Category: Satire

Mickey 17

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★

Rated: M

Directed by: Bong Joon Ho

Screenplay Written by: Bong Joon Ho

Based on: ‘Mickey7’ by Edward Ashton

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo.

‘Hey Mickey, what’s it feel like to die?’

Based on the novel written by Edward Ashton, Mickey 17 is an absurd sci-fi set in 2054, where people are lining up to leave earth to follow a failed politician, Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) to a new planet, Niflheim.

If they ration food over the four-year journey, and don’t waste calories on exertion, like sex, they can ‘go forth and multiply’ when they reach their new home.

Mickey (Robert Pattinson) and his mate Berto (Steven Yeun) on the run from gangsters sign up.

Mickey signs up to be an expendable.

He didn’t read all the paperwork.

Yes, the movie is filled with idiots.

Mickey, not the worst of them.

The leader is a Trump cross Jimmy Swaggart character with a Frances on his shoulder, the wife here, Gwen, played by Toni Collette.

As well as religion, or religious posturing, Gwen is obsessed with food.

Specifically, making, ‘special sauce.’

All the while, Mickey gets to experience death over and over again.

Mickey dies, then his body gets reprinted in a 3D body printing machine and his memories saved in an actual brick to be reinstalled in the new body.

He also, against the rules, has sex with a special forces soldier, Nasha (Naomi Ackie), who takes a shine to Mickey.  As does Kai (Anamaria Vartolomei).

Stupid and reprintable are a plus on the space ship to Niflheim.

And it turns out Mickey 17 is a gentle soul as opposed to the next Mickey who exhibits psychopathic tendencies.  Each Mickey has a different personality.

It’s… silly.

And filled with dumb cruelty.

Mickey out in space while the scientists document his death from exposure to radiation:

‘Tell us, When does your skin burn?

When do you go blind?

And when do you die?

That’s the nut.’

All narrated with Mickey’s self-deprecation, his, That’s-what-I-get for-being-an-idiot attitude.

The most interesting part of the film was the natives on the new planet, bug-like creatures that have intelligence, described by Gwen as, ‘A croissant dipped in shit.’

Mostly, I was annoyed and cringing at the possibility of killing out of idiocy.

Which could be seen as a reflection of what happens when one nation invades another.

But the attempt at satire in this film fell flat.

There wasn’t any humour that hit the mark.

Mickey 17 is a different style of movie, I’ll say that.  But not in a good way.

The Monkey

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★1/2The Monkey

Rated: TBA

Directed by: Osgood Perkins

Written by: Osgood Perkins

Based on the Short Story by: Stephen King

Starring: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery.

‘Looks like God’s bowling strikes today.’

Based on a short story written by Stephen King (Gallery magazine (1980), then revised and published in King’s short story collection, Skeleton Crew (1985)), The Monkey (movie) leans into the absurd making the horror of a monkey that makes terrible, freaky, accidental deaths occur when someone turn its key, funny.

The Monkey isn’t so much a horror, splatter movie, but a satire.

Twins, Hal (Theo James) and Bill (also Theo James) live with their mum, Lois (Tatiana Maslany) who has no filter when talking to her boys about the realities of life and death.

Bill was born before Hal making him the elder twin and Bill never lets Hal forget it.

Bill’s the type of guy when you go to shake hands, he sykes and runs his fingers through his hair instead.

The boys’ dad (Adam Scott) was a pilot that went for a pack of cigarettes then never came back, is what their mum says.  Because their father never did come home.

But he did leave keepsakes from his travels, including an Organ Grinder Monkey with, ‘Like Life’, inscribed on the back, with freaky human-like teeth and staring eyes with the whites all around like a psychopath, glinting in the dark.

The Monkey is definitely not a toy.

When people start dying in weird and wonderful ways, the boys realise it’s the monkey and decide to get rid of it.

But the monkey never really disappears.

Fast forward 25 years sees the twin brothers estranged with Hal’s son Petey (Colin O’Brien) in the picture, but only one week every year.

It’s that time of year.

And the monkey has made a reappearance.

The bloody deaths, including fishing hooks in the face followed by the rubbing alcohol used to treat the cuts catching fire, then the flaming person running headlong into a post that empales their head, prove it.

The deaths are creative.

And like Lois their mother says, ‘Don’t think about it too much.’

Because the movie isn’t so much the deaths but the deadpan reaction of Hal to the deaths.  And, ‘I’m his next of skin,’ brother hell-bent on being a douche.

Some of the humour is cheap, it’s a laugh-a-minute kind of movie.  But there are genuinely hilarious moments.

Like a decapitation referred to in a coin toss of, heads or tails.  But let’s not mention the heads because of, you know.  The missing head.

The timing of some of the shots still have me grinning.

The movie is a heavy lean into the dark humour of the idea of this killer monkey, and most of the time, I liked it.

FYI, Oz Perkins plays Uncle Chip.  Gold.

The Substance

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★1/2The Substance

Rated: R18+

Directed by: Coralie Fargeat

Written by: Coralie Fargeat

Edited by: Coralie Fargeat

Starring: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid.

‘Pretty girls should always smile.’

A film of extremes, The Substance is a commentary about Hollywood’s middle-aged, white male’s view of the female form.

There is a male version of, the Other: a beautiful young male doctor introduces an aging fitness guru, Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) to The Substance, himself a demonstration to the Oscar winning actress that she can create a better version of herself.

‘It will change your life.’

Goes to show that men are feeling the push to be beautiful as well.  But here the focus is on the aging actress, Elizabeth.

The action of ‘the substance’ is shown by the injection of green liquid into the joke of a raw egg.  The yoke then pushes out another yoke, like a clone of itself.

