Favorite films
Don’t forget to select your favorite films!
Don’t forget to select your favorite films!
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Narratively, this is a short story masquerading as a very long film. So much relies on the epilogue reversal. Which I liked. But, as a film, it is overstuffed with extraneous material (perhaps the most egregious example: the entire niece storyline, which is somehow (?) so important that she opens and closes the film, and yet she finds her voice entirely off screen. Commit to her story or don't, but this halfway stuff is no good.)
Visually, it contained several stunning sequences I will not forget for some time.
This film has a fatal flaw, beyond any ostensible unadaptability of a DeLillo novel: revisiting the early 80s period of the original. While this allows for a frankly exhilarating production design (to play Murray a bit: heavy with popular signifiers pulsating with nostalgic vibrations for those 80s and 90s kids among us), it also robs the film of the book's wit and satiric bite.
What is "Hitler Studies" today? Where has our fear of death taken us? Murray's investments in…
This town has a population of 400 people. Seth, a Stanford engineering grad, decides to open a car repair shop to serve the town. According to Wikipedia, the US boasts about 838 cars per 1,000 people. This would mean that Valleyville should have about 335 cars to service. Let's assume everyone gets their annual oil change. Since that costs about $20, Seth can count on a cool $6700 every year.
Eatonville, the writer's model for Valleyville [as documented in the…