The Last Movie You Watched

[Foxaèr]

She Dies Tomorrow
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt11614912/
Hulu

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project is Apartment 1303, one of the few remaining So Bad It's  Horrible films on Amazon Prime. I know nothing about it except that it's a remake of a Japanese horror movie, it was apparently originally in 3D, and it was bad enough to make TVTropes' So Bad It's Horrible list.

• Weird thing in the early scenes: one of the women is a guitarist and she plays a guitar with a pickguard on the wrong side. No, I don't mean it's a left-handed guitar. It's strung right-handed, and she plays it right-handed. It just looks like it has a pickguard on the wrong side. And she's apparently prone to doing this:
  
  
  And apparently, she's got other guitars that are properly right-handed, so they had to go out of their way to make a guitar so wrong.
• Apparently, this is set in Detroit, and apparently, the titular apartment is in a shittier part of town. At the risk of sounding weird, I have to ask: why are there no black people? I only ask because, according to the latest statistics, the black population of Detroit outnumbers its non-Hispanic white population a bit less than eight to one. And looking at the IMDb page, it looks like the entire cast is white except for one guy named Antoine Yared. To be fair, there is one black woman in the cast, but she appears 25 minutes in and she's the only credited cast member without a headshot. And I can't expect that there'd be that many more white people in what looks like an old tenement building. I'm not normally one of those people who demands diversity for diversity's sake in movies and TV, but such a preponderance of white people in the Detroit projects strikes me as a bit unrealistic.
  
• Oh, SpoOoOoOky! A power outage! 
  
• So, the only spooky thing that's happening in this haunted apartment movie is that one of the guys there is a total pervert. I'm not sure how realistic it is that she's been reduced to a blubbering mess. It could be because of the fact that there's apparently a scent of rotting meat, but that shit isn't going to carry on film, especially when those are the only real things conveying that something's off here. Well that and maybe the music.
  
• And maybe the whole "someone died there" thing should have been mentioned earlier.
  
• Oh, look, a woman shrouded in mist smacking you against the wall. That's actually something scary.
  
• Does she seriously think that the little girl down the hall is strong enough to throw her across the room?
  
• Joyce, you're my best friend. Which is why we're probably not going to see you in the rest of the movie.
  
• Okay, I'll admit, tossing people out of a window for the lulz is an unusual method of haunting.
  
• Also, that was short; the main character is dead and it's not even halfway through. So, why are there still 50 minutes of movie left? Okay, so the girl we spent the first half of the movie focusing on isn't the actual protagonist. It's apparently a Psycho situation. And so, we spend the next few minutes farting around with her gathering her sister's belongings and trying and failing to make it look creepy.
  
• So the little girl knew the house was haunted? Why didn't she tell her neighbour? And why is she warning her sister?
  
• And what's with the ghost in the phone? Why wasn't that set up?
  
• And did she kill her mother or not? Why is her sister taunting her about killing mom if she isn't fucking dead?
  
• Oh, look, faces piercing the walls. Why is she doing this while there's another person in the room?
  
• So, this is apparently a Japanese section of Detroit, judging by the characters on the poster?
  
• And is the boyfriend an undercover cop now? Why did the movie wait until 55 minutes in to reveal this? How does he set up a relationship with her without explaining it to her?
  
• At least they had the time to set up a Phalaenopsis orchid in 1303.
  
• MAn, that's some bad skin irritation. Maybe use another detergent?
  
• Oh, look, the ghost is climbing the wall and gets out of sight just as the sister enters the room. 
  
• This has to be the least intimidating thing for a ghost to do: looking out a window with a plaintive look on her face and softly banging her head against it like she's Eugene Levy in Best in Show getting fed up with all the guys he meets who just happened to have banged his wife.
  
  
  
• And she's still set on staying in Apartment 1303, even after she's seen the ghost firsthand, even knowing that there's been some mysterious linked suicides?
  
• Be my cemetery valentine? You know, there was a bit about a gas station vampire on the run on Jodi Arias' Last Podcast on the Left series that Henry said could have made a great song. With a little tweaking, could this be it?
  
• Mom's asking for her daughter to come home just after she files a restraining order against her?
  
• You know, some of these ambiguous scenes about the nature of the ghosts could have been done a couple scenes earlier and not when the movie has 12 minutes left.
  
• And that's why you don't sit with your feet in the sink while the garbage disposal is running. Or cut yourself, that too.
  
• Why the fuck is the perverted superintendant a ghost now? And why is mom acting like she's in league with the ghosts?
  

