Concealing what is shameful to you will never lead to anything of value.
Karl Ove Knausgård. Oh, Karl Ove. He would say that. (My Struggle is good. Book 2 is still a few months away.)
Whole Foods: America’s Temple of Pseudoscience
We often have it stuck in our heads that science communicators have only failed to speak to the religious right. But while issues of science-and-society are always tied up, in some ways, with politics, they’re not bound to any particular part of the spectrum.
Million Dollar Baby. I’ve had this near the top of my Eastwood rankings for a while, but I started to wonder if I was due for a reevaluation. It’s good, but I think memory rounded off some of the rough edges.
Rankings are getting a bit absurd, but I think you can safely say that numbers 1-4 are in the must-see tier, 5-8 are worthwhile, 9-11 you can safely skip, while only 12 is what I’d call straight-up bad.
In a sense, every night exterior LA-shot film previous to this change is rendered a sort of anthropological artifact, an historical document of obsolete urban infrastructure.
Now I want to give Collateral another shot.
The Lego Movie
The Lego Movie. I had heard that this was better than you’d think, but it was still so wildly beyond my expectations. (My first reaction might still hold. I’ll need to mull it over a it more.) The story is pretty straightforward, but they build in a lot of good meta-movie/genre tropes and the sense of humor was right up my alley (both the wit and the dumb gags). And it’s gorgeous. The verrrrry very end doesn’t quite work for me, but geez. What a treat.
The Risks Worth Taking – Austin Kleon.
Believe me, when I quit my day job almost two years ago, it was not an act of bravery, and if it was a risk, it was an extremely calculated one.
Skyfall
Skyfall. Uhhh… I fell asleep. There’s some good location porn though. Word on the street is Quantum of Solace is the worst one? Haven’t seen it, but I’m skeptical. I guess Bond in general just isn’t my thing. Casino Royale was pretty good, though.
The Bling Ring
The Bling Ring. It’s not amazing (characterization is pretty weak (but it doesn’t seem to be trying (but maybe it would help?))), but it does have an addictive energy to it. There’s one burglary that’s caught in a one-take long shot that’s just perfect. I need to catch up on Sofia Coppola’s other stuff. The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation are pretty brilliant.
2013 Double Feature: Her / Don Jon / The Dissolve.
Samantha and Barbara are idealized, objectified versions of women based on the main characters’ tastes. In Don Jon, Gordon-Levitt’s Jon repeatedly calls Barbara the most perfect thing—note the “thing”—he’s ever seen, an evaluation based primarily on her physical resemblance to the women in the pornography he spends hours watching each day. In Her, Samantha is literally the ideal woman for Joaquin Phoenix’s sad-sack Theodore Twombly, an intuitive piece of technology that adapts to him, without him even realizing she’s doing it. She’s everything he wants, without him having to say, or even understand, what he wants.
Armageddon
Armageddon. Ebert summarized it correctly (“Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer.”), but I enjoyed it more than he did. Some terrible writing and comedy hasn’t aged well, but the melodrama and spectacle holds up. I’d totally forgotten about the hyper-idealized middle-America nostalgia in there.
Philip Seymour Hoffman: The End of Quitting
He knew the habit wasn’t worth it. The inevitable consequences had long resonated, I’m sure. But the culture that says that such remembering, taken one day at a time, is the key to recovery is the culture that drives so many — even those who have sought help in the past — to die in the shadows. It’s just too embarrassing to admit you did it anyway. Again.
There are limits to empathy. Every addict lives in fear of reaching them.
Angry Robot: Not about online photo storage really
As Ramanan said, “some proper-ass blogging right here”.
Возвращение (The Return)
Возвращение (The Return). First of all: just a ridiculously gorgeous and beautifully shot movie. I dig the desaturated blue-grey metallic finish to the whole thing. You can take the story as presented and see a good, moody, thoughtful mystery unfold… or you can put on your analytical hat and pull out plenty of theological/mythical/psychological/allegorical stuff. Either way, you win. Really enjoyed seeing a few scenes/shots mirrored at later points (a moment in bed is reprised in the rowboat; compare a shot of the brothers on the boat trip out with the one on the way back; etc.) If you’re looking for another amazing movie that revolves around two boys, mysterious boats, and a mysterious man, you have to see Mud.
Cameras as a Means to Create Long-form Photography
In the same way that mobile has enabled us to share our thoughts quickly in short-form, the smartphone camera has made it easy to quickly share a short-form image.
Clunkiness of the phrase aside, I like what he’s getting at here.
Stanford Man: Richard Sherman and the Thug Athlete Narrative «
And while the intentions were good, and helped shift some of the conversation about him back in his favor, it shouldn’t be a primary argument when given the all-too-common task of proving someone isn’t a thug. If anything, it’s harmful logic. Because the next Richard Sherman may not have attended Stanford. So what then?
Stanford Man: Richard Sherman and the Thug Athlete Narrative «
The Hunter
The Hunter. Dang, I love this movie. (Previously.)
Her
Her. I still like it! (Previously.)
Never try to look cool and learn something at the same time. You must have an awkward phase.
Kanye West
I was a music producer, and everyone was telling me that I had no business becoming a rapper, so it gave me the opportunity to tell everyone, “Hey, I need some time to recover.” But during that recovery period, I just spent all my time honing my craft and making The College Dropout. Without that period, there would have been so many phone calls and so many people putting pressure on me from every direction—so many people I somehow owed something to—and I would have never had the time to do what I wanted to.
Mark Larson 