2.
Technology, specifically the railroad and the telegraph, is shrinking the West into a place where bandits can no longer freely operate. The Bunch are trying to make one last score so they can afford to retire, but the brutality central to their existence is catching up with them.
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‘You’ll love the new Blade Runner – unless you’re a woman.’
There was much ‘feminist’ criticism of Blade Runner 2049. I found it almost as astonishing as the pissweak rejoinder from its director, Denis Villeneuve in Vanity Fair, November 25, 2017:
“Blade Runner is not about tomorrow; it’s about today. And I’m sorry, but the world is not kind on women.”
My question is: what the fuck kind of film did Sara watch? And why doesn’t Villeneuve have the balls to stand up and defend the film he made?
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Part of what makes The Talented Mr Ripley so effective is the casting of Matt Damon in the lead. Most of us have been in his position; awkward, insecure and in awe of someone like Dickie Greenleaf, played by the never better Jude Law.
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2.
The governing metaphor of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch is impressed on both protagonist and audience alike in the first moments of the film.
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1.
“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Watching a narrative film made in Hollywood is a lot like riding a skateboard downhill; you look to find your point of balance and once that’s established, gravity will do the rest. That said, I found Maestro a difficult film to find my balance on.
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I was surprised I’d never seen Brian De Palma’s 1984 film Body Double until I discovered it available for free-to-air viewing on SBS iView last night. My interest was piqued the night before when I watched Noah Baumbach’s doco De Palma, recommended by a friend.
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‘…On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth…’
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera.
The protagonist, a blade runner named K, is in love with his AI. She’s essentially a hologram, and in a pivotal scene, she organises a ‘pleasure model’ to come to his apartment so she can merge herself with it in order to make love to him.
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Theme Park at its Darkest 