Us

(spoilers!)

When I first saw Get Out I liked it a lot but it oddly didn't make a huge impression on me. Howeve,r recently I rewatched the film again and then again and upon subsequent viewings my mind was blown by how clever and intricate the script is. Every moment, every shot, every line has a purpose and pretty much everything that happens in the movie obeys the logic of the universe the film is set in. It's one of the most brilliant scripts I've ever seen unfold on the sceen. The more you think about Get Out, the more you like it. Unfortunately, it's the opposite with Us.

Let's take a closer look at "Us" trailer

The trailer for Jordan Peele's Us was just released, in time to freak everyone out during Christmas. This is a very rare situation where I didn't read spoilers and didn't read the script so it's really fun to try to figure out what is happening.

First Reformed

(spoilers!)

Annihilation

You dig in places till your fingers bleed 

Spread the infection, where you spill your seed 

I can't remember what she came here for 

I can't remember much of anything anymore 

 She's gone, she's gone, she's gone away 

She's gone, she's gone, she's gone away 

Away...*

(spoilers!)
Alex's Garland's wonderful new science fiction film Annihilation made headlines this year for quite strange reasons. The studio, Paramount - as in the studio that gave Daren Aronofsky 30 million dollars to make a movie based on a script he wrote after he, presumably, dropped acid and his eyes locked on the copy of the Bible on his bookstand - didn't have much faith in the movie. In the result, they sold the distribution rights for most of the markets to Netflix, forcing people like me to watch it at home instead of on the big cinema screen. The move proved to be misguided - the film opened to great reviews and made 3/4 of its budget in US theatrical distribution only.

The last, glorious flight - deciphering Birdman.

Usually when I see a truly great movie that I fell in love with instantly I can review it on the same day, effortlessly. But not with Birdman. It has, quite literally, blown my mind. I was unable to collect my thoughts on it and shape them together into some coherent strain. They just kept bouncing off, running away ....I'm still not exactly clear on how to write this, so perhaps the best way to it is take a clue from the film and let it out in one steady flow.

On audience's misogyny, Amy Dunne, the Cool Girl myth and the brilliance of Gillian Flynn

(SPOILERS!)

There are so many strange claims about the story of Gone Girl - that it's misogynistic, that the third act made no sense, that Amy is just a 'psycho bitch', that Nick was 'a good guy'. It's hard to write about these people as if they were people who could exist - the story, which people seem to forget so often while they are whining about the third act is a satire. But Flynn wrote these characters in a brilliant way - their actions are unpredictable and heightened to fit the pulpy tone of the story but at the same time given what we know about the characters, their lives, past experiences and personalities  - they all make sense.

Enemy (review + analysis)

(I'm starting  a new series, or to say more accurately, I'm creating a new label for the posts in which I ramble psychotically try to explain movies. It's called DECIPHERED and by clicking on it you can check out my other attempts at analyzing films)
One of the highest compliments I can give to psychological thriller, a gigantic puzzle of a movie is that I read about it extensively after seeing it, trying to put it together. I think it's now been 4 days I read about this one. And I'm still confused about some things.

Delusions to the rescue. Analyzing Jason Reitman's Young Adult.

"She was consumed by 3 simple things:

drink, despair, loneliness; and 2 more:

youth and beauty"

— Charles Bukowski (The People Look Like Flowers at Last) 

Jason Reitman's Young Adult tells a story of Mavis Gary, a woman approaching 40 and a former prom queen. Mavis never grew up - she was always told how beautiful and amazing she was, which cause her to rely on her looks and never getting a chance to develop strong personality. When she was in high school she was popular and everyone always assumed she will achieve great things. She was dating Buddy Slade, it was a love of her life. In the beginning of the movie Mavis gets a message from Buddy's wife Beth informing her that she and Buddy just had a baby. Mavis is shown pulling her hair out for the first time when she looks at the picture - it's a compulsion, she does it every single time something reminds her of how wrong her life went and when everyone moved on, severed their connections to their teenage years, went on to do new things and started families, Mavis is just standing still, still trapped in her old mentality. She prints the photo of the baby and sits on the balcony looking at it. You can see curious things going through Mavis's face as she looks at it - nostalgia, jealousy and confusion. Mavis shakes the good emotions right off and comes up with a plan - she will go back to Mercury, her old town and win Buddy back. She is convincing herself that Buddy is trapped in his new life and he still loves her.

