afterbite

Saw Get Out this weekend. I'm a horror fan, and with Peele on board and the 100% on RT, I couldn't miss it. It had the same kind of indie horror vibe to it that made You're Next such an entertaining watch, though the latter had more gore. After a great opening scene, things sort of slowed down a bit before really ramping up at the end, but on the whole, I'd say it was highly effective. It really ramped up the discomfort, both by showing you, through the eyes of the main protagonist Chris (who was black - I'll fess up to it before you meet him), all of the many cringe-worthy interactions with the various white characters. (Side note: I'm white, and part of the discomfort came from the fact that I know I've done the same 'trying too hard and it's weird and uncomfortable but for some reason it just... happens' kinds of things; they feel awkward and weird and horrible when you're inexplicably doing them and even worse to see them in their awkward and weird glory on screen.) To come back from that digression, there was such a sense that something was wrong that I was just as paranoid and freaked out as Chris, so while the movie isn't action packed for the greatest part of its run-time, it really does a very effective job of building that sense of dread and foreboding. It got to a point where I was almost painfully awaiting the climax of the film just because I needed the coin to finally drop so that I could go back to just plain enjoying some standard horror instead of the ratcheting tension. I wish they'd done something different with the visualization of the 'sunken place' because it was a little too retro, almost cheesy Twilight Zone for me, which lessened some of the horror, though the actuality of what was happening at the time did counteract that fairly effectively. In the end, it was pretty effective horror and pretty effective social commentary. Interestingly, at my showing, patrons Even though horror is generally social commentary, take the social commentary out of it and think just about the feel of the film, and I'd say you'd like this if you liked: You're Next, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, The Burbs (going way back), and possibly even The Cabin the Woods (though for that one, primarily the bits around the Merman scene).

I love Lehane's stand-alone stories, or at least those I've read. For example, I checked my Goodreads ratings. Shutter Island and Mystic River each got 5 stars. A Drink Before the War (the first of the Kenzie and Gennaro books) and World Gone By (book 3 of the Joe Coughlin series, which is the only one of those I've read) only got 2 stars from me.

I hated The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Hated it. Also, I love Pratchett and Gaiman, but wasn't wowed by Good Omens.

IMDB tells me that Laura Prepon and Ben Foster are having a baby. I like Ben Foster. I like Ribisi. I like Beth Riesgraf. Why, CO$, why? Why must you collect people I like?

Saw this for the 3rd time yesterday - did a comparison of IMAX 3D, Dolby 3D, and regular 2D using this film. After the repeat viewings and watching the original trailers (and seeing that Nissan Rogue One commercial about fifty million times during bowl season), I've built my hypothesis of what the movie was about originally. This is likely not earth shattering, and possibly quite off-base, but here we go... I think Jyn was originally billed as a rebel operative who was still part of Gerrera's faction but mostly operating on her own, causing trouble for the more stately portion of the Rebel Alliance. Likely she was mostly on her own for the reasons Gerrera uses in the movie - it was too dangerous for her to remain. I'd guess that one of the reshoots was the scene were Gerrera asks if she's there to kill him, because it's so dissonant. The rest of his scenes, he's perhaps a bit odd but still commanding and calculating. In the 'here to kill me?' scene, he's weirdly fragile and almost schizophrenic. It's one of the weakest points of the movie for me, along with him deciding to stay and be crushed in the original Deathstar test. You almost get enough of his character to understand why he'd do that, but there's something vital missing. Anyway, scenes that didn't make it into the movie had Cassian coming to Jyn and telling her that he'd join up with whatever it was she had going on. It was more of a furtive aside, not like in the movie where he shows up with his ragtag group of guys. (And why no ladies, SW?) It makes me think that perhaps Jyn came in to the Rebel Alliance camp with the intention of talking them around into helping her on her mission because she needed their firepower or getting in the way of one of their missions and being unrepentant about it and expecting them to help her once "captured" by them. And, when they declined to join in her mission, she decided she'd just do it herself. There's little in the movie to show her as a figure who should be able to inspire the Rebel Alliance soldiers. She just doesn't have that history with them, so why would they respond so positively to her pre-battle pep talk? It feels like the part where she says "May the Force be with us" should have come from a soldier they respected either because they'd seen her in action or because she had a fearsome reputation. She's new to these soldiers, and there's nothing to indicate she was a guerrilla with a fearsome and widely known reputation. Saw says she was one of his best soldiers, but she'd parted with him when she was 16, and anyway, I get the feeling that he was already a splinter group and so the main body of the Rebel Alliance wouldn't have known of any exploits she might have gotten up to. Since she'd left him, it didn't seem like she'd gotten up to much rebelling, at least in this version. I think a lot of it was more in the reactions of others to her. Sometimes, they felt like they were reacting to a character we weren't quite seeing in our version. I like the version we got, though I do wish there'd been a little more smoothing out between the two (or more) existing versions. This Jyn has seen her mother murdered, her father taken away by Imperial forces and known to be helping them. She's been raised by guerrillas, abandoned by them, and left to fend for herself at age 16. She's disillusioned and lonely and doesn't even seem to have enough fight left to fight for herself. Not that she won't take the chance when offered, as seen by her attempted escape from her escape attempt, but she just doesn't have the will needed to keep on with what was likely an exhausting life. She said she liked to think of her father as dead. I imagine that's because it's easier than knowing he's out there, possibly suffering, and that she'll still never get to see him again. It's probably easier to imagine him at peace instead of there but unreachable. As much as she may once have believed in the ideals of the Rebellion, that's not why she goes on this mission. She goes on the mission to make sure that her father's sacrifice, her mother's sacrifice, and her own sacrifice actually mean something. If she'd been the hotshot Rebel, she'd have been another Leia, and Leia was doing quite well on her own handling that particular role. tl;dr: I like that she does it all for love and vindication of those she loves, even though she's been beaten down. They just kept a wee too much of the spitfire badass guerrilla (and reactions to someone who would be one of those) for it to be as smooth as it could have been. All of this is nitpicking, obvs. I clearly love this movie beyond reason. (Though not words, as I've written a lot of them.)

