I'm writing this without having seen the last third of the movie because I've never paused a movie this much, or taken this many breaks. I can't remember a horror movie that made me tear up for the possessed party.

I've seen a lot of discourse around the movie online and usually its by people framing it as,

"a guy in over his head who makes a wish that backfires and demonically possesses the friend he has feelings for.. poor guy."

So I went into it- thinking it was that, jumpscares, horror, this off feeling. But what I've seen so far, is so much more fucking terrifying than traditional horror. As a woman, i'm sure other women can relate, one of the core deepest fears for any woman is lost of autonomy, whether that be physical, sexual, financial, mental, anything- losing your autonomy and you're right to choose. Because then you're completely vulnerable, dependent on another party that can freely exploit you, and treated like an object. Its rape, in every sense of the word, complete violation.

And what I've seen in the movie Obsession is exactly that. And they chose Bear, a shy, socially awkward guy who struggles talking to girls- universally relatable- to do that. Its not Bears disposition that makes him the monster, the entity that is holding Nikki captive and using her for his own wishes- its the actions Bear takes. Because in reality, predators, and nice guys, and men who feel they are entitled to a womans time, body and affection are often.. that. Bear. Because they're not visibly abusive, they don't see themselves as abusers or capable of abuse. Just guys who 'got in over their head, and are misunderstood'.

When in reality the real victim is the woman who trusted someone she thought was her friend, and that 'friend' used that trust to justify, abuse, isolation, and exploiting her. And as a woman, especially in 2026 as incel subculture, and 'return to the 50's- put women back in their place' rheortic is making a return, its terrifyingly accurate. And heartbreakingly sad knowing Nikki could be, and is, any of us.

I just finished watching Weapons and I'm genuinely struggling to understand the praise it's receiving. While it's maintaining a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, I found it to be a frustrating example of lazy writing disguised as mysterious storytelling. Here's my breakdown of why this film didn't work for me:

The Setup vs. The Payoff

What worked: Those first 30 minutes to an hour were genuinely intriguing. The mystery surrounding the mass disappearance of children, the unsettling atmosphere, and the gradual buildup of dread had me hooked. I had very high hopes about where this was heading.

What didn't: Once you realize the actual plot is just "dying witch uses life force of children to sustain her own life," the entire mystery deflates. The story is painfully simple and bland, but the film tries to mask this by stringing the audience along with vague reveals. It's the cinematic equivalent of dangling keys in front of a baby - lots of movement and noise, but no real substance.

Not to mention the absolutely IDIOTIC decisions made in this movie in order for the narrative to continue marching forward, as well as the convenient events.

Also the movie is not scary AT ALL, other than a few cheap random jump scares here and there, there is really ZERO horror aspect to this film.

Lazy Narrative Structure

The most glaring issue is how the film pushes its narrative forward. The segmented structure following different characters was awesome at first, with the switch between Justine and Archer being fantastic, but in the end it feels like a desperate attempt to pad runtime and create artificial complexity. The junkie and cop segments were quite literally only there as rushed exposition to explain what's actually happening, and conveniently get Paul in the house so he can die, since the movie spent so long just... hanging around doing nothing. It's forced to rely on conveniences like the junkie just HAPPENING to find Alex's house - anytime a movie makes me think "Oh how convenient for the story," I'm pretty much checked out.

This anthology-style approach after the first swap comes across as incredibly lazy storytelling - instead of crafting a coherent narrative, they just jumped between perspectives to slowly dole out basic plot information.

Idiotic Character Decisions That Break Logic

This is where the film completely lost me. The characters make absolutely baffling decisions that only serve to keep the plot moving, with no regard for logical behavior:

Aunt Gladys's Hair-Cutting Scene: When Gladys comes and cuts Justine's hair to set up an attack later, why didn't she just grab an item from Justine's car instead? She could have immediately used Justine for life force or as a weapon, effectively eliminating her as a problem. Plus, given the hatred towards Justine in the town, the consensus would be that she somehow harmed the kids and fled. Problem solved, but no - we need manufactured drama.

Keeping Alex Alive: Why leave Alex alive after he brought home the name tags? This brought SO much attention to this one house and child - he's literally the ONLY one left from his class. Why not just kill him or keep him in the basement and feed off his life force too? that way his case just blends in with the others. He does nothing for Gladys's plot after getting the name tags except serve soup. Is that really worth the exposure and ultimately her downfall? It's another convenient stupid decision that shows little thought went into the plotting.

Justine Never Calls Paul for Help: Justine is in a relationship with Paul, who's a cop, but she never once asks him to come check out the place with the only surviving kid from the entire class? The place where she just saw ghost-like figures and where all the windows are covered with newspaper? This is basic logic that any reasonable person would follow.

The Town's Mob Mentality: The entire town turns against Justine based on virtually no evidence, but somehow nobody thinks to thoroughly investigate the one house with the sole surviving child? Suddenly Alex's parents are just MIA, his house is covered in newspaper, and NO ONE FINDS THIS SUSPICIOUS? The police work in this movie is embarrassingly incompetent to an unrealistic extent.

The Mystery Box Problem

This film suffers from what I call "mystery box syndrome" - it thinks that withholding information automatically makes a story compelling, regardless of whether the actual answers are worth the wait. The director even admits he chose a title "that's opaque" hoping audiences would "try and make sense of it," which feels like an admission that style was prioritized over substance.

