Movie Recommendations and Discussion

General Off-Topic Discussion
484

Last night I watched a 1989 horror-thriller film on Tubi called Beware, Children At Play! There are many peripherally interesting things about this film, but it is really hard to get through due to general badness.

The film began with Troma’s logo. Uh oh. A Troma Team Presentation will at least be a film not conventionally satisfying, and at worst, garbage.

I will give big points for originality. Bear with me; The opening scenes show a man playing with his son in the forest. The father is always quoting Anglo-Saxon poetry, especially Beowolf, and they’re playing Beowolf, so he’s catching the son with pretend plans to eat him. I’ve always thought this pretending at cannibalism with kids was a terrible idea (more so?) after reading the story of the murderer Issei Sagawa, who developed a fetish as a child because his uncle pretended to be a monster cooking him in a pot, and acted on it as an adult.

Anyway, the same deal happens in this film. The father’s injured by a bear trap. Three days later, son by his side, the father dies. The son immediately tears the father open – while quoting Beowolf(!!!).

Here’s the originality – this incident results in the son growing up in the wild, becoming the cult leader of a bunch of kidnapped children who quote Beowolf at strangers before mobbing and cannibalising them.

I’ve already made this sound much better than it is.

The film is weakly acted, always risible, boring, sometimes entirely out of focus (weird, because there’s all this great steadicam work) and the audience is always ahead of the characters.

The mobbing kids are freshly scrubbed. One girl is kidnapped from her happy household one day, and the next she’s already rampaging with the cannibals, fully converted with no lead-in time. An urchin pal hands her some flesh and says, ‘Try it, it’s good,’ and she smiles and says, ‘Alright.’ This isn’t meant to be any kind of joke. It’s serious but badly done.

The film’s final scene suddenly lifted it all a point in my IMDB score by being completely cynical, unexpected, and also making the film unsaleable: The investigating hero is shot through the head, then the parents of all the cannibal kids massacre their kids in a gory setpiece. No redemption here.

It turns out that investigating hero was played by an Australian, Michael Robertson. I didn’t notice him putting on an accent. And he’s now a prolific producer here. I’ve seen multiple films he’s had a hand in, though I’ve never noted him by name before.

Weirder and weirder.

-Wade

3 Likes
485

Holy cow, THE SUBSTANCE was amazing.

So this is a movie brave filmgoers should definitely see, but to quote reviewer PossessedbyHorror “This is the most body horror of body horror movies.”

However it’s thrilling in this new trend of horror by women that doesn’t pull punches and is exciting and amazing to watch.

If you are squeamish about gore or body-horror, this is not for you. This is not a scary movie as people think of with jumpscares. There are shocking and surprising scenes and images but there is no killer sneaking around. This is disturbing psychological horror akin to an elaborate Black Mirror techno-horror plot, and it reminded me a bit of Requiem for a Dream with its pulsing soundscape and subjective POV and imaginative cinematography. This also however is an absurd cautionary fairy tale with its stylized vision of Hollywood and how people live and things to say about the female experience where beautiful women in media are stamped with an “expiration date” whether they like it or not. It’s also got an ironic sense of humor in the way some of the best tragedy can. It’s been compared to The Picture of Dorian Gray meets Death Becomes Her and the remake of The Fly.

Don’t eat during this movie - aside from the body horror, there are some really visceral and disgusting closeup scenes of people cooking and eating food and smoking. I’m almost sure the early scene of Dennis Quaid eating shrimp is positioned as kind of a “you must have this much nausea tolerance to continue watching this movie”. Because later on you’ll see fingernails peeling off, teeth falling out, and the image that I can’t get over - two living eyeballs in the same socket. And much more. This movie keeps surprising you by crossing a line, then drawing another one and lumbering toward it.

Like Requiem this is a movie that will be personally confronting to certain people. The alternate literal title might be “Body Dysmorphia: The Movie”.

Elisabeth is an Oscar-winning actor who has become household famous for doing an aerobic workout TV show. She (Demi Moore in a fearless performance that deserves all the awards) is still stunningly gorgeous and fit doing the show on her 50th birthday, but her reprehensible producer fires her, wanting something new, fresh, hot, younger. Terrifying shenanigans ensue.

More specific plot details about THE SUBSTANCE, not major spoilers...

