leebutler Drama, Horror, Review

The Substance (2024) – Substantially Brilliant

Released: 19th September
Seen: 19th October

In April 2015, the show Inside Amy Schumer aired an episode titled “Last Fuckable Day” which contained a sketch featuring Amy alongside iconic actresses Tina Fey, Julia-Louis Dreyfus and Patricia Arquette. In the sketch Amy comes upon Tina, Julia and Patricia celebrating Julia’s Last Fuckable Day, the day that an actress goes from being considered fuckable to just being considered an elderly woman reserved for mother roles. It’s a hilarious and scathing indictment of the very real agist sexism that pervades the entertainment industry and how it treats women. Over the years there’s been several ways to talk about the culture’s obsession with looks, youth and fuckability in the media. Still, for the longest time the strongest indictment I saw came from this silly mid-2010’s sketch comedy series… and now we have The Substance, proving that horror is still the best genre for exploring complex concepts like this.

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Midway (2020) – Midway Of The Road

Released: 30th January
Seen: 14th February

So… the guy who directed Independence Day and that really bad American remake of Godzilla wants us to take him seriously. Roland Emmerich, a director who only has 2 films that got above average reviews from critics, would really like it if you could look at his film Midway and say “Why, Roland, you are an artist who is right up there with all the other great war filmmakers”. I would love to say that, I genuinely would. I would love to have a fun subversive twist by ending this slightly sarcastic paragraph with the shocking reveal that this film is actually great… but I’m not a liar and “it’s average” is not enough, especially when the average Roland Emmerich film is so awful.

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