Under the Silver Lake (2018) by David Robert Mitchell

[cranefly]

Nope, haven't seen this yet, and yes, I'm digging myself into a deep dark hole if I keep posting things I'm intending to see.
But this allows me to rant.

= RANT ON =
So I'm on the wait list for this at the Mountain View Library, first in line, and I can see that it's due 1/4/2020.  Yes, that's right.  Five days ago.  And no, it isn't because the borrower renewed it because they don't allow renewals on books or DVDs if someone is waiting for it.  Sooo, what's up with that?

I'll tell you what.  Late last year the Library announced that it would no longer charge late fees.  It just costs too much to process it all.  I read their whole explanation and how it would all work henceforth, and it would benefit all and have no negative effects whatsoever, and it just didn't make any sense to me.  What's to keep people from holding onto things until they're bloody dead and buried?  (Not to be confused with Bloody Dead and Buried the movie, which the library doesn't carry, maybe because it doesn't exist, but that's another matter.)

Of course, far be it from me to know how to run a library or make people borrow respectfully, so I'm certain I'm just flailing about, peeved at nothing, and there's some other fine explanation for why Under the Silver Lake isn't locked and loaded in my player right now.
= RANT OFF =

[cranefly]

From the team that gave us It Follows, which was a decent horror flick.
This takes place in the Hollywood hills region, present-day, with a killer stalking the area.  A dog killer.  But this is kept very much in the background (I suspect the director was told to tone it down if this was to see the light of day), and dog lovers should not avoid this on account of that.

But there are many other reasons to avoid it.  The main character is totally uninteresting, certainly not someone you want to follow around for 2 hours and 20 minutes (way too long!).  And how he gets all these women is beyond me (though I appreciate the nudity it provided).  This is a mashup of conspiracy theories and secret societies and hidden codes in songs, cereal boxes, comic books, and all else, and if it resolves down to something, well, it's beyond me.  I find this sort of stuff tedious beyond belief.

There were Hitchcockian story elements that if filmed right could have really worked, but it was all filmed in a straightforward manner that deadened any possible suspense.

All in all, a big disappointment.  Where does David Robert Mitchell go from here?  I don't know.  I won't be following him closely after this.

It has a decent soundtrack, but no, don't watch for that.