Author: Mark

10 Cloverfield Lane

~ Mark

10 Cloverfield Lane. One of those movies that takes a few different shapes. Start with a stalker suspense, then abduction horror, then bunker survival, then… well, ya gotta watch it. Love how a few new details surfacing makes you change what you’re rooting for. Good ride.

Knight of Cups

~ Mark

Knight of Cups. After I watched it I wrote some snarky tweets rolling my eyes at this movie having beautiful people walking aimlessly. I meant it, and I also still liked it. The interiority that’s getting stronger in his films is interesting for me. Not so much just watching the characters but riding along with them. Also, he’s the only person making weird idiosyncratically Malickian movies with big names, whenever he feels like it. However he’s getting it done, respect. Filed under: Terrence Malick.

The Grey

~ Mark

The Grey. I wish the poem at the heart of the movie was better. For me, there’s not quite enough there for the melodrama it’s asking for. I think maybe it would have been better without knowing the reasons our hero is so dour. But of course I like the survival bits. The surprises and set pieces are all great.

Miami Vice

~ Mark

Miami Vice. I love this movie. The pathos was stronger this time around, the resignation. On each watch I also become a little more resentful that Foxx doesn’t have a bigger role. His relationship with Crockett has something to offer the story, but we don’t see it much. I’d be up for another 12 minutes with the two of them on screen. Filed under: Michael Mann.

Cameraperson

~ Mark

Cameraperson. Man I loved this one. A collage of footage from director Kirsten Johnson’s work on other films. It works as an experience of the lives she documents and as seeing through her own eyes, and as wrestling with the choices of what or what not to show and how or how not to tell these stories. Highly recommended.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

~ Mark

Raiders of the Lost Ark. It holds up the best of the original trilogy. I feel Iike the Marion Ravenwood character still hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves – Karen Allen is great. Watching as an adult you realize that Indy is… often not very good at what he does. Still gorgeous and fun and it’ll be that way for years to come.

Robert Eggers, Director of ‘The Witch,’ on the Horror Right in Front of Us | | Observer

~ Mark

“Because modern horror is usually this masochistic titillation bullshit, a lot of people in interviews will tell me [The Witch] is not a horror film, it’s a psychological suspense thriller with supernatural elements,” he said, putting on a tone of faux-snobbery. “And I’m like, ‘O.K., that’s cool.’ But then fucking Edgar Allan Poe isn’t horror, either. “What’s important to me about horror stories,” he continued, “is to look at what’s actually horrifying about humanity, instead of shining a flashlight on it and running away giggling.”

Robert Eggers, Director of ‘The Witch,’ on the Horror Right in Front of Us | | Observer

Genevieve Bell: ‘Humanity’s greatest fear is about being irrelevant’ | Technology | The Guardian

~ Mark

I’m interested in how animals are connected to the internet and how we might be able to see the world from an animal’s point of view. There’s something very interesting in someone else’s vantage point, which might have a truth to it. For instance, the tagging of cows for automatic milking machines, so that the cows can choose when to milk themselves. Cows went from being milked twice a day to being milked three to six times a day, which is great for the farm’s productivity and results in happier cows, but it’s also faintly disquieting that the technology makes clear to us the desires of cows – making them visible in ways they weren’t before. So what does one do with that knowledge? One of the unintended consequences of big data and the internet of things is that some things will become visible and compel us to confront them.

Genevieve Bell: ‘Humanity’s greatest fear is about being irrelevant’ | Technology | The Guardian