Also, today, this thing!
Okay, as has become a little bit of a tradition when I find myself watching movies that might do permanent damage to my psyche, I am live-blogging my viewing of Seven. Going by what I’ve heard of it, Seven seems to be something of a gold standard in creepy/gross/scarring cinema. So, clearly, I wanna take a look! So here we go.
A man is in his kitchen, with street noise in the background. He adjusts his tie in the mirror- oh, hi, Morgan Freeman (Somerset)! He gets ready meticulously, cut to a domestic abuse murder scene. “The kid see it?” Somerset asks. “It’s always questions with you, who gives a fuck?” says his fellow police officer/charmer. Ah, and here’s Brad Pitt (Mills) (not the charmer).
Somerset can’t figure out why Mills “fought” to be reassigned to... wherever they are (New York, I think). Mills is defensive, Somerset’s dismissive.
Somerset’s in bed, he sets a metronome on the night stand to ticking. Yeesh, does that help him sleep? Doesn’t look like it.
Ugh, creepy title sequence with razors and film and writing in a journal. I actually heard about that- the killer here has a ton of journals and whatnot with all his scribblings, and it’s all actually real. Well, a person involved with the movie actually wrote it all out, all that weapons-grade psychosis.
“MONDAY” says a chyron. Mills eases out of bed from under a young woman. He gets a phone call and presumably an address. Oh, the young woman is Gwyneth Paltrow- did not know she was in this. Mills and Somerset are heading to a murder scene and the cop is talking about the corpse having his face in a plate of spaghetti, sitting in piss and shit. Here we go, kids. Ye-eah, enormous, purple-veined body spilling over a chair, face-down in a plate. Mills assumes heart attack, Somerset leans down and sees the man’s hands and feet are bound. Did I mention the bugs crawling all over the place? Anyway, Mills finds a bucket of vomit under the table. Fun. Somerset sends Mills out to question the neighbors, he looks pissy but goes.
In the car, Mills gets his pissy out in the open. And now the autopsy, yay. And it’s revealed the victim ate himself to death with a gun pressed hard to the back of his head. And now the meeting with the chief. “Somebody had a problem with a fat boy and decided to torture him, simple as that,” says he. I’m detecting a theme of apathy with the police force, aside from Somerset, who is already suspecting a serial killer. He wants to be reassigned, because this will “go on and on” and he’s retiring in six days (sure he is). Also, it’s “too soon” for Mills to take this case. The chief wants to keep Somerset and reassign Mills, who walks out.
TUESDAY. Newspapers say a defense attorney (Eli Gould) was found murdered. Mills dodges a reporter while he heads to a crime scene, which is in a fancy office. Mills watches the press conference going on below on TVs in the office. Ah, a wide shot, revealing GREED spelled in blood on the floor. There’s a picture on the desk of a woman with a mask drawn over her eyes in blood. Gould was bled to death, the chief tells Somerset, and they chat about retirement and how tough it is for cops. Somerset tells an awful story that happened four hours ago and says he “[doesn’t] understand this place anymore.” Chief says it’s how it’s always been, and gives him something that was found in the gluttony victim’s stomach, something that was “fed to him.”
Somerset goes back to the victim’s apartment, I believe, with the items in question. He finds some gouges on the floor- ah, the items are bits of plastic gouged out of the floor. And behind the fridge GLUTTONY carved into the wall, and a paper note with a Paradise Lost quote on it.
Back to the station, where Somerset’s teaching the slow people about the Seven Deadly Sins. “I can’t get involved with this,” he says. “I’m all over it,” Mills says.
Somerset’s in his apartment for a few seconds before hailing a cab. “Where ya’ headed?” cabbie asks. “Far away from here,” Somerset says, observing some kind of medical emergency playing out on the sidewalk. Now he’s in a library, I think, though there are a bunch of cops playing poker. One of them cranks some classical music on the speaker system. Shawshank reference? Probably not. Somerset picks out some books, including Canterbury Tales and meanwhile Mills looks at creepy crime scene photos. Yikes- Somerset’s books are just as creepy with headless people walking around and some kind of human/spider hybrid thing, among others. He writes a list of books for Mills to research. He also makes photocopies of especially creepy passages while Mills watches basketball and his (presumably) wife (Tracy) looks worried. Somerset leaves an envelope of research on Mills’ desk.
WEDNESDAY. Mills sits in his car with a book and curses out Dante. A cop comes by and drops off a package- *snort* cliff notes. Cut to him walking through a door marked “Detective Mills” and finding Somerset sitting at the desk. Somerset moves to a smaller desk next to it. Mills sneaks his cliff notes into a drawer. Mills gets a phone call from Tracy, but she asks to speak to Somerset. She invites him to dinner, to Mill’s chagrin.
