Phantom Thread

4/23/21

I like the rhythm of his movies. I like how he uses music to create motion. I remember this in Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, The Master and this one. The music and cinematography create such a current that when he cuts to stillness one can feel the electric buildup. He seems effective with this -- alternating current and capacitance. It makes these movies exciting and engaging despite subject matter you weren't sure you could get excited about. I was engaged throughout Phantom Thread, and while I feel fortunate I could sympathize with these characters, I don't think that entirely accounts for my investment. I think he creates rhythms I like. I'm also obviously partial to anything Radiohead-related, so that relationship has proven fortuitous for me. Indeed I was enjoying this movie before I was sympathizing with the characters and before I knew why I was enjoying it, dry as it appeared. I like his style and I like his motion, and I like his static tension. Of course these themes have morphed over the years: the style and motion and static tension I like about Phantom Thread look very different from the same I liked about Boogie Nights. There's been a general subduing over time, Phantom Thread being the most subdued. In Boogie Nights the style was disco, the motion was one long twirling take around the club, and the static tension was... hmm, I don't remember, maybe wholesome Buck covered in blood considering theft? Even as I recall it seems too on-the-nose to represent what I'm saying, but that's also what I'm saying. There were a few moments Boogie Nights shattered the edifice in the most obviously shattering ways. I always thought it worked, but after climaxing in Magnolia, he probably had no choice but to get more oblique. You can't get much more direct than Tom Cruise repeating "respect the cock; tame the cunt!" I guess my identity search hadn't gotten very subtle yet in high school (see Magnolia and Synecdoche NY). Then I slowed my moviegoing and thus haven't advanced much since. But I was overjoyed to see Kaufman at his most subdued in I'm Thinking of Ending Things, and I'm glad PTA is still exploring subtlety without giving up on what made his movies exciting for me all along. I'm not calling Phantom Thread subtle necessarily, but he's come a long way.

Yes, I did sympathize with the characters. Sometimes my role in my relationship is Reynolds', and I can appreciate Alma's sole questionable act as Reynolds did. As with most PTA and Kaufman movies I'm sympathizing with characters I don't necessarily like, though I may like these two more than most. Alma is mostly agreeable, though not completely; if she were completely agreeable, I wouldn't sympathize with Reynolds, so it works. She seems to have found the extreme means to master an extreme man. It's so effective you may respect her without questioning her sanity. That is kind of an awesome conclusion to the narrative. She apparently figured things out. I'm not sure I would have him swallow though, if I wrote it, after she revealed her purpose. It's almost unrealistically masochist, or if that word doesn't work, he's almost unrealistically bystander to his own agony. But I like it -- it sort of redeemed Alma for me, ironically, as she was becoming insufferably incompetent at dealing with him. I do recognize my terrible kinship with him, that I would reduce my opinion of her for having trouble dealing with him. He's a whole horse's arse. More specifically he's a horse's arsehole. But she was denying reality for a while, like when she prepared the surprise evening. It sort of broke my heart, but frustrated me as well. It felt too familiar. She should have known what Cyril and I knew entering that event: this isn't good. She knew, but didn't really know. Then again, her justification is admirable: this is the way she wants to love, and if it doesn't work, the failed attempt is preferable to constant suppression. At worst, she's miserable and learns a lesson, and at best, assuming she's punished, she doesn't care because this is her expression. Unfortunately come dinnertime she is miserable and is punished and does care. But she also learns the lesson.

Up to and possibly including the end of the movie, it seems clear she's with the wrong person, though I'm not sure there's a right person for her. Same goes for him, although it's even more far-fetched to imagine a right person for him. If the movie ever forgives him, it's due to his pain over his mother, and how any woman coming between him and his work seems to be in his mind coming between him and his mother. I understand associating solitary focus with something far more precious, and punishing unduly any hindrance. It's hard to be with someone, with such a habit, and it's hard to be with someone with such a habit. It's one of the most righteous ways of being a horse's arse. For better or worse I understand it.

Upon reflection I may like these characters more than I thought. Toward the end, his hallucination redeems him, and her manipulation (I don't think it's proxy Munchausen) redeems her. I may need to watch this again and validate my affections.

