Hands

I usually scan my face, but today I thought it was time to give the hands some attention.

An oddly delicate part of the body, I love the way the hands are posed in medieval paintings of Jesus. The poise and minute specificity of expression that they allow is made into this still, reverent, biblical image - Jesus himself holding the proper pose, the symbolic ideal. As an icon, he must be perfect. And yet the humanity of hands - their grasping, touching, curling - also communicates the humanity of Jesus himself, as a human avatar, as a God-made-man. That's his whole thing.

Hands are such a site of interaction. Holding hands is a sign of peace, understanding, love. And they're very hard to draw.

So then, it seems even more intimate to scan my hands than to scan my face, in a way. Here are the means by which I do most things. Here are my agile little fingers.

Here is a myriad of small bones. Aren't they a marvel?

Interesting iCarly Episodes

I just watched through the first season of iCarly. For the most part, it's a solid show that I think adequately captures the growing mass appeal of online media via some charming and goofy performances. I like that the responsible adult character is a twenty-five-year-old big kid, giving the show more of an anarchic feel. I like the extremely cartoonish and fake image of a livestream and/or web show it presents. It's fun to spend every episode asking, "who the hell is watching iCarly?"

But beyond its basic, serviceable plot and characters, there were a few episodes in particular that I found a little bit thornier, and its those I'd like to talk about here.

#1: iNevel & iRue the Day

In these episodes, we deal with a repulsive, villainous boy blogger named Nevel, who writes a nasty review of the iCarly webshow on his famous blog when Carly refuses to kiss him. This is a bold exploration of sexual assault and coercion, and it's pretty striking to see Nevel plainly try to use his power and influence to gain sexual favours.

It's also pretty iconic that they revisit it in a second episode, in which Nevel simply tries again to sabotage and ruin iCarly by, this time, hacking their website. There's no new slight he's had to suffer, no repeated refusal, he's just still mad about the first one. Relentless. There's something so great about that.

What I also find notable is that while the topic is very much taken seriously, they still manage to make Nevel's character funny. This is largely because of the actor's really wonderful, theatrical performance. So, strangely, Nevel the would-be abuser is a joy to watch. How unusual and special.

#2: iPromote Techfoots

This one is about sponsorship. A shoe company makes a deal with the iCarly children, and they begin promoting the shoes (Techfoots) on their shows. But oh no, those shoes are comically horrible to the point of being a genuine hazard, so now the iCarly team are stuck promoting shoes that spontaneously combust. They get out of this via some nonsensical legal wizardry whereby they describe the shoes sarcastically positively on their show, and all is well, but the lesson has been learned: advertising is evil.

It's a nice bit of silly satire that perfectly reflects the unbearable nature of sponsorships. It also tickles me that the kids are so excited to be able to get a few hundred dollars out of their show when it's clearly worth so much more.

#3: iCarly Saves TV 

This episode concerns itself with the awkward relationship between TV and online media. The boss at a TV network hears about iCarly from his daughter, who finds his programming excruciatingly dull, and grabs it up for broadcast. The iCarly kids are delighted, but soon discover that the boss insists on increasingly misguided changes to the content.

He brings in an ugly mascot character called 'Zeebo'. I love Zeebo. Terrible, hideous Zeebo.

Zeebo moment.

After a while, the changes irritate Carly so much that she leaves the show, and learns that the deal they made was very bad - the TV station owns the iCarly intellectual property or something. But this is solved quickly when the boss decides he doesn't want his show to be called iCarly anymore. They really couldn't think of a neat way to end the episode with iCarly re-instated and back to normal, and that in itself is sort of interesting.

Of course these sorts of issues need to be easily solved on the show to keep the episodic continuum intact, but it's fun that legality often has to break in order for that to happen. It's just like in Columbo, where Columbo doesn't have to actually find any evidence because the killer always confesses in a deranged, smug monologue at the end. 

***

These three episodes paint an interesting picture of iCarly's cultural criticism. Media figures here are always out to dupe these poor kids in some way. The wider world of success and influence is dangerous and ugly. And the legalities of the world are, of course, flexible and game-able so that the universe can remain as imaginative as possible, as reactive as we need.

