I finally saw Pearl, and wow, Mia Goth was amazing. The movie itself was really solid in and of itself, but it clearly knew what it had going for it as the centerpiece and she elevated the whole affair. That confession at the end was the best monologue I’ve seen in quite awhile. I guess I need to see ‘X’ and Infinity Pool as well.
Re: Lorraine not getting nekkid, I’m guessing Jenna Ortega probably didn’t want to. Which is fair, but then having that particular plot point feels kind of weird as a choice.
I dunno. I didn’t hate it, it’s well shot for the most part and I like the actors and the way the characters who are engaging in the porn are pretty casual about sex and nudity, and I’m hardly going to complain about seeing either of the principle ladies naked. And having a geriatric female slasher whose primary motivation is that she badly wants to get laid is certainly a novel one for me. But also it never really felt like it had a clear idea of what it was going for and I also don’t understand some of the things it does (e.g. the preacher reveal).
So I can’t say I would recommend it either. Infinity Pool, though…
Holy shit Pearl was amazing.
Mia Goth was incredible, just so beautifully shot as well.
Oh man, I think it’s a brilliant movie.
There were a couple of things that didn’t work for me. It does a lot of isolated little comedy bits, and I thought that was a shame. It was pretty horrific, and I really wanted it to stick with that.
The shot with the nail in the barn I thought was pure art. It’s really cruel to the viewer, I was cringing way before he stepped on it.
The pitchfork kill immediately after it did feel really weak, but I saw that as a deliberate callback to early 80’s horror where a lot of the kills would be pretty lame stuff like that.
I love that it took so long to go south, the characters actually had time to endear themselves to me. I wish more horror movies would actually give a damn about that.
A huge part of the horror for me was the fact that I really didn’t want anything bad to happen to those people. They were not intolerable horror victims, they were good people enjoying life on their own terms, and I got the sense that they were survivors who had escaped something worse, whether it was the horror of Vietnam, a life of increasingly unfulfilling monogamy, or a home full of emotionally abusive, religious lunatics.
I think the porn angle is ultimately about freedom. Old age is a prison, these people are free. It’s another reason for the killers to hate them.
I’m glad “My Body Is A Cage” wasn’t part of the soundtrack, “Don’t Fear the Reaper” was plenty on the nose.
It’s very questionable that it wants to get all artsy about age. It’s way too high concept. It was never gonna be a movie about porn, but it’s also not gonna be the movie to say anything clever about youth or the loss of it.
I would’ve liked it a lot better if the killers hadn’t been fleshed out. They become a comedy duo by the end, and we have to know all these things about their relationship, and I don’t see why. They’re gross, they’re depraved and sexually frustrated, they murder people. That’s all they need to be.
It probably sounds like I’m trying to convince myself not to like it, but I loved it.
My thought watching the standoff on the bridge was “Oh god, please tell me the alligator isn’t part of the team” - but of course, it totally was.
Which is goofy. And it’s goofier because of the “Bitch!” quip which is funny, and thus a really awkward tonal shift.
BUT… I thought the kill was horrific, and that kinda saved the scene for me. He didn’t half-ass it, he made it terrible.
It would’ve been a lot better without the quip, but I was okay with it.
So I did a X/Pearl double feature last night. I liked X (a cut above your average slasher, even if it felt very tame considering the subject matter), but goddamn, I really loved Pearl, and loved-loved Mia Goth in it. She’s so good!
Right? Even a dyed-in-the-wool X-hater like me – ugh, I hated X – is won over by Pearl. Just let Mia Goth loose to do her thing and you’re good to go!
Oh yeah. I watched X and thought “Idk why people are freaking out about Mia Goth. She’s good, and I like her face*, but…”
They definitely made the right choices in Pearl (including the visual whiplash after X, I thought I put on Sound of Music or sth by mistake!). Kinda excited for the third in the series, Maxxxine? Although I’m not sure that character is as fun to watch as Pearl. Depends on what they do with her, I guess. Given the setting, they better up the sleaze by a couple of levels, goddamnit
- I like unique, interesting faces that are not just - and I mean no offense - the cookie cutter norm-beauty that dominates the industry
(e: the bullet point should just be an asterisk)
It wasn’t until after the film that I realized Mia Goth was playing both roles.
Same here. Compare that to the Starry Eyes lead in Midnight Mass (I don’t remember her name). Phew.
Heh, I know exactly who you’re talking about even though I’ve never seen Midnight Mass! I definitely remember her from Starry Eyes and I think I might have even seen her before then? Her name is Alex Essoe and she’s quite the scream queen. I just saw her in Pope’s Exorcist:
I was really excited when she was cast as Wendy Torrance in the Dr. Sleep movie because she’s a dead ringer for Shelley Duvall! Sadly, she’s quite the dud as an actress.
Pope’s Exorcist - is that the Russell Crowe one? Ha-ha, you watched that!
I still kind of want to like Alex Essoe, for some reason. I compared Midnight Mass to Goth in X because in that show, she plays an elderly version of herself, and man oh man, that’s some b-movie tier acting
I also loved Pearl, but I’m frustrated having watched both, because I feel like it avoided making some of the mistakes that bothered me about X. Pearl toys with comedy, but it never crosses the line the way X did, and there are things in X that bothered me that were ultimately about setting up Pearl.
Like the outsized roles of the killers. When I watched X I had no idea why Ti West would focus on them so much, let alone turn them into a comedy duo. It only makes sense once you see Pearl, but that’s still to the detriment of X.
I also didn’t enjoy the “Lili Marleen” bit from the first movie, it felt like overkill, but when I first saw it, I figured it was there to emphasize that there is something badly wrong with this woman, beyond anything like dementia or sexual frustration.
She had just decapitated a filmmaker with what Tom refers to as a butterknife, so it seemed like a completely redundant point to make, but obviously it makes a lot more sense now. That’s Pearl taking a moment to feel herself. But I also don’t think that helps X at all.
MaXXXine stars Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Giancarlo Esposito, Kevin Bacon, Michelle Monaghan, Halsey, and Lily Collins. The film currently has no release date, but is expected to arrive in 2024.
!!!
Man, X knocked me off the Ti West bandwagon, but then Pearl got me back on it, and now I’m super psyched to see if Halsey can act.
Yeah, great cast!
I recently watched Ang Lee’s Ride With the Devil in which another singer/songwriter with just one name did some acting. It turns out that is quite an underrated movie and Jewel was pretty great in it.
I just googled her and learned she’s dating Kevin Costner.
BOT, I am way overdue to watch Pearl.
Got me excited thinking that was a new trailer…
Finally!
Looks really cool. Going full De Palma.
Ti West clearly got enough buzz and rep off of X and Pearl to get a lot of names in this one.
One of the things that irked me about the first movie was how tame it was while following around a porno crew.
So I’m giving the movie a bit of a side eye with regards to its purported sleaze