Movies
The cinematic style itself is a little shaky, and this movie made me realize that it's kind of strange that the "letter is read by actor talking directly at the camera" technique has becomes something of a cliché for 18th/19th century period pieces trying to court modern sensibilities. But the screenplay and acting are both really tight, and the revisionist historical angle is enlightening—as an English teacher who has taught Dickinson poems in the past, I am embarrassed to admit that I didn't know half the things I discovered in my post-movie Wikipedia dive. Grade: B
Kind of like a Wiseman film if Wiseman were just a tad more interested in people than institutions. As cross-section of the people living along the biggest highway in Italy, it's a pretty interesting study of contrasts, from dudes bathing in literally golden tubs to people essentially living on the streets, and director Gianfranco Rosi gets some really evocative shots both of people living their lives (often filmed through their apartment windows) and of the highway itself. Gotta say, though, I dunno that it really justifies all of its 90 minutes, and I was restless by the end. Would have loved to spend a little more time with the guy making recordings of grubs than with some of the more anonymous folks here. Grade: B-
A playful, fun avant-garde feature that's basically just 90 minutes of goofing around with early digital film and digital effects. It feels historically significant that this came out the same year of Attack of the Clones (another landmark in digital cinema), and it makes me wonder what kind of movies George Lucas would have been making in 2002 if Star Wars hadn't ever taken off. Grade: B
I talked about this movie (and Wavelength) on the Cinematary podcast, if you're interested in hearing about that. You can listen here.
It's pretty jarring to think of this movie's Badlands-by-way-of-'90s-indie in the context of Kelly Reichardt's broader career, to which it bears little resemblance. But I think if you can put that aside, it's a solid, occasionally lovely picture. I don't know if it's any more than the sum of its influences (a little bit of Breathless, a little bit Drugstore Cowboy, a lot of bit the aforementioned Badlands), but you could say the same of a lot of auspicious, slightly off-format '90s indie debuts: Hard Eight, Bottle Rocket, etc. There's something about the grimy, pre-Pulp Fiction American indie aesthetic that I just can't get enough of, and River of Grass delivers that in spades while also being Reichardt's funniest feature (the last scene is one of the great moments of black comedy in the '90s, on par with "You shot Marvin in the face"). Plus, it has that really awesome jazz score. Grade: B
There are exactly three parts in this movie where I was more entertained than by any other action movie I've watched in recent memory: the opening sequence in the shanty town, the mid-film bit where Chan has to answer all the phones in the police station at once, and (of course) the legendary mall fight at the film's finale. The rest I thought was mostly tedious (with some pretty iffy gender politics to boot). But those three scenes are A+ territory, and Jackie Chan is a freaking Movie Star, so this shook out pretty great on average for me. Grade: B+
Really hate to be the guy who doesn't like the greatest avant-garde movie of all time, but I didn't like the greatest avant-garde movie of all time. I didn't get a thing out of it, and while I kind of appreciate some of the choices here (the "Strawberry Fields" part is neat, though for me that's likely just because I enjoy the song; some of the color tints are cool; I like where this ultimately ends up re: letting the waves go out of focus; also, that random dude who drops dead in front of the camera is Hollis Frampton??), I mostly just wish I didn't feel like the sound design had actually damaged my hearing. Was thinking I was going to be a Michael Snow head after digging *Corpus Callosum, so color me disappointed. Grade: C
Television
The first season of The Show About the Show was one of the great gems of the "Peak TV" era, a gonzo, hilarious experiment in self-reflexivity with a legitimate edge to it. I suppose it was only natural that a show as recursive as this one would eventually fold into itself and become not about the show itself but the people who make the show, and that's exactly what happens in this season, which essentially becomes a video diary of how Caveh Zahedi's commitment to the show has more or less destroyed his life. The show still has that same live-wire energy and compellingly playful unpredictability as its first season, but it's also excruciating and legitimately uncomfortable to see Caveh just dive into suffering with the abandon he does here. As this season shows, the central conceit of having real-life people recreate the ways in which they have interacted with the show creates a feedback loop that can end in nothing but chaos—interactions that, under normal circumstances, may have been tense but ultimately have dissipated with time become scabs that the show's recreations pick at and pick at until they become infected and even gangrenous. Added to this is the fact that the show now seems much less self-reflexive of its own limitations than it was in its first season; we are stuck in Caveh's point of view as he narrates his own memories, and while the first season did some work to explore the unreliability of this POV, the second season allows for no windows out of this solipsistic, at times genuinely sociopathic perspective, which renders central figures like Caveh's wife sort of incomprehensible as real people, either because Caveh chooses to portray them in fractured, illogical ways or because he doesn't understand these people himself. It's kind of horrific and monstrously sad. The first season was fun; this one is just kind of miserable, and while it's no less fascinating than its first season, I can't get too enthusiastic about this one. Grade: B
Music
There's a somewhat muddled concept to Miss Anthropocene that you can explore if you want, but I'll be honest that I really just like the sound of this album. It sounds like what I imagine Visions-era Grimes would sound like if she had the Art Angels-era budget, and the result is a beguiling collection of songs, from the ambitious production of something like the opener, "So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth," to the hazy space-pop of "Delete Forever" or "Violence." It's a really solid record, and sure, it lacks some of the punch of Art Angels, but what doesn't? Grade: B+
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