Busy week for me this week, hence a small post.
Movies
At long last: The Space One. It didn't disappoint, to the extent that I can even be disappointed by a Friday the 13th movie at this point. It's definitely a significant step up from its immediate predecessors by virtue of its ability to completely let itself go. So many sublimely stupid little tidbits: the fact that it's in space; the part where a person gets turned into ground meat by being sucked through a grate; the part where a guy who got stabbed by Jason twice wakes up from unconsciousness and is all like "What's going on here?" and someone has to remind him that Jason Voorhees is running amok; the part where two characters make out and then say how much their survival chances have increased; the sadly unresolved Pinocchio-esque subplot in which a femme-presenting android wants real boobs; the "we love premarital sex" line, and the part almost immediately after when Jason is just swinging sleeping bags against one another; the fact that Earth 2 apparently has a Crystal Lake, too. I kinda wish the movie had the wherewithal to recognize how golden these moments are and just leaned into them, jettisoning some of the more tedious direct-to-video-esque parts, but maybe that level of self-awareness would make this one lose its ingenue charm as a accidentally awesome cash grab. Also, I love that this movie premiered in Spain a solid six months before its American release, like it's some kind of prestigious festival film or something. Incredible. Grade: B
Sure, some people have mental health struggles, but what if the real insanity is... American Imperialism?? I'm not sure how much I'm actually behind the premise of this movie, which is kind of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by way of Vonnegut, Pynchon, and Catch-22, wherein men in the throes of psychosis are actually just victims of the unspeakable evils of the 20th century and, moreover, prophets capable of both hilarious incongruity and profound insight into metaphysics and religion—a premise that seems at least a little bit dismissive of the conditions of neurodivergence and especially mental illness, which is kind of true of any work of art that uses "insanity" as a metaphor for Society, Man. That said, the singular vision of this movie is truly something to behold, and the way that literally all the characters speak in often very funny, mind-bending stream-of-consciousness non sequitur that, for all its absurdity, builds to a fairly serious interrogation of the existence of God in the face of American Imperialism is impressive and utterly unlike anything I've seen before. Plus, for as potentially ableist as its premise can be, there's something to the mythic undercurrents of it: the Bible talks about how Moses couldn't see the face of God and live, and there's a perverted version of that here, wherein these men, through their experiences in Vietnam, Korea, NASA, and beyond, see the true face of their god (i.e. America) and come away with their brains fried. There is no rational solution to the Problem of Evil that maintains a benevolent, omniscient, interventionist God; there is no rational way to comprehend the abject evil of the American machine and remain devoted to your identity as a subject of that empire. Grade: B
Kinda dull and meandering for stretches in a way that I've never felt in other John Waters movies, but also, the scene in the church was maybe the best thing I've ever seen in a John Waters movie (give or take "Surfin' Bird" in Pink Flamingos)—I don't know if this would make John Waters sad or happy to hear this, but watching a passion play cross-cut with Divine being anally pleasured with a rosary was so sacrilegious that it wrapped way back around to being sacred again. Good, unlikely thematic pairing with Benedetta. Grade: B
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