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nadvs · 3 days

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we need a second part of imperfect strangers where he actually comes and visits her for the weekends🤭 (random but i can so see them at chipotle being all cutesy)

aw tysm 💘 wrote a blurb and rly leaned into the goofy fluff but it’s NEEDED with zach imo!!

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

continuation of this fic

Zach acts like a four-hour drive to your college is nothing.

You know he’s tired every time he pulls up in front of your dorm. You can see it in the bags under his eyes and the yawns he tries to hide from you.

But matter how many times you tell him he doesn’t have to come visit you every weekend, he won’t hear it. He’s determined to show you how badly he wants to see you, refusing to take the risk of hurting you again.

When you mention to Zach that you’re craving Chipotle the night before his visit, he finds the closest one to your campus while still on the phone with you.

The second you get into his car the next day, he kisses you before you can even get a chance to put on your seatbelt.

“Missed you, too,” you laugh when he pulls back.

After he buys lunch, you sit in a booth by a window in the restaurant, feet bumping beneath the table. He always wants to find a way to touch you, no matter how minor.

“This is a masterpiece,” he says, holding out his bowl, ridiculously competitive as usual. “I don’t know what that is.”

You gasp as he points at your meal.

“What makes yours so perfect?” you ask. He loves how you always play along with him, that you’re as much of a goofball as he is.

“Look,” Zach says, his delivery deadpan but his motive silly like usual, “I got the protein - the steak, of course…”

“Of course,” you echo amusedly.

“And brown rice, great for lowering cholesterol,” he says.

“You take one nutrition course and suddenly you’re a genius,” you sigh, recalling how he told you about one of his elective classes on the phone a few nights ago.

“Babe, I’m being serious here,” Zach says, the smile curling on his lips telling you he’s not being serious at all.

“Continue.” You take a bite of your lunch.

“Corn, a vegetable,” he says, raising his eyebrows, “salsa, extra cheese-”

“I think you’re cheesy enough,” you interrupt, putting a palm up. Zach laughs and nudges your knee with his.

“You love it,” he says. You smile, confirming it.

“Is this who you are now that you’re a local celebrity?” you tease. “All ego?”

A few days ago, a photo of him playing soccer in a home game was posted on his college’s Instagram account, celebrating the team’s most recent win.

As you expected, the top comment was by a girl who wrote what’s his @ i’m asking for a friend (i’m the friend).

“Afraid so,” he responds.

“I noticed you changed your profile picture on Instagram,” you say. It used to be his athletic headshot, but now his profile boasts an image of the two of you smiling outside of a café.

“Yeah,” he says plainly.

“Why?”

“What do you mean? Am I not cute in it?” he jokes.

“Zach,” you laugh. “Was it because girls were messaging you?”

His cheeks flush pink. He pulls out his phone and sets it in front of you.

“Yeah. I changed it so they know I have a girlfriend,” he says, gaze fluttering away. You know him so well. “And I didn’t message any of them back. You can check.”

“You’re so sweet,” you giggle. “I trust you, but I kind of want to look just out of curiosity to see what they’re saying.”

Sure enough, he has a few messages from pretty girls sitting in his inbox, some simple hi’s, others much more flirty.

“Can’t blame them,” you reply, sliding his phone back to his side of the table. “You’re hot.”

“Are you only in this for my looks?”

“I thought you knew that,” you say. “This is awkward now.”

Zach grins, bumping your knee again before sliding out of his side of the booth and settling beside you. You can smell his cologne, clean and gentle.

“Yeah, we’re the kind of couple that sits on the same side of the table, so what?” he mumbles, planting a kiss on your temple. You smirk, kneeling against his shoulder before sitting straight again.

“I’m sorry if that made you jealous, babe,” Zach says after a beat. At times, it’s hard to believe how sensitive he is. “I can ask them to take the photo down.”

“Oh,” you say with a laugh. He has a bit of a jealous streak stemming from insecurities, but you never felt it yourself, knowing how loyal he is. “I have a cute boyfriend. I can accept that it comes with a little competition sometimes.”

