Catsy

Only finished season 1 so far.
It's like if Euphoria and Gossip Girl combined into some ultra toxic world with unrealistic teenaged activities.
Every person except one in this series are drinking, doing drugs, have tattoos and have absentee parents lol.

Heartbreak High is a teen drama set in NSW circling around Amerie and her classmates and the horror that occurs between them when they return from school break and Harper and Amerie's Incest Map is discovered in an abandoned stairwell. Amerie takes the fall, becomes vilified by all her classmates and makes new friends in the queer weirdos Darren and Quinni.

I loved the character development of all the side characters, but the main characters are all so incredibly toxic and unlikeable. The lack of communication kills me. There's so much sex-based drama that it's quite offputting, no one is just genuinely nice except for Quinni.

There are so many awful moments of the characters just unable to be open about perspectives of other people - which really adds to the teen-ness of it - but I struggle to buy they're all in grade 12 with all the drinking, drug use, tattoos and whatever else. The music is really on-the-nose - about as subtle as a tank driving over you. But the acting is really great. I think my favourite characters are Quinni, Malakai and Cash.

However, I am particularly wounded by the relationship between Cash and Darren insofar that the show does that thing that every single queer teen series does where: the ace person is forced into a relationship OR their identity is not discussed like other queer identities. Darren even asks what the fuck is wrong with Cash that he doesn't want to have sex with him. It's honestly frustrating and maddening that shows do this to every ace character. That not one person can go, "hey I think you're still figuring yourself out but maybe you're ace?" or if we're not labelling it, maybe we can not ask what's wrong with someone? Kind of fucked up IMO. We celebrate queer identities, but only the ones that fuck, amirite?

I also really cringed and felt so awful seeing the dynamic between Sasha and Quinni. It was so many of the conversations I've had with people about autism and how much effort autistic people have to put in to meet the standards of communication that neurotypical people have. Her depiction was just so honest and real. (If you want more neurodiverse rep, try Atypical.)

The central drama between Harper and Amerie kept me going and I really love some of the side characters, but honestly, I'm a little disappointed in some of the topics. I think it's worth watching, it's got a lot going for it, but I think I'm watching it because I dislike so much of it.

Late Night with the Devil is a horror movie presented in the format of a 70s talk show - think in the same vein as Deadstream, or those webcam horror movies that popped off in the earlier 2010s.

This movie did receive a lot of flak for using AI art for the "Be right back" screen transitions - it would've cost them nothing to hire an artist especially since this movie had a real budget and not a shoestring. I still really enjoyed the film but think that was a terrible, stupid choice. The movie was shot in partnership with Australian cinema company VicScreen and a million others - the opening credits went on for like 10 minutes I swear.

Jack Delaney is a talk-show host who is trying to get good ratings for his show but he keeps falling behind other shows in the same era and ends up selling out and going down the Dr Phil / Eric Andre route where he starts doing steadily more unhinged things before finally, on Halloween, he sets up a spook-tacular episode featuring:
* Christou, a so-called spirit-communicator,
* Carmichael Haig, former illusionist and now-sceptic
* Dr June Ross-Mitchell, a parapsychologist
* And Dr June's subject, Lilly, a girl who was raised in a satanic cult around a demon named Abraxis

The pacing of this movie definitely, I felt, was a bit slow especially towards the middle and I felt like impatient for it to move on to the real meat of the story. I did like the story threads coming together, things popping up left and right with no way of it really being addressed. The spliced footage of backstage-tv production really helped to build the atmosphere and show how tense things were getting for the crew with this being their deciding show. I loved the practical effects and the final build-up in the climax was just intensely terrifying and fun to watch.

The musical snippets when returning to the show, pokey humour and very 70s vibe were fun but there wasn't much else to the show. The scenes where Jack cried were also pretty wooden. Still. Great film. Worth a watch.

I always love seeing Australian cinema out there. And movies about demons...spirits etc. They're something I'm especially keen on.

Talk to Me is about Mia, a girl grieving her mother's sudden death two years prior. She is introduced to this unbelievable game that her classmates play where they set a ceramic hand on the table, grasp it and say "talk to me", leading something out there to come to the other side.