48 hidden images in "Black Swan"

I'm sure many of you who saw "Black Swan" clicked pause many times during the club scene. But did you guys know there are other times in the movie when watching it frame by frame can be quite rewarding? Since I can't exactly post all the moments of eerie laughter or flatter of the wings appearing in the background (because I don't know how to extract those, to be completely honest) - I leave it to you all to listen carefully. I can however provide you with screenshots I made today, using DVD, "e" button and movie player. Here we go:

1. In the subway scene in the beginning of the movie if you freeze frame you will see Nina is seeing herself and not Lily, although later on in the movie Lily is wearing exactly the same clothes and earrings.

Black Swan - Possession theory, step by step.

“Black Swan” is in popular opinion a movie about ballerina suffering from mental illness. But I favor the other theory – the theory about demonic possession. Because the movie is so subjective – we see what Nina sees, we experience what she feels, we follow her everywhere, there can be many theories and none of them can really be disproved. There are many clues that point to the fact that as with “Suspiria” the ballet company was subjected to the games of evil force. Force that for no apparent reason other than because it can, toyed with fragile individuals and by pushing them over the edge wrecked their lives.

The nature of sleep, the nature of life. (Sleeping Beauty)

Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles 

Somnophilia (from Latin "somnus" = sleep and Greek φιλία, "-philia" = love) is a paraphilia in which sexual arousal or orgasm are stimulated by intruding on and awakening a sleeping person with erotic caresses, but not with force or violence.

Only once in a blue moon a movie comes along that fascinates me so much even after I write a review on it, I still feel being haunted by it. Lucy, the heroine of Julia Leigh's fascinating and stunning directorial debut is more fascinating than Justine in "Melancholia" - another of this year's tortured souls. It's not even that Lucy is sad or depressed - in fact she is one of the strongest characters I've seen. But as facing the end of the World comes easy to depressed Justine who has nothing to lose, living comes easy to Lucy, who basically just swims through time and events, cold, strong, unmoved. What makes her so special is that no matter what life throws at her her emotionless state allows her to deal with it. She has multiple jobs - she never complains. Her friend is dying - she stands by him strongly. She has money trouble - no problem, she finds a way to handle with it, But money bring her no joy - in one of the movie's most haunting moments Lucy burns a banknote, because it means nothing to her, because she made so many that night, she simply can do it. And if she can do something, she just goes ahead and does it.

Mulholland Dr.

(147 min, 2001)
Director: David Lynch
Writer: David Lynch
Stars: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring and Justin Theroux 

Dream a little dream of me...

A lucid dream is a dream in which the sleeper is aware that he or she is dreaming. When the dreamer is lucid, he or she can actively participate in and often manipulate the imaginary experiences in the dream environment. Lucid dreams can seem extremely real and vivid depending on a person's level of self-awareness during the lucid dream.*

(spoilers)

Dreams are elusive. We often forget what they were about, we have difficulties remembering even the tiniest details. For a filmaker to present the dream universe with sound, music and cinematography is enough of a chalange, but to do that with plot structure and the construction of entire story, to show the logic of a dream by using dialogues, objects and symbols - that's a true craft and the most beautiful of arts. I've only saw three movies in my life that achieved that - Cameron Crowe's „Vanilla Sky” and Ingmar Bergman's „Wild Strawberries”. Third one is David Lynch's „Mulholland Drive”.

I often read about the movie before I see it. Before watching MD I've read almost everything I could find about it – I knew that David Lynch's films require massive preparation before watching them. And „Mulholland Drive” is one of very few movies that loses absolutely nothing once you know the plot, the ending, all the twist and turns. Because seeing it unravel on a screen is such a unique, fascinating expierience that even tough the movie was horribly disturbing, even scaring, I will come back to it many times.

The story is incredibly simple – Diane Selwyn' lover Camilla leaves her and annouces her engagement to a movie director. Both Diane and Camilla are actresses, Diane being unsuccesful one. Diane feels manipulated and brokenhearted and she hires a hitman to kill Camilla. She goes to sleep – her dream lasts for first 4/5 of the movie. After she wakes up she sees a blue key, a sign from the hitmen that Camilla has been killed. Diane, consumed by her guilt kills herself.