Very risque.

Is that a matte painting? Hm… Can it be?

That’s one weird-ass god.

I’m guessing that this is a pre-Hayes movie?

Well, I dunno… I mean, I haven’t seen that many movies with Clara Bow (the ‘it’ girl of the silents), and I guess that’s she’s fine here, but the movie kinda meanders weirdly — it seems so formless. We were presented first with one situation (which turned out to be her childhood, being attacked by Savages (I mean Native Americans)), and then another situation 18 years later (which I thought would be the movie), but then we move even later and that seems to be what the movie is really about?

That is, it took a long time to get to the actual plot, and by the time that happened, I’d rather lost interest…

It feels kinda clumsy.

The directory is John Francis Dillon who’s made dozens and dozens of movies — but this is one of his last movies (he died two years later).

Haven’t heard of any of those.

Oh, and Clara Bow only did one movie after this one.

Not only is it a gay bar (the first in a film, according to wikipedia)…

… but it’s a communist gay bar! Wonderful!

Well, I dunno. I don’t think it works? It’s kinda “eeeh” on so many planes at the same time.

Call Her Savage. John Francis Dillon. 1932. ⚂

I dunno… is that really the optimal posture for using a toilet brush in a toilet?

Anyway, I think I’ve seen all the other movies by the Wachowskis, but not this one. It’s starting off pretty well (except for the unrealistic toilet cleaning posture).

Hey, this is really good! It’s interesting and really tense and I think I know where this is going, but it’s very entertaining…

This movie looks great — that fight sequence was awesome.

Some home decor…

Those candles must have taken half the budget.

ANyway… I think this was a box office bomb? (I haven’t looked it up now.) I couldn’t understand why, because this movie kicks ass. But now I’m kinda getting… like… “uhm?” I mean, there’s several twists and several infodumps, but the main character here is just going “well, do you have some less dressy clothes I could wear?” instead of the gazillion questions you’d have… I think perhaps they were going against the “OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING” cliché you have to suffer through in most of these films (as it’s revealed that nothing is what you thought it was), but they kinda went overboard into catatonic instead.

That is, I think we’ve been through like nine doublecrosses and reveals and it’s not confusing or anything, but if I was that woman, I’d sit down with that guy for half an hour and just have him explain everything.

That might not make for a thrilling movie, though.

Instead this is what she chooses to say:

Which is so over the top not what nerdly expectations clamour for that I’m picturing the Wachowskis going HA HA HA THAT”LL LEARN EM

And suddenly we’re into a Brazilesque parody of bureaucracy. Has this movie been a comedy all along and I just didn’t realise it?

… wat

I think I speak for everybody when I say:

wat

And… it’s just… frustrating how the Mila Kunis character does one stupid thing after another, and this guy with the ears has to swoop in, time and time again, to save her. The repetition is annoying.

At some point it gets more “OK, if she’s that stupid and gormless, perhaps she shouldn’t be the Princess and Owner of Earth”.

I loved the first hour of this movie. Then it got progressively more “wat” with every scene, and… I dunno. It feels like the screenwriters just gave up at some point, which is frustrating, because it’s such a great concept and world to set a film in. And it looks great, and has fun performances, and…

So people hated this movie, and I wonder whether that was a brigading effect — I can totally see why Nazis would hate this movie. But no:

If it was brigaded, you’d have a huge number of people at 1, but since most people gave it 5/6, this means that people actually disliked it. And the critics hated it even more:

And it lost a lot of money.

I understand all that, because it’s a lot, and it’s a lot of “wat”. But I liked it anyway. I can totally see this being a cult favourite in 20 years time, because it’s so over the top.

Jupiter Ascending. The Wachowskis. 2015. ⚄

Wow, this is so meta. I love it!

Wow. Nick Cage is the only person I’ve seen who has total Botox Forehead and wrinkles on his forehead at the same time. That’s talent!

OK, now his forehead is moving, so perhaps it’s not botox? They just CGId his forehead in that scene? Or… HE”S SUCH A BRILLIANT ACTOR HE CAN ACT FOREHEAD BOTOXED

OK, this movie was perfect, true ⚅, until this moment, and now it’s cringe.

I don’t know… Well, I had to take a short break to make some leftovers into dinner, and when I came back, I found myself rather unenthused by the proceedings. I mean, it’s properly silly and stupid, which I like, but it felt like it was more random instead of being inspired?

Might just be me.

Well, OK, then the last third was insane again.

But does it, though, A. A. Dowd from Digital Trends? Does it?

Anyway, Cage had such a weird career: He started off doing the coolest movies imaginable, and then went on to do decades of the … worst movies possible. Watching the “making of” bits on this disk, I don’t think this is going to lead to a change in his career (as in — starting to do good movies again), because he sounds absolutely dissociated from reality in the interview snippets.

But then again, perhaps that an act, too?

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Tom Gormican. 2022. ⚄