Sunshine and Lollipops
Inktober Challenge Week 4
Here we are, at the end of my little excurse into producing honest-to-God content. The initial high of my brilliant idea, and the subsequent eventual low of no-one reading my daily musings on all sorts of movies, both have left me in a somewhat in-between state of mind. I still think that the idea was good, in a way it was even fun, and certainly informative.
I learned a lot about my own boundaries and the limits of my abilities. I learned how to put out writing of which I’m not insanely proud, because there’s simply no time for perfection. I learned that Instagram maybe shouldn’t be my first choice in promoting my mostly text-based work (although I have video-based plans for the new year, so stay tuned). Most of all, I learned how to cope with failure and even derive some sense of hope from it.
Feeling like a loser is not fun or uplifting in the slightest, but there is something cathartic in analyzing this feeling. Really engaging with not being able to finish the challenge, as well as with the fact that I put myself out there and failed miserably, unexpectedly grounded me in a new reality. I am now, more than ever, determined to find some kind of success as a writer. I finally understood what kind of writer and, yes, content creator I want to be. I finally understood the honesty of failure and the importance of it.
P.S.: Read to the end for bonus content :)
22. From Scratch (2022)
From Scratch is a Netflix original series created by Attica and Tembi Locke and adapted from Tembi Locke’s memoir of the same name. It stars Zoe Saldaña as main character Amy and Eugenio Mastrandrea and Giacomo Gianniotti as Lino and Giancarlo respectively, Amy’s two love interests, at least for the first episode.
The series consists of 8 episodes in total, of which I’ll be reviewing the first one, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
The first episode “First Tastes” sees Amy, a soon-to-be law student, arrive in Florence for a 14-day art course, which is not further specified or fleshed out. Amy is an artist at heart and needs the course to confirm for herself that she doesn’t want to go to law school, as her father demands, but actually wants to go to New York to work as an artist. It also seems that Amy doesn’t know a lot about art in general, as we don’t see her going to museums or studying the classics, while visiting her class.
In the course of her two weeks in the city, she meets chef Lino, who immediately lays an eye on her and tries to seduce her with his simple charms and good food, as well as Giancarlo, a rich gallery owner who takes her to Caravaggio’s apartment on their first date.
Unfortunately, as soon as the men enter the plot, Amy herself becomes a side character, secondary to the love story. Her interest in art, her ambitions to get her works into the final exhibition at the end of the class and her aspirations become sidelined by the mystery of what man she’ll choose at the end of her stay in Florence. Indeed, all characters become flat, as soon as the romance plot takes over.
Lino, whom Amy rejects several times, telling him over and over again that she wants to be friends and nothing more, gets increasingly agitated as the plot progresses, acting possessive and at one time confronting Amy over bringing her parents to his restaurant, but not introducing them, instead bringing her boyfriend to meet them (how dare???). As he confronts her in front of her apartment, lamenting that they definitely “have something”, she rejects him again and he dramatically “breaks up” with her.
At the end of the episode, Amy gets her art into the final exhibition, although we don’t know what her artistic process even looks like, as by now we’re not privy to any thoughts of hers which don’t concern the men in her life. Lino decides to grace the exhibition with his presence, having told her earlier that he doesn’t want to see her again, and Amy leaves the exhibition, where her teacher is more than ready to introduce her to important people in the art world (which would come in handy, if you want to work as an artist), to run after him. The end.
My first impression of the series didn’t exactly motivate me to watch any further. The lazy love triangle and the trope of a woman losing interest in anything she likes as soon as a man enters the picture is so old and overwrought that it’s not even worth getting mad at, and the possessive angry man trope, wherein male violence is confused with undying passion, is just disturbing and deserves to finally die.
23. Star Blazers 2199 – Space Battleship Yamato – Odyssey of the Celestial Arc (2014)
Odyssey of the Celestial Arc was directed by Yutaka Izubishi and Makoto Bessho. It’s a sequel to the military science fiction anime series Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199, which ran from 2012 to 2013.
Yamato is a typical space opera, very reminiscent of Star Trek, even having its own original series from 1974. The show, as well as the movie sequel, concern the crew of the state-of-the-art space battleship Yamato as they wage war with the Gamilas, a militaristic alien race, keen on conquering Earth.
At the beginning of “Odyssey” the war has been won and an accord between the races has been struck, which leaves no less animosity on both sides. On its return journey to Earth, the Yamato, bruised and missing its main weapon, encounters the Gatlantians, a suspiciously Klingon-like race, who seek to fill the void the Gamilas have left after being defeated.
The Yamato gets attacked by the Gatlantians and has to flee to a nearby planet. While exploring it, the away team stumbles upon the original Yamato, the sea battleship which inspired the eponymous spaceship, that for all intents and purposes should’t be there. On entering, the team finds an old-timey hotel inside and three Gamilas, who tell them that there’s no way out.
The rest of the film is set in the hotel, as the unlikely allies try to escape their predicament and solve the mystery of their entrapment.
