What I Was Digging 9/2/24
I spent three hours figuring out how to trim a single two-minute clip in Davinci Resolve. Renaissance Man? Yes, I am.
Music
The Smile - "Zero Sum" [track - from the upcoming album Cutouts]
Love some of the distinct guitar tones and riffs The Smile have developed, rapid and angular. Apparently, the group has some beef with Windows 95.
Film
Moon Garden (2022)
Directed by: Ryan Stevens Harris
Cinematography by: Wolfgang Meyer
Country: United States
Five-year-old Emma lives a loved childhood full of compassion and wonder, but her parents are trapped in an ugly, toxic marriage - with Emma trapped in the middle. After falling comatose in an accident, the young girl must navigate her way through a frightening and extraordinary internal dreamscape full of monsters and sad companions to find her way back.
Thoughts:
Moon Garden often has the look of a third-rate music video and the design of an upper-mid-tier haunted house, but the filmmakers made the most of their (I assume) modest budget, and this dark fantasy film brims with passion. The tone of the film also struggles at times, winding between cheap made-for-TV horror, Del Toro-esque children's odyssey, disturbingly intense psychodrama, and mawkish melodrama. Though I'm not impressed by the filmmaking on a formal level, I admire the amount of creative thought that went into Moon Garden, and the animated sequence involving disembodied heads narrating the downfall of a lonely princess especially stands out. However, regardless of artistry, the movie flat out would not work without Haven Lee Harris's outstanding performance as the young protagonist. She brings a weight and magic to the film that far succeeds her tiny stature, perfectly displaying the inner world that a kid of her age is still a part of. A world of imagination, uncluttered by adult anxieties and nonsense, where emotion drives logic and all that matters is wonder and curiosity and fear - all waiting to be submerged in, all waiting to be conquered. It didn't blow me away, but Moon Garden is a solid pick if you want an offbeat and imaginative, quasi-family-friendly, non-violent horror movie that wears its heart on its sleeve.
Shows I'm Watching
Survivor: Micronesia (Fans vs. Favorites) [Season 16]
-Episode: 10
What's going on: One of the biggest dingbat moves ever pulled is pulled, and it still somehow works out in unexpected ways because the assassins are out with more than crossed fingers behind their backs.
Recommended Article
"Notebook Primer | Bombay Noir" [via Mubi]
Written by: Soham Gadre
Rad Passage: "The distinct silhouettes, tracking shots, and stark lighting, using shadows as impressionistic elements in the frame, are all direct quotations from the West. [Guru Dutt] often frames his characters through taxi windshields and blocks their movements around the architecture of beams, bookshelves, and staircases, creating a distinct visual template that defined the genre, and one that he would continue to use in his films outside the noir genre, like Pyaasa (Thirsty, 1957) and Kaagaz Ke Phool (Paper flowers, 1959). The taxi in particular becomes a prominent player in Bombay Noir, a venue for revealing secrets, creating conspiracies, brooding over life-changing decisions, and professing love."
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