2025 and its near-term calendar years exist at planetary, bio-genetic, and data surveillance inflection points (some hysterical experts seem to be saying), and the fears around these inflection points are vividly embodied in this roller coaster of a film. We are entering the second quarter of the twenty-first century rallying around cultural nationalism while seemingly suffering amnesia of the darker chapters of the twentieth. We proclaim virtues while exploiting the most vulnerable at scales unconscionable and putting a happy corporate…
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Moana 2 2024
It's a silly exercise to parse Disney films for meaning, but here I go. We'll all seeing what we want to see I suppose, and what I'm seeing is evidence of America's decline (should Disney films indeed represent the middle of the road family-oriented commercial zeitgeist).
Compare Moana 2 to the Boy with the Heron. In Miyazaki's films, there are typically one or two characters who are impish, self-aborbed, and comically goofy (sometimes with an undercurrent of menace or callowness).…Translated from by
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Black Narcissus 1947
How can any religious person be expected to not have impure thoughts with David Farrar slinking around the workplace?
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Fitzcarraldo 1982
Intensely surreal, and mildly challenging. Letterboxd says I’ve seen over 1,000 films at this point, but never have I seen an acting performance like Klaus Kinski's. Metatextually, Fitzcarraldo is about as fascinating as Apocalypse Now. I have some research to do.
The naturalistic imagery is another standout: there is something neo-biblical about a lone coal-powered steamboat puffing its way through primordial forest tree tops in 1982. I wonder if these areas still stand, or if they too have been converted into soy fodder essential to Americans’ beef addiction.
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