Probably my favourite single image from iCarly so far.

So Carly escapes attempted sexual extortion cleanly, and ducks out of restrictive, punishing contracts with simple trickery. What a beautiful world. 

What Should Win Best Picture?

I have never before felt quite as on the pulse as I did when this year's Academy Awards nominees for best picture were announced. Oh, I thought. I've seen most of those movies. I have opinions on them, ranging from "yay!" to "eww". So clearly, it's my time to weigh in.

Here are the nominees: 

• Bugonia
• F1
• Frankenstein
• Hamnet
• Marty Supreme
• One Battle After Another
• The Secret Agent
• Sentimental Value 
• Sinners
• Train Dreams 

Since that announcement, I've seen them all. Please clap. 

 

There are some incredible gems in here, some utter filth, and a few that I feel more conflicted about. Most elicited pretty strong feelings in me, so without further ado, here are my VIEWS:

BUGONIA

This one is my favourite. Impeccable performances, beautiful visuals, insane plot, and a perfect combination of funny, upsetting, and truly shocking. This is the movie of all time, and I dearly hope it wins, because this is the best movie. 

I think what I want most of all from an Oscar winner is a certain level of complexity. Sure, the Academy is known for nominating crushingly simple period pieces with nothing much to offer beyond transparent and dull emotionality (and there is such a disaster on this list...), but listen, Bugonia represents the ultimate pleasures of filmmaking. Here we have confusing characters that unravel in interesting ways. Here we have a lofty plot. We are doing some ambitious things here. And Emma Stone is at the centre of it, being Emma Stone and being bald. Hello? Need I say more? She's literally bald. Give her an award. Give the movie best picture.

★★★★★

F1

Girl, why is this here? Why is a stinky video game style movie about masculine weirdo Brad Pitt doing the typical uninspired individualist bravado bullshit while competing in a team sport here in this list? What are we doing? This could be the worst of the lot, but luckily, somebody made Train Dreams. Get this thing outta here and trap Brad Pitt in a hole immediately. Thank you.

★☆☆☆☆

FRANKENSTEIN

I can, at the very least, appreciate the Tim Burton style nasty 2008 cartoon goth graphics in this thing - they are a choice, and I know one human steampunk Bugs Bunny is out there, somewhere, loving it. But as frequent readers of this blog will already know, I hated this movie. Guillermo del Toro warped this juicy, searing story of misery and self-actualisation and big strong blokes into a sort of idiotic Death Note fan-fiction with dull, weird characters and a Frankenstein who does roars. It's a bad cartoon with hideous CGI and an unappealing, slimy Dr. Frankenstein who looks like he's making 45 worrying Craigslist posts a day. I don't know why it's nominated. It's not best picture.

★☆☆☆☆

HAMNET

I wanted to like Hamnet. I thought a story about Shakespeare's dead, dying, super dead son was a cool idea and I was pumped up to find it very sad and sweet. Unfortunately, I found myself unable to connect with any of the threadbare characters, and despite some wonderful acting on the part of the Hamnet child, I was uninspired and bored at best watching this empty slog. Even Jessie Buckley, one of my favourite women, couldn't offer much here. It's a slap in the face to make a point of not naming William Shakespeare directly in the script in an attempt to centre and humanise and big up his wife (who didn't write Hamlet, sadly) only to make her a character bereft of personality beyond collecting flowers and being sad about her child dying. The book also suffers from this problem in some slightly better and some slightly worse ways. I didn't like either. Whatever.

