Catching up with TV and movies, man.
Oct. 17th, 2022 02:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impyCaught up on my viewing this morning/last night.
She-Hulk as a series was an...unusual show. It wasn't bad and I absolutely don't think it deserved the amount of hate sent its way, but it definitely felt like it was spinning its wheels at times. Disney and Marvel have money and they should just fucking pay their CGI people properly so they can do the work and not have it be ...that. At least on shows that are going to lean hard on the CGI. No, no, they should pay and treat them properly all the time but be extra generous for the CGI heavy shit. It's a show I'll happily watch another season of, especially since the cast is pretty much perfect, but maybe figure things out a bit more. Even if all Marvel stuff could be considered candy of sorts, it felt extra cotton candy-y at points, though when it hit, it hit hard.
My Best Friend's Exorcism. Dude. I was so excited for this when it was announced because I absolutely loved the book. I admit I'm fuzzy on a lot of the details of the book right now but I remember a few things: tape worm from hell, the dog doesn't make it, the school is 100% Porter Gaud even if it's not actually called that, and I may not believe in god (or your god), but I believe in our friendship enough to save you.
First up, my disappointment cannot be measured that this was not filmed locally even if the area(s) it covers would look very, very different now. I also completely understand why they wouldn't want to actually tough Porter Gaud with a 100 foot pole because sex scandals aren't really something you want to tie to your movie. But when my review of the book says this took place basically in my backyard, I am not really exaggerating. I lived within walking distance of PG (which was much harder to claim back in the day) and on weekends and in the summer we'd use their playground/track to play or have Dad do his workouts when he was doing those. There's an entire chunk of my summer memories in red dirt from the track and the heat. This has nothing really to do with the movie, just me reminiscing. But I will say that one could ride one's bike through the halls of PG because it's an open campus and thus the locker scenes in the movie could not happen that way. Ah, memories.
The book spends some time building up the friendship between Abby and Gretchen and sometimes you wonder why you're taking this particular path, it becomes very clear by the end. All the big and small things that make a friendship over the years are the very things you might need when saving your best friend's life later.
The movie skips that, or at least tries to cram it all into an opening phone conversation. I get why as there's more time in a book to flesh things out, but given how the story is supposed to end, given the title of the damn movie hinges on Gretchen's exorcism... it feels cheap and a waste.
There's some good stuff here but it's not great. I thought Gretchen's actress was fantastic but I was a little less sold on Abby's. I gather I'm in the minority there, so maybe it's a case of actor/director's choice and people have seen her in other things and know she's good and staring blankly in shock is what the movie was going for. It's not like that's not a perfectly normal reaction to a lot of what happens in the movie...
To keep this relatively short, we'll go back to what I said I remembered from the book, shall we?
Since it wasn't filmed here, the school/nostalgia bomb for that is out the window.
The tapeworm from hell is intact. There's a lot of puking in this movie, btw. Just so, so much.
The dog doesn't die but does appear so that's cool.
Which brings us to the exorcism itself. You can't see it, but I assure you that my face is the face of disappointment.
It happens. On screen. But it's immediately shoved aside for a physical showdown with the manifestation of the demon and JFC, movie, you had ONE JOB for me. Well. Two. I don't think anyone was going to let them live it down if they skipped the tapeworm thing. But the other big thing is the titular exorcism. When Abby realizes that the traditional way isn't working, that it won't save Gretchen, she switches to something she actually fully believes in: their friendship. So all those stories we're told, all the chapters that deal with their past, all the good things and the bad things that make up a friendship, all the ways in which one is built, those are the very things that save Gretchen. I cannot stress to you how important this is, how much this filled my heart with joy and broke my heart (only to stitch it back up) and how much I wanted to see this played out... only for it to be treated like it was nothing important. That the really important thing was what happened to the demon after, and could we please use fire somehow.
I absolutely believe they could've pulled it off, too. It'd be one thing if you realize watching the movie that nah, the chemistry wasn't there. But it was, and it was what I figured they were saving Abby's emotional outburst for. Alas, no.
I'd really been counting on that catharsis because The Owl House came back and broke my fucking heart and I needed to believe in something good again. DENIED.
