Crunching the Numbers: May the Fourth Be With Your Films

[Blankments]

1 minute ago, 4815162342 said:

 

I hate Yub Nub.

 

😮 😮 😮

[4815162342]

We will be starting shortly.

 

Some of you thinking I'll have Teenagers 4 is cute, given how trash I thought the 2nd one was.

[4815162342]

Okay, first, we have to address the elephant in the room @Blankments

 

Spoiler

 

By the Balls is a film that has flummoxed a number of critics, from the pan given by Xillix to the utter bafflement of Cookie that has still yet to generate a coherent response. Perhaps a reason for this divisive and uncertain reaction is how, for lack of a better term, unpleasant the film is. The film does not shy away from embracing its satire of toxic masculinity by framing it within a world where suddenly feminism, white privilege, and a history of the patriarchy no longer seem to exist, or at least no longer have the meaning that society has applied to them. By the Balls presents a mirror world to ours, one with only a few minor differences, but with those differences resulting in major ramifications towards how gender politics play out.

It also is a world where a Greek restaurant serves every kind of ethnic food under the sun, and scars from chemical burns mysteriously change location, but we’ll leave that aside.

Our guide to this alternate world is Jordan, played at first with a feverish, idealistic earnestness by Olivia Cooke, but who slowly becomes embittered, jaded, disappointed, and ultimately ostracized for noticing that something is really, really off about the college she is attending, and having the brain and, if you will allow, the balls, to call her peers and faculty out on it. Lonely and without friends, she ends up even lonelier and even more friendless at the end, with a case of alcoholism to go with it, as the inherent oppression of the system rolls over her like it’s done countless times in the real world. The only thing is, here that rolling over is deemed to be the cost of living, echoing By the Balls’ presentation as not the world as it is right now, but the world it very easily could be.

Jordan’s primary foe in her quixotic quest is not her target, Tom, probably the one of the most emasculated avatars of toxic masculinity there is (which in a way is a point I think that the film intends to make, in that a lot of the misogynists out there are weak, cowardly, and inept at handling matters themselves so they need the backing of the system to support their toxicity), but Tom’s dad, Thomas, played with the reckless and gleeful abandon of an unrepentant douchebag by Bradley Cooper. Cooper hasn’t played this unlikeable in a very, very long time, and he does it with the sheen and shine of his natural charisma to play a character as compelling and intriguing as he is revolting and disturbing. His monologues near the end are the kind of loathsome self-justification countless people have given, and still give, and they are delivered powerfully by Cooper in conjunction with the sharp writing. I sat there enthralled in that final scene. Thomas is a tremendous villain, precisely because, dramatic flourishes aside, how real the villain is.

As this film started to motor along, with its oddities and slight worldbuilding strangeness, I prepared myself for the second half of the film, or the third act, to swerve into a Twilight Zone-esque twist or something to explain the slightly off nature of the world the film took place in. The swerve, the twist, did not come, but that did not affect how I ultimately viewed the movie. Because that’s perhaps the point of the film, that the world we have now is not that different from the world of Thomas, and that just might be more scary than the world of a film like say Get Out.

Of course, a satire, dark and downer and humorous all the while, only works if the writing behind it is sharp, consistent, careful, and knows when to play the trump card (no pun intended) and when to hold back from crossing the line to pure unbelievability. That effective writing is something this movie has in spades, and it helps make the characters turn from cardboard cutouts representing social and gender issues into real, living, breathing people.

By the Balls is a film that is hard to get out of your head, which is exactly what it aimed for and should aim for. It is the right mix of acting, writing, and editing, keeping the pacing flowing at just the right tempo. It is a film where everything comes together the way it needs to be.

And it is the #1 film of the year.

 

 

[4815162342]

Anyway, there's 9 other films to go through

 

 

10.

Spoiler

Can You Imagine

9.

Spoiler

Amulet II: The Last Council

 

8.

Spoiler

Pillars of Eternity: The Hollow Vale

 

[Rorschach]

 

Congrats @Blankments

Edited October 25, 2018 by Rorschach

[Ezen Baklattan]

Very well deserved, @Blankments!