“There’s no competition,” he says resolutely, blue eyes hard on you. You squeeze his bicep and smile at him and he dips to kiss your fingers, right above the promise ring he gave you.

“You know that goes both ways, right?” you tell him softly. “You’ve ruined all other men for me, MacLaren.”

Your words send butterflies swirling in his stomach.

“Good thing we’ll be together forever then,” Zach says, a glint in his eyes.

“Good thing,” you agree.

#blurb #zach maclaren and you #zach maclaren and reader #zach maclaren and y/n #zach maclaren blurb

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bambithewriter · 1 day

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Little tawtute

Spider(23) x fem!human reader(21) x Neteyam(22)

Content: MDNI, 18+, threesome, dom Spider, dom Neteyam, sub reader, oral (f receiving), p in v, voyeurism, slight Lo’ak x reader

Summary: Neteyam walks in on a private moment between Spider and a cute little tawtute.

A/N: I literally had this draft saved for weeks but didn’t have any motivation to finish it until today. After my hot girl walk, I was full of ideas and this smutty piece was born. This is my first time writing Spider so that was a new experience. I’m not going to lie, this was supposed to be a drabble yet it turned out way longer🤭

tawtute - human

yawntutsyìp - little loved one

Growing up on Pandora had been tough, being one of the only humans her age. The only one around was Spider. It’s no wonder they grew so close…perhaps too close.

Turning into a woman changed her body.

Her body became heavier and plumper. Her curves filled out perfectly. She couldn’t wear the Na’vi clothes she used to love as a child. It simply didn’t feel as comfortable anymore, too revealing.

Activities such as exploring the forest, climbing, and running no longer felt comfortable for her body.

Spider wasn’t the little kid he used to be. He grew into a fully adult man with a strong body. It showed how much he had adapted to the Na’vi lifestyle.

Spider never strayed from the Na’vi culture while she felt more comfortable in the lab with the humans. Their relationship never faltered despite their differences.

There was one they did have in common. The craving for intimacy. Sexual intimacy. With the two being the only ones around their age, what choice did they have?

Tonight was one of those nights.

A night filled with nothing but the sound of their lips smacking together, hands exploring each other's bodies.

Their clothes were scattered on the forest floor.

They didn’t talk. No, not tonight. Not when it had been weeks since they last had intimacy together. It had been tormenting for both of them.

She had been busy helping around the lab, assisting Max whenever needed.

Spider, as usual, spent a lot of time in the village. He may not have an avatar but that never stopped him from helping the people.

Spider was tough, brave and loyal. He may not have been born with the same physical as the Na’vi but what he did have was their mentality.

The only times they'd see each other was when Spider entered the lab to replace his mask or to stuff down some food.

That's why when they finally had time for themselves, Spider took her to a spot in the forest just a couple minutes away from the lab.

Spider was playful but he was no tease. Not when both of them were so desperate for each other.

That's why instead of teasing her as he usually would, he took off her clothes without hesitation.

He had her naked in seconds, two fingers stuffed deep inside of her wet cunt, thumb teasing her little nub.

If it weren't for those damn masks he'd have a taste too.

Neteyam was tired, exhausted even. Today had been awful.

He was tasked to train the young warriors, forced to attend a meeting regarding the sky people and got yet another scolding for not having found a mate already.

He was always on duty, helping everyone but himself. Oh, to be the future olo'eyktan. What a dream.

His father had tasked him to deliver some samples to the lab before dismissing him for today.

It was already late, forest lit up with the bioluminescent flora and fauna.

He swiftly moved to the forest, bow and arrows on his back, warrior gear still on.

He wanted to get the samples to the lab and get it over with already.

Despite his tiredness, his senses were still on full alert. A warrior never weakens.

His ears twitched when he heard the sound of whimpering, tail flicking up in interest.

He approached the sounds, crouching down and staying hidden while trying to get a closer view.

His pupils dilated at the lewd sight in front of him, hairless eyebrows raising.

It was Lo'ak his friend, Spider. He was kissing a woman, a tawtute woman. Her back was pressed against a tree, eyes closed while Spider had two fingers stuffed inside her pussy.