After surviving a car crash when she’s distracted seeing a billboard of her being torn down, she is given an opportunity to subscribe to a black-market beauty process called THE SUBSTANCE. (The process is fantastical science but presented in such a way that you can suspend your disbelief - especially with a slickly packaged but generic-seeming “easy as 1-2-3” kit that involves syringes and fluid drawing and re-injecting…) There’s a one-use activator that is injected and basically splits a person in two like a clone or a twin which is a new, fresh, dewy, and attractive copy since its cells haven’t weathered decades of aging and abuse. Elisabeth’s consciousness can now inhabit this new body - but only for 7 days at a time, during which “Sue” (as she re-identifies in her hot new body) must inject about an ounce of spinal-fluid drawn from the original body into herself daily to avoid breaking down. Her original body is dormant for that time and must be attached to an IV of hydration and nourishment included in the weekly subscription package to sustain it. After 7 days, “Sue” must “without exception” switch consciousness back and re-inhabit her original body and live as Elisabeth for another 7 days to re-generate the spinal fluid that was tapped from her before she can switch back to the fresh body for another week. Repeat ad-nauseam, don’t break the rules and remember the company’s repeated mantra YOU ARE ONE - she is one consciousness with two bodies she can wear like different outfits, but both bodies must be respected and maintained carefully.

4 Likes
486

We wanted to see The Substance in the theater, but the timing didn’t work out so we saw Smile 2, which I enjoyed immensely. It of course like so many horror movies becomes a hot mess eventually, but it had a scene that actually really scared me. And it would have been a horror movie without the supernatural smile curse, because it’s about the horribleness of being very famous. The main character is a young pop superstar doing a comeback tour after melting down spectacularly. Her life is terrifying and tragic and pathetic. Add in the smiling stuff and it actually gets close to being an allegory for the curse of demented fans and the curse of being a young woman who needs to please those demented fans. You’ll see the ending coming a million miles away, but it’s still pretty satisfying when it gets there. Recommend!

4 Likes
487

We saw the first Smile on TV a week ago! I liked it. Despite the heavy-handedness of the whole trauma-metaphor, it had a good scary feel and some really tanxious moments. It also had some bits where I couldn’t help but laugh. (The monster peeling off its skin.)

The ending twists were cool, but I wish it hadn’t gone so literal at the end.

488

I think this one is much better, although I liked the first one pretty well.

The metaphor in the second one works better, because pretty young pop stars have to smile, smile, smile, and crazed fans are always looming at them with crazy grins and everyone really is out to get you, and you never know who’s OK and who’s a monster.

This one gets lost in the muck near the end too, but redeems itself at the last gasp, although it’s predictable. It’s hard to end horror movies. It’s hard to end ANY narrative satisfactorily.

2 Likes
489

I saw Smile 2 with my friend two nights ago and we both regarded it as exceptional. Especially compared to the first one, which I still liked quite a bit. If Smile 2’s pre-finale is a little less extraordinary compared to all that’s come before, it’s certainly not any kind of mess like the end of the Substance was.

The direction in Smile 2 alone is a ten. It reminded me a lot of Kubrick. Holding shots, staying in front of faces, slow zooms and some tracking. You feel with the heroine, and also outside her the way she feels outside herself, and pans to and from her snap your attention in and out on threats and create this wall of paranoia around her that you’re going in and out of. To create a strong psychological reality through visuals and aesthetics like this, I think this is about as good as it gets. That she’s an A-list pop starlet whose family are involved in her business works as a great device to keep her isolated, because when she cuts off business and is alone, she is really alone, physically in empty bedrooms and hotel rooms, and mentally alone.

I’ve also rarely seen a film that played both sides of the horror film character’s struggles to convince anyone of their experience so effectively. You see this pop star treating people like garbage, and it reminds you of every bad brittle megastar you’ve seen, and you feel for those people, and you also feel for her because you’re on the inside, too. The tension is postioned right in the irreconcilable spot.

Naomi Wood’s performance is obviously terrific, and both her character’s behaviour and the whole film are considerably more extreme than the trailers would ever indicate.

The sound design I felt was something new, even to an audio ghoul like myself. Really non-sequiturial, great use of pitchbending. Visceral. And as my friend commented, the protagonist’s pop songs seem like a legit version of what Taylor Swift would be like if she was spookier – the naff lyrics of the song about the brain transplant being the only possibly parodic element.

I viewed the finale as a great example of a deathly feeling of inevitability, rather than predictable.

In other news, I loved the scene where she’s jacked-up-anxious in a bar, dressed incognito, talking to a stranger who’s trying to convince her she has a demon and he can kill her “safely”, and at the same time she’s being besieged by calls she’s ignoring on her rattling iphone. And eventually someone recognises her and instantly wants her to TikTok with them.

