Category: Movies

The Return of the Living Dead

  10/05/2015       SpoonyViking      Add Comment

So, personal story time, DQ readers: I’m simultaneously fascinated by and terrified of death. Not of the physical act of dying in itself (although that also disturbs and intrigues me), but of the idea that once I’m dead, that’s it, my consciousness – everything that makes up who I am – will be gone. I’m actually a bit jealous of more spiritual people: they know what will happen to them in the afterlife, while I only have this vague hope my loved ones and I will continue to exist in some way that’s still discernible as us (not just in a vague “Oh, you’ll still exist, only without any sense of self”, for example).

This isn’t just me being candid. This fear of mine is partly why The Return of the Living Dead is one of my favourite movies, even as it’s also one of the few that has genuinely scared or disturbed me even as an adult. (Or perhaps it’s the other way around – maybe my fear can be traced to having watched this movie as a child? I remember taking a long time to fall asleep that night.) So, this being October, let me see if I can’t spread some of that around, eh?

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Doctor Strange Movie

  11/15/2016       Farla      26 Comments

This movie had some gorgeous special effects and I got the impression they really tried to do their best with the comic’s origin story by making it a little less “white guy wanders into brown country, crowned Best At Magic seconds later”, and as we all know skipping origin stories is against the law so there had to be something, so it’s not too bad as a ride all things considered.

Once you hit the end and think about it, it’s otherwise a disastrous mess of a film. (Hey, is it kind of racist that we’re having an Tibetan hand the reins over to a white dude? I know, let’s make them a Celtic woman so now it’s a white person passing power to a white person!) (more…)

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Annihilation, the movie about self-destruction

  03/31/2018       Farla      3 Comments

So yes, I did see this movie! It is not the glory of the book, but it was far closer than I had any hopes of it being (so many women! so much biology!). The changes it made seemed to be in service of making a story that would work as a movie, and I think it succeeded at that task (I quite like its decision to reframe the situation into something more focused on self-destructive behaviors, as it gives a nice overarching theme). It’s also got some lovely visuals. Overall, would recommend!

It is, however, a much simpler story, the sort of story where at various points a character will say, “What’s going on here is…” and we can take it at face value. (more…)

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