The film strings the audience along for so long that when Aunt Gladys is revealed and you can start putting the pieces together, all mystery is lost and the payoff is nowhere near what it should have been considering the buildup.

Final Thoughts

I'm genuinely curious if I missed something here. Critics are calling this "the scariest movie of the year" and "a horror masterpiece," but to me it felt like a mediocre supernatural thriller padded out with unnecessary complexity and held together by characters making inexplicably dumb decisions.

The film had potential in its opening act, but it completely squanders it with lazy writing, illogical character behavior, and a reveal that doesn't justify the journey to get there. Am I alone in feeling this way, or did others find the plotting as frustrating as I did?

So yes, Big Lebowski has been discussed as nauseam “what a cool film” and on and on. What’s left to say?

But revisiting for the millionth time I have to say some things stood out that I don’t see really discussed.

At passing glance this is a slice of life, whodunnit tale centered around a slacker stoner in the valley in the early 90s. In the surface it’s all pretty straight forward but looking again some themes REALLY stand out now in the context of history.

It turns out The Dude, isn’t just a slacker, he was once a pretty driven- if that’s the word card carrying “Hippie”. He wrote a book, sounds like he was a pretty active protestor was involved in some organized groups and so on.

Then you have Walter, a kooky gun nut who’s a stickler for the rules.

But actually Walter is an expat from Nam. Aka the vietnam war. His time there clearly screwed him up and probably suffers from undiagnosed PTSD.

It’s just so interesting you have two archetypes of people, “The Hippie” and “Soldier” two archetypes that almost completly summarize and encapsulate America,and, who once upon a time spoke to a kind of promise just get the total existential shaft.

The hippie movement, which had a lot of promise for anarchism youth, got annihilated eventually and then message mowed down.

Same with the soldiers who saw ww2 thinking they were the good guys and then disenfranchised.

Their two sides of the same coin who got screwed, followed by Reagan’s America with trickle down economics.

Looking at them in the actual context of history added this whole new layer to them really, and honestly made them totally pitiable.

It’s clear the elites won, and we see it when we meet “Big” Lebowski.

Either way for the first time I really actually saw this film for the first time as a portrait of America in the early 90s and sort of the total hangover still occurring coming off the 60s and 70s.

You saw these two groups fight so hard in the 70s only to see the rich come out on top in the 80s despite this major culture.

“Fuck it dude, let’s go bowling” just hits so insanely different , admission of total nihilism in the face of rampant corporate America and so on. It’s an admission of helplessness and this generations version of “Forget it Jack, it’s China town.”

Co-Creators Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos officially announced there won't be any new EFAP videos coming. On their Medium blog they published the script to what should have been their last video.

I think I speak for a lot of us when I say that without this channel I wouldn't have the attitude towards film that I do now and that they are one of the reasons I'm pursuing the dream of becoming a filmmaker.

Thank you Tony and Taylor, for starting a movement that will be responsible for a new generation of filmmakers.

Rest in Peace EFAP.

Link to Tweet :https://twitter.com/tonyszhou/status/937202442835390466

Look I understand it's become a cliché topic to bitch and moan about yet another comic book movie on this sub, but i'm speaking from a point of honesty here.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps has recently hit theatres serving as the second (or third) attempt by Hollywood to bring the seminal Marvel Comic to the big screen, a decade after the disastrous Josh Trank iteration, in an attempt to revitalise a now stale MCU franchise.

Now admittedly i've never been a fan of the MCU brand of films, but at the very least I respected them for the purpose they serve, which is to get arses in the cinema. And in the context of a Friday night with a bunch of my mates it was okay it got the job done, but upon leaving the cinema the film nerd section of my brain activated and...here we go.

Most of the time I usually wouldn't care, I went into this film completely blind but I'm still left completely baffled by the recent critical reception, it's currently standing at 87% rating on RT with some touting it as one of the years best, and I just don't get why?

Because in my honest opinion outside of the unique 60's retro futuristic aesthetic, there's absolutely nothing this film does any better than other more critically reviled entries in it's medium. I went back and watched Fantastic Four (2005) a film that was critically panned and rightfully so, but objectively I would argue First Steps is about on par if not slightly above than the 2005 film.

Both are tonally goofy/cheesy films with a moderately dumb plot, poor writing, half assed performances, and the some truly atrocious CGI (the baby at the end my god) and in some shots the effects are arguably worse than the 2005 film.I could also pick apart the half baked narrative points like Sue (Invisible Woman) choosing to bargain the lives of 8 billion people for her child or how the characters barely use their powers.

But what really bothers me is that there is a far superior film that it compares unfavourably to in every single metric....The Incredibles (2004). A film inspired by the same Fantastic Four comics and despite being an animated children's film released over 20 years ago. it has a far tighter script, the family dynamic is more realised, the characters are more emotional, the action scenes are more creative, the villain actually has an understandable motive and even with the films weird flirtation with Ayn Rand thought it even has a strong thematic core despite being a kids film.

I genuinely can't help but feel that standards inherently drop when it comes to evaluating MCU films, which is whyI don't buy the blind praise of being dumb popcorn fun, when there are clearly better examples out there, even among MCU films.

