Movies
More like the limits of my attention span. The cinematography is beautiful, and there are some wonderful moments where the superb soundtrack collides with imagery in an arresting way. But those are purely sensual pleasures, and anyway, they're spread out among some long, long stretches of film without much happening of note except parades of characters repeating lines of dialogue said just a few scenes earlier (we get it—he doesn't understand Spanish) and Tilda Swinton talking about movies where people don't talk. Yes, it's one of those kinds of movies, where the characters talk all about the director's favorite movies. It's slightly interesting on a philosophical level but not at all on an engaging emotional one, and on the whole, I was left cold and bored. Grade: C+
I think it's only fair to note that a lot of what's compelling about this movie comes right from Nikos Kazantzakis's superb book: the semi-heretical characterization of Jesus, the ending, the idea that the only way to truly change the world is with an act of radical compassion. It's also worth noting that the movie does itself a serious disservice by reducing the role of Mary Magdalene (in many ways, the novel's emotional core). But compellingly borrowing from source material is compelling nonetheless, and the Scorcese/Schrader team is doing a lot more than filming static shots of pages from the novel. On the strength of the craft alone, I'd even rank the movie's final 20 minutes as some of the best minutes in Scorsese's career. Plus, Willem Dafoe is hands-down the best onscreen Jesus I've seen. Grade: A-
The scene-to-scene movement is a bit too meandering for it to truly work as the zippy dramedy the movie seems to envision itself as, and after Margot Robbie shows up, the recurring device of attractive celebrities explaining esoteric Wall Street jargon has diminishing returns. There's also a sour, condescending tone to the movie that, I dunno, maybe is justified—after all, the banks couldn't have sold all those horrid loans without the American populous buying—but can be kind of a turn-off at times. Still, it's a heck of a lot more fun than any movie about mortgage lending deserves to be. And its righteous anger (oh man, is this movie furious) is contagious; if you aren't ready to go all pitchforks and torches on some big banks after seeing this movie, you and I may have divergent life priorities. Grade: B+
This graceful little gem manages to do that rare, wonderful thing that's pretty much guaranteed to win me over: depict religious belief in a way that's insightful without being esoteric or condescending. The trick, I think, is in making its central Puritan community legitimately poor, which turns their austere beliefs and practices into more of an accepted necessity than a finger-wagging indictment. This isn't one of those broad, snobbish movies that positions unfettered freedom as inherently superior to principled convictions—it's more about the place of art of all kinds (musical and culinary in this film's case) in a religious setting, which is something that's been much less driven into the ground than the belief/freedom dichotomy. It's nice. Grade: B+
The opening act, full of stale jokes about millennial buzzwords like Instagram and "what's a handkerchief?", is bumpy. The good news is that it's a feint—The Intern is, mercifully, not about an aging man struggling to come to grips with the 2015 tech world. Once the movie has all the place-setting out of the way, it settles into the warm rhythms of an ever-so-slightly melancholy dramedy focused not on technology but friendship and the intangibility of happiness. It's very sweet and (gravy) anchored by an entirely winning platonic chemistry between De Niro and Hathaway. Grade: B
Books
The debut novel from the author who eventually brought us Gone Girl, which I have not read. But like at least the Gone Girl movie (whose screenplay Flynn helped to write, so I'm not completely out to lunch here), Sharp Objects brings a heaping portion of not-entirely-helpful misanthropy to a very literary version of mental illness, where symptoms are lurid and thematically relevant. It's unpleasant, if occasionally gripping, and overall, I might be a little less cool on it if the novel didn't rush to an ending like it had an appointment to keep. I give it the shrug of letter grades. Grade: B-
Television
Breaking Bad was a Shakespearean tragedy, down to its five-act/season structure; now we have its prequel, whose tragedy looks to be not Shakespearean but Greek. Unlike Walter White, whose flaws are a sneaky byproduct of his sudden discovery that he wields inordinate control over the universe, Saul Goodman finds that no matter how hard he tries, he is living in a universe that insists on wrenching away agency. He's Sisyphus, and watching that boulder roll back down the mountain time and time again is heartbreaking. Already, BCS's first season is better than at least two of Breaking Bad's; it's funnier, sadder, more patient, and does away with almost all of the overly clever plotting and dialogue stings that afflicted BB's lesser moments. We may just have the superior series on our hands now. Grade: A
Music
Spalding has a reputation as NPR jazz—music that's not especially interesting but that people listen to so they can feel sophisticated. I haven't listened to her back catalogue, so I can't say how warranted that reputation was. But let's hope this album blows apart that conception of her here on out, 'cause it's bizarre, inventive, and awesome. Imagine Court-and-Spark-era Joni Mitchell thrown into a blender with Gabriel-era Genesis, Yoko Ono, and Janelle Monáe, then sprinkled with a garnish of Robert Glasper. If any of those influences interest you at all, give it a listen, especially the astral, 9-minute version of "Unconditional Love" that closes out most editions of the record. Grade: A-
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