His other hand held her leg up around his waist just to get better access to her dripping cunt.

Neteyam's eyes darkened when he saw the tawtute's slick dripping down Spider's fingers before falling to the floor.

He knew it was wrong to stay instead of leaving the two of them, but how could he? He was pent up, in need of a release. Seems like he had found his destresser tonight.

His cock instantly hardened, one of his hands moving down to untie his loincloth. As soon as it fell off he took his cock in one hand, pumping it slowly, eyes never leaving the sight in front of him.

A smug grin appeared on his face when the tawtute opened her eyes and made direct eye contact with him. She squeaked in surprise, alerting Spider of the third person watching them.

Spider spread her legs, revealing her hole of glory.

“Spider.” She softly whined, feeling shy with her pussy exposed like that.

Neteyam shushed her, affectionately caressing her hair. “Ssh tawtute, you’re okay. I won’t do anything bad to you. I think you’ll like it a lot.” His words may have been reassuring but his smirk said otherwise, a silent reminder of how screwed she was.

“You’re okay, pretty girl. I’m here.” Spider comforted her, his hands caressing the side of her waist.

Spider was sitting on the forest floor, his back resting against the tree. He had her sitting in between his legs, her legs spread wide for Neteyam who was crouched down in front of her opened legs.

“So pretty, so soft,” Neteyam mumbled, inspecting her body. His gaze was so intense and focused, making her shy. Neteyam didn't fail to notice this, sensing her nervousness.

“Ssh, tawtute. I’m here. Neteyam will make it all better.” He said in a hushed tone, hands gently caressing her body.

He started by cupping her face in his large hands, running them down to caress his fingers over her delicate neck.

He leaned closer to her neck, taking in her scent. “Mmm.” He grunted softly, continuing to sniff at her neck. His hands, however, continued to explore her. His hands fondled those heavy breasts, not used to their size.

Neteyam inched closer to her pussy taking in its appearance and smell. “Such a small pussy.” He mocked her.

“Lay off her man.” Spider hissed at him, an annoyed look present on his face.

Neteyam shot him a warning glare.

The moment he caught a whiff of her arousal, it was over for her.

His pupils dilated and a crazed look appeared on his face. Before she knew it he pulled her closer by her thighs, burying his face in her pussy.

“N-Neteyam.” She whimpered, hips bucking up when his big tongue lapped at her pussy like a starved man.

He pulled the hood of her pussy up, revealing the small nub hiding underneath, his tongue swirling over it. She cried out in pleasure, hands holding onto Spider’s firm thighs.

Spider squeezed her breasts together, teasing the nipples. His cock was hard, aching to be stroked. He had to wait. He knew he couldn’t stop Neteyam now, not when he was this feral.

“I can't." Neteyam, it’s too much.” She whimpered, chest heaving up and down, her hips rolling against his face.

Neteyam didn’t bother to hold them down, loving the way her pussy smothered him.

“It’s okay yawntutsyìp. I’ll take care of you hmm?” He said in a caring manner only to push a finger in her pussy, making come here motions.

"Nggh, Neteyam!” She whined, her hands holding onto his braids. He only groaned at the feeling of the pair of small hands in his hair, in return making her feel even better with the vibrations sent to her pussy.

Neteyam thrust into his hand, unable to keep himself from pumping his cock with the way she was clenching around his finger and the overwhelming scent of my pussy.

She was sent into a frenzy when he added yet another finger, pumping them at a tantalizing pace. With each pump, they’d grind against her sweet spot.

His fingers along with his tongue massaging her clit became too much for the poor girl. “Mmm, am cumming!” She cried out, warm slick drizzling out of her pussy. Neteyam was quick to lap it all up.

It was only when she desperately started tugging at his braids that he granted her mercy and pulled away.

He sat up on his knees, pumping his cock in his hand while staring at her swollen pussy and fucked out expression. “So…fuck…such a delicious tawtute.” He hissed, glaring down at her.

