#I want the 2010's back it was such a fun unhinged time | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theglguidetowebcomics · 3 years

Text

Full review: Girly

What’s Pink, insane, NSFW, hilarious, and somehow heartwarming at points? This comic is a ride and a half, and I’m genuinely surprised more people haven’t heard of this one… I’ve been wanting to talk about this one for a WHILE.

So let’s talk about the elephant in this room… Because I think it just ate someone’s couch.

Slightly NSFW review with spoilers below.

Girly, by Jackie Lesnick was a webcomic that ran between 2003 and 2010, (and really has some of those early webcomic hallmarks). Its monochromatic pink, vertical, with a poppy early cartoon feel. It’s also listed as a romantic comedy, which is… correct, but cuts a whole lot of what makes this comic good, short.

This review was always going to be one of the 4 I really struggled with. And not just because I lost it the first time without a back up in a code glitch, got distracted by a pandemic, then procrastinated my way to finally making a second version in my new backup folder… No, well also yes but no. This was a comic I read when I was younger (and should NOT have read when I was younger), and have always had a soft spot for. I’ll admit as much as this comic has its flaws or weird moments or just weirdness in general, its one of the few comics I’ve found myself rereading in its entirety more than once. And no matter how much I know it's coming, find myself sobbing, uncontrollably, at the final panel. There’s surprisingly a lot of heart in this comic, and a whole lot of honesty in just the direction the author took this weird little thing. But, first let me take of those rose tinted glasses as much as I can… (actually that might not work too well with a pink comic seriously whats with all these early 2000s lesbian comics being PINK?). And give this old comic a look and a bit of a dust. but , first...

Sex.

Getting to the point - page 3 of “Girly”

Girly is a NSFW comic. It’s not shy about it either. It hits the audience (and the main character) over the head with it literally in the first pages. It has sex positive characters, a sex positive world, some characters with… sex powers almost, and Dildos, a whole lot of dildos. Some even with smiley faces on them. It’s a pretty unavoidable part of the comic that makes up a large core of it’s humour and is baked into its wacky world. So if that’s not your thing, and it’s not really skippable in this case, you won’t like this comic.

But, if you’re alright with that part of it this might just be a hidden gem. Moving on.

Art

Artwork is always interesting in webcomics. They’re usually one man shows, have a weird niche / strong influences, and or usually go on massive journeys as the art improves. Girly is no different here.

Girly starts out rough. Some poses are wonky and its a bit scratchy. Technically speaking it has a few issues, which is fine. Its a free webcomic, from the 2000s that didn't copy and paste faces. (Won’t name names, you know who you are). You can’t be too harsh on a free comic, though.

However, what the art style does, even early on is set the style and feel of the comic. Anime inspired faces, bold outlines, and blocky silhouettes that were really popular with 90’s and 2000s cartoons. It has a newspaper, manga comedy strip vertical style, too. It fits the style of story well as a poppy wacky story. It's the perfect art style it could take.

Its rough in the beginning, but moves on from its scratchy days, to loose pen brush, to finally a polished free hand poppy style. It gets more technically advanced as it goes along, but it keeps its core style throughout. It’s fun, a little unhinged, and just pares perfectly.

The one issue I have with the art is it comes off as a bit cramped. It certainly matches the energy of the story, but it also feels like it doesn't let the characters have any breathing room in the frame. It comes off as squashed, and can make some character poses hard to read. That’s the only complaint I can find though. The issue even fixes itself later in the story, but just very very close to the end. It looks great there, but the majority of the comic is a little cramped. Still that’s just a small complaint.

Nitpicking here but some panels need a lil more room

This a humour comic foremost. It's the biggest part of what makes Girly specifically Girly.

Humour

The humour is mostly wacky nonsense, playing off its insane characters, physics defying world, everything being dialed up to 11. It also works a lot like satire, poking at what influences it, and playing with cinematic expectations. The first page has Otra shooting someone into space on a rocket because they annoyed them, the first “adventure” the character’s go on is stealing everyone’s pants because they couldn’t find anything else to do. Then there’s the kidnapping adventures, knight trials, and slice of life shenanigans that happen. All of it as wacky as the last. I haven’t really found any other lesbian comics like it. Its not everyone’s tastes, but it is certainly unique.

If you’re into a willy wonka tunnel of over the top characters and plots, you’ll like Girly.

Characters

Girl is a LONG comic, it ran for 7 years. The art evolved, the story writing, jokes, and themes along with it. It was originally meant to run for only 50 strips... and it ended up with 764.

so, there’s a lot to unpack.

Firstly, the premise of the story is somewhat simple. It focuses on Otra. The kinda straight man to the entire universe. She starts out almost depressed, out of place, and bored of the wacky inhabitants of her world. Until one of those wacky residents smacks her over the head with a giant dildo and won’t leave her alone for the next 7 years of run time.

What follows is the sullen Otra being pulled around by the always cheery and zany nonsensical Winter as the sidekick for bizarre adventures. Otra’s depressive grounded view keeps the bizarreness funny, while Winter cuts through her negative attitude and causes a lot of the over the top plot. Leaving Otra to warm up to the world, and Winter to get less reckless as they balance eachother out. It’s a fun dynamic, and works as an emotional core of the story. No matter how weird the plot and rules of the world are, their relationship keeps the story somewhat focused and rewarding to see develop.

An example of bold wacky character designs from even early on

The comic isn’t just about them, though. As an ensemble comic there's plenty of side characters that go through arcs and beats as well. From el chubacabre, the man that woman find so irresistible that they sleep with him as soon as they see him; detective Clapjaw the street wise detective who is very bad at his job; Officer Hipbone and police guy from the cute P D; captain fist the ever popular bad at his job superhero who gets all the credit; the news reporter obsessed with captain fist; the woman with babies; Steak; the elephants that just… appear and eat buildings; among many many others. A lot of whom also have nicely written character arcs and depth in later chapters. Many of the character however are simple and remain simple, which isn’t a bad thing. For such a large cast, having a diverse range of strange characters with strong identities and looks even if a bit simple stops it from getting bogged down. It strikes a good balance. Plus there’s plenty enough of characters with more depth later on.

