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.

[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.

[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

[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]

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

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.

[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!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[gwynnega]

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

I despise Febreze.

[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.

[oracne]

I adore Jupiter Ascending!

[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.

[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.