Recollections of Jane Eyre when they talk by firelight... recollections of Anomalisa when he says he's been searching for her but then she eats loudly.

Citizen Kane

4/13/21

I expected broader scope from the unanimous greatest film ever made. I haven't seen Gone with the Wind, for example, but I guess it's much longer and more epic, spanning more history and sweeping more emotions. Citizen Kane seems to be a character study, and though the character may represent some fundamental of human nature, culture, and history, therefore making the film a study of said fundamental, it feels more intimate than grand, which I think is typically a bane to GOAT-qualifying. Maybe not everyone agrees. The fictions that have struck me as greatest throughout my life include: Synecdoche NY, Magnolia, Lord of the Rings, 2001. Lately I loved Les Mis. I think I'm a sucker for grandeur, which I think gets me through stuff like superhero movies. I love the larger-than-life power of Superman and Gandalf. I think everyone's a sucker for grandeur, but maybe I especially? Even Synecdoche, which definitely orbits one character as Citizen Kane does, seems comparatively transcendent. Maybe I think Caden represents more of the soul than Kane does, or at least more of my soul. I guess part of the problem is Citizen Kane didn't stir emotion, which may reflect my temporal distance from the source. It's hard to call something the greatest that never stirred emotion, when greatness typically stirs great emotion. It seems greatness should be affecting, and the greatest should be exquisite. Citizen Kane did not force the word "greatest" into my head, unlike (trying to think of an analogy) someone watching Michael Jordan's run in the 90s? I'm sure much literature exists on the topic, and more since Brady's last Super Bowl. I'd expect a train of intuition like "wow, that was the broadest x deepest x richest display of this genre of human achievement I've ever witnessed" and a complementary flood of wonder. Citizen Kane did feel like a great movie, without the flood of wonder. Again, the temporal distance wouldn't help. Maybe in 1941 the sweep of one man's life felt as awesome as today's interstellar odyssey. Maybe the film struck and challenged the zeitgeist like Bob Dylan in the 60s (I recently read a celebration of Dylan and Welles as the century's two artistic geniuses). It must have felt something tremendous at the time. For me, it was just a matter of interest, of study -- not relevance, not pathos.

How universal is Kane? His circumstances and consequences are singular. Maybe Rosebud is the keyword to his relatability: it points to the time his life was normal, and its persistence anchors him in relatable experience. Singular circumstances breed singular consequences, but Rosebud reveals the universal nature governing the process. One might imagine the Rosebud of a serial killer recalling the distant time he was a normal boy no less than the richest man on earth recalling the same. But revealing Kane's universality at the end just engages the intellect, while persuading our empathies throughout the film of his universality would have engaged the soul. It's hard to venerate that which only entertains the intellect. Citizen Kane bore little weight on me, excellent as it seemed. I believed he was relatable by the end, but I didn't feel empathy's love, despite our kindred egotisms. I also didn't feel awesome love, which can compensate for empathetic love, as in my love for Gandalf. Kane excited neither. Just interest, and respect.

It's such a film. It feels more like a class in film techniques that is also a great film than the greatest film. It's not emotional enough.

After just reading Citizen Kane's entire Wikipedia page, I still don't understand its superlative position, just its general superiority. It's really hard to say "greatest" in something like art, so if everyone is saying it, one would expect an undeniable instinct to accompany the experience. I didn't get that at all. Interestingly, Wikipedia attempts some genealogy of the film's reputation, which may be the key here: not the film itself, but its reputation's genealogy. There's some dynamics to reputation that can be talked about independent of the reputation's object. By whatever means, Citizen Kane lodged itself on top; rather, people having nothing to do with the creation of Citizen Kane intentionally or unintentionally lodged it on top. It seems Citizen Kane has become the greatest film of all time by being a great film and looking good in the high seat. Some things look good in the high seat. Other things seem to deserve the high seat but don't look good there -- unless function follows form. I'm not sure Citizen Kane looks especially good up there to me, but it does look something like a quintessential American movie.

