#also hereditary directed by Ari Aster | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

linkspooky · 9 months

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WHOOO that was a loaded answer and I loved every word of it OP! I am curious if you've seen the movie hereditary. I know some other post on tumblr talked about how the movie had a massive influence on Gege and it's shown pretty clearly between Megumi and Sukuna, so I was wondering if you had any input on that out of curiosity.

I've seen the movie hereditary. I think you're referring to this post about Hereditary's influence on Jujutsu Kaisen. I wouldn't put it past Jujutsu Kaisen to be inspired by other media, it's also a manga with several horror elements itself from the premise to the existence and designs of the curses.

For those who haven't seen the movie hereditary he's a quick and silly summary:

A woman buries her mother and it's heavily implied that the mother was abusive. Also she was a Satanist who didn't approve of her daughter's non-satan loving lifestyle. The mother Annie has two children Peter, and Charlie. Annie thinks her daughter Charlie is kind of annoying so she tells Charlie to go to a party with her brother and stop bothering her. At the party Charlie eats a weed brownie and has an allergic reaction to it, and so they rush her home in the car. However, Peter is speeding too fast and Charlie's sticking her head out the window so she gets instantly decapitated and dies.

Then - and this is the greatest scene in any movie ever made. Instead of calling the cops, or the hospital, or his parents Peter just drives home, parks the car in the garage, and then leaves his sister's dead body as a fun little surprise for someone to find in the morning.

After that a cult pretending to be a grief support group tricks Annie into using a ouiji board to summon Charlie's ghost back, but instead they summoned the demon Paimon, who takes over her son's body at the end of the movie.

The post I linked above posits the Megumi and Sukuna possession plotline, which has basically been the longest running arc involved with Megumi in themanga was directly inspired by the ending twist to Hereditary where Peter is made to host Paimon. Even if it's not a direct inspiration it's a pretty apt comparison. Hereditary is basically a movie about trauma being passed down through three generations until it culminates on Peter as the last link in this chain of abuse.

It's heavily implied that Grandma Satan worshipper was not a good mother, and at the beginning of the movie before tragedy even strikes Annie is completely checked out on both of her kid's lives. She's not really a mother in this family unit before the family destroying tragedy. You could say Charlie's death happens in the first place because her mother didn't want to put up with her and sent her away instead. Then after the tragedy, Annie's got a clear scapegoat to blame in Peter who caused the car accident yeah, but number one it was a pure accident, and number two he's a teen.

Grandma Mrs. Satan's poor parenting -> Annie not liking her kids -> Neglecting Charlie -> Charlie's death -> Annie scapegoating Peter for Charlie's death -> Peter is possessed by the same cult that Grandma Satan belonged to.

There's a circular quality to this grief because it's implied towards the beginning of the film while Grandma Satan didn't get along with Annie she started to connect with her daughter's children soon after Charlie was born because she saw Charlie as a prospective host for Paimon. So, it leaves the question that this might have been the plan all along, Grandma always planned to take one of the kid bodies and their mother was unable to break the cycle or interrupt grandma's plans because she was too caught up in the circle of grief too.

Ari Aster has gone on record saying the movie is about familiar trauma being passed on through generations:

I knew that I really wanted to make a film about the corrosive effects of trauma on a family unit. I knew that I wanted to make a film that had sort of an ouroboros quality about a family that’s basically eating itself in its grief. [SOURCE]

Megumi, much like Peter is the last link in a chain of trauma. I explore that concept in more depth in this post, but basically Megumi is the last link on the chain that starts with the Zen'in and Toji. Toji is rejected by his clan and basically has no family or support inside of Jujutsu Society. He flees it, finds some stability in Megumi's mother for awhile but after losing her he decides to stop caring about himself or others.

Toji then repeats the cycle. Toji is the famous sorcerer killer but in story we see him victimize several children. He kills Riko Amanai in cold blood for cold cash right in front of Geto and Gojo, the aftermath of which would affect them for years to come. He then absolutely brutalzies both Geto and Gojo who were also teenagers at the time though they were incredibly powerful ones. FInally, he also abandons his own son, sells him to the Zen'in and leaves him without a guardian or adult in his life to take care of.

The trauma that began with the Zen'in -> leads to -> Toji's actions as the sorcerer killer -> leads to -> Toji's abandonment of Megumi and Megumi having no parental figures in his life to take care of him.

Gojo is also a chain link in this cycle. His loss to Toji is something Gojo still remembers to this day, as the first and only time someone ever made him feel fear in a fight. He literally cites Megumi's resemblance to Toji as the reason that he has no problem fighting Sukuna while he's in Megumi's body.

Then, is Gojo trying to overcome this cycle of abuse by intervening in Megumi's case and making sure he wasn't sold to the Zen'in Clan?

Well, Kiiiiiiind of. It's clear is motivation is to try to save Megumi from becoming like Geto. After Geto's defection Gojo comments that being strong isn't enough to save people you have to save people who want to be saved and then goes to find Megumi early, like he's trying to intervene earlier because he regrets not being there in time with Geto.

However, this is where I say Gojo's lost to Toji gave him trauma he has yet to recover from. Ever since Gojo's awakening as "the strongest" he believes that strength is the solution to every problem. Yes, even after he had the revelation that being the strongest isn't enough to save some people. Yes, it's a contradiction. Gojo's brain is a complicated and scary place, us mere humans aren't meant to totally comprehend what goes on inside there.

Since his awakening against Toji, Gojo has always solved his problems by being the strongest, and being the strongest alone. His solution is to raise allies who will be as strong, or even stronger than him. Megumi who has the Zen'in Clan's strongest inherited technique, and one that supposedly killed a six-eyes user with the limitless in the past seems like the natural candidate.

On top of that it's clear Gojo sees a lot of himself in Megumi. They're both child prodigies born to one of the three great clans, with that clan's strongest single technique. Considering Naobito made Megumi the Clan Head in his last will and Testament, if Megumi had been raised by the Zen'in he probably would have been given a similiar childhood to Gojo's (spoiled child prodigy raised as a tool for the clan). However, Megumi is not Gojo and Gojo seems to have trouble ferreting out those differences.

Which is why we see some frustration on Gojo's end that despite the fact they have their respective clan's powerful techniques, at his second year Gojo was already a special class and well on his way to being considered the strongest while Megumi himself has a tendency to coast on his talent instead of applying himself and doesn't think it's even remotely possible for himself to get as strong as Gojo.

Gojo does not understand why Megumi doesn't "swing for the fences" the way that Gojo and Yuji does. Why he comes off as so unomotivated and fails to capitalize on any of his blessings.

However, while Gojo is able to notice the symptoms, he doesn't understand the disease or rather the cause of Megumi's behavior. The first being that Megumi is not Gojo. Gojo may find a lot of things similiar about their situations, but no matter how much Gojo tries to mold Megumi into a successor Megumi is not going to be Gojo.

That's where we get back to the connection to Hereditary. In hereditary basically the cult's grand scheme in the movie is to manipulate events to mould Peter into the next successor to Paimon, and Peter himself is not only a bit of an agenciless victim to all of their schemes as the cult progresses, but because of the failure of their mother they have no parent or adult to protect them from the cult's actions. Peter has a missing parent figure, and another figure trying to actively manipulate him until he's worn down enough to fall victim to Paimon's possession.

Not only is the story a tragedy in the genre sense, hamlet, romeo and juliet, etc. etc. but the victim Peter is agenciless in his actions like most victims in tragedies are. Everything in the world just wears him down, he has no support from adults, and no escape, he has little choice in the things that happen to him until eventually he gets his body taken away from him. HIs agency is literally stolen because he no longer can control even his own body.

Someone on reddit put this better than me:

Hereditary portrays how one might lose conscious control over his or her actions; be overwhelmed by the subconscious: possessed. It's symbolised with decapitation �� a separation of mind and body. The body is what keeps the head up top and grounded upright. If they're separated, a person disorientates and loses his/her sense of up and down. Suffering without being able to interpret it is torturous and can make you want to stop trying to interpret all together. If you think of home as a person's frame of interpretation, the treehouse is where the film's themes come together:

Decapitation is a pretty common image used in the movie hereditary. Two characters die from swift decapitation. Is there a clearer symbol for loss of bodily control then having your head chopped off? Losing all five senses? Losing your ability to move your body?

