Monthly Archives: October 2024
The Particular Joy of Bad Movies
Some real stinkers
I read the funniest book recently; the good doctor’s book was absolutely entertaining, even though I haven’t seen even one of the movies he discusses:
I kept laughing out loud. And coincidentally, I’ve watched two absolutely terrible movies with my husband in the last two weeks. I’ve discovered that there are particular pleasures of watching something that’s so bad, it’s entertaining.
Yup. Aquaman II, a Jason Momoa Sinker
Aquaman two, which has a longer name involving Atlantis, is the first of the two terrible movies. I watched the first outing in the theater, and enjoyed it because Jason Momoa is a very attractive man who seems to not take himself very seriously. That’s an enjoyable combination. Was the movie sort of goofy? Oh of course it was goofy, it was Aquaman for god’s sake. But, according to Wikipedia, this didn’t matter.
Aquaman premiered in London on November 26, 2018, and was released in the United States on December 21. While the film received mixed reviews from critics, it grossed $1.152 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing DCEU film, the highest-grossing film based on a DC Comics character, the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2018, and (at the time of its release) the 20th highest-grossing film of all time. – Wikipedia
This movie was a romp. A forbidden love, a reluctant chosen one, acres of wildly CGI-ed sea creatures, lots of bubbles and location changes and above all, Jason Momoa looking very Momoan.
I’m for it. So I was very ready for the sequel, not ready enough to pay to see it in a theater, but ready enough to watch it when it hit streaming. Well, we enjoyed it, but not how the producers intended, I am sure.
First, the look of the thing: This movie had the look of bad AI art from beginning to end. It was so blatantly CGI that they should have just scanned the actors’ faces and done the whole thing on the computer. The most distracting aspect was watching the actors’ hair waving around underwater. It looked so strange and blatantly fake that it was distracting. But with a movie this bad, maybe it’s okay to be distracted from it.
Second, the writing: The plot is so senseless that I was grateful for the titles telling me where we were in any given scene. It didn’t mean I knew WHY we were there, but there we were. The beginning part of the movie leans in hard on the kind of humor you either loved or hated in the third and fourth Thor movies (I loved it, I’m a Waititi fan, and yes I know that’s Marvel, but that’s clearly what they were going for). Then they leaned in on Action Drama, so the shift in tone was jarring. And the dialog was…just awful. It’s supposed to be dramatic (I think) when Aquaman yells, “Stay away from my son!” It isn’t. The dialog is so bad that Orm actually says, “Arthur, we need to go. The magic is broken.”
Yup. He says that. “The magic is broken.”
Third, the acting: Jason is one of those actors who can turn in a perfectly respectable performance if he’s directed well, and if he stays in his lane. Like any actor, he requires a decent script. He was definitely in his lane, so I blame the writing and directing for this mess. And speaking of acting, it is painful to watch Nicole Kidman phone in her lines in this mess.
Fourth, Amber Heard: For those of you who live under the sea with Aquaman, Heard is in career trouble since her court appearance with Johnny Depp. Apparently she not only lost the case, she also lost her reputation such as it was. And she complained loudly about being edited out of this movie, in which she was supposed to play an important role. I mean, she really let the world know that she was no longer in Aquaman II. But I saw her repeatedly in this movie. For about three seconds at a time. She’d flash on for a moment, do.a thing, then disappear! And every time I saw her, I turned to my husband and said, “There she is…I don’t see what she’s complaining about.” It was like a drinking game.
Manta: After much scheming, thieving, growling, and violence, when he finally appears in his power suit (which is incredibly well-named as the “Power Suit”) Manta looks like a big, cute, mechanical kittycat.
There are belly laughs to be had in this movie, just not where they were intended. I suggest you watch it a little bit under the influence.
And for the season: Dracula via Coppola, in search of a detour
Yes, this one. I’d recently read an article about Coppola’s best and worst movies, and somehow this made the list of best. Or maybe it was the worst. Or maybe the writer was just saying it wasn’t that bad.
It was that bad.
But let me backtrack. I’ve been reading Dracula Daily again this year. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a Substack where an editor has taken apart the book and reassembled it in consecutive order. What a brilliant idea. I mean, have you ever actually read Bram Stoker’s Dracula? Once you leave behind Jonathon Harker’s journal (which is FANTASTIC), the book is almost unreadable. A friend suggested this as a way to get through the rest of it and it’s helped a great deal. I’m actually reading it for the second time this way, and I plan to read it a third time next year. I even bought the book, available for a reasonable price on Amazon: Dracula Daily. (no, I don’t get any money for recommending it).
So I’ve been in a Dracula frame of mind, and then I read that article or one like it, so I suggested we watch this last night. My husband agreed. We settled in with the lights off and the volume up to witness the spectacle. And what a spectacle it was.