Although I didn’t understand a lot of the references to the show, the background information and the new story unfolding in the hotel were well-balanced, and I managed to enjoy the fraught character dynamics between enemies that have so very recently become allies.
Their conflict was fought on an emotional rather than space battle level, as they learned to trust each other and work together to solve the mystery. The final space battle against the villainous Gatlantians was epic, however, and the two races uniting against a common foe brought tears to my eyes.
All in all, the sequel absolutely stands on its own and can be enjoyed by anyone. It also made me want to watch the show as well.
24. Shallow Grave (1994)
Shallow Grave was directed by Danny Boyle and stars Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston and Ewan McGregor as friends and flatmates Juliet Miller, David Stephens and Alex Law.
In their search for a fourth flat mate for their huge and weirdly empty apartment in Edinburgh, Juliet, David and Alex are not stingy with acerbic commentary about all the applicants they encounter. Granted, they’re also mean to each other, which constitutes a close friendship in the UK (I guess).
As they finally find a suitable candidate, the charming and kind of creepy Hugo, he promptly dies in his bed and leaves behind a suitcase full of cash. The three friends find him and, after some very short deliberation, decide to get rid of the body and keep the cash.
What follows is a great suspense thriller. While the other two are coping by indulging their hedonism, David, who had to dismember the body, gets increasingly paranoid. He hides the money in the attic and moves there permanently, like a dragon defending its hoard.
Meanwhile, Alex and Juliet, first annoyed and then disquieted by David’s behavior, plan to kill him, but fail miserably. David, meanwhile, having already killed two more goons to protect the money, not only transforms from bookworm to wyrm, but becomes unpredictable in his erratic behavior, as everything comes to a terrifying conclusion.
The soundtrack by Simon Boswell underlines David’s unraveling as well as the corrosion of the friendship with well crafted suspenseful music that haunts the empty corridors and rooms of the trio’s apartment and David’s creepy attic. As David’s mental state grows more and more unstable and Juliet and Alex start to eye him and each other with murderous suspicion, the flat seems to expand and warp like a haunted house, while the mostly primary colors adorning the walls and furniture begin to resemble a creepy nursery.
The characters have great chemistry, both during their time of tentative peace as well as during the time when their friendship starts to deteriorate. McGregor, Fox and especially Eccleston play the characters with youthful charm, but enough flaws to later expand on and have them be the trio’s downfall.
Overall, I very much enjoyed Shallow Grave. A perfect psychological suspense thriller for the Halloween season.
25. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
“Confessions” is based on TV host Chuck Barris' “unauthorized autobiography”, published in 1984. It was directed by George Clooney and stars Sam Rockwell as Chuck Barris, Drew Barrymore as Penny Pacino, George Clooney as Jim Byrd, and Julia Roberts as Patricia Watson.
Chuck Barris is an ever-horny, mediocre, but driven young man, who wants to make it in television. With the power of pure audacity, he gets to produce his own show named The Dating Game, which becomes so popular that he becomes a household name in showbiz.
Meanwhile, in spite of his philandering and hedonistic tendencies, he also gets recruited as an assassin by the CIA, whose directives he fulfills while traveling for his show. As his assignment in East Berlin goes awry, Chuck has to think fast, as a mole threatens his colleagues' and his own lives.
The movie is a great black comedy. In fact, the macabre absurdist assassin story and Chuck’s slow decline into enjoying the wetwork gels so well with the storyline of him becoming the king of low brow entertainment that I found myself in a perpetual cycle of laughter and terror.
The actors have perfect comedic timing (Rockwell rocks!), weaving the comedy throughout their characters, while never veering too far from a grounded performance, which makes the characters interesting and multi-layered.
As the CIA always denied Barris’ employment, the movie plays with its unreliable narrator brilliantly, illustrating the blurred lines between the entertainment industry and how Chuck portrays his patriotic duty. It’s stylized, sultry and full of people wearing mask upon mask.
Once again, I was reminded of three things: how good George Clooney is as a director, how beautifully subtle and funny his movies are, and that his collaborations with Julia Roberts are perfect and they should stay friends forever.
26. First Cousin Once Removed (2012)
“First Cousin” is a documentary showing the last years of the life of Jewish-American poet Edwin Honig as he succumbs to Alzheimer’s disease. The movie was made for HBO by his first cousin once removed Alan Berliner.
In painful, deliberately uncomfortable close-ups, we meet Edwin Honig at the end his life. He is frail and, as he says himself, doesn’t have much of a memory anymore. Still, there’s a trembling soul in the mist of a horrible disease, and this movie captures it beautifully.
Alan’s warmth towards Edwin mixes with his grief, as he and his family live through the loss of their loved one in real time. Meanwhile Edwin, while losing his past and then present, retains the perspective of a poet and sees beauty even in the loss of memory.
Honig’s words, his gestures and silences reveal the liminal world between memory and poetry, for what is a poem if not a speck of fixed emotion – frozen in time forever? Consequently, this movie adds to Honig’s voice the voices of his loved ones, with their own lyricism – their own memories.
His final advice to the audience: Remember how to forget.
