The Endless: The Loop and Circles

The Endless (2017) is a science fiction horror film that tells the story of two brothers, Justin and Aaron, who visit a camp of what Justin called a cult. They formerly belonged to this cult and had made outrageous statements against them prior to the timeline of the film in an attempt to get out. The brothers went back to the camp to get the closure that they want (and probably need) and closure and full knowledge of the camp is what they get.

Honestly, when Justin said that the ones in Camp Arcadia are in a cult, the first thing in my mind was that they were probably one of those that conduct weird and nerve-wracking rituals. Those that offer blood of the virgin, bone of a loyal servant, and all that. But the people in the camp aren’t really like that… at all.

One of the scenes that baffle me up to this point is the scene where the “cult” plays a game of tug-of-war against a rope that ascends into the dark sky. Aaron was asked to participate in the game to which he happily obliges. I must admit though that when Aaron started to tie the rope into a knot, I kind of actually thought he was going to attach the knot onto his neck.

It is amazing to watch how Aaron kept himself oblivious and ignorant of all the things that was things that was happening in Camp Arcadia because all of those things were weird. Even if they were not having exactly a good life outside the camp, it’s not enough of a reason for him not to feel all those weird things happening around him. At this point, I’m tempted to think he had been enchanted of some sort by the unknown entity just so he would have more humans as entertainment.

The part where there is this guy who just keeps on running without stopping for them (or anything actually) got me with some thoughts in my head. More than being a horror film, it reminded me more of an NPC (non-player character) in a role-playing game. Except that he wasn’t. He was just really stuck in his own loop.

It was heartbreaking in the film to see the couple separated by the loops. They were so close yet so far. The loops made them feel as if they were living in entirely different universes. It was only Justin who knew that the one they were searching for, each other, was just actually a few walks away but they can’t walk that far. There they were, stuck in their loops, all for the entertainment of some unknown entity they cannot fight, nor reason, or even just bargain with.

On a more personal level, it’s honestly kind of frustrating to think of such conditions in which the people in Camp Arcadia had to live in. Their existence was reduced to merely for entertainment of a higher entity and they had no way out. There was no way out available for them. They couldn’t even have the option of killing themselves because doing so would only restart the loop.

There was no brainwashing involved on the so-called cult but they lost their will. They lost their freedom. And there they were, stuck in a loop, all for another entity’s entertainment.

Repo Man: Report this Man!!!

I honestly have no idea what a ‘repo man’ or just ‘repo’ meant until the film was shown in class. And I had no idea why.

The film immediately starts off with the alien side of things when a cars gets pulled over. When the policeman opens the trunk to check its contents, the policeman is immediately vaporized and vanished into thin air, leaving only his boots behind.

The alien storyline is the main storyline of the film. It is what brought the various characters together including those who work at the United Fruitcake Outlet (UFO). There a lot other characters killed in this storyline, some by exposure to the trunk, some by radiation. It is the same car that brings a lot of the characters together at the end of the film just before it flies off along with two passengers.

My first immediate thought of Otto was that he thinks so highly of himself. One of the first things established is that Otto is broke; hence, he accepts Bud’s offer to drive the car in exchange for some dollars. However, upon learning that the car which he was driving was repossessed, he storms off their office, as if he had something better to do. When he gets home, he asks his parents for the money they had promised to give him if he finished school. However, he learns that the money he was supposed to get had already been donated to a televangelist who will use the money to send bibles to El Salvador… or just some scam, I don’t know. And this starts Otto’s life as a repo man.

At one point, I was confused if they were actually legitimate repo men or just some gang or mafia running rampant in their area. Such feeling was strengthened when Bud and Otto had a chase against or just some machismo stunt against the Rodriguez brothers. Nothing comes out of such chase but it was the introduction of another party who will enter the chase for the missing Malibu. And such Malibu wasn’t just any other Malibu because, aside from being connected to aliens, it also had a bounty of $ 20,000, which was said to have been way above the value of such car.

One particular scene that really got my nerves was when Otto was forcing Leila to have sex with him under the guise that he had something to tell her. When Leila asked her what he wanted to tell her, he told her to take off her clothes. Otto proceeds to undress and tells Leila that “the least she could do is give her a blowjob.” That’s it. Otto is officially my most hated character among all the characters in all the films that were shown in class.

Honestly, I find the ending quite ironic. Despite the number of people able to drive at the Helping Hand parking lot, only Miller, their mechanic who can’t drive, was able to get into the car. There are a lot of interested people on the Malibu, government agents, United Fruitcake Outlet, scientists and televangelist, but it was someone who was barely significant in the film who got to get in first.

