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I'd like to thank Apple Support operators George and Jessica for being so rad and helping me get back that iTunes credit on the failed I am Not a Serial Killer rental downloads. Apple may be a big faceless corporation of evil. And maybe there was going to be a "but" at the end there?
So yeah it turns out that that's a thing that sometimes happens, it just fails to go through for some reason, and nobody knows why and if they did they'd have fixed it already. At DQ we called that kind of thing a "known issue," which means that we know about it. And maybe there was going to be a "but" at the end there as well...
I'd also like to thank PayPal for fortuitously offering up to 75% off on movie rentals through Google Play, right when I needed some movie rental. It's almost as though companies monitor our correspondence and browsing history or something! (No "buts" there!)
75% off put a movie rental of I am Not a Serial Killer right conveniently in my price range, where it hadn't been before (except on iTunes where I already had credit, as has been explained.) I downloaded it on Saturday, watched it today, waiting until after dark of course because hello, scary movie (though thriller genre instead of horror of course.) And...
dang.
It's been a terrific year for movies, like, dang wow great year for flicks, and, dang wow, this is one of the best. I think maybe even, the single best film of the year, so far.* Am I being hyperbolic to generate buzz for the film? Probably. I don't know; it's all highly subjective of course. But there's just so much in it that I love.
The terrifying psychological uncertainty of 10 Cloverfield Lane, the understated humor of Love and Friendship, the powerhouse performances of, I guess 10 Cloverfield Lane again. (I guess I never told you that I went to go see those movies. They're great.) I'm trying to figure out how to fit Kung Fu Panda 3 or Hail Caesar or any of the superhero flicks of this year into that, though other movies not from this year do spring to mind when trying to get across the comparative emotional impact of these elements: the climax was as heart-stopping as Interstellar's, for one. Like, dang.
I've read the book, several times, and I know what happens, but I guess that here it was just different enough to keep me guessing. The book's climax is bang-bang-bang all at the same time; the film spreads out the events a little more, gives the 'tagonists time to crawl under each others' skins. Which is, so great.
The film itself isn't as scary and intense as the trailer made it seem.** I mean, it is intense (see Interstellar comparison above,) but I mean, this is pretty solidly PG-13 stuff, though only being minimally distributed so far the film hasn't (yet?) been reviewed by the MPAA. All the gore is corpse, somewhere between the bodies in Bones and the autopsy scenes of CSI or NCIS. All the black sludge is black sludge; I'm pretty sure you can get away with that in lower-rated films. The swears are well done; the nudity is all old people, with the ickier bits offscreen of course. (Seriously, Christopher Lloyd takes a bath in the film. It's so great.)
Christopher Lloyd is magnificent. Max Records balances chillingness with humanity perfectly. The film is actually kind of hilarious, without having a single "joke" in it, if you know what I mean. Like, John Cleaver, standing outside of (sort-of love-interest) Brooke's house and stalking her up through the windows? It's hilarious how creepy that is. How he doesn't even realize it. How he doesn't even realize that Brooke is clearly into him. Words can't do it justice, obviously, 'cause seriously, none of that sounds very funny but it is. Hilarious.
So yeah. Best part of all this? Google Play rentals are for 48 hours after starting the film, instead of just 24. I get to watch it again. In the dark. Tomorrow night. Oh yeah.
...Moises Arias was in Ben-Hur? dang now I've got to go see it...
*Zootopia changed my life, and a whole lot of other folks' lives too, so that's a different table entirely. It goes without saying that we're exempting that when we talk about the cinema of 2016.
**Speaking of how intense the trailer is though! How it sounds like the the newscaster is talking about the killer leaving a dead body and a terrified town in his wake, and it sounds like he says "leaving a dead body and a terrified town in his waste" which doesn't make any sense, is because John's mom says "stupid" right as the newscaster's finishing his sentence, as in, the violence and terror is stupid and pointless. The "st" sound in what sounds like the word "waste" is actually delivered by Laura Fraser!
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