A sublime and devastating movie about memory, loss and love, “First Cousin” had me in tears for the entirety of its relatively short runtime. If you watch just one movie out of the 31 that I reviewed this month, let it be this one.
27. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)
Rise of the Beasts was directed by Steven Caple Jr. and stars Anthony Ramos as Noah Diaz, Dominique Fishbacker as Elena Wallace, as well as Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime, Pete Davidson as Mirage, Ron Perlman as Optimus Primal, Michelle Yeoh as Airazor and Peter Dinklage as Scourge.
We open on the home planet of the Maximals, the eponymous beasts rising, as it is being eaten by Unicron, a planet-devouring being of immense power. As a Hail Mary pass, Optimus Primal, robot gorilla dude, and his companions activate a universe-jumping plot-defining thingamajig, which Unicron was after, and escape to Earth.
On Earth, at his wits’ end as to how to pay his brother’s medical bills, former soldier Noah Diaz turns to crime. As he tries to steal an expensive-looking car, however, it promptly transforms into Mirage, an alien Autobot (one of the protagonists of the Transformers franchise). Meanwhile, museum intern Elena Wallace accidentally breaks an ancient statue, believed to be Horus, and reveals a crystal hidden inside it, which promptly sends an energy pulse into the heavens.
Noah, Elena, Autobots and Maximals converge, only to discover that Earth is in mortal peril and it’s on them to stop its destruction.
After First Cousin Once Removed utterly devastated me, this movie was the right amount of mindless fun to bring me back to life.
The new lead Noah Diaz is much more charismatic and fun to watch than former Transformers main character Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), and the robots were fine, even having some actual character moments, with Noah and Mirage’s friendship being quite believable. Co-lead Elena Wallace, the exasperated fish-out-of-water archeologist, is also a lot of fun and almost totally inoffensive.
The Maximals were nice to look at, but there was suspiciously little actual rising of the beasts, as the movie was still ostensibly about the Autobots. Nevertheless, the last epic battle between Scourge, Unicron’s goon in charge, and our heroes felt appropriately grand.
The action is fast-paced, the morals are black and white, and my brain felt like it was in a spa.
Thanks, I loved it!
28. The Sparks Brothers (2021)
The Sparks Brothers was directed by Edgar Wright and tells the story of Sparks, an avantgarde pop duo consisting of brothers Ron and Russell Mael.
The Sparks Brothers is a thorough, smart and compassionate documentary about a band who never compromised their artistic vision, no matter the cost.
Also, in typical Edgar Wright fashion, it’s fun. The different phases of Ron and Russell’s career are illustrated via all kinds of animation, including claymation, photos and videos of the band in their early years, as well as celebrities and fans talking about how Sparks is the awesomest band ever.
However, the best thing about this documentary is seeing two artists uncompromisingly create art for five decades straight. Unlike a lot of bands of their era, the brothers are still creating new music, relentless in their pursuit of not financial, but creative success.
Sparks’ weirdness and creative professionalism is a great reminder that one doesn’t have to earn money with creativity; that it’s a basic human right to create and enjoy art, without capitalist expectations or limitations.
Here's to Ron and Russell. May they stay weird! 🤘
✨BONUS ROUND✨
29. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Character-driven drama or action buddy comedy? - Well, why not both!
Nicholas Cage reflects on his illustrious career, while simultaneously (hilariously) making fun of himself, as he expresses his love for cinema and everything that it entails. Him and Pedro Pascal have great and extraordinarily joyous chemistry, which elevates this absolutely vibes-based movie to something greater than it had any right to be.
Touching, exciting and just a little bit cringe - that’s how I like my Cage!
30. Rush Hour (1998)
It’s a visceral pleasure to watch Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan play off of each other. Both are incredibly physical, and while Tucker never stops moving, talking, dancing, Chan’s initial restraint just adds to the explosion of joy once he starts punching people.
I think there’s also a plot or whatever, but it pathetically fades away when faced with the enormous screen presence of its stars.
30. Fire Walk With Me (1992)
This movie clearly deserves a full review (I’ll get to it - promise).
“She’s dead, wrapped in plastic.”
This is how David Lynch’s groundbreaking show Twin Peaks starts.
Who is she? Why is she dead? Why the plastic?
Well, Fire Walk With Me is here to answer all these questions.
In an intimate look of Laura Palmer’s last days before her murder, the prequel to Twin Peaks paints a horrific picture of abuse, suffering and dissociation. Lynch doesn’t shy away from making the audience uncomfortable in showing the full scope of Laura’s pain, while maintaining a fully empathetic view of her as a person. Laura is neither fetishised, nor sexualized — the gaze is firmly directed towards her inner turmoils, even if she’s shown in sexual situations.
Lynch is acutely aware of a prequel’s framework of inevitability, and so he shows Laura locked in a chronological prison with the audience’s knowledge of what is to come bearing down on her. And so we watch her struggle against it with every fiber of her body until it’s time for her to fail.
In the end, I felt complicit, as though my watching the movie made Laura’s suffering, murder and subsequent careless dumping of her body into the river, wrapped in plastic, reality.