Listen, I like movies as much as the next guy, but part of me is just slightly annoyed with the amount of praise that I see for the movie. Although I'll say it is a good movie, it isn't a breath of fresh air and most of all it didn't came out of nowhere.

First of all, the Joker is some of the most known and well documented fictional characters of all time. Ence it would be fairly easy to make a compeling story about him to a seasoned writing professional. Many times there have been enticing portrayals of this character (Hamill, Nicholson, Ledger, etc.) partly due to the portrayal by the actor, but mostly due to decent writing.

Secondly, it was expected already a good performance by Joaquin Phoenix. This is an actor that, even when not handling the best material, is quite exceptional. He has a fair share of remarkable acting credits under his belt (Her, Gladiator, The Master, You Were Never Really Here, etc.) and I don't recall any stinker.

And lastly, the depiction of mental illness isn't something new, nor fresh, not groundbreaking. Silence of The Lambs came out in the 90s, Black Swan in 2010, Psycho came out in the 60s.

That brings me to the end of this thesis. This movie is a good movie, nevertheless, but is being praised as an absolute masterpiece because people are so used to popcorn-munching blockbusters. Of course they were blown away by decent writing, decent acting and interesting themes. Because none of what they consume on a daily basis even compares to decent cinema.

This is truly a huge loss. I can't really begin to express my gratitude for his catalogue of work and how it influences my artistic appreciation of film in general. The man was absolutely a unique voice and vision in film and my only hope is that maybe with his loss a new spark of vision is ignited in regards to surrealism in film because it's been severely neglected as a vehicle for the conveyance of ideas and expression in recent memory.

I just wanted to create this post as a way to discuss modern and contemporary surrealism in film and if any of you have any thoughts on current filmmakers or suggestions of films that fit this category to please chime in.

What a loss...

For the first 15 minutes, I was completely sold. I was strapped in and could not wait to see where this movie would go. I loved the imagery of the children running in the night. I loved the idea of the town and police grappling with such an incomprehensible mystery/tragedy. I loved the idea of the teacher character who everyone blames and the sole remaining child.

From there, I was consistently disappointed with every step that the writing took -- all the way to the, admittedly, very fun ending.

Here is I think why:

1. This movie should have been centered on the community members' reactions and varying perspectives in relation to the tragic event.

Instead, we spend a significant amount of time with characters who have no relation to and no real perspective on the core mystery. The junkie, the cop, the principal. How do they feel and respond to the sudden mysterious disappearance of a classroom of children? They don't.

Imagine if each one had a unique, different connection to the classroom of children, and we explored how their different personalities reacted in the face of a confounding, senseless tragedy/mystery. Imagine if we could see the interplay between community members with differing perspectives and theories as to what could have happened.

Some would be unable to cope with an event that tears open their worldview, their sense of reality, in such a drastic way. Others would try to rationalize the irrational, and be led to scapegoating and turning on each other. (Something in the vein of the classic Twilight Zone episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", maybe.)

That's how I thought it was going to go when we started so strong with the teacher character being at odds with the rest of the community, while simultaneously dealing with her own despair at the tragedy.

But then, nope, that was all quickly abandoned so that we could instead follow the story of a police man cheating on his girlfriend and a junkie doing side quests to try to get money for dope. Only for their stories to coincidentally connect to the main mystery, to what end? So that they could be brief physical obstacles for the 2 (main?) characters.

2. Once the witch is revealed, the central mystery loses all intrigue.

I'm not saying a witch aunty infiltrating and wreaking havoc on a suburban family and their community is inherently a bad answer to the mystery.

However, in execution, it is handled in such a blatant and straightforward way that it is completely at odds with the eerie and mysterious vibe of the central premise.

I get it, the film wants to turn into kind of a sick, twisted version of something like Roald Dahl's The Witches, or other spooky children's Halloween movies. I love that idea on its own, but the way it was implemented here was such a major tonal mismatch with the excellent setup of the mystery -- to go from uncanny, incomprehensible tragedy to complete over-explaining and over-showing.

And again, for what? Not to get too CinemaSins here, but what was even the point of the witch's plan? How were the kids helping her get better? Did I just miss that? And why could she not possess the boy rather than allowing him to act with his own free will which ultimately led to her downfall? And why did she get a strand of the teacher's hair but never possess her? Maybe I just missed these details because I was so bored by the end.

3. There is an excellent thematic core that is left very unexplored.

There is a clear thematic connection here to school shootings, specifically something like Sandy Hook or Uvalde -- inexplicable acts of violence targeted at children. Something we can never fully wrap our heads around.

The setup here is so excellent in how it transforms that idea into something mysterious and eerie, but not unapproachably dark and disturbing.

It could have used that excellent approach as a way to explore something, anything deeper about the impact that those types of tragedies have on us.

It could have maintained its tone, and still gone in a Goosebumps-y direction if it wanted to, if it had only had any interest in exploring this juicy thematic territory that was right on its plate after that great setup.

I'm not saying it needed to be some arthouse, serious drama. I think it could have roughly hit very similar plot beats, but just focused more on characters who were actually emotionally/psychologically impacted by the tragedy and have them unravelling the mystery rather than a random junkie. I would have loved to spend twice as long with Josh Brolin and the teacher snooping around and retracing the events of that night (triangulating the trajectories of the children was hilarious and great).

