Written: Saturday. August 21, 2021.
I honestly thought that I wouldn't have to write anything today, cause today was supposedly a Sunday (in my head). But apparently I lost track of time and found myself on another Saturday. It's weird what sickness can do to your perception of reality.
I woke up at around 11:45 am. So you already know what this journal entry's gonna be like again. I didn't do shit. I just watched a movie, and that's it. I only ate breakfast and lunch, and drank water as my dinner for tonight. I hate that I dislike not being called down to eat dinner. I slept through the afternoon, and when I woke up I decided I'd watch a bunch of YouTube Shorts...and kept on watching because nobody was calling me down to eat dinner.
I hate that my mom doesn't prepare the plates so that we could at least do the rest for ourselves. I hate that because I've been raised poorly when it comes to those things. I've been raised with the routine of someone serving for me, which is usually my mother. She rarely raised us to serve ourselves. Whenever she does, it's out of spite. It's because she's annoyed that we're lazy kids. And why are we lazy kids? Because they're not strict enough parents to us. They did not do the work when it came to teaching us how to do chores. We only do the dishes when we want to do the dishes. We don't clean our own clothes. We rarely clean our own bedroom. It's so frustrating that I'll be doing all of these adult things when I'm finally in my own apartment or whatever. It fucking sucks.
Anyway, I watched Reminiscence awhile ago. It was a good movie, but it was a lot of exposition. There were a lot of twists, and I don't know if I necessarily liked it. It definitely had an Inception feeling to it, since the people behind this movie are close relatives to Christopher Nolan. The editing literally felt like a Nolan-esque type of editing, where they quick cut to particular scene while dialogue is being said, to convey the visual of thought from a particular character. It was over-used, but I'll let that slide, since I like those quick cuts anyway.
The twists were everywhere. At first, I thought they were going for a Gone Girl type of story with the main character's love interest. But, they didn't, but also sort of did, in the middle of the movie. It ends with the reveal that the love interest is actually a good person. But, what I didn't particularly like was when it shows that Hugh Jackman's character chooses to stay inside of the machine that allows them to go back and experience their memories.
It's actually not specifically that where I'm really bummed about. It's what's going on while that scene is happening is what I didn't particularly like. Thandie Newton's character has this daughter that is mentioned in the movie once. And that c-plot is brought back in the end as an important part of the story...for God knows what reason the director of this movie thought that that was a good thing to do. Lisa Joy (the director), actually does this a couple times.
She shows this girl from Westworld interact with Hugh and Thandie's character at the first act of the movie. We, as the audience, aren't really lead to expect that there's something more to that specific character, since the next scene that takes place is literally the a-plot, where Rebecca Ferguson's character first shows up in the movie. She does it again when Hugh Jackman goes to some place where there's this actor who Nolan has used in The Dark Knight Rises before, is present and does a little bit of dialogue. I don't know why Hugh went to that scene, and what his role in that scene was. Is he an investigator of crime scenes or something like that? We are never really told this. We are just left there to assume that, oh, he actually also works for the cops as an expert on interrogation, since he has that whole reminiscence machine.
And why is it that we are only shown one reminiscence shop in the whole entire world of the movie? Sure, there was that bit in the end where we get to see Thandie Newton's character working at a more high-end version of the reminiscence shop. BUT, we don't actually know if that's what that shop is for. Sure, we see a high tech bed that people could lie down on while reminiscing, but it all just might be for physical therapy or some shit. WE ARE NEVER TOLD THINGS IN THIS MOVIE, YET THERE'S SO MUCH VOICE OVER FROM HUGH JACKMAN'S CHARACTER.
The ending was so upsetting. It's like Lisa Joy wanted to recreate the ending for Inception, but make it less vague, and have a character explain that "this is what's happening, and we should just accept it, because we both made the right choice". Like, man. The Orpheus and Eurydice parallel story at the end was such a nice touch...if only they hadn't ruined it with another twist ending. Or at least, just show Hugh's character aging inside of the water bed, and then cut the black!
I guess my point stands from a few days ago. Christopher Nolan's work knows how to end, while Jonathan Nolan (and wife)'s work tend to linger on their endings. They for sure know how to bring out new and compelling premises to a story. But they haven't perfected writing a good ending.
In other news, I moved the ring-light that I had previously placed on top of my desk table, on top of my bed. Specifically screwed under the upper bed of our bunk bed. That way, I could read at night by just opening the light up. Although, whenever I want to do this, I'll be needing to open my laptop.
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