Week 6
Jo’s watching
Argylle
Content Warning: Spoilers
So, I watched Argylle. If you want an action/comedy buddy cop film with Henry Cavill (Argylle) and John Cena (Wyatt) with appearances from the infamously out-of-reach femme fatale, LaGrange (Dua Lipa)—do not watch it. That is not what this movie is, but because that’s what has been advertised, it’s unsurprisingly received a 32% on Rotten Tomatoes. Even the new Godzilla x Kong is sitting at 57%, so that’s saying something.
Instead, it should have been marketed as a female version of what Liam Neeson did for men in their fifties. Aryglle supplied an encouraging message: there are still adventures to be had in your mid-life years. Even better—it can be done without any of your family members needing to be Taken. I appreciated that a forty-three-year-old woman with a realistic body, Elly (Bryce Dallas Howard), was the star of an action film. But no one should be made to wear a similar dress to Dua Lipa and be automatically subjected to comparison; it’s no wonder all anyone wants to talk about is the weight Howard gained.
I could talk for hours about the nonsensical inconsistencies of this film, like what the dress meant—there’s this whole thing with the ‘Whirly Bird’, a dance move where the girl does the splits over the guy’s shoulders with her crotch in his face as he’s spinning her around. If Elly is supposed to be Argylle, that means she was holding LaGrange in this position.
The cat was the only reason I stayed in the cinema. It was an insight into what this film really was: a funny show that wasn’t supposed to ever take itself seriously. But it took a serious turn when it abandoned the cat—only to get it back later as an annoying infernal CGI creature. In the beginning, Aiden, Elly’s love interest (who had a pretty cool intro) taps the bag that the cat is in and asks if there’s enough oxygen. Elly responds with ‘Yes, of course,’ but says nothing about the bag acting as a filter, which would imply some degree of foresight from the writers. Instead, they should have killed the cat when they did the smoked-out dance scene, though it was unclear if the smoke was noxious gas or not. What’s obnoxious is that this scene was well over three minutes long.
The show is littered with these exaggerated action sequences. Elly sticks knives into her shoes to skate across spilled oil and cut her enemies’ throats, for crying out loud. Which brings me to another point—I don’t remember seeing the bad guys kill anyone. The good guys killed hundreds. The good guys take down an entire operation because of ‘reasons’…
Olivia’s reading
A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djeli Clark
This week I’ve been reading short fiction as usual, but what I’d really like to talk about is a novella—A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djeli Clark. This was published way back in 2016 but I’ve just now caught up to reading it.
In an alt-history early 20th century Cairo, djinn and other supernatural beings have been released into our world, with the knock-on effect that Egypt is independent of both the Ottoman and British Empires in this timeline. Special Investigator Fatma arrives at the scene of a dead djinn—killed seemingly by suicide. Dealing with the affairs of nonhumans can be tricky even at the best of times, but as Fatma digs deeper into the circumstances surrounding the dead djinn, continuing even after the case is officially closed, she unravels a conspiracy that could pose an existential threat to all humanity.
A Dead Djinn in Cairo isn’t long, clocking in at just under fifty pages on my e-reader, but it left me hungry for more, which is the perfect feeling to come out of a piece of fiction with. This is an easy recommend whether it’s for the alt-history Cairo setting, the mystery to investigate at the heart of the story, or the fantastic elements seamlessly blended with the real.
Callum’s listening
Bilmuri’s Blindsided EP
Australian country music has never had as much impact as American country music. Sure, we have singers like Keith Urban and Kasey Chambers, but nothing like Willie Nelson or, more recently, Luke Combs. Your parents and their parents may argue this, but exposure to artists within the country genre, even outside of Australia, is low. I’ve never been a fan of the genre, mainly due to its slow pacing, the minor twangs in acoustic guitars and the curl in singers’ voices, which could never offer me the Better Hell I was looking for. That is, until Bilmuri began expanding on their already drastically-experimental style.
With songs like pasteurized milk, wet milk, taco, and ABSOLUTELYCRANKINMYMF’INHOG, it’s easy to see that Johnny Frank, the sole composer of the one-man band, has an absolute blast with his music. He synthesises interesting connections between genres that don’t make sense until you hear them together. It’s not a practice of mash-up either; it’s clear that Frank finds the strands of each genre, waving and reaching for some form of connection, and slowly guides them together like they were never even separated.
Bilmuri’s latest song, BLINDSIDED, delivers this strange hybrid theory that Frank seems to have been studying since the band’s early stages. Attached to its release, BETTER HELL (Thicc boi), the song reels in its country strands to offer a unique style alongside the band’s hardcore/metal genre. Frank’s ability to adapt the band’s structure to his love for American country music makes the genre a little more accessible for those finding it hard to enjoy it.
So, if you want to expand your taste and can only take so much yeehaw, start with BLINDSIDED and see where it takes you. It drastically changed my views on country music.
Callum Ross-Rowland (he/him) is a Brisbane-based creative writing student at QUT. He was 2023 Literary Salon’s Photographer with his recent Diploma in Photo Imaging from Billy Blue (Torrens). He was recently shortlisted for Photographer of the year in the Animal and Nature category and regularly photographs for Artful Heads magazine where he captures portraits of artists from different mediums. Find him on Instagram @alrightatart.
Josephine Renee (she/her) is a 23-year-old Meanjin author majoring in creative writing at QUT. She is the Brisbane Writers Festival 2024 Youth Ambassador and a co-president of the QUT Literary Salon, as well as the 2023 recipient of the Kellie van Meurs Memorial Scholarship. She has travelled Europe for two years, spent a year and a half in North America, and recently returned from Paris. When not gaining worldbuilding inspiration, she dedicates her time to writing and illustrating. She has work published in WhyNot, ScratchThat Magazine, and Glass Magazine. Find her on Instagram @josephine_renee_official or at josephinerenee.com.
Olivia J Pryor (She/They) is a 25-year-old Meanjin based queer trans woman writer in her final year of studying creative writing at QUT. She is a lover of speculative fiction in all its forms: sci-fi; fantasy; horror; weird fiction and others, but still enjoys reading, watching, and listening to media in all genres and forms. She cares deeply about marginalised voices in the arts, particularly queer and trans women.
Logo created by Josephine Renee
Art created by Sophie Gollant
Sophie Gollant (she/her) is marked by her earnest oil paintings and photographs of earthly, isolated scenes. Sophie’s practice is steeped in metaphors and motifs that earnestly draw on her experiences of womanhood, chronic illness, and solitude.
Instagram: @soggolla