Mandy Sucks Minute

we're not quite to what is probably the stupidest thing in this movie--and given the amount of stupid in this movie, that's saying something--so let us relish this poorly lit buildup in which physics is thrown out the window, andy has forgotten how an axe works, and i'd rather talk about hellraiser and minecraft than what is on the screen. #mandy minute 90

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it's interesting to edit these episodes a good while after recording them. in this one, it's like i'm ready to give up, never speak of this movie again because it just frustrates me to no end. but, i know now that i make it to the end, to minute 121 (and record more episodes than there are minutes), and live to tell the tale...

no, i don't want to tell that tale. nor should any of you speak of this movie, and certainly don't watch it.

#mandy minute 89

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and in the world, sometimes. imagine this: this movie i don't even like gets me ranting about movies to the point of anger, sadness, palpable emotion because i take it personally, i guess, when a movie is not what it should/could be.

or maybe i'm just an outrageous asshole.

#mandy minute 88

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for the record, i've never tried LSD. but i imagine that trying it would not be this fucking stupid.

and welcome to the episode where i assume panos cosmatos is a dick and i declare myself one, too.

it's fucking #mandy minute 87, and it sucks.

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and so do panos' and... whatever the fuck the other writer is called--their choices in writing this, directing this. and my choices in talking about it. and yours for listening.

what is wrong with you? is the world not fucked up enough that you have to listen to me complain about this pathetic excuse for filmmaking that far too many people think is amazing?

or is there perhaps some serious exploration of horrible writing choices and plot convenience in this episode that every indie filmmaker needs to hear? am i falling into madness, or rising up into brilliance? does it matter? do you care?

#mandymovie is still going to exist after i finish this podcast. morons are still going to love it... and some people who aren't morons. "normal" people. hell, intelligent people. useless fuckers who don't care when protagonists can suddenly smith nerd-fantasy axes, and have the time to do so when this is a fucking revenge movie...

where was i going with this?

who cares? it's #mandy minute 86.

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i don't need to complain about how vegas can break a man's neck like an 80s action hero. later he's gonna crush a guy's head with his bare hands so he's obviously superstrong--just one of many secrets he keeps, like his smithing cave, his mysterious black friend who stores his crossbow for him, and his fantastic wit.

poor editing makes it unclear exactly how he stabs otherface, so vegas has to snap his neck, 80s style. what else could he do? are they going to have a well-choreographed conflict where we can see what happens and it might actually matter what happens because either of these characters have actual names and motivations beyond simplistic revenge or drug-fueled murderousness (you decide which description fits which character as you please)?

no, it's going to remain poorly lit, poorly edited, and vegas is going to be a superhero on some alien planet by the end of the film because that makes perfect sense.

and we want all of our heroes to casually pick up shards of glass piled high with cocaine and breathe some in because that's normal, and useful, and entirely steeped in the deeply complex character history we've been given so far...

wait. no.

#mandy minute 85

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nevermind the poorly shot fight on the floor and on the pieces of the broken coffee table, let's throw the character we just saw die--right? i mean, who can tell these cenobikes apart anyway, when they wear black clothing and apparently don't like lights or daytime?

let's throw that presumed dead character, who was knocked into that pit that was... somewhere? maybe a garage. maybe a sauna. maybe a fucking boarded-up sunporch for all we can tell with your weak-ass lighting game.

dead character, never had a gun before now; suddenly not dead, enter scene by shooting television, but at least that boring porn ain't playing there anymore. #silverlining

and all this stupid for what? so andy can say something stupid about his shirt? his wife/sister/mother/roommate was just burned in front of him. maybe you're going for some sublimation crap but, come on, this is stupid. if he'd grunted like a hurt animal, it would have had more depth and meaning. just stop it.

#mandy minute 84

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not your normal, everyday problem, to be sure. but consider it like this: villain in S&M getup has a knife. how do we know this? we see it in his hand, we see him brandishing it as he approaches our stupid-shirted hero...

except, that isn't what happens here. instead, there's a knife... somewhere. we get a nice closeup of it. but where is it? is someone holding it? is it glued to a wall? the floor? is it even in this room where our coked-up, leatherclad, nameless and disposable antagonist is about to face our slack-jawed, dumb-shirted, personality-lacking protagonist? or was that just a cutaway to some random knife for flavor? did footage arrive at the editing bay with random labels and someone just had to guess what was going on, or not going on? we're two thirds of the way in; what is happening should be far clearer than this. #mandy minute 83

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we need context. you can't just have andy casually find two dead bodies, when there are no other characters in the film at all. maybe if you had introduced us to the nice old couple that lived down the way in an earlier scene--say, they were in line in front of susan at the convenience store where airquotes works--and they were lovely people and now we see them dead and we are horrified because, oh no, mr and mrs wilkes dies horrifically and they were great, and they made airquotes feel like an actual character who cared about other people beyond herself and about other things beyond dead starlings and stupid fantasy novels. give us some fucking context so it matters when things happen. we don't know whose house this is, we don't know who these people are, and as bored and pissed off as we should be this far into the movie, we shouldn't have to be bothered to try to care.

maybe cut a couple minute from the andy-walks-down-a-tunnel sequence, or half an hour off of fishmouth's naked soliloquy, cut a few blurry shots of characters walking, cut a few shots of vehicles driving in the dark, cut that inane red fog, and make some room for characters we care about, even the old folks who live down the way and get raped to death by a (not-so-)demonic biker. #mandy minute 82

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blurry shots and otherface walking back and forth--yeah, take your time with that. but, andy getting his hand un-nailed from the floor--you gotta rush the crap out of important stuff like that.

and make sure he says something stupid, too.

#mandy minute 81

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