She barely had time to catch a break before she was lifted and shoved down onto Spider’s cock. Spider was huge. Every time with him felt like the first time.

Spider wasn’t a talker. No, he was a grunter. Never able to stop himself from grunting and groaning whenever her tight heat would be engulfed around his cock.

Her mouth was open agape, silent moans escaping her lips, face scrunched up in pleasure. Wet smacking sound could be heard each time Spider would bounce her up and down onto cock.

Her hand rubbed tight circles around her little nub, getting herself closer to the edge.

“Mmm, you’re so cute playing with yourself like that. Such a little tawtute.”

Neteyam grinned, getting more breathless the closer he was to cumming.

He wasn’t the only one.

“Spider, I’m c-close,” She whined, chest heaving up and down.

“M-Me too. Cum for me, pretty.” He grunted behind her, bouncing her faster.

She cried out in pleasure, walls squeezing his cock tightly when she came. Her juices dripped down his shaft while he painted her insides with his seed.

Just as he pulled out of her cunt, Neteyam positioned his cock right in front of her pussy, covering it with his glowing seed.

The two men groaned in pleasure while she was a whimpering mess, trying to calm down after cumming twice.

Spider affectionately caressed her arms and sides. Neteyam hungrily stared at her pussy that was now covered in all three their cum.

A chill ran down her spine when she heard a third voice.

“That was hot. I’m taking you next, mamas.” Lo’ak already had his tweng down, stroking his cock at the sight of her cream-covered pussy.

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thesublemon · 19 hours

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best picture

For the first time in a long time, I watched all of the movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars this year. Partly on a whim, partly for a piece I’ve been working on for a while about what is going wrong in contemporary artmarking. I cannot say that the experience made me feel any better or worse about contemporary movies than I already felt, which was pretty bad. But sometimes to write about a hot stove, you gotta put your hand on one. So. The nominees for coldest stove are:

Poor Things. Did not like enough to finish. I always want to like something that is making an effort at originality, strangeness, or style. Unfortunately, the execution of those things in this movie felt somehow dull and thin. Hard to explain how. Maybe the movie’s motif of things mashed together (baby-woman, duck-dog, etc) is representative. People have been mashing things together since griffins, medleys, Avatar the Last Airbender’s animals, Nickelodeon’s Catdog, etc. Thing + thing is elementary-level weird. And while there’s nothing wrong with a simple, or well-worn premise, there is a greater burden on an artist to do something interesting with it, if they go that route. And Poor Things does not. Its themes are obvious and belabored (the difficulty of self-actualization in a world that violently infantilizes you) and do not elevate the premise. There’s a fine line between the archetypal and the hackish, and this movie falls on the wrong side of it. It made me miss Crimes of the Future (2022), a recent Cronenberg that was authentically original and strange, with the execution to match.

Anatomy of a Fall. Solid, but not stunning. The baseline level of what a ‘good’ movie should be. It was written coherently and economically, despite its length. It told a story that drew you along. I wanted to know what happened, which is the least you can ask from storytelling. It had some compelling scenes that required a command of character and drama to write—particularly the big argument scene. The cinematography was not interesting, but it was not annoying either. It did its job. This was not, however, a transcendent movie.

Oppenheimer. Did not like enough to finish. But later forced myself to, just so no one could accuse me of not knowing what I was talking about when I said I disliked it. I felt like I was being pranked. The Marvel idea of what a prestige biopic should be. Like Poor Things, it telegraphed its artsiness and themes and has raked in accolades for its trouble. But obviousness is not the same as goodness and this movie is not good. The imagery is painfully literal. A character mentions something? Cut to a shot of it! No irony or nuance added by such images—just the artistry of a book report. The dialogue pathologically tells instead of shows. It constantly, cutely references things you might have heard of, the kind of desperate audience fellation you see in soulless franchise movies. Which is a particularly jarring choice given the movie’s subject matter. ‘Why didn’t you get Einstein for the Manhattan project’ Strauss asks, as if he’s saying ‘Why didn’t you get Superman for the Avengers?’ If any of this referentiality was an attempt to say something about mythologization, it failed—badly. The movie is stuffed with famous and talented actors, but it might as well not have been, given how fake every word out of their mouths sounded. Every scene felt like it had been written to sound good in a trailer, rather than to tell a damn story. All climax and no cattle.

