Glorious (2022)
Aug. 31st, 2022 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wembleyI enjoyed Glorious (2022), the movie about a heartbroken man getting trapped in a grody rest-stop bathroom with a Lovecraftian gloryhole. It won't change your life, but I liked seeing Ryan Kwanten again (enjoyed him as Jason back in True Blood) and J.K. Simmons sounded like he was having a lot of fun as the voice of the titular gloryhole/Elder God.
spoilers: My one mild criticism is that it felt like Simmons clearly recorded his portion elsewhere and I felt this maybe hurt his and Kwanten's chemistry a little, since this movie is basically a two-hander where you only see one of the "hands", lol? But only minorly. I liked Simmons "more in sorrow than in anger" portrayal of this bizarre rest-stop god.
Overall, I thought it was an appealingly weird, funny, clever way to do a COVID-safe production and I was entertained. I'm a little jealous I didn't come up with it, tbh.
There were some criticisms I saw at various online haunts of mine that I disagreed with, and just the act of pushing back against these is gonna make this movie sound more of a big deal than it is, both to me and in general, but oh, well:
- I saw a few comments of disappointment that the elder god didn't fuck Ryan Kwanten. (1) Not to be super OLA but a gloryhole... just implies... blowjobs? Right? I realize "Lovecraftian elder god" implies tentacles, but... still? (2) Let's say "fuck" just means "any sex including BJs". Idk, like, on the one hand, I also wanted Ryan Kwanten to have to stick his dick in the gloryhole and get blown by an Elder God, but-- well, first I saw a comment (unless I'm misremembering this) that the two dude directors were cowards for not having RK get his dick sucked/get fucked... but the director is one woman, not two dudes, so maybe I'm remembering wrong or maybe they mixed up the woman director with the three male writers, one of whom is the director's husband? Anyway, my point is, I can see how, post-#MeToo, a creative team might not want to have their main character dub-con-beejed for the lols, even if that would tickle my Id in a fanfic/Kindle erotica context. Like, fanfic porn for a comparatively small audience is different than a movie that gets shown on Shudder. I feel like the treatment of consent has to be a little less iddy/porny there if the creative product isn't actually porn? Basically, I can't get mad that this horror-comedy movie wasn't dirtybadwrong fanfic exchange porn.
That said, I mean, if you wanna write and direct an indie movie that is the cinematic equivalent of dirtybadwrong fanfic porn, and especially if you create purposefully misleading marketing so that cishet dudebro horror fans financially back it, only for the final product to completely alienate them and instead cater intensely to the ids of horny AO3-reading women in and out of horror fandom, I will definitely back that Kickstarter with my meager earnings.
- Is the twist man-pain-y and a little tiresome? Yes. But the dude gets his comeuppance so I was basically fine with it. Also, those eyeball tentacles from early in the movie were dope.
- Elsewhere, I saw a few comments that were like, "I guess pink and purple are the Lovecraftian colors now, yawn." Guys, take it up with From Beyond from way back in 1986? It's fair to want something new but idk, I like those colors, I'm good with it.
I have now spent way, way, way too long Reply Guy-ing about 3-5 random comments on the internet that I disagreed with. Why am I like this. How do I have friends.
spoilers: My one mild criticism is that it felt like Simmons clearly recorded his portion elsewhere and I felt this maybe hurt his and Kwanten's chemistry a little, since this movie is basically a two-hander where you only see one of the "hands", lol? But only minorly. I liked Simmons "more in sorrow than in anger" portrayal of this bizarre rest-stop god.
Overall, I thought it was an appealingly weird, funny, clever way to do a COVID-safe production and I was entertained. I'm a little jealous I didn't come up with it, tbh.
There were some criticisms I saw at various online haunts of mine that I disagreed with, and just the act of pushing back against these is gonna make this movie sound more of a big deal than it is, both to me and in general, but oh, well:
- I saw a few comments of disappointment that the elder god didn't fuck Ryan Kwanten. (1) Not to be super OLA but a gloryhole... just implies... blowjobs? Right? I realize "Lovecraftian elder god" implies tentacles, but... still? (2) Let's say "fuck" just means "any sex including BJs". Idk, like, on the one hand, I also wanted Ryan Kwanten to have to stick his dick in the gloryhole and get blown by an Elder God, but-- well, first I saw a comment (unless I'm misremembering this) that the two dude directors were cowards for not having RK get his dick sucked/get fucked... but the director is one woman, not two dudes, so maybe I'm remembering wrong or maybe they mixed up the woman director with the three male writers, one of whom is the director's husband? Anyway, my point is, I can see how, post-#MeToo, a creative team might not want to have their main character dub-con-beejed for the lols, even if that would tickle my Id in a fanfic/Kindle erotica context. Like, fanfic porn for a comparatively small audience is different than a movie that gets shown on Shudder. I feel like the treatment of consent has to be a little less iddy/porny there if the creative product isn't actually porn? Basically, I can't get mad that this horror-comedy movie wasn't dirtybadwrong fanfic exchange porn.
That said, I mean, if you wanna write and direct an indie movie that is the cinematic equivalent of dirtybadwrong fanfic porn, and especially if you create purposefully misleading marketing so that cishet dudebro horror fans financially back it, only for the final product to completely alienate them and instead cater intensely to the ids of horny AO3-reading women in and out of horror fandom, I will definitely back that Kickstarter with my meager earnings.
- Is the twist man-pain-y and a little tiresome? Yes. But the dude gets his comeuppance so I was basically fine with it. Also, those eyeball tentacles from early in the movie were dope.
- Elsewhere, I saw a few comments that were like, "I guess pink and purple are the Lovecraftian colors now, yawn." Guys, take it up with From Beyond from way back in 1986? It's fair to want something new but idk, I like those colors, I'm good with it.
I have now spent way, way, way too long Reply Guy-ing about 3-5 random comments on the internet that I disagreed with. Why am I like this. How do I have friends.
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Date: 2022-09-02 08:28 pm (UTC)Hereditary was so good. So disturbing. Idk if I could watch it a second time. Host was a lot of fun! I have a real weakness for found footage, I really enjoy that subgenre. I like the Grave Encounters movies a lot, even if they're a bit cheesy.