[Blankments]

I'm legitimately on the verge of tears right now. Thank you Numbers so much, for that lovely review and giving us (because it wasn't just me; EssGeeKay and I put a shitton of effort into that movie) this great honor. I'm so, so pleased right now.

[4815162342]

You guys actually expected the annual Numbers Special 

 

 

7.

Spoiler

 

You were right

Spoiler

Extrasensory

 

6.

Spoiler

Spark: Beyond the Sky

 

5.

Spoiler

A Month at Belmond Lane

 

[4815162342]

1 minute ago, Blankments said:

I'm legitimately on the verge of tears right now. Thank you Numbers so much, for that lovely review and giving us (because it wasn't just me; EssGeeKay and I put a shitton of effort into that movie) this great honor. I'm so, so pleased right now.

 

You have no idea how many possible twists or swerves I was thinking could possibly happen in the second half of the film, and none of them ended up taking place 

[4815162342]

3. Fortnight/The Square Mile

[YM!]

Huge congrats @Blankments.

[4815162342]

2. The Odyssey: Homecoming

[Ezen Baklattan]

Wait so no #4?

[4815162342]

So the full Top 25

 

Spoiler

1. By the Balls
2. The Odyssey: Homecoming
3. Fortnight/The Square Mile
5. A Month at Belmond Lane
6. Spark: Beyond the Sky
7. Extrasensory
8. Pillars of Eternity: The Hollow Vale
9. Amulet II: The Last Council
10. Can You Imagine
11. Starlit Highway
12. Mass Effect
13. American Dragon: Darkness Rising
14. Resonance
15. Sir Thymes Time
16. Kingdom of the Sun
17. Lucid
18. Earthsong Volume I: Haven's Guard
19. Citizen Welles
20. Santa Claus: Ultimate Badass
21. Marked Up Time
22. Pokemon: Rise of the Rockets
23. The Amityville Nightmare Part II
24. The Mole
25. Tulpa

 

[4815162342]

Just now, Spagspiria said:

Wait so no #4?

 

Two films tied for 3rd place so it skips over 4 to 5.

 

Otherwise there would be 26 films in the Top 25.

[Rorschach]

Looks like Greek restaurants and Greek mythology won over the heart of the gif master.

 

In all seriousness, thank you for #2 and #25. I'll take silver any day of the week!

 

 

 

[4815162342]

So yeah, the point game.

 

Final tally:

 

Spoiler

 

Cookie- 25

Rorschach- 24

YourMother- 24

Alpha- 16

Reddroast- 15

Spaghetti- 13

 

 

[4815162342]

Congrats @Blankments for the #1

 

Congrats @Rorschach for turning around the Odyssey from a very muddled first film to a near brilliant finale.

 

 

And congrats @cookie for winning the Point Game. You get an exclusive pre-read. You get to choose one of:

 

Spoiler

 

Until Dawn

 

24 Hours

 

The Last Policeman

 

 

[Rorschach]

4 minutes ago, 4815162342 said:

Congrats @Rorschach for turning around the Odyssey from a very muddled first film to a near brilliant finale.

Couldn't have done it without your help! ☺️

 

[Blankments]

1 minute ago, 4815162342 said:

 

You have no idea how many possible twists or swerves I was thinking could possibly happen in the second half of the film, and none of them ended up taking place 

Oh, I can bet. Our attitude was always that there was no way to end the film without the absolute horrific reality that's hinted at throughout finally being bluntly thrown in Jordan's face.

 

Also, a message from EssGeeKay directly: 

 

"Thanks so much for the wonderful words. I’m obviously new to the game and for the past few weeks as Blankments has been sending me reviews of my stuff and our collabs and honestly I’ve been a little trepidatious about putting myself back out there for critiques, even for something fun like this. We brainstormed and began writing By the Balls the weekend of some unsavory political events for women in America. I speak solely for myself, since Blankments can’t really comment on this, but for someone whom he speaks so highly of and respects so much to recognize the horrifying reality of the seemingly surreal world we’ve created means a great deal to me. The last thing I’ll say is that, while CAYOM is just a game, the messages Blank and I have included in BtB are messages we incorporate into our own creative works, and something tells me we’ll be revisiting this particular story in some non-CAYOM capacity soon."