Spoilers Alert! “Pseudo-review” of Smile and Caveat

The Pleasure of the Text

Spoilers Alert! “Pseudo-review” of Smile and Caveat

Smile
Official Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcDK7lkzzsU

Rose (Sosie Bacon) first learns about the smiling monster that takes over her life when a distraught young woman named Laura Weaver (Caitlin Stasey) is brought to Rose’s hospital in a state of near-hysteria. Laura explains that she’s been seeing an “entity” no one else can see, a creature with a horrible smile that sometimes appears to her in the guise of other people she knows, alive or dead. Then Laura collapses screaming, clearly something over her shoulder that Rose can’t see. As Rose calls for help, Laura stands up calmly smiling, and slits her own throat. - https://www.polygon.com/23374118/smile-ending-meaning-director-interview

Caveat
Official Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoOkSYrf8ew

When the slick and calculating Barret (Ben Caplan) offers Isaac (Jonathan French) a five-day job "babysitting" Barret's adult niece Olga (Lila Psyches), who needs "company" at her "isolated" childhood home, Isaac, a drifter suffering from some kind of amnesia and the mental fog that goes with it, is confused. Barret claims to be an old friend, but Isaac has no memory of him. Also, why is this supposed old friend offering him so much money to hang out with a woman clearly too old to need a "babysitter"? Isaac says, baffled, "There's got to be more to it than that." Suddenly, the title card appears, in jagged letters: "CAVEAT." - https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/caveat-movie-review-2021

Defamiliarization
The Russian Formalists’ concept of "Defamiliarization", proposed by Viktor Shklovsk, refers to the literary device whereby language is used in such a way that ordinary and familiar objects are made to look different. It is a process of transformation where language asserts its power to affect our perception. It is that aspect which differentiates between ordinary usage and poetic usage of language, and imparts a uniqueness to a literary work.

Laura Hasn’t Slept
Desperate to rid herself of a recurring nightmare, a young woman seeks the help of her therapist. To read more, head over here.

Tanganika Laughing Epidemic
An interesting article on the Tanganika Laughing Epidemic can be read here.

M.R. James

Montague Rhodes James (1862 –1936) was an English author and medievalist scholar. Though his work as a medievalist and scholar is still highly regarded, he is best remembered for his ghost stories, which some consider among the best in the genre. He redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, his protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests. Accordingly, he is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story"

The short film, Lost Hearts, can be watched here.