And the film continues with this demonstrative view of the procedure, of the process of aging, to the birth of a young body; the splicing of a pupil into two, to another eye growing within another, all shown in macro, close so there’s no-where else to look but at the unfiltered image of the beautiful juxtaposed with the grotesque.

Director and writer, Coralie Fargeat states, ‘Bodies here are going to be tyrannized, ridiculed, destroyed, the same way I truly believe society destroys women with all the rules that we are silently taught to follow.’

‘Women’s bodies. THE SUBSTANCE is a film about women’s bodies.’

After Elizabeth Sparkle is told by Harvey (Denis Quaid) – while feeding his face with prawns, sound included- the producer of her fitness show, that at age 50, It Stops, Elizabeth can’t help but think a better version of herself could be the answer to her lack of self-worth.

Elizabeth is the Matrix, the Other is Sue.

They are one person.

This is a visceral birth, with close-ups of blood, injections, the splitting of the spine to the gush of another pushing outwards from Elizabeth’s lifeless body.

To the high impact beauty of the Other, Sue.

It’s all pink shiny leotards and perfect bodies – Sue becomes the fresh new face of fitness.  She’s new and she’s young and she’s perfect.

It takes 7 days for Sue to rule the world.  And as human nature dictates, Sue wants more.

The concepts of the film are portrayed with clever devices, aging is shown with a static view of Sparkles Hollywood Star cracking in the pavement over time. Of people walking across the star, admiring the star, to then show snow and rain and dirt and feet and food being spilled across her star.  Like time has forgotten her face.  To the giant image of Elizabeth in her apartment with the fractured glass around her eye – a loss of perspective, her self-hatred pinned up on the wall.

It’s an interesting title, The Substance, the focus on the outer beauty and social comment about aging, about what’s supposed to go where, replacing the true substance of a person with a chemical that births a younger, fresher you.  Makes me wonder about Picasso’s cubism and his deconstruction of perspective.

Coralie Fargeat takes apart the idea of beauty and creates a satire with Elizabeth Sparkle using the mantra, ‘Take care of yourself,’ that Sue imitates with a wink because what is taking care of yourself when the expectation is to have medical procedures to try to stay young forever?

Fargeat comments, ‘This movie is going to be bloody gory. And it’s going to be bloody funny at the same time. Because I don’t know any stronger weapon than satire to show the world the absurdity of its own rules. And most importantly: I believe it’s going to be bloody timely. This is what this movie is about in the end. A liberation. An empowerment.’

Throughout the film, there’s an evolution of the grotesque as the weight of society’s expectation is perverted into an embrace of the gross with too much enthusiasm for my taste, to turn a fascinating film with a difference into something so awful it’s laughable.

This is a unique, determined and grotesque film.

This is body horror people.  Prepare yourself.

 

Red Rocket

Rated: MA15+Red Rocket

Directed by: Sean Baker

Screenplay Written by: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch

Produced by: Sean Baker, Shih-Chihg Tsou, Alex Saks

Starring: Simon Rex, Bree Elrod, Suzanna Son, Shih-Ching Tsou, Parker Bigham, Brenda Deiss, Ethan Darbone, Brittany Rodriguez, Judy Hill, Marion Lambert.

‘Why are you here?’

Bruised and sleeping on a bus, Mikey Saber (Simon Rex) is back in Texas.

He fronts up at his ex’s mum’s house – ‘What are you doing here?’ asks Lexi (Bree Elrod).  Because she knows Mikey way too well.

But Mikey knows which buttons to press.  He’s a fast talking, ex-porn star who’s ‘been blessed’ with a decent package and good looks.  And no moral compass.

He’ll say and do anything to survive.

He’ll f*#k his ex-wife just to sleep in a bed, deal pot to make money.  And seduce a seventeen-year-old girl because she’s smoke’n hot.

Meet, Strawberry (Suzanna Son).  Sweet and not-so-innocent, she’s a young girl who ‘likes men not boys.’

She doesn’t stand a chance.  Because Mikey has decided he likes her.  He’s going to make her famous.

‘What did the donuts do on their first date?’ Mikey asks Strawberry – she works at a donut shop.

‘They glazed into each other’s eyes,’ he smiles.

I could kinda get behind this guy down-on-his-luck.  But when he starts to charm this young girl, I started to cringe.

There’s a glib lightness to the film but underneath there’s a dark reality.

‘Your mother hates me.’

‘She hated you.  She died,’ says Lonnie (Ethan Darbone).  He’s the nextdoor neighbour.

It’s a sad place, with smoke stacks of oil refineries blowing pollution into the air virtually in the backyard.  The emergency test announcement can be heard in the bedroom.

It’s like this chancer brings light into the lives of these people because they have so little and he’s so nice and polite.  They don’t see what’s happening at first because he lifts them up, shines a light.  Until suddenly they see how much he takes.  When it’s too late.

I didn’t find the film funny or light.  Like Mikey, there’s a dark layer underneath shown in a-day-in-a-life style of filming that’s really about prostitution, drugs, sickness, poverty, betrayal, fake valour, selfishness and complete blindness and lack of empathy.

Not that Red Rocket is a badly made film.  The casting is brilliant.  But it was like it was up to the audience to decide how things were going to work out, depending if you’re an optimist, meaning, Strawberry will be OK.  She’ll be discovered as a musician.  Someone aside from Mikey will see her worth.  Or not, only the worst is to come.  And I lean towards the cynical these days making me see only bad things to then realise how dangerous and blind this character Mikey is as he continues to politely destroy.

It was disconcerting because the film is from the point of view of Mikey.  So I could see what he’s doing is wrong but he can’t see the damage, so I got angry at this douche bag and wanted to yell and kick him in the guts.  He turned up

He turned up with bruises and you get to know why, well pretty much straight away.

I get the layers of the film, but it annoyed me and in the end, I was left feeling angry.

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