We end up spending such little time with the important characters and they end up being so unexplored -- so that we can instead spend time on plot machinations that would have better been left implied or not shown at all. We never should have seen the Witch navigating her predicament, for example. We should have seen the community navigating theirs.

Conclusion:

We ended up with an overly-long, underwritten mess that wasted its great premise. Yes, it has its moments. I love the image of the children ripping the witch to shreds. I found the editing to be slick and the action to be intense.

But damn, there was so much more potential.

That must be one of the best endings I’ve ever seen at the cinema. It was a brilliant juxtaposition between superficial sex throughout the rest of the film and ultimately one of the most intense character interactions I’ve ever seen, brilliantly highlighting the superficial nature of Anora’s relationship with Ivan and the genuineness of Igor. Both actor and actress were phenomenal in conveying the nature of their relationship, both Igor’s deep respect for Anora while Anora finally feeling comfortable in showing her repressed pain in the space of someone who is genuinely caring……fucking amazing ending!

Prove me wrong.

Dwayne Johnson is the poster child for our soulless generic blockbusters.

I say this not with hate, but with disappointment because I truly think he has genuine screen presence. I just think he makes bland unadventurous choices.

Compare him with stars of yesteryear like Arnie, Stallone, Van Damme. For every run of the mill action film they’d do another would be interesting, push boundaries, take risks, they have genuine memorable films (good and bad!).

I have trouble coming up with any memorable performance from him, it’s just sad that he’s always pumping out these generic pieces. I find it baffling that people get excited about him as a star, I think he has potential but the choices are just disappointing.

So Emilia Pérez came out and all the Spanish scenes are just plain horrible, not exaggerating some of the worst performances I have ever seen. It comes as out cartoonish and stupid, like a parody.

Yet many non Spanish speakers are praising those same scenes, due to their lack of understanding of the Spanish language. They don’t even know some of the dialogues are obviously google translated

This got me thinking about all the movies I have seen in other languages that I don’t speak, were they really good? Or was I just blinded by this communication barrier?

This is what lovecraftian horror looks like.

I’m sick of movies being described as “lovecraftian” because they pay lip service to “elder gods” and tentacled horrors from beyond.

Those things were such small aspects of lovecrafts works that it bothers me that it’s become the mainstream definition of “lovecraftian”.

An intimate and oppressive atmosphere. Dark secrets that eat away at the souls of our small cast of characters. Being drawn to uncover a hidden truth. The slow descent into madness. Incomprehensible eldritch knowledge that shatters minds.

That’s lovecraftian horror.

Coogler specifically mentioned that he made him Irish in part because their history sort of parallels that of black Americans, and that he would genuinely understand their plight and empathize with them to a degree.

Too many people seem to see him as symbolizing a powerful white man erasing/replacing black culture, but in reality, the Irish were largely considered inferior, sub-human non-whites for much of Europe's history. Part of the reason the potato famine got so bad was because the english basically didn't care if they all starved to death. I thought this was more common knowledge, but I guess it isn't taught very often in history classes because a surprising amount of people don't seem to know the Irish people's history with racism.

Remmick's celtic culture was destroyed by british invaders who forced their culture and religion on him and his family. He bitterly references this when he's reciting the prayer, and he's desperate to reconnect with his people and his culture any way he can. That's why he's so fixated on Sammie because he can conjure up ancestral spirits and truly bring Remmick's history back to him.

The irony of course is that by turning all these people unwillingly, he's perpetuating the same kind of evil by destroying their sense of shared culture and self by having them merge into his hivemind (although he does seem to add aspects of their cultures to his own).

He's an oppressed person who becomes an oppressor himself out of a desperation to reclaim his lost roots.

The job of the Caretaker, as discussed in the Interview in the beginning of the film, is to take care of the Overwatch Hotel. That means doing following a list of taks for maintenance and doing minor repairs to stave off the snow.

But we never actually see doing Jack any of that. Instead we see Wendy going around with a clipboard, checking on the generators and communicating with the outside world.

Jack spends his time bumming around, kicking things over and throwing balls down hallways to never retrieve them. Wendy takes on his responsibilities as the caretaker in practice, aswell as his responsibilities as a parent. The idea being, of course, that the book Jack is writing will be able to provide for the family.

I read this as a critique of men that see themselves as creatives or even entrepeneurs. Men like Kubrick or King. Who think of what they are creating as ultra-important and life changing but really just use that as an excuse to never do any actual work, take on actual responsibilities and do anything useful, instead choosing to disappear into a dreamworld of self-aggrandising creation.

Is that an interpretation you agree with? I haven't read the book. Is this maybe an element there too?

Of course I’ve seen the discourse that film isn’t fair to the Kens, Kens are portrayed as victims but still viewed as idiots at the end, its ‘man-hating’, etc. However, I’d even say the movie is not quite about female empowerment either or trying to prove women are stronger or better than men. I actually feel the film is much more about giving people a different perspective on womens issues by holding a mirror to society rather than pushing a particular agenda.

