Man… there was a lot of good in this. The whole second chapter is fantastic. The scene at the gas station is perfection. There are some genuinely very funny moments. The end credits scene is hypnotic and wonderful. The entire film is shot beautifully. Danny Elfman’s score stole some scenes for me.

But the bad… the stilted dialogue. The poor pacing. The constant philosophizing about every mundane thing. I haven’t read the book, and I don’t have a plan to. I’ve heard it’s good and I trust that. The dialogue here seems like it would work much better in a format where you can stop for a moment and ponder over what someone just said rather than just barreling through to the next thing. It’s like Baumbach tried to fit as many lines from the book in each square millimeter of film as possible. It just didn’t work for me. What could be some interesting tidbits of truth turn into a downpour of pompous pontifications, pounding away at the point, duh, death’s at the door and you’re feeling down. So what? It’s all a distraction from the truest question in life, which of course is: Do sheep have lashes?

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Short and sweet. Really the first 40 minutes or so is a slow, somewhat boring setup for a much more exciting ending. The contrast is actually quite striking. The action scene towards the end where the heroes are chased through the jungle is really quite good, with interesting pacing/lighting/camera movements/etc. The setup in contrast feels so wooden.

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Mission: Unstabilizable: The Bourneification of Ethan Hunt

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Great writing by Julia Pott on the nature of pencils. I appreciate the way her newsletters deeply examine the ordinary. Especially love this quote of a quote:

One would imagine that in the era of computers, the pencil and notepad would have gone obsolete, but quite the opposite. If you walk down a High street, more often than not you’ll encounter a stationary shop, and if you wander inside, as I always do, you’ll find yourself getting lost in all the different writing implements and papers and potentials in front of you. Writer and technologist Kevin Kelly once claimed that “species of technology” are immortal, even if they no longer have an obvious use:

With very few exceptions, technologies don’t die. In this way, they differ from biological species, which in the long-term inevitably do go extinct. The invention of the lightbulb meant that people stopped using candles to light their homes, but the candle didn’t die - its purpose simply changed. It moved from technology to art, and we see it now as romantic rather than a gloomy fire hazard. The crackly imperfection of vinyl became the warmth and charm of the object when compared to the CD or MP3. The limitations of stationary - the fact that ink can smudge or that a page from the notebook can tear - are also part of its appeal.

This had pretty much all the failings of its predecessor. Which means I still really greatly enjoyed it. Such a weird movie. Stunned by the beauty of the water, of course, but also by how long we just linger in the water with the characters. A lot of times films will have some very impressive shots but keep them short and sweet, or few and far between to stretch the budget. Clearly money was no object and James Cameron was like “screw it, let’s just play in the water for an hour”.

The action and tension is 100% a vehicle for more cool water scenes. And that’s fine! And the movie is clear that that’s the case. The whole engine/catalyst behind the events of the movie is pure popcorn sci-if cinema. Because it all just gets us back to playing in the water with our cool new alien friends. :)

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Didn’t really watch this, just had it on while building a kitchen set for the baby. Just tryin to read confusing instructions while the sound of a hundred motorcycle revs blast my eardrums.

This movie has exactly two good things going for it:
- the Doves
- the Wraparounds

One star for each. And a half star for Luther because he’s just very consistent. Will probably skip the next time I rewatch.

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Got the hankering for an M:I series rewatch in advance of M:I:7. Kittridge is easily one of the best parts of this so I’m really excited for his return.

If I’m being honest I haven’t always been a huge fan of the split diopter shot that De Palma uses so much. It feels really unnatural I guess. But it’s been growing on me a lot lately! And that one of the car explosion going off is 👨‍🍳💋

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