Ultimately, this is my most hated film for having such a character as the main character. Otto was everything I didn’t like and I can never get around his character.

Futureless Things: Futureless (In)Convenience Store

Futureless Things started normally. Really, really normal. I honestly really wished it was just a normal gay movie. And it would’ve been great for me. But it didn’t and it honestly reminded me of Schizopolis – a bunch of mini-stories rolled into one film without giving so much consideration to the cohesiveness of each part.

Futureless Things showed the life in a convenience store, all the things that (can) happen. The film spanned through different shifts with different clerks and (types of) customers. Some are your typical customers, some borderline weird, and some are just utterly otherworldly.

While one might wonder why the filmmakers chose to use as a convenience store as the film’s main setting, a convenience doesn’t necessarily give off the best vibes in the first place. A convenience store primarily thrives on the idea that people have no time to do some decent shopping. Honestly, convenience stores look like just some institutionalized version of provincial sari-sari stores with capitalists at the helm.

One of the things that got me in the film was that it featured two LGBT couples. And, truth be told, I was initially excited to watch this movie after watching that clip of Ki-Chul and his boyfriend kissing on YouTube. It surely got my hopes up that this would be a gay movie.

One of the things I was able to totally relate was the part wherein someone was praying to all the gods known to mankind whilst trying his luck at the lottery. Then shop clerk’s is visible. He was supposed to be in some other place instead of that convenience store. Despite telling his boss that he had to leave early, his boss simply keeps him ignored and effectively wasting his time. By that time he was able to get out, the allotted audition time for him had already lapsed and he had already missed his chance. And, for his case, it was a rare chance.

One weird thing in the movie was the “cool” guy, the box, and the woman. Nothing was explained in that scene, not before, during, nor after. And, up to this point, I’m still confused as to how or why it happened beyond what was simply shown during that part’s runtime.

Maybe, the most futureless about this movie was at the part of the store owner. No one knew that the store had been performing on the red except for the owner. He tried to keep his business afloat but, ultimately, his property was seized by law enforcers. What was so futureless about him? It is that he literally chose to let go of all the possibilities left for him. He committed suicide. And that was such a dark part of the movie.

The last part of the movie wherein they were dancing makes it such an anticlimactic ending for me. It reminds me of all the typical Filipino-film ending wherein there’s a gathering of the cast and they all just dance and it really serves no value for me. It’s probably one of the worst ways to end a movie for me. But, aside from that, there was literally nothing in the movie that ties all of the stories together aside from the convenience store?

Stick to the Script: “Sorry to Bother You…”

Sorry to Bother You is probably my favorite film out of all the films shown in class and it doesn’t even account for the fact that the title is my favorite line to say. (I’m not even a telemarketer. I just say it when asking favors.) This movie is just the most (visually) pleasing and memorable to me to the point that I can’t even see Tessa Thompson in another role anymore.

Sorry to Bother You is a film that features a telemarketer, Cassius Green, who gets entangled into different conflicts in his life. For one, his co-workers, specifically Squeeze, at RegalView organize a protest against their employers due to their inhumane practices. Cassius starts off as a participant in the protest. However, he gets promoted as a Power Caller (i.e. the elite telemarketers) and his support for his friends’ cause waver, and along with that support is their friendship. As a power caller, he is made aware of what they really market – cheap labor. This where the bigger picture comes out then. A company, WorryFree, has been gaining attention by offering lifetime food and housing to their employees in exchange for lifetime employment, or, as they say it, modern-day slavery. More light is shed onto WorryFree’s schemes as Cassius soon finds out that the company has been doing research on how to turn humans into equisapiens – a half human, a half-horse creature that can double the efficiency that humans can provide.

There were many issues that were discussed, touched on, or tackled by the film. These issues include, but is not limited to, racism, capitalism, and desensitization of society. Out of all these issues, the one that really struck me the most was the one about Cassius’ alienation.

One of the first few scenes showed Cassius on the bed with his girlfriend Detroit and he suddenly contemplates on what legacy he would leave behind when the sun explodes. Here we see Cassius show that he wants to leave an imprint on the whole world than simply live in his uncle’s garage.

As a telemarketer, Cassius is told by his co-worker that, to become a power caller, one should use the “white voice”. This actually takes Cassius to the success that he wants – he becomes a power caller and is able to provide a well-off living for himself and for Detroit as well. However, this “white voice”, instead of being used exclusively for work, was used by Cassius one morning much to Detroit’s annoyance. This triggers a fight between the two and eventually split up. Cassius’ move up the hierarchy also caused him to withdraw support for the protest that the other telemarketers were having against RegalView. This also caused him to lose his friends.

