Thoughts

I have seen almost all of the Coen Brothers’ films, but Barton Fink (1991) continued to slip under the radar. And how? This is easily their most creative and inventive story! It follows John Turturro as the titular character, a neurotic young man who writes plays for the theater in the 1920s.

In Eddington, Mr. Aster takes the thrilling components of his horror efforts and reshapes them into a contemporary Western black comedy. A wild departure thematically from his other work, but it utilizes a lot of the tropes that he’s become famous for. The story surrounds the small town of Eddington, New Mexico, where a liberal mayor and a conservative sheriff go toe-to-toe over the political strife of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the film community, the film is regarded as very controversial, with some sects praising its provocative nature, while others consider it a disgusting, borderline “snuff”-like piece of media. This polarization alone made me very curious. So, after much time of getting myself hyped up, along with an ice-cold six-pack of Miller Lite, I finally sat down to witness the endurance-horror that is Salo.

All this to say, I did start the week off strong with a viewing of each of Gregg Araki’s entries in his Teen Apocalypse Trilogy from the mid-to-late 90s. The trilogy includes Totally F***ed Up (1993), The Doom Generation(1995), and the conclusion to the saga, Nowhere (1997). The films are loosely connected by themes of queer alienation, rage against the establishment, and an inherent nihilistic perspective on life and the future.

Hazy recollection of the recent week’s days. It was a full and long week of work, and I was really feeling the monotony this time around. You know you’re cooked when you show up to work and immediately start creating checkpoints for yourself. “Okay, we just gotta make it to nine o'clock”… Then, “Now, ten”…

Nathan goes above and beyond this season in analyzing the issues behind cockpit communication between pilots and their first officers. He opens the season incredibly honestly, not making jokes or trying even to make something overtly funny at all, instead, establishing the key problems he has been studying from plane crashes around the world.

This is Spike Lee at the absolute top of his game, weaving cinematic spectacle with hard-hitting rhetorical questions about the consequences of America’s greatest sin. The opening scenes are almost a celebration of many films before it, before quickly devolving into the horrors Malcolm would experience, leading to the tumultuous and eventually life-taking journey of religious and spiritual, and moreover, societal acceptance.

Hess’s semi-live-action film adaptation of the famous game is not a letdown. It is a recurring event of corporate greed dominating creativity. Which is pretty ironic given the game’s structure. As of writing this, the movie has raked in close to seven and a half million dollars worldwide.

While hilarious in many regards, what makes this a standout film to me is the rapid switch into serious drama between the characters, where life and death are considered. The first two-thirds of the film or so are a straightforward hangout comedy, with an ensemble cast of characters messing with one another as they go about their daily lives. The final act completely subverts the audience’s expectations...

Breaking Hollywood news! And some fantastic news as such! Variety has confirmed over the past few days that...

His ability to pay homage, steal from endless obscure films, and combine witty dialogue with epic plots and characters is unmatched.

As far as my movie-watching goes, I started the week with a rewatch of one of my all-time favorite films, Quentin Tarantino's...

A part of this modern remaster that I didn't expect was the comic relief. And was that a welcome surprise.