Megumi is also a character who has lost control over his body and actions since Sukuna's possession of him, and the grief over loss of a sister has caused him to stop fighting for control entirely but did Megumi have a lot of control over his own life before that?

There are no adult figures who are trying to protect and care for Megumi. That was his father's job, but Toji abandoned him. Megumi and Tsumiki are essentially left to fend for themselves in the world of adults with little choices.

Megumi is given two choices, go to the Zen'in who are going to raise him to be a sorcerer, or go to Gojo who will raise him to be a sorcerer in a slightly less misogynistic environment. There's no option where Megumi gets to choose not to be a sorcerer because Gojo's "help" comes with the huge asterisk* *If you don't work as a sorcerer for jujutsu high we won't pay for your food.

Megumi was already being molded into being what someone else wanted for him to be - in this case Gojo. He was being raised as one of Gojo's allies and successors with little to no input with what Megumi wanted out of life. In the process Sukuna ends up hijacking Megumi's body and moulding Megumi to be useful for Sukuna's ambitions instead. Which is why this is so similiar to the tragedy in Hereditary it kind of feels like in traditioanl tragedy fashion Megumi has the agency of the main character of a tragedy. No matter what he does he's playing into someone's hands. So many people have plans for Megumi and how they want to use him and Megumi's just some teenage kid caught in the middle of it.

Sukuna sets up his plan for possessing Megumi at the start of the story. Megumi was taken in by Gojo and turned into a sorcerer and his tool against the elders before the start of the story. Annie's grandma always planned on putting Paimon into one of her children, and Annie doesn't figure it out until it's too late and we're already seeing the effects of her grandmother's long game plans.

So yeah, Hereditary and Jujutsu Kaisen are both about this intergenerational cycle of trauma, and how it will always affect the weakest members on the chain (children).

#megumi fushiguro #hereditary #askspookies #watch this post get like two notes #i doubt there's much overlap between jujutsu kaisen enjoyers and horror fans but #i'd be shaming myself as a horror fan if i didn't answer this question seriously #jujutsu kaisen #ari aster

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beauspot · 1 year

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Beau is Afraid is the movie I have been waiting for

!Spoilers Ahead! *LONG POST*

TW: Child Abuse, Gaslighting, Narcissistic Abuse, Strangulation, Discussions of Severe Anxiety

Like many people I knew Ari Aster as the guy who made Hereditary and Midsommar. Weird and trauma focused horror and that is definitely what Beau is Afraid is classified as, but it is nothing like his previous films.

To summarize, Beau is afraid starts off with Beau meeting his therapist (well it literally starts with Beau being born but i digress) and here we learn that Beau has a severe and crippling anxiety disorder. From the moment Beau starts talking about his mother I knew exactly what this movie was going to be about(though i don’t think anyone could guess the plot). We see that he is planning to visit his mother the next day because it’s the anniversary of his fathers death. Due to unforeseen circumstances Beau oversleeps and as he is rushing his keys get stolen out of his door along with his suitcase. Beau calls to tell his mom just wanting to tell her what’s happened and as she began to speak I got immediately triggered. You can see him sink into a shell of himself as she tries to make him feel guilty for thinking he should stay at home since someone has access to his apartment. She hangs up on him and Beau begins to lose it a little bit.

A lot of things domino fall and this leads to Beau getting locked out of his apartment (this also leads to the first time we see Beau experience something i’ve never seen so perfectly portrayed in a film. executive dysfunction. and it happens multiple times, he simply freezes in place even though he knows he should move. Part of it is definitely his anxiety as he is afraid to move because thats a decision and he doesn’t want the responsibility of what comes after a decision)and learning that his mother was killed by a falling chandelier. Then we see him get hit by a car. He ends up in the care of a family and long story short he has to run from them and ends up in the woods with a theatre troupe.

This is important because we learn that Beau’s biggest dream is to simply have a job and home of his own with a family that loves him. That’s his perfect future, but even as he’s seeing it playing out his kind can’t help but conjure up the worst case scenarios. We also see it repeated here that Beau can’t have kids because he can’t have sex because of a genetic heart murmur that killed his father. After Beau is separated from the theatre troupe he makes his way to his mothers house(though he should have been healing after being hit by a car and being stabbed his ONLY CONCERN was his mother not being humiliated by not being buried). When he sees her body he isn’t at peace yet but he lays down and gets his first night of good rest in days. When he wakes up he is greeted with his old friend Elaine who asked him to wait for her and he did. Long story short, Beau and her have sex. He is under the direct impression he is going to die when this happens.

But he doesn’t. However, Elaine does. He is rightfully terrified and cowers in fear until the music Elaine was playing suddenly shuts off and he looks up to find none other than his mother staring back at him. She faked her death to get him home and then tries to turn this on Beau saying he couldn’t wait for her to die, when Beau admits he knew she was alive because of the birthmark on the hands on the body. But she’s not done. Out of the shadows steps Beau’s therapist as his mother begins playing a recording of one of his sessions where Beau admits reluctantly that he felt his mothers love was conditional. Since he feels like he has nothing to lose he chooses to finally confront his mother about the dream he has where he sees an identical version of himself ask about his father because Beau isn’t brave enough and he asks where his father is.

His mother takes him to the attic from the dream and tells him to go up there telling him it wasn’t a dream, it was a memory. There Beau meets his twin brother and his father(it’s a lot more batshit than this but that’s the gist of it). He begs to go back down and his mother finally lets him and he LITERALLY KISSES HER LEGS telling her he’s sorry. But she’s still not done. She goes on a whole tirade about how her mother blamed her for her mothers mistakes completely missing how she’s doing the same to Beau. She continues to berate him until she finally says what she means. She hates Beau. And at that point Beau puts his hands around her throat, strangling her. He eventually comes to his senses and lets her go, shocked at his own actions, but the damage has been done, she collapses and dies.

Beau leaves the house the look of shock frozen on his face and he reaches a motorboat on his mothers private little beach. He starts the motor and begins to drive the boat towards a cavern. For the first time the whole movie Beau seems like he might no longer be afraid. Until the motor mysteriously sputters and here’s where shit gets VERY REAL. SERIOUSLY IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE GO WATCH IT BEFORE CONTINUING.

Beau is sitting in darkness for a few seconds and suddenly this cavern is flooded with light and he sees no, it’s not actually a cavern at all. It’s a stadium filled with people. They are all watching him. Through his (and the audiences) confusion a voice booms from a microphone. When Beau finds the source he is shocked to see that it is coming from a man on a mini stage high in the stadium sitting next to his mother. From a giant 4 sided jumbotron video plays of moments from Beau’s life dating back to when he was NINE. YEARS. OLD. All of of which is taken out of context. Beau’s only “defense” is a shitty lawyer who has yell because he wasn’t given a microphone and even when he is heard and things his lawyer says are reasonable his mothers lawyer simply writes it off and moves onto the next thing he’s “done wrong”. (To me this represents all of the times Beau tried to reason with his mother and make her see his side before he just had to succumb to her will for survival, because you can’t reason with a narcissist.) When his defense is literally thrown from his stage and dies on a steep rock Beau is left to defend himself. Through his anxiety and fear he still tries to make them see his side, but Beau is found to be guilty. He never really loved his mother, he was a manipulative child who took from her and never gave anything back.

As this is all coming to a close the motor on the boat begins to flame and the boat begins to sink. Beau is begging, pleading, screaming, for his mother as she watches him in distress. As the entire arena of people watches him struggling and does nothing. We can see the exact moment Beau succumbs to his fate, he says nothing and for the first time in the whole film his shoulders droop. All of his anxiety is gone. He knows his mother won’t help him, that no one will. And the look that crosses his face is one I understood so deeply. One of anger that he dedicated his life to this woman, one of realization that he couldn’t trust anyone, one of sadness that he was truly alone. And I relate to that so deeply.

I remember people talking about the relationship between Joy and Evelyn in Everything Everywhere All at Once and while I definitely relate to their story somewhat there was something missing and I didn’t know what it was until I saw Beau is Afraid.

