes align with your own, no?
It also is interestingly the opposite of the Google eye
It's not really important what the everything bagel is, except that it's the opposite of the googly eyes.
>Or, why is the ultimate answer to life "42"?
The world of physics tends to concern itself with numbers that are extremely large (light-years, pansecs) or extremely small (Planck lengths, nanometres). "42", by contrast, is a very ordinary, average number. That's the joke.
I’d argue that 42 is just as arbitrary as all of the other constants. It isn’t unlike any of the other relevant constants in that respect. It is strange because it is a whole number, but physicists will often adopt conventions to make a relevant constant like the speed of light or the Planck constant 1.
To me, the funny part was always that 42 was unexplainable.
I was paraphrasing Adams's own explanation for why he selected 42.
Oh cool. A guy writing a smug little column about hiw he's oh so smarter than the rest of us plebs who enjoyed these movies.
That's what we need. More smug assholes being snotty.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marlowe1/p/the-witching-snakes-pt-4?r=sllf3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
I am! I am much smarter than you!
If you don’t like an authors opinion fine but no need to be rude. He gave you a heads up right in the headline about what he was going to say. You clearly should have just skipped the article.
Awww, what's wrong. He mentioned all the shitty films marketing brainwashed you into liking?
Barbie’s fear of death was resolved by her talk with the founder of Barbie.
That’s how it works in every existential film. There is always a moment when the writer/director basically tells the audience everything is going to be okay with third-rate existential philosophy and self-help-isms. But the central issue is never actually resolved.
Another example would be “Everything, All at Once, All the Time” and their other movie “Swiss Army Zombie”
Of course, thanks for reminding me. I knew there was a reason for the Rhea Perlman role....
But maybe the audience wants to be told that everything will be okay? The real world is bleak. It’s okay for art to sometimes hold our hand and it not be a bad thing.
I thought it was called "Swiss Army Man".
The Everything Bagel represents the nihilism on the other side of the freedom to choose anything. It is the cultural condition that many millennials, but more so Gen Z, find themselves in with social media and the internet. Every possible luxurious lifestyle and every horrifying tragedy, everything right there at your fingertips until it becomes so overwhelming that the only thing left to do is to eat to soothe the pain. Joy's weight is mentioned several times because that's exactly what she's done. She's depressed and lost because she can't bear the weight of everything, and so over-eats to soothe herself. The point of the battle at the end was to show that even when nothing matters and we're overwhelmed by the world, we can still be kind and spend our time with people we love. Two really good books to explain more about why exactly people escape from freedom in this way is Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom and Robert Kegan's In Over Our Heads.
This is the best explanation of this that I've seen so far by a long way, cheers
I feel uncomfortable self-plugging, but I released a recent article that is relevant to this if you're interested. I talk about how Epithymia (Greek for craving, desire, lust) is a sort of new "deity" that operates within a culture of nihilistic hedonism. When nothing else matters all we have left to aim ourselves toward is stimulation, and then we have algorithms that select for exactly that because that is what keeps our attention the longest. I connect that with the rise of Red Pill (not a fan just fyi) and issues in dating that men face. You can find it here - https://metamasculine.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-epithymian-idolatry
Not at all, self-plug away! I'll give it a read
Will- while the first part of your explanation makes sense, the second part misses. Joy does not over eat in the film. Nor is she “fat”. Mention of Joy’s weight is a reflection on a common dynamic between Asian mothers and their daughters, not on the unreality of whether or not she’s actually “fat”.
EEAAO: annoying, frenetic, saccharine. Like it’s slapping you over the head with a rubber chicken and beseeching: “don’t you FEEL THIS?? DON’T YOU FEEL ALL THESE FEELINGS!?” The only thing I felt was contempt.
I don’t know if I’ve ever liked a “great” movie less. I guess it confirmed for me that I am completely out of step with a good portion of contemporary audiences.
HATED every second.
Hideous movie...celluloid adderall
I will never subscribe to a person who thinks Everything Everywhere All At Once is overrated. It is a cinematic masterpiece rivaled only by Groundhog Day. It is the most profound movie ever made.
Also, even at sixty, Michelle Yeoh is hot.
>Also, even at sixty, Michelle Yeoh is hot.
Agreed.
If you don’t like an authors opinion fine but no need to be rude. He gave you a heads up right in the headline about what he was going to say. You clearly should have just skipped the article.
do you copy and paste this on every comment that you dislike ?
Nope, just tired I guess :)
Where was he rude?
Sorry Pete this saved to the wrong spot. Not meant for you.
"a cinematic masterpiece rivaled only by groundhog day" i guess bruh...