Despite all these conflicts in his life, Cassius continued to go to work as if nothing was happening. But it all felt like Cassius was mindlessly doing all that. He was simply going through the motions of his life.

The motivation to leave a lasting legacy is awakened in Cassius when he finds out WorryFree’s absurd schemes as he tried to expose them by revealing the video he had on a TV show. The plan backfired and Cassius is once again left powerless. This prompts him to return to his friends and join the protests which ultimately ends in them winning.

Steve Lift, WorryFree CEO, trying to convince Cassius to be a revolutionary figure to the equisapiens.

Velvet Goldmine: Velvet Thunder

First things first, all throughout watching Velvet Goldmine, I felt like I was gonna belt out Nazareth’s Where Are You Now (1983) although it’s a different genre. In simple terms, the film reminded of my dad’s playlist which he would play every Sunday much to my and my siblings’ annoyance but that’s just my surface feeling of the movie. This movie is so much more.

The film follows Arthur Stuart, a journalist tasked to find Brian Slade and to know what happened to him 10 years after faking his own death. There are a lot of reasons as to why a star would fake his own murder. The most obvious would be to save face and reputation, and still earn loads of money. Posthumous recognition is a thing, and it makes sales of one’s works skyrocket. It just makes it the best way out. It gives one time to rest while still reaping the fruits of former labor. Such truth makes this particular plot likable to artists wanting a break, or to producers needing money. Or so it was in the pilot episode of a series that I watched. Point is, such scheme makes absolute sense. As long as the public does not know of it, though, because that will surely cause a backlash from the public.

Aside from the music during the time in which the film is set, the film also explores the sexuality of its main character, Brian Slade, who’s an admitted bisexual. Brian put his sexuality in simple terms: “I like boys as much as I like girls.” And liked boys, he did. Despite being initially married to Mandy Slade, Brian gives those looks to Curt Wild. ANd these are the looks that tell just shout hearts all over.

And when Curt and Brian kiss passionately, cameras flash all over and I can only imagine them being cover of tabloids. Just like how it usually is. Despite being openly bisexual, seeing two famous people passionately kiss can still make the cover of the tabloids and, in their case, Brian was married.

But with the rise of their careers also come their fall. Bouts of anger and being emotionally done can be seen from Curt Wild and Brian Slade. Brian can be heard on a phone call that he doesn’t want to continue the Maxwell Demon tour anymore. And the faked murder. And then Brian and Mandy’s last time to speak to each other. And Brian’s persona in this scene was just that of a very insensitive man. Mandy was in shambles.

Just when Arthur felt like he was nearing a breakthrough, unconvering Brian Slade’s true identity, he is informed by his boss that the story has been dropped and that he has been assigned to the Stone show. Very anti-climactic for Arthur. But he sets out to continue anyway. He wasn’t doing it for his work anymore. He was far too engrossed in their lives already. The film ends with Arthur finding Curt Wild. The two talk for a while with Curt ended up giving Arthur a pin that once belonged to a person named “Oscar Wild.” And Curt just leaves Arthur.

Truth be told, this movie is probably one of my least favorite among all the films shown in class but that’s just me not being fond of musicals. I couldn’t say hate because Schizopolis is somewhere there in that part of the spectrum. But I like how Curt puts into words what happened to their lives: “We wanted to change the world. We ended up changing ourselves.” And change they did.

My Own Private Idaho: Crossroads of Lives

Watching Keanu Reeves in My Own Private Idaho seems weird when all I’ve really watched him in is John Wick. (Nope, I’ve never watched The Matrix series.) Seeing him in a queer role makes the strangest sight for me.

My Own Private Idaho is a film that features Mike Waters, someone who suffers from narcolepsy, who earns a living as a male prostitute (or as Wikipedia better calls him, a “hustler”). The film’s turning point comes when Mike decides to look for his mom.

Mike’s friend, Scott Favor, is also a hustler but, unlike Mike, comes from an influential family in their town. Scott Favor is their mayor’s son and is set to inherit his father’s fortune by the time he turns 21. It doesn’t take a genius to observe that Scott looks so out of place from his company even at the start of the film. While everyone else were looking like rags, Scott was wearing a suit, showing the difference in socioeconomic status between him and the other main characters in the film. There was really no sense for Scott to try and earn a living by being a hustler given his family background. But Scott probably just wanted to enjoy his youth and get away from all the norms and reputation he had to follow and put up.