And now that the well that was Amazon Prime is running dry for films this bad, I think that, for the time being, I'll rely on Tubi and maybe the occasional YouTube version. Also, the 2020 reboot of The Grudge and Black Christmas 2019 are available at the library and I might get to them at some point, probably December in the case of the latter.

[Angrboda]

The Suicide Squad.

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project is a special movie, a piece of shit called Music. It was directed by pop star Sia, and apparently spent four years in post-production so she could get it just right. And it's still horrible. Why? Let's find out:

• Well, here's the first thing: Maddie Ziegler plays an autistic girl named Music. There's a lot of controversy about whether neurotypical actors should play characters with autism. And as someone with autism, I have to say that I don't think it's wrong per se. It's a plus, but by no means 100% necessary. Honestly, a lot of my favourite characters who canonically have autism (Max Horowitz from Mary and Max, Zack from Story of Luke, Temple Grandin in the movie of the same name, Christian Wolff from The Accountant) were performed by people who, as far as we know, are neurotypical, and that's not even going into roles that give strong autism vibes like Travis Bickle, Edward Scissorhands, Cameron Vale, or Sterling Archer. And, frankly, as long as Hollywood's going to rely on using big names to draw in audiences and there aren't a huge stable of autistic actors who can draw a crowd, I suspect it'll be inevitable. But what I think is necessary is that if you're going to use a neurotypical actor, they need to consult with people who actually have autism so they can get it right. And looking at Maddie Ziegler here, it all looks phony. I've known people across all ends of the autism spectrum and she looks like none of them, not even another barely verbal girl. At worst, it looks like something a bully would use to  mock an autistic person. For what it's worth, I don't blame Maddie for this. Apparently, she had concerns about how she was portraying autistic people and even ran to Sia sobbing about it, and instead of making sure she was authentic as possible, just told her she'd never let people criticise her like that, and because they're Michael Jackson levels of close (up to and including sharing a fucking bed), they just left it like that. No consulting other people  on the spectrum, not even getting David Byrne to do it (bear in mind, they've worked together and Byrne has autism). Also, the thing about how she allegedly had an autistic person playing Maddie Ziegler's role but she couldn't hack it and she had to fill in at the last minute is a lie, and all you need to do is look at the history of the film's Wikipedia page. Maddie Ziegler was always attached and she was always going to play the sister.
  
• Also, the aesthetics of the dream are just crap. It's all a gaudy shade of orange, the flashing lights have to be a big problem to a lot of autistic people, Maddie Ziegler seems to be darker-skinned than usual, and why do her headphones look like cornrows?
  
• So, the news agent tears out his inventory to give Music pictures of dogs? That's just unprofessional. Also, why can't she just get pictures of dogs off the internet? I know having any modern technology in a movie tends to date it instantly, but maybe it's less  of a hassle to not have to account for destroying the inventory.
  
• Admittedly, Kate Hudson falling asleep in mid-meeting and having to pull out an entire wall wart worth of electronic devices does make sense to me.
  
• Does she not know how AA works? How has she been doing this shit and not know how the chip system works?
  
• Good God, Tig Notaro looks bored as the host of the Radgicals. Or is this what it'd look like if Robert Bresson created the Banana Splits?
  
• I'm going to leave this here:
  
  
  
• Jesus fucking christ! Aaron Burr, Sir just barged into the apartment and pinned Music to the floor! I thought there was only one scene where they did it. To be fair, unlike the other big restraint scene, it's at least supine and not prone. But even then, that's supposed to be done as a last resort and even then, only when the person in question is a threat to themselves and others.
  
• "My brother is dead now," said Aaron Burr, Sir, with a shit-eating grin on his face.
  
• Who keeps a jar of Monopoly money on a shelf?
  
• So, two questions about the 1+1 number: 1) Did Sia just write this for another project and just shoehorn it into this movie, and 2) why did Fat Bastard from Austin Powers and Pink Guy from Filthy Frank breed? And how?
  
• Let them know what they're doing wrong. Words of wisdom that should have been heeded in the production.
  
• Ebo Odom? Wow. He even shares Aaron Burr, Sir's real name. Does this mean Leslie Odom is from Ghana?
  
• Holy shit, I remember this park, and while I'm not looking forward to this, I do have to admit, I love the whole "kicking the sand to reveal the floor lights" imagery.
  
• Yep. It's that scene. The restraint scene.
  
