Did you ever see The Adventures of Mister and Pete? Highly recommended
I havenât. I added to my watch list
Very impressive performances by the kids who had to carry the whole movie.
Bugonia (2025)
This movie fucking rules. What a roller coaster. Go see this!!
Fans of unique kidnapping stories should also check out the mini series The Patient, which is about a serial killer who abducts his own therapist for private counseling.
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Got my tickets for Tuesday, hoping its as good as it looks
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It was quite an experience. Iâm looking forward to watching it again.
Pretty good discussion of Frankenstein to get ready for the new movie.
Frankenstein was written while Mary Shelley was grieving the loss of a baby. Once you have this context, grief seems to drip off the pages.
With the release of Guillermo Del Toroâs Frankenstein Iâm seeing a ton of talk about its source material. Mostly conversations about the portrayal of Frankensteinâs monster and how it seems so different in Guillermo Del Toroâs portrayal than any other cinematic portrayal before. Iâm seeing a lot of talk from people saying the movie is very theatrical and out of this world, but still faithful to its source material. I havenât seen the movie yet, but one aspect that I hope it retains from the source material is grief. I never see anybody talking about Mary Shelleyâs grief and how it inspired so much of her book, but to me Frankenstein IS a book of grief and all the different hideous forms it can take.
Rest of the explanation
Iâve read Frankenstein a few times. The first time I read it I didnât really know anything about Mary Shelley or her life. My take away was that it is a book questioning the very nature of humanity. What makes us human? Is God a loving God? And is life really worth living if you are not connected with others? The second time, I read it with the knowledge that it was written while Shelley was still grieving the loss of her baby. She was young and had given birth to her first baby less than a year before writing Frankenstein. The babyâs name was Clara. Clara was born two months premature and she only survived a few weeks before passing away. Prior to writing Frankenstein, Mary Shelley is said to have had recurrent bittersweet nightmares of bringing Claraâs corpse back to life using an external source of energy, such as the warmth from a fire or sunlight. Sound familiar?
Shelley is both Frankenstein and his monster. As Frankenstein she is a creator. She brought life into this world, only for this little life to suffer. For it to be born two months early, the image of such a premature baby is not the same as looking at a healthy baby. Just as looking at the monster is not the same as looking at a regular man. You instantly see there is something wrong with it. Too small, itâs skin transparent, oddly proportioned, itâs movements strained, and though it is your own creation, your own baby, it can fill you with fear. I know suffering from grief you also feel an undue sense of guilt. Frankenstein abandons his creation. And this is just speculation, but Mary did have a nurse maid for Clara and was not her sole caretaker. This was absolutely common practice during the time. Something that Mary did that was rather unconventional was breast-feeding her own children. Typically only people living in poverty breast-fed their own children, everyone else hired nursemaids. Mary Shelley still hired a nurse maid to do most of the caretaking for her babies, but she would step in to breast-feed them. When reading Frankenstein, I wondered if Dr. Frankensteinâs abandonment of his creature is a reflection of Mary Shelleyâs guilt for not being there during all of her daughters last moments. She had an intimate bond with her baby from breast-feeding, but I wonder if she found herself avoiding spending too much time with the baby. I can see how the knowledge of its likely imminent death was too difficult for her to endure. Experiencing grief myself, I know that in my loved ones last moments, I felt it very difficult to be around them, and I have feelings of guilt and terrible shame for abandoning them. It is haunting and although you can run and immerse yourself in the world as best as you can, that grief will always follow you, just as Frankensteins monster haunted him. As Iâm sure the memory of Clara haunted Mary.
As the monster, Mary is angry with God for bringing her into this world to suffer so much loss. She feels abandoned by God and by those around her. If youâve ever experienced grief, you may have also experienced a sense of isolation. No one wants to come near you. No one knows what to say. Your grief makes people too uncomfortable because its so ugly. Your grief reminds them of their own mortality, and most people really donât like the idea of that at all. In the 19th century western world, you were given a mourning period, and then expected to move on with your life. But grief isnât that simple, it doesnât evaporate when you take off your black dress. You conceal it and carry it around with you. You have to learn how to be in the world all over again. Wearing a mask of civility all the while feeling hideous inside. When you fully reveal your grief to others, they are horrified. Just as the family in the woods were horrified when the monster revealed himself to them. All he was looking for was connection, compassion, love, acceptance, and understanding, but his true self was too ugly and he was rejected. It was only when he hid himself and made himself useful for them that he was appreciated. You canât expect time to stand still when youâre grieving. You have to hide it and continue to make yourself useful for others. And youâre looking at the rest of the world with so much envy and contempt. How they float through the world beautifully, smiling, and you want to be a part of it so badly, but your grief is too ugly for them, and you grow to hate them for rejecting you. Your misery makes you a fiend and you feel that only divine intervention, or in Marys case maybe another child, can make you whole again, just as Frankenstein felt his only chance at happiness was begging his creator to make him a companion.