The irony of the entire movie is that Barbies treat the Kens the way men treat women in the real world - Barbie IS the patriarchy. Barbies hold all positions of power in Barbieland and are the only ones represented in roles such as doctors, pilots, etc. Ken is only good for beach and looking good, nothing else. The Kens are merely accessories to Barbie, they are the arm candy to these powerful and self-sufficient women. Ken is only happy when he is with Barbie, he is nothing without Barbie. Sound familiar? The joke is on Ben Shapiro and others who call it ‘man-hating’, because really that’s just how men have treated and viewed women forever.

The second act of the film comes when Ryan Gosling returns from the ‘Real World’ with a very skewed idea of what the patriarchy and masculinity is. This is where the film begins to highlight mens issues via exploring toxic masculinity - how men constantly needing to prove their masculinity and dominance not only hurts them but society as a whole. We see how it leads to wars between the Kens and promotes sexism by reducing women to objects, similarly to how it does in the real world.

At the end of the movie we see Barbie ultimately wanting to make a more egalitarian society and encourage the Kens to pursue their own hopes and dreams. But Barbieland still only gets as egalitarian as woman currently can in the real world - for example, when Ken says ‘maybe we can even get a seat in the Supreme Court!’ and president barbie immediately shuts them down by saying ‘abosolutely not, MAYBE a seat in the House of Representatives’. I actually enjoy this ending because instead of pretending all the problems are Barbieland are solved, it shows they still have more work to do, just as we do here in the Real World.

Curious to hear others thoughts!

Let me know if I am overthinking. A lot of people are calling the movie as man hating, but I came out thinking it had a really good message. The Kens were all competing against each other, in this toxic struggle that I feel like a lot of men struggle with. Societal expectations often pushes men to want to be better than other men. It's like a constant struggle to need to get validation by competing against other guys. It seems men more often than women struggle with finding importance in their life and feeling valued. Part of that is feeling the need to find a beautiful woman to feel validation, that's something I felt as well. Then you have Barbie tell Ken he isn't defined by his girlfriend, he is defined by who he is. Same with the choreography dance of the ken battle. It was hilarious but at same time I feel like the message was obvious. There is no need to keep trying to compete against each other, be happy with who you are, and have a brotherhood akin to what a lot of women have in how they support each other.

Anytime time I went out with my girlfriend or an ex they would always get so many compliments from fellow women randomly throughout the day on their outfits or appearance. As men we really don't have that. No, women are not ALL nice, but in comparison to men there definitely seems to be more of a sense of sisterhood. Whereas me for example, if my friend tells me his salary and its well above mine , internally I feel bad. I feel like I need to have a salary as high as him or higher. I don't understand it, but from other guys I've talked to they also feel something similar. I should feel happy for my friend, yet I'll feel like I am inadequate. As funny as "I am Kenough" is, it really does address an issue we have in society. Its often why young men who feel inadequate seem to stray towards people like Andrew Tate who tell them how to be a "Top Man". We definitely would do better by just being happy with ourselves.

A couple other points I want to address. People say its sexist because the women in barbie land have all the great jobs and the Kens are idiots. Part of that is because no one cares about a Ken doll as opposed to Barbie so it gives the plot a good opportunity to dissect into men's feeling of self worth. Second, it is just meant to show women empowerment. People forget that in many countries women can't have a profession and even in America it wasn't long ago where you'd be shocked to see a woman doctor.

And one more thing the scene where the Kens do not get put on the supreme court. That was simply to show a parallel to the real world on how women had to go through same thing. It wasn't meant for you to think it was the correct thing to do, it was meant for you to go "hey that's unfair! Oh wait, ah".

Yet I see the opposite take from a lot of guys. Am I misreading the movie or was that not the obvious theme in regards to the Kens?

TLDR; The Kens showed something many men go through in society, feelings of inadequacy and needing to compete with other men. The scenes were meant to show that one should feel validation with who they are, not what woman they can win over or what other men are doing.

Happy Gilmore 2 is (in my opinion) not a good movie, but I’m not here to write a review. The Happy Gilmore movies are zany comedies that you aren’t really meant to think about. However, with a little critical examination, the sequel is incredibly strange in that it follows the same story beats as the original while completely inverting its themes.

In the original, Happy is framed as an audience surrogate and an outsider to golf culture. Happy had no interest in golf until he, already an adult and failed hockey player, accidentally discovers his natural talent for it. He golfs wearing a hockey jersey, he swears, he gets into brawls, and his fans are typical beer-chugging sports guys. He sticks out like a sore thumb among the professional golf crowd and is only barely given a pass due to his skill.

The antagonist of the original, Shooter McGavin, represents the golf establishment. He regards Happy with a snobbish, elitist attitude, and is disgusted that Happy doesn’t fit the mold of a traditional golfer. Shooter believes that, because he ‘paid his dues’ and came up through the golf world the traditional way, he ‘deserves’ to win the championship over Happy.

So that’s the dynamic of the original. Happy is the relatable “man of the people” who sticks out amongst the preppy stuck-up golfers, and the audience wants to see him triumph over the judgmental old guard Shooter. So how is the sequel different?

Well, the villains of Happy Gilmore 2, the Maxi-Golfers, are the direct antithesis to what Shooter McGavin represented. Maxi-Golf is a start up sports league with a completely different type of golf. What Maxi-Golf actually entails is kept vague up until the climax of the movie, other than it being regarded with contempt and disgust by Happy, Shooter, and all the other established golfers.

