Movies We've Seen Recently

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Castration Movie 2: The Best of Both Worlds is in pretty much every respect a better movie than its predecessor. Instead of two disparate stories of about equal length, this one is an entire uninterrupted five hour experience focusing on Circle, a woman who wants to leave a trans separatist cult located in a New York basement.

For a five hour film, there is literally one scene I think I would cut for being annoying and unnecessary, or at least rework it. This thing is tight. There is less annoying indie music that is faux-diegetic but really is just an excuse to do a little swingin' and-a dancin' for the viewer's dubious enjoyment (how very 40s Hollywood) compared to the first movie, and when it inevitably happens it feels more earned. This movie also has an incredibly important element the first does not possess: a metaphorical dimension. It is not too hard to work out the point of it all if you spend a day or two ruminating (and believe me I sure as hell have been thinking about this thing) but it's nonetheless a welcome layer, an honestly needed layer, because I must now tell you that the movie is, on its face, an absolutely disgusting, perverse exercise of never-ending psychological torture.

One should hope so, of course, given that the plot is centered around a cult, but every scene is more or less vomit-inducing, and there is no reprieve. The opening hits you really hard right out the gate. The climactic, 15 minute long, single take torture scene where Circle's incredibly arousing body gets to writhe inside a cage without hope of escape had my eyes stuck to the screen. The two ending scenes are, I think, the most disgusting shit I've ever seen put to film, precisely because they appear completely benign on the surface and even impart the illusory appearance of a happy ending to the whole story. It's just a lot.

These things are Louise Weard's, the director's, passion project, and of course I must admit I only found out about them because I noticed the poster on an IMDB sidebar, saw the absolute dogshit aesthetics of, well, the camera work, the composition and visual fidelity, it's all awful, and thought it would be interesting to watch a trash movie with a trash title and a trash runtime from a trans woman director, who, you know, well... Trans women's artistic output is kind of, on the average, trash, you know? I wanted to see some trash.

This thing has hurt me. It has a target audience, like I said about the first one you may not understand it, but if you do, I guarantee you will come to appreciate it as high art. I genuinely think it might've changed my soul in a non-trivial way, an E/N kind of way if you wanna act old Internet about it, and this is all I really need to award a piece of media the label of "art." I think you should go watch it I hope you do go do it I don't give a shit thanks and bye.

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Wildwood: stop what you're doing and go see Wildwood. Probably every minute for the entire 2h+ runtime I had to go "holy shit this is stop motion". It's up there with The Fall (2006) in the category of films to be grateful you get to live in a world where you can look at them. It's very effectively written too, I shed several tears and laughed a bunch. Also it's got literally everyone in it, and they all did a great job.

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Weapons (2025): Formalist piece of shit. Memorable but comes out to nothing. The cold open of IT is a 6 year old getting dismembered, in what way is this movie's thematic content supposed to compare to the suburban child abuse novel par excellence? Weak sauce, baby. Felt like a millennial therapy session about your mom burning the pizza.

PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021): The hypest shit I ever done seen in my life. I watched exactly the first 4 (±2) episodes of season one of this show and by the end of my week I was straight watching the first movie. This was the DLSS 5 upgrade to the 10 minute episodes in every single way; if you were a 4 year old with undiagnosed ADHD and PAW Patrol was, for you, what a budding sugar addiction was for me at that age, this movie would literally feel like the sucrose in your morning cereal got switched to cocaine without your knowledge.

It's everything a child fan should want, the pups do more of the absolutely same stuff they do in the show, which is act cute, bark and solve physics puzzle video game levels, there's more puppy melodrama, there's more, more, more. The toys and toy sets are presented in front of the audience with the perverse, high definition gaze of an adult car commercial, the commodity pornography only a capitalist venture would dare attempt and shill to children, and speaking of it, there's a lot of wonderful fan-service for liberal adult parents (who need reassurance from preschooler media) in there too, a healthy dose of woke capitalism. To quote a single example, Skye, the only girl PAW patrol pup, sees the ugliest boy pup, Rubble, in drag and then straight up looks at the camera and says "It doesn't matter if she's clockable, trans women are women!" I clapped so hard at that one, dude, this movie goes so hard. I fucking LOVE the fact that it's just an anti-Trump movie where the pups are the #resistance. That's right, PAW Patrol said BLM and Trans Rights. Bark Against the Machine, brother. 10/10 fr

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In a Glass Cage (1986): I came to this movie with a lot of expectations and not a lot of them were met. Honestly this is just vibes. Comfy-ass movie, idk. Shots are pretty awesomely composed, scenes are paced pretty well, sound design's great, uuuuh it's blue as hell? I don't mind the grading. I guess I was supposed to be paying attention to the obvious symbolism, though? I was too distracted thinking Angelo looked like Dante from DmC. My wife thought he looked like the scout from TF2. I guess we both expected a lot more graphic rapes and what have you. Nothing was really exciting about this movie. The best scene is in the first act where Angelo is the only thing that's causing Klaus to breathe. Like, you get it, it's as sweet as it gets, you've got your perfect visual metaphor about how a child would feel about his abuser. Escalate from here. But it does not happen, instead it's a steady climb along the exact trajectory you'd expect. Not notable, I guess, at least not as notable as the fact that Angelo's fit was kinda fly throughout the movie! Though, really, Griselda was really the one serving cunt with her outfits. But my favorite character in the whole thing was the balcony railing of the hacienda - I swear it receives more screen time than Klaus. Hey now, is this thing about pedophiles or railophiles??? Heyoo! Truth be told I wanted to come here and say "this is as good as Paw Patrol: The Movie" because it would have been funny to me in how flippant of a statement it would've been. Unfortunately, I kind of can't. Considering what each movie is trying to accomplish in its respective genre, it is with a sad heart I must pronounce that Paw Patrol: The Movie still reigns supreme.

Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011): This movie is a lot like In a Glass Cage! It's blue. It differs from In a Glass Cage in that it sucks shit. I guess there were no penguins in the former movie either, but... Less significant detail. I watched this thing twice and it still sucked shit. That's about it.

Mr. Magoo (1997): What fuckin' business does this flick have sitting at 9% on Rotten Tomatoes when the movie with the farting penguin is at motherfucking FIFTY?! It's funnier by an order of magnitude. I guess the former has appeal to sad sack piece of shit parents who feel guilty about not loving their children enough, but I'm here to tell you this one's actually for the kids instead of nominally-for-the-kids-but-really-for-their-parents-and-also-a-Jim-Carrey-vehicle. I've been watching the old George of the Jungle cartoons, and Underdog and Super Chicken and all the rest of 'em, and this film hits that slapstick sensibility so damn well. Idk if it's exactly like the Mr. Magoo cartoon? It feels more like a regular Leslie Nielsen comedy movie, but I abide nonetheless. In light of this masterpiece, it's downright embarrassing how Popper's Penguins motions to Chaplin classics - they're played on Popper's TV in several scenes. Fuck you, you didn't earn that. Go watch a Laurel and Hardy short one more time then get back to me.