True Detective S1E1/2

I watched S1E1 and most of E2, many years after doing the same; I remembered very little.

What a great show. Between GoT and True Detective, HBO in 2014 was like Athens in 400 BC, where popularity and quality somehow coexist in the same objects, and those objects are multiple, making that locale an exciting place to be.

Woody Harrelson is decent as a deliberately archetypal cop bro. Matthew McConaughey is far more compelling as an almost byronic antihero: aloof, brilliant, dark, misunderstood. I wonder if he'll take a Jaime Lannister heartfelt heroic turn, or a Heathcliff free fall. Based on the foreshadowings, I guess he ends up wasting away somewhat. Either way, his performance is classic.

This show has strong characters and a strong atmosphere: all it needs for true greatness, other than continued execution, is an intriguing plot. So far, the leads they're chasing are a little dull. It doesn't feel like Sherlock where you as the viewer are on the edge of your seat for the solution. I would love to see this case get more intriguing, as opposed to the series just being a character study. If that happens, the initially dull leads will make sense.

I also just love McConaughey's aesthetic. Thin without being skinny, tall enough, clean yet shaggy haircut, looking old enough to look weathered and young enough to look athletic, smartly dressed yet the tie is loose and nothing is stiff, always a dark brow

The Lighthouse

I liked it, but it tames my Eggers FOMO, since I wasn't hot on The Northman either, and Erik said he didn't love Nosferatu. Both that I saw had amazing atmosphere for someone like me, so it's a real failure of screenwriting that I merely liked them.

Dafoe succeeds in the most obvious way at his charge of legendary old sailor man -- the beard, the voice, the eyes, it's all textbook -- although it felt too actor-y to me. Especially his monologue after Pattison doesn't like his cooking: it's a spurt of attempted Shakespeare in a movie that shouldn't feel like stage. The writing arbitrarily slides into stage or poetry at times, and when it does, despite Dafoe and the whole visual flair, it feels really inauthentic. It isn't woven in, it's inserted. As such, I can't say Eggers really handles his material. He makes a valiant effort, but he strives beyond his reach.

So I actually wasn't thrilled with Dafoe. He's obviously distinguished, but he's almost too archetypal, and the screenplay breaks his archetype at inconsistent times. I also definitely wasn't thrilled with Pattinson. First of all, I don't think his accent was consistent, which destroys the viewer's immersion in the performance. Second, I think he's just trying too hard to show up as a serious actor with abandon, past his teen idol phase. It's a vulnerable role, but he leans too much on those elements that could be deemed anti-Edward-Cullen. Maybe he's beyond being beyond Twilight, but either way, he's reaching in this movie. I don't think he's really succeeded for me in any of his post-Twilight roles: Water for Elephants, Batman, The Lighthouse, The King... all a little stale and forced.

This movie was like The Shining, but instead of snow it was the sea. A storm keeps them in isolation; they grow madder; there's an ominous scene zooming in on the protagonist staring into space; there's a matter of chasing with an axe; flashes of prior murder that had happened there...

It's a killer atmosphere, and the madness is fun... the symbolism is fun... the surrealism is fun. But the performances don't quite sell it. And even worse, the screenplay just isn't that good. It too randomly waxes poetic, and at other times is generally basic.

The movie also reminded me of There Will Be Blood, but this one relied too much on the grotesque as a means of engaging viewers. Smarter movies don't need that crutch. There Will Be Blood has its grotesque moments, but if I remember right, they're offered in moderation, with cunning buildup in between. The Lighthouse is kind of a slaughterfest, if slaughter is offending the viewer's civil sensibilities.

