MAD GOD (2021)
Mad God is one of those movies where explaining anything about it would be a disservice. Trying to extrapolate the backstory, motivations, or circumstances driving the film forward is to cheapen the experience altogether; You really have to see it for yourself. Mad God places you in the voyeuristic position of watching a brutal world torn apart by endless directionless warfare, industry, cruelty, death, decay, and an interconnected web of life too complex to parse. The magnetism of the mixed-media practical effects in this movie are second to none, given life by director Phil Tippett over 30 years in the making. It's grotesque, visceral, awe-inspiring, and overall one of the most disturbing avant-garde/surrealist films I've seen since Tetsuo: The Iron Man. I could probably rewatch this movie over and over forever. My favorite characters are the nameless assassin, the nameless plague doctor, and the little fuzzy workers who keep getting (tragically, comically) obliterated.
RATING:💀💀💀💀💀
THE EXORCIST III (1990)
The Exorcist 3 (a direct sequel to the first; we don't speak of The Exorcist 2) is one of those oft overlooked films that's near and dear to my heart, despite discovering it only relatively recently. William Blatty was back in the director's seat after having written the first Exorcist and its follow-up, Legion (renamed to The Exorcist III for its film adaptation), and the concise adherence to its themes and its own internal logic make for such a tight script that NOTHING is left out. It deals in uncertainty of faith just like its predecessor, this time through the lens of a police procedural that takes a supernatural turn in the most hideous ways imaginable. The film's crucible is the question "if there is a loving god, why do bad things happen?" and its ponderance results in a narrative acted out BRILLIANTLY between George C. Scott, Ed Flanders, and Brad Dourif. I say brilliant and I MEAN brilliant. The chemistry between charicters is riveting—Father Dyer and Detective Kinderman's friendship is so believable through their banter and their honest concern for one another makes the film's events all the more gut-wrenching. Brad Dourif's monologues as the demon and the gemini killer especially deserve a shoutout—the intensity of his tone, his very PRESENCE ramps up this film to an 11 in every scene he's in. It's just.... Such a good fucking movie. It's also got one of the best executed jumpscares in cinema history.
RATING:💀💀💀💀🦴
ALIEN (1979)
Alien is a masterwork of pacing, artistry, acting, and overall one of my favorite movies ever. Its a scifi film that follows a team of space freighters who pick up on a mysterious s.o.s. signal in deep space and end up stumbling on an alien ship brought down by something that's still alive in the wreckage. Featuring fantastic special effects and set design by legendary surrealist artist H.R. Giger, the film touches on themes of bodily autonomy, capitalism and class division, exploitation, assault, fear, and loss of control. What I appreciate most about Alien is just how DENSE it is thematically and visually; individual set details like the warning symbols, control panels, computer interfaces, company protocols—they're all implied to mean something to these characters, and watching the film feels effectively like watching a group of competent people who are comfortable in their surroundings and their jobs beset by disaster that NOBODY could anticipate. What's more is the snowballing of disasters that unfold as the story progresses are as obvious as they are uncontrollable—it brings to mind the pacing of a greek tragedy, it's the antithesis of an Idiot Plot. I could probably go on and on about the set details and the artistic choices and the making of this movie (it's been a long-standing special interest of mine) but I think I've said enough.
RATING:💀💀💀💀💀
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)
Ok I know it's a cliche to have more than one heavy hitter in your favs but Silence of the Lambs is a legit comfort movie. Sue me. I have a complicated relationship with this film, (and Thomas Harris' work as a whole but that's another tangent) because on the one hand, Silence of the Lambs is a standout amongst 90s blockbusters which has a lot to say about the feminism, misogyny, and institutions of power; on the other hand, it's a blatant work of copaganda which glorifies the FBI and the fictional "science" of psychological profiling, and paints a picture of trans women and gender nonconforming people as something to be derided and disgusted by. All the while it leverages its pace on the insights of a serial cannibal with near supernatural intellect and a taste for luxury. Somehow, all of these seemingly disparate elements combine into the oscar-worthy film we know and love. Despite hating its very core and opposing almost everything it stands for, I still can't find it in myself to fault this movie. Its slow reveals, its twisting paths obscuring and revealing truths, its grounded and shocking character acting—it's truly one of the greatest movies ever made. My mom and I still watch it together all the time.
