Revenge

Revenge. Really liked it. Take some pulpy Kill Bill and cross it with high-contrast Spring Breakers and The Guest-like creepiness and soundtrack. Thematically heavy-handed sometimes, with the fruit and the bugs and the beer cans and tattoos. Contrast the male gaze at the opening with the appreciatigve gaze after the cave scene – one of awe, of power rather than lust. And that leads into one of my favorite shots in a while, with her riding the ATV through the desert with that earring gleaming. Maybe file this one under loincloth chase films?

A Hole

A while back I went trailrunning with an old friend. We went off trail at one point and cut through the woods toward nowhere in particular, toward wherever we would end up. We came across a hole in the ground. Holes are inherently interesting – something missing, a ready-made mystery, and you can fill them up with whatever stories you want. We hauled up a long branch and eased it down the hole 'til we hit bottom. We marked the spot at surface level and drew it up again, like we were checking the oil. We stretched out on the ground next to the branch to measure it out. Six feet plus five-and-a-half plus, oh, maybe three-and-half. We had ourselves a fifteen foot hole, maybe two feet wide, and no explanation. Didn't need one. We dropped a pine cone down and listened for it to hit bottom. It took a while. I thought about dropping in, just to scare myself a little. I think I could have gotten back out. Pretty sure. Probably. As long as the mossy sides weren't too slick. I wondered what reception was like down there.

Allied

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Allied. Second viewing (the first). The seams showed a bit more and the pastiche was more apparent and I liked it more because of it, I think. The too-clean appearance heightens the fairy tale, like memory tends to soften things. Noticed a few fun edits, like the lightning shifting to the lantern on the landing strip, and the beats of the final gunshots at the tank crew matched by the curtains being drawn open. I also liked the parallels with two big decisions happening in cars – once during the sandstorm, again in the rain at the airstrip.

News-Adjacent Reading

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Ask yourself what are the relevant topics you have yet to read good pieces on, and then try to find them and read them. Over time, your broader opinions will then evolve in better directions than if you focus on having an immediate emotional reaction to the events right before your eyes. The more tempted you are to judge, the higher the return from trying to read something factual and substantive instead.

Tyler Cowen on finding saner, more productive ways to relate to the news (if you must).

Interiority

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To explore someone else's interiority is not just to flash, at this moment, to what you think the other person might be thinking or feeling. It's a layered, almost literary thing, to imagine the history of their experiences (known and unknown, actual and possible) and to think through those experiences, thoughts, and feelings all the way through to the end.

Today I found myself thinking back to this, from the January 12 edition of the Kottke/Carmody Noticing newsletter.

The Fast and the Furious

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The Fast and the Furious. Second viewing (the first). It's aged pretty well. I really got a kick out of the dialogue this time around. I also like the sound effects when cops break up the street race, and everyone scrambles, and you can hear the car alarms/locks chirping. And that first moment when Brian hits the NOS and we dive into engine is still such a rush. Filed under: The Fast and the Furious.

Streets of Fire

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Streets of Fire. It's such a good mash-up. Combine a western-style rescue movie with hardboiled dialogue (Michael Pare has a good John Wayne-ish drawl to his delivery sometimes), and set it in a rockabilly + '80s glam alternate universe, and take some musical breaks. It stays pretty high-energy and moves along quickly. Early work from Diane Lane, Willem Dafoe, Bill Paxton, Rick Moranis. It's just plain fun.

The Revenant

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The Revenant. Second viewing (the first). I appreciate it so much more this time around. Jumping out this time were the recurring trees that save his life or support him throughout. ("The wind cannot defeat a tree with strong roots. If you look at its branches, you swear it will fall. But if you watch the trunk, you see its stability.") Like when he uses a branch as a cane. Or when injured, he's hauled on a pallet of branches. When leaving his son for the last time, he turns away and props himself on a tree trunk. When escaping downriver, he floats on a log. He's sheltered by an impromptu branch hut during a storm, a tree breaks his fall from a cliff, a tree branch makes a decoy when trying to lure Fitzgerald out of hiding. I also liked the nature interludes – elk crossing a river, buffalo stampede, avalanche – that make this epic tale seem so small, and nature indifferent.

Seeing What Is There

This past Saturday, I woke up early and went hiking. The day started gloomy like the photo above, then misty, then drizzly, and the weather got worse and worse as the morning went on. Toward mid-day, the rain was coming down pretty steady. I came around a bend on the trail, walking up to a lookout point. A man and woman were standing there with their ponchos on, looking out at the wall of rain and fog and the dark fuzzy outlines of the ridge beyond. I started a little small talk. "Not much of a view today!" The guy smiled and laughed and gently corrected me: "Well... it's different."