  
  Just so everyone's clear, while restraints are technically used in treating meltdowns, 1) they're to be used as a last resort, 2) only when they're a threat to themselves and/or others, and 3) not when the person in question is meant to be lying on their stomach. Why? Because this shit has killed autistic people. Seriously, did nobody involved in the picture tell Sia, during the four years this film spent in post, "Um, Sia, remember that scene from Music where Zu crushes Music with her love? An autistic kid just died under those exact circumstances." To be fair, apparently Sia had enough of an insight to claim she was going to remove those scenes and include a warning, but I just saw two scenes of these potentially lethal restraint and zero warnings that this was actually a bad idea. For more information as to how professionals who actually know what the fuck they're doing help calm meltdowns, Hell, just check this Wikihow article. And meanwhile, I think using any of these methods might have actually not only helped with Music's meltdown, it'd also aid in both Music and Zu's character arcs.
• So, what I've heard about how the musical interludes are from Music's point of view, so why have the last two of them so far focused on Zu?
  
• And now, we not only have a third musical number not from Music's POV, but one that I can only assume is Aaron Burr, Sir dancing in smarty pants played dead seriously. And if you get that, you probably watched PBS as a kid. 
  
• I'm sorry, the fact that Sia's in this movie and is apparently using an earthquake in Haiti as an excuse to have a vicodin-fueled orgy is just distracting as all fuck.
  
• Children's bones were dislocated and we're trying to make sure that rogue witches aren't trying to rob the graves of the dead and replacing them with drink, honey, and flowers. Yeah. That happened.
  
• Huh, apparently Music is wearing a hat that allows for a Droste effect.
  
• Well, at least Zu didn't try smothering Music when she had a potentially lethal beesting on her hand.
  
• Why did having to admit that she doesn't have a job cause Zu to have this meltdown of her own? For once, her almost dying wasn't actually her fault.
  
• You know, why the fuck is Felix not the main character? He's more in line with what I've seen from people on the autism spectrum- and of course he ends up getting killed before he has a chance to do anything. And why is he covering Zu with a blanket after he died? 
  
• And at least Music has a little more agency than I had heard, but not that much.
  
• Well, that revelation that Music is more verbal than anyone expected kinda came out of nowhere.
  
• Also, how the fuck did Henry Rollins get involved in this horseshit?
  
• And the post-credits scene with the Radgicals just makes it more obvious that it was shit.
  

And next week, I'll watch Jaws: the Revenge, wherein "The plot is that the shark (yanno, the one that Chief Brody killed in Jaws) now has a hatred of the Brody family and wants to kill them all as revenge for Brody's actions in Jaws. Yanno, the shark that's dead. That shark. That shark that's dead, wants revenge."

[Angrboda]

[brewer]

Tabloid:...the story of Joyce McKinney, who in 1977 was accused of kidnapping and raping Kirk Anderson, an American Mormon missionary. The incident, known as the Mormon sex in chains case, became a major tabloid story in the United Kingdom and triggered a circulation battle between two popular tabloid newspapers, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabloid_(film)

@Ten did you hear of this tale during indoctrination?

[zwanzig]

Tabloid:...the story of Joyce McKinney, who in 1977 was accused of kidnapping and raping Kirk Anderson, an American Mormon missionary. The incident, known as the Mormon sex in chains case, became a major tabloid story in the United Kingdom and triggered a circulation battle between two popular tabloid newspapers, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabloid_(film)

@Ten did you hear of this tale during indoctrination?

Nope. They don't tell you about anything that isn't "faith affirming" in the cult. Did you happen upon Murder Among the Mormons? Yeah. Didn't know anything the Salamander Letter nor Mark Hoffman either until after my shelf broke.

[brewer]

Tabloid:...the story of Joyce McKinney, who in 1977 was accused of kidnapping and raping Kirk Anderson, an American Mormon missionary. The incident, known as the Mormon sex in chains case, became a major tabloid story in the United Kingdom and triggered a circulation battle between two popular tabloid newspapers, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabloid_(film)

@Ten did you hear of this tale during indoctrination?

Nope. They don't tell you about anything that isn't "faith affirming" in the cult. Did you happen upon Murder Among the Mormons? Yeah. Didn't know anything the Salamander Letter nor Mark Hoffman either until after my shelf broke.

I've heard the salamander reference. And I remember watching a Law and Order about a guy counterfeiting mormon documents but that was too long ago to remember details.

[Foxaèr]

The 2014 Godzilla is on SYFY right now, but I don't recall having seen it.