All the character’s are insane, and over the top in a way that really sets up the world they live in and how it works... as dysfunctional as it is. There’s something very Cartoon Network about all the characters, but with some wider influences. something about dumb characters, with very specific goals and quirks that work on their own physics to feed into the high energy insanity of the world. Its entertaining to read, and leads to a weirdly charming feel of the comic.

Story and plot

For the bit people actually want to know about. What is it about?

Just a little bit of influences...

For the style itself the comic comes off as a mix between early 2000s slice of life-y anime, 2000s cartoon Network, and a dose of 2000s webcomic sarcastic action/adventure flare. It definitely has one of the most pronounced styles that I’ve seen, and even if it's very much a webcomic of it’s time it also goes a bit beyond that into something that feels personal to the author and honest. Its a batshit comic. But, it wears its influences on it’s sleeve and really plays with tropes and ideas the author found engaging at the time. It somehow comes off as refreshing in just how willing it is to go weird or niche for no other reason but because it wants to. It's what I appreciate most about the comic. It’s honest.

The overarching story of the comic is without a doubt about Otra and winter growing together as people. But with a comic that’s run for 7 years a little bit more happens in the journey, at least you hope it would. Girly runs on chapters, 15 in total (with 15 having sub chapters due to being the story’s climax), and each one of those chapters follows a different plot or adventure with Otra’s and Winter’s developing relationship gluing them together.

The plots themselves are wild and vary a bit in quality. But for a long comic that’s understandable and expected. They go from solving elephant problems, super villains, body swapping, fantasy parodies, and all sorts of strange things. Sometimes a few plots drag and a few character arcs feel a bit bland. It still manages to be entertaining all the way through though. The plots themselves work to get the character’s to play off each other and explore the strange world it takes place in. Exploring evil teddy bears, or an entire town devoted to cheap gags. No matter what, all the plots work in fleshing out the world and pushing character’s out of their comfort zone or forcing them to change. There are some that are less fun than others, but none of them manage to be boring or useless. Which for a long comic such as this, is quite an achievement.

Conclusion

Girly is a hidden gem, Its an insane sex positive comic. A loose style and even looser physics. It’s bold and unabashedly itself. But, at its core it's about the love story of Winter, the wacky insane woman needing to slow down and open up, and Otra, a sullen woman who’s deemed herself only worthy of being on the outskirts of society. It’s two people growing together in a world that’s up to its ears in care bears, sentient dildos, earth shattering cloning, and jabs at 2000’s paste it comics. And somehow it all sticks together.

The characters resonated, at least with me, which may be the nostalgia talking. But by the end of the comic I can’t help but think back on how long it took them to get there. The bits that made me laugh (a lot of them), the stupid parts, and the character’s arcs, as over the top they could be at times. It may not everyone’s cup of tea. But it has a lot of heart at its core. (If you get past all the dildos).

For all it’s flaws and weird bits. I still find myself going back to Girly.

Maybe now, some more people will too.

#girly #webcomics #review #comic #lgbt webcomics #queer #lesbian

23 notes · View notes

sevendeadlyseans · 7 years

Text

10 (or 11) Movies Released Last Year That I Really Liked, 2016 Edition

Before I get to my “official” Top 10, one title has been excluded for consideration due to conflict of interest, but would otherwise top my list.

youtube

Darling

Mickey Keating’s 3rd feature (produced by the fabulous Jenn Wexler, a.k.a. my girlfriend) is, of course, my favorite film of the year. I’ve seen it three times in theaters—twice in 2015 on the festival circuit, and again last April on opening night—and still keep finding new, subtle things about it to love.

The story: a young woman is paid to housesit a glorious old building while its eccentric owner is away. Is the house haunted? Is she unhinged? Maybe both? Star Lauren Ashley Carter—rightly recognized as “the Audrey Hepburn of indie horror” by The Austin Chronicle, is in almost every frame of the film and is never short of mesmerizing, whether answering the telephone, putting on make-up or getting her hands dirty by...well, let’s not give away the fun.

The black and white cinematography is gorgeous, the score crawls under your skin and the editing is legit terrifying. Watch with the lights out.

And now back to our official, less personally biased top 10, in order...

youtube

Moonlight

Without question, the most accomplished, most moving film of 2016.

James Joyce once noted, “In the particular is the universal.” Moonlight is atop my list in no small part because it’s so breathtaking in its particular intimacies.

Moonlight is like Boyhood on a budget: it drops us into three important periods in the life of a boy who becomes a teen who becomes a man—at first bullied and confused, increasingly neglected by his crack-addicted mother and influenced by a kind-hearted, drug-dealing surrogate father. We see him harden, over time, under the pressure of a world with no use for softness, and then, perhaps, reconnecting with a lost bit of himself, at long last.

Writing that synopsis, it strikes me how easily such a story could have tipped into cliché and melodrama. Perhaps because writer/director Barry Jenkins and playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney are both from the Liberty City projects themselves. their knowledge—coupled with a great cast, an impeccable soundtrack, a deft use of color and Jenkins’ masterful control of tone—l gives Moonlight specificity, and that makes it universal.

youtube

Jackie

Tone is a theme for the first three films on my 2016 list—four if you count Darling, and you most definitely should. Pablo Larrain’s Jackie puts us inside the experience of First Lady Jackie Kennedy in the aftermath of JFK’s assassination, in a way I never thought I could experience:

Your husband was just murdered; his blood is on your dress. Your life is cracked, and even if you put the pieces back together, nothing will ever be the same. Oh, and he’s the president—was the president—so your country is broken, too. History has its eye on you, so while the crushing weight of grief bears down, try to look good for the cameras. It’s only his legacy at stake.

It seems ludicrous to say that Oscar-nominated Natalie Portman is underrated, but somehow she is—and I adored her in Black Swan. In Jackie, she’s working at another level. Open and wounded when no one but us can see, calculating and brittle and angry before an eager reporter. I am excited to see Portman does next.

