Nick Berger's Blog

                 First thing’s first: Cal Meacham’s voice is insanely deep. It has to be all ADR, right? Because like…Jesus Christ.               Anyways, I hate to go full Undiagnosed-ADHD-Zoomer in this post, but I found This Island Earth kind of boring until the last half hour. I wanted to like this one, I really did, but I just couldn’t really get into it until they left Earth. I do love the film on an aesthetic level though. I’ve always been a sucker for clean retro sci-fi props and sets, and this movie delivers on that front. The interocitor’s design is great in its simplicity (although it’s kind of funny with hindsight that it’s essentially a big cell phone), and I appreciate how it explains how the gravity in their spaceship works. The Metaluna set has some really cool architecture and its limitations (by today’s standards) are charming. I really l...

                      Forbidden Planet is a really interesting movie. It’s a clear progenitor of many aesthetic elements that would permeate throughout sci-fi movies. Sometimes historically significant movies like this can be a bit of a slog to watch; they can come off as predictable and tropey because so many of its elements have been done to death. However, I didn’t find that to be an issue with Forbidden Planet . Aside from the sexist elements, the familiar elements are charming and somewhat comforting. Granted, that could be personal bias since I grew up more of a sci-fi fan than a horror or fantasy fan (although I’ve fallen hard for horror and its many sub-genres). Something that this film does that I love is combining sci-fi elements with psychological elements. It’s kind of a psychological horror set in space and has more in common with films like Ex Machina than Star Wars . The way it incorporates Freudian elemen...

             I have a confession to make: I’ve seen this movie once before. I saw it once when I was very young, but I had no idea what was going on in the movie. Since then I'd seen many a review and analysis since, and still barely understood what happened in the movie. So, now I’ve seen Lady in the Water in over a decade and I’m still not quite sure what I saw. I think I just witnessed M. Night Shyamalan have a mental breakdown in movie form? This is genuinely one of the most fascinating movies I’ve ever seen in my life. I feel so bad for his daughters who he wrote this as a bedtime story for. Imagine being a little girl and hearing this insane story read to you before bed.              Almost nothing works how I assume Shyamalan intended it to and it results in a nightmare that I just can’t look away from. It's amazing how nothing and everything is happening at the same time. I think Shya...

  I’ve waited far too long to read Terry Pratchett. I’d meant to for a while, but there’s a lot of stuff I’ve been meaning to read, or watch, or play, or listen to. I guess I’d just been intimidated; I knew Pratchett’s Discworld series was legendary and big, so I just didn’t quite know where to start. I don’t know if Troll Bridge is part of that universe, but nonetheless it was a great taste of Pratchett’s work. In just seven pages, Pratchett was able to pack loads of charm and humor alongside a tinge of melancholy. The feeling of yearning for how things used to be is palpable in this story, and not just because it’s explicitly stated by the characters. It’s the way they talk about how things are that remind me of my own feelings of nostalgia for a time long gone. But really, it’s just how we perceive things, isn’t it? Cohen and Mica long for the world they went to war for, a feeling that real veterans express when they see the world today (both the left-leaning ...

  Stardust is a film that deconstructs superficiality and people’s obsession with their image or status. All of the characters who go after Yvaine want to use her to change something surface level about themselves: Tristan wants to win the affection of a girl who doesn’t truly love him back, Septimus wants to be an immortal king, and Lamia wants to look young again. Septimus and Lamia obsess over their status/appearance and don’t get their wishes granted. Tristan, however, learns that he shouldn’t obsess over a shallow woman who doesn’t love her back after meeting Captain Shakespeare, a man who, although also preoccupied with his appearance, still lets himself be, well, himself, even if it’s behind closed doors. Shakespeare never compromises his morals for his appearance. He later realizes he doesn’t need to keep up his manly charade to have the respect of his crew; they always knew he was a feminine flamboyant man (in other words: very gay coded) and they’ve st...

