Hello readers, how the devil are you?
Touch wood, it seems like things are running a bit smoother with the site now, but please drop me a line if any of you are having problems.
Twitter is a strange place. I’m no great fan of social media… Facebook rebranding as Meta, apart from being a naked attempt to deflect bad publicity, may as well be accompanied with the slogan, “Still evil, but postmodern evil.” I mean, appointing Nick Clegg as your public relations officer?
So no, neither I nor GG will be going back to Facebook any time soon. But what’s Twitter like?
Well, firstly, you can almost feel all those world-class psychologists they employ reaching into your brain. As Anchorman’s Channel 4 News Team might say, “it’s very moreish…”
Yeah… that continuous scroll is a tender trap. I’m doing my best to limit usage, taking advice where I can…
#FilmTwitter I’m making progress with my #selfcare regimen. For every 30 minutes on twitter I watch 1 hour and 59 minutes of #GeorgeClooney. Yep. For the third time in as many days I’m #NowWatching Michael Clayton. With half a Xanax. 🤩 pic.twitter.com/pFWCAPEyn1
— JanuaryMovie 🌻 (@JanuaryMovie) March 10, 2022
One abundantly clear thing is just how unavoidable politics is. I’m only following film and entertainment people, but everyone’s at it. We’re all politicians now. Still, I’m deliberately avoiding political discussion on Twitter. While this site often wades into controversial issues, I don’t want to disappear down Twitter argument whirlpools… I have enough of that professionally.
Despite that, there’s a lot of fun to be had. Lively conversations with film nerds and genre fans, interactions with people in the industry you admire (or their publicity team at least) and prompts to discover or revisit good movies.
It was Twitter in particular that encouraged me to try Turning Red on Disney+ and The Adam Project on Netflix, both of which were great.
No detailed reviews here today, but briefly, Turning Red is a new Pixar movie, focusing on a 13-year-old Asian American girl and her growing pains, which are somewhat compounded by the fact that she turns into a giant red panda whenever she becomes too emotional. I’ll always love Pixar movies. Might not have been the primary demographic for this one (I think teenage girls may be the most terrifying life form yet discovered in the universe), but goddammit Pixar are so good at this stuff. The sheer beauty of the animation is too easy to take for granted now, but it needs to be highlighted. It’s eye meltingly perfect. The subtlety of the facial expressions is stunning. Sure, it doesn’t take the wonderfully rewarding risks of Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse; you’d name it as a Pixar movie from a single frame. But when you’re so staggeringly good at something there will always be an appetite for more.
The story is relatable and rewarding regardless of your age or gender, but it’s fantastic to see more stories being written about and for young women, who have always been underserved. I do take umbrage with the fact that Disney didn’t give it a cinema release. Sure, the world has changed, but I’m going to keep repeating myself on this… when the world’s biggest and most powerful film studio is openly contemptuous of cinemas and physical media, film-lovers should worry.
There’s a scene in Turning Red that deserves the biggest possible screen and a gutsy surround sound system. It’s a huge shame that many of the people who deserve this great film will be denied the level of excitement intended by the filmmakers.
The Adam Project is Netflix’s new Ryan Reynolds vehicle. I’m a Reynolds fan, love the Deadpool movies, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, Buried, The Proposal … most of his stuff. Yeah, he’s a little divisive. Some get annoyed when he seems to do the Deadpool snarky thing in every movie (hence the shout out to Buried, which proves the boy can act).
Even if you’re in that camp, this is worth a look. For one thing, this is more like an ensemble piece than relying on Reynolds alone. The likes of Zoe Saldana and Mark Ruffalo are always great, and Jennifer Garner is excellent here too. The film belongs to Walker Scobell though, as 12-year-old Adam, the heart of this story. It’s also worth saying that Reynolds himself gives a notably different performance to usual. He’s subdued, close to broken. Don’t worry though, this is huge, huge fun.
No spoilers here, even though the trailer is explicit on the main plot details. Sufficient to say this is an SF adventure that uses the SF angle to explore some human relationships. It’s reminiscent of something like Flight of the Navigator, or Star Man, beloved Eighties movies that brought the feels.
Now, those movies were part of a trend started by ET. You know how I feel about ET.
That’s all I’m going to say. If you like the sound of it, watch it ASAP and avoid the buzz, avoid Twitter and its ilk, avoid mention of the film. A lot of the talk around this could lessen the impact, and that would be a shame.
Thanks for reading.
Thanks for letting me write.
See you soon.