On the one hand there’s the constant twisting of Beau’s actions that is particularly triggering to me. Him living in one of his mothers apartment buildings and using a card with her money is turned on him when for one thing the apartment is shitty and he is constantly in fear for his life. Number 2 the card was given to him by her to use, because Beau is literally agoraphobic because of HER ACTIONS. He can’t hold down a job even if he wanted to. His whole life is his therapist and his home. I find it so strange that mothers like this will stifle any interest their child has that falls outside of what they want for them and literally block them from opportunities to advance, but then get upset when their kids aren’t able to function on their own as adults.

But that’s not the main thing that stuck out to me and made me realize I had been carrying this massive weight with me I couldn’t explain.

This ever present fear I felt living with my mother that just never left. This feeling that she was always watching me even when I wasn’t with her and that I couldn’t trust anyone because they would turn them against me eventually. That I couldn’t say bad things about her because the words would find their way back to her. When I was actively going to therapy I would triple check my phone to make sure I didn’t accidentally dial her and she could every word I was saying. That’s how terrifying it feels and I’ve never seen that captured on screen. Tears were streaming down my face as I watched Beau’s cries be ignored and as people just let him die. In the silence of the theater I simply stared at the place Beau had been and thought “you have to leave, you have to get out.”

!End of Spoilers!

It’s a great movie and I think you should definitely go see it if you have 3 hours to spare. I’ve personally seen it twice and I relate so much to Beau it’s kinda scary. Sorry for this long post I wonder what anyone who saw it thinks though, i’d like to hear new perspectives. Now time to watch Queen Charlotte for something lighter 😭

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byneddiedingo · 9 months

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Milly Shapiro, Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, and Alex Wolff in Hereditary (Ari Aster, 2018)

Cast: Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Woff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, Mallory Bechtel. Screenplay: Ari Aster. Cinematography: Pawel Pogorzelski. Production design: Grace Yun. Film editing: Lucian Johnston, Jennifer Lame. Music: Colin Stetson.

There are films that leave a depressive miasma with me for days. I'm thinking particularly of George Sluizer's The Vanishing (1988, not the 1993 American remake) and Michael Haneke's Funny Games (1997, not the 2007 American remake). For a time, I thought Ari Aster's Hereditary was going to have the same effect on me, and it might have, if it hadn't devolved into a mere gory supernatural thriller with an overcomplicated backstory. It begins extraordinarily and creepily well, with a pan through the miniatures created by Annie (Toni Collette) in which one of them turns into the actual room where her son, Peter (Alex Wolff), is oversleeping on the day of his grandmother's funeral. A menacing gloom remains in the film as the family, including father Steve (Gabriel Byrne) and daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro), goes to the funeral and returns home. Even when we come home, there's a sense that something is off about the family and their obvious mixed feelings about the deceased. Ari Aster, in his feature film debut, skillfully handles the atmosphere in the somewhat sinister old house (aided by Pawel Pogorzelski's dark but not too dark cinematography and Colin Stetson's ominous score). Aster manages to gradually introduce the exposition about what's eating at Annie and her family. The performances are marvelous, especially Shapiro's obviously but enigmatically disturbed 13-year-old Charlie. I was with Aster's film all the way through the appalling accident that turns the story in a new direction. Then Ann Dowd, a fine actress whose career seems to have become defined by her performance as Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid's Tale, shows up to reveal the movie's indebtedness to The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) and Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968). Unfortunately, Aster's film has neither the coherence of the former nor the wit of the latter. In the end, it has to be remembered for Collette's performance, which should have had an Oscar nomination, not just for Annie's distraught moments but also the one at the film's climax when her face turns from horror to a kind of pleased amazement.

#Hereditary #Ari Aster #Milly Shapiro #Ton Collette #Gabriel Byrne #Alex Wolff

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adamwatchesmovies · 1 year

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Hereditary (2018)

Keen viewers will foresee the ending of Hereditary fairly early on. Having seen the film three times now, I’ve realized that's not a bug; it's a feature. The point is that you see the train coming but you can't move out of its way. With a superb performance by Toni Collette at its center, terrific, inventive cinematography and impeccable direction by Ari Aster (his feature-film debut), it's a joy to examine the filmmaking at work. It also happens to be horrifying.

Following the death of her estranged mother, Annie Graham (Toni Collette) attends a loss support group to try and cope. She’s been sleepwalking again and can't shake the feeling that something's... not right at home.

In class, Annie’s son, Peter (Alex Wolff) isn’t paying attention to his teacher's lesson, but he should be. The students are asked whether it’s more tragic for a hero to know they're doomed but be unable to change their fate, or be unaware of the misfortune awaiting them. This idea is what makes the ending of "Hereditary" work. There’s something about watching people slowly inching their way towards annihilation unsettling. With every passing second, you can feel the walls of their cage tightening. You’re an outsider, powerless to react and when the danger is as intense as it is in Hereditary, you’re glad to be nothing but an onlooker. In the most intense scenes, nothing could be more frightening than the characters turning towards you for help. Of course you would if you could. Annie, Steve (Gabriel Byrne), Peter and Charlie (Milly Shapiro) go through so much you don’t want them to suffer but your curiosity has also gotten the better of you. What’s coming will surely make your skin crawl and your hairs stand on end but you want to see just to be sure. Maybe things will go a different way. Or maybe they’ll go exactly how you expect they will.

Key images in the film fill me with dread just thinking about them. It makes me want to claw my eyes out so I don’t have to see them anymore, which makes me admire the filmmaking even more. The longer you look at this movie, the more things you notice. In many scenes there are symbols hidden in the background, there are things standing in the darkness, recurring images and foreshadowing telling you what’s incoming. It all ties back to that question posed to Peter. The more you see, the more you wonder whether you want the characters to know what you do or if you’d rather they stay ignorant of the doom that awaits them. The recurring theme of decapitation is on its own more than enough to give you the willies.

The performance by Toni Colette turns something you would normally passively watch into a reality you’re forced to confront. Her wails as she cries pierce your chest and wrap their fingers around your heart. Her panic as she pieces together what’s actually going on is palpable even if you don’t quite understand all of the “rules”. This film is quite good at giving you the minimum amount of information required and leaving the rest for your mind to fill in the blanks. If you're the king of person that won’t be able to sleep until you know everything that happened, don't worry. There are a few scenes that spell it out for you. Our lead is so good you’re likely to overlook how well everyone else does with their roles. Milly Shapiro, for instance. You’d never guess A) she was 15 at the time and B) that she’s a perfectly normal teenaged girl. Obviously they used prosthetics to make her look the way she does but she so subtly off you just don’t know what to make of her.

There are certain aspects of the film you could criticize. Hereditary is essentially a modern update on a couple of well-known horror films and a scene during the beginning makes it very easy for you to know this story’s final destination. This may detract from some of the fun but it certainly won’t take away the scares. In fact, it gets more intense, more terrifying upon rewatches because your eyes can focus less on what’s happening in the foreground and more on the stuff hidden in the margins. There’s a brilliant scene with a rolling ball every aspiring horror filmmaker needs to take note of. It's just one example of the many scenes ready to conjure up some recurring nightmares. (March 20, 2020)

#Hereditary #movies #films #movie reviews #film reviews #horror movies #horror films #Ari Aster #Toni Collette #Alex Wolff #Milly Shapiro #Ann Dowd #Gabriel Byrne #2018 movies #2018 films

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tarisilmarwen · 1 year

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Would you be interested in watching an Ari Aster (Midsommar, Hereditary) written and directed MCU (or DC) movie? What do you think that would look like and are there any characters you think would be suitable for his style of filmmaking?

Imma be completely honest with you, I have not seen nor do I particularly care for Ari Aster's work.

I am also, right now, terminally disinterested in the MCU and have been frankly since Endgame. Spiderman: No Way Home was the only movie that remotely got me excited this phase.

The DCEU is also dead in the water (again) and I struggle to envision any of my favorite bright and shiny idealistic superhero favorites in any kind of psychological horror show, which seems to be Aster's specialty, save for perhaps Batman. And in that case *gestures to all the myriad dozen other movies/TV shows he already has under his belt*.

Maybe let's get a director who might actually like the characters as portrayed in their classic heroic ideal incarnations and doesn't try to bring things down to a more "realistic" (read: cynical and gritty and apathetic) level for "modern" audiences.

