Four One

History of Sound

There's not that many films where you find yourself saying, they need to gay this up a bit. After all, the obtrusive gay is a feature of modern films. What I mean is, characters that are gay for no reason. Because, look, in real life we aren't all just announcing to each other, oh btw, I'm queer, or yah, I'm pandemisexugenderal or whatever the fuck. It might come up but it doesn't feature that heavily in our lives. In fact, probably there are a lot more queers in your life than you think.

But History of Sound really did need a lot more gay. It was a gay romance with only negligible romance and not much gayness. Perhaps they felt that it would be difficult for the audience or for the actors, who as I understand it were not gay.  Although now I think of it, Josh O'Connor plays queers in literally every film he's in.

For my money though, the film needed a stronger romance. So much hinged on it that it felt a bit lacking because there was not enough feeling. It didn't help too that Paul Mescal phoned it in. He can be really good but he can also be really bad. Compare Aftersun with Gladiator 2, for instance. O'Connor was just so much better, but he's one of the most watchable men in cinema at the moment for my money.

It was all a bit ho hum. Maybe two, two and a half stars. It was supposed to be slow but slow can be intimate, moving, replete. Or it can just be slow and this was sloooooow.

Fire Upon the Deep

I'm still reading science fiction and I thought I'd try an old "classic". I'd heard really good things about Fire Upon the Deep, and look, there's good things about it. The worldbuilding was excellent and there were plenty of ideas kicking around. But the plot was thin, and I found it plodded a fair bit.

There's also a couple of "twists", which I won't spoil, but one is a characters get fooled and the other is the ending. And both are horribly mishandled. The first just doesn't play out at all, and the second you're left wondering how that worked. 

It was worth reading all in all but maybe only three stars when I was promised it was a banger, which wasn't really the case. I'd persevere with the author though, and the ebook I got hold of has the sequel and prequel so we'll do that too in due course.

The Housemaid

Now the stars of The Housemaid are very obviously Sydney Sweeney's tits. And by god, did the director know it. They were featured throughout, straining against Sydney's top, overflowing her clothing, and unsheathed at one point. It's kind of unfortunate, I suppose, that when they write the story of Sweeney, that's what they'll write about. What they won't write about is her acting talent, because it's not really existing. She's fine if you give her a role where "I'm bored" works but that really is all she does. Even when the action hots up, she looks like she'd rather be doing something else.

It doesn't help that she's cast opposite Amanda Seyfried, who acts her off the screen at every opportunity, and is frankly hotter too. She does have a much better-written role though, which requires and gets a wide range.

It's a decent thriller in the old mode, nice and twisty. It's maybe a bit long and you won't be surprised, even if you can't quite pick how it will turn out. But I think that a twist that is credible is a good thing, so it was none the worse for being a bit oh, right... Shout out too for Brandon Sklenar, who does the smirking male lead perfectly. He has a nice bit of edge and he's really fuck off gorgeous so you won't hate watching a nicely made, well-shot film. Maybe three stars or a bit better.

posted by Dr Zen @ 9:33 pm