Day 2: a meditation on contemporary narrative rot
A morning's spirited house-clean has revealed the nasty little collection of reproachful half-watched DVDs littering the TV cabinet, all of which I have abandoned between half an hour and an hour in. A brief rundown:
Solo: A Star Wars Story. I am unable to get past my profound lack of interest in the incurably bland protagonist. Also, this appears to be following the Jumper principle of simulating a plot with a random mix of disconnected elements rather than actually writing one.
Aquaman. I think this particular superhero may actually be as cursed as popular comics-geek contempt holds it to be. The considerable charisma of its lead actor is not sufficient to overcome the rote and plastic construction of its narrative, or to make me actually care about his fate or that of his frequently beautiful underwater city. Some striking visuals, though.
Prometheus. The dull, heavy plod of this gradually pressed me further and further into the sofa by some kind of lead weight infusion, I'm just lucky the last flicker of life leaving my failing form was sufficient to spasm my hand on the "stop" button on the remote.
Annihilation. I darkly suspect this is a very good movie, it certainly has a phenomenal cast and is beautifully shot, but in retrospect starting this on the first night of lockdown was injudicious, isolation is not a good context for its particular mix of tension and gore. I may need to temporarily shelve this until we're not all plague pits and I can rustle up some consenting adult to hold my hand through it. Although there is a non-zero chance that you'd look down at the hand you're holding and realise it's mutated into something revolting, so maybe not.
I am preventing myself from abandoning The Witcher 2 a couple of hours in, its combat system and generous sprinkling with really horrible people is rendering me depressed and homicidal. Also, its punch-up minigame is an abomination unto Nuggan, I hope the neighbours didn't misinterpret my screams of rage. It's a pity, I hear good things of the third game in the series and am becoming attached to Geralt, grumpy thing that he is. I may persevere, it'll probably be good for the soul.
The Cabinet of Half-Watched Reproach also includes Vi's copy of Home, which in sharp contradistinction to the above was an unalloyed delight that I watched right through to the end without pause, cheering. Wonderful little movie, beautifully written and animated, intelligently critical of fairly specific current cultural paradigms, and incidentally also makes a bunch of Tumblr memes suddenly comprehensible. Contemporary narrative rot is not, after all, at 100%. Thank the gods.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/975717.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Solo: A Star Wars Story. I am unable to get past my profound lack of interest in the incurably bland protagonist. Also, this appears to be following the Jumper principle of simulating a plot with a random mix of disconnected elements rather than actually writing one.
Aquaman. I think this particular superhero may actually be as cursed as popular comics-geek contempt holds it to be. The considerable charisma of its lead actor is not sufficient to overcome the rote and plastic construction of its narrative, or to make me actually care about his fate or that of his frequently beautiful underwater city. Some striking visuals, though.
Prometheus. The dull, heavy plod of this gradually pressed me further and further into the sofa by some kind of lead weight infusion, I'm just lucky the last flicker of life leaving my failing form was sufficient to spasm my hand on the "stop" button on the remote.
Annihilation. I darkly suspect this is a very good movie, it certainly has a phenomenal cast and is beautifully shot, but in retrospect starting this on the first night of lockdown was injudicious, isolation is not a good context for its particular mix of tension and gore. I may need to temporarily shelve this until we're not all plague pits and I can rustle up some consenting adult to hold my hand through it. Although there is a non-zero chance that you'd look down at the hand you're holding and realise it's mutated into something revolting, so maybe not.
I am preventing myself from abandoning The Witcher 2 a couple of hours in, its combat system and generous sprinkling with really horrible people is rendering me depressed and homicidal. Also, its punch-up minigame is an abomination unto Nuggan, I hope the neighbours didn't misinterpret my screams of rage. It's a pity, I hear good things of the third game in the series and am becoming attached to Geralt, grumpy thing that he is. I may persevere, it'll probably be good for the soul.
The Cabinet of Half-Watched Reproach also includes Vi's copy of Home, which in sharp contradistinction to the above was an unalloyed delight that I watched right through to the end without pause, cheering. Wonderful little movie, beautifully written and animated, intelligently critical of fairly specific current cultural paradigms, and incidentally also makes a bunch of Tumblr memes suddenly comprehensible. Contemporary narrative rot is not, after all, at 100%. Thank the gods.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/975717.html. Please comment there using OpenID.