'Hell Or High Water'.  Two brothers stage a series of bank robberies to save the family farm and pay off one's child support.  An interesting twist is that they only rob branches of the bank that holds the mortgage on the farm.

Great performances by Chris Pine (which surprised me) and Jeff Bridges (which didn't).  8/10.

Boru

This week in the Deep Hurting Project, The Emoji Movie. What the fuck is there to even say about this movie? It was a huge event movie in the whole "dogshit movies" genre, and as a result, there are hundreds of movies pointing out everything wrong with it, so here's my 2 cents' worth:

• The movie starts with a monologue that's simultaneously beaming about how awesome phones are and how teenagers are stupid for relying on it so much. In a well-written movie, this would be commentary. In this movie, it's just confusing.
  
• Gene has the most depressing character motivation I've ever seen (including suicidal characters): he actually has the capacity for multiple emotions, and he has to limit himself to one emotion: apathy. And it's not like he's had a hard life and has learned that there's safety in indifference.
  
• The characters are flat, and the worst thing is it's by design. And it's not like those cardboard cutouts are even interesting.
  
• The movie's going for a "be yourself" moral, but, well, they do it in the worst possible way; doing your own thing is kind of the worst possible thing for a computer program to do. You know what happens to smartphone apps that don't work the way they should? They get deleted. What happens in this movie? The phone almost got the whole phone wiped and everyone dying. And then it gets averted when it glitches yet again. 
  
• 
  
  
• And how the fuck does an emoji have parents? In a smartphone that's at best a few years old?
  
• The movie is trying for a feminist aesop, with Jailbreak complaining about how patriarchal the system is, and how, originally, female emojis were only supposed to be princesses and brides, even though Smiler, the very first emoji is female and also the boss of the whole phone. What's the point of having a corporate feminist aesop when you're just going to fuck it up this badly?
  
• Maya Rudolph has one of the most annoying performances I've ever heard in an animated movie. It's like she's trying to pick her teeth or talk through a vicodin high. Or both.
  
• Well, at least Steven Wright is perfectly cast as Mr. Meh. Too bad he's given a subplot that drags on way too damn long.
  
• James Corden's High-Five seems to zig-zag about how knowledgeable he is about the software on a dime, like his inspiring Gene to find a hacker and only figuring out it could help himself after Gene suggests it.
  
• Also, the eggplant emoji is apparently one of the "losers", but apparently, the beer and flamenco dancer emojis aren't. There is no way this can make sense. Why are Beer and Flamenco Dancers VIP emojis for Alex when he's in middle school?
  
• Why does a movie set inside a smart-phone not know how smart phones work? Why does Alex have trolls in his phone? Why is Twitter in Dropbox? Does Android even have an officially sanctioned piracy app?
  
• Also, there's a long scene where emojis in the calendar have to keep explaining to Smiler that he's going to have the phone erased, and they keep delivering important information piecemeal, like first he's got an appointment at the phone store, then that it's with tech support, then that it's to have the phone wiped, and then that it's happening the next day. You know what would have worked better? Seeing Alex make the appointment with the phone store to have it wiped tomorrow, and then to have the emojis react to the news. Too bad that might have actually given Alex (the God of this world, since he owns the smartphone it all takes place in) some actual character.
  
• And I'm not even going into all the other recent movies this one is clearly ripping off (like Inside Out or Wreck It Ralph.)
  
• Where's the Easter Island Head emoji?
  

Twice in one week, this week I watched "The Help".

I love the movie, but it is also bittersweet because it was the last movie in a theater I went to with my late mother. Both of us laughed and cried. My mom and I were politically different, and most certainly had different living standards. But it was one of those events where we bonded and shared common agreement.

My favorite line, "Mini don't burn chicken.".

Yet more problems with the Emoji Movie that came back to me after letting it settle in me for a while:

• An emoji cannot be reprogrammed any more than any character already in the typepad of a phone; it's a Unicode character, so that entire thrust of the plot makes no sense. 
  
• Also, the "hacking" scene; besides just randomly guessing potential passwords not actually being hacking, it's kind of telling that we get more insight into Alex' personality when they're just randomly guessing things he might use as a password than at any point in the rest of the film. What does it mean that he apparently considers Krav Maga, Major Lazer, and Skate or Die important to him? 
  