No it's not. You think it is, because a massive marketing campaign told you to like
Or it could be people just like the movie 🤷♂️ do you think everything that other people like that you don’t must mean some sort’ve brainwash marketing must be involved?
I saw it because a friend told me he wanted my thoughts on it. Seriously, as I’ve been consuming media for some time, I’m confident in my judgment about my own taste.
This won you a subscriber 🤣. Thank you for saying what needed to be said about EEAAO.
Cheers!
I couldn’t stand Poor Things. It was one of the most unwatchable films I ever sat all the way through (and I doubt I would have, if I hadn’t gone with friends who seemed determined to sit through it). Not to mention that it seemed to convey a message that what a child-woman really wants is to be sexually assaulted by men.
Very late reply to say I turned this film off at the "furious jumping" section because no matter how many people try to argue otherwise (including Mark Kermode who I usually respect), this person having sex in these scenes is a CHILD. How can I be sure? Because an adult doesn't call sex "furious jumping."
if that part of the film was triggering for you I completely understand why you'd feel personally compelled to turn it off; you don't owe it to yourself or anyone else to finish it if that's ever the case.
what I find interesting, however, is that one of the main themes of the story- esp in the original book- is the exploitation of women through the way that men choose to either infantilize or "adultify' them based upon what they want or can take from her. the idea of Bella's body being developed but her brain not so much in the beginning is a direct callout towards that. the fact that the scene where Bella was basically being SAed made you feel disgusted means that you actually totally got the point.
the further you get in the movie the more you see that most of the men in her life see her as a sort of sexual fetish. she has the body of a full-grown woman with secondary sex characteristics but for half of the film she has the mental capacity of a child. I honestly loved this about the movie because I feel it really represented the way myself and other women are treated even by men and even some male family members.. we're seen as ditsy, immature children when it comes to making decisions or holding opinions/values that differ from our male peers, and yet despite that infantilization some of these same men will still adultify us at the same time when they want to gain our sexual favor. even when they do, these types of men still see us as lesser, as childlike... I think you get my point.
this completely speaks to your discomfort with Bella basically being a child in the "furious jumping" scene, which also coincides with the whole movie's thoughts on the way that much of the world's beauty standards for women are quite literally pedophilic. we're meant to watch scenes like that of the "furious jumping" and find them disgusting, because we can realize that the reason why she is so sexually desirable to these men is because of her childlike nature and the ways in which female beauty standards encourage such pedophilic fantasies. you probably saw the part at the beginning where Ramy Youssef's character makes it abundantly clear to Dafoe's that he is sexually fixated on her for this reason. Bella is a sort of caricature of the male gaze's interpretation of women, and yet by the end of the film, she completely subverts that through complete awareness of how much she was exploited and the powerful actions she takes to gain her power back from it.
again, if this made you uncomfortable you have ever right to shut it off and not finish it. but I do think your thoughts do prove just how strong the themes of the movie actually are from the get-go and how much you'd likely agree with them given your stance on Bella's characterization. we don't always have to enjoy satire or finish them if they're not our cup of tea, but that also doesn't mean that it isn't satire either, or that the use of some triggering topics might actually be subverting the harms they're depicting rather than supporting/normalizing them.
The issue I have with all of that is that ultimately it’s still Emma Stone beautifully lit and naked. It’s too much of a “Look at her beautiful sexual assault” moment to work as satire. You might feel like its Yorgos making a commentary on how women are treated, but he’s doing it by treating women exactly the same way. And I’ve seen people like Mark Kermode claim that at this stage in the film she is an adult so it makes it OK – ie they’re not reading that moment as underage SA, just a woman coming into her sexuality.
I do think it's more of an indicator of men like Mark Kermode's lack of critical thinking skills/moral failings to glorify scenes like the one we're talking about rather than an inherent indicator of what the scene is actually trying to tell us. It's nothing short of sickening that he'd interpret that scene as such (bc like you said, she is a whole ass CHILD) and I think it's actually a great litmus test on people's understanding of the way that some men can so easily fall into the normalization of sexualizing younger women due to standards of youth- and lowkey pedophilia- bleeding into ideals of what make women sexually "desirable".