D’aww, Mills roughhousing with his dogs, I believe they are referred to as “the kids.” Somerset and Tracy chit chat about Tracy and Mills being high school sweethearts. She catches sight of his shoulder holster and he promises not to “wear it to the dinner table.” She’s not used to guns and neither is he. During dinner, a passing subway train rattles the whole apartment, but everybody laughs it off.
Mills and Somerset are going over the Gould case. Yikes- “Gould was bound, right arm was left free, he was handed a butcher’s knife.” Oh jeez, looks like that good old pound of flesh was cut off him, by him, and put on a scale. You know, for accuracy. And there’s a note with a Merchant of Venice quote. Mills drops some newly acquired Dante knowledge. FYI, “attrition” means to regret sins but not out of a love for God. More like “because someone’s sticking a fucking gun in your face” as Mills puts it.
Ah, turns out the picture of the woman with the blood mask is Gould’s wife. Mills and Somerset try to figure out what the mask means, if she’s seen or needs to see something, etc. Tracy wakes up to find herself alone in the apartment, while Mills and Somerset go to visit Mrs. Gould in a safe house. She weeps while they show her the crime scene photos (with post-its over the nasty bits). She notices a painting in the office is upside down. Cut to the office, Mills and Somerset take the painting down and find fingerprints on the wall that read “Help me” and they’re not Gould’s.
Mills and Somerset hang out waiting for the prints to be analyzed. Somerset describes crime-solving as “picking up diamonds on a deserted island, keeping them in case we get rescued.” “Bullshit,” says Mills, “Don’t tell me you didn’t feel that rush. We’re getting somewhere.”
THURSDAY. Heh, Mills snoozing on Somerset’s shoulder. “Wake up, Wonder Twins!” the chief says. They know whose prints they are. “Victor” has a “long history of serious mental illness” and “spent some time in prison.” Somerset is dubious, tells Mills “our killer seems to have more purpose.” I’m guessing Victor’s the next victim- Wrath or something.
Heh, in the car Mills asks if Somerset’s ever been shot and Somerset says he never has and he’s only pulled his gun three times and never fired it. JINX IT WHY DON’T YOU. Mills fired once after being fired upon, a cop he was with died but Mills can’t remember his name.
A bunch of cops in riot gear storm a crappy apartment building. They break down the door of Apt. 306 and find a room hung with a hundred or so air fresheners. “Get up, you sack of shit,” they tell a still form in a bed. They yank back the sheet to reveal a desiccated body. SLOTH is written above the bed- hunh, surprise surprise. There’s a box labeled “To the World from ME” that has photos of Victor, presumably taken as he wasted away in the bed, over the course of exactly one year. It looks like he was tied with leather straps and there are syringes scattered on the bed and puncture marks on the body’s limbs. There are also jars of piss and shit and fingernails- OH CRAP. Victor’s still alive. Wow.
Somerset is telling Mills to keep control of his emotions. A guy with a camera starts snapping pictures- yeah, it’s totally Kevin Spacey that Mills chases down the steps. Boy is Mills going to be pissed later. He apologizes for losing his temper, and Somerset says “It’s impressive to see a man feeding off his emotions.” Uh, okay? At the hospital, Victor has a “smorgasbord” of drugs in his system, including an antibiotic. His brain is “mush” and “he chewed off his own tongue long ago.” He’ll probably die momentarily.
In Somerset’s apartment he gets a call from Tracy. She says she needs someone to talk to and asks to meet him tomorrow. “You’re the only person that I know here,” she tells him, and says good night and hangs up. Cut to a diner with the two of them. Somerset says she should talk to Mills and she says she “can’t be a burden, especially now.” Ah, turns out she’s pregnant. And she “hates this city.” Somerset had a relationship where his girlfriend got pregnant and remembers thinking, “How could I bring a child into a world like this?” He decided he didn’t want children, and “in a few weeks, [he] wore [his girlfriend] down.” Ick, that’s cryptic. Tracy wants children, and Somerset supports whatever decision she makes, though if she gets an abortion he says not to tell Mills she was ever pregnant.
Back in the precinct, turns out Victor’s rent was always paid on time. Mills grouses about how they’re not going after the “lunatic” and Somerset tells him not to call the killer that because it’s dismissive. Good point, that. Mills carries on, while Somerset does actual analysis of the killer’s personality.
Mills and Somerset go back to the library to pick up more books on the Deadly Sins, then they go to pizza joint and Mills gets homophobic because they’re sitting side by side in a booth. Jeez, where’s this coming from Mills? You didn’t have a problem sleeping on the guy earlier. A man approaches the booth and sits down, Somerset slides him some money.
Dangit! My DVD froze! *sigh* Okay, gave it a cleaning, hopefully that helps. Though it’s not unlikely my cheap-o DVD player is crapping out on me. Probably didn’t much like all the pausing and fast forwarding and rewinding I’ve been doing. *sigh number two* Okay, let’s try sticking it in the laptop. *sigh number three* No dice. Great. Thanks, Netflix!