This movie doesn't shy away from gore, and it's especially impactful as the characters are teenagers. The tension builds in each scene, almost explosively delivered in horrifying outcomes (especially given the sound mixing and how freaking loud it is). There's not really noticeable music in this film, just the regular bush doof pumping beats but nothing I really enjoyed and it still keeps its jump scares kind of obvious with the sound cues.

The story unravels with really great pacing but I found Mia's character development to be a little weak. I can justify it by seeing her as just a teenager out there, lost and alone. She's an outcast because her family changed, no one can relate to her and she's sad and a downer. She's still grieving her mother and the movie's core concept puts her back at the start of her grief journey. She's drawn in by having a connection to someone, by feeling like she's part of a group...which leads her to make poor choices. I did feel like we needed more growth to come through - she has a found family who love her and care for her but she still almost falls to the words of her spirit mum, she's not able to see what's really surrounding her...and that didn't make that much sense to me. It's obvious she cherishes Riley and Jade, and feels loved by them. so I needed more convincing to believe that the script choices were ones she would make.

I did wonder if her wearing yellow in every scene was just style choices or a symbol of her place in her grief journey and joy...but I'm not sure.

I did really enjoy the ending sequences of the film and how it tied back to its lore. It's a solid film and worth the watch.

I have a long list of movies to get through. This was on the list.

Rent-A-Pal is actually not terrible, but it requires some suspension of disbelief. In the 90s, David, a bachelor living in the basement of his parents' old home, has had to put his life on hold to take care of his mother, who has dementia. David is using a dating service through video tapes where one records a brief description of themselves and it gets distributed to people with similar interests. David has had no luck and on his latest trip to the video store, he finds a tape called Rent-A-Pal, a sort of interactive tape where Andy, the man in the video, prompts the watcher to respond in open spaces and then develop a friendship with them. But not all is right with the tape, as things seem to change in the video and Andy becomes more unhinged.

I did enjoy this film for what it was; a mostly single-setting sort of supernatural horror about loneliness, having to put everything aside to care for someone who needs it - while you know it's a noble thing to do and someone has to do it, simultaneously you also hate being unable to live. I thought the movie had really good pacing, things seem to change and happen in ways that are unnoticable to David but really obvious to the viewer, where David is so drawn in to having one single friend (through Andy) that he seems to ignore things that don't make sense - that's why I think it needs a little suspension of disbelief.

The movie was actually just really very long, and even though I said it was well-paced some things probably didn't need to be in it, like David falling asleep to one of his dad's old film reels, which is just a sex tape of his mum and dad? or I guess maybe a random woman on the road that his dad met? I didn't think David needed to be turned into a creep. He was just a lonely guy looking for love that happened to live in his mum's basement.

Worth a watch.

I knew I had to see this. I knew I would like it, but what I didn't know was how much I would like it. This movie is funny, yes, but it's beautiful and touching as it tells teh story of Evelyn Wang, an immigrant to America with her goofy husband, Waymond. They own a laundromat that is chaotic at best. With the IRS auditing them the same day as a party they've planned takes place, Evelyn is breaking at the seams under the pressure of keeping everything going. When she goes to the IRS building with her family to submit the receipts (minus her queer daughter, Joy, who stormed off after her mum refused to answer about inviting her girlfirend Becky to the party and also introduced her as a "good friend"), her husband suddenly tells her to follow some instructions he scribbles down on a piece of paper.

From there the movie just goes haywire as Evelyn learns the plot at the same pace we do. There are amazing visual effects, it's so much fun, exciting and moving at the same time. I cried so much. The thoughtful development of the relationships between the characters and what's at stake if they fail...

What it really comes down to is Joy's trauma from her mother has led her to seek out another version of her mother from another multiverse. However, she realises that everyone is the same. Every single version of her has suffered the same trauma and treatment and she just wants existence to end. Ultimately, I know personally, that trauma cannot be solved with just one conversation and we expect to be cool about it - that part of the story while unravelled across the entire film is solved relatively quickly when it comes down to it. I did like seeing the way that Evelyn endeavours to change her behaviour.

A great film that everyone should see. See it early, it's 2 hours long.