#askbox #marvel #DC comics #battinson gets a pass solely on the basis of the film being cleverly disguised hopepunk #(also it lured me in with the banging new leitmotif sue me)

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pastelcryptid · 2 years

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I just watched the movie Men (2022) and going into the tags is wild I don’t think I’ve ever seen such severely polarized opinions about a movie on this website. Especially because some people said it was too vague and others said it was too on the nose.

I don’t exactly know how I feel about it, although I know I’m in the second camp in that I felt the symbolism was very on the nose (not that it’s a bad thing in itself). I didn’t know how I’d feel about this film once I heard it was directed by Alex Garland, as I didn’t like Ex Machina or his adaptation of Annihilation but I found myself enjoying it, because it was visually very beautiful, I always enjoy Jessie and Rory in things and I felt like I was watching an Ari Aster movie. This was obviously a plus because Midsommar and Hereditary are two of my favourite movies.

Now having had some distance from it, though, I do wonder if I only enjoyed it as much as I did because Alex managed to mimic the vibe of horror movies like that so successfully that the issues didn’t seem so glaring. I was like, did I fall for the Sherlock BBC trick again? When you break it down and look past the beauty of the film and the great performances, it is a movie made overwhelmingly by men and the rhetoric of it does sort of boil down to the basics of what women/afab non-binary people have summarised as their issues with men, toxic masculinity and rape culture. Like I felt the Vicar’s dialogue in the bathroom scene was almost comically literal. It also did reach a point where it felt like Harper had nothing more to do except embody the “this might as well happen” reaction gif.

That being said I don’t think it was a bad movie and I’m not sorry it exists. I actually felt the birth scene was maybe the part of it that worked the most for me, metaphorically inasmuch as I read it as the perpetuation of toxic masculinity. Even if the sight of the feet coming out of his mouth did make me want to set fire to my eyes.

Also, this is a very silly little quibble (maybe?) and perhaps it was considered fundamental to the vibe of isolation etc. but it did bother me a little how it never explained how she managed to get back to the house after getting lost. Like, did I miss something there?

#Men 2022 #I liked the movie a lot #but I don't know if alex should be hailed for feminist themes #and these two sentiments can coexist!!!

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rue-bennett · 2 years

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You have a point. It's kinda weird bc I've never actually heard about any of his projects besides Thor and the gay pirate show. I know about Jojo Rabbit but that was pretty mainstream as well. Usually when an indie director blows up or their movie gets picked up, their other projects get a lot of hype too relatively speaking. Kinda like Ari Aster with Hereditary and then Midsommar. Mmmhhhh...

Interestinggg! I wonder if this is a universal experience because I've heard about his other projects but I also have friends who are literally obsessed with him so all I know about him comes from them (and the threeway kissing twitter moment). These are his full-length movies he's directed (with the exclusion of that Civil War thing which is a short):

Jojo Rabbit was one of those 2019 darling movies and a Best Picture nominee so definitely was big, What We Do in the Shadows has quite a cult following and same for the show that was based on it, same for Hunt for the Wilderpeople and to a lesser extent Boy, which was probably his breakout. I say all this having seen none of them nlskdfm but I'm told I'd love Wilderpeople.

But yes about people's earlier work getting "discovered" when something new comes out! I'm not sure if it applies as much here because like I don't think people went out and watched 500 Days of Summer because of The Amazing Spider-Man, ya know? But I could be totally wrong. Taika definitely has a little (lot of) fandom around him and enough to also get people annoyed at him so clearly he's famous good for him

#asks #anonymous #celeb talk

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legion1227 · 6 months

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Beau is Afraid: Movie Review. (Some Spoilers below)

Yo, what the fuck-

Beau is Afraid was directed by Ari Aster and released earlier this year on April 14th. Ari Aster is also well-known for directing other movies in recent years that are critically acclaimed, such as Midsommar and Hereditary. I have not seen either of those films, but they are on my list of movies I want to see. I have, however, seen the short film he released titled The Strange Thing About The Johnsons back in 2011.

Upon realizing Aster directed both films, I gotta know what the FUCK his parents think and what his relationship is with them.

Because if you don't know, spoilers for the Strange Thing About the Johnsons, the short film focuses on an abusive, incestuous relationship between a father and son, while Beau Is Afraid focuses on the dysfunctional relationship between a son and mother.

Beau is Afraid is…also just a wild movie. Joaquin Phoenix plays the titular Beau, an anxiety-riddled man who regularly keeps to himself. He goes to visit his therapist in an attempt to manage his anxiety and finds himself tested as he embarks on an emotional and overstimulating journey to visit his mother.

The course of events that transpire throughout the movie are strange but mostly fascinating. Beau lives in a crime-filled city with the most dangerous people lingering about. He leaves the door open one time, and like thirty random violent strangers literally wander in and violate his home. There's a part where he's hit by a truck and patched up by Nathan Lane and the girl who played Holly in The Office, Nathan Lane. But they're both suspect, and they have a daughter who's a bitch to Beau and then drinks a can of paint and dies. And then Amy Ryan sics an unstable war veteran to kill Beau as revenge because she thinks he did it. There's a play sequence that goes on for too long, but the events and story of the play were engaging. And the final act of the film…you have to watch the movie to grasp the battiness of it all.

Story-wise, it never felt boring. The story kept me engaged from start to end; I thought I could predict what could happen, but the story zigged when I thought it would zag. I wondered what would happen next to Beau in every scene. Acting-wise, everybody delivers a stellar performance. The cinematography is sublime as well, but two issues really drag down the film. The first is the length. This movie is three hours long and has no need to be. You could've shaved off at least half an hour. It drags the most during the play and forest sequence. Secondly, I am not fond of the ending. I won't spoil what happens, but I don't like what ultimately happens to Beau in the end or how that particular event transpired. Both problems are enough to significantly harm the film. However, it was still an entertaining watch that I wouldn't be opposed to watching again someday.

Recommending it to others is…a questionable option. If you're into surreal horror tragedy, then I think so. If you saw and liked Hereditary and Midsommar…maybe? That's hard to say since I didn't see those. Let's just give it a 3.5/5 and call it a day. If you haven't seen it…maybe watch the first hour. Decide from there if you want to see the rest.

#beau is afraid #joaquin phoenix #movie review #review #movies #films #film review

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stellasfilmblog · 7 months

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Podcast of The Week

Last weeks podcast of the week was A24: Deep Cuts with Ari Aster & Robert Eggers. I really like A24 films so it was very interesting to hear some of the filmmakers behind these films discuss the process of making them. I would recommend listening to this podcast if you are a fan of A24 films. They have big guests like Joaquin Phoenix and Finn Wolfard on the podcast all the time. I like how this podcast. This was a particularly interesting episode to me because Ari Aster has directed some amazing films like Midsommar and Hereditary and Robert Eggers directed The Witch (2015). It was really intriguing to hear these two incredible directors talk about their films, their creative processes and what inspired them. Also they have great chemistry together on the podcast as they are clearly close friends, I think A24 should bring this pair back for some future episodes.

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denimbex1986 · 10 months

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'By now, everyone knows just how many famous faces are in Barbie – but what about Oppenheimer?

The two blockbusters went head-to-head at the box office when they were released on Friday (21 July).

While Greta Gerwig’s bubblegum pink vision stormed ahead of Christopher Nolan’s historical epic in terms of opening weekend earnings, Oppenheimer has inched past Barbie to achieve a near-perfect score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

In the film, Cillian Murphy plays physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, as he leads the US efforts to build the first-ever atomic bomb. Florence Pugh, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr, and Matt Damon round out the core cast, playing Jean Tatlock, Kitty Oppenheimer, Lewis Strauss, and Leslie Groves, respectively.

While the premise of Oppenheimer and Barbie couldn’t be more different, they do happen to share one element: a very, very long list of starry cameos.

Here’s every guest appearance that you might have missed…

1. Alden Ehrenreich as a Senate aide

Best known for films including Blue Jasmine, Solo: A Star Wars Story and Beautiful Creatures, Ehrenreich plays a senate aide helping out Lewis Strauss (played by Robert Downey Jr).

2. Alex Wolff as Luis Walter Alvarez

The breakout star of Ari Aster’s Hereditary and M Night Shyamlan’s Old leaves behind the supernatural for a different kind of horror in Oppenheimer. He plays one of many Nobel Prize physicists to grace the screen.

