i love how the monkey (2025) balances it's cartoonish characters and deaths with moments of real gritty emotion and grounded motivations.

i'm especially intrigued by ricky and his family because of just how much is implied in their very limited screen time. they're a family who are trapped by circumstances that are beyond their control in terms of socio-economics.

ricky

firstly, ricky himself. we don't actually know a lot about ricky, other than what we can infer from details in the movie, and the descriptions of him given in press release material: the local burnout.

the way i see it, he's a 20-something who doesn't have, or doesn't feel like he has, a lot of prospects, likely due to a combination of academic and financial reasons. a lot of what must be shaping him comes from his family, which i'll go into next.

you'll get the urge as an artist or a writer to say out loud the things you're worried about "the proportions are off" "kind of out of character" "i'm not good at summaries" "didn't get as much detail as i wanted" "i made a mistake and here's how" and that's the self-conscious part of your brain telling you "it's bad and if you don't tell them you know it's bad then they'll think you're stupid" but you've got to ignore that little voice and pretend you think it's good or else that little voice is going to ruin your life

fred via indiewire | 01/04/2025

"I did it for you" has gotta be my favorite form of betrayal. You gave me a gift I never asked for, and now I have to look around at the world you destroyed with the knowledge that it was gift wrapped and addressed to me.

Oh, okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that gaslight gatekeep girlboss meme, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you think modern feminism has been co-opted by corporations. But what you don’t know is that that meme is not from Instagram, it's not from Twitter, it's not from Tiktok, it’s actually from Tumblr. You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in January 2021, Tumblr user missnumber1111 posted, "today's agenda: gaslight gatekeep and most importantly girlboss." And then I think it was a-m-e-t-h-y-s-t-r-o-s-e, wasn’t it, who reblogged it with an image of the phrase edited over a piece of "Live, Laugh, Love" wall art? And then gaslight gatekeep girlboss showed up in the feeds of eight different Twitter repost accounts. Then it filtered down through Instagram and then trickled on down into some tragic “alt side of Tiktok” where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that meme represents millions of notes and countless Tumblr users and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from Tumblr when, in fact, you’re wearing the meme that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of “stuff.”

Concerts are such a surreal experience, I mean, you’re singing your favorite songs with a band or singer that means the world to you and you’re literally in the same room as them. I will never stop loving concerts.

fat character who becomes a vampire and loses a ton of weight and blood can not sate their hunger but they can't eat anything they used to like anymore. everyone views it as a positive healthy positive development but they're starving and dying slowly but never truly dying, a living corpse. this is a metaphor for something

People finally think they’re attractive and cool and funny but they’re dead. People finally treat them well but they’re dead. Do you see the vision

Transforms into a shell of my former self and finally gains the respectability society never bestowed upon me before

Fred Hechinger in new HELL OF A SUMMER interview

"Is it a safe space to say i hate-" NOT IN THE MAINTAGS IT ISNT

"I hate [character] from [show] soo much #character, #characters's full name, #show,

ARE YOU INSANE

bonding with friends over your favourite fictional little guys

oh i'm going to misusle and straight up fuckle this knowledge so badly

Finn Wolfhard with Billy Bryk and Fred Hechinger at the advance screening of 'Hell of a Summer' at Alamo South Lamar, TX 25/3/25

📸: drafthouse

Oh, I'm WEAK

fred via hellofasummermovie’s ig story

making every conversation into being about The Character with the same reliability and conviction of a youth pastor going “you know who else partied? our lord and savior”