Just watched In the Mood for Love (2000), written and directed by Wong Kar-wai. An exquisite Hong Kong pas de deux and series of color-coded pseudo tableaux vivants depicting the sad, halting victory of moral vanity over smoldering desire.
Just watched Get Out (2017), written and directed by Jordan Peele. Well-written, expertly cast, Hitchcockian contrivance as feature-length parable about being Black in a White world. Is it naïve to think it could be a revelation to some? Probably, but the movie did, I think, succeed in helping cultivate my own capacity for sympathy. An astounding directorial debut.
Just re-watched: The Truman Show (1998) written by Andrew Niccol and directed by Peter Weir. Film studies classes and media studies classes could (and hopefully do) have field days with this movie that would benefit humanity. I, for lack of time to sit, think, and write well along those lines, will offer this single intertextual connection along a more theological-anthropological line: “…so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death…and free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives“ (Hebrews 2:14-15).
I’ll throw in a sociological intertext, too: “Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must…” (Elrond in The Fellowship of the Ring).
Bonus: I knew Philip Glass scored some of the movie. But I hadn’t noticed until this viewing is the first time I noticed he’s in it!
Just watched: The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) by Lotte Reiniger. It’s the oldest surviving feature-length animated film. Come for the historical interest and the opportunity to behold an impressive, highly original silhouette animation technique. Stay for the surprising way, despite the poverty of the plot, that the shapes of these silhouettes and the herky-jerky yet magical way they move resonate with and reflect at some semi-conscious level the way you you live, move, and have your being.
Just finished reading: “Beyond Words: On the role of silence in film and faith” (2025) by Arthur Aghajanian, whose main idea is that filmmakers can use and sometimes—but not often enough—do use silence to draw viewers in to spiritual experience.
I dedicated the new TV I bought to the Lord. That felt like syncretism.
A movie and dinner > dinner and a movie. More to talk about and less trouble falling asleep that night.
Man, do I feel done with movie and TV watching. Just a phase, I’m sure. But still: No appeal whatsoever.
Forgiveness is dismissal, as of a debt or a sin. There are two kinds of forgiveness:
- internal-states-oriented forgiveness, and
- relationship-oriented forgiveness.
Let’s take the protagonist of Secret Sunshine as our illustration. [spoiler alert] She can dismiss her son’s killer’s sin as reason for anger or rumination as soon as her anger and rumination is spent. She should try to reach the end of her anger and rumination, although these things do often take time. This is the sense in which love keeps no record of wrongs. This is the sense in which we say forgiveness frees us.
She ought not, however, dismiss her son’s killer’s sin as reason for distancing herself from her son’s killer or for wishing her son’s killer to be incarcerated until such time as that killer has made amends, requested forgiveness, and otherwise shown ample evidence of complete repentance. If she forgives him before those preconditions are met, then she is foolish and shortsighted, risking his further harm to herself, harm to others, and the killer’s moral deformation.
God can extend such forgiveness on some occasions because He is unassailable. And sometimes He does. But even He, for the sake of the other moral hazards, usually does not. We are to confess our sin against Him, point gratefully to the Cross as our amends, request forgiveness, and bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
Relationship-oriented forgiveness is still something we should want. Deeply. If we love our enemies, how can we not?
In the internal states sense, I have forgiven my father his shortcomings as a man and father. In the relationship sense, his sin no longer poses any moral hazard to me or to anyone else, so reconciliation is possible to the degree that his character allows.
Just watched: La Haine (1995) written & directed by Matthieu Kassovitz. A memorably stylized, scalding French portrait of three young fictional residents of the Parisian projects. A perfect film. In conversation with Do The Right Thing (1989). A borderline must-see for the sake of humanity. Borderline and not a shoe-in probably because I’m classist and racist. 🍿
Just watched: A Fish Called Wanda (1988), written and directed by Charles Crichton and John Cleese. It took some time for me to warm up to the humor (or maybe it was the humor itself that took some time to warm up). But once warm, the (admittedly rather broad) comedy came in buckets. All three leads whose lines were written for laughs do it excellently: Cleese does sympathetic pathetic very believably. Kline played a “live-action Daffy Duck”: Annoying at first, then annoying and hilarious. And he won an Oscar for it. Palin manages to play a severe stutterer without, as it seemed to me anyway, playing the stutter itself for laughs. (The stutter does serve as a small plot device sometimes, and it does enable at least one very funny scene in which it is a miracle Cleese and Palin don’t bust out laughing. But mostly it serves to develop sympathy for the character. If the stutter is ever the butt of a joke, it’s a mean joke told by another character and makes you like Palin’s character more.) Curtis does very well, too; I’m just not sure how to describe her character.
An interesting comedy/tragedy pairing with The Killing, which just so happened to be the previous movie we watched.🍿
Just watched: The Killing (1956) adapted for screen and directed by Stanley Kubrick. A perfectly shot and richly instructive fable. (And I mean that fable part: My internal landscape has these character-constructs in it.) Tense the entirety of its short runtime. With dialogue whose clever audacity made me laugh out loud several times. Film noir bettered only by Touch of Evil and The Night of the Hunter. Its unconventional narrative structure is often praised for its ingenuity, but I think its primarily serves to (successfully) help the viewer understand the plot. (Plots are often hard to follow in film noir. See the otherwise excellent Out of the Past.) I can’t tell you my favorite part without spoiling it. 🍿
Hypothesis: A big reason we love books, movies, and recorded music is that they offer to our lower brains a passable simulacrum of company. Inspiring, beautiful, mind-expanding they can be. But they are, at their root, an inferior substitute for basic emotional and relational goods that come from real, live, human company…
…writes the man whose wife of twenty years hasn’t been home in a week and is currently incommunicado on a sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Just watched: The Last Stop In Yuma County (2023) written and directed by Francis Gallupi. Two and a half time shorter than Greed (1924) and three times as fun, with nods to the Coen brothers and Tarantino, in that order. Lots of craftsmanship to admire. Worthwhile, but only as a brain break.