I found myself saying, “That was not in the book,” repeatedly. “Just so you know, that was not in the book.” Especially the more aggressively sexual bits. And of course in the book, Mina is in thrall to Dracula but she’s not HOT for him like she is in this movie. How did this become a love story between Mina and Dracula?
My husband had a theory about that. I’ve never seen the Lugosi film, but hubby loved it as a kid. He explained that tortured romantic plot points from that classic were incorporated into this version. So Coppola took the book, mixed in the movie, and added a bunch of writhing half-naked women vampires for good measure. There’s also an overwhelming and emotionally instructive score. Wow, my favorite.
I’m not saying this movie is bad. I’m saying it’s horrible.
The book feels endless at times, especially when Stoker is indulging in his great love for spoken monologs in obscure accents on the part of his characters, so I should have enjoyed the movie’s ruthless trimming. But there was so much story told in such a rapid, herky-jerky fashion that it felt almost rude, like I was being manhandled, ruthlessly bumped from here to there. And yet…the movie DRAGGED. How could something that truncated feel so endless?
It was Gothic and melodramatic and really, really goofy. My god, the cowboy. He’s absurd in the book but this was so ridiculous. My husband was surprised by how cheap certain things looked, especially the London sets and Keanu’s grey wig. We were both appalled by the heart-shaped white wig the Count wears at the beginning. To quote hubby, “I’m calling that a miss.” I’m drawing a direct line between that wig and Manta’s Power Suit headpiece. It’s a heart. It’s kitty ears. It’s wrong.
I did like the costumes for the most part. Young Vlad is done up in steampunk glory, I mean, he looks fantastic. Mina’s dresses are gorgeous, as are Lucy’s before she dons the diaphanous red. In the first scene where I saw Lucy Westenra’s wedding dress, I couldn’t quite understand it. It seemed to have little to do with the dresses of the day. But once she rose from her crypt to begin feasting on children, it was fantastic. Here is an interesting look at that dress and its inspiration.
So yes, I liked the clothes. So that’s something. But my overall question is, how did any of these actors survive this movie, career-wise?
They weren’t all terrible. Anthony Hopkins was undeniably perfect as Van Helsing; matter of fact, self-satisfied, and calm. Thank god he didn’t talk as much in the movie as he does in the book, because when Van Helsing gets going in the book I want to throw it across the room. And Gary Oldman was great, creepy, disgusting, occasionally quite sexy in his youthful guise, but the accent? It was so thick and gooey in his vampire mouth! Please, why?
As for the rest of them, Hubby says that those were all promising young actors at the time, and they all bought in. They saddled up and chewed the scenery to wood pulp. But why?
HOWEVER. Tom Waits was fantastic as Renfield from start to finish, top to bottom. He is excused from my general condemnation of this strange, silly movie. I hate reading about Renfield in the book, I really do, but he was the highlight of this film. He was maybe the grossest highlight I’ve ever experienced, but Waits was brilliant.
That is all. And don’t cry for me, Argentina. We also watched American Fiction last week, and I loved it.
Divination; Tarot Cards, Ouija Boards, and a Psychic
Ouija Boards
Despite an interest in methods of divination that peaked when I was 19–tarot cards, astral travel, palmistry–I have never touched a Ouija board. This has nothing to do with fear, and more to do with coming of age around Christians in Arkansas and Montana. My friends’ families would never have permitted this cursed instrument in their homes, so there were no breathless sleepovers wherein we queried the spirit world about our futures.
My own mother would never have wanted one in the house. Mom believed in magical thinking, but she did not believe in magic. She found the idea of communing with spirits backwards and distasteful. My grandparents, who had a heavy influence in our home until I was eleven or so, would have considered the Ouija board to be an instrument of Mortal Mind. For those of you who are not Christian Scientists, Mortal Mind is incorrect thought, and incorrect thought stands between humanity and the beautiful perfection of God.
Apparently, that included the Ouija board. Even so, I had seen the board somewhere and dismissed it out of hand as a hoax. Someone was pushing around that planchette. I knew it wasn’t a spirit.
Tarot Cards
Ouija aside, I was very interested in the psuedo-sciences of divination when I was 18 through 20. I especially loved the tarot. I don’t believe there is any actual fortune-telling going on, but they are a fantastic narrative-building tool. And the cards are so interesting. I had a Thoth deck that troubled me and I gave it away early. Now, why did it trouble me if it didn’t contain any actual power? I have no idea. It just felt wrong, and I wanted it gone. But I kept the Ryder deck.
At 21, I married a fearful lapsed Catholic. I was a fairly upstanding citizen but he told me I was going to hell on the regular (I just laughed). He would object strenuously if he saw that yellow box come out of the desk drawer. Like so many other things he objected to, I left it alone for years and years. I got rid of my desk eight years ago, when Dad bought me a huge new TV and I had to make room. There’s a chance that deck is still around here somewhere in a box with a stapler, some sticky note pads, a ruler and a hole punch. But I stopped laying out those cards decades ago.