Another favourite scene is her meant-to-be-inspirational speech at the music fund night, where the teleprompter breaks and she’s left to ramble improvisedly, and goes off about her drug addiction. I mean there’s lots of all kinds of nightmare in this film, and scenes like this feel like the kind of non-supernatural nightmare people commonly have. I found it good-excruciating.

I wasn’t expecting too much from this film, but it’s a filmmaker’s evolution beyond the first one that made it possible. It’ll probably end up being my favourite film for this year.

I rarely say of any year, ‘This was a strong year for blah,’ but I’m moved to say that about this year and horror films at the cinema. Speak No Evil. Terrifier 3. Smile 2. Immaculate. And, to a slightly lesser extent, The Substance. Which, while I still found massively effective overall, it does seem to have a pretty fundamental logical flaw, and also, the end is a mess.

I agree with all this. But I disagree in that I think Smile 2 ends really well.

-Wade

1 Like
490

I have a soft spot for some of Troma’s not so great movies. I used to watch them on USA Up All Night. For younger viewers: They’re the 80’s equivalent of the garbage that comes out of The Asylum. I’d argue that Troma was a bit more original than The Asylum.

2 Likes
491

I do, too. But most of the ones I like weren’t made by Troma, only acquired for release by them, heh.

Okay, my softest spot for a film that Troma made themselves made is Sgt Kabukiman NYPD. If I recall right, this was the film they put their biggest commercial push into. I mean they screened it at Cannes more than once. They eventually had trouble because it was too graphic, and had to cut it to get a release. With the tone of the film being more something like an Ace Ventura, yeah, I think having too much icky violence was a mistake.

My favourite non-Troma-Troma films include Surf Nazis Must Die and Decampitated.

Wow, the trailer for Sgt Kabukiman is excellent. Much tighter than the film, and a legitimate target for one of those, ‘They showed me all the best parts in the trailer’ accusations.

Sgt Kabukiman NYPD trailer:

-Wade

2 Likes
492

OK, we finally saw this movie, and it was very fun.

This is probably the best description of it, except I’d say lumbering toward it, vomiting on it, and poking its eye out.

As a woman of a certain age, this did resonate a bit. Every woman who watches her youth and beauty fade can identify with the sadness here to a certain degree (although there ARE positives, and poor Elisabeth doesn’t seem to take advantage of any of them). What’s the difference between the male gaze on female bodies and the female gaze on female bodies? As any woman can tell you, the female eye is harsher. The men in this movie are contemptuous and dismissive of anyone post-menopausal, but the main character Elisabeth HATES herself for it. This movie literalizes self-hatred and self-destructiveness to a ridiculous degree. And the lusciousness of Sue is objectified to a nearly painful point, but it’s mostly for Elisabeth’s jealous eye instead of for the men, who are all bumbling, gross, stupid children. It’s weirdly unerotic for how explicit it is, because it’s meant to make another woman jealous, not to make a man excited.

And whoo, is that end a mess. A glorious mess that calls out to Carrie (although I don’t think Elisabeth and Sue have earned any sisterhood with Carrie) and the elephant man and Frankenstein. It was beyond absurd but it went so far down the rabbit hole that it kind of came out the other side looking OK to me.

I loved the movie (and omigod Demi Moore was fantastic in it) but I wish it had tried for a larger view of its message instead of hitting the same nail with a giant sledgehammer over and over.

5 Likes
493

The screenplay by director Coralie Fargeaut is so tight and knows exactly what it’s doing. She’s obviously a fan of a lot of horror, and the cinematography does that Kubrickian thing where a camera move or a lingering shot conveys volumes without dialogue. The opening montage with the Hollywood Walk of Fame star is brilliant and tells you everything about the main character you need to know before you meet her.

My favorite thing is how the film sets up two mantras that when ignored directly results in the chaos that ensues: The Company repeats YOU ARE ONE as a specific warning not to disassociate, and Elisabeth ends her workout show both as herself and Sue advising viewers to “take care of yourself” - a glib catchphrase which becomes ironic because she doesn’t follow her own advice. Her dysmorphia results in her emotionally and physically taking out her resentment and aggression on her other self in both directions since she loses track that they are both her. As Sue, she becomes careless with Elisabeth’s medical maintenance and steals time from her because she doesn’t want to go back with disastrous consequences. As Elisabeth, she blames Sue for doing this and begins sabotaging herself as Sue by overeating. Herself as Sue takes this personally and insults Elisabeth on TV as if she were a different person. Disregarding “you are one” and “take care of yourself” is what ultimately makes them two at war with each other.

