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Janina Matthewson

@j9andif.bsky.social

Writer. Tired. Romcoms as Georgie Tilney.

1197 Posts947 Follower 421 Folgt

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 2h ago

Fun that we have to keep watching untold billions thrown into endless data centres because “AGI will figure out how to fix the environment” when actually people are figuring it out and we could give them the money instead

Matt Shipman (he/him)@shiplives.bsky.social · 2h ago

Here's something cool that doesn't suck. Researchers have used polymers made from shrimp and seaweed to make a fuzzy mesh that can harvest microplastics from water. Pretty neat. (short 🧵) news.ncsu.edu/2026/08/tang...

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 2d ago

As I'm sure plenty of people are surprised and upset to learn that the dead Irish singer was a wrong 'un, worth remembering that the whisper network only exists because we still don't know how to protect victims who come forward, tyfyt

🎥 Kathy 📼 Fennessy 📽️@kcfennessy.bsky.social · 3d ago

This is really depressing. Neko Case doesn't name names, and nor does she need to, but I believe her. If anything, she tends to be honest to a fault--this post illustrates exactly what I mean--and abso-fucking-lutely does not hold back (except for said dude's name). [ht: @rahnealexander.com]

IN WHAT FUCKING UNIVERSE?

This last week I was just cookin’ along minding my business when I suddenly found myself quite depressed.

nekocase.substack.com

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 4d ago

this is a perfect illustration of why genAI training on copyrighted work can never be fair use – obviously the person who made this asked it to plagiarise Peanuts and it did, but it has also accidentally plagiarised Winnie the Pooh

Jesus Zoidberg: Nobody Likes Me, and I Really Care@jesuszoidberg.bsky.social · 5d ago

Ok, this one might be my favorite, haven't stopped laughing

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 5d ago

Criticism is a weird area. There's not one straightforward path to it - not in film, not in theatre or dance or opera, not in music or visual art. It's an art form in and of itself, and it does take a specific kind of skill. But the skill required of any individual critic is just one facet of a whole world, and that world needs multiple perspectives.
There are film critics who went to film school. There are film critics who went to journalism school. There are film critics who have no training. I have done a non zero amount of professional film criticism work.
It's something a person might aim for specifically as a career path, and something you might stumble on through experimentation. The idea of someone critiquing one film one time because it relates to their area of expertise is not new - it's just part of the discussion.

Because that's what art is. An endless conversation about what it means to be alive that anyone can take part in. Criticism is part of that conversation. And it can be a destructive part. It can be done in bad faith, it can be spiteful. That just makes it all the more important to include and embrace views from a wide range of people.
This is not science. We don't do peer review in the arts. There will never be a consensus on anything here.
You are under no obligation to read the opinion of a classist and Homeric myth expert and give it more weight than your own. You are under no obligation to read the opinion of an experienced critic at an esteemed publication and give it more weight than your own.
You are under no obligation to read or listen to or think about anyone else's opions at all, if you don't want to.

I am astonishingly inconsistent with how I engage with criticism. Quite a lot of the time my interest in analysing or discussing a film disappears after like, five minutes. Most people's opinions are not just meaningless to me, but actively annoying. Not because of the people themselves, or their opinions, just because I reached the point where discussing that film became tedious on my way home from the cinema.
But from time to time, for whatever reason, there'll be a film that I keep turning over and over in my brain. The Odyssey has been one of those films for me, even though in my opinion it's a fun but mediocre and inessential movie. Even though I expect the films Nolan writes to be mediocre because he's not good at writing. Even though I went into it already expecting a somewhat drab, prosaic film when I prefer colour and excess and imagination.

I found it interesting to have the perspective of one of the world's foremost experts on Homer. Translation is interpretation, just as adaptation is; just through having been through that process Wilson will be approaching the film with questions that have likely not occurred to the vast majority of viewers, even those who have read the book multiple times.
And while I understand people wanting to experience the film as a stand alone project without worrying too much about the source material, I think it's valuable to ask why tell this story? Why adapt this work?
It's clear that what interests Nolan about The Odyssey is not what interests me about it, and that's fine! I guess! But I want to understand what interested him and why. I want to figure out whether I think he was successful at exploring his own take on the story and it's just not for me, or whether he aimed for something and missed.

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 5d ago

It's me, continuing to discourse ihavenoplanforthis.ghost.io/who-gets-to-...

Who gets to have an opinion, professionally?

A grand time for the discourse this week after Emily Wilson, the first woman ever to translate The Odyssey into English threw eloquent shade at Christopher Nolan for his adaptation in the LRB. I very ...

ihavenoplanforthis.ghost.io

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 5d ago

Look, I watched Over Your Dead Body and the funniest joke in the whole movie is that Samara Weaving is using her real accent

Nanoraptor@nanoraptor.danamania.com · 5d ago

Imagine if all Australians & NZers in movie roles leaned heavily into their own accents. Thor. Galadriel. Hela. Alan Grant. Wolverine. Elrond. Megatron. The Joker & Harley Quinn. Eowyn. The Mouth of Sauron. Agent Smith. Hulk. Nurse Chapel. George Kirk. Nero. Dr Doom. Red Skull. Peter Weyland…

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 5d ago

The only useful tech addition to cars since the invention of windshield wipers is that google maps will remember where you parked

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 5d ago

Companies are all in on selling folks the idea that it’s in your best interest for your products to “know you” as if you are getting a dedicated servant but what you are really getting is a spy.

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 5d ago

It's me, continuing to discourse ihavenoplanforthis.ghost.io/who-gets-to-...