And…a Psychic!
Despite my general disregard for anything metaphysical, spiritual, or occult, I did accept a reading from Char, Psychic to the Stars. A friend swore by Char’s readings and wanted me to have one as a birthday present. I wrote down notes from the reading (which happened over the phone) in a notebook I can’t find. If you’ve seen my bookshelves lately, you understand why I can’t find that notebook. But I digress.
Here, to the best of my recollection, is what Char told me.
I asked after my kids. She identified each daughter by inaccurate initials, which was strange. Like, “Your daughter whose name begins with C and ends with E” would get through her hard times and “come through” for me. Char repeated several times that this daughter would “come through for me.” Another daughter “whose name begins with an M and ends with an E” needed to leave home and travel far away to figure out who she is and find her path. Char couldn’t get a read on my third daughter. She was still very young at this point, eight years old, and apparently that can be hard to read.
I was confused, as the girls’ names don’t correspond with these initials, but I just kind of went with it and took notes. Then, I shyly asked her about publication. This was around the time I was forty and I still had great hopes that my first Gentry would find a big audience and be made into splashy prestige television (Orlando Bloom/Michelle Pfeiffer if you’re wondering). She told me that I would have some success later in life through a non-traditional publishing method, but that I would never be a big selling writer, just a modest presence through a non-traditional route.
Aside from my kids and my books, I really didn’t have much more to ask. These were my pressing concerns that year. So at this point, Char took over and started telling me stuff.
Char Receives Symbols
Char explained that she saw letters, numbers and symbols. She said she was getting symbols for a man in my life named Taliban, which really made no sense to her, but that was what was coming through. She said he was trouble and I probably needed therapy to get rid of him. I told her I knew who she was talking about, but I don’t think I told her any specifics, just that I knew who she meant.
Char also warned me about someone whose name started with C and ended with E. Those match my sister, but she said this was not sister energy, and that I needed to keep away from this person at all costs. Like, don’t do a spoken break, but “back away.” When this person called, I should go ring my own doorbell or set off my oven timer so I’d have to end the call. Isn’t that folksy and commonsense? It’s also useful. I’ve used this trick a few times and it works!
I was shocked when she asked me if I had a recently deceased friend. I said, yes, yes I did. She said she died in water and her body was found in trees. I didn’t confirm anything, i just listened. Apparently my friend’s spirit was there with Char and wanted me to know that she was okay, and that everyone should calm down about bringing her killer to justice. She said the truth would come out when the killer’s current wife left him and finally decided to talk.
Char ended the conversation by telling me that I was a rare person in that if I worked on it, I could achieve all the components of a happy life. Love, family, friends, career, creative fulfillment, all of it. That this balance was very rare, but I could attain it. I don’t know if this is something she said to everyone, but it was nice to hear.
Was Char Right?
I have thought about this reading on and off through the years. Some of it has come true, and some of it hasn’t.
- If you know my kids, you know those initials don’t correspond with their names. The initials actually correspond to their middle names. And just as Char said, my oldest daughter has come through for me, and my middle girl did have to go to NYC to find her way.
- I am not a bestselling author, but I do have a modest published presence out there in the world. So modest. But it’s there.
- The Taliban man was someone I called Tall Man to my friends (he is 6’8” and to be clear, he has absolutely no ties to the Taliban). You know those relationships where you’re working something out, something that’s necessary to work out, but when you look back you just can’t believe you did all that? Yes. This was one of those.
- The “C-E” person was a young friend on a downward spiral who would have loved to move in with me when her life fell apart. That did not happen. She was in a homeless shelter when she died of an overdose in 2004.
- My friend’s body was found on the banks of the Tualatin River, which is full of trees. It’s been 26 years since her death and her killer has never been brought to justice. From what I understand, the person of most police interest has a miserable and isolated life. Maybe that’s a type of justice?
- I do have a balanced life with all the components of happiness. And most of the time, I am indeed happy. Except for when I’m not.
So, I should believe in psychics, I guess.
My Doubts
I was gifted this reading from a friend who talked to Char regularly. My friend could have spoken to her about my life. There’s also the unfiltered full-strength internet, which would have had details on my daughters. That’s where she could have found information about Debbie’s disappearance and death, including a photo of me at her funeral in the local paper. But the Internet was still starting out back then. Not every single thing was online, especially not the photos from the Tualatin Times or whatever dinky little paper had that photo.
But still. Come on. Isn’t that eerie?
I’m a born skeptic. In my mind, the reading exists in a liminal space, shading from disbelief to belief, what came true and what didn’t. She didn’t get anything wrong. I’m very glad I experienced it and have never done it again.
What I do know about psychic stuff
(I said stuff in the header because it’s really hard to type phenomenon)
I always know who is calling me when I hear the phone ring. Always.
I often know when friends are in crisis.
I can totally read a dog’s mind.
Other than that, it’s probably all hokum.