What I Talk About When I Talk About Movies

I’m going to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what caused this, but I’m trying to think about how I’ve been evaluating the movies I’ve been seeing. When I started being a “movie person” (as a coworker of mine calls it), a lot of my opinions were based on other critical opinions. Whether that was just out of fear that my own opinions weren’t worth much at all or because I was putting way too much weight on what others say or even a mix of both, whichever it is, I realized it was a problem. And in an effort to fix that problem, I wanted to, well, I guess not exactly write down “how I’ll aim to in the future” but reflect on what I do like.

I’ve said stuff like this before, but I look for creative flourishes. To steal a quote from The Beginner’s Guide, “It reminds you this was made by a real person.” And yeah, that does get really close to auteur theory, which a lot of people consider an outdated model of thinking, but it’s not like I’m looking for touches by one single person. Anyone involved can make a film enjoyable. For example, the film The Man Who Killed Hitler And Then The Bigfoot is, mostly, kind of mediocre, but there’s one camera move when Sam Elliot says “...and this knife” that I thought was really really good. Again, the film isn’t that great, but if it had more things like that, I think it would be.

I’ve also found I have a weakness for neo-noir crime films. Destroyer is a good film, but I enjoyed it much more than I think the movie deserved. Does that make sense? Or Goldstone, which did something similar. And honestly, because the releases for these movies aren’t as big as the really big ones, it’s possible that there’s a little bit of “you haven’t seen this and I have” to it as well, but if it’s there, I think it’s minimal.

But those two paragraphs are at odds with each other, I think. The first one looks for technical performance, whether that be mastery of the film’s style (one of the reasons I liked Phantom Thread and some people didn’t), while the second one is emotion based. I don’t mean that they have to be at odds, but that’s often how it feels. The phrase, “I really liked that movie, but…” or something similar comes up a lot in my discussions, and there has to be a better way to say that because the “but” in that sentence feels like it dismisses the first half way too much.

I’m still learning. I tried earlier in the year to have a full review blog, and that fell through because of other commitments, but I still do talk about movies with friends and family. And like every other skill, it can only get better over time.

-F

Daylight Savings

This isn’t going to be one of those posts that slags off Daylight Savings Time, although I do think it’s only kept around for tradition’s sake at this point (and you know what they say about traditions: they’re old people’s way of peer pressuring you). Instead, let’s talk about how a seemingly irrelevant change severely alters the work environment of a place you might not normally expect: the food service industry.

First off is the obvious: windows. At my workplace, we have just about an entire wall of windows facing west. For about an hour a day, the sun shines right into the cashiers’ eyes. This hasn’t been too much of a problem -- not too many people come in at that time of day -- but once the hour shift happens, those two times merge into one unfortunate block of time. I guess that’s why they have us all wear hats.

But there’s also what I’m starting to call the “sundown rush.” Because no matter what time it is on the clock, the evening’s busiest time is around sundown. Right now, that’s about 7:30 PM, which on paper shouldn’t be a problem. We’re open for an hour and a half after that, so we should be able to get everything we need to get done done, right?

Well, the way that our saute cooks start to close down is basically going to half-capacity while three of the burners get cleaned, before switching burners to clean those. This is one of the first steps in their cleaning procedure, which means it happens… right around 7:30.

Eventually, as the sun sets later and later, these problems will cease to coincide with each other. All spread out, there manageable enough, and the sun setting later and later will certainly cause these phenomena to drift apart. But until then, we all just have to power through it.

-F

Raindrops on Roses (Part Sixteen): Searching

(I had trouble getting blogspot to cooperate this week so no images for right now)

(trailer)

It’s been three weeks since I last talked about screen-only media, and in that three weeks, I had a revelation that some might say is obvious but, I mean, I’m the one writing this blog so I’m still going to share it. Fundamentally, it’s the same lesson one learns when writing to anyone, through any medium, be that Internet Relay Chat, text messaging, or even handwriting letters: It’s difficult to identify the emotions in text like it is in sound.

Here’s a fun fact about the internet: The solution to this problem, universally, is appending a “/s” to any text that’s meant to be sarcastic. And when the original writer thinks it’s obvious they’re meant to be read as sarcastic, there’s inevitably still someone replying with something like, “Can’t tell if /s or not.”

Searching and Secret Little Haven both have similar themes in this regard. Both of their plots involve a father failing to understand his daughter and almost losing them. The question remains, though. How do you convey a character’s emotion through a screen? And that’s where these two pieces of media diverge.

Let’s focus on Searching for now. Between it and Secret Little Haven, Searching is much more sympathetic to the father, if only because it’s shot almost entirely from his perspective. The audience gets to see all the messages John Cho’s character, David, doesn’t send. We get to see his mouse move across the screen, click between tabs or windows, and can therefore get a sense of what’s inside his head. There are also a number of instances of webcams set up to allow for, you know, the actual acting.

In fact, the film makes a point to introduce all the necessary characters by video call or similar means before dropping into the text messages. This idea works not only because the audience gets to see these character’s faces match them to text, but also because we get to see how David reacts to them. How does he react to his brother having weed just in shot, for example.

In fact, the film tries to avoid the problem for as long as possible. Video, whether for chatting or otherwise, is used at every opportunity, sometimes in some admittedly contrived ways. But the film is also good at setting up these opportunities. A few times late in the film are of note here, though to speak more about them would be to spoil them.

This is a film built on its twists and turns. It is a thriller, after all. And it’s got a pretty tight script to help it, too. That was one of the problems of Unfriended and its sequel: those films were built upon their gimmick and had little else to offer. Searching, on the other hand, is tied to its gimmick to the point that it becomes a necessary part of the film.

Again, I’m not going to spoil it because I do want people to experience this movie as blind as possible, but we’re introduced to a phrase pretty early on in the film that keeps coming up in the back of David’s mind. At the end of the film, when it finally comes out, the way it’s presented makes it all the more rewarding.

-F

Mr. Bird

I’ve been focusing on other projects recently, so this is another “week off” sort of post. Many of the people who read this blog on the regular have probably seen this one already, but it’s also one of the ones I’ve been consistently happy with, so hopefully that balances out.

It also means I finally have to pick a title for it, so here you go: Mr. Bird