Film & Tv
- My feelings about this film are complicated. It made me feel physically ill and haunted my dreams the night after I saw it. That seems very appropriate, given its subject matter. But I also think that the decision to show the main characters almost entirely in moments of domestic quiet and normality undersold the evils they were very personally responsible for. Rudolf Höss was not just a functionary being pushed by the currents of fate — he was the main architect of Auschwitz, and apart from Hitler and Himmler, one of the most responsible for the huge death toll of […]
- Watching Jessica and Paul shift viewpoints and harden into their messianic roles is unsettling and grim, as is a lot of the rest of it. An apocalyptic vision that provides much spectacle.
- The idea that the two main characters could still be friends after this trip is pretty absurd, but I guess that’s the point. The writer guy has to hit rock bottom to turn his life around, and his idiotic friend is crucial to the process. Or something? My favorite parts were when Miles and Maya talked about wine.
- "A vault of chocolate stored deep beneath the cathedral and guarded around the clock by a corrupt cleric and 500 chocoholic monks" — the rigged power structure of life explained!
- Another strained metaphorical film from Pixar, along the lines of Inside Out, this one is a bit more successful in that the metaphor is based on something real vs. complete abstraction. (There was a moment in this movie that I actually said out loud, “He just needs to condense!” and it was completely true.) The metaphor in this case is one of immigration and the difficulties of achieving cultural tolerance and appreciation, couched in the terminology of “elements” like fire, water, air, and earth. But there’s also a story about finding one’s own path in the face of familial expectations. […]
- New Criterion disc required a rewatch. It's just as good as ever!
- This review may contain spoilers. Who are we, really? Our inner subjective identities or the roles we play when out in the world? Roles… plural, points to the answer, I think. I love how this film depicts role playing in a playful but also serious way. What if you pretend to be someone you know you're not, and people love you? And what if you keep part of yourself hidden and that makes you hate yourself? There are many variations of this in the movie, but what most affected me were the moments of reckoning when Monk was faced with […]
- This review may contain spoilers. I really enjoyed Emma Stone's performance, the humor, and the grotesquerie, but was a bit put off by all the sex which was, according to the science fiction premise, pretty much with a baby… Ick. At least there is comeuppance for the sleazeballs and assholes at the end.
- Another film that bills itself as a biopic, but is largely focused on one or two elements of the main character’s life, leaving huge gaps where important information should be. I did not find this satisfying and became increasingly annoyed at all of the time spent on hearings and political backstabbing. On the plus side, the acting and cinematography were good, and I liked the scenes in which a stressed Oppenheimer imagined explosions wiping out his surroundings. Paradoxically, those small scale moments were when the film came closest to conveying the scope of the destructive power he knew he had […]
- This was good natured and occasionally funny, but the story was so by the numbers that it didn't really engage me that much. Oscar Kightley's performance tickled me, though.