3. Benny Safdie as Edward Teller

One-half of the directing duo the Safdie Brothers (the pair behind Uncut Gems and Good Time), Benny steps out from behind the camera to potray the Hungarian physicist best known as the “so-called father of the hydrogen bomb”.

4. Casey Affleck as Boris Pash

The Oscar-winner – best known for films including Manchester By the Sea and A Ghost Story – makes a memorable appearance as the deceivingly calm intelligence officer Pash, who shares one tense scene with Murphy’s Oppenheimer.

5. Dane DeHaan as Kenneth Nichols

The Spider-Man villain plays Major General Kenneth Nichols, who helps oversee security in the Manhattan project.

6. David Dastmalchian as William L Borden

Dastmalchian – best known for films such as The Dark Knight, The Suicide Squad, and Dune – plays US lawyer and congressional staffer William L Borden, who served as the executive director of the US Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy from 1949 and 1953.

7. David Krumholtz as Isidor Isaac Rabi

Fans of Nineties romcoms will recognise Krumholtz from 10 Things I Hate About You, in which he played the best friend to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character. Here, the actor portrays a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

8. Gary Oldman as Harry S Truman

Oldman has a penchant for portraying world leaders around wartime. Here, the Darkest Hour Oscar-winner crops up as none other than President Truman – bow tie included.

9. Gustaf Skarsgard as Hans Bethe

Of course, there’s got to be one Skarsgard brother in the mix. The Swedish actor – best known for his roles in Vikings and Westworld (the latter co-created by Nolan’s brother, Jonathan) – plays Hans Bethe, a German-American nuclear physicist who heads up the T (Theoretical) divison of the Manhattan Project.

10. Guy Burnet as George Eltenton

Hollyoaks fans were shocked to see familiar face Guy Burnet on screen. Burnet is best known for his role as Craig on the Channel 4 soap.

11. James D’Arcy as Patrick Blackett

The Marvel star is no stranger to Christopher Nolan films, having previously starred in the director’s 2017 war film Dunkirk. Here, he plays Oppenheimer’s supervisor and teacher Patrick Blackett – another Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

12. Jack Quaid as Richard Feynman

Playing yet another scientist is The Boys star Jack Quaid who is also known for his roles in films such as The Hunger Games and Logan Lucky.

13. Jason Clarke as Roger Robb

Zero Dark Thirty star Jason Clarke plays a formbidable and relentless prosecutor in the counsel hearing against Oppenheimer.

14. Josh Peck as Kenneth Bainbridge

The actor, now 36, rose to fame as a child star starring opposite Drake Bell and Miranda Cosgrove in Nickelodeon’s Drake & Josh. All grown up, Peck plays yet another scientist and contributor to the Manhattan Project.

15. Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence

The Pearl Harbor star has a more substantial role than most of the actors on this list. He plays Ernest Lawrence, a nuclear physcicist and Nobel Prize-winner who worked on the Manhattan Project with Oppenheimer.

16. Matthew Modine as Vannevar Bush

Modine is probably one of the most recognisable faces on this list, having recently starred in Netflix smash-hit Stranger Things. Here, he plays American engineer Vannevar Bush.

17. Matthias Schweighöfer as Werner Heisenberg

Army of the Dead star Schwighöfer appears in Oppenheimer as German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg – of course, also a Nobel Prize winner. In the film, Oppenheimer tells the US army officials that he believes Werner’s knowledge will be instrumental to the Nazis making their own atomic bomb.

18. Michael Angarano as Robert Serber

As physicist Robert Serber, Angarano has minimal screentime – but the actor will be familiar to viewers as Jack’s son Elliott from Will & Grace and his roles in This Is Us and the 2005 children’s film Sky High.

19. Olivia Thirlby as Lilli Hornig

Thirlby stands out instantly when she appears on screen as Lilli Hornig – and not just because she’s the only woman working on the Manhattan Project. The actor is known for her roles in Juno and The Darkest Hour.

20. Rami Malek as David Hill

Oscar-winner Rami Malek makes an appearance as fellow scientist David Hill. The actor is best known for his roles in No Time To Die, Mr Robot, and of course, Bohemian Rhapsody.

21. Scott Grimes as a counsellor

Viewers can spot Grimes sitting on the counsel during the hearing against Oppenheimer. If you don’t recognise him by his face – as seen in ER, Party of Five, and Band of Brothers – you may recognise him as the voice of Steve Smith on the adult animation American Dad!.'

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msclaritea · 1 year

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"One bit of oft-repeated advice, often attributed to Coco Chanel, could be applied to more than just the fashion realm: “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.” In other words, you should streamline before walking out the door looking goofy.

Or, if you’re widely popular horror filmmakers Ari Aster and Jordan Peele, before you subject audiences to your latest overindulgent movie, consider getting it together first. Otherwise, you’ll end up with something like the former’s latest, “Beau Is Afraid,” or the latter’s “Us,” gargantuan films with promising concepts that hurtle off the rails on their way to a conclusion.

This has now become a pattern for both otherwise skilled directors, whose impressive first features — 2018’s “Hereditary” and 2017’s “Get Out” — helped revive faith in mainstream horror. For a few solid years leading up to their openings, smaller films and those coming out of international markets had proved to be more consistently effective and resonant contributions to the genre. (Think “Raw,” “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” and “Only Lovers Left Alive,” for instance.) Aster’s and Peele’s debuts helped to change that narrative.

But when you put a filmmaker whose work you’ve come to trust, particularly early in their career, on this type of pedestal, it gives them very little space to experiment or fail. Or, when they do mess up, the narrative built for them has become so secured that audiences sometimes don’t even react when it’s just not true anymore.

Like "Beau Is Afraid," Aster's "Midsommar" starts out interesting before it loses the thread.

Are Aster and Peele one-trick ponies? Well, they’ve each directed only three features, so that remains to be seen. But it’s telling that the films made after their stunning debuts have ultimately been disastrous.

Aster’s grandiose sophomore effort, the folklore nightmare “Midsommar,” is confounding, especially coming from a director whose first feature was so humanly devastating and unsettling. Peele’s similarly ambitious second film, “Us,” never stuck the landing, opting for an increasingly frayed trajectory instead. His third film, “Nope,” also abandons sensical storytelling.

These later works feel like directors’ attempts to feed audiences they don’t quite understand, or the output of artists who realize they’ve reached a point where anything they create will be showered with praise. Or — and this is a big one — maybe these filmmakers really are just not as good as we initially thought.

Such theories are, admittedly, quite cynical. With “Hereditary” and “Get Out,” Aster and Peele have shown that they can deliver precise, impressive films. But their more recent efforts bear no semblance of that potential.

So, we should probably talk about “Beau Is Afraid” now. It’s familiar in that it starts out intriguing, great even, before spiraling into something bizarre and pointlessly bloated.

Peele's "Nope" is a film that has a lot of great ideas but is poorly executed.

Joaquin Phoenix plays the title character, a mysteriously aged, nebulously ailed man living in an urban horror show: Corpses of seniors are left rotting in the middle of the street; a knife-wielding, naked man attacks people at random; and vagrants break into and vandalize Beau’s home. (The home, mind you, is a run-down, graffiti-laden establishment that could not have possibly passed any inspection in … ever.)

Aster builds this tension in such a satisfying way that you wish the film just stayed in this place. Who are these people? Where on earth does Beau live? Why does he live here? Who is he? Why is there no law and order? This must be why he’s so afraid — you know, like the title says.

The film is consistent with one (and only one) thing: Beau’s motivation to visit his mother, played by a malicious Patti LuPone. He’s on his way to catch a flight to her, but then the whole burglary thing happens. Oh, and he proceeds to get stabbed in the street, narrowly escaping with a breath in his body when a couple of good Samaritans (the brilliantly disarming Amy Ryan and Nathan Lane) scoop Beau up and bring him back to their sunny suburban home. That’s when some other, less easily identified, tension seethes beneath the surface.

With its $35 million budget, the overindulgent "Beau Is Afraid" is a reminder that female directors rarely get the funding to experiment with mainstream horror early in their careers.A24

This all makes for a deeply fulfilling watch. You vibe with it. You have questions about it, obviously, but you’re still into it because you want to know the answers.