★☆☆☆☆

MARTY SUPREME

Yeah man, I love Marty Supreme. Chalamet is perfectly cast as this wiry little freak bouncing off the walls, causing as much destruction as he can muster in relentless, unmasked pursuit of his base desires. I love how the movie makes this hateful little devil someone you cheer for. Yesssssss. Fuck it up, Marty. I hate you so much. Steal MORE. I wouldn't mind if this won, because it's just so adept at creating a world of pure chaos. It does, however, feel sort of similar to:

★★★★☆

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

Like Marty Supreme, this movie is crazed. The pace is exhilarating, the performances are freakish and often very funny (Sean Penn purse your lips even more), and some of the scenes here just sizzle. I love the weird, incredibly stupid white supremacist club stuff, Perfidia is amazing and I yearn for more of her, and my jaw was on the floor for most of the movie. It's just dazzling. This would be my second choice for the win. It's complex and insane and big, and while there are a few elements that let it down (I don't care about the daughter literally at all, and DiCaprio's character could be much improved), I love how inventive and wacky and scary it is. There's a distinct creepy atmosphere to it that feels so delicious. My eyes were glued to the screen. What a movie. I think this one will be the winner.

★★★★★

THE SECRET AGENT 

This and the next two movies in this list are ones I have mixed feelings about. The Secret Agent is lush and at times tense, but ultimately I felt the story was meandering. The whole thing leads to an interesting ending which utilises an odd framing device that removes us from the main narrative, and this seems like what the movie is most interested in: lost information and the uncovering of, or dismissal of, buried corruption. Great theme and all, but the execution just didn't work that well for me. While there are some good moments, and some very pretty shots, I didn't feel very connected to this secret agent.

★★★☆☆

SENTIMENTAL VALUE

This one is good, but I just wish it went a little further. The story is concerned with the nebulous relationship between artistry and auteurship and brilliance and family. We meet a troubled actress with an annoying, distant, revered director father. He's making a new movie. Elle Fanning is in it. Netflix is funding it, which I love, because the movie gets to complain about Netflix and Netflixification. Very good.

Ultimately, while it was very effective, I felt like the emotional exploration of these fraught relationships was lacking something. You might want to kick the dad in the head while watching, and that's the point, but still... the reverence and love the movie offers him seems a bit wrongfooted to me. A very interesting movie, but with some unsatisfying holes. 

★★★★☆

SINNERS

I expected something bigger with Sinners. I liked the first thirty minutes - the set-up, the interesting different characters, the dynamic of the community, etc -, and of course, I liked that special central music scene in the middle. It was like watching Coco (a very good movie touching on some of the same ideas!). But after the flimsy fantastical introduction of the vampires, the movie kind of bottomed out and seemed to have no idea what to do with itself. It felt like a Marvel movie where the Marvel characters are all trapped in a room for forty-five minutes, saying "oh no". They break into dull combat, we stay in ugly dark scenes for the rest of the film, and the allegories for racism, music, and ancestral connection which started out so promising tumble into nothingness. There was potential here, but it didn't stick the landing.

★★☆☆☆

TRAIN DREAMS 

Train Dreams sucks. It's so bad. A guy is sad. We see him being sad. We watch him be sad while walking amongst trees. But the thing about this is that we don't even do anything with it. He's just a sort of stony man doing masculine sadness for the whole movie. It's like watching a screensaver. I hate it. I despise Train Dreams. If this wins, I'll eat my own hands off.

★☆☆☆☆

***

Those are my tasty takes on each nominee. I'm hoping for Bugonia, but betting on One Battle After Another. Both excellent. But perhaps it will go to Sinners, a movie I thought was simply okay. We shall see. Place your bets now.

I Love Bugonia

Bugonia is crazy. I have been Bugoned. I am Bugone. I loved it.

The movie is about, as you may know, sly and self-assured businesswoman Emma Stone being kidnapped by some weirdos who think she's an alien with a big alien plan to destroy the world - necessarily in part via pharmaceuticals. I usually don't make use of big spoiler warnings in my posts (because I am evil and I want you to get spoiled), but for this film I think it's better to go in blind, so I will now graciously warn you: I will spoil it.

First though, I want to talk about the sheer magnitude of the performances. Stone is at her best, as an alternately confused yet calm, and then somewhat stern and sinister woman. Jesse Plemons gives the perfect jittery performance as Teddy - he's always great to watch, but here he's adding a sort of erratic jumpiness to his usual quiet guy character, and it's just so good. You really believe that there is something wrong with him, but it doesn't take away from the more explosive and righteous elements of his character. We also have cousin Don, a wonderfully layered autistic character played by Aiden Delbis, who was, interestly, found through an open call.