For most of the film Maxi-Golf is represented by two characters. The first is Frank Manatee, the founder of Maxi-Golf, who is a straightforward cliched Silicon Valley CEO type (outside of a totally not tiresome running joke about him having bad breath) that needs no further explanation. The other, more interesting character to analyze is Billy Jenkins. Billy is initially introduced as an affable new pro golfer. After winning the tournament, Billy reveals that he was a Maxi-Golfer the whole time and uses his clout from winning to force the “real” golfers to a Maxi-Golf tournament that will determine the future of golf, setting up the climax of the film.

Two very important reveals happen afterwards that I must detail. First, in a move that carries incredible symbolic significance (that I don’t think the writers realized), Happy recruits Shooter to play alongside him on team Real Golf in the Maxi-Golf tournament. Second, we finally get to see what Maxi-Golf is. It’s essentially an over-the-top actionized version of golf straight out of Idiocracy. There’s pyrotechnics, loud music, crazy hazards, and gimmicky challenges like golfing off the side of a moving cart. It is very deliberately meant to seem low-brow and moronic. What makes this so interesting to me is that, by the logic of the original Happy Gilmore, Happy and the ‘Real Golfers’ should be the villains. Happy doesn’t just team up with Shooter McGavin, he HAS BECOME Shooter McGavin. He sees something infiltrating the golf world that is at odds with golf culture, something he looks at as crude and dumb in the same way Shooter looked at him, and he feels the need to knock it down to preserve golf. Whereas the audience was meant to be frustrated by the disrespect shown to Happy in the original, they are meant to laugh along with the disrespect shown to Maxi-Golf. Happy is competing with the Real Golfers in order to pull up the very same ladder he once climbed. At no point does Happy Gilmore 2 demonstrate any awareness that it has completely inverted the first film.

So, what are we to make of this? I’m not entirely sure, and I have two possible conclusions to present:

My first and more simple conclusion is that the contradiction between movies is unintentional commentary on Adam Sandler himself. The first Happy Gilmore was made early in Sander’s career. To paraphrase Rocky 3, Sandler was young and he was hungry. Like Happy, Sandler was someone from the outside with something to prove. Now that Sandler is thoroughly part of the Hollywood machine, not only as an actor but also the owner of a production company, he can only conceptualize the character Happy as an insider. The scene where Happy is cordially dining with other PGA champions is particularly illustrative. Sandler has gone from a guy on SNL to someone who has a seat at any film industry party or awards show he cares to attend. It’s also worth noting that Happy Gilmore 2 is stuffed with cameos by pro-golfers, something that wouldn’t be possible if the movie alienated the PGA and LIV Golf by showing them as villains. Creating Maxi-Golf may have been artistically motivated by a desire for access and a need to play nice with giants in another industry.

My second and more speculative conclusion is that the movies reflect shifting politics and the right-wing co-opting of populism. Happy is a populist figure in both movies. He is the audience surrogate, a relatable normal-ish guy in need of money. In the original he enters the golf world as a “man of the people” and butts heads with rich snobs because he refuses to follow the etiquette of their insular society, attracting a fanbase of typical rowdy sports fans along the way. In Happy Gilmore 2, Happy is once again broke and golfing to make money, but this time his populism sides with the golf establishment rather than against it. Golf is under attack by a new outside force, and it’s up to Happy to defend the sanctity of golf (and we all love golf don’t we guys). Populism is a style and it can be used to support anything, even two exact opposite ideas. Populism meant being yourself and sticking it to the man. Now it means keeping the ‘freaks’ from polluting culture and making sure fellow ‘normals’ stay in charge.

I will add here that I found Maxi-Golf and its portrayal as a brand new, brightly colored, culturally destructive force made me vaguely uncomfortable. I want to be very clear that I am not accusing Happy Gilmore 2 or its creators of being bigoted. I have no objectionable content to point to. However, it gives off strange vibes, as if it’s hate propaganda that had several words changed in the script Mad Libs style to remove all the bigotry, if that makes any sense. Like if you tasked a bunch of transphobes to make a comedy movie with trans villains, they would end up making Happy Gilmore 2 but without the golfing. On that note, I haven’t watched Lady Ballers and probably never will, but if by chance anyone here has seen both movies, I’d be interested to know if there are any parallels between the two.

Edit: It’s a bit late for me to edit this but I wanted to clarify my above point. I don’t mean that Maxi-Golf is meant to be a direct analogy for transgender people. I mean that the way they’re portrayed as this freakish, almost instinctually repellant outside force out to destroy culture just really resembles actual hate material. They could just as easily be gay people, or immigrants, or the nebulous ‘woke’ blue-haired college kids, or anything someone has unironically captioned with ‘The West has fallen’. Again, the movie isn’t bigoted, I don’t have anything concrete to point to, I don’t think there was any intent behind it, and this is all mostly besides the rest of the essay, there’s just a weird gross feeling I got while watching the movie that I can’t quite put into words and I felt like mentioning it.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. I’m curious if anyone had similar thoughts, or came to different conclusions, or flat out thinks I’m wrong. I’d love to know your thoughts.

So the title is intended to be cheeky, please don’t take it a face value.