Barbie. Did not like enough to finish. It had slightly more solidity in its execution than I was afraid it would have, so I will give it that. If people want this to be their entertainment I will let them have it. But if they want this to be their high cinema I will have to kill myself. Barbie being on this list reminds me of the midcentury decades of annual movie musical nominations for Best Picture. Sometimes deservingly. Other times, less so. The Music Man is great, but it’s not better than 8 1/2 or The Great Escape, neither of which were nominated in 1963. Musicals tend to appeal to more popular emotions, which ticket-buyers and award-givers tend to like, and critics tend to dislike. I remember how much Pauline Kael and Joan Didion hated The Sound of Music (which won in 1966), and have to ask myself if in twenty years I’ll think of my reaction to Barbie the same way that I think of those reviews: justified, but perhaps beside the point of other merits. Thing is. Say what you want about musicals, but that genre was alive back then. It was vital. Bursting with creativity. For all Kael’s bile, even she acknowledged that The Sound of Music was “well done for what it is.” [1] Contemporary cinema lacks such vitality, and Barbie is laden with symptoms of the malaise. It repeatedly falls back on references to past aesthetic successes (2001: A Space Odyssey, Singin’ in the Rain, etc) in order to have aesthetic heft. It has a car commercial in the middle. It’s about a toy from 60 years ago and politics from 10 years ago. It tries to wring some energy and meaning from all of that but not enough to cover the stench of death. I’d prefer an old musical any day.

American Fiction. Was okay. It tried to be clever about politics, but ended up being clomping about politics. At the end of the day, it just wasn’t any more interesting than any other ‘intellectual has a mid-life crisis’ story, even with the ‘twist’ of it being from a black American perspective. Even with it being somewhat self-aware of this. But it could have been a worse mid-life crisis story. The cinematography was terrible. It was shot like a sitcom. Much of the dialogue was sitcom-y too. I liked the soundtrack, what I could hear of it. The attempts at style and meta (the characters coming to life, the multiple endings) felt underdeveloped. Mostly because they were only used a couple times. In all, it felt like a first draft of a potentially more interesting movie.

The Zone of Interest.Wanted to like it more than I did. Unfortunately, you get the point within about five minutes. If you’ve seen the promotional image of the people in the garden, backgrounded by the walls of Auschwitz, then you’ve already seen the movie. Which means that all the rest of the movie ends up feeling like pretentious excess instead of moving elaboration. It seemed very aware of itself as an Important Movie and rested on those laurels, cinematically speaking, in a frustrating way. It reminded me of video art. I felt like I had stepped through a black velvet drape into the side room of a gallery, wondering at what point the video started over. And video art has its place, but it is a different medium. Moreover video art at its best, like a movie at its best, takes only the time it needs to say what it needs to say.

Past Lives. I’m a human being, and I respond to romance. I appreciate the pathos of sweet yearning and missed chances. And I understand how the romance in this movie is a synecdoche for ambivalent feelings about many kinds of life choices, particularly the choice to be an immigrant and choose one culture over another. The immigrant experience framing literalizes the way any choice can make one foreign to a past version of oneself, or the people one used to know, even if in another sense one is still the same person. So, I appreciate the emotional core of what (I believe) this movie was going for, and do think it succeeded in some respects. And yet…I was very irritated by most of its artistic choices. I found the three principal characters bland and therefore difficult to care about, sketched with only basic traits besides things like Striving and Being In Love. Why care who they’d be in another life if they have no personalities in this one? It’s fine to make characters symbols instead of humans if the symbolic tapestry of a movie is interesting and rich, but the symbolic tapestry of this movie was quite simple and straightforward. Not that that last sentence even matters much, since the movie clearly wanted you to feel for the characters as human beings, not just symbols. Visually, the cinematography was dull and diffuse, with composition that was either boring or as subtle as a hammer to the head.