Special mention to Mica Levi’s score, her second feature after 2013′s Under the Skin. Can’t wait to hear what she does next, too.

youtube

The Witch

Someone had the terrible idea to market The Witch as “the year’s scariest movie.” It’s not, nor is it trying to be. It is, however, among the most unsettling films of this year or any other. (Again: tone.)

The story: it’s 17th century New England. William, his wife Katherine, and their five children have been kicked out of the settlement being too religious (it seems, or perhaps just too self-righteous) and must find a way to survive on their own on the fringes of the deep, dark wood.

Before you have time to wonder if the titular witch might be metaphoric, she shows up and does something unspeakable to William and Katherine’s newborn son. Things go downhill from there, exacerbated by both outside, malevolent forces and unacknowledged tensions within the family unit.

The Witch looks gorgeous, as well it should. First-time director Robert Eggers made his bones as a production and costume designer, and reportedly built an actual, mostly working 17th century farm for the film. Even the dialogue itself was built out of scraps of things people wrote and said back then. You can feel the authenticity, which makes the family’s isolation feel that much more acute and dangerous.

O.J.: Made in America

Bob Dylan never asked “How many minutes does a film have to be, before we can call it TV?” but the answer, my friend, is probably not much more than the 467 minute runtime of Ezra Edelman’s O.J.: Made in America. (For comparison, that’s almost 3 hours longer than a full season of HBO’s Veep.)

It doesn’t help that it was produced by ESPN, or that it aired on that cable network less than a month after it’s Oscar-qualifying theatrical run. And yet...it was my favorite documentary in a year of many great docs (more on that later), so if wants to call itself a movie, I’ll roll with it.

2014 marked the 20th anniversary of the murders. The revived attention around the so-called “trial of the century” led to two great works of art, Edelman’s doc and FX’s American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson. (One can only wonder how our present political moment will be filtered through the culture of 2018).

Rather than produce O.J. overload, the two projects complement one another—the dramatic series taking us inside the lives and hearts of key figures on both legal teams, while the doc simultaneously expands the scope and deepens the focus—showing us more about who O.J. was before, during and after, and what America was and still is, especially but not only in Los Angeles, but also in Ferguson, on Staten Island, everywhere. If it takes Edelman 8 hours to set up all details to knock us down with his larger point, well, that’s 8 hours well spent.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrB3rOcrJxg&list

The Lobster

Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth was one of my favorite movies of 2010. He’s back on the list with a film that’s just as strange but far more accessible.

I love absurdism, deadpan humor, magical realism and dystopian fantasy, but I can’t recall a film that manages the trick of juggling all three at once as The Lobster does—with an honest-to-goodness love story right there in the middle.

I’ll skip the premise—if you don’t know it, watch the trailer.

The cast is great, and Colin Farrell is a revelation, topping my previous Farrell favorite, the criminally under seen In Bruges. Lanthimos packs the film with small details that make the surreal world of The Lobster believable. The first shot packs an entire story of love, betrayal and murder (which is never revisited) into a single, long take. And its final, wrenching moments will stay with me forever.

Film critic Britt Hayes got to the heart of the filmmaker’s uncanny alchemy when she noted “Lanthimos doesn’t heighten reality to an absurd degree; he heightens the absurdity of our existing reality.” Or put another way, he doesn’t add absurdity, he just turns the heat up on reality and our own absurdity bubbles to the surface.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTNZmOJxuAc

Hail, Caesar!

There’s this other movie that’s sort of a throwback to old Hollywood, with some singing and dancing in it. That movie’s fine, but don’t hold your breath, it didn’t make my list. For my money, the real love letter to Hollywood—and why the movie industry matters—came from the Coen Brothers.

Now, it wouldn’t be a Coens movie if that tender heart weren’t covered under many layers of arch cynicism, stylized reference bordering on “acting” “in” “quotation” “marks” and the occasional silliness. But you don’t have to peel much of it away to see the real love they have for not just the magic of movies but also the joy in so many abandoned film genres that once ruled the box office—be they Gene Kelly musicals, Gene Autry oaters or C.B. DeMille bible epics, to name but a few recreated here.

For me, Hail, Caesar! sits perfectly between the sour cynicism of the Hollywood in Woody Allen’s misanthropic Cafe Society and the false romanticism of the ambition-for-ambition’s sake “dreamers" of La La Land who prize the warmth of the spotlight over any real human affection.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NYpz_j3e38

13th

Ava DuVernay’s 13th is a civics lesson for a country in dire need of one. With a controlled but searing ferocity, the documentary lays out the case that the 13th amendment allowed the continuation of a system of oppression and control not all that from slavery: the criminal justice system. If you haven’t read your Constitution lately, here’s a refresher on the 13th, the amendment that ostensibly ended slavery:

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

This one, terrible clause not just perpetuated slavery under another name but incentivized an expansion of the definition of criminality, in order to profit from the subjugation of mostly brown and black bodies, which has led to an explosion in America’s incarcerated population. In effect, through laws designed to maintain segregation, blackness itself has been criminalized.

With Jim Crow, redlining, lynching (terrorism by another name) and the like, the 13th has led to a more unequal society—and, indirectly, to leaders who lie and stoke racial, as well as religions and ethnic, divisions in order to maintain the ever-growing class divide from which they profit.

This poor summation doesn’t do justice to the full weight of the case DuVernay and her experts make, or how well they make it. 13th should be required viewing by everyone, but most of all by those who hold the power to make and enforce the law.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V66F3WU2CKk

The Love Witch

Let’s start with the obvious: Anna Biller’s The Love Witch is a gorgeous film. Turn the sound off, re-order the scenes at random and you still can’t take your eyes off what looks like a lost Technicolor American Giallo from 1972. Biller not only wrote, edited and directed the film but also handled production design, art direction, set decoration and costuming, almost single-handedly crafting one of the best looking films of 2016.