My only very minor note...

…is that I’ve seen reviews and discussions that miss completely that Elisabeth and Sue aren’t different people with separate consciousnesses. It’s spelled out visually but easily missed since Elisabeth dissociates so immediately. I would have appreciated one tiny extra moment to nail it, like:

CASTING DIRECTOR: What’s your name, honey?
SUE: Elisabeth–
CASTING DIRECTOR: Really. That’s gonna be confusing–
SUE: Elisabeth-Sue. People call me Sue. I’m Sue.

494

I don’t know if she was ever on that track at all. I don’t think she was capable of it. The very desire to do it in the first place would destine you to fail, I think.

The women in my family are very, very big on plastic surgery. One of my earliest memories is of my mother getting an eyelid lift and looking really scary for a while. When asked how old he was at a party one time, my grandfather replied, “Old enough that all three of my daughters have had facelifts.” I remember when my eyelids fell when I was 45, and I found myself wondering if I should get an eyelid lift, and then being horrified because there I was, playing into the family dysmorphia and fear of aging, and where would that end? The desire to do it puts you on greased skids toward being one of those frozen-faced, parchment-skinned old ladies. Anyway, even rejecting all that, it’s really freaking hard to accept what happens to you. But most of us have SOMETHING besides our appearance to love about ourselves. This is my major objection to the film: that most women are at least a little fucked up about aging, and almost none of us are movie stars. I wish it had engaged with the universality of its horror a little more.

5 Likes
495

Continuing on THE SUBSTANCE:

At the beginning of the movie she seemed pretty well adjusted and happy in her role and it was the summary firing just because she hit an arbitrary number on her birthday that pulled the rug out from under her. It does make sense though that she was single, stuck in the past, and her only source of validation seemed to be her career and and adoration. I thought that the firing was what set it off leaving her feeling she had nothing left (though she never seemed concerned about money, I guess having had such a long career.) It does make sense that there were prior issues to get her into that situation where she thought her looks were the only important thing and she was on a narrow bridge. The scene where she can’t get away from the mirror before the date and then ghosts her former classmate was heart wrenching.

1 Like
496

Still on The Substance: (continuing conversation, spoilers)

Summary

I think the big flaw in the film presentation is that, at the most obvious level, the film treats them as if they are different people (as opposed to at some more elusive levels, that you @HanonO talked about). Which makes it look like there’s very little in the bargain for the Demi Moore half.

When one changes to the other, it makes a point that they have no memory of their actions as the other. They’re disgusted at what the other has been eating and doing when they walk through their apartment, and can’t remember a jot of it. In this case, how is Demi enjoying any of the experience of Qualley?

I just had to accept at some deep level, Moore is getting something from it, because we see she craves the change nevertheless. We could generously say this is a sort of dissassociative tradeoff of her misunderstanding that there’s only her – and I sort of have to do that to enjoy the film – but this is such a rules-based film, I feel it’s a pretty sizeable flaw that could easily have been addressed somehow.

-Wade

2 Likes
497

Also on The Substance and director, but non-spoilery:

I want to say thanks @AmandaB for sharing some personal experiences on the theme of the film.

Regarding its sledgehammeriness, if you read some interviews with the director (never essential for interpretation, obviously) she says she was driven by anger, so the result was probably never going to range outside the strength of that anger. It was interesting that neither Moore nor Qualley said they felt that same anger, when asked.

I’ve seen a previous Coralie Fargit film, Revenge (2017) (ostensibly a rape-revenge film, and I think one of the first things I ever watched on Shudder) and while I don’t remember it super well, I did give it an 8/10.

-Wade

1 Like
498

THE SUBSTANCE continuing

I think you totally nailed why it’s confusing. Why is she surprised by what she finds when she swaps? She did all of it. It might have made some sense if they explained that one of the side effects is delayed memory/temporary amnesia while your memory re-gathers - then she can be shocked and also guilty, and that would magnify why she hates her other form because she has time to “discover” what she’s done and then remember and feel guilty for it.

In fact, now that I think about it Sue having a turkey-leg appear under her butt-skin is surprising, but they’re only swapping consciousness so it actually doesn’t make sense that what Elisabeth eats has anything to do with Sue. Maybe they had to give her some way to affect what’s happening. It also makes it a little weird when Elisabeth relents before the termination is complete. Plus we know Elisabeth didn’t swallow that poultry-leg whole! So I guess metaphor and we’re not meant to take everything literally.

