serizawa3000

RANDOM THOUGHTS about THE SHAPE OF WATER (probable SPOILERS AHEAD):

* Right off the top, I think you should know... this is CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON meets PUSHING DAISIES.
(Only instead of Ned the Piemaker, we have Ned the Fishman... and the pies aren't very good. Also, not as much voiceover narration, no Darling Mermaid Darlings...)
* Richard Jenkins sounds like someone out of A Prairie Home Companion. The man from the "Ketchup Advisory Board" PSAs. "These are the good years..."
* I know that Michael Shannon is a prime example of "Mean Character, Nice Actor" (and has been known to wear ugly Christmas sweaters on television), but... I keep thinking... if they ever made UNFROZEN CAVEMAN LAWYER: THE MOVIE, well...
* Guillermo del Toro points out that Strickland would be the hero in a 1950s movie. I did get a sort of "Who you gonna call? HUGH MARLOW!" vibe from him. Marlow was the hero in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers... but wasn't exactly that in The Day the Earth Stood Still. And, of course, because Creature from the Black Lagoon, Strickland is a much nastier take on Mark Williams (who, in an alternate universe, survived the Black Lagoon ordeal, moved to Hawaii, and became governor.).
* We all know someone like Zelda.
We probably all NEED someone like Zelda.
* And THAT, kids, is why you wash your hands after doing your little bathroom business. Reminded somewhat of those "chain of events" commercials DirecTV used to do. "DON'T GET YOUR FINGERS BITTEN OFF BY A FISHMAN."
* Lauren Lee Smith and Nigel Bennett. We're in Canada, all right. Canada (Ontario more specifically) pretending to be Baltimore... They did that for Hannibal, as well. (Reading Kim Newman has kinda triggered the "Massive Multiplayer Crossover" thingie in my brain... where's Hannibal, John Munch, and John Waters? Or even a certain smoking man?) But as they point out in the extras, it's not so much 1962 Baltimore as it is Guillermo del Toro's idea of 1962 Baltimore.
* That the disc has no commentary is disconcerting, to say the very least. Del Toro's commentaries are invaluable and entertaining. Like I said before, maybe we need to wait a couple years for a Criterion edition...
* WARNING FOR CAT PEOPLE: um... as far as I could tell, it's graphic but brief. But from what I saw... I don't know if Fishman could open his mouth wide enough to do, uh... THAT. (I know, I know, the proper nomenclature is "Amphibian Man" but...)
* There's a bit of me thinking it could have been worse, because judging by some gifs I saw on tumblr, there was going to be an underwater dream sequence of a submerged Baltimore where a floating Elisa interacts with (I think) a dog looking out of an open car window... and what might have been an orangutan in a laboratory. I don't know. Nothing to indicate (CGI) animals in peril, but... unsettling. I don't really want to look it up.
* "Sy Ableman, comrade?"
* Having fun figuring out which bits from which Creature movies made it into this. We can postulate that CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON is prologue, only they did succeed at capturing the Gillman. The "being able to breathe on land and in water" notion linking to "How to breathe in space."
* MUSICAL NUMBER!
* A lot more "dry-for-wet" filming than I thought.
* There's been a lot of "it's ripping off this, that, and the other thing!" but I keep thinking of the novel Mrs. Caliban. (I did send a tweet to Mr. del Toro asking if he was familiar with it, but never got a reply.) Mrs. Caliban is about a suburban housewife who meets an amphibious creature (escaped from a laboratory), and things ensue. But the creature can speak, and learns how to drive, and there's the notion that it could all be in the woman's head...
*As cathartic as Strickland's fate is... and maybe a touch symbolic (his throat is slashed open... the scars on Elisa's neck become gills)... wondered whether the Amphibian Man could have killed him the way the Gillman kills... by tearing his face off. (Well, Dr. Thompson survived that somehow.)
*As the camera pulls back from our reunited lovers, it looks like a painting... or a Tarot card.