When my fingers like ice fall onto your silk

[sovay]

I am covered in Lyft Febreze, but I had a very nice weekend.

Last night rushthatspeaks showed me the Wachowskis' Jupiter Ascending (2015), which did not in any way deserve the critical lambasting I remember it getting. We diagnosed that it has a genuine script problem in that the dialogue needed either a unified register or more significantly marked shifts and instead it snaps around tonally to match whichever of the eight genres in a trenchcoat the plot is currently passing through and gives the viewer a bad case of Elfland to Poughkeepsie, but it's brilliantly worldbuilt, visually a treat, not in fact stupidly plotted, and if anything it could have used another half-hour to hang out in its universe where everyone clearly has an interesting history and if the film had been novelized in the 1980's where its particular spectrum of id-driven science fantasy metaphysically hails from, we'd have gotten to read all of them. I have never seen a film with more visible Cordwainer Smith in its DNA—it's not quite set in the Instrumentality of Mankind, but it was functionally impossible for me not to think of the "splices" as underpeople and admire their variety. I don't understand the hostile response from even sf critics when it managed to invoke chariots of the gods without the normal bake-in of racism and provide a rather nastily convincing answer to Fermi's paradox in addition to the expected sweep of space opera. It has a sense of humor and leans so hard on its favorite tropes, it occasionally falls out the other side: I particularly enjoyed how the romantic interest went around collecting archetypal features from every genre he found himself in until there was nothing left but urban fantasy and that was when the film deployed his wings. I was charmed by the number of character actors who turned up in greater or lesser roles and extremely pleased by the survival of Sean Bean. Overall it is the kind of movie I encounter much more as a novel and wish I had gotten to see in theaters where its space vistas were obviously designed for scale; it should have been a summer blockbuster, not a late winter burial. The Terry Gilliam cameo was exquisite. There was so much room for sequels. The class critique has only gotten more on point in the last six years.

On my way home in the aforementioned Lyft, my godchild called out of the blue to tell me about the building of their family sukkah and their recording of an audition tape for the school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, for which they chose Titania's "Out of this wood do not desire to go" and said they would take any part offered them. Their friend group is basically the mechanicals, so I'm biased in terms of thinking where in this show they would thrive, but mostly I hope they get cast and have a wonderful time. The production will be set in the '90's, which I guess is a thing people do now. One of the crew has the job of assembling a suitably historical soundtrack.

I like rediscovered films and I like anti-fascist films and I really like this announcement: "Rediscovered 1931 film Europa to get world premiere in London."

I don't think I had known that Laurence Harvey was the original choice to play Mark Lewis in Peeping Tom (1960); he would have produced a very different effect than Karlheinz Böhm. I don't want to lose this universe's version, but I do want to be able to rent the alternative from the next universe over.

Excuse me while I take a very hot shower. I really hate Febreze.

Comments

[vass]

I tend to agree with the people who say that Jupiter Ascending got lambasted because it has teenage girl id cooties. I loved it.

Best wishes to your godchild for their audition.

[sovay]

I tend to agree with the people who say that Jupiter Ascending got lambasted because it has teenage girl id cooties. I loved it.

We also discussed structural misogyny.

(And the fact that while the studio should not have dumped it in the dead zone of the year no matter what, neither of us had any idea how it should have been marketed, because "Mercedes Lackey meets Gene Wolfe" is meaningful only to a very specific audience.)

Best wishes to your godchild for their audition.

I will pass them on!

[muccamukk]

The only reason I can figure that people hated JA as much as they did was that it was so clearly a fantasy by and for women, and that ought not to get its germs all over the genre.

I hadn't heard they'd found Europa! That's very cool.

[sovay]

The only reason I can figure that people hated JA as much as they did was that it was so clearly a fantasy by and for women, and that ought not to get its germs all over the genre.

As far as I can tell it got slated by female critics, too, which is just depressing. (I'm not in disagreement with your statement, just disappointed in, like, the New York Times.) I am not even the target audience for its fantasies and I thought it was wonderful.

I hadn't heard they'd found Europa! That's very cool.