Beneath that dazzling frosting is a rich, feminist layer cake. Elaine is a witch specializing in sex magic, who believes her path to happiness lies in finding the right man, seducing him and pleasing him in every way. On paper, she’s a patriarchy’s dream come true. But when these lustful men inevitably fall short—as they all must, as patriarchy itself is built on a lie—she gets rid of them, permanently. Poor, unfulfilled Elaine.

The Love Witch is Biller’s own magic trick, casting its spell over us with its color, its throwback ‘70s sexploitation vibe and its razor-sharp message we don’t notice until the blade has slid, quietly, between our ribs and stabbed us in the heart. Metaphorically.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXjDEDYlu7c

I, Daniel Blake

Daniel Blake has spent a lifetime working with his hands, supporting a modest but pleasant life for himself and his late wife. After a heart attack, his doctors tell him he’s not fit to return to work—yet with a simple questionnaire (and absent any input from his doctors), the government’s welfare bureau deems him too fit to qualify for disability.

He can apply for unemployment benefits, but only if he’s actively seeking work—work which, according to his doctors, he can’t accept. Caught in a catch-22, he must appeal to an unreachable “decision-maker” for relief—provided he can find a way, without income or assistance, to get by while he waits. Then Daniel meets a single mother in stuck in a similar situation and does his best to help her struggling family, even as his own situation grows worse.

Ken Loach’s drama won the Palm D’Or at Cannes but has received not much notice since then, at least outside the UK, perhaps because of the specific criticism of the British welfare bureaucracy at the heart of the story. But you don’t need much imagination to see how things can be as bad or worse for the many Daniel Blakes of this country.

Loach has been making socially conscious films about the struggles of the working and lower classes for longer than I’ve been alive. As with Jenkins and Moonlight, it’s clear Loach knows this world, these people and their struggles, and knows how to tell their particular stories in a simple yet powerful, moving and universal way.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4KbJLpu7yo

The Handmaiden

Apologies if you’re getting whiplash. I went from a highly stylized Love Witch to a pared-down I, Daniel Blake. Now I’m going to swing back the other way with Park Chan-Wook’s sensual, sensuous The Handmaiden.

As has been the case in years prior, the 10th (really, 11th) and final spot on my list could have gone to a number of worthy films, and almost did—I began writing up another film here before realizing there’s no way I could round out 2016 without giving The Handmaiden its due. (Sorry, Elle!)

The story of The Handmaiden is...too complex to go into here, frankly. There’s a con man and his female accomplice. There’s a rich heiress and her controlling uncle. Some of them are Japanese occupiers; others native Koreans. Oh, ands there’s a library of dirty, dirty books.

Cons are conned, crosses are doubled, no one is quite who they pretend to be and everyone is up to something. In the end, something real is found and, through it, freedom is won.

The Handmaiden is a thriller as elegant as it is perverse. Every change in perspective brings new meaning to all that’s come before. Every twist revealed is a delight. Park Chan-Wook is at the top of his game.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4Z5jfjxdvQ

Honorable Mentions & More

Wait, don’t get up. There’s more!

First, let’s start with honorable mentions that you already know are great:

Paul Verhoeven’s psychological thriller Elle, which features Isabelle Huppert in one of my favorite performances of the year, or maybe ever.

Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, which goes on my list of essential smart science fiction, along with Gattaca, Ex Machina, Primer and Under the Skin, to name a few.

Sing Street, one of the most joyful films of the year. A misfit ‘80s Irish teen starts a band so he can cast the girl he likes in their highly creative music videos. From John Carney, the filmmaker behind the equally charming Once.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s mad look at fashion, envy and unchecked ambition (kind of the anti-La La Land?), The Neon Demon.

Next, films that might have been off your radar but are well worth seeking out:

Benjamin Dickinson’s Creative Control, a very-near-future sci-fi film about augmented reality, and the augmented lives we all want to pretend we’re living (at least on Instagram). A must-see for all my friends in media, marketing or technology.

Elizabeth Wood’s directorial debut, White Girl, in which a New York City undergrad moves to Queens, dates her local corner drug dealer and learns first hand the limits of her privilege in both their lives.

Taika Waititi’s The Hunt for the Wilderpeople, a reluctant buddy comedy/coming-of-age film that’s way more fun than it has any right to be.

Todd Solondz’s Weiner-Dog, a dark, dark comedy stringing together four tales of unhappy people, all of whom at one point own the same sad canine. Or, for you hard-core cineastes: Au Hasard Dachshund.

American Honey, Andrea Arnold’s sprawling tale of wayward youth living for the moment across a vast swath of America, high and low.

The animated documentaries Tower, which looks back on America’s first campus mass shooting in a surprisingly moving way, and Nuts!, which is the rare doc with an unreliable narrator, which fits the unreliable (Trump-like) conman at the center of its story.

Julian Rosefeldt’s Manifesto, which I was fortunate enough to experience as a multi-screen installation at the Park Avenue Armory but has been adapted (rather successfully, it seems) as a traditional film. Either way, Cate Blanchett takes on a dozen different guises in a sequence of stunning short films, the text of each comprised of bits of famous manifestos, from Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto to Jim Jarmusch’s Golden Rules of Filmmaking.

And last, because the horror genre in near and dear to my heart, here’s #4-#10 on my year’s best horror list. (The top 3 being Darling, The Witch and The Love Witch.)