Scott and Mike live two very different lives which are only intertwined by the fact that they were both hustlers at the same time at one point. Scott comes from a rich family who probably had the good life disregarding the chaos of politics whereas Mike’s parentage is probably the most confusing I had next to Predestination (2014). Both were yearning for the normalcy in life. And understandable enough. Both have complicated relationships with their father. Scott and his unruly behavior is seen by his father as some kind of punishment for something he had probably done in the past. Mike, on the other hand, is on an even more complicated status as his father and brother are the same person. At this point, I feel sorry for Mike. He’s got narcolepsy, a complicated lineage, and is living in poverty.

The search for Mike’s mother was more eventful for Scott than Mike. It was on the course of their search that Mike admits to Scott that he sees him as more than just a friend. This is where Scott tells Mike that “he only has sex with men for money.” When they get to Italy, they are told that Mike’s mother had left for America a long time ago by an Italian woman named Carmella. She had known Mike’s mother being taught English by her. And Mike is once again having a bad time in his life. Things couldn’t go worse for Mike is what I’d like to think but, after being rejected by Scott and failing to find his mom, Scott finds his love life in Carmella and leaves Mike alone in a foreign land. Mike tries to be a hustler in Italy only to have narcoleptic attacks.

Newly reformed Scott turns away from friends. Would he still have said the same thing to Bob had he known Bob was gonna die soon? Probably not. The film once again highlights the difference between Mike’s and Scott’s lives during the funerals. Scott attends a solemn funeral for the mayor – his deceased father – whereas his former company conducts a rowdy and noisy funeral for Bob a few meters away.

And that’s probably how Scott’s and Mike’s lives crossed only once.

Trainspotting: Beats any meat injection iykwim

Truth be told before the movie was shown in class, I had watched a clip from Youtube just to satisfy my curiosity with regards to the film. Or maybe I was just trying to mitigate the surprise factor when the movie is shown in class – a clear indication that the last two films had gotten me “WTF?!”

The clip that I have watched is the scene with Renton inside a gut-wrenching CR, “the worst toilet in Scotland.” And it really is. Simply looking at that place is enough to get my stomach turn. It gets even worse with every body part that Renton dips into that…. I can’t even find the words to describe it accurately. It’s honestly the worst place to find yourself in even when you badly need a CR. If it is of any consolation, that scene was apparently shot using melted chocolate. And that shot is a good testament to the innovation of the filmmakers considering budget constraints and lack of special effects used in the film.

Renton’s character reminds of just some teenage angst. “But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?” Renton’s life is simply #YOLO. Only in the bad light.

A big chunk of the movie is actually about Renton undergoing the process of “Relinquishing junk.” And one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Renton was going through hallucinations. That one with the baby was actually quite disturbing and it’s very apt that Renton was screaming at the top of his lungs while the baby’s head was doing a 180-degree turn before falling onto Renton. Renton was screaming and squirming, and his bed was wet from all the sweat. Ewan McGregor’s acting in this scene is one of the best I have seen.

To make this “relinquishing junk” seem more of a bigger step than it already is, Renton moved and became a salesperson selling houses. He moved away from his friends – Spud, Sick Boy, missing HIV-positive Tommy, and a now-wanted Francis Begbie – and his schoolgirl love life Diane.

Sadly, despite not missing his friends in his new life, Begbie finds him in his new place. And Begbie, to no one’s surprise, hasn’t changed at all. Despite being a visitor in a friend’s house, he acts like he owns the place and “settled in no time at all.” At this point, I had no idea what was preventing Renton from selling such an a-hole to the police. Begbie was a fugitive and Renton was his only source of living. What a way to show your gratitude to someone you’re living off.

One particular part I love about the movie is when Renton was talking about the world was changing. He said, “Diane was right. The world is changing… Even men and women are changing. 1,000 years from now, there’ll be no guys and no girls, just wankers. Sounds great to me. You see, if you ask me, we’re heterosexual by default, not by decision. It’s just a question of who you fancy. It’s all about aesthetics and it’s fuck-all to do with morality.” And Begbie didn’t know that. What a sad life for a “macho” character.

Up to this point, I still don’t know why the movie’s titled “Trainspotting” and I’m actually really tempted to just simply search for it on the internet. Maybe I will. Or maybe, when all this is done, I will watch T2 and find out.

Shin Godzilla: New God Incarnate

I have never been a fan of those monster films and stuff wherein people are attacked by some unknown monster or thing. Not even the Jurassic World (or Jurassic Park, although I am always amused by that clip of a T-Rex opening a door) can make me watch them. They all have the same plot anyway. Some kind of monster, usually unidentified, causes inconvenience and/or destruction, to civilians and people try to solve the problem by killing the said monster. Ultimately, though, when people try to find the root cause of the problem, they find out that the root cause of the problem isn’t some discovery but actually the people.