I really want to know how I can see it! Since London is not exactly an option these days.

[nineweaving]

Wait, "I have never seen a film with more visible Cordwainer Smith in its DNA" and "Mercedes Lackey meets Gene Wolfe"?

Best of luck to your godchild. What a lovely play to be doing.

Very glad to hear that Europa has been found.

but I do want to be able to rent the alternative from the next universe over.

Can I have a library card?

Nine

[sovay]

Wait, "I have never seen a film with more visible Cordwainer Smith in its DNA" and "Mercedes Lackey meets Gene Wolfe"?

Not even ironically! It is extremely literate science fantasy—I found an interview afterward where one of the sisters talked about the Odyssey as a major substrate, which made sense as soon as I read it, from both the Penelope and the Odysseus side—but you don't need to be well-versed in the field to enjoy it, since it's not gatekeeping about any of its influences so much as the kind of deliriously dense passion project where you throw absolutely everything you grew up on and loved into the film as if you're getting one shot at it, which turned out in this case to be true, but I wish hadn't been. It did not actually remind me that much of Star Wars (1977) otherwise, but it's very much that approach of my-id-and-the-kitchen-sink. I mean, right before the action leaves Earth, there is a fight with offworld weapons in a cornfield outside Chicago that ends with a spaceship blasting off, at which point we see that the damage has left a perfectly stereotypical crop circle. I don't know what's not to like about that.

Best of luck to your godchild. What a lovely play to be doing.

I will keep you posted on the results!

Can I have a library card?

Everybody should!

[heron61]

*nods* I loved Jupiter Ascending, and after watching the trailer for the new Matrix film, I got to thinking how much I'd liked all of their work that I'd seen, so I looked to see what they'd done that I hadn't. First, I noticed that they did the 1996 film Bound, which is excellent queer neo-noir (which I definitely recommend) and that I saw on video in '97 or '98, well before I (or pretty much anyone else) had heard of them, which left me with only never having seen Speed Racer, which I'd heard was dreadful when it came out, but having seen later reviews praising it, so I'll likely watch it soon.

[sorcyress]

I remember loving Speed Racer when it came out, but I haven't watched it since so I can't give you a more recent review, and I am _deeply_ predisposed to loving Speed Racer because he was my ~very first~ fictional crush.

Actually, in all likelihood, my very first crush fullstop.

I do remember the movie being SO colour-saturated which made me gleeful --I hate dark and muddy for many reasons. I hope you enjoy it!

~Sor

[sovay]

the 1996 film Bound, which is excellent queer neo-noir (which I definitely recommend)

I have seen and love Bound. I actually read about it the year it came out, but it took until 2016 for me to see it with rushthatspeaks at the Wicked Queer Film Festival. I believe I would have loved it even if I hadn't already been embarked on an unofficial project of studying women in noir, but I think it just made it better that I had.

which left me with only never having seen Speed Racer, which I'd heard was dreadful when it came out, but having seen later reviews praising it, so I'll likely watch it soon.

I have not seen Speed Racer because it didn't sound like something that would interest me when it came out, but I am in fact now actively curious about it.

[aurumcalendula]

Bound is so good! I need to watch more of their films.

[sorcyress]

Jupiter Ascending, Jupiter Ascending, Jupiter Ascending!

I find it...pretty deliciously batshit and enjoy making people watch it with me. The bees!!! "Bees can sense royalty" yes yes _yeS_! But also the Charming Potato¹ being at his absolutely most adorable in eyeliner.

And the _costumes_. Gods, my personal style shifts all over the map but trends towards masc and/or butch-practical but if given the opportunity to be dressed by Bob Mackie you take it! (Note: Not actually sure if Mackie was involved, should research later)

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

~Sor

1: making fun of people's names is mean but someone used this for Channing Tatum once and it is stuck in my head forever now

[sovay]

"Bees can sense royalty" yes yes _yeS_!

I accept it in context, too!