It's nice to see autistic actors playing autistic characters, and I'm going to go ahead and place Don right next to Dr. King from The Pitt in my list of My Big Favourite Autistic Characters. Now there are two. Life is looking up.

Don is a fascinating character in that he is, in many respects, the closest thing to an audience stand-in we get here. He goes along with his cousin's mad abduction plan, partly through pure familial love, and partly because, well, maybe what his cousin believes is really true. The very fact that he's autistic is a big part of what makes him such a great vector for audience reaction. He's confused and conflicted - so are we. He's direct and straightforward and vulnerable, and so we relate to him and feel for him, but he's also an interesting contrast with the relatively cool and clear abductee. Both of Emma Stone's abductors are nervous and ticking like little alarm clocks waiting to go off, but where Teddy remains committed to his plan, sure of his reality, Don struggles with who and what to believe. He is, in some respects, the only human left in this story. His still hesitation and completely transparent thought processes convey a sort of ideal humanity, in a way.

So the characters are eminently watchable, the set pieces and shots are gorgeous and tactile, and the central questions the movie throws up are compelling and unrelenting, never quite solved until the movie's final scenes. And man, those scenes are some of the best ever made. We rush through a very funny, bizarre hostage situation in which Emma Stone types a long string of numbers into her calculator in order to, apparently, contact her mothership, Teddy blows himself up with hidden homemade explosives (oops!), and then she scrambles to her teleporter and enters the gorgeous, vegetal structure that is her ethereal mothership. Oh my God... she's the emperor.

This is such a fun, immense reveal. Of course she was really an alien. Yeah. Obviously. She has a meeting with the other aliens, who have long hair and Labubu-esque fuzzy bodysuits, and they decide, sombrely, to kill all humans. Awww... noooo....

Slay.

 
Ms. Bugonia (this is the name I am giving her) pops the Earth's atmosphere with a frown, and bye-bye we all go. The movie gives us one final, considered moment of beauty here, as it shows us several lengthy, almost-still shots of just-dead humans in various environments. The human race is over, and it's this sad, beautiful, astonishing, funny moment.

RIP. 

Five bald women out of five.

★★★★★

Dexter's First Season is Odd

It happened unexpectedly. I saw Dexter's devilish face peering from the Netflix carousel, and I thought: yeah. Now's the time. Let's get into Dexter, I guess. And so, I watched the first season in something of a trance. Every day, first thing in the morning - perhaps a rousing episode of Dexter. Before bed, nice and cosy - perhaps a soothing episode of Dexter. 

There's our boy.

What I loved about it immediately was its bold, wry sense of humour. We open with a voiceover monologue from Dexter himself, and the presence of this voiceover steers the show, and sets up a beautiful solid line between the functioning world of Miami and its utterly repulsive police department, and our cutely childlike fully grown serial killer.

LaGuerta + Dex 4eva

We only hear his perspective through this narration, and so there's a wonderfully insular feel to it. We, the audience, are the only ones with ears pressed right up to Dexter's heart. And he is, as it turns out, one of few sympathetic individuals in an ecosystem of malignant freaks.

There's the corrupt, rancid crew of officers and forensics boys - ranging from Masuka, a man who can't resist making lurid, pervy comments on every chopped up female body he swabs, to Doakes, the stern muscle-man who always has one eyebrow raised, easily the best of them. Arguably most important, though, is Deb - Dexter's chirpy cop sister. I despise her.

Every line she delivers, every thought she has, even, has the distinct energy of a delighted, scheming twelve-year-old who is about to be massively brought down to Earth. She seems to do zero police work, instead relying on her brother to feed her spontaneous crime-solving clues. I hate to see her happy, honestly. She's like an amoeba.