Ex Machina

This movie would have been more interesting when it came out, before ChatGPT forced us to consider the same themes. Its themes are basically all of the common problems of AI, with which we are all now quite acquainted. Still, the movie is an engrossing meditation on those themes, a fair bit of movie-making when all is said and done. But it stinks a little overmuch of sci-fi; that is, nerdiness and technical skill without that deep artistic sense. The characters are formulaic, the dialogue is a caricature. I don't think it's a great movie; it's too riddled with cliche, even for 2014, and the human artistic touch is too shallow. Domhnall is unrealistically timid in a lot of situations, which I think is a common flaw in screenwriting -- characters put up with unacceptable situations for too long. They're too weak-natured, because anything else would result in the plot being shut down. For instance, I might feel intimidated on first meeting Nathan, but his attitude would quickly clear that awkwardness... I wouldn't take down my guard, but there'd be a changing of the guards... suspicion would take insecurity's place... it would clear the weak-willed awkwardness that lingers too long in so many movies like this. The cliche would be the unrealistically timid protagonist, who has to be timid to give the plot time to unfold. Good-natured Greg Focker puts up with too many shenanigans before putting his foot down, which gives us more time to enjoy said shenanigans. Indeed, Ben Stiller must be the prototype of weak-willed awkwardness that lets the plot unfold as his own expense. Ex Machina is more sinister, and in fact this archetype is very common in horror/thrillers, but the idea is the same. It's a plot device, and an irritating one. Doesn't Domhnall feel like a fool, acting that part?

Speaking of feeling like a fool... it'd be hard to play Vikander's part sincerely. Don't you worry that the whole movie is a prank to get you to pretend you're a robot and to think you're actually acting well? I'm not saying she acted poorly, but it's got to feel strange. I guess that's all of acting, but especially in an unnatural part such as this. You have to feel kind of dumb doing it. I thought she played it okay though.

Isaac was good, though a little too on-the-nose as sinister corporate bro.

Museums

So you hear this art museum is one of the greatest in the world, a must-see; and you tend to feel invigorated by these things. It's $15 but it's a no-brainer, you can't miss one of the tallest posts of humanity in this city you're visiting. It has 30 segments, housing 1000 works. To get your money's worth, and with inevitable FOMO, you feel compelled to visit all 30. The hours of operation, your traveling companion, and to a degree your own physical health, demand no more than 4 hours there. That's about 14 seconds per work. Your eyes are certainly drawn to all 1000, out of that same FOMO, to neck-straining effect. How does this allow any kind of deep experience? You're in this cathedral, zenith of your species, and you're speed-walking for a slight eye-laying on these objects so full of toil and beauty. If you linger more than a minute on the few most famous works, because you feel you should, you've hamstrung your appreciation for all others; if you're not careful, you can only average single-digit seconds on the rest. Eventually, you emerge invigorated by the atmosphere of art -- your brain craves that immersion -- for about two minutes, and with no serious observance of any particular work to show for it. You haven't gained a favorite, haven't surveyed your soul, haven't rattled your countenance, haven't known an artist's labor, haven't had a beautiful or even very educational experience.

My solution has historically been to spend the entire day at the museum, and preferably come back another day. I spent several full days at The Met, for example. But that isn't always realistic. Another option is to accept defeat immediately, to only target a fraction of the museum. That's challenging, but intriguing. Say "Egyptian stuff is interesting, but that's not what's going to level me today; I crave Romanticism!" or "I've had enough of the Parisians, show me China!" and skip entire wings.

But there's a third solution that isn't in the agency of the patron. It's the agency of the museum. I think we're designing museums wrong. We're designing them as libraries, vast stores of human artifact, because someplace needs to house this stuff, and you need somewhere to get when you want to check out a book (look at an artwork). But that's not how most of the massive industry of casual museum-goers use them. They're a tourist attraction and a way to spend one's afternoon. You don't pay $15 to go in a library, so no one's going to come to the museum for 30 minutes like they might a library. They're coming as an event, an experience. They want to feel and to learn something, and they want their money's worth. Displaying an entire library of 1000 works doesn't align with their purpose, just as no one is going to read every book in the library. But at a museum, when it's technically possible to glance at each, and you can technically consider an artwork "read" by a mere glance, that's what people are going to try to do. It'd be like if 95% of your library patrons never read a single book, they just ran through the library looking at spines for at most 14 seconds apiece. It'd be a silly enterprise, and sillier for the library than for the patron. The patron is doing their best to feel something. The museum isn't designed for them.