Maestro. Did not like enough to finish. Something strange and wrong about this movie. It attempts to perform aesthetic mimicry with impressive precision—age makeup, accents, period cinematography—but this does not make the movie a better movie. At most it creates spectacle, at worst it creates uncanny valleys. It puts one on the lookout for irregularities, instead of allowing one to disappear into whatever the movie is doing. Something amateurishly pretentious in the execution. And not in the fun, respectable way, like a good student film. (My go-to example for a movie that has an art-school vibe in a pleasant way is The Reflecting Skin). There’s something desperate about it instead. It has the same disease as Oppenheimer, of attempting to do a biopic in a ‘stylish’ way without working on the basics first. Fat Man and Little Boy is a less overtly stylish rendition of the same subject as Oppenheimer, but far more cinematically successful to me, because it understands those basics. I would prefer to see the Fat Man and Little Boy of Leonard Bernstein’s life unless a filmmaker proves that they can do something with style beyond mimicry and flash.

The Holdovers. Did not like enough to finish. It tries to be vintage, but outside of a few moments, it does not succeed either at capturing what was good about the aesthetic it references, or at using the aesthetic in some other interesting way. The cinematography apes the tropes of movies and TV from the story’s time period, but doesn't have interesting composition in its own right. It lacks the solidity that comes from original seeing. (Contrast with something like Planet Terror, in which joyous pastiche complements the original elements.) The acting is badly directed. Too much actorliness is permitted. Much fakeness in general between the acting, writing, and visual language. If a movie with this same premise was made in the UK in the 60’s or 70's it would probably be good. As-is the movie just serves to make me sad that the ability to make such movies is apparently lost and can only be hollowly gestured at. That said, the woman who won best supporting actress did a good job. She was the only one who seemed to be actually acting.

Killers of the Flower Moon. The only possible winner. It is not my favorite of Scorsese’s movies, but compared to the rest of the lineup it wins simply by virtue of being a movie at all. How to define ‘being a movie’? Lots of things I could say that Killers of the Flower Moon has and does would also be superficially true of other movies in this cohort. Things like: it tells a story, with developed characters who drive that story. Or: it uses its medium (visuals, sound) to support its story and its themes. The difference comes down to richness, specificity, control, and a je ne sais quois that is beyond me to describe at the moment. Compare the way Killers of the Flower Moon uses a bygone cinematic style (the silent movie) to the way that Maestro and The Holdovers do. Killers of the Flower Moon uses a newsreel in its opening briefly and specifically. The sequence sets the scene historically, and gives you the necessary background with the added panache of confident cuts and music. It’s useful to the story and it’s satisfying to watch. Basics. But the movie doesn’t limit itself to that, because it’s a good movie. The sequence also sets up ideas that will be continuously developed over the course of the movie.* And here’s the kicker—the movie doesn’t linger on this sequence. You get the idea, and it moves on to even more ideas. Also compare this kind of ideating to American Fiction’s. When I said that American Fiction’s moments of style felt underdeveloped, I was thinking of movies like Killers of the Flower Moon, which weave and evolve their stylistic ideas throughout the entire runtime.

*(Visually, it places the Osage within a historical medium that the audience probably does not associate with Native Americans, or the Osage in particular. Which has a couple of different effects. First, it acts as a continuation of the gushing oil from the previous scene. It’s an interruption. A false promise. Seeming belonging and power, but framed all the while by a foreign culture. Meanwhile potentially from the perspective of that culture, it’s an intrusion on ‘their’ medium. And of course, this promise quickly decays into tragedy and death. The energy of the sequence isn’t just for its own sake—it sets up a contrast. But on a second, meta level it establishes the movie’s complicated relationship to media and storytelling. Newsreels, photos, myths, histories, police interviews, and a radio play all occur over the course of the movie. And there’s the movie Killers of the Flower Moon itself. Other people’s frames are contrasted with Mollie’s narration. There’s a repeated tension between communication as a method of knowing others and a method of controlling them—or the narrative of them—which plays out in both history and personal relationships.)