I also totally understand and agree with the fact that you're more than welcome to interpret the scene's depiction of SA as glorified. I'm just offering another viewpoint as someone who finished the movie through and had a different opinion. Not saying you have to or should finish it if this scene was too triggering for you to continue; I just wanted to note that with the context of the rest of the movie, this scene as well as the other acts of misogyny perpetuated against Bella are things she becomes acutely aware of and acts very subversively against. I think it's also important to recognize that the book this film is based upon is very intentionally written from the POV of a male character to exemplify the misogyny present in a lot of men's general ideas and interpretations of women (it also contains scattered pieces from Bella's own perspective that contradict with the narrator, revealing his grossly misogynistic, fetishistic interpretations of her), which I think is mirrored in the way that Bella is very overtly sexualized with the aesthetic lighting as such (in that scene we're viewing her through the lens of the two men perversely "observing" her). If it isn't evident enough as subversive satire at that point early on in the film, the amalgamation of themes from then on really hone in on that subversion through the way Bella quickly catches onto how men treat her through their infantilization of her as well as what she does to them because of it. I'd recommend you look up the ending?
At the end of the day I think it's important to note that some of the most well-respected, classic satires with the most apt, intelligent themes can be really uncomfortable to watch. That doesn't mean that you have to like them or that you can't critique them- it doesn't even mean that you have to watch them through if you find it offensive- but I also think that doesn't mean it isn't satire either esp if you aren't able to watch it. Sometimes satire is also just bad. I'm not asking you to change your opinion on the movie if you don't want to as movie interpretations are personal; just offering a piece of discussion as someone who saw it differently.
Generally agree, but you lost me at #5. Maybe it wasn't quite as good as Synecdoche, New York but ITOET hit me like a ton of bricks the first time I watched it, on a very intuitive level-- much the same as I feel watching the best David Lynch movies. I also don't think it's quite fair to characterize it as (pop) existentialism in the vein of Everything Everywhere-- it grapples much more with the way we construct selves; to me it felt reminiscent of Eastern philosophy in its outlook. But to each their own. It's probably one of those films that will either resonate or won't, depending on what you bring to it, but if you like more abstract cinema I'd definitely reccomend giving it a try!
Hard disagree on Poor Things being overrated BUT “Children are famously not very interesting” made me stop and think and laugh
I agree! And also stopped at "Children are famously not very interesting" but was like, how are children famously not very interesting...?
I probably should have said "other people's children"
I thought I’d be offended bcz some of these r movies I loved but honestly the criticism was valid and hilarious so great work.
Ps: adding alternatives you think are better made the read all the more worthwhile 💋
Thank you!
Still reading, but jumped into the comments to say i wholeheartedly (bagel-heartedly?) agree with you about Everything, Constantly, All Over The Place. I liked it, but my own pleasant memories of it were buried under every reviewer pillaging the dictionary to out-gush every other reviewer, and everyone I spoke to had this whole 'movies are SO back' spiel simply because such a perfect one had entered our dimension. The effect of its overpraising was so total I don't even know how I felt about it anymore. I do remember thinking the bagel thing and the rocks with googly-eyes felt like a moment of cinematic meme-ificiation, which I think Barbie fell victim to, where the movie has been edited in a way to emphasise meme-worthy moments to help spread it around the internet as free marketing. Anyway I'll stop rambling and read the rest of your list now.
Totally agree - the Raccacoonie joke was also laden down with meme aspirations, which I think might be why they *kept* coming back to it.
Hype is such a problem! It inevitably makes you expect something so much better than what you encounter, which makes it seem ultimately worse in comparison. The first time I experienced this was with Finding Nemo when I was in high school. Everyone seemed to be falling over themselves for it, so when I finally saw it, I was disappointed. It seemed like a generic feel good cartoon to me. It *didn't live up* to the hype. That and other examples since then have changed the way that I talk to people about things I like. Even when I love them, I try to couch them so I don't disappoint others.
I also can't help but tie this to extremes in opinions that (I perceive?) we see more today (e.g. the review valley you refer to). It's so much more challenging to find a middling opinion. The Google reviews for Wicked are overwhelmingly 10/10 (or whatever the scale is) and 0/10. 0/10 is ridiculous and I tend to attribute such ratings to trolls. But a perfect score also seems terribly wrong to me.
My only quarrel with this list is that CODA was not included.
My girlfriend and I are giggling (after some wine), slightly dazzled at the fact you came across this – she read you in college, and we’re both fans; many thanks. To my shame I haven’t seen CODA – but perhaps I’ll update the list when I do. Unless, God forbid, I love it…
Thank you, Tom.
…hilarious start to finish thank you…honorable mentions for me would be Past Lives (zzz)…the fabelmans (grrf)…and anything not called Tar…
Was going to write the exact same comment about Past Lives 🙏🏻
As a die hard fan of Everything Everywhere All At Once, I politely disagree. If you would swap it for The Substance though, I couldn't agree more.
I liked The Substance! It was camp, and it knew it...
EEAAO is shit. As us The Substance and Anora