(rushthatspeaks informed me that "I love dogs, I've always loved dogs" is a widely reviled line, which struck me as a particularly acute example of critical idiocy, because the entire point of that line is that the protagonist's libido has just blurted straight past her brain and as soon as she hears herself, her eyes light up with tiny pinball signs of FML. I did, in fact, sympathetically laugh out loud.)

making fun of people's names is mean but someone used this for Channing Tatum once and it is stuck in my head forever now

I have more or less seen him only in this film and Hail, Caesar! (2016) and based on that range I am pretty sure the man can do anything he feels like.

(Technically I saw him first in Kimberly Peirce's Stop-Loss (2008), but I had no idea who he was then and he did not register on me as an actor, whereas his dancing in Hail, Caesar! had my instant attention.)

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you! I can't believe it didn't play the 'Thon in 2016. Even if it had crashed and burned at the box office, it should have run at two in the morning and the audience should have had no idea what hit them.

J A

[lauradi7dw]

I saw it big screen (Fresh Pond) when it came out, at the recommendation of lots of women younger than me. No teenagers. I liked it a lot, but kind of wished there was some way to leave out the Eddie Redmayne character altogether. There were enough weird other plots that they could have made up for it. Always happy to see Samuel Barnett pop up.
There was a series on tumblr of stills from the the film at with fake dialogue added. My favorite: "Sweet dreams are made of bees. Who am I do diss a bee?" (etc.)
I just looked up the film's web site, which referred to Jupiter as an "ordinary housecleaner" and was disgruntled to see "ordinary" there, although maybe it's right in some ways - a job that really smart immigrant (mostly women) can have in our culture.

Re: J A

[sovay]

I liked it a lot, but kind of wished there was some way to leave out the Eddie Redmayne character altogether. There were enough weird other plots that they could have made up for it.

I wouldn't have deleted any of the siblings; I thought they were all plot-relevant, different manifestations of the damage of their culture, and Redmayne in any case seemed to be having the time of his life.

There was a series on tumblr of stills from the the film at with fake dialogue added. My favorite: "Sweet dreams are made of bees. Who am I do diss a bee?" (etc.)

I see how that happened. skygiants gloriously refers to Stinger (whose name I did not manage to catch until well into the second act, which did not in any way impede my figuring out what his splice was: it was not exactly subtle) as "Half-a-Bee Sean Bean."

I just looked up the film's web site, which referred to Jupiter as an "ordinary housecleaner" and was disgruntled to see "ordinary" there, although maybe it's right in some ways - a job that really smart immigrant (mostly women) can have in our culture.

IMDb has "A young woman discovers her destiny as an heiress of intergalactic nobility and must fight to protect the inhabitants of Earth from an ancient and destructive industry." Leaving out the "destiny," that's surprisingly good. I tried to find a copy of the shooting script to read after watching the film because I am always interested in the comparison and the writers' view, but it doesn't seem to be available at all.

[aurumcalendula]

whichever of the eight genres in a trenchcoat the plot is currently passing through

I love this turn of phrase! And this reminds me I need to rewatch it - I remember it being delightfully tropey.

Best of luck to your godchild for their audition!

It's so cool that Europa was rediscovered!

[sovay]

I love this turn of phrase! And this reminds me I need to rewatch it - I remember it being delightfully tropey.

Thank you! It is unashamedly tropey, including knowing when to avert. Have you ever vidded it?

Best of luck to your godchild for their audition!

I will tell them!

It's so cool that Europa was rediscovered!

I like surrealism, I like futurism, I like anti-fascism, I want a teleporter . . .

[princessofgeeks]

The critics clearly did not understand Jupiter Ascending AT ALL.

And I think your critique of the register whiplashes was completely on point.

I enjoyed it thoroughly and also wish it had been longer.

[sovay]

The critics clearly did not understand Jupiter Ascending AT ALL.

It is infuriating. I feel I should write the Wachowskis a belated fan letter, because it must have been miserable to pour that much enthusiasm into a project and receive that much vitriol in return. I am hoping it experiences critical reappraisal in the fashion of so many misunderstood cult classics, but that doesn't help me out with the sequel. (So many worse films have had sequels.) In the meantime, is there not even an art book?

