Notes from the Kraken: February

In All, Notes by Kyu

Welcome again to We Have Always Live the Kraken, a pop culture blog transmitted directly to you from the belly of the beast. Here in the Notes we’ll show you this month’s posting schedule, but first here are some thoughts.

The Kraken’s efforts are almost exclusively focused on Oscarathon 2019, so instead of giving you yet another perspective on that, this month’s notes are about something else entirely. Spoilers.

No, I’m not saying there will be spoilers in this, I’m saying this is about spoilers themselves. There are some people among us who don’t mind going into a new movie or show having seen the trailer, viewed set photos, watched interviews with cast and crew, or read the entire plot summary on Wikipedia. And I have nothing against those people (really!). I just ask that they leave the rest of us alone. Because there are also people out there like me, who wish to remain unspoiled as much as possible. Like closed-captioning for the hearing impaired or vegan menus in restaurants, society should allow for a minority to experience media in our preferred way. If you really want to know what the twist is in a J.J. Abrams movie, or what Ethan Hunt is after in the new Mission: Impossible film, or who the guest star is this week on The Good Fight, you can always look it up. The rest of us would appreciate not having those things shoved in our face.

Nowhere is this more egregious than on streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu, or HBO. I’ve already subscribed to your service! Let me choose what I want to watch without you having to sell me on exactly what I’m about to see. I’m looking at you, Netflix, with your annoying autoplay trailers (impossible to avoid on an app) giving away the first act of the movie I was about to click on. I’m looking in your direction, HBO, with your overly descriptive episode synopses right next to the episode itself that I already clicked play on. And fuck you in general, Hulu. I don’t have anything specific but you deserve it just for your bad UI.

The most recent casualty for me in the Spoiler Wars was the new Netflix show Russian Doll. I was recommended this show by a Vox article whose headline was, “Netflix’s Russian Doll is a show you should know nothing about except how good it is.” This is, as it turns out, entirely accurate–and my preferred way of watching things. Once I’ve made the decision to try out a show, I don’t need any more information, and everything else I learn simply hurts my ability to enjoy the show’s twists and turns. But before I could sit down and watch Russian Doll for myself, someone on Twitter compared the show to a famous property with a similar premise. This was only confirmed when I went to click on the show on Netflix and had to get through an autoplay trailer featuring the premise and the pilot episode description that didn’t leave anything to the imagination. So, when something like halfway through the episode, the premise was revealed, it was not a shock, I did not react organically the way I should have. It was simply… expected. Russian Doll is a short show, and so far (I’m about halfway through), it doesn’t have a lot of big surprises. Just the one that’s supposed to usher you into the story.

Ultimately spoilers are about marketing. The more the studios tell you about the product, the more people they hope will be interested in watching. As someone with broad taste who tries to stay expectation free, I make my watching decisions based on as little information as possible. I’d just like the option to do that, even in a media landscape where everyone, even fans, are trying to sell you on something. As a society we all generally decided that even the basic premise of Cabin in the Woods shouldn’t be spoiled, so I know it can be done. Let’s put in a little effort, okay? Is that really too much to ask?

-Kyu

(Editor’s Note: The lack of snarky notes throughout this was a Herculean effort. This needs to be known by all.)

From the depths of the Kraken, here is what we are bringing you this month.

It is that time again, a special time in which the Kraken (well mostly David) descends into Oscar madness. Oscarathon 2019 is here, so stay tuned throughout the month for all the Oscar coverage the Kraken has to offer.

Follow live tweeting on Oscar night @insidethekraken.

In a rare bit of non-Oscars content this month, Kyu considers the literary qualities of… Spyro the Dragon? That can’t be right.

Catch of the Week Month:

Each and every week the residents here in the Kraken will offer one recommendation for the week that we think you all would enjoy. It might be a movie. It might be a book. Who knows? This is your… Catch of the Week Month.

Kyu: It’s impossible to recommend M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film, Glass, because either you’re a fan of the trilogy and already saw it or you were scared off by the reviews. It’s possible there’s a fan out there who got scared off, and to that person I say: if you truly like Shyamalan’s undersung masterpiece, Unbreakable, and his quirky, rewarding thriller Split, you may in fact enjoy Glass a lot more than the critics would have you believe. I certainly did. The movie brings back Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, and James McAvoy and throws them together in a film that extends their themes to a logical conclusion. This strange series has always worn its heart on its sleeve, taking place in a much more realistic and low-key world than the big budget modern superhero movies that began being produced right as Unbreakable was released (X-Men came out the same year, just six months earlier) but featuring a kind of operatic style reminiscent of Paul Thomas Anderson. A little bit of hokeyness is par for the course, but that doesn’t mean the movie isn’t fascinating and absorbing–tense, sometimes campy, deliberately subverting genre expectations established not by Marvel (a Cinematic Universe this art-house “competitor” pretends doesn’t exist) but by classic superhero comics of the ’30s and ’40s. Shyamalan brings together three movies’ distinct styles of cinematography, their music, and even the performances, weaving together separate narratives and metanarratives in surprising and rewarding ways. It’s all in service of updating the stirring ideas of Unbreakable (how wonderful it can be to find your place in this world) and Split (how much suffering drives and even protects us) to a new statement about those things which inspire us to action. Critics faulted Glass for its singular, self-indulgent vision, but I found Shyamalan’s decision to revisit his own classic work in a way that extended its perspective and raised its stakes to be as exciting as anything happening in the story itself. To him I say: shine on, you crazy diamond. To you I say, give Glass a chance. You just might like it.

David: It’s Oscar time, so that means it is time for some Oscar recommendations that you might have missed. I am not usually as big a fan of documentaries, as they just mostly aren’t for me (I mean, I still watch them, but not my first choice). With all that said, this year’s Oscar nominee Minding the Gap is truly an amazing film. Starting out as a light and almost whimsical experience of the lives of three friends (one of whom is the filmmaker) throughout many years of their lives, this film quickly changes direction and tone as it begins going into the sad backstories of each kid’s lives. If that is not enough, then as if almost by accident the film works as a criticism as one of the friends, who is, well, kind of an asshole. The story is raw and comes together in a bittersweet way. This movie is an intense experience that needs to be seen, and is highly recommended even for people who find, like me, that documentaries usually aren’t their thing.

That’s it for this month’s notes. Visitors might be interested in watching the annual February installation of blinders over the Kraken’s eyes–legend has it that if he sees his shadow, there will be a thousand years of cold and darkness. Probably that’s not true, but hey, it’s tradition.