Hear me moan,
I’ve never been a great lover of the BTTF trilogy. I’m sure they’re amazing films (because everyone won’t shut the fuck up about them) but I’ve seen all three films at least once in my lifetime and I remember diddly-squat about them. That, to me, is not the sign of a good story – if a film (and in this case there’s THREE of them) doesn’t make an impact why should I decorate it with medals of accomplishment?
Most of my memories of Back to the Future are actually memories of references instead of actual scenes, which was no truer than on October 21st October – Back to the Future Day!
The internet was peppered with jokes about Marty and Doc being on the run; how people were looking for the DeLorean; how hoverboards are illegal; how we don’t have this, we don’t have that – Back to the Future wasn’t a fortune teller. All it presented was a caricature. It’s basically what Steampunk would look like if it was based on the 80’s and not the 1800s.
And we all know this time next year ITV will still be showing Back to the Future 1 – 3 back-to-back because ‘movie days’ are a thing now, and unlike time-travel there is no going back from it. Even Mean Girls has its own day – that certainly isn’t fetch!
I started Fargo Season 2 this week. This show is slow. Slower than Breaking Bad. Scenes linger forever. Whatever the showrunners are trying to achieve is working too, because whatever happens after the slow-burns pay off. It’s reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s style.
My main worry is the pacing will eventually leave me feeling bored, like I’m sitting around waiting for the inevitable shootout to happen. It’ll start to feel formulaic and predictable. I’ll eventually stop watching. Goodbye Fargo Season 3.
I don’t want that to happen! I thoroughly enjoyed Season 1. It was Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton’s performances that kept me locked to Season 1 though – so far only Kieran Culkin’s character had me glued to my seat, but, uh, yeah… Spoilers, but I think that guy might be dead!
And holy shit, Kirsten Dunst is only 31 but she looks like my grandmother in this show.
I also saw Crimson Peak this week. Overall it was an enjoyable film with set designs that’ll leave you gawping in awe. The performances were solid, especially from Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain – Tom Hiddleston was just Loki without his green hat on. The plot didn’t reinvent the wheel, but it wasn’t trying to – in a nutshell it’s What Lies Beneath meets The Woman in Black (both of which I also enjoyed).
Guillermo del Toro has made it apparent that Crimson Peak isn’t a horror movie but that the studio have marketed as one to garner viewers. Truth be told, del Toro should have delivered more horror in Crimson Peak – not because it needed to be scary but because he’s so good at horror! There are loads of creepy moments in Crimson Peak that you wish escalated further down the rabbit hole.
My other criticism is parts of the story itself, so minor spoilers here… … There are two scenes in particular that didn’t play out as I imagined. Early on we learn that one of the characters can ‘see’ ghosts but this ‘skill’ never develops, even though he is part of the climactic (well, kind of boring) finale. It would have been good if we could have witnessed him seeing ghosts. Then there’s the scene where an audio recording hints that some dead bodies will be found – and they’re not.
Now, showing some dude see a ghost and digging up a few corpses isn’t essential to the story but I felt misguided by these clues that were written, filmed and edited into the final cut. These were roads that let nowhere… Maybe that was the point of Crimson Peak, because my other concern with it was its lack of message/theme. There simply wasn’t one.
In other news, a crashed UFO has been found in Kingston, London. It was spotted on fire in the middle of the road. Police were contacted immediately to investigate.
So who saw this UFO crash? Absolutely nobody, because it wasn’t seen flying at all. It was just found burning in the road. And it’s not even an unidentified object either because it’s made of metal and decorated with mosaic tiling – a wood-fired pizza oven.
And the journalist who wrote this ‘news’ article gets paid. Fuck me, I can write about made-up shit all day long. Where’s my pay check?
Want to retaliate? Post a comment or tweet me @LeeLaments. I lament every Friday but if you’re scared you’ll miss out then hit Subscribe! Don’t forget to check out all the other awesome blogs on Out of Lives and visit the Out of Lives Youtube channel and the Out of Lives Podcast.
