ALL MOVED
Hi, so we're finally settling into the new place. We love it so much. I'm especially happy with my office, which still needs work organizing and whatnot, but at least it's functional now. I got the projector hooked up, and it's fantastic. Pretty much exactly what I wanted. Now I gotta start saving up for a 4K projector, eventually.
I watched Presence the other night on it.
photos of my office
Speaking of which.
PRESENCE
So a friend of mine has been up my ass to watch this Steven Soderbergh movie, Presence. I was looking for something to watch the other night, so I thought, sure, and threw it on. It stars Lucy Liu and Roy from The Office (sorry buddy, that's your name now) and apparently Julia Fox, though I can't for the life of me remember her being in it.
It's a slow-burn haunted house movie that I was pretty sure I hated for about 90% of it, but then it kinda comes together in the end. It's one of those movies that is more gimmick than story, but it's an effective gimmick, and I give them props for that.
It's weird because pretty much all of the characters, save for the daughter, are insufferable. Roy from The Office does his best to be a decent guy, but he's also kind of pathetic and hard to get completely on board with.
Lucy Liu is completely unlikable in it, and I'm not sure why they did that. I guess to justify what a prick the son was all the time.
Ultimately, I ended up being satisfied with the movie, even if I probably won't watch it a second time.
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER
So I finally saw One Battle After Another. I'm a pretty big fan of Boogie Nights, Punch Drunk Love, The Master, and There Will Be Blood. PTA is my guy. I meant to see this one when it was in IMAX, but stupid TRON booted it before I got a chance. I was slightly reluctant to watch it at all, just because Leo gets on my nerves so much. I've never seen a more mediocre actor who believes he's the best to do it more than that guy. It's the entitlement that bothers me. Having a hissy fit because he didn't get an Oscar for Titanic really left an impression on me.
ANYHOO
Good movie. Not my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson (that's still Boogie Nights, always and forever), but probably the closest in tone to Boogie Nights he's made since. More than anything, it feels like PTA by way of The Coen Brothers. It's got vibes of both their sillier and more serious output. The ultimate evil of Sean Penn's character reminded me a lot of Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh, if only in the Terminator-like oppressiveness of their evil and dedication to killing.
He manages to do what Sean Penn does best, which is stare at you until you feel incredibly uncomfortable. He's a nasty dude, and it's an honest kind of repellent badness. Not a cool, attractive, smouldering evil, but a straight-up, disgusting, hateful, shitty evil. He's what actual evil looks like. Horny for power and willing to kill, exploit, or fuck anything that gets in his way. The kind of slimy evil that makes you feel gross after witnessing it.
Leo was fine. I didn't hate him, but he's basically Leonardo Lebowski without Jeff Bridges' charm. It was fine for this movie, but it's not going to endear me to Leo any more than I already was. Which, if you haven't gathered my subtle clues, wasn't very much to begin with.
Benicio Del Toro is hilarious and reminds us again what a versatile and fascinating actor he is. Chase Inifiti and Regina Hall are both fantastic, and I hope Chase gets that Oscar nomination she's angling for.
My favorite part was the tense car chase that happens towards the end of the movie. It perfectly captured what it's like to drive in the Southern California desert, where the endless hills and mirages make driving a surreal, even a little scary, experience.
Definitely a great movie, though not the best PTA movie.
MONSTER: THE ED GEIN STORY
I started watching this and got about fifteen minutes into it before I bailed because I realized that I could literally be doing anything else with my time than this. So fuck this show.
Ryan Murphy is trash. I liked American Horror Story for a few seasons, but my god, whatever his whole vibe is now, it's not for me. I'm not one to advocate for censorship, but I wouldn't mind if we just all collectively stopped watching his output because it's getting more and more exploitative and scummy.
And I'm not talking about historical accuracy. I don't care about that. TV shows are not textbooks and don't need to perfectly replicate history. That said, they don't need to turn the murders of real women into jerk-off fantasies. That's not cool. Don't do that — you goddamned ghoul.
SPEAKING OF GHOULS
I did a quick sketch of Salome from my novels. I'll probably refine this a bit, especially now that I'm looking at it as a whole piece; I can see all the areas where I can still improve it.
Alright, that's it for me today!
OH
WAIT
Also...
Please enjoy one free audio review copy of Danny (Bloodletting Book 3), now available on Audible. Redeem the one-time use code below at https://www.audible.com/acx-promo
S3PSYYA8P3HAK
Please enjoy one free audio review copy of Danny (Bloodletting Book 3), now available on Audible. Redeem the one-time use code below at https://www.audible.com/acx-promo
S7K5E3XNWQ7RP
Danny for free!