Dexter himself has an unshakeable appeal. He's a little sweetie. Michael C. Hall plays him with this wonderful, wide-eyed quality. He's always vaguely startled, yet he is also always smizing impishly. This guy is up to something, but in a cute way. This is bolstered by his relationship with his timid girlfriend, Rita, who is by far one of my favourite characters. I just love their dynamic together as two people with very different interpersonal fears that ultimately manifest in very similar, often complimentary ways.

Rita is a victim of rape and battery, and I find the scenes that deal with her hesitance surrounding sex in relation to that very sweet and touching. Unfortunately, later in the season the show starts to irritate me by bringing in her evil husband Paul and sort of making him a normal guy character that has to be in the episodes just to piss me off. His ongoing presence and the flippancy with which the show begins to treat him and his abusive behaviour ultimately undermines some of the more thoughtful writing that comes earlier on. And that's a big clanger.

She's just so cute.

At first, the show appeared to have a sort of complicated and interesting relationship with its cast of characters. Here are the corrupt and magnificently peurile police force, failing at everything and generally being unbelievably stinky. And then here's Dexter, the secret killer with a heart of gold. They are at odds with each other, and yet they fit perfectly together. Dexter defiles, harms, and kills people in the name of justice (à la Light Yagami), and so do the police. But the more I watch, the more simple it seems.

We're not supposed to consider Deb a whiny incompetent when she acts put upon when her superior asks her to hurry up and bring a bottle of water to a thirsty child who had been trapped in a car for days. We're not supposed to judge her when she solicits a prostitute for a misogynistic amputee and sends her into his hospital room with a grin. We're not supposed to judge Doakes when he shoots first at a fleeing suspect, because that suspect did really bad stuff and so it's simply justified for a police officer to execute him.

Sad Doakes :-(

We're not, obviously, supposed to judge Dexter for killing nasty guys either, but the show reveals through its moral consideration of the other characters that he is less a subversion of the justice system, less a warped, acerbic continuation of it, even, and more of an expression of the average person's vibes-based approach to justice - just get the bad guys. Everything else is window dressing.

Yes, Dexter is a killer, but the point is that his inhuman urge to do murders, his inability to feel, gives him an almost heightened humanity. He cares about his victims' victims in direct contrast with almost every other character's ceaselessly narcissistic view of the world. It works so beautifully, until the show unravels into gratuitous, weird, and reprehensible behaviour by the others thats treated as if its on par with Dexter's Dextering. Enough. I can't buy that.

By the end of the season, the Ice Truck Killer feels idiotic. The reveal that he's Dexter darksided older brother is, yes, very funny, but it's also like - who is this dweeb? Why on Earth did Deb accept a marriage proposal from this wiry little freak? There is a flattening that happens here. Yes, this man can use his one contraption to drain people of their blood, but beyond that, he really isn't so smart and special. The end of his plan feels like playground stuff. Then again, that's what they're doing. Playing.

Kiss <3

In any case, some of the electric lustre wears off by the finale. The misogyny running in a thick current through the show is not there to be explored as much as it is there to titillate, no matter how good and kind and murderous a man Dexter is, and how interesting that dichotomy is. But Dexter is there, nevertheless. And he's pretty great.

A Walk in New York

The phone is indeed a sort of locked treasure box of gems left in a dark room to never be touched. Today I would like to present to you some of its secrets: photos I took in New York in January 2022. For some reason, at this time, I was really into taking these long vertical photos. I'm not sure why. They sure are long.

My favourite of these is this picture of some beautiful fruit art on the back of a van. Look at this cute fruit gang. I really like them.

I find the tall, urban sprawl of the city quite comforting, but also really well complemented by its pockets of art, whether municipal, or displayed neatly in an art gallery space, or indeed, as is often the case, some kind of wall or vehicle art. I love this chunk of the Berlin Wall near Battery Park:

Cute little guy.

I also found this beautiful drawing of a pony:

Very inspiring.

Around this time, I took a lot of waterfront walks, and I loved the view of the skyline and the river and the bridge so much. They knew this, and they put a heart on the pier just for me.

There are so many good shapes and signs and things in Manhattan.

And, naturally, they have the greatest pest of all time. The raccoon. Give the raccoons what they want, I say. Let them have at it. They deserve it.