This week in the Deep Hurting Project: 2025: A World Enslaved By a Virus. I can remember taking on Songbird when I got the first vaccine and hoped this would mean the plague would soon be over. But, because there's a huge minority of people who don't give a shit, it looks like the plague is here to stay. And so are movies fearmongering about it.
- And we're off to a bad start with an infodump that's not only blatantly unrealistic (a world Communistic state that's banned Christianity forming in the span of four years?), it's told in shitty grammar.
- This introductory car chase is strange. It reminds me of The Matrix, but the director has none of the visual flair.
- Yeah, I miss when we could still go outside without a mask or a lanyard that tells the world I'm triple-vaccinated, but the fact remains that this isn't my call; it's the virus' call.
- "Peace, love, and ice cream."
- Yes, they sold us a deadly virus. One that's killed a bit shy of 6 million people in the last two years. And, in the US, it has a seven-day average of 2,571 deaths per day, more than any other cause of death.
- The legal code of Germany is small enough to fit in a small booklet? Okay, for the record, let's just get this out of the way. This movie was made in Germany, and they shot it in English, and it looks like they got actors who could barely act in their native tongue and had them talking in a language that isn't their own.
- You know, I wonder what these people think about the BLM movement if they're this concerned about when the government is going to lock up Christians.
- No, this can't be true that you're the only Christians. Or that they became silent. In fact, they ended up taking their platforms and deciding, "You know what, why should I try and alleviate the suffering of others?" At least, that's what happened in America.
- And their means of finding other Christians is to graffiti tag buildings with Fish symbols.
- That's an unusually high ratio of milk to cereal, Bruce.
- I just noticed that the former Marine has a Fashy haircut. Kind of concerning, especially given that this film was made in Germany.
- And he balks at the prospect of swearing to a new constitution because they don't swear to anyone but God? Is he a Jehovah's Witness?
- And insert a remark about how they're complaining about how the government's monitoring them while gladly buying iPhones, and Microsoft laptops that have the technology to record you when you don't want to be recorded, and sell your private data to everybody under the sun. Or going on Google, which has almost certainly collected an amount of info on you that's stupefying.
- What did Corona do to Jesus? Nothing. To be fair, he died a bit less than 2 millennia before the plague started.
- Spray-painting the leaf-covered sidewalk? What the fuck's even the point of that?
- What's German for "Can you spare some cutter, me brothers?"
- This could just be me, the former Christian with an encyclopedic knowledge of random shit, but do they need to research what the Christian Fish symbols mean?
- This not-Lis Salander hacker girl sounds like an even worse actor and English speaker than the rest of the cast so far.
- Some filmmakers can pull off filming at night, letting you know what's going on even when it's supposed to be pitch-black outside and the lights are off. Michael Mann is a good example. The Wesele brothers are not among them.
- You know, the protagonist has a good point about how we haven't learned from our past. Germany has had two notorious dictatorships within living memory, and somehow, they don't borrow from either the Nazis or the DDR. Hell, the police interrogation scene from the beginning would have been a good place to mimic the Stasi, or at least The Lives of Others.
- Why are there these random shots of him on a Cherry Picker even though he's speaking from an empty amphitheatre?
- They reached their goal because they're in heaven? So, they're admitting they're a death cult?
- Bible verses encouraging other bible verses?
- You know, I don't know if the COVID pandemic is supposed to still be raging in this movie, but if it's still out killing people like it is now, this army guy has a damn good point in wanting to curb their growth.
- So, remember when I took on If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? and they had a scene where Christians (despite being illegal under whatever Commu-Nazi regime that's supposed to rule in that movie) decide to hold worship services where they loudly sing in the middle of a fucking meadow? I think this movie manages to one-up that one, because they do so under a campfire under a regime where not only Christianity is illegal, but meetings in general are also illegal.
- It's fucking strange how much the countryside of Germany looks like the moors of Scotland. And that reference to Braveheart in the speech has kind of solidified this connection in me. Or maybe just the moors of Yorkshire.
- Have these idiots not known about leaderless resistance?
- So, they have to swear to the new constitution every day? I still can't remember the film this reminds me of; I remember some movie about the Hollywood Blacklist and HUAC where they mention that the guy's refused to take a loyalty oath, and he says "do you think that if I were a Communist, I would hesitate for a second to say that oath?" I've been wanting to identify that movie for years, but I'm still no closer to the answer than I was when the world ended. I thought it was in Advise and Consent and the guy was Henry Fonda, but I watched it a while back and that scene wasn't there.
- You have to swear to the Constitution every morning? Well, that's going to be hard for me, since I'm barely functional in the mornings.
- You know, as much as I love physical media (like, I got six DVDs and Blu-Rays at Half-Price Books yesterday), maybe having such an emphasis on sending out hard copies of your materials is hobbling the growth of your movement. Maybe you should try streaming or peer-to-peer filesharing.
- You don't have values anymore, given how much the Evangelical right has given up pretty much every virtue that Christ would have stood for in life because they decided they like Trump better, that's another legit point.
- That song about a wedding is a bit of an overbearing choice for a scene where the main male and female leads decide that they might actually love each other.
- You know, I haven't watched After Last Season yet, but what little I've seen suggests this movie took some cues from that movie's set design.
- And their livestreamed mass covers the Last Supper. Heavy-handed symbolism that the main characters are going to get killed in the remaining 15 minutes or a sign this takes place during a particularly dreary March or April? You make the calll.
- Has the supply chain shit the bed that bad that they have to use their own piss instead of wine?
- And the main character is basically Jesus, but they at least had the sense to not have his arms stretched out like he was being crucified, if only because they cut to black before they fired the last shot.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.