The Invitation

Green Room

Demon

Under the Shadow

Train to Busan

10 Cloverfield Lane

Southbound

Honorable mention: the “Happy Father’s Day” segment of Holidays

Past years: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008

#movies bestof2016 #darling #moonlight #jackie #oj made in america #the witch #the love witch #the lobster #hail caesar #13th #i daniel blake #the handmaiden

1 note · View note

deiupvote · 4 years

Link

A couple of weeks ago, I showed my son National Treasure, and the whole time I kept thinking “damn, I really miss Nic Cage”. I knew that he was pretty much in the DTV world for the past 10 years, but I didn’t realize to what level. Turns out that Nicolas Cage made 29 direct-to-video movies in the 2010’s, and almost immediately, I was determined to watch every one of them. So I did. In no particular order:The Trust. 7/10.A not half-bad way to start things off. It's a little under-cooked at a brisk 90 minutes, but him and Elijah Wood play well of each other. Cage gives his character some quirky traits in the first half coming across as a likeable guy trying to do something he shouldn't, but quickly turns to full-on bad guy in the second half. There's a good story here but it's never fully realized. We are treated to a Cage Out though in the third act, which is always welcome. 1 down, 28 to go.Kill Chain. 8/10.This one was really enjoyable! It's sort-of 3 different stories or vignettes that all come together in the second half, which is where Cage enters the picture. He never Cage's Out, playing pretty restrained the whole time (though there is one moment where he comes close). The writing's a bit ham-fisted, and the characters are pure stereotype, but it's well crafted and a very entertaining 90 minutes. So far so good. With 27 to go, things are looking up!The Runner. 5/10.Unfocused and uneventful. It’s well cast and there’s a feeling of “this is a real movie” but it wants to be too many things. There’s a decent movie buried in here, but at a brisk 82 minutes, it’s hard to find. There’s no Cage Rage on display here, instead playing it very understated. It’s quality acting though. Three films into this little odyssey, and so far these are more than just paychecks for him, doing the best he can with what he’s given.Rage. 6/10.It’s OK, but it’s sloppy. The whole time I’m wondering why nothing seems to piece together, and it’s ultimately all in service of a shock ending that undermines everything that came before. Once again, Cage is solid in this. He keeps things entertaining where others may have had me checking out. One intense Cage Out, but I expected more based on the title and premise. Nevertheless, we journey forward. 4 down, 25 to go.Between Worlds. 10/10.I’m going to be fast and loose with the spoilers on this one. Joe is a down-on-his-luck truck driver who lost his wife and kid to a house fire some years prior. In the first 10 minutes of the movie, Joe is at a gas station pit stop where he finds Julie being choked out by some dude. Joe steps in and knocks him out, much to her dissatisfaction. Why? Because 1 hour prior, her daughter was in a motorcycle accident and is now in a coma, and because of a childhood incident, knows that if she is unconscious she can cross over to “the other side”. So her plan was to have some rando choke her in a rest stop bathroom so she could guide her daughter back to the land of the living. Joe interrupted the process, so he offers to give her a ride to the hospital. Once there, she asks Joe to choke her in the hallway so she can try again to reach her. “Something” goes wrong, and instead, Joe’s dead wife is brought back in the daughters body.The next 30 minutes see Joe moving in with Julie and playing house while dead-wife-in-daughter (DWID from this point on) slowly creeps around trying to seduce him. It’s the halfway point when Joe is made aware what is happening, and by extension Julie and the movies 1 other character. They all accept this very easily.It’s around this time that we get to a scene where Joe and DWID are fucking, interspersed with a scene where Joe and his wife before she died are also fucking. In both of these scenarios, his wife wants him to read poetry while they fuck. The poetry Joe proceeds to read in both scenes is from a book titled, I shit you not, “Memories by Nicolas Cage”.More stuff happens, and at the end of the movie, through various circumstances, Joe is doing a classic Cage scream-cry, one arm hugging a jack-in-the-box that presumably belonged to his daughter, and in the other, he is dousing himself in gasoline. He then lights a cigarette, which of course ignites his entire body, and he smokes in a completely normal manner while his body burns. This all happens while Leader of the Pack is playing, a song that holds absolutely no significance to anything that has come prior.Throughout, music that feels directly ripped from Twin Peaks is playing, and the whole atmosphere is begging to feel like David Lynch. Is the kind of movie you would find on Cinemax at 2am on a random Wednesday in 1995. It’s fucking glorious.At this particular moment in my life, my greatest fear is that with 24 films to go, I will never again reach these heights.Inconceivable. 7/10.It’s your typical nanny-isn’t-who-they-seem-to-be sort of deal, but it’s actually entertaining enough. It’s all pretty rote stuff, but there’s nothing offensively bad here. Cage gets 4th billing, with absolutely nothing to do other than play the can’t-see-what’s-really-going-on husband. He’s still decent at it, but this actually does feel like a paycheck movie for him, given that I can’t find any reason he would have looked at the script and thought he had something interesting he could do.The Humanity Bureau. 3/10.Lame, cheap, uninteresting near-future story that doesn’t have anything new to say that hasn’t already been said better in dozens of other movies. Cage is actually asleep at the wheel on this one, just kind of making his way through. In fairness, he isn’t given anything to do. Thus far, these movies have managed pretty decent supporting casts. Here though, it’s pretty much Canadian TV extras. Things are starting to feel rocky with 22 left.Outcast. 4/10.Meh. Anakin Skywalker is a 12th Century Knight escorting hunted royalty to safe haven. It’s surprisingly not as cheap as I expected, but it’s a completely unoriginal and boring movie. My only reason for watching, Sir Nicolas, does not even enter the picture until the final 30 minutes. He really hams it up with the old English accent, but he can’t save the movie at this point. Things are gonna need to start turning around soon. Maybe a Between Worlds injection every 3 movies.Primal. 6/10.A movie where a Jaguar, a killer and Nicolas Cage are all loose on a boat in the middle of the ocean should not be this dull. It’s no fault of Cage, who hurls some great insults throughout when not chomping on a cigar, and the rest of the cast seems game (except you, Jean Grey), so it really comes down to the film itself, which just doesn’t use its premise to the fullest. The whole thing is visually bland, too. It’s so muted it borders on black and white sometimes.I had high hopes going in, but thanks to this little journey of mine, I now know director Nick Powell from yesterday’s Outcast endeavor, and as soon as his name popped up in the opening credits, those hopes came crashing down.Running with the Devil. 7/10.Flawed and sloppily made, but still entertaining enough, mostly due to its surprisingly A-list cast that never gets to do much. It's not nearly as cool as it wants to be though. What Feast made a great joke about in its opening few minutes, this movie tries to do for real, to eye rolling effect. Cage is very low-key in this, with Laurence Fishburne of all people having the most fun. His characters sexual proclivities serve no purpose, and an early montage of them would be pointless if he wasn't so much fun to watch. Perhaps the biggest disappointment though is that Nicolas Cage and Adam Goldberg get some screen time together, and rather than take this opportunity to have them out-anxious each other, nothing comes of it. I'm so d-d-d-d-d-disappointed.A Score to Settle. 