Still a great movie, I imagine we’re over-thinking and unraveling the metaphor in a stylized cautionary fairy-taie where we are hand-waving the magical fantasy science of consciousness-swapping and instant cloning and cell mutation…

[Edited to Add] I think Amanda the Jedi has thought it out a lot more. A lot of the movie should be taken as Elisabeth’s headspace and not literally. The turkey leg thing did not really happen AtJ says this is SuElisabeth’s conjured hallucination of anger at her[other]self binge-eating. The way this is designed and paced does have the vibe of a dream that’s subjective and symbolic and lacking detail if you think about it in place of imagery. If I try to read a book in my dream it’s either gibberish or just - something else distracts. Like how the billboard is patently unspecific just “Sue in Some Kind of Show” - it’s just to contribute to her mental torture. I’ve totally had dreams where I ruin something and every effort to try to fix it makes the situation absurdly worse…

3 Likes
499

Watched Grave of the Fireflies, which was very sad, though I have to say I didn’t expect it to end so soon. It was very good though.

Also watched Porco Rosso, which has a great setting. I watched it dubbed Spanish because I have an important Spanish exam coming up. Let me just say that the movie is completely different in Spanish. 3/4 of the lines they say are different - the old engineer tells Porco to not flirt with the man’s granddaughter. In the English subtitles, Porco replies “That’s the furthest thing from my mind right now.” In Spanish audio, he says “I’m a different man than I used to be.” Like, same sort of meaning, but a pretty different character?? There’s a real lot of that. Also Spanish dubbing in most anime movies has a really big problem with casting old ladies as girls, who speak really high pitched, making them sound 3 years old when they’re 13. And then the boys sound pretty normal. It’s a very weird thing, and sometimes makes movies unwatchable.

4 Likes
500

I watched The Last Starfighter (1984) yesterday. There’s a certain charm to it that I can’t quite put my finger on, but it’s not nostalgia.

6c1bd649-9f42-4dda-a8fc-a6db2d75096d
6c1bd649-9f42-4dda-a8fc-a6db2d75096d1920×2880 346 KB

The basic plot of an arcade machine being a recruitment tool for an interstellar war is still novel. The CGI looks like it’s from an early 3D videogame and inadvertently fits the theme perfectly for a modern viewing. The Gunstar ship design is functionally great and brilliantly supports 2 pilots working together (pilot and gunner) and serves as a great platform for the main character’s arc. The alien character of Grig is a joy to watch. Save for the protagonist, the cast is 2 dimensional, but they serve their purpose well. The music score is amazing. Lots of orchestral moments that make you appreciate the lack of an 80s synthesizer. :wink:

The movie also gets bonus points for calling the Gunstar’s special weapon attack “Death Blossom”. :smile:

The Last Starfighter (1984) → 8 / 10

2 Likes
501

I had assumed “Starfighter” was trademarked by the rights holders of Star Wars. But I guess that didn’t happen until 2010.

There was an earlier registration for “Star Wars Starfighter” in its entirety in the 2000s too. I actually had the PC game at the time.

It looks like the name was originally used for real military planes and didn’t belong to anyone?

502

Is it in the Last Starfighter where some character has to be replaced with a robot or alien while the protagonist is off having adventures? If it is, I remember I felt weird last time I watched it about how much time was spent on that subplot. I’m also having a memory I read up about this and found that they upped the amount of time for that subplot after test screenings or looking at the footage or something?

Quick check of wikipedia confirms it’s this movie, but I forget my source for the background info.

-Wade

1 Like
503

I do recall that they extended the screen time for the Beta Unit plot as well. I believe I watched that from a YouTube review years ago, actually.

Alex is replaced by a Beta Unit on Earth so that no one suspects he’s missing. There was a great scene where he hadn’t finished morphing into Alex yet. I smiled when he removed his head to fix his hearing problem and told a young Louis that he was having “a bad dream” and to go back to sleep. There’s another scene where he gets shot and you get to see some cool lights and bio-mechanical ooze from his wound. He tries to fit in socially and not ruin Alex’s relationship with Maggie (with some humour that didn’t quite land) and sacrificed himself to stop an alien transmission announcing that Alex was not on Earth. Because Robot Alex told Maggie everything, Maggie now worries about Alex and there’s more at stake emotionally in the movie. Everything he did served the main plot, for the most part.

I found that subplot actually made the movie more interesting. It was a bit strange that the robot had a slight character arc though… while the other characters (not named Alex) did not. Maybe that was why it was weird to some. He kind of had a change of heart… or something halfway through. I don’t remember exactly because there were lots of space ships and pew-pew-pewing to distract me. :wink:

1 Like