4v291o

The first sign of an inexperienced filmmaker is carpeting the entire film in a constant score. I think with 90% less music this film might actually be decent. 

Music is to highlight, applied with a fine brush, not with a roller.

Let the scenes breathe.

Oh, Takehiro Hira plays the same character (ish) in Rumours. Coincidentally I watched that last night. This tickles me.

It’s well done, but also… I’m not feeling great right now. It’s not the blood part of the assault that bugs be. Anyway… TMI?

It’s ok.

I know I’m obligated to like this more than I did. After years of hearing how awesome it was but going in cold, I think I thought it was set in a dystopian, androgynous future where everyone was seeking a new drug called liquid sky. I had built up this whole fiction in my mind that it was like a Philip k Dick novel.

Instead it’s about petty, bitchy, New York models and drug dealers, some rape, an alien that kills the rapists as they come and steals their orgasm brain opiates, and it’s kind of miserable, actually. I’m guessing it’s the film that spawned hundreds of shitty student films and at least a couple club shots in Purple Rain. 

It’s ok. I wish it was weirder. Instead it’s just a sad movie about boring people. Maybe that’s the point.

Listen up, motherfucker. I know the score and I’m gonna tell it to you right now. This film ain’t shit. Now get this guy outta here before I ice his shit ass.

Something like that. I have no idea what’s going on. 

Another movie written by chat gpt, likely, churned through the bowels of Netflix and fired right at your eyeballs.

It ain’t like that, man! I wuz just tellin Bruno the score when the cops busted in! I ain’t done it.

Can it Lopez! I’m putting Pizzaballa on the case, now gimme your badge and gun!

Or some shit. I’m outta here!

Holy shit!

SPOILERS 
.
.
.
.
.
.
These days Agnes would be taking an effective antidepressant and be in therapy. People would understand and be sensitive to her depression. 

In the time of this story, with no understanding of the mind her depression would be seen as possession, and to be absolved of sin, they would commit a crime, confess, be forgiven, and be beheaded. Suicide by proxy.

I know a little something about this. 

This is a stunningly beautiful and sad film. I don’t really think it’s a horror film just because there are four deaths and some gruesome effects. The drinking of blood scene at the end was horrific, and mad, but this still feels like more of a psychological drama. 

I love this movie. It’s grim grim grim, but it resonates.

I haven’t seen this in a dog’s age. It gets bagged on a lot, and it is paced pretty slowly, but it’s fine.

Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before.

Chisel jawed ex con’s pretty and pregnant wife is murdered in front of him and is left for dead. He is nursed back to health by his sensei. Then he goes on a bloody killing spree to rescue his adopted daughter. He does.

That’s the movie.

Why I gave it three stars comes down to how well shot it was, the fight choreography, the tightness of the script (no exposition), and the performances from the leads.

There are some really interesting choices in of culture, locations, and a sensitivity in portrayals. Outside of the villains being killing machines with no sense of self preservation or any moral com, everyone else is treated with complexity and comion.

It’s a nothingburger that is basically another Raid style action flick, but its value is in its moments, less as a whole.

It had its moments.

Sometimes I wonder if filmmaking is a dead art.

1) AGAIN. This kind of story doesn’t need a big five minute prelude with all this documentary style news footage with a bunch of world building jammed the fuck into an already in progress story.

2) the world will reveal itself in time, the audience isn’t stupid, let people piece things together naturally. Dark City got fucked up because studio heads are notoriously stupid and always wrong, they spoiled the whole movie in the first two minutes because they assume the audience is as stupid as they are. The audience is not stupid.

3) pump the breaks on the fucking score. 10% music is always better than 100%. Save score for when it will have impact. Don’t drown the movie in it. Fucking hell.

4) this should’ve been a slam dunk. Are there any directors left? 

This movie is all studio notes, no skill or soul. I wonder if anything other than the art direction made it from the original pitch. Can we have characters with depth? Why the fuck is Constanza in this? Why is his character written flatter than a piece of single ply toilet paper?

God damn it. What the shit is happening in Hollywood right now?

It’s the perfect length for what it was. I ran the gamut from starting off unimpressed, to feeling it redeemed itself, to loving it, and then finally just liking it. Definitely an 80s movie set in the 90s. 

I wish the middle part was longer. 

By that I mean, lose the office subplot. I think they wrote that to justify covering a guy in glue. They could’ve made him a cop.

Give a tiny bit more time to the relationship. The fact that she’s a sculptor needed an earlier introduction.

The whole party and basement scene felt a little long to me. What I mean is tightening the edit and maybe losing a set piece. If the footage from the basement scene were edited like Evil Dead 2 it would’ve been 1/2 the length without losing a thing. They probably shot in 8K, so a few flash zooms in post and a nice dubbed in “SHOT-GUN!” would’ve been fun.

Anyway. The beginning and end felt long and the middle felt way short. There is SO MUCH left unexplored, that whole part of the story had so much potential, but the office scene took too much time. Their escape could’ve used a few minutes through the building, on the ground, check points, weird horrors, etc. 

That villain didn’t really seem to have much going on. He said and did some villain things, became a mutant, died. But what’s he like as a leader? What are his idiosyncrasies, insecurities, grudge with Frankie, what does his death do to freakworld? There’s an implication they have history and beef. What is it? What if Frankie freed the freaks? What if the villain died in his own world, a rebellion started, and Frankie and everyone make their way, pursued by the bots, and met at the end by a huge army of angry freaks marching in the street. Would’ve been fun to see the pursuing bots self destruct instead of get taken.

I got notes. Unsolicited, but I don’t expect that anyone reads this, and I don’t mind if no one does, it’s all really just for me to how I felt coming out of a film. 

I would never put these thoughts in a publication because saying “you should have…” to an artist, unsolicited, directly or not, is a dick move.

If anyone is actually reading this. Get out of here! Just kidding. No, but seriously, why are you reading this? You clearly wandered in by accident. I have nothing to offer you to eat or drink, but here we are! 

So what’s up? Lovely weather we’re having.

You know, friend. It just occurs to me that a 10mg Delta9 edible is just kicking in….

Anyway. Frankie Freako. It’s a movie. Probably better with an audience, definitely friends, and substances.

What the hell was in this drink?

Um… some of my art is in this… so that’s cool.

Watched on Sunday March 23, 2025.

Full disclosure, I’m less than five minutes in and I watched the worst written scene of completely useless character exposition I have ever endured.

“So your record says you have eleventy billion confirmed kills as a sniper, you’re an accomplished sous chef with a specialty in scallops, had a difficult relationship with your father but reconciled during his prolonged death of hoof and mouth disease, studied painting under the Dutch masters, and could perform a triple Lindy. Is any of that wrong?”

“Yes, I have eleventy billion and ONE confirmed kills.”

Jesus wept. Expository dialogue is my fucking kyptonite.

There’s so much about this film that bothers me. It’s at its best when there’s no dialogue, but there’s a lot of stuff in it that feels too self conscious. None of the opening scenes did fuck all to help the story. Weaver’s character is useless. The scene with the father was useless. It was, don’t argue. The scene where she wept while looking at an old photo of her and her father said more in a few seconds than 4 million pages of exposition.

Less is more.

This movie has 300 producers and no credited writer.

I’m out.

Hollow.