8/10.Went in expecting a typical revenge flick, but was pleasantly surprised to see something more. Cage is really great in this, and I'm more and more impressed by him with each movie. He really disappears into each role, never doing the same thing twice even if he sometimes is playing similar characters. There are a few moments of the Cage Madness here, much in the same way that Christopher Walken or Sam Rockwell try to dance in every movie they do, but the more subdued acting takes center stage.The Frozen Ground. 8/10.Tight cat-and-mouse type that focuses on the procedural more than the thriller aspect and is better for it. Cage is in top form, and Cusack ain't half bad either. Might I want to dip my toe into his DTV output next? Perhaps. 17 to go first.211. 1/10.Jesus Fucking Christ.Dying of the Light. 6/10.Dark. 7/10.As it exists in its official form, it’s a middling CIA thriller with an intriguing Cage performance being the most interesting part.In it’s “Director’s Cut”, which is even less of an actual movie than Donner’s Superman II, everything is much more intriguing, and had Schrader been able to make an actual final cut, this could have had the potential to be great. The concept of a dying CIA agent spending his last days trying to catch a dying terrorist is a solid one, but it isn’t fully realized in either version as is. Cage’s performance is a little manic in both, but more fleshed out and sympathetic in the later. CIA business aside, I’d have liked to watch 90 minutes of Cage just losing his mind. Actually that movie could be 3 hours long and still not be enough.Stolen. 9/10.A cheap Taken knock-off crossed with a heist movie that’s a stupid amount of fun. Josh Lucas is gloriously unhinged here, out Cage-ing the man himself. Can the remaining 14 keep up?Arsenal. 5/10.DTV mediocrity that tries too hard to be cool. Cage is hamming it up in a small-ish role, and certainly makes his scenes entertaining, but the rest of the DTV-All-Stars are bland.Seeking Justice. 8/10.It’s packaged as a revenge thriller, but it’s much more in line with 13 Sins/The Game/Nerve. The whole thing is pretty ridiculous, but it’s a lot of fun to watch. It doesn’t use its New Orleans setting as well as Stolen, but the two would make for a hell of a double feature.Dog Eat Dog. 7/10.Weird movie, but compellingly so. Shrader gets his editing jollies off that he couldn’t do on Dying of the Light, but I’m not sure it does much to add to a movie that is otherwise a pretty simple tale of low-level criminals wanting to hit it big. Cage and Dafoe is a great pairing, but it’s never fully utilized, outside of an odd, half-naked condiment fight.Vengeance: A Love Story. ?/10.After the first 10 minutes, where you can fill a card 100% while playing Cop Trope Bingo, you get the deformed child of two very different movies. In the first movie you have a fairly dark, if poorly constructed, movie about the aftermath of an assault and rape where any one aspect of which could have been explored, but instead the writer and director give us a Whitman's Sampler of plot threads with none of them fleshed out beyond the initial idea. Nicolas Cage is not in this movie.In the second movie however, Nicolas Cage stars in what I can only think to describe of as City of Angels 2. After tragically losing his dear Maggie to that damn logging truck, Seth moves out of LA and assumes the identity of John Drormoor, becoming a policeman who years later becomes involved in the lives of a mother and daughter in the aftermath of a violent attack. After what is obviously Seth/John trying to communicate with Cassiel at the edge of a waterfall for guidance, he is given a much warranted promotion from Angel to Avenging Angel, serving due justice to the duos attackers.These two movies have been edited together. I don't know how to give this a numbered rating. There are 10 remaining.USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage. 3/10.A poorly made movie that plays like a work of complete fiction. The use of a famous quote 50 years before it was coined is particularly atrocious, as is Tom Sizemore, acting as though he were Tobias Fünke trying his best at an Academy Award. This is the first straight-up bad movie thus far. Up until this point they’ve either crossed over into so-bad-they’re-good or Cage has given a performance that keeps things entertaining and watchable. USS Indianapolis is just a lame movie across the board.Joe. 7/10.A solid movie with a really great performance by Cage, but I found its most engaging storyline sidelined by too many others that make the movie feel really long. There is no fun to be had here, and little worth revisiting down the road.Color Out of Space. 8/10.Delivered what I was hoping for on most accounts, but continues to prove that adapting Lovecraft, especially on a low budget, is very difficult. There are some real horrors on display though proving that practical effects are still king, and Cage is great, showing again his talent and desire to really put his all into every role.Grand Isle. 6/10.A came cast keeps things going for the first hour, which is essentially a single location play, but it all starts to fall apart in the third act. Grammer has about 10 minutes of collective screen time and only 30 seconds of those shared with Cage. KaDee Strickland is the most surprising here, matching Cage's enthusiasm and keeping the whole thing very entertaining, but it ultimately amounts to very little. The low-budget also doesn't help, constantly referencing a hurricane that is never seen. A shame really, cause you can see the potential for something greater here.Looking Glass. 5/10.A thriller without thrills, trying so hard to be mysterious and failing at each try. Cage is given nothing to do but walk around and look confused for 100 minutes. Things rarely happen, and when they do they make no sense by the end. There's a solid first act setup with some cool ideas, and every single one is wasted. I was hoping for something along the lines of 8MM, but this was not that.The final 5 remain.Mom and Dad. 8/10.A deranged concept which Cage is perfectly suited for, but like my issue with Nicholson in The Shining, he’s already a little crazy before he goes crazy. I love the tone set with the opening credits, but Taylor goes to frenetic too quickly, never letting us settle in before cranking things up to 11.All that aside, it’s a totally bonkers movie and watching Cage let loose is always 100% entertainment. As a whole it just lacks the finesse to bump this up to top tier.Trespass. 8/10.There’s more than a few stupid character decisions, and I don’t love the way the flashback structure is done, but the performances across the board are really good, and the intensity level is consistent throughout.Pay the Ghost. 7/10.A pretty decent spookfest that creates a moody atmosphere and some chilling imagery. While “Color Out of Space” falls in the horror genre, and Cage has done more than a few thrillers, this is the only actual scary movie he’s ever done. I’d like to see more.Army of One. 4/10.Cage sounds like he’s doing a Rain Man impression the entire time, and the movie is narrated in a Wake Up, Ron Burgundy style which is just awful. A very unfunny movie that is more annoying than anything else.Mandy. 10/10.There was no better way to end this journey. Cage is smartly restrained for a majority of the picture, but when the beast is let loose, THE BEAST IS LET LOOSE! A fever dream of a movie that delivers on all accounts, and something that will be re-watched in years to come.https://ift.tt/3aS7gqL In order to keep the title streamlined I said "direct-to-video". Perhaps what I should have said was "movies that did not have a nationwide theatrical release". via /r/movies