The pitch clock has worked: Baseball has become enjoyable to watch! ⚾️
A remarkable exchange between characters in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning:
Ethan Hunt: I swear your life will always matter more to me than my own.
Grace: You don’t even know me.
Ethan Hunt: What difference does that make?
“The greatest delicacies taste of nothing when one dines alone.”
— Hanshiro Tsugumo in Harakiri (1962), written by Shinobu Hashimoto
The one thing I’ll say about The Magnificent Seven (2016): I cried a little—touched and pleased—that the three heroes who remained alive at the end of the film were the black man, the Latino, and the Native American. That’s a good change.
If, when I’m old, you were to ask me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you it was I day I think—I hope—I turned a corner in my character. You see, since screening the finale of the second season of Gatiss & Moffatt’s Sherlock this past Saturday, entitled “The Reichenbach Fall” (and probably a good bit before then), I had been obsessing over the show: obsessing about its plot, obsessing about its characters, obsessing about its actors, and obsessing about its writers. I was obsessing about my decision to stop watching it because of my obsession.
I needed to be rescued from all this.
And it’s more than Sherlock: In recent months, I have spent far too much time and attention setting up operating systems, selecting an iPhone case, and other such minutiae. I prioritize trivialities. And it robs me of life (and steals from DiamondBack).
We have overcome perfectionism. We have overcome stoniness. We have overcome self-distraction at work. We have overcome religious doubt. (All of the above are still works in progress, but they are works well on their way with clear paths to completion.) Perhaps now we can take on obsessiveness and the resulting misprioritization.
Deliberation, yes: You do that about problems and decisions. Cogitation, yes: You do that about profundities. Obsession, no: You do that, by definition, with things you ought not to. And I know what it feels like.
If you’re going to obsess about anything, do it about giving yourself for the benefit of other people.
You can almost see the Sherlock characters’ eyes: I’m doing this only because the writers are making me.
Titillation and puzzlement and not virtues of fiction, Sherlock.
I don’t want to watch any more Sherlock. The show has reached comic-book levels of convolution after just two seasons that simultaneously fascinate and bore me at the same time. The boredom alone is reason enough to discontinue watching, and the fascination is distracting in the same way every other superhero franchise is.
Convolution ≠ intrigue.
Just watched: La Grande Illusion (1937) directed and co-written by Jean Renoir.
What is the great illusion? Is it national borders? Is it the idea that this war would be the one to end them all? That war can be gentlemanly? That war is worth it?
Anyway, this movie stands alongside The Best Years of Our Lives, Dr. Strangelove, and The Bridge on the River Kwai as one of the best antiwar films I’ve seen. (I haven’t watched Apocalypse Now yet.) But less like Strangelove and more like Best Years of Our Lives in that all the characters are very human. These are people fighting, dammit. Makes me want to rewatch The Rules of the Game because Renoir is so good. Perfect, transparent acting. Bonding people across class and nationality, yet sometimes having to stick to those, too. In the end, So very human. A perfect film. Definitely worth watching. If this was Jean Renoir’s outlook on people, we could all stand to learn. Finally, a French film and a French director Carla and I enjoy with no reservations! Full of bits of philosophy that are never heavy-handed.
It is curious that we never see the life of a foot soldier in this movie. But I suppose you write about what you know. But we do see a black man. And refreshingly, he is not a buffoon or a mammy or any other black stereotype.
A New Yorker writer: “Sophistication at the service of innocence, not cynicism or chic: That’s the glory of “Grand Illusion” as a narrative, a showcase for transcendent acting, a piece of philosophy in action, and a leap into pure cinema.”
Some tired thoughts on this Swing Time (1936), which is the first film Carla and I have repeat-watched from the greatest lists. Is Swing Time worth watching? Yes. Like we did with Top Hat, we shared some of the dance numbers with the kids. We weren’t sure what to do with the Bojangles number at the time; Wikipedia now tells us that the Bojangles is a real person to whom (with one other guy) Astaire was paying tribute, not aping. Carla and I agree it’s the better of the Astaire-Rogers films we watched, although I’m more tickled with the dancing in Top Hat. It’s the faces, though, in this one, like Ginger’s when she comes to plant a kiss on Fred in his dressing room, fails, and then they kiss behind a closed door. Close-ups of Fred toward the end when he finds out Ginger is going to marry the Metaxa character. Fred Astaire looks more like JImmy Stewart in this one. We shared the dance numbers with the kids. Interesting how central a role cheating plays in this one. More believeable, this one. Again, those dresses. Must’ve been quite the pick-me-up during the Depression. Worth watching.
I hypothesize that the reason folks like me are OK with watching movie violence and less OK with watching movie sex is that the latter arouses feelings and potentially even action, while the former does not.