Where the Wild Things Are (Jonze)

Seen in February

I couldn't do it. I thought this movie would poignantly and nostalgically recall my life a decade ago, but I was wrong. Unlike others from that time (Kaufman, PTA etc) this never authentically aligned with my taste, I just wanted it to, and it never profoundly influenced my development. It only partially represents something (or someone) that profoundly influenced my development, which is apparently one degree too many removed (one too many degrees removed, one degree removed too many). Not only did watching it now fail to resurface my former soul, I couldn't even enjoy it. I mainly found out what my former soul was not: keen to cheap childishness. That's a lot of this movie, from the humor to the music to the pathos. As ten years since, I like the idea of this movie, and the cover of my DVD still suggests exquisite escape. But as ten years since, the actual watching was painful. Not that it's necessarily a bad movie -- I guess it really is for kids, in a way some children's classics (I can't actually think of any in film) are not. It's not just youthful or child-oriented, it's childish, I guess. It's like how that Hobbit from the 70s took childlike yet intelligent material and dumbed it needlessly. See that post. Material for children needn't be dumb. I would argue this movie is dumber than it needs to be, from blameless source material if I remember right. How would Hollywood translate The Giving Tree? Hopefully with tremendous care, even caution -- a keen sense and a heart of gold. I'm not passionate about The Giving Tree, but I hate to see purity ravaged to "pander lame toddlers" as I wrote in my 70s Hobbit post. The new Lion King may be guilty. As I consider it, I seem to think this about almost all children's movies, from 50s Disney to Pixar and anything live-action I can recall. I'm almost universally disappointed by cheap childishness, stemming from stupidity. Great work for children should probably make artistic sense to maturer populations, and therefore must be wrought with great intelligence. Though seemingly rare in film, one might assign such greatness to some of these literary sources: Sendak, Silverstein, Tolkien, Carroll, etc. Why do movies chronically fail to translate such classic simplicity without inserting stupidity? Film as a medium is more so predicated on stimulation and entertainment than literature is -- that's both the audience and the authors. Sendak and his audience sought something different from Jonze and his -- so why adapt? I've never loved book-to-film adaptations, and this may reveal one reason. The whole thing seems ill-intended. Filmmakers can hardly achieve the same connection with their audience as the source authors with theirs, and hardly achieve a suitable replacement. Adaptations reliably make money. They spike interest in the source. But I don't really believe they serve the source in most cases, and they certainly rarely stand alone well. Even my beloved Lord of the Rings movies suck as stand-alones, I believe. That is, they're not great movies -- they're great human efforts in universalizing great literature. When adaptations are well-intended, they're ignorant. Peter Jackson should never have hoped to serve Tolkien or represent him to any respectable degree -- just to launch a respectable effort, if not simply make outrageous money. Jonze shouldn't hope to represent, succeed or serve Sendak.

The first time I saw it I had high expectations based on the concept -- the source material, Jonze, the visual style, Karen O... But watching it was laborious, even back then, in my general naivete. It was nowhere near as beautiful to me as the concept suggested. The characters weren't really likable. The style was playful in an annoying way, when it was playful. Character likability matters, though some of my favorite movies have minimally likable characters. This movie was childish in an annoying rather than inspiring way. I have to say, even reading Sendak's book back then, I remember not really enjoying it. It didn't seem beautiful at all, with little else to compensate. I could only really justify it for kids. The movie is a mix of childish pandering and adult taste that didn't really add up.

I didn't finish it this time. I couldn't justify it -- I wasn't enjoying it and it wasn't reflecting my past in any enlightening way. It's associated with a time and person from the past, and not much more to me. The association never deepened enough, probably because despite my efforts, it didn't really suit my taste, and maybe it came too late. Why do I like Peter Pan? Probably because it came early and often. Where the Wild Things Are came late and but once, and that's a recipe for not caring about a kids movie.