Who gets to have an opinion, professionally?

ihavenoplanforthis.ghost.io

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 6d ago

The good news is that if it's really warm and also the heaviest day of your period and also you have a cold and no money you can just put on Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar and no one will stop you

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · last wk.

was going to make a joke about the whisper network being down somewhere in or around the Irish Sea, but your man put it in a film

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · last wk.

ok groomer, is this anything

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · last wk.

Like you, I am astonished and outraged that a variety of people with a wide range of special interests and priorities are expressing differing opinions on a cultural and/or artistic event

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · last wk.

I love her

London Review of Books@lrb.co.uk · last wk.

‘Nolan has read at least the first line of my translation of 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘥𝘺𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘺 into iambic pentameter. In one interview, he cited my version of it: “Tell me about a complicated man.” But I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.’ New, by Emily Wilson www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · last wk.

You can't just say shit like this to me

IGN@ign.com · 2w ago

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves co-director Jonathan Goldstein says the script for a sequel already exists, but he's not expecting it to see the light of day any time soon. https://bit.ly/4bIsrNA #SDCC

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · last wk.

this is hilarious to me www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xfq...

Matchbox The Movie — Official Trailer | Apple TV

YouTube video by Apple TV

youtube.com

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 2w ago

Obviously I have not read the screenplay for this film, I have no information outside of what's online, but what's online makes it seem like a pretty standard adaptation of the novel.
It's directed by Ti West, who's mostly known for his horror trilogy, X, Pearl, and MaXXXine, so presumably they're going for a spookier version than the Muppets, but from the cast list alone it seems to follow the pattern we all know.
Jacob Marley is there, played by Ian McKellan (disappointing). There are the ghosts past, present and future. Rupert Grint is Bob Cratchitt, Sam Claflin is nephew Fred.
The full cast list isn't up anywhere, but based on what's there it all seems normal.

This is obviously hilarious just as it stands.
The origin story of Ebenezer Scrooge makes up at least the first third of A Christmas Carol. It's the whole point of the book - this is how he became so awful, and this is what will happen because of it. The idea of some film executive pitching "what if we do an origin story of a character whose origin is already in the story" is both absurd and somehow, in this particular media landscape, predictable.
But while we can't be sure until the film is out and someone puts the synopsis on Wikipedia because we're sure as hell not going to see it, it really doesn't look like that's what this film is.
The trailer shows the character we know in the setting we know with the ghosts we know and the flashbacks we know.

The point is, marketing is more about selling a possibility of the film than it is about selling the film itself.
So if you've made a new adaptation of a classic, well known, well loved children's story and you're marketing tactic is to pretend it's a prequel to a classic, well known, well loved children's story, what does that say about what you think your audience wants to see?
Are we really so deep into a sea of rebootquels and prequels and spinoffs that they're assuming no one wants a
straightforward remake anymore? And are they right?

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 2w ago

The Johnny Depp (gross) Christmas Carol is being marketed like it's a prequel but I don't think it is a prequel and it's made me feel insane ihavenoplanforthis.ghost.io/why-are-they...

Why are they marketing the Johnny Depp (gross) Christmas Carol like this?

Johnny Depp (gross) is in a new adaptation of A Christmas Carol. This is gross, but whatever. We've long since learned that there's no such think as cancellation, we have only to be disappointed in th...

ihavenoplanforthis.ghost.io

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 2w ago

The Johnny Depp (gross) Christmas Carol is being marketed like it's a prequel but I don't think it is a prequel and it's made me feel insane ihavenoplanforthis.ghost.io/why-are-they...

Why are they marketing the Johnny Depp (gross) Christmas Carol like this?

ihavenoplanforthis.ghost.io

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 2w ago

Do they realise that like a third of A Christmas Carol is already this?

DiscussingFilm@discussingfilm.net · 2w ago

First poster for ‘EBENEZER’, a new film based on ‘A Christmas Carol’ starring Johnny Depp. “Before he was Scrooge, he was Ebenezer”

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 2w ago

Job hunting is so soul crushing and I've had to spend so much of my time job hunting over the past forever, it's not fair, I hate it here

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 2w ago

For no reason I looked up where people reckon Ogygia, the island Calypso held Odysses, is meant to be. Ancient Greek mythologists said it was Gozo in Malta. Aeschylus said the Nile was an Ogygian river.

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 2w ago

A game just advertised itself at me on instagram by sharing a screenshot of their wikipedia page

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 2w ago

I achieved the same thing at a much lower cost: I didn’t have children

Rob Larson@ironicprofessor.bsky.social · 3w ago

Quarter million a year

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 3w ago

Nothing but respect for my Odysseus

Odysseus as seen in the game Hades II; he is a wee scampi balancing a dagger on his finger

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 3w ago

groundbreaking

Tyron@tyron.bsky.social · 3w ago

Genuinely a bit offensive as a summary

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 4w ago

This week's newsletter is about when something becomes a musical but only for a moment

An ode to the partial musical

I feel like it's been a while but remember when every tv show had to have a musical episode? Was Riverdale the last one? Who knows, who knows, but for a quite a lot of years they were apparently…

buff.ly

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 4w ago

Off Campus is not very good but I appreciate the multiple simultaneous hanging dongs in the finale

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · last mo.

Not yet, don’t jinx him

Screenshot of the Wikipedia entry for Mel Brooks, with his birthday of June 28, 1926 circled in red

Brían Hanrahan@hanrahanistan.bsky.social · last mo.

Mel Brooks is 100 years old

Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · last mo.

dems upset that progressive candidates are unseating incumbents, labour baffled by the hatred for keir starmer, lads, I’m sorry but we do this with votes or with pitchforks, your choice