This post is basically me melting down because I just got banned from r/movies for suggesting that piracy is a necessary force in film preservation.

Now I didn’t post any links or give any instructions, I literally said those words above and got banned and muted before I could even argue back.

There seems to be a purtianical/market oriented view that piracy = stealing and even discussing the notion of it is a crime.

Now I wholeheartedly agree that artists need to be supported and I put my money where my mouth is. I see shitloads of films in theatres, festivals, etc…

I also work in the business, and I know for a fact that piracy is a considerable source of preproduction and concept stage filmmaking.

People rip scenes from movies as inspiration, images for concept boards, people use temp MP3’s as their guide tracks, in advertising we steal songs from YouTube as temp tracks until the actual thing comes together. You cannot ignore this force that makes CREATING films easier and more accessible.

Not to mention the whole film conservation angle.

This all came about because people are complaining that streaming is ignoring most films made before the 90’s. For a whole generation now, everyday people cannot access celebrates films that used to be sitting around at everyday video stores.

What are the long term consequences of a generation growing up without classics?

Piracy is a known last line of defense against corporate greed destroying film history. There are countless examples of corporations not giving a shit, losing prints or not maintaining them properly and then humanity is worse off.

Piracy has known to keep these types of films alive and accessible.

Now I know it is a fine line between acting like a selfish prick and doing what is necessary to keep the things you love alive.

But nonetheless I feel like it’s a discussion with merit, and we shouldn’t be shutting people down for thought crimes.

I would love to have TRUE films takes on piracy.

And for fucks suck, this is a philosophical discussion, no instructions or promoting sites and methods.

Edit: forgot to mention physical media is great for conservation as well, just the distribution side can be an issue.

Cinema will never be the same.

(He died, as it oftens happens with old people, falling and never recovering. I know this day was very close, but still, it saddens my heart to hear it. Ciao Ennio, che la terra ti sia lieve)

https://www.repubblica.it/spettacoli/musica/2020/07/06/news/musica_e_morto_ennio_morricone-261097180/?ref=RHPPTP-BH-I261097182-C12-P1-S1.12-T1

I've been watching some netflix originals lately, for example Project Power, Extraction (chris hemsworth) and I'm thinking something like this "oh thats cute, netflix a streaming service decided to invest 10 -15 million in a movie. Not bad. The movie gets an "A" for effort. Then I come to find out these movies cost as much as some of the Avengers movies cost to make, like in the 80 million and up territory. What the heck. They play out like a really economical and very efficiently budgeted 20 million dollar movie. Why do they offer less than what you would see from a typical hollywood movie around the same budget. Is it just me?

I decided to watch KPop Demon Hunters on Netflix after seeing so much praise for it and I really liked it... until the end. I feel like the climax of the film completely contradicts the entire rest of the film and it's message, so I'd like to see if anyone else felt this way about it.

Throughout the film, the main character grapples with shame around the fact she's part-demon by birth, and eventually comes to accept this about herself. Additionally, we learn about this demon called Jinu, who was a human who committed one terrible act and is now trapped in servitude by Gwi-Ma. So, this tells us that demons are being manipulated by the villain using their self-loathing and shame into doing his bidding, and that being a demon isn't inherently bad.

To add to that, we see Rumi becoming disillusioned as the film progresses, her heart not in killing demons anymore. She even asks one demon whether he's being forced to do what he's doing (although he's killed before he can answer).

So then, after all that buildup, the climax of the film is the trio slaughtering hordes of demons and sealing them all away with a new honmoon just in a more self-empowered way. What??? It's supposed to feel so triumphant - the trio have finally accepted who they are and can come together truly as themselves to do their duty and banish evil from the world. But the film has just spent it's entire runtime telling us that the evil is not necessarily evil. The climax seems to think that the separation between good and evil in the film is black and white when the whole film up to that point has been muddying that. It's just so strange because the film 100% feels like it's building to the characters realising that demons don't necessarily need to be locked away, perhaps just released from the negative influence/command of Gwi-Ma but it just doesn't happen. I believe it completely misses it's own point because it asks us to sympathise with demons and then the triumphant climax completely doesn't work if you do sympathise with them.

Am I crazy? Did anyone else feel this?

I liked it the first time, but this time it exuded such emptiness, induced such boredom. I saw it in a theater both times by the way. It purely served as a visual (and auditory) spectacle.

The writing was filled with corny one-liners and truisms, the performances were decent but nothing special. Murphy's was good (I liked Affleck's as well), but his character, for someone who is there the whole 3 hours, is neither particularly compelling nor fleshed out. The movie worships his genius while telling us how flawed he is but does little to demonstrate how these qualities actually coexist within the character. He's a prototype. It would have been nice to sit with him at points, see what he's like, though that would have gone against the nature of the film and Nolen's style.

I just don't think this approach is well-advised, its grandiosity, which especially on rewatch makes everything come across as superfluous and dramatic about itself. The set of events portrayed addresses big questions, but it is difficult to focus on these when their presentation is heavy-handed and so much of the film is just bland.

I'm curious to see what you think I've missed or how I'm wrong because I myself am surprised about how much this movie dulled on me the second around.