#apoc

0 notes

dancewithmeplano · 7 years

Text

The 20 best Dancing music Movies of all time

From pioneers like Daft Punk and the Chemical Brothers to modern day YouTube-breakers like Important Lazer and M.I.A., electronic audio boasts plenty of visionaries willing to pour a great deal of love (and funding) to bringing their songs to life. Here, we have counted down 20 more of the very best dance videos ever — did your favorite make the clip?

#20 Major Lazer –‘Pon De Floor’

Back in ’09 Big Lazer constituted of just Diplo and Switch, also Pon De Floor has been the single that introduced them into the world. In those days, Caribbean sounds took center stage in the pair’s music — that was way before Diplo could begin calling on pop’s fine for toplines — therefore it made sense that the movie to their breakthrough hit was an ode into Jamaica’s dance style-of-the-moment: daggering.

The next calendar year, as a competitive fondness for the movement left a spate of broken penises in its aftermath, the Jamaican government would crack down on daggering by exposing all videos using “blatantly sexual content” out of television. The Pon De Floor clip stands as a bright, brash and odd reminder of that quite wonderful moment ever. (Fun fact: it was led by Eric Warheim of Tim & Eric celebrity.) [Katie Cunningham]

#19 The xx –‘Islands’

The xx’s self-titled debut album introduced us into a group that has been unshowy in each way. In the restraint of these songs to the extreme shyness of their early live shows, these Londoners weren’t going to provide us bombastic music videos.

It’s unsurprising, then, that the clip for Islands stands out of this list for its striking simplicity. The xx members attribute at center stage, however the focus is squarely on the dancers who move them around in an unbroken loop. The repeating sequence feels perfectly suited to the dreamy depression of the vocals, demonstrating you only require a single room and a wise conceit to create a captivating video.

There’s an additional bonus here also: viewing Jamie xx, who might still be the band’s shyest member despite his impressive solo victory, attempting to look invisible at the close of the couch. We visit you, Jamie. [Jack Tregoning]

#18 Avalanches –‘Frontier Psychiatrist’

What an unenviable job it must have been to attempt to build a visual variant of what you hear from an Avalanches song. The Melbourne group — who built their iconic debut album on samples, pinched from countless disparate sources — have been already collages inside themselves. How can you even start to place that right into a music video?

For Frontier Psychatrist American directors Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire (who would go on to do those Old Spice advertisements) approached their job with the identical spirit of playfulness the Avalanches sewed to the song, assembling a variety behave filled with oddballs and right-fitting misfits that bring each little piece of the puzzle to everyday life. See it, remember why you loved it and try not to grin. [Dave Ruby Howe]

#17 Chemical Brothers –‘Elektrobank’

Spike Jonze — among those masters of ’90s audio movie with his crazy, cartoonish style — played it right for once for this improbably moving clip, essentially a brief film starring Sofia Coppola, fellow manager (Lost in Translation) and Jonze’s potential ex-wife.

Coppola plays with a gymnast who copes with private turmoil at a huge contest. The graceful performance (comprising a pro gymnast dual) is a lovely contrast to the Chemicals’ pulverising defeats and squelching sound, featuring The Prodigy’s Keith Murray. Much like Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice, what makes the clip memorable is its sincerity — no understanding satirical winks; it lets the beauty of the gymnastics function what they are. And also the melodrama is performed to the hilt; it might be an ’80s afterschool special. [Jim Poe]

#16 Important Lazer & DJ Snake –‘Lean On’

1,535,399,281: that’s how many YouTube perspectives the movie for Lean On had last time we checked. That’s 1.5 billion eyes on Major Lazer’s handiwork, along with a figure equivalent to over 20-percent of the planet’s inhabitants. Those numbers alone would probably make Lean On a reference in this record, but the viewcount isn’t all that’s important about Diplo’s most prosperous minute so far.

In addition to being a great deal of fun, Lean On is significant because it demonstrated that dance fans want to watch their own artists in music videos — could it have been such a runaway victory if Diplo, Jillionaire, Walshy Fire, DJ Snake and MØ weren’t at the movie, cutting shapes in their mix of sportswear and Bollywood finery? Or in an even larger question, would Lean On have become the funniest tune of the year with this movie? [Katie Cunningham]

#15 Justice –‘Anxiety’

There couldn’t have been a much better candidate to translate the frenzied, competitive seriousness of Justice’s Anxiety to movie than incendiary French manager Roman Gavras.

Conceived when the French electro duo were at the height of their powers in 2008 as “a clip unairable on television for a course unairable on the radio” Gavras’ no-holds-barred depiction of a day in the life span of wayward French youths triggering forecasts of racial profiling and fetishising violence in the aftermath of the 2005 Paris riots. Wayward is a barely fitting description though, the themes of Anxiety stem the outlying suburbs/banlieues of Paris enacting casual ultra-violence and civil destruction where they go, all backed by the menacing whir of Justice’s creation.