Short of free museums, I propose small museums. That The Met spends their funding not on quantity but quality. Imagine a museum with 10 rooms, 1 work per room. It's a sequence, a story, told from room to room. But it's funded like The Met, so each work is spectacular. This is a choice on The Met's part. Imagine too that each room is perfectly designed to support the art, like wine and cheese. Patrons contemplate each work so much deeper. There's nothing else in the room to distract from it; no 15 other paintings hanging around the periphery. It's all attention on the toil and beauty of the work. No FOMO. Just observation.

I propose quality over quantity in museums. Same funding, patron spends the same amount of time there, but 5% of the volume. Perfect lean curation, deeper reflection. Contentment like you've never felt in a museum.

Sopranos pilot

I think I'd like it. It's less grand than I expected, more domestic. Tony's voice is more nasally, less gruff. The tone is lighter. All of this points to a brisk and unaffecting experience. Course it's only one episode, but I don't want to trudge through anything lightweight, I want every episode of TV I watch to be moving, and the pilot should hint at the heavier stuff if there is any. The pilot should tease the spirit of the series, and the tease is too gentle to compel me hence. With TV I need big compulsion, especially when a series has so many seasons.

Opera, Verdi

I prefer the tone of Fleming to Callas, Bostridge to Pavarotti. The former are more so pure trumpets, less human, all voice. The latter are the legends, and I adore their legacies, but there's too much gut in the voice. Maybe it's just a shift in the world's taste over time, or maybe it's my taste vs the world's. Not that the former are neglected... they just aren't deified.

In fact, someone like Fleming even has too much gut in the voice, to be a quintessential soprano. Add a spoonful of Enya and she'd be perfect.

I listened to Verdi's Requiem and substantially preferred it to Rigoletto and Don Carlo. It serves a different purpose of course, but being a long dramatic work of Verdi I didn't think it'd stand so tall beside the others. It's better in every way: the lyrical lines, the irae, it all hits harder and with less cheese. It compels me to Otello, Traviata, etc. I know this man writes music!

Tonight is La Boheme at the Teatro in Rome

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

It didn't try very hard, it just strung together some naturalistic yet stylish sequences which culminated in typical Tarantino satisfaction. The ending was fun, quite like his Basterds history-rewrite, and almost as infernal. The rest was mild but melodious.

Stylish naturalism like Licorice Pizza isn't where I draw my druthers, but it's a valid form of movie. It can still be nice. I sincerely liked OUATIH, though I probably won't remember it too potently.

Leo does his thing, but it's actually Brad Pitt who endeared me most. He's relaxed yet strong-willed, from his air to his hair, his outfit to his handling of conflict. He doesn't hold with bullshit, nor does he make a scene about it. My only question is whether he killed his wife; as far as I could tell, the matter went wholly unexplored.

A lot went wholly unexplored. Again, it's just a sequence of episodes, more notable for the vibe than anything. Comprehension is secondary. Did they have to bring in Bruce Lee? Did Cliff have to have a suggestive backstory? Did Rick have to connect curiously deeply with his child costar? It's all just faces of a giant polyhedron that is Hollywood, 1969; none of it is essential, all of it is of the essence.

There's a certain horror to watching Robbie so amiable as Sharon Tate, with her childlike positivity, knowing what comes for her -- and a certain gioia when it doesn't. Tarantino commits to the happy ending for some reason. I suppose he tends to.

This kind of movie puts Tarantino close to Scorsese, in their big Leo indulgence, their relishing of a stylized period, their propellant use of music, and their smart dialogue, without the usual gimmicks of Tarantino.

There's not much to dislike of this movie, unless you demand that it piece together into something more intentional.

It's funny how this film encapsulates multiple generations of Hollywood fame. Of course there's DiCaprio and Pitt, two of the biggest leading men of the last 30 years. There's Austin Butler and Sydney Sweeney, new legends. There's Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, even Sharon Tate and Steve McQueen of old.