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project is Jaws: The Revenge, wherein, well, "The plot is that the shark (yanno, the one that Chief Brody killed in Jaws) now has a hatred of the Brody family and wants to kill them all as revenge for Brody's actions in Jaws. Yanno, the shark that's dead. That shark. That shark that's dead, wants revenge." 

For a little backstory, despite the plot for the first Jaws being self-contained, due to its briefly being the highest-grossing film of all time, it ended up with a total of three sequels. I have seen none of the sequels, for the record. Apparently, the material wound up being stretched so thin that they had to leave Amity Bay for Seaworld in the third one. And due to the third one being so critically reviled, the fourth film apparently retconned it out of existence. Little did they know that the fourth one would be even worse. Also, there was apparently a novelization that ironed out several of the plot holes, like the huge brain-breaking plot hole that I alluded to in the first paragraph: apparently, a Haitian witch doctor had a grudge against the Brody family and decided to weaponise sharks against them.

• "I'm five years old, Grandma!" That's some obvious exposition right there.
  
• Wow. The shark completely ate the guy's arm without even tearing the long sleeve of his jacket. 
  
• Also, I can't help but notice that they've resorted to fragmented editing just so we can barely even see the shark. Lemme just check and, yep, it looks like shit.
  
  
  And rest assured, we well get back to that scene.
• So, Brody from the first film died from a heart attack out of fear of the great white shark, even after he killed two of them?
  
• Great white sharks don't like warm water? I'm just going to leave this here:
  Yes, that's the known range for the great white shark. Also, they've never lived around Amity Bay? Did you even watch either of the first two sequels?
• Also, why would you need to leave town to get safe from the shark? Is there nothing sufficiently inland? 
  
• Yep, it's been 30 minutes and we finally get a good look at the shark. And it is shit.
  
• So, she's terrified that her son will get hurt in the water, and therefore she decides to make sandcastles with her granddaughter while standing well within the tide?
  
• Hey, you think you can have Judith Barsi do anything in this movie and not remind me of the fact that, a bit over a year after this film was released, she was brutally murdered by her father? 
  
• I'm not sure how much danger a great white actually poses to a submersible IRL. For what it's worth, it's been known to happen that a shark attacks a submersible, but I haven't found any info about it doing any real damage.
  
  
  
• Also, for what it's worth, despite the Bahamas being a haven for various species of shark, maybe having a great white around (which actually isn't native to the Bahamas, so it would presumably have had to go out of its way to travel well over a thousand miles) isn't something to be so overjoyed about.
  
• By the way, I've heard it repeatedly said that the shark somehow manages to not only follow the Brody family to the Bahamas, but even beats them there. It actually doesn't. It just takes a day or two to get there. Still almost certainly going faster than what a great white can be reasonably expected to move.
  
• Taking two minutes to do the Minute Waltz is bad? Looking it up on Youtube, that's actually the baseline time for that particular piece.
  
• 9 knots isn't enough to keep up with the shark? Usual cruising speed for a great white is 5 knots.
  
• So, you're in a submersible, and a shark's attacking it. What dost thou deau? If you answered "Remove yourself from the craft and try to swim in a way that makes you an easier target for the shark", then conglaturation, you're about as dumb as the characters in the movie.
  
• Oh, shit! I just won an Oscar and I can't even be arsed to act like I'm that bothered by getting mauled by a shark.
  
• Also, I got submerged in the water, and my shirt is so dry it may as well have just been freshly laundered. Okay, there is an actual explanation for this: apparently, it just dried in between takes and Michael Caine couldn't be arsed to point out "Um, lads, my shirt just dried, even though I'm supposed to have just crawled out of the water. Could you hose me down?"
  
• JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE! Ladies and gentlemen, the worst cry of anguish in a motion picture.
  
• Is Mrs. Brody flashing back to the events of the original film? Events that she wasn't even around to watch?
  
• SHARKS. DON'T. FUCKING. ROAR. DUMBSHIT. NO VOCAL CORDS, NO LUNGS, NO ROAR.
  
• Also, why the fuck did the shark explode? Is this Bride of the Monster all over again?
  
• And how is Jake alive?
  
• The shark just kept coming so you had to go into the ocean? I repeat my question from earlier: is there literally nothing else inland? Even in the Bahamas?
  

Also, it turns out Jaws: The Revenge only has a few days left on Amazon Prime before it leaves the platform because fuck having streaming libraries that make sense. Not sure what's going to be next week. Highlander: The Source and Howling: New Moon Rising are still on Prime, and with zero expiry dates worth mentioning. So, maybe New Moon Rising? Hopefully I can overcome the handicap of not having watched the original in donkeys or the sequels ever.