It’s when you eventually stop caring about the answers that you realize the film has lost the plot entirely, yet is still rolling at full speed. This is right around the halfway mark in “Beau Is Afraid.” Beau reaches a point where he absolutely must leave the suburban hellscape, flees into the woods and — wait for it — straight into a forest-dwelling theater group.

From there, the movie spins off its axis. Aster begins to explore the protagonist’s inner turmoil around his strained relationship with his mother and his terminal solitude through the first of many extended cutaways. This one is animated, telling a ridiculously long what-if about Beau finding, then losing, his soul mate and their children.

We jump back to the makeshift “Masterpiece Theatre” in the woods for more sloppy exposition about Beau’s yearning for family, followed by a psychosexual reunion with his mom and the appearance of a giant penis and balls (*insert shrugging emoji here*).

Then, he steps onto a sinking boat — and that, reader, pretty much sums up what “Beau Is Afraid” becomes in its latter half. It’s an extravagant exercise in patience with no payoff. It feels in every way like a director just flailing around onscreen because he knows he can at this point in his career. The film dissolves into something that is neither thrilling nor thoughtful, but just tedious.

Peele's sophomore effort, "Us," retains some of the spark from his debut feature, "Get Out," but becomes a tiresome exercise toward its end.

That’s not because inexplicable fears, mommy issues and loneliness are things audiences can’t appreciate; it’s just that, here, none of those are interesting or coherent enough for us to excitedly talk about the movie later with our friends. That would be a laborious, frustrating endeavor.

It’s a problem reminiscent of Peele’s efforts, particularly “Us.” Like Aster, Peele may have felt some pressure for his second film to match the success of his first, the masterful and exquisitely layered relationship horror “Get Out.”

“Us” starts out phenomenally in its first half. (Overall, the film runs just under two hours). Then, the home invasion-meets-doppelganger horror spirals so far off the deep end — with an arbitrary “Hands Across America” sequence, the bunny rabbits, and an abstruse confrontation between two Lupita Nyong’o characters — that it becomes an exasperating head-scratcher. Like “Beau Is Afraid,” it is another example of excessive storytelling with no foreseeable conclusion.

This is similar to — dare I say — the M. Night Shyamalan effect. Shyamalan, too, is unable to finish a thought in many of his films. It often seems like he can’t figure out a way to end the story, so he comes up with an entirely different idea that has little to do with the bulk of the plot and just says, “The end.”

Aster's "Beau Is Afraid" (pictured) and Peele's "Nope" raise the question: Are these directors one-trick ponies?

With three features apiece, Aster and Peele boast far fewer offerings than their prolific predecessor Shyamalan, but the outlook for them is … not good. And that’s a shame, because for many horror newbies right now, these filmmakers are helping to define the genre.

Since their first movies, nothing they’ve done has reached the same heights. And yet, these three men been given opportunity after opportunity and one generous budget after another — “Beau Is Afraid” cost $35 million to make, while “Us” and Shyamalan’s “Knock at the Cabin” rang up to about $20 million each — to experiment ad nauseam.

Of course, artists should be allowed to try and fail, especially early in their careers, so this would be fine if more female horror filmmakers like Karyn Kusama or Ana Lily Amirpour could have the same lenience or budget. But they don’t.

So, those particularly interested in mainstream horror (or not curious about the higher-caliber international and independent fare) will just have to accept the work of these men dominating the genre right now, as tiresome and hedonistic as it has become."

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greensparty · 1 year

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Stuff I’m Looking Forward to in April

It’s Springtime and we’re now in the 2nd Quarter of 2023! In addition to April Fools Day (April 1), Palm Sunday (April 2), Passover (from April 5 to 13), Good Friday (April 7), Easter (April 9), Orthodox Easter (April 16), Patriots Day (in MA on April 17), Tax Day (April 18), Eid al-Fitr (expected to begin on April 21), Earth Day (April 22), Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day (April 24), and Administrative Professionals’ Day (April 26) here is what’s on my radar this month:

Movies:

Air

Ben Affleck directs himself and Matt Damon in this true story of Nike making the Air Jordan. The last time he directed a true story was possibly his best directing Argo, so hopes are high for this one opening 4/5.

Showing Up

I kind of like the simplicity of Kelly Reichardt’s films notably Wendy and Lucy, which she did with frequent star Michelle Williams. Here Williams plays an artist in this dramedy opening 4/7.

The Lost Weekend: A Love Story

May Pang had an 18-month romance with John Lennon during his “Lost Weekend” era and she has told her story in books and been interviewed in other documentaries, but now she is getting the doc treatment she deserves. Opening 4/14.

Personality Crisis: One Night Only

Martin Scorsese and his frequent documentary editor David Tedeschi direct this doc about David Johansen, the former New York Dolls singer later known as Buster Poindexter. The fact that Scorsese is taking on this music legend is literally an NYC icon documenting an NYC icon! Premieres 4/14 on Showtime.

Beau Is Afraid

I had mixed feelings about Ari Aster’s first two films Hereditary and Midsommar. On the one hand they kinda lost steam at times and were a little bloated, on the other hand the parts that worked really worked and there’s not denying his ambition. His new one with Joaquin Phoenix is actually a dark comedy I have high hopes for. Opening 4/21.

Evil Dead Rise

Alright, I don’t know if I’m actually looking forward to this, so much as cautiously optimistic about this Evil Dead sequel. I’m not expecting this to be as good as Sam Raimi’s first three, but hoping it cracks my Top Evil Dead Movies next time I revise the list. Opening 4/21.

Music:

Metallica 72 Seasons

Metallica’s 11th album is also their first since 2016′s Hardwired...to Self-Destruct, which was a serious comeback (I even included it in my Best Albums of the 2010s list). New album drops 4/14.

Smashing Pumpkins Atum

Smashing Pumpkins dropped Act 1 of Atum in November and Act 2 in January. Now Act 3 and the physical release of the entire rock opera are dropping 4/21.

Film Festivals:

Salem Horror Fest

I have been lucky enough to cover this genre film festival in Salem, MA since 2018. Last year they decided to move the festival from October (when there is a lot going on in Salem) to April. Fest runs from 4/20 to 4/30.

Independent Film Festival Boston

My favorite film festival (I am an alum) is IFFBoston! Last year they returned in-person after they took 2020 off and 2021 virtual. It felt so good to return to the fest in person! This year marks IFFBoston’s 20th anniversary. Fest runs from 4/26 to 5/3.

Events:

Record Store Day

Possibly my favorite fake holiday is the day we celebrate independent record stores. This year there’s some exciting RSD releases from Pearl Jam, Ringo Starr, The Stooges and Wilco. Looking forward to 4/22!

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mermaidsirennikita · 1 year

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what are some of your favorite horror films?

I mean, I love a lot of them. Horror is something where I just enjoy kind of getting sucked in. I'm more into supernatural horror than slashers, I would say--I think some slashers can verge into torture porn, and that's not my bag.

I love Ari Aster, obviously. Midsummer and Hereditary are huge for me--I actually saw the director's cut of Midsummer in theaters without realizing that was what I was going to. Tiny little art theater in an art school town, sitting there with my sister whose boyfriend had just cheated on her with her best friend... The feminine rage was palpable. Of course, I also love The Wicker Man, the influence on especially Midsommar, but honestly also Hereditary. Folk horror forever (shout out to The Ritual).

I'm a big fan of gestational horror...? Obviously, Rosemary's Baby is hard to watch in good conscience because Polanski, but I think Mia Farrow gives one of the best performances onscreen ever in it, and the sense of birthing the demonic is really interesting to me. I also love Prevenge, which is a really weird, tiny, woman-directed slasher flick about a pregnant woman whose baby speaks to her from the womb (or she's just crazy) and motivates her to kill those she holds responsible for her boyfriend's death. A really interesting take on grieving and pregnancy.

I love The Omen. That's another one that has really shaped my mind; I love consuming Catholicism and Christianity in general in horror. Plus, the idea that the only way you can save your child is by killing him? Love that conflict.

I enjoy anthology horror movies of dubious quality. There's one called Holidays that I love (even when it's not great, which is often). It focuses on a short film celebrating each holiday. Most, I like it because of the St. Patrick's Day short (Irish woman is impregnated with a snake god by a cult leader).