And I think your critique of the register whiplashes was completely on point.

It would have been tricky, but not unfixable, too. If you have to rewrite a script from title to credits, the dialogue is probably the least painful level at which to do it. They just needed a beta-reader.

I enjoyed it thoroughly and also wish it had been longer.

I would have loved to see even an envoy from one of the other families, who were not mentioned by name that I recall. Given the entire cutthroat corporate space empire, you know there would have been competitors circling at the slightest hint that the current generation of Abrasax were experiencing dynastic difficulties. rushthatspeaks actually thinks that some of the whiplash might have been ameliorated by seeing more of Kalique and Titus with their respective courts before Jupiter meets them. (Balem at the refinery is a reveal worth not wasting.)

[selkie]

"Out of the blue" is how they do most things!

Samuel Barnett is my spouse's favorite Twitter flirtation. I will have to tell them he's in the thing.

[sovay]

"Out of the blue" is how they do most things!

Tell them to keep it up!

Samuel Barnett is my spouse's favorite Twitter flirtation. I will have to tell them he's in the thing.

He plays a sentient lawyer-bot assigned to help the protagonist navigate the beyond Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the intergalactic civilization; he has a pre-programmed cheerful smile which tightens with every runaround in triplicate and at one point he blows a slight literal fuse. He's wonderful. I believe I saw him first as Sebastian in the Globe's Twelfth Night.

[minoanmiss]

which did not in any way deserve the critical lambasting I remember it getting

I am delighteed that _Jupiter Ascending_ delighted you! I got the impression that a fair amount of the critical lambasting was more or less sexism, and I need to remember the term Elfland to Poughkeepsie.

[sovay]

I got the impression that a fair amount of the critical lambasting was more or less sexism

As far as I can determine, this is true and it is balls. It should have been a summer release and garnered the same kind of instant fandom as Pacific Rim (2013), which we did agree was easier to market, but just as tropetastically id-fueled.

and I need to remember the term Elfland to Poughkeepsie.

I stole it from Le Guin!

[genarti]

Ugh, Febreze is awful and cloying. Sympathies!

Jupiter Ascending, however, is a sparkly id-vortex of delight. When I saw it in the theater, as the credits exploded across the screen we heard someone a few rows behind us say, "Oh, I can't wait for Yuletide!!" which to my mind about sums it up. And it's in many ways a really smart, thoughtful movie, along with being a sparkly gleeful overstuffed Trapper-Keeper of a love letter to teenaged girl fantasies. I love it, and I love seeing other people experience it for the first time.

[sovay]

Ugh, Febreze is awful and cloying. Sympathies!

Thank you! I took the very hot shower and rinsed my nose and left my jacket hanging in the open air all night. Aaaaagh.

Jupiter Ascending, however, is a sparkly id-vortex of delight. When I saw it in the theater, as the credits exploded across the screen we heard someone a few rows behind us say, "Oh, I can't wait for Yuletide!!" which to my mind about sums it up.

It is very much a movie that comes with heaping handfuls of AO3 tags. I hope that person was rewarded.

(I have read skygiants' fic which rushthatspeaks pointed me to; more space shenanigans, please.)

And it's in many ways a really smart, thoughtful movie, along with being a sparkly gleeful overstuffed Trapper-Keeper of a love letter to teenaged girl fantasies.

I didn't even fantasize as a teenager about the things that this movie is catering to and I loved it! Which is one of the reasons I believe it actually is a good movie and not just stupendously fun: it hangs together even if your id doesn't light up for it across the board. Although enough of my id lit up that I feel there should be something for everyone. I read an inevitable couple of professional reviews afterward and then had to stop; they had so clearly not seen the movie.

I love it, and I love seeing other people experience it for the first time.

It had better get some kind of local screening once I consider it safe to return to theaters.

[troisoiseaux]

There are so many great details in Jupiter Ascending but I think my personal favorite might be that Channing Tatum's character's gun barks.

[sovay]

There are so many great details in Jupiter Ascending but I think my personal favorite might be that Channing Tatum's character's gun barks.

Oh, my God, I missed that.