Also, I think the weather's acting funky because my face once more feels like mother nature has smacked me repeatedly in the sinuses.
She-Hulk as a series was an...unusual show. It wasn't bad and I absolutely don't think it deserved the amount of hate sent its way, but it definitely felt like it was spinning its wheels at times. Disney and Marvel have money and they should just fucking pay their CGI people properly so they can do the work and not have it be ...that. At least on shows that are going to lean hard on the CGI. No, no, they should pay and treat them properly all the time but be extra generous for the CGI heavy shit. It's a show I'll happily watch another season of, especially since the cast is pretty much perfect, but maybe figure things out a bit more. Even if all Marvel stuff could be considered candy of sorts, it felt extra cotton candy-y at points, though when it hit, it hit hard.
My Best Friend's Exorcism. Dude. I was so excited for this when it was announced because I absolutely loved the book. I admit I'm fuzzy on a lot of the details of the book right now but I remember a few things: tape worm from hell, the dog doesn't make it, the school is 100% Porter Gaud even if it's not actually called that, and I may not believe in god (or your god), but I believe in our friendship enough to save you.
First up, my disappointment cannot be measured that this was not filmed locally even if the area(s) it covers would look very, very different now. I also completely understand why they wouldn't want to actually tough Porter Gaud with a 100 foot pole because sex scandals aren't really something you want to tie to your movie. But when my review of the book says this took place basically in my backyard, I am not really exaggerating. I lived within walking distance of PG (which was much harder to claim back in the day) and on weekends and in the summer we'd use their playground/track to play or have Dad do his workouts when he was doing those. There's an entire chunk of my summer memories in red dirt from the track and the heat. This has nothing really to do with the movie, just me reminiscing. But I will say that one could ride one's bike through the halls of PG because it's an open campus and thus the locker scenes in the movie could not happen that way. Ah, memories.
The book spends some time building up the friendship between Abby and Gretchen and sometimes you wonder why you're taking this particular path, it becomes very clear by the end. All the big and small things that make a friendship over the years are the very things you might need when saving your best friend's life later.
The movie skips that, or at least tries to cram it all into an opening phone conversation. I get why as there's more time in a book to flesh things out, but given how the story is supposed to end, given the title of the damn movie hinges on Gretchen's exorcism... it feels cheap and a waste.
There's some good stuff here but it's not great. I thought Gretchen's actress was fantastic but I was a little less sold on Abby's. I gather I'm in the minority there, so maybe it's a case of actor/director's choice and people have seen her in other things and know she's good and staring blankly in shock is what the movie was going for. It's not like that's not a perfectly normal reaction to a lot of what happens in the movie...
To keep this relatively short, we'll go back to what I said I remembered from the book, shall we?
Since it wasn't filmed here, the school/nostalgia bomb for that is out the window.
The tapeworm from hell is intact. There's a lot of puking in this movie, btw. Just so, so much.
The dog doesn't die but does appear so that's cool.
Which brings us to the exorcism itself. You can't see it, but I assure you that my face is the face of disappointment.
It happens. On screen. But it's immediately shoved aside for a physical showdown with the manifestation of the demon and JFC, movie, you had ONE JOB for me. Well. Two. I don't think anyone was going to let them live it down if they skipped the tapeworm thing. But the other big thing is the titular exorcism. When Abby realizes that the traditional way isn't working, that it won't save Gretchen, she switches to something she actually fully believes in: their friendship. So all those stories we're told, all the chapters that deal with their past, all the good things and the bad things that make up a friendship, all the ways in which one is built, those are the very things that save Gretchen. I cannot stress to you how important this is, how much this filled my heart with joy and broke my heart (only to stitch it back up) and how much I wanted to see this played out... only for it to be treated like it was nothing important. That the really important thing was what happened to the demon after, and could we please use fire somehow.
I absolutely believe they could've pulled it off, too. It'd be one thing if you realize watching the movie that nah, the chemistry wasn't there. But it was, and it was what I figured they were saving Abby's emotional outburst for. Alas, no.
I'd really been counting on that catharsis because The Owl House came back and broke my fucking heart and I needed to believe in something good again. DENIED.
Also, I think the weather's acting funky because my face once more feels like mother nature has smacked me repeatedly in the sinuses.