cobl04
45:33
What about Shine a Light
Fuck off, that's one of the best movies ever.
You will like Mean Streets, I think.
Primer
I like to think I see the general template. You push a stone with the best of intentions, it starts rolling slowly downhill, and by the time it picks up a full head of steam you realize it's out of control and wherever it crashes leaves the emotional wreckage behind. So exactly how many times Abe and Aaron loop into themselves with a failsafe box in a failsafe box is of somewhat arbitrary complexity and a fine narrative for Shane Carruth to show off his talent splicing it all together, and I see the movie's style following the function that not even they're quite sure of what's happening, so the audience isn't either. Carruth does well letting the last half of the film marinate in that sense of dread.
But
I'm wary of confusing technical feats of plotting with overall excellence. It's fine for the narrative thread to become unstuck in time, but it's a big problem that Carruth treats who Rachel is and the double-cross double cross, two key emotional facts/moments that really need to be emphasized and underlined, as two more pieces of info to be thrown into the blender amongst the rats upstairs and cell phone metaphysics. So it all washes past me, and checking the plot description online I don't doubt it all fits together in retrospect, but Primer is a movie, not a Wikipedia entry. I don't need to fully get the narrative cause and effects on a first watch, but there should be some emotional arc/pull in Primer that isn't quite there. What I saw was an expertly crafted, empty box.
Practicing my pullquotes
Part of what was so great about the ending was how hollow the victory seems to ring.
Saw Oblivion on opening weekend. Saracene is spot on. Also, it felt like about half an hour was missing from the middle; the part where I start to care about the characters and where it builds toward a climax. It looked amazing though... Maybe worth seeing just for the visuals (except the stupid underground wasteland aesthetic that we've seen a million times before)
a subtle and moving exploration into the sacred and profane.... quietly devastating
Part of what was so great about the ending was how hollow the victory seems to ring.
Absolutely.
I'd posted some review early on by a journalist I admire who was one of the people who was adamant that ZDT was pro-torture propaganda. Well, I finally saw the movie and was once again reminded that the kneejerk ideologues on the left can be as stupid as the ones on the right.
Once Upon a Time in America