To be continued.
A man is in his kitchen, with street noise in the background. He adjusts his tie in the mirror- oh, hi, Morgan Freeman (Somerset)! He gets ready meticulously, cut to a domestic abuse murder scene. “The kid see it?” Somerset asks. “It’s always questions with you, who gives a fuck?” says his fellow police officer/charmer. Ah, and here’s Brad Pitt (Mills) (not the charmer).
Somerset can’t figure out why Mills “fought” to be reassigned to... wherever they are (New York, I think). Mills is defensive, Somerset’s dismissive.
Somerset’s in bed, he sets a metronome on the night stand to ticking. Yeesh, does that help him sleep? Doesn’t look like it.
Ugh, creepy title sequence with razors and film and writing in a journal. I actually heard about that- the killer here has a ton of journals and whatnot with all his scribblings, and it’s all actually real. Well, a person involved with the movie actually wrote it all out, all that weapons-grade psychosis.
“MONDAY” says a chyron. Mills eases out of bed from under a young woman. He gets a phone call and presumably an address. Oh, the young woman is Gwyneth Paltrow- did not know she was in this. Mills and Somerset are heading to a murder scene and the cop is talking about the corpse having his face in a plate of spaghetti, sitting in piss and shit. Here we go, kids. Ye-eah, enormous, purple-veined body spilling over a chair, face-down in a plate. Mills assumes heart attack, Somerset leans down and sees the man’s hands and feet are bound. Did I mention the bugs crawling all over the place? Anyway, Mills finds a bucket of vomit under the table. Fun. Somerset sends Mills out to question the neighbors, he looks pissy but goes.
In the car, Mills gets his pissy out in the open. And now the autopsy, yay. And it’s revealed the victim ate himself to death with a gun pressed hard to the back of his head. And now the meeting with the chief. “Somebody had a problem with a fat boy and decided to torture him, simple as that,” says he. I’m detecting a theme of apathy with the police force, aside from Somerset, who is already suspecting a serial killer. He wants to be reassigned, because this will “go on and on” and he’s retiring in six days (sure he is). Also, it’s “too soon” for Mills to take this case. The chief wants to keep Somerset and reassign Mills, who walks out.
TUESDAY. Newspapers say a defense attorney (Eli Gould) was found murdered. Mills dodges a reporter while he heads to a crime scene, which is in a fancy office. Mills watches the press conference going on below on TVs in the office. Ah, a wide shot, revealing GREED spelled in blood on the floor. There’s a picture on the desk of a woman with a mask drawn over her eyes in blood. Gould was bled to death, the chief tells Somerset, and they chat about retirement and how tough it is for cops. Somerset tells an awful story that happened four hours ago and says he “[doesn’t] understand this place anymore.” Chief says it’s how it’s always been, and gives him something that was found in the gluttony victim’s stomach, something that was “fed to him.”
Somerset goes back to the victim’s apartment, I believe, with the items in question. He finds some gouges on the floor- ah, the items are bits of plastic gouged out of the floor. And behind the fridge GLUTTONY carved into the wall, and a paper note with a Paradise Lost quote on it.
Back to the station, where Somerset’s teaching the slow people about the Seven Deadly Sins. “I can’t get involved with this,” he says. “I’m all over it,” Mills says.
Somerset’s in his apartment for a few seconds before hailing a cab. “Where ya’ headed?” cabbie asks. “Far away from here,” Somerset says, observing some kind of medical emergency playing out on the sidewalk. Now he’s in a library, I think, though there are a bunch of cops playing poker. One of them cranks some classical music on the speaker system. Shawshank reference? Probably not. Somerset picks out some books, including Canterbury Tales and meanwhile Mills looks at creepy crime scene photos. Yikes- Somerset’s books are just as creepy with headless people walking around and some kind of human/spider hybrid thing, among others. He writes a list of books for Mills to research. He also makes photocopies of especially creepy passages while Mills watches basketball and his (presumably) wife (Tracy) looks worried. Somerset leaves an envelope of research on Mills’ desk.
WEDNESDAY. Mills sits in his car with a book and curses out Dante. A cop comes by and drops off a package- *snort* cliff notes. Cut to him walking through a door marked “Detective Mills” and finding Somerset sitting at the desk. Somerset moves to a smaller desk next to it. Mills sneaks his cliff notes into a drawer. Mills gets a phone call from Tracy, but she asks to speak to Somerset. She invites him to dinner, to Mill’s chagrin.
D’aww, Mills roughhousing with his dogs, I believe they are referred to as “the kids.” Somerset and Tracy chit chat about Tracy and Mills being high school sweethearts. She catches sight of his shoulder holster and he promises not to “wear it to the dinner table.” She’s not used to guns and neither is he. During dinner, a passing subway train rattles the whole apartment, but everybody laughs it off.