They touch on that in the Bloodlines book by Claudia Gray. I'm wondering if they'll work more of that into Ep VIII, since all of the new stuff is supposed to be the One True Canon now, or if they'll leave these bits to other media.

Those would be in Season 5, episodes 2-5.

I also made the mistaken of checking in early yesterday morning and being spoiled as to the ultimate fate of the characters, which was a bummer. It's a logical ending, though, and watching the journey of the doomed was incredibly poignant. I've been mainlining SWs lately, including going through 'The Clone Wars', reading 'Catalyst', and rewatching the original trilogy, so I was on much better footing, back-story wise, than I usually am about these things. Catalyst, the book prequel to Rogue One, was a serviceable if not amazing read, but I was able to jump right into the story and avoid what other posters are calling a slow start. I'd just listened to 10 hours (audiobook version) of Orson gaslighting Galen and had a headstart on where Galen and Lyra were mentally, so if anything, the book was my slow start. :) One other point before I move forward - the Saw Gerrera addition to the movie was an interesting one. It traces back through the book to the Clone Wars, but it's interesting, I think, that Saw was chosen as that link. I suppose there is a bit more emotional heft to him when you consider his backstory, but it feels like the movie is missing something in the transition of Saw from impetuous guerrilla fighter with a very particular ghost haunting him to the grizzled, worn down guerrilla fighter of the movie. As I get older, I can completely sympathize with the differences between my younger, more idealistic (and energetic) self from the more cynical, tired version of me today, but there's some indefinable character beat that's missing, I think, that would have made the transition feel like a better fit. Beyond that, I think Star Wars was in desperate need of this entry. For all of the high-minded philosophy of the conflict that we've seen in the previous films, and especially the original trilogy, the war has never really felt like something that endangered actual people going about their daily business. As vast as the universe was, with as many worlds as it had, the earlier entries (minus, I suppose, some of the Senate scenes in I-III) were a smallish group of people fighting another smallish group of people with consequences that were supposed to be epic in scale. It's satisfying to see the Empire subjugating people, looting resources, creating a police state, etc. It's a bridge into the the reality of war and of fascist governments on the civilian population that provides heart to the ideals of Star Wars. Also, as much as the series has always drawn on WWII imagery, there was something very satisfying about the echoes of the D-day invasion and epic air battles that we see in this movie. It really had the feel of the space Nazis meeting the determined grit of the Allied forces. In sum, go see it immediately.

Saw this today and it's amazing. Mesmerizing and moving and beautiful - highly recommended.

Yes! My thoughts exactly. Other than that, I thought the movie was fine enough, but I hadn't been all that excited about it in the first place so I suppose 'okayness' lived up to what I was expecting. I'll likely see the second movie, but only because I'll see anything Ejiofor is in.