Both Frankenstein and his monster reminisce fondly of sweeter, simpler times. For Frankenstein, growing up with his beloved Elizabeth. For the monster, admiring and doing good deeds for the De Lacey family. During grief it is easy to get stuck in the past and yearn for when life was bright and beautiful. To yearn for your innocence before you knew your own cruelty as well as the cruelty of others. You can remember a time when you didnât feel like a monster or a mad man. For Shelley, maybe this was the hopeful optimistic days of her pregnancy with Clara, or the early romantic days of her relationship with Percy.
I think itâs also worth noting that Mary Shelley had a very unconventional relationship with her husband Percy. Percy was married when the two of them met and moved in together. Mary was the young, naive, âother womanâ. It wasnât until Percyâs first wife had passed away that him and Mary were able to get married. By this time, Mary had already given birth to their second child. In addition to their unconventional beginnings, he was extremely unfaithful to her, having several affairs throughout their marriage. During her pregnancy with Clara, he was spending a suspicious amount of time with Maryâs stepsister Claire, and often visited his wife. This has sparked rumors that he was still romantic with his wife and was having an affair with Claire. This is all just to say; Iâm very sure the grief of losing a child was greatly amplified by the feeling of having an unsteady marriage.
The questioning of human nature, our relationship with our creator, and the purpose of connection with others, are still to me the major over arching themes of Frankenstein. Reading it a second time through the lens of Mary Shelleyâs grief and the experience of my own, gave these themes a new life. It was clear to me her horrifying and heartbreaking inspirations are rooted in her grief.
If you read this far thanks for sticking around. I had fun writing my little essay. Iâll be watching the new movie later this evening!
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1os31sw/frankenstein_was_written_while_mary_shelley_was/
Jurassic World #4 was somehow worse than Jurassic World #3 which is quite the achievement.
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I saw 4 without seeing 3 so I am missing context.
isnât the whole schtick of the jurrasic franchise that each installment is worse than the previous one?
Have they done Jurassic Park from the perspective of the dinosaurs yet?
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Yay! Couldnât agree more. Also loved the patient too.
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Seems to be. And fans of the franchise demand literally nothing in order to show up in exactly the same way, so why bother to make a good one? The disease that causes people to just never, ever, ever leave a franchise behind after they loved some prior installment(s) is so weird.
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Isnât that predator badlands
I honestly thought that all three Jurassic Parks and the first two Jurassic World were decent enough. Itâs not Shakespeare.
Makes me want to see the movie it was based on. Save the Green Planet is free on DailyMotionâŚ
fyp
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Fantastic Four: First Steps
Hey this was pretty good! Imagine if this had come out circa 2002 next to Spider-Man and X-Men. But in the greater ouvre of modern superhero movies, this was just a 3/5.
However! Imagine if the next dozen MCU movies were this good. It would restore my faith.
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Coyotes (2025)
Members of a family find themselves in a desperate fight for survival when a pack of coyotes swarms their Hollywood Hills home.
Justin Long carries this entire movie on his back. The man can pull off any role in any context.
But the rest of this is very bad. Let everyone please know I voted against watching this but was overruled by the gfâs mother. Again.
As expected, Clovis lost his prop bet against me. His payment is to watch a movie of my choosing.
This is the current front runner.
Two men and a woman plan the heist of a lifetime before the government broadcast a mind-altering signal that will wipe out criminal behaviour forever.
RT: 0%
IMDB: 3.8/10
Metacritic: 15%
Letterboxd: 1.7/5
RogerEbert.com: 0.5/4
ETA: 2 hours and 29 minutes 
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