yuqiboy

Sound of Metal

Sad :( Riz Ahmed does a fabulous job again, being so convincingly pathetic and vulnerable and resentful for his newly acquired disability.

What I kept thinking about whenever I noticed the really effective sound design of this movie was this piece called I am sitting in my room by Alvin Lucifer. I came across it on Tumblr a few weeks ago and somehow managed to listen to all of it (not all at once, though I really think that would be the most cool) and the gradual convergence of the resonant frequencies of the room and the vocals into one ambient beam of acoustics kind of scared the shit out of me.

Four Lions

With no English subtitles available, this felt nearly incomprehensible to me. It was recommended by a coworker after he saw that I was planning to watch The Sound of Metal.

Ultimately, hilarious. Riz Ahmed and Kayvan Novak have this incredible comedic energy together and the dialogue and timing had me yelp-laughing. Maybe because it’s British or something but it does not hold back on what I feel like would now be considered taboo or in bad taste.

Midsommar

Another Ari Aster movie that fell short of personal expectations.

Watched with very much a friend, ate a salmon, asparagus and mashed potato salad she made which was delicious.

I was told I’d really enjoy this movie and I think I gotta stop letting people say that to me. Maybe it’s bc I felt pretty sleepy with the first half of the movie and the cult’s rituals, all scenes of the white linen clothing and sunny meadows fading into one another. It did hold my interest but mostly purely out of curiosity rather than feeling really invested. Like oooh how’s he gonna make this whacky and weird? The acting and the set was mad impressive though.

Josie and the Pussycats

Watched this with Marcus at Syndicated. Really adored it.

• back glitter tattoo
• Homoerotic Val and Josie
• Alan Cummings delivery
• Parker Posey perfect with perfect outfits
• transitions being hilarious and effective
• fast pace and never boring
• The songs weren’t annoying or took over whole parts
• Laugh out loud funny
• Good theater
• Funny dialogue

Had a kale caesar salad with grilled chicken and one mozz stick. Had a blast. What more can I say.

Caught By The Tides

Saw this at the Lincoln Center theatre with Annie, last minute invite.

I read up what little I could on Jia Zhangke in the afternoon, but honestly, I could not really get a handle on what to expect. I was vaguely prepared for a lot of visually striking and maybe some mundane BTS stuff. But somehow, I felt hooked for basically the whole time.

It starts of with a mishmash of older clips, probably from the beginning of the two decades worth of footage. The content itself felt a bit awkward and stilted, interview with a business owner, women singing for money, a man (Brother Bin) and a woman (Qiao Qiao) caught in a weirdly entangled relationship.

Pumping Iron

Bodybuilding is an art. Like Arnold says, a painter can look at a subject and decide, oh he needs more rounded shoulders, take some paint and add it to the canvas. A bodybuilder can decide he needs more rounded shoulders and goes to the gym and eats and rests in order to physically build those shoulders.

Legit, it was cool to see someone talk about bodybuilding in that way because I do have this morbid, almost body horror fascination with this process. We use our bodies, and then intake nutrition to feed and give energy to the bodies, and then we rest to recover from the activities. All this fundamentally changes our bodies, there is a real, physical difference.