[movingfinger]

Jupiter Ascending has the best bureaucracy sequence in SF, possibly in any movie! I strongly agree with you on the Cordwainer Smith kinship. It felt like it needed more time to cover all the ground, yes, it also felt a lot like much older movies (I'm thinking specifically of the 1934 Count of Monte Cristo with Olivia de Havilland) which view now more like a pageant, a series of set pieces or scenes which are connected but which can feel disjointed to watch now---done because the viewer already knows the story, because the viewer can fill in the links, or simply to save time and show only the good bits and highlights of a complicated tale. Hitting only the good bits is a legitimate epic tale-telling mode!

[kore]

Wasn't it supposed to be originally part one of a trilogy? Like the Matrix, only the box office was so bad that got scrapped.

[kore]

I absolutely love that movie, it in no way deserved to get totally dumped on, and my feeling is that happened because it was mainly about a GURRRL and also IIRC Lana had come out as trans by then and Lily was about to, too.

T and I saw it twice in a nearly deserted theatre and it was gorgeous. The Terry Gilliam bit is my favourite part.

[sovay]

I absolutely love that movie, it in no way deserved to get totally dumped on, and my feeling is that happened because it was mainly about a GURRRL and also IIRC Lana had come out as trans by then and Lily was about to, too.

Lilly was still using her birth name in the credits. I recognize misogyny and transmisogyny as explanations, I just consider them bogus reasons! Too many people should have known better.

(Also I do not want to perpetrate a zero-sum game, but so much attention was paid to Patty Jenkins directing Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman (2017) as if it were the first combination of its kind—female director, female star, big-budget action picture—and, um. That'd be the transmisogyny, Advocate Bob.)

T and I saw it twice in a nearly deserted theatre and it was gorgeous. The Terry Gilliam bit is my favourite part.

"Congratulations, Your Majesty. And my deepest condolences."

(I don't know if I have a favorite part yet. I very predictably attached to Chicanery Night, who as far as I can tell is just having an average day as middle manager of a genocidal refinery—like you do—when his drama empress of a boss shows up and everything goes down the drain from there. I did not blame him for busting out the Bolotnikovs' vodka while waiting for Jupiter to get home.)

[gwynnega]

I really would like to be able to see a Laurence Harvey Peeping Tom.

I despise Febreze.

[sovay]

I really would like to be able to see a Laurence Harvey Peeping Tom.

He would have brought just as much not one of us to the part as Böhm, but from a different angle: he's more obviously intense than the very soft-spoken Mark of the film, who makes such a good invisible lens untill all of a sudden he's a mirror, but I have seen him with that weird awkward vulnerability that the character needs and he certainly had the obsessiveness. He might have had more of the Psycho effect, since audiences already knew him. And he would have been Jewish, making Mark Lewis even more an anagram of Leo Marks. Argh.

I despise Febreze.

I have not yet encountered a situation where I would rather be smelling it than whatever it's supposed to cover. It just doesn't leave the nose.

[asakiyume]

I must have watched this when I was really tired or something, because I went in already knowing that it had been unfairly panned and therefore predisposed to champion it, but all I can remember about my reaction to it on a story level was a sort of confusion. But I've had this happen with short stories too: things can seem incomprehensible if I read them when I'm falling asleep, but when I bring my full brain to them, I love them.

OR, this might end up to be a case like Snowpiercer, where the folks I like hanging out with online love it, and I just don't. But I should find out which it is.

[sovay]

OR, this might end up to be a case like Snowpiercer, where the folks I like hanging out with online love it, and I just don't. But I should find out which it is.

If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work! I hope it does, though. For what it's worth, it moves fast, but I did not find it difficult to follow.

[oracne]

I adore Jupiter Ascending!

[sovay]

I adore Jupiter Ascending!

I already want to watch it again!