Interstellar

5/1/15 review, 5/22/15 review

3/6/21

I saw this (twice I believe) around 2015 and not again till now. I still find it fascinating and thrilling, and possibly beautiful and inspiring, though it's not the revelation it was then and I'm keener in calling out the BS. I think it's fascinating (scientifically and philosophically) because it confronts cosmic situations closer than any other movie. Movies psychologically penetrate more effectively than most forms of communication it seems, and this is the first movie I've seen that seriously attempts to depict interstellar travel and black holes (and therefore our cosmic context). The results are ridiculous but groundbreaking, which means we've never quite considered it like this. I believe I said this in my last review: this movie will probably feel totally ridiculous in a matter of years or decades, but for us I feel it's a valiant step forward. Of course the concepts are not new -- scientists and artists have been grappling with them -- but here they coalesce in a movie, which is a particularly effective medium for many. Maybe I should just watch the sky more and read cosmology/astronomy. I doubt I needed a movie to think like this -- but I do like movies, and this one I felt compelled to revisit after seemingly profound experiences six years ago. This movie is an attempt to depict interstellar travel with sight, sound, and story. I can access at least one of these at a time through several other media, and should try, as film is not the medium I respect most. But I do like film, especially some films influential to my life. Maybe these experiences in 2015 weren't as influential as they were emotionally profound. This movie inspires my awe and contemplation. I must have far too little cosmology in my life! I should probably achieve a relationship with these concepts such that the movie feels as cheap a representation as those classic physics visualizations like the general relativity trampoline, or those middle school climbing walls. Watching it should just feel dumb, like I've already grappled with the real stuff. It should feel like watching the climbing scenes in MI:II or something: okay, there's a real move, there's some bullshit, overall, that was alright, at least it gets the people excited about climbing, and now I know more about climbing's public image, but I didn't learn anything about climbing. Based on my Yu-Gi-Oh image of a black hole prior to seeing this movie, I'm clearly not interfacing with this stuff enough, which is how someone might feel watching Hollywood climbing. Hollywood in one of its best manifestations, I suppose, serves such a role. Interstellar sows cosmic contemplation broadly, as Free Solo inspires a whole population who never knew climbing was accessible to them. But the next time you feel like considering the cosmos, or considering exposed handjamming, don't watch the movie -- look at the sky, hit the hills, or at least read a book, because the movie is the Wal-Mart version of these things (though actually more expensive).

So it's fascinating to me like Free Solo is to my friends who don't climb. I used to regularly think about things you'd find in a philosophy class. I don't feel very philosophical anymore -- just analytical. Analysis deprived of philosophy ("love of wisdom") gets chilly. Philosophy is the sun that warms that which it vitalizes. I feel like those advanced organisms stewing in the sea millions of years ago while plants were already enjoying the air, or like a platonic cave-dweller bragging about my predictions on the sequence of shadows. I don't want Interstellar to feel so profound. Nothing will feel profound if I already know everything, but certainly I can spare a little more time with cosmology, enough to see Interstellar as a mere dramatization, hardly a revelation. Dramatizations make tough concepts accessible, but I already have plenty of access to work with. I could even get something out of a general relativity textbook. Kip Thorne didn't learn anything about cosmology from Christopher Nolan -- the movie would have been entertaining at best, as any climbing scene is to me. I've already confronted the content. In such a case the dramatization is probably a waste of time and I wouldn't need to bother with movies like this. That's something to aspire to.

It is emotional. The black dude was alone on that station for 23 years. Cooper misses almost the entirety of Murphy's life. Everyone will die without the knowledge that s/he significantly affected the evolution of the universe. We're like flies smacking a truck's grill -- technically we exert a force on the truck equal to its on us, but hell if the truck notices. If m is the whole of everything, F is my life, and a is my impact, given F<<m, despite an appreciable life, F=ma says my impact is unfathomably miniscule. But as a human I'm made to surf ego as long as I live, and these brief wipeouts are devastating. Was this ego evolution's building block or byproduct? Any given being may care primarily for itself, but whence came the longing for all beings to care for me primarily? I don't imagine if you convinced a representative from any other earthly species of its eschatological influence it would care much. Even its own death would probably seem nice -- of course its instincts avoid it, but if you're having a conversation, death checks all the boxes: no hunger, no thirst, no fear, whatever. Maybe you lose some luxuries, but the loss of luxury paired with the total fulfillment of all needs forever is nothing to complain about, yet humans fear death conceptually.