Points from reading: 61 Points from movies: 12 Points from attendance: 6 (1 class missed) Total points: 79

     Pan’s Labyrinth is Guillermo Del Toro’s masterpiece. Even though he made films after, it feels like the culmination of all his growth as an artist and thematic intentions up to that point. It’s a perfect modern fairy tale, integrating classic tropes with modern ideas. This mix of old and new is perfectly showcased by the standout creature of the film: The Pale Man.                  God what a great creature design. Aside from just being creepy, it communicates so much in its design. The Pale Man is supposed to be a gluttonous creature that represents the evils of the men in charge. The fact that his eyes are on his hands shows how materialistic these men are; they only see what’s right in front of them, not caring about the abstract, unless that abstract is power. He has bony and almost useless legs because he’s not used to having to move so much. He usually just gets to eat the child right then and there at the ta...

  The City of Lost Children shows us a nightmarish reflection of our own world. Nightmarish is a very appropriate term considering how important dreams are in the film.  One of the central characters of the film is a man who steals dreams from children to slow down his aging. I see this as a reflection of how society breaks us down at an early age, making us abandon our dreams to keep the system from falling apart. This is a system, of course, that only benefits those in power. How many of us wanted to be astronauts, or something fantastic like that, but gave up on that dream because of school, or work, or money? That’s what this film makes literal. Children are forced to bring money to their teacher if they don’t want to be punished. It’s an exaggeration of how regular children aren’t allowed to enjoy their childhoods because of capitalism and similar systems. I hate how relevant that feels during this pandemic.  

       The most striking thing to me about My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is the language. Amos Tutuola writes these strangely structured sentences that took me a while to get used to. There were points where I had to go back and reread sentences to get what was being said. I resisted the temptation to just say that it was poorly written and asked myself why he chose to write in this way. There was very clearly a method to the madness; many sentences were structured in a similar way. A common thing Tutuola did was start a sentence with "but" and then continue the sentence in a way that didn't require it to start with but. This is hard for me to describe, so I'll provide an example here: " But when they came and met them how they were pulling me about in the room with much argument then they told them to leave me and they left me at once." If a western writer were to write this sentence, it'd be more along the lines of, "When they came and saw how th...

              I’ve always found it hard to get into works derivative of Tolkien. This goes for movies, books, comics, video games, etc. High fantasy stories need to work hard for me to get invested, and a lot of the time they fall flat for me because of bland characters and stilted dialogue. However, the granddaddy of all that, The Hobbit , doesn’t fall victim to any of that. Let me start off by saying that I love Bilbo Baggins. I love that little man so much. The poor guy just wants to vibe in his hole and have two breakfasts. Then along comes Gandalf, who I also love to bits, and just forces him into an adventure. I love the contrast between Gandalf and Bilbo; Bilbo is just a normal, chill guy, and Gandalf is this grumpy obtuse weirdo that just does whatever he wants. They clash, and yet, they get along really well. Anytime they interact it’s gold, and the dwarves, although a little one-dimensional for the m...

          Kiki's Delivery Service is a story about burnout and identity. Kiki losing her witch abilities is likened to artistic burnout. It can feel like a part of you has gone away for no reason, which can hurt a lot when you hinge so much of your identity on being an artist (or being a witch). The mistake a lot of artists make when experiencing burnout is that they double down on being the suffering artist instead of doing what they actually need to do: take a break. It makes sense that Ursula recognizes this, being an artist herself, and takes appropriate actions to help Kiki. In the end, Ursula is completely right. Kiki's Delivery Service is one of the most optimistic and realistic portrayals of being an artist because it condemns the idea of the starving artist. I wish more art teachers were like Ursula. I'm just going to leave it at that before I start ranting.            It feels weird writing about such a wholes...

            When Midsommar was first released, I remember many people saying that it was a movie about a woman getting out of a toxic relationship and finding a supportive community. That reading tends to ignore that the film features cultists murdering people and their racist undertones. The truth is, Midsommar is a film about a woman getting out of a toxic relationship and being integrated into a community that wants her to think they’re supportive. It explores how society can put women in a situation where they’d rather join a literal cult than break up with their shitty boyfriend. I’m far from the first person to come up with this reading (I’ll link a good video that discusses this), but I still feel that the major consensus revolves around the first take.   I guess that part of why this take is so popular is that the film doesn’t try to convince you that Dani’s boyfriend is a bit of a jerk. Ari Aster (the director) r...