Mills and Somerset are going over the Gould case. Yikes- “Gould was bound, right arm was left free, he was handed a butcher’s knife.” Oh jeez, looks like that good old pound of flesh was cut off him, by him, and put on a scale. You know, for accuracy. And there’s a note with a Merchant of Venice quote. Mills drops some newly acquired Dante knowledge. FYI, “attrition” means to regret sins but not out of a love for God. More like “because someone’s sticking a fucking gun in your face” as Mills puts it.
Ah, turns out the picture of the woman with the blood mask is Gould’s wife. Mills and Somerset try to figure out what the mask means, if she’s seen or needs to see something, etc. Tracy wakes up to find herself alone in the apartment, while Mills and Somerset go to visit Mrs. Gould in a safe house. She weeps while they show her the crime scene photos (with post-its over the nasty bits). She notices a painting in the office is upside down. Cut to the office, Mills and Somerset take the painting down and find fingerprints on the wall that read “Help me” and they’re not Gould’s.
Mills and Somerset hang out waiting for the prints to be analyzed. Somerset describes crime-solving as “picking up diamonds on a deserted island, keeping them in case we get rescued.” “Bullshit,” says Mills, “Don’t tell me you didn’t feel that rush. We’re getting somewhere.”
THURSDAY. Heh, Mills snoozing on Somerset’s shoulder. “Wake up, Wonder Twins!” the chief says. They know whose prints they are. “Victor” has a “long history of serious mental illness” and “spent some time in prison.” Somerset is dubious, tells Mills “our killer seems to have more purpose.” I’m guessing Victor’s the next victim- Wrath or something.
Heh, in the car Mills asks if Somerset’s ever been shot and Somerset says he never has and he’s only pulled his gun three times and never fired it. JINX IT WHY DON’T YOU. Mills fired once after being fired upon, a cop he was with died but Mills can’t remember his name.
A bunch of cops in riot gear storm a crappy apartment building. They break down the door of Apt. 306 and find a room hung with a hundred or so air fresheners. “Get up, you sack of shit,” they tell a still form in a bed. They yank back the sheet to reveal a desiccated body. SLOTH is written above the bed- hunh, surprise surprise. There’s a box labeled “To the World from ME” that has photos of Victor, presumably taken as he wasted away in the bed, over the course of exactly one year. It looks like he was tied with leather straps and there are syringes scattered on the bed and puncture marks on the body’s limbs. There are also jars of piss and shit and fingernails- OH CRAP. Victor’s still alive. Wow.
Somerset is telling Mills to keep control of his emotions. A guy with a camera starts snapping pictures- yeah, it’s totally Kevin Spacey that Mills chases down the steps. Boy is Mills going to be pissed later. He apologizes for losing his temper, and Somerset says “It’s impressive to see a man feeding off his emotions.” Uh, okay? At the hospital, Victor has a “smorgasbord” of drugs in his system, including an antibiotic. His brain is “mush” and “he chewed off his own tongue long ago.” He’ll probably die momentarily.
In Somerset’s apartment he gets a call from Tracy. She says she needs someone to talk to and asks to meet him tomorrow. “You’re the only person that I know here,” she tells him, and says good night and hangs up. Cut to a diner with the two of them. Somerset says she should talk to Mills and she says she “can’t be a burden, especially now.” Ah, turns out she’s pregnant. And she “hates this city.” Somerset had a relationship where his girlfriend got pregnant and remembers thinking, “How could I bring a child into a world like this?” He decided he didn’t want children, and “in a few weeks, [he] wore [his girlfriend] down.” Ick, that’s cryptic. Tracy wants children, and Somerset supports whatever decision she makes, though if she gets an abortion he says not to tell Mills she was ever pregnant.
Back in the precinct, turns out Victor’s rent was always paid on time. Mills grouses about how they’re not going after the “lunatic” and Somerset tells him not to call the killer that because it’s dismissive. Good point, that. Mills carries on, while Somerset does actual analysis of the killer’s personality.
Mills and Somerset go back to the library to pick up more books on the Deadly Sins, then they go to pizza joint and Mills gets homophobic because they’re sitting side by side in a booth. Jeez, where’s this coming from Mills? You didn’t have a problem sleeping on the guy earlier. A man approaches the booth and sits down, Somerset slides him some money.
Dangit! My DVD froze! *sigh* Okay, gave it a cleaning, hopefully that helps. Though it’s not unlikely my cheap-o DVD player is crapping out on me. Probably didn’t much like all the pausing and fast forwarding and rewinding I’ve been doing. *sigh number two* Okay, let’s try sticking it in the laptop. *sigh number three* No dice. Great. Thanks, Netflix!
To be continued.