September 2024

It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012) (Rewatch) + ME (2024)

Who would have thought that comically oversized cutlery and bleeding anuses would serve as the precursor to one of the crowning voices for empathetic, humanist filmmaking seen this current century – very few artists have captivated and influenced me quite like Don Hertzfeldt.

His worldwide roadshow of his latest short ME, paired with his feature length, now contemporary cult-classic It’s Such a Beautiful Day is no mere double-bill: Don positively has full-grasp of the strings here, sprinkling in a slew of bonus making-of documentaries and bizarre tidbits, all with his signature, cheekily absurdist humour throughout – a veritable animated variety performance in the grey area of Miyazaki and Monty Python.

But the main attractions are why I parted with my money, and unsurprisingly they don’t disappoint; in fact their compiling accentuates a new layer of thematic synthesis. The human race’s self-annihilation seen in ME and Bill’s slowly debilitating psyche in Beautiful Day both manage to spawn a symphonic cry for a better existence, and a new-found cherishment of one’s remaining lifeforce respectively: whilst his films explore the comforting solace of death, Hertzfeldt’s creative through-line, I believe, is hope. As dire as the world seems and no matter your creed or lineage (Genetics sure is pretty messed up), the potential of a brighter future prevails – the only way to see it is to be there. I cannot recommend his filmography highly enough.

Also shoutout to the dad that brought his daughter who looked no older than 10 to the screening. I think she enjoyed it? I heard her giggling all the way through.

The Substance (2024)

Hooooo BOY. I haven’t felt this conflicted on a film in years (and I’m feeling very jealous of everyone who can fully enjoy it!)

On a purely superficial stylistic level, I loved The Substance. The unsightly garishness of its blaring visual and audio design is infectiously electrifying; fitting that a body-horror picture would radiate a charging effect, resulting in the viewer’s own flesh pulsating, sweating, pounding. With sleazy, shrimp scarfing TV bigwigs painted with a MAD Magazine caricature level of grot, and the viscerally full-on, ‘barf-in-your-popcorn’ wretch-fest that is its gore effects, underwhelment was non-existent. Lunches were lost that day my friends.

However, ‘context’ rears its second or third mangled head, because the underlying core of The Substance’s glorious putrescence I unfortunately found to be one of cruelty, contempt, and honestly, misogyny.

Its commentary on women succumbing to the myth of beauty standards and the exploitation by the patriarchal Hollywood system is portrayed with a mean-spirited, finger-wagging chastisement, framing the female protagonist’s unjust suffering and ultimately monstrous fate as mere facile ridicule: the twisted, pompous schadenfreude of it all I simply didn’t subscribe to, and sitting within a constantly guffawing audience was particularly unsettling – my main emotion was one of sadness. There was little to no catharsis like in Brian Yuzna’s Society or Peter Jackson’s Braindead for example: the aforementioned male slimebags get off pretty scot-free, whilst the sickening culture they perpetuate is left to the feet of the victims for the sake of scornful laughs.

Although…I still sort of recommend it. To see a film this repulsively over-stimulating, this morally insensitive, and of course, this gorged with grue, it’s kind of a spectacle to behold. Anyone who sees The Substance will not forget it.

Speed Racer (2008) (Rewatch)

The cinematic equivalent of pouring Skittles laced with LSD directly into the webbing of your eyeballs, Speed Racer was the palette cleanser: I was yearning for something as aesthetically arresting as The Substance, but also needed to be reminded what compassion looks like - The Wachowski sisters' 2008 kaleidoscopic juggernaut proved to be a reliable tonic.

The act of simply watching Speed Racer is initially a confounding one; this is a film that uses visual effects to craft a voice of sincere confidence, vitally unphased by the restrictions and need for traditional ‘realness’. The result is some of the most experimental and fearless blockbuster filmmaking…ever? Yeah I’m going to say ever. With throbbing retinas, you’re launched into a candy-coated tidal curl, infused with a sense of kineticism that is simply unparalleled. The shots and narrative structure dance and weave in this seamless technicolour ballet, stimming with a playful, childlike excitement – every dynamic element abides to crowning motif of ‘speed’.

But at its heart is a story of a lowly artist, manoeuvring through the corporate maze of the moustache-twirling suits, whilst still preserving his passion as authentic and human (sound familiar?). And although it’s undeniably juvenile, the lines and performances stacked with cheese, for me it’s that extra dollop of charm on this ‘live-action cartoon’ leviathan. Speed Racer’s storytelling drive (pun intended) is genuine, rousing emotion, and its frantic hyperreality screams that in spades.

If you have vague memories of this from your childhood, give it a retry. Don’t sleep on Speed Racer!!

Megalopolis (2024)

This is what happens when you smoke weed every day - You end up making Megalopolis. Stop the cycle.

As an infamous Southland Tales defender, I am partial to a rambling grand folly on occasion. I just waxed lyrical for my love of Speed Racer, but both the latter and Southland Tales each possess an unabashedly self-aware sense of character or demented personality: They’re a little thing called ‘fun’. Megalopolis, by comparison, is nothing more than Coppola’s self-important, stoned-out wank-sesh (who up megging they lopolis, if you will).

In a state of unbroken furrowed-brow and slack-jaw, I recoiled with head-in-hands at this lumbering, sonnet-laden, nightmarish Frankenstein of Hideo Kojima and Tommy Wiseau, absolutely reeking of that portentous ‘vodka advert’ angst and ennui: you expect every scene to end with the words “the new fragrance by Paco Rabanne”.

And as the leads flailed and frolicked, spouting out (and I cannot emphasise this enough) the agonisingly appalling dialogue, my brain split; the universe was inverted. The polarities had shifted, and this 120 million dollar primary-school play had morphed into pure, mind numbing hilarity. It was almost a Lacanian response: the human mind can’t comprehend the sheer might of Shia LaBeouf in drag with no eyebrows, being seduced by Aubrey Plaza’s “Fuck me” ’s in her trademark monotone (whilst also dressed as a nun), played entirely, wholly, DEATHLY seriously. Like some parasitic cranial disease, the only feasible symptom was breathless laughter – there were about six other people in the cinema and we all simultaneously combusted into rapturous hysterics as soon as the credits rolled. It was one of the most glorious moments I’ve had at the movies all year.

An outright Harvard-level masterclass in second-hand embarrassment. Thank you Francis.