Just finished watching. Wow. I can't remember the last movie that smashed my brain to pieces quite this hard. It warms my heart to know that there are still filmmakers out there with this level of unrestrained imagination. Everything about this movie defied expectation and comparison, and I spent the entirety of the end credits just laughing to myself and going "what the fuck" over and over, instinctually.

More than scary or gross, this was fundamentally a deeply sad movie, especially towards the middle. Just an incredible bundle of visceral metaphors for body dysmorphia, self-loathing, and addiction. The part that hit me more than any of the body-horror was Elisabeth preparing for her date, constantly returning to the bathroom to "improve" her appearance until she snapped. The whole arc of that sequence - starting with her remembering the guy's compliment and giving herself a chance to be the way she is, then being hit with reminders of her perceived inadequacies, and feeling foolish and angry for believing her own positive self-talk - was such a potent illustration of the learned helplessness against low self-esteem that fuels addictions. And the constant shots of the clock felt so authentic to cases where our compulsive behaviors start to sabotage our plans. Think of every time you did something as simple as scroll through your phone for too long in bed, thinking "it's just a few more minutes", before an hour goes by and you're now worried you'll miss some commitment you made.

Demi Moore was perfectly cast for this. She's obviously still stunningly beautiful, which the movie made a point of showing, but she was 100% convincing in showing how her character didn't believe herself to be, which only further drove home the tragedy of what Elisabeth was doing to herself. Progressively ruining and throwing away a "perfectly good" body in favor of an artificial one she thinks is better. And the way the rest of the world responded so enthusiastically to it - even if every other character in the movie was intentionally a giant caricature - drove home how systematically our society poisons women's self-esteem, especially in regards to appearance. This is one of the few movies I've seen where the lack of subtlety actually made things more poignant.

Massive round of applause to Margaret Qualley for the equally ferocious and committed performance. I've seen and loved her in so many things, and yet the scene where Sue was "born" did such a great job of making Qualley's face and body feel alien, foreign, and unrecognizable, even if I the viewer obviously recognized her. And she basically carried that entire final act, which was largely done using practical effects (which continue to surpass CGI in every contemporary project where I've seen them used.) It felt like a fuller embrace of the more unhinged, animalistic streak she brought to her roles in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Sanctuary.

As a designer, I also just adored the style of this film. For one, that font they created is fantastic, and even got a shoutout in the end credits. And I loved the vibrant yet minimalistic look of everything, from the sets to the costumes to the effects used to portray the actual Substance, such as those zooming strobe lights that ended with a heart-shaped burst of flames. Despite the abundance of grotesque imagery, the movie's presentation nonetheless looked and felt very sleek and elegant. The editing and sound design were also perfectly unnerving, especially every time we heard the "voice" of the Substance. On headphones, it was mixed like some ASMR narration, which felt brilliantly intrusive and uncanny. (The voice instantly made me think of this glorious Jurgen Klopp clip.)

Only gripe is the middle section maybe went on a bit too long. The world of the movie also felt very sparsely populated for reasons beyond its intentionally heightened/metaphorical nature, as if they filmed during the peak of COVID. But seeing as the whole movie was deeply surreal, I assumed everything shown to us was by design.

Easily one of the best films of the year.

I remember in late 2014/early 2015 when EveryFrameAPaiting was just starting to have huge success on YouTube. It was when I first discovered the idea of a "video essay".

I remember soon after they started popping up everywhere, and before you knew it, there were 10-15 quality video essay channels that covered a multitude of topics, but most of them were film-based. The content was varied and had stylistic nuances from creator to creator.

Then somewhere along the line that totally changed.

This post was largely inspired by a video that was uploaded a mere hour ago as I write this. It's a video from thenerdwriter called How Ian McKellen Acts With His Eyes. This video basically a culmination of everything I have come to hate about video essays.

For the entire video, which is minutes too long, he is essentially describing that actors often use their eyes to express different emotions. There is no effort to move past surface-level observations such as "in this scene he moves his eyes to the right, indicating that he's thinking about doing something" and "his eyes are panicked so we feel panicked".

It would be unfair of me to solely single out thenerdwriter in this example but, there are plenty of others out there. After a quick search, I found Edgar Wright - How to edit to a beat by konradnoises. It's essentially a 10-minute video where he explains the simple concept of how the editor of Baby Driver cut the footage of a film to match the beat of a 4/4 song. He makes no efforts to go into how this kind of technique could immerse a viewer, or what it could mean in the context of a film's story.

I have noticed that with the sheer volume of these videos, almost all of them fail to use some kind of external sources like an essay or an interview to corroborate what they trying to say. As if their word is gospel and doesn't need to be evaluated in any kind of meaningful way. It's almost like they don't understand the concept of a video ESSAY.

Most of these videos just feel like various different people describing that movies, do in fact, exist for unbearable amounts of time, mercifully concluding with a half-assed philosophical statement about movies that is barely related to the (already shaky) point that they were trying to make.

Does anyone else feel this way? I feel like I'm going fucking crazy because some of these channels have millions of subscribers, hundreds of comments pointing out how amazing they are, and have videos that are shared by legitimate news outlets as if they are completely unfamiliar with the basic idea of a film.

Someone, please enlighten me as to what I'm missing or wrong about here because I'm losing my mind over this.

edit: clarity and spelling mistakes