• The whole thing about Alex angsting about texting Addie and getting her attention makes no sense when you consider HE ALREADY HAS HER NUMBER, implying he was already on intimate enough terms (in that middle school way) that he doesn't need to worry about her potentially not liking him. 
  
• The fact that Gene can do multiple facial expressions and this is a horrifying thing that could doom the phone makes no sense even by the logic of the film; other emojis (not even including his father, who's revealed to be capable of multiple emotions) actually act out of character [Christ, the monkeys Gene meets in the first five minutes or so go from staid businessmonkeys to monkey hijinx on a fucking dime) and nobody seems to make an issue of it just as long as they make the right face when they get scanned. 
  

So now, we have four more reasons this week's entry in the Deep Hurting Project is horrible, and three of them elaborating on how the plot manages to undermine its own logic on a very fundamental level. How the fuck did nobody notice that? I know I'm probably beating a dead horse, but, funny thing: two weeks ago, I saw a bus with an ad with Gene and Hi-5 on it promoting some new emojis. Not two years ago, TWO WEEKS AGO.



If you think I'm going into a bit too much detail about a shitty movie, well, next week's going to be a documentary (either Hilary's America or The Undefeated) and, especially if the former is actually available at the library on Saturday, there will be a lot of talk about the bullshit either way.

Brave.

Because I like it.

Just when you thought you couldn't despise Andrews Behring Breivik any more than you already did, you find out about Paul Greenglass' Netflix movie 22 July and somehow, a man who killed 77 people becomes even more loathsome than before.

Before I elaborate on this, I'd like to talk about Dragnet, specifically the episode "Burglary: Mister." The crook of the week is Mr. Daniel Lumis. He was one of the most jaw-droppingly egotistical criminals I'd ever seen in any media. He insisted on people calling him "MISTER Daniel Lumis"  (even having the full name and title tattooed on his arm) and when Joe and Bill went to confront him, he not only admitted to the crimes, but was convinced they'd let him go and apologise for bothering him. Said crimes:

• After being left alone with his wife's elderly, blind, mother, he sells EVERYTHING in the house except for the old lady and a crate she can sit on. He explains he did this because he needed the money; he also insists he only spent his ill-gotten gains on the finer things in life, and never any necessities.
  
• Stealing his mother's burial money, which he insists was because he was written out of her will and had to get something out of it.
  
• Moved in with a roommate (played by one of the Schoolhouse Rock guys), claimed to be paying the rent, but was really stealing his money and other things.
  
• Married another woman (before this current wife), and left her when she got pregnant (without divorcing her.)
  
• Being in the process of wooing yet another girl and planning on running off with the honeymoon fund. (He used the "don't be sad it's over, be happy it ever was" justification.)
  

Naturally, they sent him off to jail.

And then, when I watched 22 July and saw that, a third of the way through, while trying to negotiate, he demanded to be sent to the hospital and sought medical attention for a cut on his finger. That cut was the result of shrapnel... from the skull of one of the boys he killed. And then it turned out that, after his conviction, he complained about the conditions in his prison cell (downright palatial in comparison to the ones in America), and even complained about the stab-proof pens giving him writer's cramp, saying it's ""an almost indescribable manifestation of sadism." Writer's cramp is "an almost indescribable manifestation of sadism."

Finally, I think, since I started with Dragnet, I may as well end with Dragnet. 





Remember when even right-wing reactionaries didn't hesitate in condemning Nazis? Rev. Rye remembers.

The first Sherlock Holmes with R. Downey Jr.

It was free on Netflix and I was only half paying attention.

(April 19, 2019 at 1:45 pm)Spooky Wrote: The first Sherlock Holmes with R. Downey Jr.

It was free on Netflix and I was only half paying attention.

A more complex, more faceted Holmes. Purists were having hissy fits.

(April 19, 2019 at 1:47 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:

(April 19, 2019 at 1:45 pm)Spooky Wrote: The first Sherlock Holmes with R. Downey Jr.

It was free on Netflix and I was only half paying attention.

A more complex, more faceted Holmes. Purists were having hissy fits.

Speaking as one of those purists, I hissy-fitted all over the place.  Proud of it, too.

Boru

(April 19, 2019 at 4:03 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(April 19, 2019 at 1:47 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: A more complex, more faceted Holmes. Purists were having hissy fits.

Speaking as one of those purists, I hissy-fitted all over the place.  Proud of it, too.

Boru

I can't imagine a situation where I would deny you a hissy fit.