I adore The Love Witch, as much as you can call it a horror. The Hunger is great, as is The Howling. Ready or Not, of course.

I love The Others--my favorite Nicole Kidman performance, maybe? And a great example of the psychological horror of ghost stories.

The Wailing is great!

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greysjapanese · 2 years

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Helen loves a good movie musical too and has probably watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Hedwig And The Angry Inch, The Blues Brothers and Little Shop Of Horrors more times than is healthy. If she had to pick a favorite horror movie it would probably be The Shining but Ari Aster‚Äôs Hereditary and Midsommar rank in joint second place. Helen is a lifelong fan of the horror genre which started in the 1980s when films like Gremlins and Cat‚Äôs Eye scared the life out of her as a kid. She‚Äôs produced content for the likes of Culture Trip, WhatCulture and Prague.TV and started writing for Screen Rant in 2019 ‚Äì firstly as a news writer before progressing onto writing mini-features. Helen Armitage is a freelance writer based in the UK who has been writing online since late 2013. Stefanie Heinzmann – “Diggin' In The Dirt”.Skrillex – “Rock N' Roll (Will Take You To The Mountain)”.Sergio Mendes featuring The Black Eyed Peas – “Mas Que Nada”.Selena Gomez and the Scene – “Love You Like A Love Song”.Rick Astley – “Never Gonna Give You Up”.Panjabi MC – “Beware Of The Boys (Mundian To Bach Ke)”.One Direction – “What Makes You Beautiful”.However, there are still some changes: All Stars Mode is removed. The Chinese version of Just Dance 2020 shares similar features with its international counterpart.

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A PS4 port and Xbox One port was also planned but ultimately scrapped. It is a Chinese version of Just Dance 2020, exclusive to the Nintendo Switch. Las Ketchup – “Asereje (The Ketchup Song)” (also known as Just Dance China) is a game in the Just Dance series. 99 a month for unlimited devices, but if youre just going to use a single Echo or Fire TV device, you Note: Playlists have a 500 song limit.Kat DeLuna featuring Busta Rhymes – “Run The Show” Into The Unknown is exclusive for 8th Gen.Justin Bieber featuring Nicki Minaj – “Beauty and a Beat”.Jennifer Lopez featuring Pitbull – “On The Floor” We have a list of all the updated scripts for the Roblox Shindo Life.Hit The Electro Beat – “We No Speak Americano”.Bunny Beatz – “Make The Party (Don't Stop)” App lets you listen to the best collection of old Hindi songs from Bollywood.Boys Town Gang – “Can't Take My Eyes Off You”.Blu Cantrell – “Hit' Em Up Style (Oops!)”.Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes – “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life”.Barry White – “You're The First, The Last, My Everything”.

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blookmallow · 2 years

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i finally went through the whole midsommar script on scriptslug, theres a LOT of things that were changed, a lot of details i didnt catch, and i have. many things to say. here we go

theres a lot of reverse parallels with dani and christian; at the beginning she's worried she's leaning on him too much (do you feel held by him?) and is concerned about "roping him into (her) family crap" - when she's the one about to be pulled into the hårgas family

she worries about overwhelming christian with her personal life, when it's christian (or, more accurately, pelle, since christian doesn't actually want to invite dani in the first place) about to pull her into something she's not prepared to handle

(also "girlfriend" there is the straight girl version of the word lmfao dani deserves a gf though)

"if he's gonna leave you for being Too Much like that, good riddance" vs uh, what actually happens to christian

pelle is drawing flowers when we first see him

kind of blunt christian foreshadowing lmfao but im also curious if it was actually pelle who said that (i dont remember and a lot of things got switched around from the script to the final version) - if pelle Already Knows at this point, and whether he's earnestly encouraging christian in the direction the hårgas want him to go under the impression that theres nothing wrong with it, or if this is some kind of secret joke at christian's expense that no one catches because. no one knows what he really means

christian brushing dani off vs pelle immediately being very attentive to her from the beginning

they joke but between christian's "approved mating" with maja and dani being drawn into the cult, this is exactly what's happening to them

playful banter that becomes way more sinister considering the truth under it,

i noticed this watching it too but for some reason, Only this one time, christian is really adamant about wanting to wait for dani and wanting to do this Together and i dont know why. he's completely dismissive of her every other time. why does he stand his ground so much on this

i guess this is the first cultural thing they engage in, the first time they are drugged (this time it's their Choice to get high, they know what they're taking and what it will do, though) so maybe there's. some layer of irony, something something christian wants dani to be drawn into the hårgas culture with him, when that ends up being what kills him and breaks her, i dont know

dani has a way worse time with the drug hallucinations in this version

also apparently tumblr doesnt allow more than 10 images even in text posts anymore which is cool and not going to fuck up my blogging at all :) so im just gonna type out. the rest of the excerpts. i guess

Dani sees a DEAD RABBIT. Its innards are splayed.

Dani warily approaches. Magnetized but repulsed. As she nears, the FEAR rises in her. She gets close enough to finally see...

The rabbit is being devoured by ANTS.

Dani looks mortified, but her eyes are glued. She LEANS IN to look closer, but then -- she sees ANTS on her arm. (Whether they're there or not is unclear.)

Dani SCREAMS. She violently SLAPS at her arm. She then swipes at her other arm, and starts slapping at her NECK and FACE, as if she were engulfed in ants. (She's not.)

Dani looks down. The earth seems to now be a PULSATING CARPET OF ANTS.

i dont remember this happening so im assuming it was cut or my memory is even worse than i thought, but anyway this is a really interesting parallel to Hereditary and i dont know if there's some deeper meaning there or if ari aster just likes the grotesque visual of something dead and rotting and swarming with ants but i like it

INGEMAR

Well... we were all working on the same farm, and funny enough: I was dating Connie when Simon and me first became pals.

Simon's eyes narrow.

CONNIE

(correcting) Well - we'd been on a date. Which I wasn't even actually aware that it was a date.

INGEMAR

(backtracking jovially) Right, no, I meant that Connie and me had just become friends - we decided to be friends - and that was just before Connie and Simon started dating. And now they're engaged!

I think Ingemar may have been attempting to recruit Connie as their potential next May Queen/drawing her into the "family" - maybe he and Pelle had the same mission, bring back someone from outside to join us, and someone to be sacrificed. it sounds like Ingemar wanted to date Connie, and wanted to bring her back as the new may queen, but Simon got in the way, so now Ingemar is knowingly bringing them here intending for them to be sacrifices, possibly out of spite (I'm not sure if Ingemar is chosen as a sacrifice at the end Because he failed to bring back the new may queen, or if that was the plan regardless)

it's possible Ingemar and Pelle are rivals in this, and Pelle succeeded where Ingemar failed (though ultimately they both brought the necessary outsiders for the final ritual, so neither of them actually Failed, but. y'know. pelle doesn't get sacrificed and his target became may queen and joins them

it's also interesting that like. on the one hand, connie and simon appear to have a healthy, supportive relationship. but because of that, because the cult was unable to tear them apart or single them out, they both die. they're also the most vocally against the violence of the cult, they ask the most questions and try to leave, which. i think they were planned to be sacrificed either way but that is the moment they're taken away

so their stability, strength, and agency were actually their downfall

vs dani and christian have a very weak, miserable relationship, and dani is in an absolutely TERRIBLE place mentally, she's already feeling incredibly isolated, christian keeps pushing her to accept the questionable aspects of the cult, to give in rather than fight back (though he doesn't catch on that anything's wrong until Way Too Late)

so dani lives, in some sense because of the brokenness in her life

but then, did she really win in all this? would it really be better to live that life, in that place with all sense of self destroyed, living with that guilt and trauma forever? there's such a thing as a fate worse than death. i don't know. i dont know

anyway. instead of seeing the artwork depicting the love ritual, everyone gathers to watch a short film made by the hårgas showing it much more explicitly; i think the. tapestry? painting? whatever it was just being shown briefly to plant the concept in our minds is much more effective

Near Dani, a BLONDE WOMAN (30s) cradles the CRYING BABY.

DANI

(inquiring) Is your baby okay?

BLONDE WOMAN

Oh, she will be. She has a bone problem.

this, and also,

DANI

Excuse me? Can I ask if you know what's happening over there?

