Angel Heart. Love the mood and atmosphere. A nice blend of noir and horror, sort of ambling along as our PI reluctantly goes where the clues take him. Mickey Rourke was super charismatic. Haven't seen much with him aside from the recent stuff (Iron Man 2, The Wrestler, and the small bit in Man on Fire).
Coherence
Coherence. Very nice little chamber scifi. I liked it quite a bit. Just put people in a room and give them a problem. Easy. This would pair well with other small-scale scifi like Primer, Upstream Color, The One I Love, or something like The Invitation for stressful dinner-party hijinks.
Allied
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.
There's More to This World Than You Have Seen
I really liked Ethan Warren's reflections on Punch-Drunk Love. (Bright Wall/Dark Room is one of the best publications going.)
Rush Hour
Rush Hour. Lots of it is very fun. It's also of an era where, with 2018 eyes, a lots of it makes me cringed. I miss these action/adventure movies. Low stakes, focus on fun.
Barracuda
Barracuda. Features one of the most unlikeable yet magnetic characters I've seen in a while. Good fun.
Carrie
Carrie. Last time I saw this was middle school I think. Long time ago. So sad, wrenching. We remember the mad scene for good reason, but build-up to it at the prom is exquisite.
The Hole Where All the Success Leaks Out
Everything has its own list of classic amateur blunders. [...] Just one of these blunders, made consistently, can undermine almost everything you’re doing right.
There Will Be Blood
There Will Be Blood. Second viewing. Daniel Plainview is a sad sad sad lonely man, who is also very funny sometimes. Filed under: Paul Thomas Anderson.
A Modest Guide to Productivity – Frank Chimero
When the day’s list is done, do not go back to the master list. The rewards of productivity must not be a bottomless well of work.
News-Adjacent Reading
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
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
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
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 Florida Project
The Florida Project. Kids are deeply weird. I like how this movie holds to their perspective with a lower, child-height camera angles. And the colors! It's largely episodic, but eventually adds up. The choices in the very very last scene didn't work for me, but I forgive it easily. I liked Sean Baker's earlier Tangerine, too.
The Revenant
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."
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I liked it, overall, and it had just enough small things to drive me a little nuts. Snoke is a misfire (just call Ed Harris! You have the budget!), and so were the various little animals. That one ship's jump to light speed was sublime. And very good space debris throughout. I like our time with Rey and Kylo, and Poe's debacles. Finn was wasted, unfortunately. Benicio Del Toro is the best, but I wish they could have found him some other way. The space chase could and should have been gut-wrenching, but something about the cuts and pacing made it just sort of... there. I wonder how I'll feel whenever I rewatch it again. Of the latest batch, this ranks behind Rogue One. Filed under: Star Wars.
The Silence of the Lambs
The Silence of the Lambs. Re-watch (previously). Masterpiece. I noticed the close-ups much more this time around. The face are very, uh, in your face. Jack Crawford might be the most unsettling character in the whole movie.
American Honey
American Honey. Second viewing (the first). I still don't know what to make of it, thematically, but I was entranced again.