RATING: 💀💀💀💀🦴
AMADEUS (1984)
Another comfort film I gained a love of because of my mom! Amadeus is a dramatization of the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, told through the eyes of an aging and remorseful Salieri to a pastor after his suicide attempt. It's a film that frames itself beautifully in its opening scenes: a confession of guilt for Mozart's "assassination", a suicide attempt thwarted by in-home caretakers overlayed by Mozart's dramatic Symphony no.25 in G Minor "Allegro con brio", establishing shots that serve as a look into history, a display of pride that establishes the core of Salieri's character, and an essential question: ARE all men equal in god's eyes? It opens itself up as an exploration in the fallability of faith in the face of jealousy and artistic rivalry that consumes you from the inside. I've never really looked into how much of this film is historically accurate, but the sheer drama alone is captivating in a way few historical dramatizations ever manage to achieve. Its set in Vienna, Austria, and I could gush about its (slightly exaggerated) costuming and set design for AGES. Its historical dressing is uniquely pre-French Revolution, so that French/German Rococo style is accentuated HEAVILY in almost every shot; the sheer decadance of the outfits, the settings, the food, the background characters, UGH! It's a feast for the eyes. But then, the writing! The story! Salieri's regret shot through with bitterness and anger, his hard-hitting lines delivered by a carefully reserved F. Murray Abraham, and the phenomenally endearing character acting by Tom Hulce as Mozart is a fantastic counter to him in every way; Salieri's psychosexual obsession and one-upmanship really is second to none. I made a post a long time ago that about sums it up: "Drive your artistic rival to insanity because you love his work so much it makes you want to die. Blame god about it." The story's focus on Salieri's mediocrity (tangent: the man's music was groundbreaking and he's often considered one of the first influences behind the Romantic musical movement a la Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi, calling him or his work mediocre is a disservice to his legacy and its a hill I WILL die on) and his failure to reconcile that with his religion, and the heartache and pointless suffering that artists comparing themselves with one another leads to will forever strike a deep chord with me.
RATING: 💀💀💀💀💀
THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY (2001-2003)
I really don't even know what I could say about this trilogy that hasn't already been said, but I guess there's a reason Tolkien studies is an academic course. There are a million ways you can read this series, a million different angles and perspectives and metaphors and details to pick apart, but the reason it resonates so strongly even to this day is the HEART behind it. There's absolutely no room for insincerity in these movies; each line delivered, each glance, every touch feels like it's holding the weight of the world between characters. Despite each and every moment dripping with sincerity and grandeur and a great sense of importance, these movies never manage to feel cheesey. They take a flying leap and stick the landing like no movies have before or since. If you've never seen any of these films, do yourself a favor and take a few hours just to immerse yourself. You don't have to know anything about them, you don't have to read the books or research the characters; just chill out with the director's cut and admire the gorgeous craftsmanship behind each and every detail. These films are a love letter to everything that makes life worth living; the earth, good food, friendship, and a fuckass ton of swords.
RATING: 💀💀💀💀💀
RAVENOUS (1999)
Ravenous is a strange work of brilliance that I only (somewhat) recently got into; set around 1850, a war-traumatized & newly promoted captain of the US cavalry finds himself assigned to a distant fort in the western Sierra Nevadas, trying to come to grips with his inexplicable survival despite his abject cowardice, surrounded by a cast of memorable oddball characters. Without spoiling much, it's a horror film with an almost comedic tone that somehow manages to keep me riveted; its characters, its beautiful setting (I wish it could've ACTUALLY been filmed in the Sierra Nevadas, but alas...) and its poignant commentary on the nature of colonialization and consumption are some of the best I've ever seen. The score is also decidedly off-beat, but gives it a heart that would be sorely missed were it given the standard hollywood symphony treatment. It's the meditation on the all-consuming nature of manifest destiny shown through the lens/metaphor of cannibalism that draws me in more than anything else, but the way the story is so flexible and so passionately acted out really leaves the perfect amount of room for interpretation; IS the cannibalism really a metaphor for overconsumption and colonization? Or is it about self actualization and the healing that comes of surrounding yourself with people who GET you? Is it a metaphor for gay sex? Loneliness? Self doubt and idealism? The bastardization of indigenous mythology? Who knows! Fucking fantastic movie.
RATING: 💀💀💀💀🦴
BARBIE AS THE PRINCESS AND THE PAUPER (2004)
This one's a childhood favorite that I revisited a few years ago and fell in love with again. It's an adaption of Charles Dickens' classic "The Prince and the Pauper" which I still haven't read, but its influence clearly showed. For a straight-to-video kids movie, it's got a surprisingly mature plot, with royal family drama, kidnapping, impersonation, indentured servitude, and a cunty ass gay-coded villain played by Martin Short. The songs are top tier fantastic and I still regularly get them stuck in my head (Preminger's song? Erika's song to her cat? The love song between her and the king?? A GIRL LIKE YOU? Fuck man, this score goes hard). Its appeal for me these days is less "I wish I was a princess too" and more "kidz bop class conciousness and homoerotic lesbian undertones make this a perfect movie". I used to kind of hate the early CG rendering, but I look at it now as a charming style that actually had some pretty robust mocap technology characteristic of these early Barbie movies (not quite on the level of "Barbie in The Nutcracker" but still cool). There's also a fully animated blooper reel at the end that's really funny. We should bring those back. 10/10 comfort movie. I wish I still had my Erika barbie doll.
RATING: 💀💀💀💀