[konstantya]

Count me as one of those who was left disappointed by Jupiter Ascending--mostly because I felt it didn't lean hard enough into the crazysauce camp the premise seemed to promise. (Eddie Redmayne's batshit performance was basically the level of theatricality I wanted out of everybody, and THE BEES. THE BEES WERE THE BEST PART, AND THE ONLY SCENE THAT REALLY SUCCEEDED IN REACHING THE INSANITY I WAS HOPING FOR. Though honorable mention goes to the bureaucracy scene, because that was an awfully good runner-up.)

I went in expecting something like "The Fifth Element, but aimed specifically at women," and while it had the high concept, spectacular set pieces, and high fashion, the overall tone wasn't ridiculous enough for me, unfortunately.

[sovay]

(Eddie Redmayne's batshit performance was basically the level of theatricality I wanted out of everybody, and THE BEES. THE BEES WERE THE BEST PART, AND THE ONLY SCENE THAT REALLY SUCCEEDED IN REACHING THE INSANITY I WAS HOPING FOR. Though honorable mention goes to the bureaucracy scene, because that was an awfully good runner-up.)

Fair enough! Everyone is differently calibrated. I agree that Eddie Redmayne gave Hans Conried a serious run for his money in the WTF to eleven stakes.

[dramaticirony]

Jupiter Ascending definitely is a much stronger film than the critics were able to perceive, yet right from the begining it had a dedicated, passionate, take no prisoners fan base.

I recall the leads being somewhat surpassed by the supporting actors, but if that the case, it's not nearly bad as in Speed Racer where the lead is out acted, under written, and overshadowed by the inventive visuals. To be fair, said visuals are worth the price of admission--if you're willing to let them wash over you like some avant-garde abstraction scheduled by a bold programmer on the smallest screen of a large festival. You just have to squint to ignore the plot. And the chimp.

Speaking of festivals, the 2nd Annual Brooklyn Sci Fi Film Festival has just started. Most of it is online, and those films are free. It isn't the 'thon, but some of the narrative shorts are quite interesting. And, anyway it is free and watchable in one's home.

[sovay]

Jupiter Ascending definitely is a much stronger film than the critics were able to perceive, yet right from the begining it had a dedicated, passionate, take no prisoners fan base.

I just wish it had translated into the film being less of a commercial flop! I feel like a misunderstood movie can survive failing on either the critical or the commercial front, but both and it's going to take years if not decades to recover. I didn't realize until I checked just now that Jupiter Ascending was the last feature film of the Wachowkis until the announcement of The Matrix Resurrections. I know they spent some of the intervening years in TV with Sense8, but still; it hurt them.

I recall the leads being somewhat surpassed by the supporting actors

I actually liked Jupiter as a protagonist and it is still rarer for me to like protagonists than supporting characters; I didn't find her too much of a lens or a stand-in and [rot13 for anyone who still cares] V unq arire frra nalguvat yvxr ure zbeny qrpvfvba ng gur pyvznk bs gur svyz. Lbh rkcrpg ure gb noqvpngr gb fnir ure snzvyl—rira jura vg'f boivbhf gung gur qrivy ba gur bgure fvqr bs guvf onetnva pna'g or gehfgrq, gur rzbgvbany chyy vf fb fgebat naq genqvgvbany—naq gura or fnirq ng gur ynfg zvahgr. Lbh qba'g rkcrpg ure gb haqrefgnaq gung gurl'er nyy qrnq rvgure jnl naq ng yrnfg guvf jnl gur Rnegu fheivirf. (Naq gura Pnvar pbzrf penfuvat va yvxr n irel ovgrl zrgrbe naq vg'f svar, ohg fur unf ab ernfba gb rkcrpg uvz: fur znxrf gur qrpvfvba jvgubhg oryvrivat gung nalbar vf pbzvat sbe ure. Gur Noenfnk ner fb hfrq gb crbcyr jub jvyy qb nalguvat sbe zber gvzr, gurve bja gvzr. Whcvgre jnf jvyyvat gb tvir nyy bs uref hc.)

You just have to squint to ignore the plot. And the chimp.

Of course, now I'm curious about the chimp.

Speaking of festivals, the 2nd Annual Brooklyn Sci Fi Film Festival has just started. Most of it is online, and those films are free.

Oh, neat! Anything you would especially recommend so far?