Speaking to Flux on the controversy which the audio video created upon its release, Gavras appeared to relish his status as a provocateur — two decades ahead of the ginger genocide of M.I.A’s Born Free clip. “For a couple of months, I was among the most hated men in France, but it was fun. It was astonishing free promo…that you can only get that much media if you have intercourse with kids.” [Dave Ruby Howe]

#14 Huge Strike –‘Teardrop’

London filmmaker Walter Stern made his name working with The Prodigy in the 90s, when he helmed their inflammatory videos for Firestarter and Breathe. These credentials created Stern a somewhat unexpected option, subsequently, to choose one of Massive Attack’s most delicate songs.

The Bristol collective recruited Stern to deliver his arresting visual style for their 1998 single Teardrop, which Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja described as a “moment of light relief” in their brooding third album Mezzanine. It was Stern’s idea to coincide with the song’s dreamy atmosphere with shots inside a womb, as an individual fetus lip-synchs and also Elizabeth Fraser’s vocals.

The concept sounds unnerving on paper, but the extreme closeups create a strangely meditative mood that’s fantastic for Teardrop. In addition, it helps that the unborn baby is so obviously an animatronic version made from silicon rather than, you know, the true thing. The movie won a series of awards, also entered a life of permanent Rage spinning and also gave Stern a much-needed reprieve from filming mad Keith Flint. [Jack Tregoning]

#13 The Prodigy –‘Firestarter’

Even though most of dance music’s greatest stars seem painfully embarrassing on camera, The Prodigy were constructed for videos. The theatrical personas of both Maxim and Keith Flint were created for electrical onscreen performances, with perhaps the most populous of all occurring within the scummy ‘gator-infested flat of Breathe.

While other videos prompted more warmth for The Prodigy, there’s something starkly powerful concerning the Firestarter clip. Director Walter Stern shot the shameful action within a deserted London Underground tunnel, with Keith because the central star. The frontman’s unhinged shtick was at its most persuasive in the mid-90s, and he actually dialed it up here, holding the focus with his hectic charisma. Firestarter is really so much that the Keith Flint Show, in reality, that the involvement of Liam Howlett, Leeroy Thornhill and Maxim is limited to running at the shadows and giving quizzical looks.

The movie did figure out how to wake up controversy in the UK for giving children nightmares, with some TV channels carrying it off day rotation. Without doubt The Prodigy also discouraged a couple of people from adventuring through abandoned railway tunnels through the night. Nobody would like to fulfill a dance Keith Flint in the dark. [Jack Tregoning]

#12 Duck Sauce –‘Big Bad Wolf’

“It’s no Windowlicker,” the manager behind Big Bad Wolf defended when Rolling Stone proceeded in on 2011’s most head-turning movie. “This was disturbing.”

Duck Sauce’s most memorable clip might not be Aphex Twin-level weird, but it sure will push the envelope. In order to produce their movie tour de force, collaborators A-Trak and Armand Van Helden spent two days in their own hands and knees at green display jumpsuits, heads in the crotches of different guys. Lots of impressive post-production later and they came away with a classic boy-meets-girl story, only with some — err —unconventional sexual acts.

For the very best assessment of why Big Bad Wolf wants to go down with the greats, render it Kanye West: “You took a danger as an artist to piss from your mouth,” he allegedly told A-Trak over email. [Katie Cunningham]

#11 M.I.A. –‘Bad Girls’

When M.I.A. connected up with manager Romain Gavras to make a movie for her 2010 song Born Free, the collaborators created an incendiary short film. Over nine intense minutes, we watch a violent raid of an apartment block, with the officers targeting only residents with red hair. It was a provocative political statement, using redheads as a stand-in for oppressed and vilified groups, and both M.I.A. and Gavras recognized the consequent controversy.

After the singer and filmmaker worked in 2012 on Bad Girls, they chose a much more celebratory tone. Mesmerised by YouTube videos of “Saudis drifting on two wheels” in the desert, they moved to Morocco to give it a try. The end result is bright, daring and bad-ass. On its release, Bad Girls sparked debate regarding its subversion of Arab stereotypes, while also delivering the visceral pleasure of M.I.A. cruising out the window of a car that’s practically airborne. Not a lot of pop videos combine style and material similar to this one. [Jack Tregoning]

CLICK THROUGH FOR THE TOP 10

The article The 20 greatest dance music videos ever appeared first on inthemix.

The post

The 20 best Dancing music Movies of all time

appeared first on dance withme plano.

from dance withme plano http://www.dancewithmeplano.com/the-20-best-dancing-music-movies-of-all-time/

0 notes

dancewithmeplano · 7 years

Text

The 20 best Dancing music Movies of all time

#20 Major Lazer –‘Pon De Floor’

#19 The xx –‘Islands’

#18 Avalanches –‘Frontier Psychiatrist’

#17 Chemical Brothers –‘Elektrobank’

#16 Important Lazer & DJ Snake –‘Lean On’

#15 Justice –‘Anxiety’

There couldn’t have been a much better candidate to translate the frenzied, competitive seriousness of Justice’s Anxiety to movie than incendiary French manager Roman Gavras.

#14 Huge Strike –‘Teardrop’

#13 The Prodigy –‘Firestarter’

#12 Duck Sauce –‘Big Bad Wolf’

“It’s no Windowlicker,” the manager behind Big Bad Wolf defended when Rolling Stone proceeded in on 2011’s most head-turning movie. “This was disturbing.”

#11 M.I.A. –‘Bad Girls’

CLICK THROUGH FOR THE TOP 10

The article The 20 greatest dance music videos ever appeared first on inthemix.

The post

The 20 best Dancing music Movies of all time

appeared first on dance withme plano.

from dance withme plano http://www.dancewithmeplano.com/the-20-best-dancing-music-movies-of-all-time/

0 notes