Anyway, I liked the movie again, though I acknowledge its stupidity.

Lost

2/19/21

I watched a good bit of the series in high school, and read about the rest. Last night I watched parts 1 and 2 of the pilot. It's tempting, but I just don't think I can justify the time. It's constant intrigue with, I think, insufficient payoff. I don't think intrigue is intrinsically sufficient payoff. If I remember right, the series incessantly introduces questions, from big to small, and regularly answers some of the smaller ones, after delays, and not all of them, and infrequently answers the bigger ones, maybe once or twice a season. Constantly new questions arising, with delayed and partial answers, and rarely or never answering the major questions. It's a question surplus, I think even after the series finale. That's frustrating and hard to justify, since this is fiction. I could easier justify a question surplus in our reality, for example cosmology or philosophy. I needn't bother with the Island's cosmology -- rather consider my own. Of course, my preoccupation with Tolkien is a counterexample, which I try to exempt very specifically as my one guiltless escape.

Lost is tempting, since I liked it back then, and I'm immediately intrigued again -- but how intrigued? Probably not enough to really care. And how satisfying are the answers? Probably not enough to really care. This says little against Lost as a series, but again (like many recent posts) reflects the medium. TV has never really paid off for me, and even movies must be exceptional. At least I have a history of loving film as a medium. TV I've never really loved nor respected much. A series must be extremely exceptional, which I don't think I've ever met. I remember liking Lost, and it's tempting. Recent experiences like Justice League and even Breaking Bad leave me pessimistic on the intrigue paying off. I need to start learning my lesson. The formula is intrigue, and in Lost's case questions, which breeds addiction, which by definition never pays off, right?

I can get into TV, and even like it, but hardly justify it.

Man of Steel

I liked this back in... early 2014 I believe. I think I was kind of high on Amy Adams at the time, and liked Henry Cavill a lot in this movie. The latter holds, actually, all these years later. I'm not so excited about Amy Adams (though I still like her). And I'm definitely not so excited about the film. I think in early 2014 it felt novel for me to enjoy a blockbuster, and I was starry-eyed with the perfection of Superman and Lois. It actually felt like the ideal it was supposed to feel like. Now, while I still feel that wonder, it's not enough. A lot of the movie seems stupid, like the alien business, Krypton, Zod. A lot of the action is just destruction porn, which is tiresome after a while and just baffling. One would expect more caution from Superman, and saner moderation from the filmmakers. That might be another difference between my 2014 and 2021: destruction porn lost a little luster.

But beyond all hope I actually still loved Superman in this movie! I heard that performance was criticized; it seemed perfect to me? Cavill seems pretty much perfect... But I just love the perfection of the character. I love pure, perfect power, like Gandalf the White. It almost feels like I have a crush on Superman in this movie, so I'm not sure what's going on there. But regardless I love the pure, perfect power. Unfortunately other elements of the movie didn't match the ecstasy.

Justice League (2017)

In the past year I watched the new Star Wars trilogy, much of The Avengers, and now Justice League, and amazingly I still crave more of this. How can these movies be so disappointing and so tantalizing? Do other people find them satisfying? I guess the most basic premise is stimulation, which I guess they deliver; but isn't satisfaction next up? Awesomeness? The whole thing is just a tease, yet I keep telling myself the next one will deliver. Justice League seemed to suck, yet I'm tempted to return to Man of Steel and Batman v Superman. This reminds me of that definition of insanity people attribute to Einstein. I should probably stop. For years I desired these movies, and stomached all the costs for the expected payoffs, which tarry still. The costs are high, and the opportunity costs higher -- it's probably time for me to give it up. The unapologetic box office gluttons are probably not for me. I opened myself up to the stupidity; I gave them many chances; I found them empty not just to the intellect but to the emotions.

My favorite moment was probably when Superman resurrected and was clearly far better than everyone else. He's the god among demigods. That was cool -- I do love displays of power.