Or here’s another example: When Mollie and Ernest meet and he drives her home for the first time, we see their conversation via the car’s rearview mirrors. This is a bit of cinematic language that has its origins in mystery and paranoia. You see it in things like Hitchcock or The X-Files or film noir. By framing the scene with this convention, the movie turns what is superficially a romantic meet-cute (to quote a friend) into something bubbling with uneasiness and dread. This is not nostalgia—this is just using visuals to create effects. It doesn’t matter if you’ve seen anything that uses the convention before, although knowing the pedigree might add to your enjoyment. The watchfulness suggested by the mirrors and Ernest’s cut-off face will still add an ominous effect. It works for the same reason it works in those other things. Like the newsreel, it is a specific and concise stylistic choice, and it results in a scene that is doing more than just one thing.

In general, the common thread I noticed as I watched these nominees, was the tendency to have the ‘idea’ of theme or style, and then stop there. It’s not that the movies had nothing in them. There were ideas, there was use of the medium, there was meaning to extract. There were lots of individually good moments. But they tended to feel singular, or repetitive, or tacked on. Meanwhile contemporary viewers are apparently so impressed by the mere existence of theme or style, that being able to identify it in a movie is enough to convince many that the movie is also good at those things. The problem with this tendency—in both artists and audiences—is that theme and style are not actually some extra, remarkable, inherently rarifying property of art. Theme emerges naturally from a story with any kind of coherence or perspective. And style emerges naturally from any kind of artistic attitude. They are as native as script, or narrative, or character. A movie’s theme and style might not be interesting, just like its story or dialogue might not be interesting, but if the movie is at all decent, they should exist. What makes a movie good or bad, then, is how it executes its component parts—including theme and style—in service of the whole. When theme is well-executed it is well-developed. Contemporary movies, unfortunately, seem to have confused ‘well-developed’ with ‘screamingly obvious.’ A theme does not become well-developed by repetition. It becomes well-developed by iterationand integration. Theme is like a melody. Simply repeating a single melody over and over does not result in the song becoming more interesting or entertaining. It becomes tedious. However, if you modify the melody each time you play it, or diverge from the melody and then return to it, that can get exciting. It results in different angles on the same idea, such that the idea becomes more complex over time, instead of simply louder.

Oppenheimer wasprobably the worst offender in this regard. Just repeat your water drops, crescendoing noise, or a line about ‘destroying the world’, and that’s the same as nuance, right? Split scenes into color and black and white and that’s the same as structure, right? That’s the same as actually conveying a difference between objectivity and interiority (or another dichotomy) via the drama or visual composition contained in the scenes, right? When I watched many of these movies, I kept thinking of a behind-the-scenes story from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The story goes that Joss Whedon was directing Sarah Michelle Gellar in some scene, and when the take was over he told her how great she was, and that he could see right where the music would come in. And Gellar replied that if he was thinking about the music, he clearly wasn’t getting enough from her acting alone. This conversation then supposedly informed Whedon’s approach to “The Body,” a depiction of the immediate aftermath of death that is considered one of the best episodes of television ever made, and which has no non-diegetic music whatsoever. Not to imply that music is necessarily a crutch, or to pretend that “The Body” is lacking in other forms of stylization (it is a very style-ish episode). But more to illustrate the way that it is easy to forget to make the most of all aspects of a medium, particularly the most fundamental ones, once one has gotten used to what a final product is supposed to feel like.

And that’s why most of these movies don’t feel like movies. They create the gestalt of a movie or a ‘cinematic’ moment—often literally through direct vintage imitation—without a sense of the first principles. Or demonstrating a sense of them, anyway. Who needs AI when the supposedly highest level of human filmmakers are already cannibalistically cargo-culting the medium just fine.

[1] “The Sound of Money (The Sound of Music and The Singing Nun).” The Pauline Kael Reader. (This book contains the full text of the original review, rather than the abbreviated review that I linked earlier.)

#posts: art #movies #am rusty at blogging and don't have all the virtuous nuance i would like in this but we will go with it

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