HÅRGAN MAN

(looking over) Ah. Poor little Einar has the, em - where the bones are bad?

there's this... recurring thing about the babies in the village having some kind of bone condition and a whole ritual about passing a baby through the branches of a tree to cure it or something? which i didnt really understand and i couldnt remember if that happened in the final version or not, but i do remember there was a baby constantly crying in the background often enough that i started noticing it

i dont know what that's about. could they be doing something to the babies that's causing this? something to do with inbreeding? (seems unlikely, since it seems like they only explicitly allow inbreeding to create their sacred child to receive the visions or w/e, it doesn't seem like it's a common enough thing to be causing so many babies to have the same bone condition)

- Pelle stops the group on their way to the first sacrificial ritual to actually explain what's about to happen. He warns them they might not want to see it, and it may be strange to them, but very important and beautiful to the hårgas - rather than catching them off guard (though of course it's still incredibly horrifying to witness, even so) (I'm not sure if the intention in cutting this was just to amplify the shock factor and leave us, and the outsiders in the group, in the dark until the moment everything goes down, or if maybe pelle neglecting to explain it could be meant to imply this is such a natural thing to him it didn't even occur to him to warn them about it)

Josh can't suppress a smile - anticipating Pelle's answer

josh also seems downright gleeful about the whole thing, and there was... sort of a little of this in the final version but it seems. worse in the script for some reason, like this is funny to him, or maybe it's just the "I Know Something You Don't Know" factor, but it seems like a really weird and insensitive reaction given that he's an anthropology student who is familiar with this as a cultural rite

it's also two men who die in the. cliff ritual. rather than a man and a woman, not sure why

then we have another ritual where. i already have forgotten how it went but it was something to do with dropping a tree into the river as a kind of offering, i think, but then THIS happens

THIN MAN (CONT'D)

(in Swedish) But I do not wish to risk offending our generous Mother.

LARGE WOMAN

(in Swedish) Nor do I. Yet we have already given our finest jewels and most fruitful tree. What else could we possibly offer?

Then a YOUNG BOY (10) is heard among the crowd.

YOUNG BOY (O.S.)

You can use me!

The crowd OPENS UP to reveal the young boy. He is adorned in the same jewels and flowers as the tree. His costume is an imitation of the tree's. He is clearly reciting lines (with less confidence than the Thin Man and Large Woman).

LARGE WOMAN

(in Swedish) You, young Ame, wish to offer your life to our beloved Goddess?

YOUNG BOY

(in Swedish) If She will have it.

THIN MAN

(in Swedish) How brave you are, little Ame!

YOUNG BOY

(in Swedish) Brave? What is brave in going home?

Horns are played as the Young Boy steps forward to stand before the men who tossed the tree. They reluctantly lift the boy up and carry him to the river.

this sends dani into a panic, they've already witnessed one human sacrificial ritual, and she understandably believes they're about to drown this child, but then there's this. weird staged protest before they go through with it

The crowd erupts into a CACOPHONY OF STAGED PROTEST. The men stop swinging the boy. After sufficient heckling, the men RELEASE the boy. He then runs to SIV, bashfully burying his face into her dress. She pats his head with pride.

Everyone APPLAUDS. The performance seems to be over. Dani looks completely disoriented.

so. it seems like everyone has memorized lines and understands what's happening (except the outsiders) so i guess the intention was "we're gonna pretend we're going to sacrifice a child to the river but then stop it at the last second and let him go" for... some reason

DANI

I don't want to acclimate! I want to leave.

christian keeps pushing for dani to just try to understand/fit in, to get used to it, but she's fighting it and wants out, again, her finally giving in and becoming fully one with the cult is the end of them both (well. dani lives. but y'know)

- pelle mentions that maja is 15, which i didnt catch, and makes this all. Worse

- mark's fatal mistake is different; instead of, uh. defiling the ancestral tree (which i think was literally where they put the ashes of the dead? i forget) he's actually trying to take part in a cultural tradition the men of the village are doing; they're collecting charms that have been hung in the trees and he tries to join in

Mark has arrived at an OAK TREE with a particularly large PINECONE (also bearing a flower) at the top. Its base has been tied with rope. Mark begins to CLIMB it.

CHRISTIAN

Wait, dude. Maybe hold off.

MARK

I'm gonna "gather a charm."

Josh and Christian look uneasy as Mark quickly scales the Oak. As he climbs past a few branches, a BEARDED MAN (40s) is heard off-screen:

BEARDED MAN (O.S.)

NEJ!!!

Mark FREEZES. The Bearded Man runs over. This is ULF.

ULF

(in Swedish) WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! GET OFF! GET DOWN!

Mark, now standing motionless on a branch, looks stupefied. The branch suddenly SNAPS beneath his feet, and he comes TUMBLING to the ground. He lands HARD on his ass.

Ulf desperately picks up the BROKEN BRANCH. He then notices that the tree's mud-plugged CLEFT (wrapped in rope) has BROKEN OPEN.

ULF (CONT'D)

(in Swedish) Oh no no no... What have you done?

so instead of doing something vulgar and Obviously insensitive and insulting, he's Trying to engage with their culture, just in a clueless and clumsy way, which is an interesting change

in the final version i think it makes mark seem less sympathetic/more He Had It Comin and makes you sympathize more with the cult members, there's less grey area so i think it makes you see their side a little clearer. personally i felt disgusted too, like yeah he didn't Know it was their ancestral tree but he's such a bitch about it when, once you realize what he's done, it's such an obvious insult, he should have been fucking mortified but he brushes it off so casually

while it's easier to relate to "so he broke a branch, so what" i think the concept of defiling a grave (or at least a memorial place) is something american audiences can readily understand and relate to while the spiritual tree connection is something more foreign

ulf is really, really distraught about the tree, it seems to be a huge personal blow to him emotionally and mentally

MARK

What the fuck? How is it his tree? What's even happening?

PELLE

That tree cured him of pneumonia when he was a baby.

MARK

What? How?! No it didn't.

PELLE (CONT'D)

He believes it did. And now his health and his life are tied to that tree. If it gets hurt, he gets hurt.

i dont remember if this is worded the same in the final version but in the scene where pelle tries to connect with dani

DANI

You're a very empathetic person, do you know that?

PELLE

Well, our first language here is strictly emotion-based. So I could just be using that to manipulate you.

Dani pauses at this. Pelle sticks his TONGUE out, teasing. Dani SMILES, relieved.

PELLE (CONT'D)

You are very vulnerable, though. And I mean that in a great way. It's very rare. It's beautiful.

boy this is scary as shit given how things are about to go down

i cant figure pelle out, i really have no clue how much of this is him just honestly thinking he's doing what's best/what's right because it's his culture and he's been raised in this and doesn't know anything else, and how much is just. complete manipulation and toying with them all

PLUMP ELDER

(to Connie now) Say you learn that your partner can't part with even a fraction of his own comfort to give you what you need. And show that you're appreciated.

i really think they were trying to bait connie into joining them too, maybe it Wasn't completely decided whether connie or dani would become the next queen (since the number of sacrifices they needed would mean everyone was intended to die except one of the girls, and potentially one more since dani could have chosen to save christian) (though i think it's also very likely they fully expected her to choose him. between pelle drawing her away and christian being manipulated into cheating on her they definitely seemed to. not have his best interests in mind) (i dont like christian and i cant say how much of this was his choice and how much was the cult breaking him down too but still)

in the final version, christian barely spares a thought for it when he's asked to sleep with maja, he doesn't protest at all - it's possible he was scared, or still under drug influences, but he still doesn't say Anything against it, but interestingly in this version he does hesitate at least a little, and it's also revealed that pelle had already planted the idea in maja's head and told her about christian before all of this - so his hinting about christian impregnating swedish women probably was self aware

SIV

You have been approved to mate with her. You're an ideal astrological match and she has fallen in love with you.

CHRISTIAN

We haven't even spoken.

SIV

She fell in love with you before you came. Pelle showed her a photo.

CHRISTIAN

(pause) I have someone here with me. I'm with Dani.

like he still goes through with it, but he seems way more reluctant and actually does stop to think about dani

anyway. i think thats all i have

#media analysis #midsommar

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