Shin Godzilla did not stray from the conventional plot of monster films but it hardly mattered. Watching the movie with friends actually had an impact as it kept me awake for the whole film. It was also the only Godzilla film I had watched from start to finish and that’s a lot for me.

For some reason, hearing “Shin Godzilla” wouldn’t make me think of how the film or how Godzilla in the film looked like. Calling it “shin” made me think of something Mecha. I thought that Godzilla was given some kind of modern (to futuristic) touch that Godzilla was going to be some kind of metal monster. Color me surprised though when I saw Godzilla’s transformation from looking like a Turtle Island (a 4-star monster with an Attack/Defense of 1300/2000 from Yu-Gi-Oh) to a T-Rex with the power of a Dragonite (the beam thing). Godzilla’s arms don’t do enough justice to its supposed transformation. It really seemed as if Godzilla’s arms’ length was sacrificed to give way for its extra long tail which I barely saw used. To be fair, not much of Godzilla’s power was seen because it was mostly causing destruction by merely walking around the city. Why are we faulting a monster for wanting to go sightseeing? Kidding though. Humans just want to be at the top of the food chain and anything that comes after is considered a monster.

Aside from that horrible description of Godzilla, it also seemed as if it came from some volcanic activity. Godzilla’s surface looked like the surface of a volcano. The only indication that Godzilla was the product of some nuclear activity was when it glowed with some violet light. Nothing else.

Honestly, just by seeing the film, I wouldn’t think that the film was released just a few years ago. At first glance, I’d really think that the film was released sometime around the 90s. Maybe it comes with how the Japanese make their films.

One thing that really got me going in Godzilla was the indecisiveness of the people involved in decision-making. The government didn’t want to make a move until it knew everything (which was kind of impossible to achieve given their resource constraints). While it wasn’t totally a wrong decision, it wasn’t very ideal in the kind of situation that they were in. It came to a point that I was really annoyed at how they stuck to their strict process despite the urgency of the matter at hand.

I honestly loved the part wherein the humans tried to fire everything they had at the Godzilla but to no avail. I think it’s human instinct to solve everything violence and here comes a problem they couldn’t solve using such process. And they panic.

Godzilla is one of the few monster films I enjoyed and I’m probably not gonna watch one again anytime soon. Except for the one coming out later this year, Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

Split City, Schizopolis

I’m never an avid moviegoer. As much as I love watching films, it’s financially taxing to be at the cinemas catching the latest films. However, I’d say I have watched a lot of films. I’ve had my fair share of weird films. There have been some films that were told in a nonlinear narrative. Some told in medias res that relied heavily on flashbacks. Schizopolis was a film that showed three perspectives on three different acts. However, the film isn’t as easy to describe nor understand.

Weird isn’t even a word to describe the film. I can barely make sense of majority of the film, let alone the film as a whole. Even when the class would laugh, I wouldn’t join in just because I kept on trying to make sense of the film as a whole. This isn’t to ignore the warning prior to the showing of the film. Before I knew it, I just wanted to make sense of things, no matter how vague the connections were. I kept on guessing how the film was being told – from whose perspective, in what order of events, which is who.

At one point, I thought I was beginning to understand the film. Never mind the repetitive utterances of “nose army” which I still don’t get up to this point. All I know was that Fletcher’s wife was cheating with his doppelganger? And that his doppelganger left his wife for the wife’s doppelganger. And that there was this guy in an orange suit who, at one point, broke the fourth wall. I can try and make sense of a few parts of the film but never a big chunk. If any, I almost got frustrated at my lack of understanding that I almost gave up watching. Also, being seated in front gave my neck some serious amount of stress.

If there was anything in the film that was able to elicit some kind of emotion from me aside from confusion, it was the fact that the wife readily left Mr. Fletcher and their child for the doppelganger. She’s the only character I can describe with a bit of certainty and it’s that she’s a very selfish character. I’d say it served her right though when Dr. Korchek, Fletcher’s doppelganger, left her for Attractive Woman #2, her doppelganger. It was kind of ironic but very funny.

After watching the film in class, I tried to search about the film’s plot that would help me understand what the film was about. Never had I been so disappointed. Even though I didn’t really make so much sense of the film, my favorite part was the scene between Mr. Munson and his wife. “Generic greeting.” “Generic greeting returned.” It just seemed too skeletal. It had the structure but lacked the contents.

Before watching Schizopolis, I didn’t think I’d find a film as mind-numbing or weird as the ones I’ve watched before like Predestination (2014) or Split (2016). I have never been so wrong. Schizopolis numbed my brain for the most part of it.