01-22-2023, 09:09 AM
Ep-3 and Ep-4
Okay, skinny girl finally strips down and she's surprisingly voluptuous. she shows a real talent for pole dancing and spends most of these episodes gyrating her heart out.
Okay, not so much. In fact Ep-3 jumps the pig. And Ep-4 doubles down.
At this point I might go into minor spoilage territory. Be forewarned.
Skinny girl meets creepy guy. He's weird-looking, strongly built but with a strangely feminine face. Kudos to Refn for discovering and casting him. He's a serial-killer psychopath. Maybe a sociopath. He tells skinny girl she has ten seconds. He starts counting down. She runs. He chases. Then suddenly she's confronting him in a building. She stands very erect, because I guess that's her one stance. She waves him in. You know, the Bruce Lee invitation to get your butt kicked. (If she intended to confront him all along, why did she run in the first place?) Whereupon he charges her, because nothing facilitates aikido more than a bull charge. She aikidos him, sort of. She aikidos him again and again. Then she kicks him in the side and stomps his face. He's thoroughly whupped.
A short time later she's confronted by three women. They dwarf her (I doubt she weighs 100 pounds.) They have knives. They attack her simultaneously and she whups their collective asses.
There's a few odds and ends that are interesting, that contribute to a David Lynchian feel. But they feel sloppy, and not adequately developed and incorporated. And 90% of the time Refn relies on these slow pans, sometimes a full 360 degrees, that consume time and get monotonous--though sometimes the sets are interesting enough. All in all, I think he should've saved money on the sets and hired a good Asian fight coordinator. Maybe they could have made skinny girl look convincing in a fight.
I've taken to shouting, "Pigs in a blanket!" for no particular reason when skinny girl fights. But there are lots of pigs in this series. Lots and lots of pigs.
Okay, skinny girl finally strips down and she's surprisingly voluptuous. she shows a real talent for pole dancing and spends most of these episodes gyrating her heart out.
Okay, not so much. In fact Ep-3 jumps the pig. And Ep-4 doubles down.
At this point I might go into minor spoilage territory. Be forewarned.
Skinny girl meets creepy guy. He's weird-looking, strongly built but with a strangely feminine face. Kudos to Refn for discovering and casting him. He's a serial-killer psychopath. Maybe a sociopath. He tells skinny girl she has ten seconds. He starts counting down. She runs. He chases. Then suddenly she's confronting him in a building. She stands very erect, because I guess that's her one stance. She waves him in. You know, the Bruce Lee invitation to get your butt kicked. (If she intended to confront him all along, why did she run in the first place?) Whereupon he charges her, because nothing facilitates aikido more than a bull charge. She aikidos him, sort of. She aikidos him again and again. Then she kicks him in the side and stomps his face. He's thoroughly whupped.
A short time later she's confronted by three women. They dwarf her (I doubt she weighs 100 pounds.) They have knives. They attack her simultaneously and she whups their collective asses.
There's a few odds and ends that are interesting, that contribute to a David Lynchian feel. But they feel sloppy, and not adequately developed and incorporated. And 90% of the time Refn relies on these slow pans, sometimes a full 360 degrees, that consume time and get monotonous--though sometimes the sets are interesting enough. All in all, I think he should've saved money on the sets and hired a good Asian fight coordinator. Maybe they could have made skinny girl look convincing in a fight.
I've taken to shouting, "Pigs in a blanket!" for no particular reason when skinny girl fights. But there are lots of pigs in this series. Lots and lots of pigs.